On Friday, November 29, Mark Brant reported to a federal prison in Morgantown, West Virginia. There, he will begin his 18-month stint in a cushy prison nicknamed Club Fed. He was previously fined $500,000 and agreed to surrender another $300,000 that federal officials found in his home. Not so unusual, except that Brant’s prison stint will interfere with his fourth term as Michigan’s Monroe County Commissioner.
Brant is a Republican who recently secured his fourth stint in the position with 90% of the vote from his heavily Republican district. He also owes his victory to a severe lack of competition, as Democrats didn’t bother running anyone.
The jailbird was first elected as the Monroe County Commissioner in 2012. Politicians are notorious for withholding dirty little secrets that could sink their campaigns, and Brant is no different.
Remarkably, he managed to keep it a secret that the feds had been investigating him for four years. He resigned on October 1 after the fact that he was under federal investigation came to light—tenants of his rental property were growing marijuana and selling it across state lines.
He resigned a little too late to have his name removed from the ballot. It was also too late to give Monroe County voters the chance to vote for someone other than a criminal about to be locked away in a federal prison for 18 months when he should be in the office working. Despite it all, he won by an overwhelming majority. Here’s where it gets really messed up.
After specifically saying in his resignation letter that he didn’t want his “personal circumstances to interfere with the smooth operation of the county I so dearly love,” he took his overwhelming victory as a sign that voters truly wanted him in office even though he pulled out of the race so late that he gave them no other option on the ballot.
So instead of declining the victory and allowing the voters to elect someone else, he took the oath of office to serve his fourth term. Even worse than all of that is the fact that two county officials and a state senator knew he was being investigated yet didn’t inform the County commission. It all feels very on-brand for the modern-day Republican party, doesn’t it?
The post Michigan Voters Elected a Convict Who Will Govern From Prison appeared first on VICE.
The post Michigan Voters Elected a Convict Who Will Govern From Prison appeared first on VICE.
