Lansing — A Downriver state legislator says she will not return to the state Capitol until comments made by a fellow Republican lawmaker about her daughter’s death are addressed.
State Rep. Jamie Thompson’s refusal to return to session comes after recordings were shared Tuesday in which Republican state Rep. Jim DeSana can be heard accusing Thompson of having a “victim mentality,” referencing, in part, Thompson’s public statements about her 24-year-old daughter’s death in 2021.
“She tells that story all the time,” DeSana, R-Carleton, said in the recording. “It’s this whole victim mentality. This is why I don’t want to have anything to do with her. I will run my race in my district. I’m not going to endorse her, support her. I am not doing something to help her. And, honestly, if she has a primary opponent, I’ll probably endorse her primary opponent.”
In the recordings, pulled from a March 1 Zoom call between DeSana and leaders of the Monroe County Republican Party, DeSana can also be heard calling his House colleagues “swamp rats” and “scumbags.”
Thompson, who was not at House session on Wednesday, told The Detroit News she wants to see DeSana removed from the Republican caucus and stripped of his committee assignments “for defamation of a colleague’s deceased child.” She said she would work in her Downriver district and not in Lansing “until his words are addressed.”
“His ignorance should not be tolerated by the Republican Party,” Thompson said, “a party that professes to support the dignity of life.”
DeSana said Wednesday that Thompson’s daughter’s death was “tragically sad,” but he also maintained, in relation to Thompson, that “it’s no secret that we don’t get along at all.”
In a written statement, DeSana claimed Thompson had a “vendetta against me from day one” and said the two have had run-ins in the past on a variety of party and caucus matters.
“Rep. Thompson blames me for all of her problems,” DeSana said.
DeSana’s comments, which exposed years of tension between DeSana and Thompson, have left the Republican caucus unsettled over what was said against its own members.
On Wednesday, all of the female Republican lawmakers could be seen abruptly leaving the House floor for a period of time. And House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, was later seen beckoning DeSana off the floor. DeSana eventually returned to the floor to vote on legislation.
Hall did not return a message seeking comment.
Todd Gillman, former chairman of the Monroe County Republican Party, recorded the March 1 Zoom call with DeSana and sent clips of it to Thompson on Tuesday, a day before sharing them with The Detroit News. Gillman resigned as the county party chair last month.
Gillman said he was worried about the emotional toll the recordings would take on Thompson, but felt it was important to make her aware of what DeSana had said.
“It was just a bunch of vile garbage,” Gillman said of the DeSana’s statements in the call.
Thompson has shared her daughter’s story publicly before, including from the House floor in support of a resolution recognizing February as Teen Dating Violence Awareness month.
Her daughter, Thompson has said, was a teenage mom who had three children with an abusive boyfriend before finding the courage to leave him, “only to step into another relationship with another abuser.”
That boyfriend, Thompson said, took her daughter, then 24, on a motorcycle ride in June 2021 and, out of jealousy, “drove recklessly with her on the back of the bike.” The motorcycle crashed and both were killed, Thompson has said.
The Southgate News Herald reported in 2021 that the motorcycle was traveling at a high speed in the early hours of June 24, 2021 and was believed to have lost control and hit a pothole.
DeSana’s reference to the daughter’s crash on the March 1 Zoom call came a few days after The Detroit News reported Thompson had used donor money to pay her son more than $24,000 in consulting fees, with some paid even after he was charged with domestic violence. Thompson said Wednesday her son’s charges have since been dismissed; Wayne County Circuit Court records were not immediately accessible Wednesday night.
DeSana organized the March 1 Zoom call with Monroe County Republican leadership to discuss the article and complaints he had in relation to Thompson, Gillman said. The call lasted for more than an hour, he said.
In parts of the call reviewed by The Detroit News, DeSana detailed longstanding issues he’s had with Thompson, including past party and caucus squabbles; her and GOP state Rep. Rylee Linting’s criticism of work project cuts that Republican House appropriations members made in December; and what he described as “drama” related to Thompson’s family.
DeSana referenced other Thompson family issues that were shared with the caucus before turning to the story of Thompson’s daughter, noting the daughter had her first child as a teenager and was with another boyfriend at the time of the crash.
At that point, Holli Vallade, then vice chair for the party, could be heard interrupting DeSana: “I just don’t like the idea of us, you know, discussing the details of decisions that her daughter might have made in her life in her early 20s. I just don’t think that’s relevant to the situation with Jamie.”
In a statement Wednesday to The News, DeSana said the point he was trying to argue during that conversation was that the crash “was not a result of domestic violence.” But Thompson has maintained the crash occurred when her daughter’s boyfriend drove recklessly in a fit of jealousy.
In other parts of the March 1 conversation, DeSana said he views “almost every one of my fellow state reps as a scumbag.”
And, in another clip, DeSana referenced lobbyist spending on lawmakers and the fact that he had “a big zero” when it came to the amount spent on him by lobbyists.
“These people stay in Lansing, they drink with the lobbyists, they eat with the lobbyists,” DeSana said. “They are swamp rats to the Nth degree.
“They even date each other,” DeSana added, noting the Republican caucus alone had three couples dating. “It’s pretty disgusting, actually.”
eleblanc@detroitnews.com
Staff Writer Craig Mauger contributed.
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: GOP lawmaker slams colleague’s ‘victim mentality,’ calls others ‘scumbags’
Reporting by Beth LeBlanc, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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By Beth LeBlanc, The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
