Former Gamrat, Courser aides sue for wrongful termination

LANSING - Tonight, the GOP Speaker of the House is speaking out for the first time on a legal suit suggesting the Michigan House violated the constitutional rights of two former employees who worked for former lawmakers Cindy Gamrat and Todd Courser.

Former lawmakers Gamrat and Courser fired two of their employees because they were incompetent, but now the employees are suing the Michigan house on wrongful termination and constitutional rights violations.

Democrats are accusing the GOP Speaker of trying to cover up his role in all this but he is philosophical about the whistleblower law suit in federal court.

“It happens time to time, anyone can sue anyone for anything. So the mere fact that the law suit was filed does not mean that there are any claims of merit,” said Rep. Kevin Cotter (R-House Speaker).

Fox 2: Is there any merit?

Rep. Cotter: “Ah. No.”

The GOP chair of the committee that looked into the behavior of the two former lawmakers, he believes the former employees, who believe they did nothing wrong, are not trust worthy.

“It’s interesting to see liars to come out with more lies about other liars,” said Rep. Ed McBroom (R-Committee Chair).

Fox 2: These two have no credibility?

Rep. McBroom: “Precious little.”

This house democrat thinks the GOP speaker should have acted quicker to address the alleged misuse of taxpayers’ dollars.

“Yeah even more so to protect the reputation of the body, maybe there could have been an action to these legislators early on to try to stop what they were doing and maybe the actions were taken by the speaker but we don’t know it because it was swept under the rug,” said Rep. Jeff Irwin (D-Ann Arbor).

The speaker says he'll continue to review the law suit and work on his legislative agenda at the same time.