LANSING, Mich., Aug. 12, 2022 — Today, House Democrats have released a resolution to censure state Rep. Daire Rendon (R-Lake City) for coercive abuse of office in service of a crime. Early this week, Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office petitioned for a special prosecutor to make charging decisions against Rep. Rendon and other figures in a successful plot to illegally obtain election infrastructure from local clerks for unauthorized inspections in support of debunked election conspiracies. Democrats intend to introduce the resolution formally next week.
“Representative Rendon abused her office, her position of power, and misrepresented the House of Representatives while badgering local election officials to comply with a phony investigation spurred by Donald Trump’s Big Lie conspiracies,” said House Democratic Leader Donna Lasinski (D-Scio Township). “It’s beyond the pale, it’s criminal, and it is disgracefully below the standard of public service the people of Michigan should expect from their representatives. This offends the very founding ideal we share as Americans — this was an assault on our democracy. She played a crucial role in a coordinated conspiracy to gain illegal access to ballot tabulators and other election equipment to undermine our free and fair elections.”
The resolution contends that Rendon “repeatedly asked local officials to give voting tabulators to unauthorized individuals, and those officials repeatedly complied with her requests. In doing so, Representative Rendon aided those unauthorized individuals in obtaining undue possession of a voting machine, in violation of Michigan law.” In at least one of these coercive conversations, “Rendon told the Roscommon County Clerk that ‘representatives’ were doing an investigation into election fraud and needed her voting machine.”
“A censure is absolutely appropriate for a member of the House of Representatives who betrays their oath of office and misrepresents our chamber in the service of a crime, especially when that crime is an attack on our elections and democracy,” said state Representative Joe Tate (D-Detroit), who will introduce the resolution. “Representative Rendon betrayed her oath of office, abandoned her duty to uphold the constitution, broke Michigan Election Law, and violated the public trust in this desperate and corrupt scheme to keep the former president in power against the will of the people. Representative Rendon allegedly told at least one county clerk ‘representatives’ were performing an investigation in order to get her hands on this machinery, and that’s a lie against this legislature that can’t be allowed to stand.”
Rendon has “engaged in a pattern of misconduct that has undermined the public’s confidence in her, in the House, and in Michigan’s electoral process and democratic institutions” reads the resolution, referencing her repeated public efforts to undermine the votes of Michiganders. In December 2020, Rendon attempted and failed to enter the state Capitol with the 16 Republican false electors trying to fraudulently certify Michigan’s electoral votes for the losing candidate Donald Trump. In that same month she joined a lawsuit, Texas v. Pennsylvania, seeking to invalidate Michigan’s elector selection process in a separate attempt to steal the election for Trump.
“Representative Rendon must be held accountable, in the Legislature and in the courts, for her continued attacks against the right of Michiganders to choose their own leaders and to a government by the people,” Lasinski said.
The resolution can be read here.