LANSING, Mich. – An internal committee of the Michigan Republican Party is set to vote on a pair of resolutions on Saturday censuring two members of Congress who supported the Jan. 6 commission and calling for the resignation of a state senator who authored an election report stating that former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election.
The proposed resolutions were confirmed by GOP Issue Committee Chair Norm Shinkle.
Recommended Videos
“Big meeting tomorrow (Saturday). I’ve never had negative resolutions in front of me before, this was the first time. We had one in April. Now we have two of them in front of us,” Shinkle said on Friday.
Read: Detroit clerk Janice Winfrey says she’s been getting death threats since 2020 election
The first resolution is aimed at Reps. Peter Meijer and Fred Upton. Both men crossed party lines and defied Congressional party leadership to join 35 other Republicans who voted to create a commission to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
This is the second attempt to censure the congressmen who also voted to impeach Trump for the second time. That proposal was brought before the party back in April and failed.
The other resolution calls for the resignation of Sen. Ed McBroom, who was the author of a report on unfounded claims that the 2020 election was stolen or otherwise fraudulent. The senator found there was no evidence to support those claims and asked Attorney General Dana Nessel to investigate those who have been profiting from election lies.
Related: ‘Zero credibility’ -- New report from Michigan GOP Senate members debunks claims of vote fraud
The proposal, which was shown to Local 4 by Shinkle, calls McBroom’s report a “gross official misconduct” and appears to be in defense specifically of attorney Matthew DePerno, who is the lawyer behind a lawsuit in Antrim County.
DePerno recently announced his candidacy for attorney general.
It also accuses McBroom of “unleashing” Nessel on private citizens, reading “If you aren’t grieved and incensed enough yet, you ought to be when a sitting State Senator and his Committee attack a Private Citizen for creating a legal defense fund. Unleashing the Attorney General on the Citizen, claiming that they are using the fund to personally enrich themselves!”
The proposal also notes there was no fraud found in the election by McBroom.
“They’re embarrassing. I’m embarrassed for the people that put them forward because they’re hateful,” Shinkle said about the resolutions brought from newer members of the party which he described as “teenagers.”
“We have some new kid on the block…who have to be taught how to play the game fairly with the rest of us,” he said. “We have some people if you didn’t know better you think they were being paid for by Democrats. They’re going after their own.”
The proposals are not expected to pass at party chair Ron Weiser’s urging but it is the latest in the series of battles of the 2020 election that has driven a wedge through the party at the state level.
Read: Michigan AG will probe people making money off false election claims
Earlier this month, the party’s executive director Jason Roe resigned after telling The Atlantic magazine he had “been under constant assault from the grassroots” of the Michigan Republican party for saying the election wasn’t stolen. The party’s new communication’s director also resigned after less than a week on the job, citing concerns the party would be unable to break with the rhetoric of Trump.
Other members of the party and party leadership have also come under scrutiny in recent weeks -- including party Co-Chair Meshawn Maddock helping charter buses to the Jan. 5th rally, district level party officials promoting “Trump Won” rallies around the state, the grassroots Vice Chair Marian Sheridan leading an affidavit drive in Lansing calling for a forensic audit of the state’s election and Trump condemning Republicans like McBroom as “weak RINOs” for not doing so.
Both Meijer and Upton were censured by other county level party organizations along with former representative and former Republican Paul Mitchell who left the party after the 2020 election.
Read: Pelosi appoints 2nd GOP critic of Trump to Jan. 6 committee