The effort to expel Todd Courser was first on the agenda. Many hours of floor debate, cajoling, and, finally, a standoff that lasted through the night ended with Courser walking to the front of the House chamber to hand the clerk a brief letter of resignation. Courser then walked back to his desk, collected his things and was escorted out of the chamber by three red-coated sergeants-at-arms, who confiscated his key cards that got him into the parking lot, the House Office Building, and the state Capitol.

Courser said it had become clear he might have delayed the result for a while, but the end was inevitable.

“It felt like they were just going to go until they got their answer.”

But Cindy Gamrat decided she was not going to leave without making the House vote on it.

“I still believe my actions may warrant censure, but not expulsion.”

Gamrat said she’s apologized, worked to make amends with her colleagues, her constituents,  and her family. And, she kept a promise to work with the House through the process and affirm the findings of an internal misconduct inquiry.

“I have done everything to redeem this situation, and I am sincerely sorry for what it’s caused, and I don’t know what else I could have done more.”

Courser and Gamrat are Tea Partiers who’ve been a thorny and combative presence in the Republican caucus for a year and a half and had few, if any, friends on either side of the aisle.

They faced expulsion for using public resources in an over-the-top plot to use a salacious e-mail riddled with falsehoods to cover up their extra-marital affair.

But Republican House Speaker Kevin Cotter said there was no joy in getting rid of them.

“This is nothing to celebrate, but I think it was a very necessary process. I think there’s been a cloud hanging over us for some time, and it was important that we came together tonight, this morning, and ultimately addressed it.”

But what was initially supposed to be swift and sure punishment stalled as House Republican leaders apparently didn’t count the votes before they put the question on the board.

“…There are 67 aye votes and 14 naye votes.”

“An insufficient number voting, the resolution is not adopted…”

The Michigan Constitution requires a two-thirds super-majority to remove a legislator – that adds up to 73 votes in the House, so Republicans needed the support of Democrats to make that number. But a lot of Democrats either voted “no” or simply refused to vote through the night because they said, the process failed to look into House Speaker Kevin Cotter’s role in the whole affair.

Republicans agreed to send all the materials from the inquiry to the Michigan State Police and the Attorney General’s office. And House Democratic Leader Tim Greimel said that was enough to settle the issue.   

“We were very concerned about the lack of probative investigation that took place. We believe that it was an attempt to kick things under the rug, to cover things up, and we believe we needed a further, in-depth investigation by a law enforcement agency.”     

But that did not stop Greimel and other Democrats from switching over and voting to expel Gamrat without waiting for the results of that investigation.

A House Business Office investigation into Michigan Reps. Todd Courser, R-Lapeer, and Cindy Gamrat, R-Plainwell, alleges numerous instances of deceptive and "outright dishonest" conduct to cover up their extra-marital affair.

The investigation accuses Republicans Courser and Gamrat of lying to investigators and showing a lack of respect to constituents.

From the report:

There is testimonial evidence that Representative Courser and Representative Gamrat requested and required House staff to aid in the cover-up of their affair … they were required to lie about the Representatives’ whereabouts, including to family, to facilitate the secrecy of their romantic meetings.

The report also found that Gamrat wasn't telling the truth when she said that she did not know about Courser's attempt to divert attention away from their affair using an outlandish e-mail. Courser has admitted to orchestrating a fictional email that said he was caught with a male prostitute - to make his affair with Gamrat less believable if it was exposed.

From the report:

Representative Gamrat unconditionally stated in her interview that she did not know about the false email before it had been sent. She also states at her August 14^th press conference that she “did not author nor assist in sending the email in question” and was “unaware that this email was sent and also the content until a reporter pointed it out to me.” However, this statement is refuted by both audio recordings and staff testimony.

House Speaker Kevin Cotter has created a special committee to investigate the lawmakers' fitness for office.

Courser and Gamrat have apologized but declined to resign.

Zoe Clark and Rick Pluta discuss the Michigan House report detailing misconduct from State Reps. Courser and Gamrat on "Stateside with Cynthia Canty"

Copyright 2021 Michigan Radio. To see more, visit Michigan Radio.

It's no secret that voters here in Michigan and across the country are angry and cynical about the notorious gridlock in Washington that has brought the country to its knees with budget showdowns.

It doesn't help that Michigan lawmakers have returned to their summer vacations without a deal to repair our decaying roads.

But as Detroit News business columnist Daniel Howes points out, the state House found time to devote to a sex scandal.

Howes says if he had to pick out one common denominator in all these things it would be a lack of seriousness on the part of lawmakers and people who are in the political sphere. 

“They get so caught up in politically correct sideshows but absolutely ignore a lot of major public policy challenges both at the state and national level,” says Howes.

His recent column ties all of this into a deeper question: What's behind the apparent Teflon suit Donald Trump is wearing? How important is celebrity in our society?

"I think it's all indicative of the culture in which we're operating and it's largely unserious and is ignoring a lot of difficult problems in part because they're too hard," Howes says. Detroit News business columnist Daniel Howes says Trump and his ilk are not creating reality, they're reflecting it.

Copyright 2021 Michigan Radio. To see more, visit Michigan Radio.

An affair, cover up and alleged blackmail have shaken up what had been a quiet summer in Lansing. The Detroit News was the first news outlet to report an affair between two state lawmakers, and an alleged cover up attempt by at least one of them.

Todd Courser, a Republican state representative from Lapeer, has now admitted to trying to cover up his affair with fellow Republican Cindy Gamrat, who's from Plainwell. But Courser says he was blackmailed.

Rick Pluta, Capitol bureau chief for the Michigan Public Radio Network, explains:

Listen to our conversation with Nancy Kaffer.

The details of the affair between state Representatives Todd Courser and CindyGamrat – along with Courser's attempt to cover things up with a fake gay sex scandal – have made national and worldwide headlines.

But the two tea party, conservative Christian lawmakers at the center of this scandal are just the latest in a long history of political scandals in the state.

NancyKafferrecently recounted some of the state’s historic scandals for The Detroit Free Press.

Kaffer says she made the choice to avoid retelling the Kwame Kilpatrick story. Instead, she wanted to highlight less recent or well-known wrongdoing.

This includes 1939 Detroit Mayor Richard Reading’s involvement in what was known as “the Janet McDonald affair.” McDonald killed herself and her daughter, but not before sending notes to the city’s papers accusing Detroit police of accepting bribes from a bookie who was her former lover.

When Reading refused to investigate the claim, the City Council grew suspicious and found Reading was accepting kickbacks.

Kaffer says Reading called his indictment “the greatest injustice since the crucifixion of Christ.”

Then there was Oakland County judge William Beer. Kaffer says Beer didn’t just have an affair with his secretary, who was 19 when it began, but he had an entire separate family with her. Beer had three children with his first wife and nine with his secretary. Both families lived in the metro area.

Beer's tenure also consisted of some shocking decisions, including delaying the sentence of a convicted rapist for a year to see “if he could behave himself,” says Kaffer.

This resulted in a law that now prevents the delay or suspension of a sentence in a rape conviction.

According to Kaffer, the House Fiscal Agency scandal of 1993 was a turning point in state politics.

Employees were using the agency as their own piggy bank, paying for credit card bills, vacations and more. 

"It seems like this is a scandal that really made people change their view of how state government operated and the trust they should put in it,” says Kaffer.

Detroit City Councilwoman Kay Everett’s alleged bribes were more creative than just monetary gains. Kaffer says Everett was allegedly paid not only with money, but 17 pounds of sausage. She passed away before she stood trial on the charges.

Republican state Senator David Jaye had a laundry list of public mistakes, including supposedly dropping a pistol on the Senate floor. Kaffer says an associate of Jaye described his personal life as a very weird spectacle.

And Kaffer says, “I think you could actually describe his whole political career as a very weird spectacle.”

With multiple drunk driving charges and a domestic assault charge, Jaye was expelled from the Legislature.

Democratic state Senator Henry Stallings II also had his fair share of legal issues, with a paternity suit against him, accusations of failing to pay child support, and a bankruptcy.

He eventually resigned, moments before he was about to be expelled after using a state employee to frame pictures in his art gallery.

Kaffer says in recalling all these affairs, many of which included very serious accusations and charges, "it seems like in reading various people’s stories that the conduct of the lawmakers may really be what drives colleagues to snap.”

So where will Courser and Gamrat fall in this history?

Kaffer says it’s hard to tell, with new details still coming out, but “I think it’s going to be pretty high on the list.”

Copyright 2021 Michigan Radio. To see more, visit Michigan Radio.