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:
