One Michigan lawmaker quits, one expelled in sex scandal

LANSING, Mich. It took 14 hours, two failed votes and a day full of drama, but at 3:12 a.m. Friday, Michigan state Rep. Todd Courser resigned from his state House seat, and an hour later, Rep. Cindy Gamrat was expelled on a 91-12 vote, ending a controversial sex and cover-up scandal that has rocked Lansing for the last month.

“I felt is was the appropriate thing to do. I put everybody through a whole bunch, my family, constituents and the people in this room,” Courser said. “You go 14-15 hours later, they would have been doing a third vote. I felt they were just going to go until they got their answer.”

His resignation letter was short and simple: “I hereby tender my resignation from the Michigan House of Representatives effective immediately. It has been an honor serving with the dedicated members and staff of the House of Representatives.”

Gamrat decided to stick it out and asked her colleagues to censure, rather than expel her.

“I firmly believe in restoration and redemption,” she said.” I have done everything I can to redeem this situation and I’m sincerely sorry for what this has caused. I still believe my actions warrant censure, but not expulsion.”

Her colleagues disagreed, voting 91-12 to expel her with five Democrats declining to vote on the matter.

It appeared throughout the evening that Courser and Gamrat, two tea party Republicans caught up in a sex and cover-up scandal, might save their jobs, thanks to Democrats. Twenty-six Democrats initially 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.

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 stayed open until it was cleared shortly before midnight, so the House could adjourn for the day and reconvene a minute later.

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

But the lengthy and passionate debate took its toll. Courser said, leading to his decision to resign.

“It’s an unfortunate chapter where we’re at, but it’s time to turn a page and go in a different direction and obviously heal, in my own house and in this body as well,” he said. “It’s been hell.”

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 Republican Speaker of the House Kevin Cotter 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 Democratic state Rep. Sarah Roberts. “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.”

In the end, an amendment was added onto the Gamrat expulsion resolution, calling for a Michigan State Police investigation into the controversy. Another resolution called on the attorney general’s office to look into the matter. With those amendments, Democrats switched from voting no or not voting to supporting the expulsion.

“House Democrats have called for weeks for an independent law enforcement investigation of these very serious allegations regarding Reps. Courser and Gamrat,” said House Minority Leader Tim Greimel, a Democrat.

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 Republican state Rep. Ed McBroom, 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.”

Republican Rep. Gary Glenn was once tight 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.”

The resignation and expulsion capped a day of drama for the two lawmakers and the entire Legislature. Republicans held the board open for more than seven 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.

“No time was wasted, it was never about running the clock out to try and apply pressures. There was so much negotiation during all of that time,” said Cotter.

The day of drama 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, Mich., told the Free Press that 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” e-mail 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 e-mail still was widely sent around Lansing.

Courser, in the recordings and Facebook posts, has said he was being blackmailed and that the phony e-mails 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 that 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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