Help Block Candidate Over Crime, Dems Asked

Republicans are trying to put Democratic candidates for the Michigan House of Representatives on the hot seat over whether they will support allowing a fellow Democrat to take office in January even though he was involved in a 1993 armed robbery.

Democrats are furious, calling the move an election-eve stunt with thinly veiled racial overtones.

They have said voters, and not other politicians, should choose their next state representative.

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Johnson has no opponent for a seat that covers Hamtramck, Highland Park and a small portion of Detroit.

Anuzis cites language in the state Constitution that bars from the Legislature any person “who has within the preceding 20 years been convicted of a felony involving a breach of public trust.”

Johnson pleaded no contest to armed robbery and breaking and entering for his role in a 1993 armed robbery at the Oakland Hills Country Club in Bloomfield Township. Michigan law considers a no-contest plea to be a conviction, even though it not an admission of guilt.

House Speaker Craig DeRoche, R-Novi, has said he will not support allowing Johnson to assume office. The last time someone who won the November election was denied their House seat was in 1965.

In the letter, Anuzis writes, “I consider pointing a gun into the face of a Michigan resident and committing armed robbery to be a breach of the public trust.”

Johnson said he was present during the May 27, 1993, robbery of a cash box from the country club where he caddied, but that he did not pull the gun. He said he pleaded no contest only so he could own up to his role in the incident.

The police officer who led the investigation has disputed Johnson’s story, saying Johnson pulled the gun and ran to a waiting car.

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But Dan Farough, a spokesman for House Democrats, said Republicans are trying to pit Detroit against the rest of the state and divide blacks and whites because Johnson is black.

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Farough said Republicans are hypocritical in judging Johnson’s past, but not looking at incumbent House Republicans who have gotten into trouble with the law or ethics.

DeRoche has countered that Democrats have had their share of run-ins with the law, but Farough said Republicans should focus first on their own.

“It’s a despicable double standard,” he said.

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Johnson has said that he would not speculate about what would happen when the House convenes in January, but believes that voters have spoken, and he is ready to serve them.