Civil Lawsuit Launched Against the Michigan Mad Hatters Fake Tea Party

The Detroit Free Press: Suit aims to bar candidates from Mark Steffek’s Tea Party

Mark Steffek, the Mad Hatter of the Democrat party's fake Tea Party may be about to feel a little judicially inspired discovery uncovering the links between the Michigan Democrats and their convenient Fake Tea party.

A group of tea party activists and Republican candidates filed a lawsuit today seeking to keep candidates from what they claim is a phony Tea Party from appearing on the Michigan ballot in November.

The complaint, filed with the Michigan Court of Appeals, seeks to bar candidates from the Tea Party formed by Mark Steffek, a retired UAW worker from the Saginaw area, for a variety of alleged violations of state elections law.

And a Criminal investigation will hopefully be moving forward as well:

Oakland County Clerk Ruth Johnson said today she believes as many as three of the Tea Party candidate affidavits notarized by the former [Michigan Democratic Party] official, Jason Bauer, contain forged signatures. Johnson said representatives of her office met with investigators from the Oakland County Sheriff’s Department today.

You know its embarrasingly bad when even the Detroit Free (Democrat) Press calls for the shenanigans to be investigated: Time to get to the bottom of the Tea Party scam

There are campaign dirty tricks, and then there are perversions of the electoral process that cry out for some authoritative response and criminal consequences.

The flap over an allegedly fake slate of Tea Party candidates, intended to siphon votes from Republicans this fall, is looking more and more like the latter. It's time for the Oakland County prosecutor and the state attorney general to get involved, and get to the bottom of this affair.

What we know so far casts real doubt on the sincerity of this Tea Party exercise. The principals behind it have been exposed as Democrats with union ties. They were all put on the ballot in very competitive districts where votes for them would hurt Republican hopefuls. And last week, a Democratic operative in Oakland County was accused of fraudulently notarizing affidavits for a dozen of the candidates on the ballot. That in itself is a crime worth prosecuting.

But it's also worth finding out how deep and wide this planned diversion goes. Who bankrolled it? Did state party higher-ups know about it, encourage it or aid in the high jinks?

My bet, the rot goes far beyond the operations manager. I doubt he personally funded the signature gathering process and did all the fillings. Indeed the players are a plethora of Democrat party names as discussed by Lagniappe's Keeper -

[The "Michigan Tea Party's"] attorney/"election specialist" just happens to be Mike Hodge. Hodge was legal counsel to former Democratic Gov. James Blanchard and has worked regularly since then for the state Democratic Party. Also, the outfit that he used to circulate the petitions turns out to be Progressive Campaign, Inc., a George-Soros-financed firm that works almost exclusively on behalf of leftist organizations and the Democrat Party.

Hopefully the investigations both civil, criminal and the one in the media all vigorously proceed and all the details of this blatant attempt to steal Michigan's 2010 Election for the Democrats comes to light.