Lame duck Congressman Thaddeus McCotter unexpectedly resigns

Representative Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) resigned late on Friday following a term of nearly ten years in Congress that had ended with what he himself described as a “nightmarish month and a half” marked by scandal and ridicule.

In his resignation statement, McCotter explained that his office will continue to operate and his staff will serve his constituents' needs, but he himself will be gone.

“Strike another match, go start anew,” McCotter stated, quoting the Bob Dylan song "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue."

The full text of the resignation letter can be read here.

McCotter, whose congressional career had been capped by a long-shot bid for the Republican presidential nomination last year, had been expected to have no problems retaining his seat. However, more than 85% of the signatures on his nominating petitions were found to be invalid, some of the sheets appearing to have been photocopied multiple times from previous years' petitions. After briefly toying with the idea of a write-in campaign, he'd announced he would retire at the end of his current term.

On Thursday, however, the Detroit Newspublished a "racy" pilot script for a TV comedy that McCotter had written as an emotional outlet following his failed president bid, and that appears to have been the final straw.

According to the paper, "'Bumper Sticker: Made On Motown' starred McCotter hosting a crude variety show cast with characters bearing the nicknames of his congressional staffers, his brother and a drunk, perverted "Black Santa." 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. It features a cartoon intro and closing snippet with an Oldsmobile careening through Detroit and knocking over the city's landmarks."

McCotter's resignation statement notes that "the recent event’s totality of calumnies, indignities and deceits have weighed most heavily upon my family." It goes on to say that “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.”

Photo by Gage Skidmore (Flickr: Thad McCotter) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons