LANSING, Michigan — A retiring Michigan congressman said Monday he is leaving the Republican Party and becoming an independent to protest efforts to overturn Democrat Joe Biden's victory over President Donald Trump.
Rep. Paul Mitchell, of Dryden, is nearing the end of his second and final term. He wrote a letter to Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on the same day electors formalized Biden's win.
"It is unacceptable for political candidates to treat our election system as though we are a third-world nation and incite distrust of something so basic as the sanctity of our vote,” he said.
Mitchell, 64, said he voted for Trump despite some reservations about four more years of his leadership. He criticized GOP leaders for tolerating “unfounded conspiracy theories" without defending a secure electoral process. He did not join 126 House Republicans who signed onto a Texas lawsuit — rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court — that sought to invalidate the results in Michigan and three other states.
“I believe that raw political considerations, not constitutional or voting integrity concerns, motivate many in party leadership to support the ‘stop the steal’ efforts, which is extremely disappointing to me,” Mitchell wrote. "As elected members of Congress, we take an oath to ‘support and defend the Constitution of the United States,’ not to preserve and protect the political interests of any individual, be it the president or anyone else, to the detriment of our cherished nation.”
Mitchell is the second Republican congressman from Michigan to quit the party in less than 18 months.
Rep. Justin Amash announced on July 4, 2019, he was leaving the party, saying he had become disenchanted with partisan politics. Prior to his departure, Amash was the only Republican in Congress to say Trump should be impeached after the findings of the investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into the 2016 presidential election.
Amash did not run for re-election in 2020.
TEGNA Staff contributed to this report.