Two Michigan state lawmakers lose seats over affair cover-up

Published:

Two Michigan state lawmakers lose seats over affair cover-up

Reuters
By Ryan Felton September 11, 2015

DETROIT (Reuters) - One Michigan lawmaker resigned on Friday and another was removed from office by a vote in the state House of Representatives as police launched a criminal probe into their admitted use of tax funds to cover up their extramarital affair.

The two former representatives, Todd Courser and Cindy Gamrat, who are both Republicans and Tea Party members, apologized during a special House committee hearing this week for using their staff members to try to cover up their affair.

Courser resigned around 3 a.m. Friday, following a whirlwind session that centered on his possible expulsion. Gamrat was removed from office by a vote of the full House about an hour later.

They had both asked to be censured, which would have allowed them to remain in office.

The two Democrats on the six-member special committee abstained from the panel's vote to expel Courser and Gamrat, contending their Republican counterparts had rushed the House investigation for political reasons.

But early Friday, Republicans had secured enough support to meet the two-thirds majority of affirmative votes in the full House required to remove a lawmaker.

Courser then tendered his resignation, effective immediately, before the Republican-led legislature could vote on his expulsion.

Democrats agreed to expel Gamrat once Republicans offered support for a resolution to have the state police investigate the matter. Republicans needed Democrats to reach the two-thirds threshold.

Michigan State Police said in a statement that it would "honor the requests made by the Legislature ... to investigate potential criminal wrongdoing by Representative Courser and Representative Gamrat." A police official declined further comment.

Governor Rick Snyder, a Republican, said he supported the state police probe.

"This matter needs to be resolved and an investigation by MSP will provide further clarity," he said in a statement. "I hope this investigation helps bring closure to the issues for all involved."

Gamrat becomes just the fourth lawmaker in Michigan history to have been expelled, dating back to 1887.

Gamrat and Courser could not be reached for comment on Friday.

Michigan Lieutenant Governor Brian Calley said in a statement that a primary election would be held on Nov. 3 and a general election on March 8, 2016, to fill the seats.

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Comments

Avatar LiLSpeedy -
#1
Repubs don't like to see articles like this because they have convinced themselves that they are the only party free from SIN. NOT!
Avatar JAP69 -
#2
OHHH MYY
Avatar Lucky Loser -
#3
Great article and observation, Speedy. This simply proves, again, that it doesn't matter what the status of a person is when sin is invloved so they need to just leave the Clintons alone. Know what I'm sayin'? Sin is sin but these dummies always run back to Bill when they want to point the finger. Well, what about these individuals? All you can say is, "OH my." If it were a Democrat, there would be a paragraph of denouncing.

Like I said in my previous post elsewhere, Republicans operate on a serious double standard premise. Look at how they were all overy the Planned Parenthood videos which were proven to be 'heavily edited' and 'tainted with' by the suppliers. Man, they just ran with it like a bunch of ignorant fools just because it fitted into their agenda. Come to find out that up to 45 minutes of footage was missing or deleted which is standard for Republican operation and motive. Yeah, Speedy, they're perfect and better than everyone else. Guess what? The largest percent of the Ashley Madison accounts came from Alabama and we're Conservatives.

Yep, these people are more corrupt than ever but, they harp on the Democrats and cause the dumb, illiterate folks to fall right into their little cover ups. This isn't to say that the Dems never do any wrong but, at least they don't parade around preaching about how religious they are and bashing gays. The Dems are tolerant because they know people are human and make mistakes...just like the Dems in this article chose to ABSTAIN from punishment of those Republicans at fault. The Dems are a party of forgiveness and understanding. Republicans are intolerant of all things Democrat no matter what...they just hate Dems period.

As far as they're concerned, there are no good Democrats...because they're Democrats...Libtards...Leaches...Takers...Morons. This is the reason why I like Trump so much. He's exposing so much of how they'really, really corrupt.

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