Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) is resigning from his post in Congress.
The Michigan Republican addressed his decision to step down in a statement issued on Friday, referencing a "nightmarish month and a half" that included an embarrassing failure to qualify for the Republican primary ballot in August's contest.
"Today I have resigned from the office of United States Representative for Michigan's 11th Congressional District," he said. "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."
Last month, McCotter announced plans to mount a write-in campaign after his campaign failed to turn in the requisite 1,000 petitions needed to get on the GOP primary ballot. A subsequent review by the Michigan secretary of state's office found that only 200 to 300 of the 2,000 total ballots submitted by the five-term congressman's campaign were valid. A short time later, he said he would not seek reelection at all.
McCotter also organized a short-lived campaign for president last year, but ended the longshot bid after failing to gain momentum in early primary states.
Earlier this week, the Detroit News reported that McCotter had been writing the pilot episode for a series he called "Bumper Sticker: Made On Motown." McCotter told the outlet that he had used the endeavor as a "cathartic" creative outlet to help him cope with his failed presidential run.
His entire statement below:
"Today I have resigned from the office of United States Representative for Michigan's 11th Congressional District.
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.
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.
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 our family takes this step into the rest of our lives, we do so with the ultimate confidence in our country's future. True, as at other times in the life of our nation, we live in an Age of Extremes that prizes intensity over sanity; rhetoric over reality; and destruction over creation. But this too shall pass, thanks to the infinite, inspired wisdom of the sovereign people who, with God's continued blessings, will again affirm for the generations American Exceptionalism.
Truly, it is a challenging and fortunate time to live in our blessed sanctuary of liberty.
In closing, to The People of Michigan's 11th Congressional District, I can but say this: Thank you for the privilege of having worked for you."~ Thaddeus G. McCotter
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