August 10: Senator Paul Stanley's TNGA career will hit political climax (again)

[doeriver]

Paul Stanley to resign state Senate seat amid intern sex scandal
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2009/jul/28/paul-stanley-resign-state-senate-seat-amid-intern-/

By Richard Locker and Ryan Poe, Memphis Commercial Appeal
Originally published 05:08 p.m., July 28, 2009
Updated 07:42 p.m., July 28, 2009



Senator Paul Stanley

NASHVILLE — Asking the forgiveness of his constituents and his wife, and a week to the hour after news first broke of his affair with a young legislative intern, state Sen. Paul Stanley announced this evening that he is resigning from the Tennessee legislature on Aug. 10.

“I hope people will forgive me for what I have done. I want them to stay engaged in the process because I feel it’s important. To Kristi: Honey, I apologize. I have asked for her forgiveness and she has forgiven me,” Stanley told listeners of Ben Ferguson’s evening news-talk show on Memphis radio WREC-AM.

“It’s difficult for us. My marriage may be a consequence of this but I have got to use this in my life as something to move forward with and to create a better life.”

The Germantown Republican delivered his resignation in a three-sentence letter to Senate Speaker and Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, who forwarded it to Gov. Phil Bredesen to call a special primary and election this fall. Voters in Senate District 31 — a large swath of Germantown, Cordova, Bartlett and southeast Memphis — will elect a successor for the remainder of Stanley’s term, until the November 2010 general election. At that time, they will elect a senator to a full four-year term.

Stanley, 47, served three two-year terms in the House, from 2000 to 2006, before winning the Senate seat three years ago.

He wrote in his letter to Ramsey, “Due to recent events, I have decided to focus my full attention on my family and resign my Senate seat effective August 10, 2009…. Respectfully yours, Paul Stanley.”

The resignation came on the day his only Senate Republican colleague from Shelby County, Majority Leader Mark Norris of Collierville, issued a statement urging Stanley to resign for the good of his East Shelby district. On Monday, Shelby County GOP Chairman Lang Wiseman was the first Republican leader to call for him to step down.

But Stanley made it clear that his decision was jointly made by him and his wife of 11 years, Kristi Pruitt Stanley, who returned to Memphis late Monday from an out-of-state business trip. They have two young children.

“I just want to emphasize in this unfortunate incident that I want to apologize and ask for the forgiveness of my constituents,” he said in an interview with The Commercial Appeal after the radio appearance.

“What I did today I did in the best interest of my family. I thought I should stay and finish my commitment to my constituents, but I had to do this in the best interests of my family.”

The senator acknowledged mistakes, but made little direct mention of what he called a “frenzy” swirling around him over his involvement with McKensie Morrison, 22, an Austin Peay State University junior who worked as an intern in his Senate committee office from January through mid-April.

...(more at hyperlink)

Senator Paul Stanley shown working with constiuents advocating emergency siren legislation.

Can we now expect Senator Mike Faulk to resign from the TNGA Senate, as well? And when will the Tennessee news media get around to interviewing McKensie Morrison's imprisoned husband (or ex-husband) and get his reaction to the Swinging Senator Stanely's affair with Randy Mueller's (ex)wife?:

....

Meanwhile, more details of Morrison’s life emerged. She spent her middle and high school, and junior college, years in the Port Orange, Fla., area with her mother and brother before returning to her father’s home in Dickson, Tenn., in 2006.

In May 2005, the same month she graduated with honors and as student body president from Spruce Creek High School in Port Orange, she was arrested in nearby Daytona Beach Shores for possession of crack cocaine and drug paraphernalia. Those charges were later dropped by prosecutors.

According to a Daytona Beach Shores Department of Public Safety affidavit, police officers responding to a sick-person call on May 26, 2005, found Morrison, then 18, at an apartment with a sick Randy Mueller, whom she was about to marry.

Morrison seemed “excited and fidgety” and was asked to leave, the police report said. When an officer who followed her outside asked for her identification, Morrison told the officer she was a “former crack cocaine user” and reached into her backpack, revealing a red box that she hurried to conceal, the officer’s report said.

Upon further investigation, the officer found cocaine and a white tissue inside the box , and a screwdriver with burned residue, two crack pipes and a loose piece of a copper scouring pad which can be used as a filter in pipes, in the backpack.

Morrison was taken to the local jail, where she was charged, but prosecutors later dismissed all charges against her.

Mueller and Morrison were married a few weeks later. But in another few weeks, Mueller was charged with beating a 75-year-old man with a hammer after Mueller and Morrison said he made sexual advances on her. Mueller, who filed for divorce from Morrison last month, is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence in Florida after his conviction on the beating charges, according to court records.

GOPer Senator Paul Stanley's resignation letter
http://media.commercialappeal.com/mca/content/static/Microsoft_Word_-_resignation_letter.pdf