Why censure efforts over Trump keep consuming Michigan's GOP
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Apr. 19—LANSING — Dominic Jakubowski, a 20-year-old member of the Michigan Republican Party's state committee, won't say whether he was in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6. But he's openly leading the charge to censure two GOP congressmen for their responses to the U.S. Capitol insurrection that day.
Jakubowski, who also serves as intern in a Michigan state House office, is at the center of a push to publicly reprimand U.S. Reps. Peter Meijer of Grand Rapids Township and Fred Upton of St. Joseph. The effort is roiling the state GOP and revealing the continued loyalty many in the party feel toward former President Donald Trump.
It's a party with conflicting agendas. Some members want to publicly relitigate the events of the past six months, punishing those Republicans who spoke out against the former president. Others desire to move on to the next election that will decide who holds the governor's office and every seat in the state Legislature.
"If anything, I think that Republican voters feel disenfranchised because these Republican legislators aren't doing their jobs (of) representing the values of their constituents," Jakubowski said in a Friday interview.
The Clay Township Republican took credit for writing the proposed resolution for the Michigan Republican state committee, which oversees the party, that would formally censure Meijer and Upton over their votes to impeach Trump for inciting the insurrection. The censure would essentially serve as a public rebuke.
An Army veteran, Meijer is considered by some to be a rising star in the GOP. He won a competitive race last year to claim his first term in Congress. Upton, former chairman of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, is known for working across the aisle and has served in the U.S. House for more than three decades.
"Life moves on. This was a vote of conscience," Upton said. "You know, Betsy DeVos quit the next day, and (Transportation) Secretary Chao quit the next day, and the Secretary of Defense came out ... and said, yep, the president, in fact did inspire his departure.
"The president said he did everything 'totally appropriate.' Those were his words. As one that witnessed a lot of bad things, I didn't think that that was exactly the case."
Jakubowski is one of 14 members of the Michigan Republican Party's internal Issues Committee, which he expects to vote next month on whether to censure Meijer and Upton. If the panel approves the measure, it would advance to the full GOP state committee, which has about 100 members, for consideration.
But Norm Shinkle, a longtimestate partyofficial and chairman of the Issues Committee, doesn't believe it will happen. Shinkle doesn't support the censure idea and contends his committee will ultimately oppose it as well.
"I don't believe the Republican Party is in the business of condemning other Republicans," Shinkle said. "We've got plenty to do."
'Three witches' meeting
The disagreement over how much time and energy the party should spend debating officeholders' past actions has been raging since the Democratic-led U.S. House's Jan. 13 vote to impeach Trump.
Meijer and Upton were two of 10 House Republicans who backed the GOP president's impeachment. They both have since attracted primary challengers and censure measures from multiple county organizations.
State Rep. Steve Carra, R-Three Rivers; Berrien County Commissioner Ezra Scott of New Buffalo; John Rocha of Portage; and Jerry Solis of Three Rivers have all formed committees run in Upton's southwest Michigan district. Former U.S. House candidate Tom Norton, a small businessman from Ada, and Audra Johnson of Battle Creek have formed committees in Meijer's district, which includes most of Grand Rapids.
During a March 25 meeting with the North Oakland Republican Club — Oakland County is in neither district — attendees pressed Michigan GOP Chairman Ron Weiser on what could be done about Meijer and Upton.
Weiser responded the party is focused on beating the "three witches" in 2022, apparently referring to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Attorney General Dana Nessel and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson — the three statewide Democratic leaders who are up for re-election next year.
Then someone in the crowd asked about the "witches in our own party."
"Ma'am, other than assassination, I have no other way ... other than voting out. OK?" Weiser said. "You people have to go out there and support their opponents. You have to do what you need to get out the vote in those areas. That's how you beat people."
Weiser's remarks gained national attention and pointed to the ongoing tension within the party. He later apologized for the comments.
The Michigan GOP chairman last month gave the maximum donation of $2,900 each to Upton and Meijer for their primary contests.
Matt Marko, president of the North Oakland Republican Club, said he wanted Weiser, who was elected chairman in February, to hear activists' frustration that night, as well as to have Weiser describe his vision for the party.
The frustration is focused on the 2020 presidential election, said Marko, who described it as fraudulent. But there have been no proven claims of fraud that could have overturned Democrat Joe Biden's victory in Michigan.
"There's a lot of disappointment and disgust among activists and delegates about how their Republican representatives did not do anything," Marko said.
Primary challenges?
Marko, who has led the North Oakland Republican Club for five years, said he's expecting to see an uptick in primary challengers against GOP officeholders next election.
He contended that the races would ultimately make the party stronger in general elections because it would lead to better Republicans to campaign against Democratic nominees.
Adding to the uncertainty for GOP incumbents, election years that end in '2, like 2022, are always different since the district boundaries are redrawn, said Kyle Kondik, a political analyst at the University of Virginia Center for Politics who studies the U.S. House.
Generally speaking, more incumbents lose primaries immediately after their district borders change, Kondik said. That factor, plus Trump's sway in the GOP — demonstrated by the local party censures of Meijer and Upton — could make for competitive primaries for each, he said.
"You have to remember that these primaries are a year away, and we don't even know what the districts are gonna look like," Kondik said. "I think for members like Meijer and Upton, the hope would probably be that maybe this blows over over time. Maybe it will, maybe it won't."
At the same time, he added, if Republican voters throw out Meijer and put in a Trump acolyte, the change might actually have consequences for the general election in a district like Michigan's 3rd that includes Kent County, which is trending more Democratic.
Censure push
While the 2022 primary election is more than 15 months away, some Michigan Republicans are hoping that a public censure by the state committee will come sooner for Meijer and Upton.
Jakubowski said he's gotten an "immense" amount of support for the idea.
The 20-year-old represents the 10th U.S. House District on the party's state committee — an area that includes Michigan's Thumb. He has also worked as an intern in the state House office of Rep. Matt Maddock, R-Milford. Maddock is married to Meshawn Maddock, a conservative activist and the co-chair of the state GOP.
Amid rumors that Jakubowski was in Washington, D.C., for the Jan. 6 protests, he declined to discuss it. "I am not going to answer the question," he said.
Last week, the Trump-supporting blog Gateway Pundit published the phone numbers and personal email addresses of 10 members of the party's Issues Committee in a story about the censure proposal.
Committee members said dozens of calls flowed to them in the following days.
"They're having fits. They can't sleep at night. ... People are crude to them," Shinkle said of the calls.
"They want to go after (Michigan Senate Majority Leader) Mike Shirkey, not just Upton and Meijer. They want to go after everybody," Shinkle said.
Asked about the censure effort, Michigan Republican Party spokesman Ted Goodman said the party's formal position will be recommended by the Issues Committee and ratified by a majority of the state committee.
"Our focus continues to be on Gov. Whitmer's incompetent handling of the pandemic and her administration's hypocrisy in following her rules," Goodman said.
Election changes a priority
Some Michigan Republicans hope a potential legislative initiative to overhaul the state's voting laws will unite divided factions within the state party.
State Senate Republicans have proposed 39 bills to change election policies. They would bar Benson, a Democrat, from sending out absentee ballot applications unless they are specifically requested by voters and would require applicants for absentee ballots to present or attach a copy of identification.
Weiser has said if Whitmer, a Democrat, vetoes the bills, the party will pursue the changes through the state's petition process. If Republicans gathered enough signatures — more than 340,000 would be needed — the GOP-controlled Legislature could approve the proposal into law without the governor being able to veto it.
Mike Hewitt, a conservative talk radio host and chairman of the 3rd District GOP, said he's aware of more interest among grassroots Republicans in election integrity efforts than in censuring Meijer and Upton, though he hears calls for both. His committee deadlocked 11-11 in early February on a resolution to censure Meijer.
"The thought is that if folks don't have faith in the integrity of our elections, then our Republic's in trouble. And I would say that would be true," Hewitt said. "The folks are demanding it get fixed."
He said the "overwhelming majority" of folks he's talked to didn't like Meijer's vote for impeachment.
"The other hand is that there are a lot of people that are thinking: What's the proper role of the party? And does his vote actually do anything? And what the heck does that have to do with moving forward in winning elections? Right?" Hewitt said. "And I think those are all valid questions."
With the exception of Meijer's vote for impeachment, Hewitt said he personally likes Meijer's other votes in Congress so far. He pointed out that Trump would have been impeached anyway — even without Meijer's vote — and everyone knew the effort would fail in the Senate, as it did with Trump's acquittal.
"It was going to be the same outcome," Hewitt said. "So I ask, do we really want to burn this barn down on something that didn't make a bit of difference? When we have an election integrity problem? If I can only do one chore at a time, that's what Mike Hewitt's going to be focused on."
Hewitt said he's not pushing back on folks who are still upset over perceived disloyalty to Trump.
"I don't disagree with them. But I have to ask: What's the priority of the district? And the priority has got to be to win elections," he said. "It's not to argue over a vote from several months ago."
