Former Michigan GOP leader asks appeals court to overturn her impeachment
Lansing – Kristina Karamo is asking the state appeals court to intervene and reinstate her as chair of the Michigan Republican Party, less than a month before the Republican convention and less than five months before the November presidential election.
Karamo’s attorney, Daniel Hartman, formally asked the appeals court to review Karamo’s case and filed a motion to expedite the proceedings on Sunday.
“Please help right this injustice by reversing it,” Hartman wrote.
Former U.S. Representative Pete Hoekstra has been at the helm of Michigan’s Republican Party since February 27, when Kent County District Court Judge J. Joseph Rossi ruled during a January 6 session that Karamo had been properly removed as Republican Party chair.
The new court documents suggest that the internal feud that has gripped the swing state party has not yet been fully resolved before the Republican convention, which begins in Milwaukee on July 16. At the convention, Donald Trump, who supports Hoekstra for chairman, is expected to be officially nominated for president.
Hartman cited the Republican National Convention as well as the upcoming primaries and general elections in his court filing on Sunday.
“Judge Rossi’s ruling must be vacated and the permanent injunction lifted, and that must happen soon given all the planned events on the near-term calendar,” Hartman wrote.
Michigan Republicans elected Karamo, a political outsider from Oak Park who ran unsuccessfully for secretary of state in 2022, as party chair in February 2023. But her time in office has been marked by fundraising difficulties — the party had about $35,000 in its bank accounts in August — and bitter internal disagreements.
“Some top donors have decided to stop funding the party,” Hartman wrote in one of his Sunday documents.
Karamo’s opponents collected petitions to call a special meeting of the party’s state committee, which was held on January 6, and members present voted 40 to 5 to remove the chairwoman.
They later elected Hoekstra as the new chairman.
However, Karamo and her allies argued that the January 6 meeting was illegitimate and inconsistent with party charter because not enough state committee members attended. Karamo held her own meeting on January 13, where members who wanted to attend that version voted 59-1 to keep her as chair.
Rossi ultimately ruled that there were enough votes to remove Karamo at the party’s special state committee meeting on Jan. 6 and that the Michigan GOP’s bylaws allowed the committee’s decision.
Karamo now hopes that the appeals court will overturn Rossi’s decisions.
In his submissions, Hartman argued that it was unconstitutional for courts to intervene in intra-party disputes and that Rossi had misinterpreted the statutes.
Rossi presented his decision to the “majority of the Michigan Republican State Committee and turned an intra-party dispute into pure chaos,” Hartman added.
Dino’s Famous Chicken spices up its menu with new Greek-inspired chicken tacos
9 scenes from the book “American Psycho” that didn’t appear in the film
Matt Berninger admits Taylor Swift fans are ‘confused’ at national shows
About The Author
