GOP Representative Thaddeus McCotter Resigns from Congress

Even among small government conservatives, Congressman Thaddeus McCotter of Michigan is something of an underground figure. The frequent Red Eye guest, musician and orator launched an ill-fated bid for the GOP Presidential nomination last year, and has since remained comfortably out of the spotlight, still something of a hipster's Republican.

(Related: Thaddeus McCotter wrote a ‘train wreck’ TV script)

That is, until today, when McCotter announced, to the surprise of constituents and press alike, that he was resigning his post in Congress in a post on his Facebook:

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.

McCotter's fate following this decision is unclear, as is the matter of his successor. McCotter's staff will apparently remain available to provide constituent services, but without a Congressman to address, this is almost certainly an insufficient solution. A special election may have to be held to serve out the few months left in McCotter's term, which would have probably ended in November anyway, seeing as McCotter had failed to qualify for the ballot in his own district after a potential case of fraud in filing his nominating petition.