By Zachary Gorchow
President of Michigan Operations
Posted: September 30, 2015 1:34 PM

When a former member of the Legislature dies, the House, Senate, or both depending on where the legislator served, will approve a glowing memorial resolution and send it to the surviving members of the lawmaker’s family. The flag above the Capitol is lowered to half-staff.

It is a solemn occasion. The members of the House and Senate will stand in a standing vote to cast their votes for the resolution instead of a voice or recorded vote.

But in the past year and a half, two former legislators – one expelled by the House, the other who resigned just before the Senate was to vote on expelling him – did not receive the usual tributes upon their deaths.

Former Rep. Monte Geralds, whom the House expelled in 1978 after being convicted of a felony, died in April 2014 at the age of 79.

Usually, when a former legislator dies, it becomes widely known publicly because of the lowering of the flag above the Capitol and the subsequent memorial resolution. We only recently became aware of his death after former Rep. Marie Donigan, who represented roughly the same area as Mr. Geralds did during her tenure from 2005-10, sent a message to let us know amid all the news about the expulsion of former Rep. Cindy Gamrat and resignation prior to certain expulsion of former Rep. Todd Courser.

A few days after Ms. Donigan contacted us about Mr. Geralds, former Sen. Henry Stallings died. Mr. Stallings resigned in 1998 minutes before the Senate was to vote on expulsion following his conviction on a felony charge and generally troubled tenure.

Governor Rick Snyder ordered the flags lowered in the Capitol Complex in memory of Mr. Stallings, which triggered a few raised eyebrows in the Gongwer offices given the circumstances under which Mr. Stallings resigned from the Senate. But the executive order Mr. Snyder issued in 2013 on flag honors makes clear that flags will be lowered in the Capitol Complex for one day upon the death of a former member of the Legislature. There is no provision enabling the bypass of lowering the flags.

I contacted Amber McCann, the spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof (R-West Olive) to see if the Senate would undertake the usual memorial rituals for a deceased former member, and the answer was no. Ms. McCann said the circumstances of Mr. Stallings’ departure from the Senate had led to that decision.

So then I began to wonder about the House and Mr. Geralds. Was the House aware that he had died in 2014? Unlike Mr. Stallings’ death, there was no notable news coverage of Mr. Geralds’ passing, and while Mr. Stallings had served more recently and stayed in the public eye a bit with several subsequent failed bids for office, Mr. Geralds was almost 40 years removed from his time in Michigan politics.

House Clerk Gary Randall said, yes, the House was aware that Mr. Geralds had died and decided not to adopt the usual memorial resolution and perform the usual tributes because he had been expelled.

Mr. Randall said he was not aware of the House having bypassed the usual memorial for a former member in the past although he thought possibly it might have happened once for a member who resigned just before an expulsion vote. He said he approaches such situations similar to an honorable discharge or dishonorable discharge from the military. And that goes for those members who resign with expulsion imminent, he said.

The only time I can remember angst about a memorial resolution was for former Rep. Richard Friske, who served one term in 1971-72 and died in 2002. Mr. Friske, when he ran for office, had proclaimed he was a World War II veteran. What Mr. Friske failed to mention was that he was a veteran of the German armed forces and served with the Luftwaffe, the Nazi air force.

When Mr. Randall read the memorial tribute in the House, murmurs spread across the floor when he got to the part about Mr. Friske serving in the German air force in World War II. I can remember a couple members, unfortunately who they were is lost to memory, looking at each other stunned, saying, “Doesn’t that make him a Nazi?” Several members did not stand to support the resolution.

The difference there, Mr. Randall said, is Mr. Friske by all accounts served his office well, left the House fully of his own accord (he ran for the U.S. House in 1972 and lost) and never was under any kind of expulsion threat.

Mr. Randall said he is considering suggesting a more formalized process to handle such situations, given that decades from now, those running the House might benefit given the loss of institutional memory.