Judge Rules Normal Plain Vanilla Awful Republican The Winner Of All Michigan GOP's Debts
Election-denying 'chair' Kristina Karamo lost party election, as if that would stop her.
The ongoing dumpster fire that is the Michigan Republican Party might get a little closer to resolving its longstanding schism between supporters of plain-vanilla awful Republican Pete Hoekstra, who was elected party chair in January, and supporters of Kristina Karamo, the super-awful election denying Trumpist who refused to accept the legitimacy of that election, since that’s kind of her brand.
And that means Hoekstra is the proud winner who’ll get to steward the Michigan GOP’s assets: $600,000 in debt.
Yesterday, Kent County Judge Joseph Rossi issued an injunction telling Karamo she can’t call herself the Michigan GOP chair anymore, and prohibiting her from accessing state GOP bank accounts or mailboxes. She is apparently free, however, to stand on a soap box in front of the empty building that used to be the state Republican headquarters and yell into a megaphone that she was robbed.
As The Detroit Free Press explains,
Having two different people claiming to be MIGOP chair "created an environment filled with something the law hates — uncertainty and confusion," the judge said.
Karamo, who was in the courtroom in Grand Rapids for the late afternoon ruling, described it as "egregious," but said she will abide by it, pending a possible appeal and a trial in the case that is still scheduled for June.
"I have to comply with the judge's order," Karamo said. "I'm not going to jail."
It’s a pretty timely development, considering that yesterday’s Michigan Republican primary only awarded 16 of the state’s 55 convention delegates (12 to Donald Trump, and four to Nikki Haley); the remaining delegates will be selected at the state convention scheduled for March 2. Ah, but which GOP convention? The one organized by Hoekstra, to be held in Grand Rapids, or the competing one that Karamo had declared would be held the same day in … shiver … Detroit?
Judge Rossi’s injunction would seem to settle that matter, since he made it retroactive to the date of the party election, January 6, and ordered that any decisions Karamo made as pretend chair are now “void and have no effect.”
Hoekstra’s election was endorsed by the Republican National Committee, and even by Donald Trump, who may love a good bout of election denial but wants those delegates.
Hoekstra said in a news release that the ruling was a great decision for everyone, because “The MIGOP State Committee, the RNC, President Trump and now a court of law have all reviewed the Jan. 6 meeting and there is unanimous agreement that the former chair was properly removed, and I was elected as the new chairman,” and he called for the party to unite and get to work electing Donald Trump as president. We’ll note that his statement doesn’t appear to have called on anyone in the state party to act like grownups, because why would he push his luck?
True to form, Karamo said after the decision that she wouldn’t call herself the state party chair, but she also wouldn’t be calling Hoekstra that, either, and that it’s “too early” for her to say whether she’ll appeal the injunction.
The injunction was part of an ongoing lawsuit in which the Hoekstra wing of the party seeks to affirm for good that Karamo is no longer the state chair. Karamo’s attorney in that case argued, perhaps noting the date of the vote, that the party election was like a “coup” and that while 40 state committee members voted to oust her, another 53 have since “voted” — after the election, because that is how they do.
In granting the injunction yesterday, Rossi agreed that the plaintiffs are “likely to prevail at trial” and that while Karamo’s opponents used “sharp-elbowed tactics” to force her out, the meeting to vote on her ouster was called properly and that’s that, even if a minority of state party members pulled it off.
But political actors often achieve their goals using rules or procedural maneuvers, the judge continued, noting presidents have won the White House without winning the popular vote because of the Electoral College.
"The majority does not always win," he said.
It is unclear at this point whether Karamo and her allies will accept the court’s eventual ruling if or when when the trial finally happens, or will try to do an armed insurrection as has become traditional for Trump supporters. No telling yet, but we have a feeling more fisticuffs may be on the way in party meetings.
[Detroit Free Press / Bridge Michigan]
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>> "we have a feeling more fisticuffs may be on the way in party meetings." <<
OhpleaseOhpleaseOhpleaseOhpleaseOhpleaseOhpleaseOhplease
>> "Kristina Karamo" <<
I think you mean, "Kristina Elizondo Mountain Dew Karamo".