Michigan legislative action thread
Posted on 09/15/2015 7:58:23 AM PDT by cripplecreek
Dan Benishek announced Tuesday that he will not seek re-election in 2016, stating he will retire at the end of his term.
“Serving the 1st district in Congress has been a privilege and an opportunity that I will be forever grateful for. I am proud to be able to represent the people of Northern Michigan," Benishek said in a released statement.
“Today I’m announcing that I won’t seek re-election next year, which will allow me to focus my time and attention on helping our veterans and working to make things better for the families and workers throughout Northern Michigan, and devote more time to my family. I want to thank all of the people throughout the 1st District that had faith in me and allowed me to represent them. I also want to especially thank the voters, my supporters and staff, and everyone that has worked and volunteered on my campaigns. Judy and I appreciate all your support and all the hard work that you have given us over the years.
“I know we have a lot of talented individuals that care about the people up here and our nation that will step forward to look at serving in Congress. There is a lot of work still to be done and I’m looking forward to these last sixteen months to continue representing the families and veterans of Northern Michigan.”
It only took Benishek a few weeks after getting sworn in to go full RINO with his votes. I think the good conservatives of MI are not happy with him.
It all depends on who wants to take his place. There are plenty worse “republicans” to choose from.
Benishek retiring after 3 terms. Hopefully there’s a Conservative Yooper to get in that seat.
Awesome!
I don’t know of any conservative-leaning Yoopers who hold elective office, but perhaps some Michigan Freepers do. Benishek had promised to limit himself and people should keep their word.
Just did some research. State Senator Tom Casperson is a Yooper and he ran for Congress back in 2008. That campaign went poorly, but he parlayed the experience and name I.D. into a successful legislative campaign in 2010.
He was weak, nearly lost in 2012, underwhelming 7 point win in 2014.
I like him a lot. He will be missed.
Casperson is in. Got to like his chances: a lifelong Yooper from Escanaba and the only Republican state senator from the Western UP since WWII (he’s already served for five years).
Excellent. I feel better about the race with him in than Benishek.
The ONLY GOP State Sen from the UP since WW2, damn. The US House seat was usually GOP until Stupak, though it was already more than the UP.
The “since WWII” stat is for a state senator from the *western* UP, so I guess that there had been state senators from SDs in the eastern UP and part of the NE portion of the Mitten.
AH, I didn’t see the “western”.
The UP used to be a premier GOP area, moving back towards us now, kinda like West VA I guess.
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