Thad McCotter Resigns From Congress
Michigan Congressman Thaddeus McCotter, last known for his quixotic Presidential campaign and a bizarre failure to get on the ballot for his own primary, announced on Friday that he’s leaving Congress:
Rep.Thaddeus McCotter abruptly announced his resignation on Friday afternoon, bringing an end to a Capitol Hill career that spanned a decade.
The surprise announcement came at the end of a quiet holiday week with Congress on recess, capping an astonishing six-week collapse for the Michigan Republican, who as recently as one year ago was waging a bid for the GOP presidential nomination.
“Today I have resigned from the office of United States Representative for Michigan’s 11th Congressional District,” McCotter wrote in a statement. “After nearly 26 years in elected office, this past nightmarish month and a half have, for the first time, severed the necessary harmony between the needs of my constituency and of my family. As this harmony is required to serve, its absence requires I leave.”
In June, McCotter announced that he would not seek reelection after he failed to get on the Aug. 7 primary ballot. McCotter, who did not turn in the necessary 1,000 signatures to become eligible, had initially pledged to wage a write-in primary campaign — a decidedly uphill endeavor.
Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, a Republican, immediately launched an investigation into the congressman’s signature-gathering effort after election workers tasked with reviewing McCotter’s submitted petitions said they found signs of widespread fraud. The incumbent has said that he is offering his full cooperation with the investigation.
On Thursday, McCotter’s fate took another bizarre turn after the Detroit News published an unflattering article revealing that he had been working on a script for a lowbrow TV pilot. The congressman told the paper that working on the project had been a “cathartic” experience that helped him get through the embarrassment he experienced following his failed presidential bid.
In his Friday statement, McCotter wrote: “The recent event’s totality of calumnies, indignities and deceits have weighed most heavily upon my family. Thus, acutely aware one cannot rebuild their hearth of home amongst the ruins of their U.S. House office, for the sake of my loved ones I must ‘strike another match, go start anew’ by embracing the promotion back from public servant to sovereign citizen.”
My only question is, now who’s going to quote Led Zepplin on the floor of the House:
Sovereign citizen? Good grief.
@Herb: Foreign concept to you? Not surprised.
Jenos,
I wouldn’t say I’m surprised by a Republican member of Congress allying himself with a movement where the members view themselves as “not subject to any statutes or proceedings at the federal, states or municipal levels, or that they do not recognize U.S. currency and that they are free of any legal constraints.” Are you?
@Moosebreath: I seriously think you’re overstretching yourself here. Those nuts don’t own the term, and McCotter’s tenure in Congress didn’t show him espousing much of their platform.
So you believe there is another meaning to using that term than dog-whistling to nuts. I don’t see it.
@Moosebreath:
Just FYI, I fixed the link in your 10:23 comment as there appeared to be an HTML coding error that was messing up formatting a bit.
@Jenos Idanian #13: No, I know exactly what that is….and it’s a joke.
What’s sort of funny about McCotter — in the vein of a farce — is that some of those right-wing blogs and blog commentators are so buried deep in cocoons, so completely divorced from political realities, they actually believed the McCotter prez candidacy had legs or at minimum that it could influence the party platform and the Nov. general election.
In any event, regarding McCotter himself, how fishy is that ballot fiasco and how fishy is the abrupt resignation? Reading between the lines, and based upon prior events in which GOP politicos have trotted out the “family” schtick with sudden resignations, I suspect that McCotter soon will be exposed in one way, shape or form, if you catch my drift.
“The recent event’s totality of calumnies, indignities and deceits have weighed most heavily upon my family. Thus, acutely aware one cannot rebuild their hearth of home amongst the ruins of their U.S. House office, for the sake of my loved ones I must ‘strike another match, go start anew’ by embracing the promotion back from public servant to sovereign citizen.”
Only a Republican like McCotter can spend 26 years in elected office, and then complain about the “ruins of their U.S. House office,” that he created.
Who wrote his resignation statement? Sarah Palin?
Thanks, Doug.
He was a cheat in high school, and he used to brag about it. No surprise he’s still breaking the rules. Shocking that it’s taken this long to catch up to him.