Detroit News via AP Two Michigan lawmakers lose their seats after affair, bizarre cover-up

One Michigan state lawmaker resigned and another was expelled early Friday weeks after the two Republicans—Rep. Todd Courser and Rep. Cindy Gamrat—admitted to having an affair and a cover-up.

Courser announced his resignation shortly after 3 a.m., according to local reports, after previously refusing to resign last month, when he accused former staffers of blackmailing him to step down.


"It's the reverse of what I expected," said state Speaker of the House Kevin Cotter, according to The Detroit News.

Gamrat, meanwhile, pleaded with her colleagues for a censure rather than expulsion, but about an hour after Courser resigned, the House voted 91-12 to remove her from office. Gamrat is only the fourth state lawmaker to be removed from office in Michigan history.

"Resigning would have been a whole lot easier, I'll tell you that," Gamrat said, according to the Detroit paper's report. "But sometimes the easy roads aren't the best roads to take."

The departures bring to a close a bizarre chapter in state politics that began a little more than a month ago when the aforementioned paper reported on audio recordings in which Courser, who is married and a father of three, and Gamrat, who is also married and a mother of four, appeared to discuss a plan to cover up their affair. The plan included Courser mentioning that he would spread a fake story that he was caught having sex with a male prostitute in Lansing.

Courser admitted to being behind an email in May to state Republican activists and others that claimed he was a "bi-sexual porn addicted sex deviant" and that Gamrat was a "tramp."