Public Interest
The ‘bats t crazy’ jab, ‘religious freedom,’ attack ads and leaked recordings – this is the Mike Shirkey timeline
Updated on Feb 19, 2021;
Published on Feb 18, 2021
Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, R-Clark Lake, speaking during an event in downtown Grand Rapids on Monday, May 18, 2020.
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Mike Shirkey is becoming a household name, as Michigan’s Senate Majority Leader makes headlines with controversial comments about the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
A Republican from Jackson County, Shirkey has been in politics since 2010. He’s been a conservative voice in the area for decades, after starting a manufacturing business in the 1980s.
Barb Byrum had Mike Shirkey pegged early last decade, back when they worked in the same place. The Mike Shirkey I knew when I served in the Michigan House of Representatives was just as bad as the one we see today, the Democratic former legislator writes about the Senate majority leader. I called him vile in 2012 and that description continues to hold true. In a smash-face post Tuesday at Eclectablog, Byrum in her third term as Ingham County clerk rips Shirkey as the latest in a series of legislators and legislator-adjacent men who feel empowered by the boys club atmosphere of the Michigan Legislature to treat and talk to women however they please without consequence.
The state s Democrats say what is happening in Michigan is a warning to the rest of the country after the storming of its Capitol in Lansing pre-empted the U.S. Capitol riot.
After a video of Michigan Senator Majority Leader Mike Shirkey with the Hillsdale County Republican Party was posted on YouTube, the senator stands by his comments, but perhaps not his exact choice of words.