Thad McCotter previously faked way into office

The petition requirement isn't terribly difficult to meet

I just received my absentee ballot for the September 5 primary that McCotter made necessary by resigning. Five Republicans submitted enough signatures to get on the ballot.

My $.02 is that McCotter was so disdainful of his constituents--he hadn't hosted a town hall for years, and blew off the last two League of Women Voters candidate forums--that he considered the entire process of circulating petitions beneath his dignity.

A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.

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by: Hy Dudgeon @ Sat Aug 18, 2012 at 21:27:26 PM UTC

No, this was driven by a practical desire to cheat

Collecting signatures is a small burden.  McCotter and his goons tried to evade even that small duty by cheating.  Collecting 2000 signatures takes something like 200 hours of somebody's time - typically two people working a few hours per day for a month or two.

If you hire somebody to collect them, you'll pay about $5000.  And that amount gives a reasonable approximation of the effort involved.

McCotter has plenty of character flaws, and many of them came into play in this debacle.  But the main cause was a belief they could cheat the system.  And, until they got so greedy that their fake petitions drew the attention even of an untrained temp employee, who was probably being paid barely more than minimum wage, they DID get away with it.

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by: Grebner @ Sat Aug 18, 2012 at 21:39:31 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Questions that beg for answers.

There's no point in decrying McCotter's uselessness.  Today he's a has-been, and in a few years he'll be "a former has-been".  Let's focus on what might be developed from the facts that have become public:

1) For some reason Ruth Johnson, instead of tipping off the A.G., let McCotter know about the discovery first.  And then he was allowed to stall the public revelation of his humiliation until what he judged was the perfect time to bury the news:  8pm Friday of Memorial Day weekend.  What were the communications between the two of them?  What do the phone records, emails, and fax traffic show?  (Remember, by the time he released the information, McCotter was somewhere beyond the Pacific Ocean.)  Exactly when was Johnson informed?  Exactly who else was told, and when?

2) At the very least, the 2008, 2010, and 2012 petitions all show radically different methods of falsification.  In 2008, they apparently used Photoshop, and generated color images so some of the writing appeared in blue ink.  In 2010, they simply made copies of a small number of real petition, and turned in four sets, three of which were obviously xeroxes if anybody had bothered to look.  In 2012, the method used apparently involved actual scissors and glue.  From all this, it's obvious that different people were involved each time and that the falsification was being done at the direction of somebody above, with the details left to the low-level forgers.  What exactly was the structure of the organization which ran such an operation?  What exactly was McCotter's role?  Was he the person calling the shots?

3) McCotter's decision to resign was NOT a result of "frustration".  It was the abrupt response to the real danger of a Congressional subpoena which would have converted destruction of evidence or suborning of testimony into federal crimes.  McCotter himself gave up $80,000 in Congressional salary, not to mention health benefits and other fringes by resigning rather than running out his term.  What exactly was McCotter afraid would happen?  What was he trying to forestall?

4) Recall how bizarre each of McCotter's press comments have been.  He was always eager to "accept responsibility" without admitting that he knew anything about it.  He's been very careful never to accuse anybody of anything, in spite of the fact his office staff is so small that he must have known exactly what was wrong and who did what.  The only reason somebody in McCotter's position would be so forgiving is that he's implicated himself.  Remember, these are now FORMER staff members and a FORMER Congressman, who will never hold public office again.  There shouldn't be any remaining reason for personal loyalty in either direction.  Apparently nobody has yet named McCotter as the perp in this case, and my guess is that's because he used the head start granted him by Ruth Johnson to work out cover stories and make "arrangements".  Is the A.G. focused on breaking through that hedge?  Or are they willing to let McCotter get away?

5) Nobody ever assembled a four-person conspiracy whose sole purpose was to evade gathering 2000 petition signatures every two years.  These folks were involved in criminal forgery and conspiracy.  What else were they up to?  If everybody in the office is cheating, and knows that everybody else is too, and that nobody minds, how likely is it that (for example) their timecards were kept honestly?  That reimbursable expenses were reported carefully and accurately?  That lobbyists weren't allowed improper privileges for which they would have been willing to pay generously?  Is somebody going through the office's financial records looking for discrepancies?  Or did McCotter's resignation create enough smoke that everyone will be able to escape?

Inquiring minds want to know.

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by: Grebner @ Sat Aug 18, 2012 at 22:13:30 PM UTC

Absolutely right.

There is far more going on here than a few people being too damn lazy to go collect a few petition signatures. There's no telling what they've been up to.

Does Johnson have a duty to promptly report criminal behavior to authorities, rather than tip off the perps? What other behavior is being swept under the rug?

Schuette will never do anything about this unless such a big stink is raised and he can't avoid it. He's too busy harassing medical marijuana patients, after all. OT, but have we ever had such a worthless POS for an AG? Imagine, if you will, that a Democrat did something like this, or like what Jase Bolger did. Think they'd be ignoring it then?

Unless someone pushes hard, we'll never hear anything more about this.  

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by: happy camper @ Sun Aug 19, 2012 at 12:27:52 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Excellent questions

I hope someone seeks out answers to them.

Among the Trees

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by: Eric B. @ Sun Aug 19, 2012 at 18:31:03 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

McCotter's abrupt resignation...

...was apparently to prevent the likelihood of the House Ethics Committee becoming involved. Had that happened, THEN his pension and benefits might have been imperiled.

In an election year, and given Thad's unpopularity in the House, it's very plausible the committee would have thrown the book at him just to be able to say to the media that "See? We CAN go after one of our own!"

The actions or inactions of Ruth Johnson and Bill Schuette warrant a couple of FOIA requests.

Not sure what we can do with Congress -- didn't they immunize themselves from the federal FOIA, the same way they they do with most every law passed?

"The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity." ~ Harlan Ellison

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by: helzapoppn @ Mon Aug 20, 2012 at 14:39:46 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Why...

...wasn't he arrested?  I will never buy their bogus excuse.  It's so very clear he knew what was going on the more we learn about this.

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by: MiddleGrandGuy @ Sun Aug 19, 2012 at 01:05:16 AM UTC

I'm not so sure he won't try to run for office again

After all, he thought so highly of himself that he ran for President.

And somebody (what we call a "Single Purpose Account") is trying to clean out any negatives in his Wikipedia article.

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by: William Allen Simpson @ Sun Aug 19, 2012 at 21:22:11 PM UTC