Thaddeus McCotter

• Committee on Financial Services
  • Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance, and Government-Sponsored Enterprises
  • Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit
  • Subcommittee on International Monetary Policy and Trade

• Congressional COPD Caucus
• House Sovereignty Caucus (co-founder)
• International Conservation Caucus
• Sportsmen's Caucus

Shortly before the midterm elections in November 2006, McCotter made a $250,000 contribution to the National Republican Congressional Committee. After the elections, when the Republicans became the minority party in the House of Representatives, McCotter was elected chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, the fifth-ranking post among House Republicans. The other Republican seeking the post was Congressman Darrell Issa of southern California.

In May 2011, McCotter confirmed that he was considering a run for the Republican Party nomination for President of the United States in 2012.[12][13] By late June, sources indicated that McCotter would enter the race.[14] On June 23, 2011, a McCotter representative bid $18,000 for a site at the Ames Straw Poll Auction in Iowa.[15] On July 1, 2011, McCotter announced that he had filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) as a candidate for president.[16] On July 2, 2011, McCotter announced his candidacy at WAAM Freedom Fest in Whitmore Lake, Michigan, outside of Detroit.[17][18][19]

Throughout his campaign, commentators suggested that McCotter's lack of name recognition nationwide would hamper his chances of winning the nomination. In opinion polls that included McCotter, he received less than one percent and he came in last place in the August 2011 Ames Straw Poll. On September 22, 2011, McCotter announced the end of his campaign for the presidential nomination, and said that his exclusion from presidential debates had hindered it. Given the lack of media coverage of his campaign, McCotter called the end of his presidential campaign "death by media." He said he would endorse Mitt Romney and would run again for his 11th congressional district in 2012.[20][21]

In April 2011, McCotter was the only member of Michigan's 15-member congressional delegation who did not confirm he was running for reelection.[22] He indicated interest in running against incumbent Democrat Debbie Stabenow for the U.S. Senate seat in Michigan in 2012, but in May 2011 announced that he would not campaign for the position.[23]

After announcing his intention to run for reelection, McCotter was expected to win the Republican nomination easily, but on May 25, 2012, Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson announced that he had failed to submit enough valid petition signatures to qualify for the August 7 primary ballot. Although McCotter had submitted 2,000 signatures, the maximum permitted by Michigan law for congressional primaries, a preliminary review indicated that fewer than the required minimum of 1,000 were valid. According to a spokeswoman for the Secretary of State's office, several of McCotter's petition signatures were duplicates. Michigan election law stipulates that if duplicates are found, both the original and duplicate are ruled invalid. McCotter had the option of running as a write-in candidate in the primary election or as an independent in the general election if he failed to qualify for a primary ballot spot.[24][25]

At the time the apparent fraud was uncovered, McCotter was on a congressional trip to Taiwan.[2] On May 26, a source within McCotter's campaign told the Detroit Free Press that McCotter conceded that the signatures would be ruled invalid, and that he was considering a write-in effort.[26] McCotter confirmed this to Nolan Finley of The Detroit News, adding that he did not understand what happened with the signatures on the petitions.[27]

Later that day, state officials announced in two separate reviews that more than 85 percent of McCotter's petition signatures were invalid. The Secretary of State's office said its review revealed only 244 of 2,000 signatures were valid. Numerous petition sheets appeared to have been copied—in some cases, as many as three times—and in some cases a different canvasser's name was attached to one of the copies. Michigan elections director Chris Thomas conducted his own review, and said there was evidence signatures from 2010 petitions had been cut-and-pasted onto the 2012 sheets.[28] Thomas also said that McCotter had only turned in 1,830 signatures, and all but 244 were invalid. His office's review revealed that dozens of petition sheets appeared to have been copied in what he described as an "unprecedented level" of fraud.[29]

Late on May 27, the Secretary of State's office announced that it found the potential fraud egregious enough to ask state attorney general Bill Schuette to look into the matter.[27] In an op-ed that ran in the May 29, 2012, Detroit News, McCotter announced he would mount a write-in campaign in the Republican primary for his seat. He also acknowledged that the signatures in question were indeed invalid, based on his own legal team's review. Likening himself to George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life, McCotter said that he was running a write-in campaign to "clean up my own mess."[30]

On June 2, McCotter announced that he was ending his bid for reelection and would leave the House at the end of his term. In his statement, he said that he felt obligated to fulfill his duties in Congress and assist Schuette and Johnson in getting to the bottom of the petition fraud. These obligations, he said, made mounting a write-in bid for Congress impossible. "One can't clean up a mess multitasking," he said.[2][31] McCotter was the first sitting congressman since the late 1940s not to qualify for his party's primary.[32]

A month later, on July 5, The Detroit News reported that McCotter had spent much of the time since his presidential campaign failed writing a television pilot script for a comedy/variety show starring himself, to be called Bumper Sticker: Made on MoTown. It featured characters with the same nicknames he used for members of his staff and a guest appearance by conservative commentator S. E. Cupp. "They take pot shots about McCotter's ill-fated bid for the White House while spewing banter about drinking, sex, race, flatulence, puking and women's anatomy," the newspaper wrote.[33]

On July 6, 2012, McCotter resigned from the House. He said:[1]

[T]his 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. 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.

He also wrote:[1]

I do not leave for an existing job and face diminishing prospects (and am both unwilling and ill-suited to lobby), my priorities are twofold: find gainful employment to help provide for my family; and continue to assist, in any way they see fit, the Michigan Attorney General's earnest and thorough investigation, which I requested, into the 2012 petition filing.

While McCotter was not suspected of any wrongdoing, several of his staff members were charged with crimes.[34] District Director Paul Seewald pleaded guilty to falsely signing a petition and was given two years of probation. Deputy District Director Don Yowchuang pleaded no contest to ten counts of felony forgery and was given three years of probation.[35] Scheduler Lorraine O'Brady pleaded no contest to five counts of falsely signing a nominating petition and was sentenced to 20 days in jail. District Representative Mary M. Turnbull pleaded no contest to the felony of committing an illegal act and was sentenced to two years of probation and one day in jail.[36]

McCotter's resignation left the 11th district unrepresented until the November elections, when Democrat David Curson was elected in a special election to finish McCotter's term.[37] Republican Kerry Bentivolio succeeded Curson in January 2013 as the representative of the redrawn 11th district.[38]