WASHINGTON, July 6 (UPI) -- Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, R-Mich., whose re-election plans were derailed by his failure to get his name on the ballot, said Friday he has resigned from office.
McCotter, who made a bid for the Republican nomination for president, quit his job before the end of his fifth term, Roll Call reported.
"Today I have resigned from the office of United States representative for Michigan's 11th Congressional District," he said in a statement sent out by his campaign.
"After nearly 26 years in elected office, this past nightmarish month and a half have, for the first time, severed the necessary harmony between the needs of my constituency and of my family. As this harmony is required to serve, its absence requires I leave. The recent event's totality of calumnies, indignities and deceits have weighed most heavily upon my family. Thus, acutely aware one cannot rebuild their hearth of home amongst the ruins of their U.S. House office, for the sake of my loved ones I must 'strike another match, go start anew' by embracing the promotion back from public servant to sovereign citizen."
The Washington publication said Martin Van Valkenburg, McCotter's chief of staff, confirmed the resignation.
McCotter had found himself having to run a write-in campaign after failing to get enough petition signatures to get his name on Michigan's primary ballot. He had ended his write-in effort in early June, but had said at that time he would finish out his term.
