By Zachary Gorchow
President of Michigan Operations
Posted: February 11, 2021 4:03 PM

A little more than 10 years ago, in the waning days of the 2009-10 term, Mike Shirkey was a brand new member of the Michigan House, elected in November to fill the final seven weeks of a term left vacant by the death of the previous incumbent.

At the time, I was Gongwer's beat reporter in the Michigan Senate. It was an evening session as often happens during the lame-duck period, and a bill came up before the House that Mr. Shirkey (R-Clarklake), in one of his first days on the job, opposed. He got up to give a floor speech and began ripping on his colleagues for supporting the bill, which if I recall passed easily despite his no vote. I don't recall the nature of the bill.

Several of those on the Senate Republican staff at the time had crowded around one of the televisions just off the Senate floor and were mocking Mr. Shirkey's diatribe against the bill, seeing it as astonishingly rude and impolitic for someone brand new to be tearing into their new colleagues so viscerally.

I mention this story because it has kept coming back to me each and every time – and there have been many times now – Mr. Shirkey has gotten caught telling people what he really thinks when he doesn't realize the whole world will later find out what he said. He was brash when at the microphone on the House floor in late 2010 as a freshman House member. So how much of a surprise are the things coming out of his mouth now when he is the most powerful elected Republican in the state when he thinks it's a private conversation?

Musing about challenging Governor Gretchen Whitmer to a fistfight on the Capitol lawn? Claiming the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was "staged" in some sort of deep state plot to make President Donald Trump look bad? Boasting that Republicans "spanked" Ms. Whitmer on a host of issues? Telling The New York Times he did not condone the attack on the Capitol but empathized with how the rioters felt?

It makes Mr. Shirkey's comments to the Hillsdale College Republicans in late 2019 about how Ms. Whitmer and legislative Democrats are on the "batshit crazy spectrum" seem mild by comparison.

Could anything have been more inevitable than Senate Republican staff releasing a prepared written statement from Mr. Shirkey with a quote attributed to him apologizing for his choice of words and not the sentiments? The answer is yes. The next day, the majority leader proved the statement clearly did not reflect his thinking when he told Lt. Governor Garlin Gilchrist II over a hot mic he did not take back the claims he made in the secretly recorded video posted by some Hillsdale Republicans.

The other 19 Republicans in the Michigan Senate have to decide whether Sen. Mike Shirkey remains their best option to continue serving as their majority leader in the wake of his latest example of getting caught saying what he really thinks.

By all indications, they already have, or at least 11 of them – the number it would take to vote to oust Mr. Shirkey as leader – already have.

My sources indicate there is no movement in the Senate Republican Caucus to oust Mr. Shirkey.

This is not surprising at all.

For as long as I have covered the Capitol, there have long been rumors of disenchantment with various speakers, majority leaders and minority leaders in the House and Senate within their caucuses. But never in my time here has anyone ever tried to mount an organized effort to replace them in the middle of the term. Most members of a caucus are content to follow and owe the leader gratitude for something – campaign support, a committee chair position, letting them sponsor certain bills, assuring their bills move through the chamber, etc.

And the leader already has vanquished any opposition once, as Mr. Shirkey did in 2018 when he and Sen. Jim Stamas (R-Midland) were vying to lead the Senate Republican Caucus. Mr. Shirkey moved into the stronger position to win the job and the two cut a deal where Mr. Shirkey would be leader and Mr. Stamas the Appropriations chair.

No Senate Republican has criticized Mr. Shirkey publicly for his recent actions. If anything, it feels like the caucus is circling the wagons.

The only way something might happen is if Mr. Shirkey's continued status as majority leader becomes a clear and present danger to the hammerlock Republicans have held on the Senate majority since taking control in early 1984. It would take a donor strike with the caucus's largest and most reliable donors closing their wallets to get the caucus's attention. Or there would have to be internal polling that showed Mr. Shirkey becoming a problem with voters for Senate Republican candidates, maybe someone like Sen. Jim Runestad (R-White Lake).

Otherwise, there's every reason to think Mr. Shirkey will remain majority leader through 2022. And it will be apparent that whatever he says between now and then – whether caught on tape or on a hot mic, appearing on Jackson radio programs or in a floor speech – that he speaks as much for the other 19 Republicans as himself.