Michigan House fails to reach expulsion vote for lawmakers caught in sex scandal

LANSING, Mich. A dramatic day of expulsion hearings, passionate debate and claims of deals reneged appeared to be on the way to an anti-climatic end late Thursday night as Republicans weren’t able to muster the two-thirds House majority vote needed to expel state Reps. Todd Courser and Cindy Gamrat.

Courser and Gamrat, two tea party Republicans caught up in a sex and cover-up scandal, have Democrats to thank for saving their jobs at least for the moment. Twenty-six Democrats refused to vote on a resolution to expel Courser, leaving the expulsion vote six votes shy of the 73 votes needed to remove the lawmaker from office. They hadn’t taken up the resolution to expel Courser as of 9 p.m.

After a 67-14 vote, with 26 Democrats refusing to vote and two Democrats absent, Republicans called for a reconsideration of the vote and the board was still open as of 9 p.m.

“It’s sort of Shakespearian, if you look at it: My fate rests in the hands of the Democrats,” Courser said late Thursday.

Many Democrats said, while they found the actions of Courser and Gamrat “disgusting and despicable,” they wouldn’t vote on the measure because of the process that was used to get to an expulsion. They wanted more information on what Speaker of the House Kevin Cotter, R-Mount Pleasant, knew and when he found out about the affair and bizarre cover-up engineered by Courser and Gamrat. They wanted to hear from two staffers Ben Graham and Keith Allard about the process they went through to reveal the cover-up to Republican leadership.

“The issue is much larger than the very narrow scope given to the committee. I really want to know when the staff went to leadership, what they said and when they said it,” said state Rep. Sarah Roberts, D-St. Clair Shores. “The gravity of this issue truly deserves to be looked at in a much broader scope and in brighter light. People deserve that due diligence before we make this decision.”

But Republicans said the 833-page report and testimony from both Courser and Gamrat, who both admitted misconduct in office and misuse of taxpayer resources but asked for censure rather than expulsion, clearly laid out plenty of reason to expel the two members.

“The oath that we all take is the sole protection against an unjust expulsion,” said state Rep. Ed McBroom, R-Vulcan, chairman of the special committee that voted 4-0 earlier Thursday to expel both members. “They have both admitted their guilt. They both agreed to the damage they’ve done. And neither can offer a reasonable argument that they’re being honest now, or the disdain they have shown to this body and its members is the outlier and not the norm.”

Rep. Gary Glenn, R-Midland, was once close with Courser and Gamrat, but supported the expulsion as a way to end the controversy that has consumed Lansing and Michigan.

“I would say that all the evidence I’ve seen ... the public, both Republicans and Democrats, can safely say is not in doubt; and honestly the public will hold accountable anyone who acts at odds to the actual substantive question before us,” he said. “I appeal to the compassion, humanity and decency of my friends on both sides of the aisle: End the damage to the families, to the constituents, to the House of Representatives. We know what’s right and what’s wrong.”

Republicans held the board open for more than four hours, waiting for the Democrats who chose not to vote to change their mind. They invoked “Rule 32,” which requires members to stay in their seats indefinitely. They repeatedly ran down the list of Democratic members who weren’t voting to ask if they changed their mind. When the first vote failed 67-14, with 26 Democrats not voting and two Democrats absent, they tried again; reconsidering the vote and keeping the board open with the hopes that they could come up with the necessary 73 votes.

The expulsion vote capped a day of drama, which began with the committee’s 4-0 vote to expel both Courser and Gamrat. The two Democrats on the committee passed on the vote.

Gamrat then began talking to the media, saying she was shocked by the expulsion recommendation vote because she thought she had worked out a deal with House leadership for a censure rather than being removed from office.

“I had a clear understanding that if I were to plead guilty to everything that there would be a censure. I didn’t want to sign the statement, but I was told that it would be ugly if I didn’t,” she said.

But McBroom blasted her for the allegation.

“To allege that we twisted arms to get a statement is completely disrespecting the truth and maligning the committee,” he said. “Perhaps I did not speak clearly enough: There was no deal with that member.”

And the mysterious “texter,” who sent Courser and his brother messages from a burner cell phone calling on him to resign or risk having the affair become public knowledge, came into play during the day that stretched into night.

A magistrate said Thursday he issued a search warrant Wednesday ordering AT&T to turn over all information they have about a prepaid phone that Courser claims was used to blackmail him over his extramarital affair with Gamrat.

Magistrate Greg Wise of 71A District Court in Lapeer told the Detroit Free Press he issued the search warrant at the request of the Michigan State Police, confirming that a police investigation into Courser’s blackmail claims was active as the House deliberated over whether to expel Courser and Gamrat.

The scandal swirling around Courser and Gamrat had been rumored for months, but burst onto the public scene last month when audio recordings surfaced and revealed that Courser had asked his staff to send an anonymous, “false flag” email that he had written, saying he was addicted to drugs and pornography, and paid for sex with men outside a Lansing bar. His staff refused to participate in the attempt to make it appear that Courser was the victim of a smear campaign and to downplay the affair he was having with Gamrat. But the email still was widely sent around Lansing.

Courser, in the recordings and Facebook posts, has said he was being blackmailed and that the phony emails were an attempt to smoke out the person who was trying to get him to resign from office or risk having the evidence of the affair released to the public. He has released text messages he says both he and his brother have received from the supposed blackmailer.

(Staff writer Paul Egan contributed to this report.)

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