On Tuesday evening, Republican-turned-independent Rep. Justin Amash announced that he was forming an exploratory committee to run for president as a member of the Libertarian Party. Michigan doesn’t allow candidates to run for president and for Congress at the same time, and Amash soon confirmed that he was giving up his seat in the Grand Rapids area. Amash, who left the GOP last summer, also said that he’d be informing the House clerk that he’s now a Libertarian, which would give the party its first-ever member of Congress.
The Libertarian Party is scheduled to award its presidential nomination in late May, so Amash will soon know if he’ll be its standard bearer. However, he does have a backup option if delegates reject him: While Michigan’s filing deadline for major party candidates is May 8, everyone else has until July 16 to turn in their paperwork.
For now, though, we have an open seat race in an area that’s been friendly to the GOP for a long time. Gerald Ford himself represented Grand Rapids for decades, and the current 3rd District went from 53-46 Romney to 52-42 Trump. However, Democrats may still have an opening if 2020 turns out to be a favorable year. 2018 GOP gubernatorial nominee Bill Schuette took the seat by a very slim 48.6-48.2 margin while he was losing statewide 53-44, while GOP Senate nominee John James carried the district by a modest 51-47 that same year while he was going down 52-46.
Several candidates were already running against Amash, and while the deadline to run in the August primary isn’t until next month, it’s unlikely the field will expand. Congressional candidates need to turn in 1,200 valid signatures to make the ballot this year, and social distancing makes that task especially difficult. The main GOP candidates are Army veteran and wealthy businessman Peter Meijer and state Rep. Lynn Afendoulis, while attorney Hillary Scholten has the Democratic side to herself.
Amash’s decision to leave Congress will mark the end of a 10-year career defined by fights with GOP leaders. Amash first ran for the House in 2010 as a first-term state representative who had already established a reputation for libertarian principles: Notably, Amash was the only state lawmaker to oppose 59 different bills, and he posted explanations for each negative vote on his Facebook page. Amash was one of several Republicans to campaign to succeed retiring Rep. Vern Ehlers, and he earned the support of the anti-tax Club for Growth and local conservative powerplayers Dick and Besty DeVos. Amash won the primary 40-26, and he had no trouble in November.
Amash brought to D.C. his habit of voting no on any bills that didn’t pass his personal purity test, as well as a reputation for being difficult to work with. In late 2012, Amash was one of three GOP House members who were removed from their committees for, as one unnamed member put it, being “the most egregious a—holes” in the caucus. Amash refused to vote for John Bohner in the following year’s speakership election, and he opposed him again two years later. Amash had more success with the GOP’s emerging tea party wing, though, and he was one of the founding members of the nihilist House Freedom Caucus.
Amash’s establishment enemies backed wealthy businessman Brian Ellis in the 2014 primary in what turned into an expensive and nasty race. Ellis attempted to portray Amash as weak on abortion issues and even labeled him “Al Qaeda's best friend in Congress,” while the Club for Growth spent heavily to defend the incumbent. Amash won 57-43, though, and he was never again seriously threatened.
Amash’s final break with the GOP came from his frustration with Donald Trump. Amash was the rare Republican who never fell into line with the administration, and he openly started musing about a third-party or independent presidential bid in March of last year.
Two months later, Amash took to social media and wrote that, after reading the Mueller Report he believed that Trump “has engaged in impeachable conduct.” That attracted a typically belligerent response from Trump, and a number of candidates soon entered the GOP primary against Amash as his old allies almost all abandoned him. Amash announced in July that he was leaving the GOP to become an independent, and he voted to impeach Trump at the end of last year.
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