Michigan lawmaker will ask state Senate to condemn 'attempted coup'

Lansing — Democratic state Sen. Adam Hollier plans to ask his colleagues to condemn violence that took place at the U.S. Capitol and false claims about the November election during the first meeting of Michigan's 2021 session on Wednesday.

The Detroit lawmaker, who's known for working across the aisle, said the state can't move forward if officials are "still litigating" whether President-elect Joe Biden won the election. Biden beat President Donald Trump in Michigan 51%-48% or by 154,000 votes, but some of Trump's supporters have continued to raise unsubstantiated doubts about the result.

Legislators need to come together to boost the economy and combat the COVID-19 pandemic, Hollier said in a Monday interview.

“It is hard to believe that we can agree on any of those things if we can’t agree that what happened at the nation’s Capitol was unacceptable," he said.

Last week, thousands of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol as Congress convened to count the electoral votes. Federal lawmakers evacuated their chambers. The insurrection led to five deaths, arrests, FBI inquiries and calls for the president to be removed from office.

Hollier's upcoming resolution asks leaders across the country to "unite to denounce the terror brought to our Capitol and move the country forward peacefully." According to a draft, the resolution also asks the Senate to condemn "the attempted coup to overturn the 2020 presidential election at the U.S. Capitol and state emphatically that there is no place for further undermining the 2020 November election with baseless conspiracy theories."

The Detroit legislator plans to introduce the resolution on Wednesday, the first day the Michigan House and Senate will meet this year. Republicans who control the Senate will have to decide whether to approve it. Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, R-Clarklake "absolutely condemns violence," his spokeswoman Amber McCann said Monday.

"He looks forward to reviewing the language of Sen. Hollier's resolution," she said of Shirkey.

The GOP Senate leader has previously said that investigating the 2020 election will be a priority this year. But he's also said lawmakers "have not discovered anything yet" that would make him support overturning the result.

Hollier represents a city that's been at the center of unproven claims of fraud focused on the Nov. 3 election. The TCF Center, where absentee ballots were counted in Detroit, has been the subject of lawsuits and scrutiny from supporters of the president. Among other claims about Detroit, Trump has falsely said more ballots were cast in Detroit than there are voters. Turnout in the city was 51%.

"It is impossible to trust somebody who doesn’t believe that Joe Biden won this election. Because he did," said Hollier, who was at TCF Center on the day after Election Day as ballots were still being counted there.

Eleven Republicans who serve in the Michigan Senate signed a letter last week asking Congress to pursue "every available option and procedure to examine the credible allegations of election-related concerns surrounding fraud and irregularities."

cmauger@detroitnews.com