Biden Admin in Hot Water Over SBA Voter Program

(AP)

Republicans leaders are threatening to subpoena the Small Business Administration for information on its voter registration program with Michigan, the Washington Examiner reported on Thursday.

In a letter sent to SBA Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman on Monday, Rep. Roger Williams, R-Texas, and Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, called the agreement “politically motivated.” Williams and Ernst head the Small Business committees in the House and Senate respectively.

The “Memorandum of Understanding with the State of Michigan” established a voter access program that Guzman said would “help connect Michiganders to vital voter registration information from the State of Michigan so that more small business owners can exercise their right to vote.”

Republicans, however, dismissed the program as simply a tool to build support for President Biden in the critical battleground state of Michigan.

“For the entirety of this Congress, the SBA has stonewalled every investigation we have conducted,” Williams said in a statement. “The investigation into their electioneering efforts has been no different. It appears as if the SBA intends to delay our oversight into their electioneering efforts until after November when the damage has already been done. It is this Committee’s job to hold the SBA accountable to the taxpayer, and we are prepared to use every tool at our disposal to do so.”

Ernst and Williams are requesting communications between the politicians in the state of Michigan, small business owners in Michigan, SBA employees as well evidence as to if the agency engaged in voter access prior to the program’s announcement by July 29. The letter, exclusively obtained by the outlet, notes months of attempts by both committees to conduct oversight as to the SBA’s Michigan program.

“Where there is smoke, there is usually fire and the SBA’s refusal to answer basic questions fuels the appearance that the agency is disregarding the Hatch Act and engaging in partisan politics ahead of the 2024 election,” Ernst said. “The Biden administration weaponizing government resources adds insult to injury for small businesses who have been put through the wringer by inflation and the rapid expansion of the federal regulatory state.”

“Sunlight is truly the best disinfectant, and the SBA needs to stop dodging accountability and commit to being transparent,” the Iowa senator added.