Chad Selweski covered state and regional politics for The Macomb Daily for nearly 30 years. He contributes to Deadline Detroit and blogs at Politically Speaking.
By Chad Selweski
Like father, like son, like mother . . .
The sordid saga of the Conyers family took another turn in recent days as the son of former congressman John Conyers took a cue from his dad and engaged in election irregularities that knocked him off the ballot and ended the brief, bizarre bid by John Conyers III to succeed his father.
The elder Conyers, who resigned in disgrace last year due to a sex scandal, experienced a similar bouncing from the ballot in 2014 when election officials ruled that the longtime Detroit lawmaker had improperly used people who were not registered voters to collect signatures for his nominating petitions. But a federal court later intervened, placing Conyers back on the ballot, which allowed him to continue his path of a half century in office.
John Conyers, John Conyers III (top right), Ian Conyers (bottom).
In recent months, John Conyers III had followed a similar road to ruin by collecting boxes of invalid petition signatures from people who were not registered to vote in the 13th Congressional District where he was running. He did not receive a reprieve.
No one is saying this was election fraud but John III, who needed 1,000 valid petition signatures for the upcoming election, saw more than half of his submitted signatures thrown out last week by Wayne County election officials.
The added twist to this story is that Ian Conyers, the great nephew of John Conyers, who also has is eye on the vacant congressional seat, instigated the son’s removal from the ballot. Ian was the guy who filed a complaint challenging John III’s petitions.
Conyers Name Was A Big Plus
Unlike his second cousin, John III, who has no political experience, Ian is a relatively new state senator. After serving in the Obama presidential campaign in 2012 and engaging in Democratic Party involvement locally, Ian was elected to the Senate in 2016 at age 28, making him Michigan’s youngest state senator in history. Obviously, the Conyers surname helped secure his election victory.
The end result of the nominating petition debacle of recent days is that voters won’t see a Conyers vs. Conyers race to replace the elder Conyers. A nasty campaign was anticipated by all, but the electorate will be spared yet another chapter in the Conyers family political soap opera.
Still, this turn of events will not sit well with John III’s mother, Monica Conyers. Monica hoped her son would succeed her 88-year-old husband, and she apparently was livid when Ian crashed the party.
Perhaps this is a good time to review the Conyers family’s dirty laundry that has been flapping in the political breeze for many years.
Monica Conyers before she was fired from the station.
Voters will recall that Monica, former Detroit City Council president, was sentenced to three years in prison on bribery charges in 2009. After her release, she eventually hosted a local radio show until it was divulged that she had pilfered the station, including booking a luxury hotel room for $750 and scooping up a closet full of “swag” -- clothing and accessories used by the station’s corporate ownership for marketing purposes.
Another complaint from the boss who fired her was that Monica was loud and obnoxious, a trait that was also on display when she served on council. Several years ago, she got into a bar fight with another woman and the victim received a black eye.
Ian, watch out for that left hook -- it apparently packs quite a punch.
While on council, Monica was known for putting family members on the city payroll. In Washington, John’s staffers said he used them to run errands and babysit his sons.
Demanding Sex from Staffers
But demands didn’t end there. The congressman’s demise came when he was accused last year of pressuring women in his office for sex and punishing some who did not comply.
He used $25,000 from his congressional budget office to pay a settlement -- critics called it hush money -- to a staffer who said she was repeatedly sexually harassed by the boss. The woman said he once invited her to a hotel room, stood before her in his underwear and asked her to touch his genitals. He was nearly 80 years old at the time.
With 53 years under his belt, John was the dean of the House, a civil rights icon, but his legacy will forever tag him as the first victim in Congress of the #MeToo movement.
Meanwhile, John III had a fair amount of baggage before he stepped into the political arena earlier this year at the age of 27. He has described himself alternately as a rapper and the operator of a hedge fund, though evidence of either vocation is in short supply.
In 2010, he reported to Detroit police that two expensive laptops and $27,000 worth of concert tickets were stolen from the Cadillac Escalade he was driving. It turned out that the SUV was government-registered for his father’s use. While John denied this was a common occurrence, he reimbursed the U.S. Treasury $5,600 for his son’s unauthorized driving privileges.
Domestic Violence Case
More recently, in February 2017, John III was arrested on a domestic violence charge for allegedly battering his live-in girlfriend and slashing her with a knife. Prosecutors declined to press charges due to a lack of independent witnesses to the altercation, but a personal protection order barred him from interaction with the woman for several months.
That story did not become public until last December when, in a matter of about 24 hours, things turned ugly for John, John III and Monica as an outright family feud went public on the national stage.
With both House Speaker Paul Ryan and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi calling on John to quit due to the sex scandal – quite an unintended bipartisan feat for the congressman – he had privately decided to step down. But Ian jumped into the spotlight, telling The New York Times that his great uncle would be vacating his House seat at the end of his term and that John had urged him to run as his successor.
Monica angrily shot back with a tweet that said claims about her husband’s impending resignation were based on “rumor and innuendo.” That same morning, in a radio interview, John announced that he was, in fact, departing Congress immediately -- and endorsing John III as his successor.
Ian felt betrayed while John III, smarting over sudden national media coverage about his domestic abuse arrest, told the Times he did not ask for his father’s endorsement and was not sure he wanted to run for public office. Ian followed up by steering the press to several past social media posts by his second cousin that showed John III drinking while he was underage, including a photo of him with a bottle of champagne while sitting behind the wheel of a Cadillac.
At the time, Ian said the Conyers family must engage in “damage control” while he was trying to clear the way for his impending candidacy.
So, what Wayne County voters now face is one Conyers candidate -- not two -- trying to fend off a crowded Democratic field for the 13th District seat in the August primary election. In this heavily Democratic territory, which comprises a portion of Detroit and several close-in suburbs, the primary is everything -- the winner should breeze to election in November.
As for the newfound family standardbearer, Ian Conyers, he seems determined to prove that he is the good apple in the bunch. We will see if his congressional candidacy proves fruitful, or if the Conyers name is now tainted.
Perhaps his campaign slogan should be: “Ian, the best Conyers Detroit has to offer.”
