Son of former Detroit mayor will run for Conyers’s House seat

The son of former Detroit Mayor Coleman Young will run for the House seat vacated when longtime Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) resigned amid sexual harassment allegations. 

Coleman Young II, a Michigan state senator whose late father was Detroit’s first black mayor, will make his official campaign announcement on Monday, a spokesman told The Associated Press. 

Conyers endorsed his eldest son John Conyers III for the seat upon announcing his resignation this week. The congressman’s son has never held or run for public office.

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The Young campaign said the former mayor’s son is “battle-tested” and ready after losing in a bid for Detroit mayor.

“He is battle-tested. This mayoral race has prepared him,” campaign spokesman Adolph Mongo told The Associated Press of Young. Mongo said the state senator “knows the issues” of the district and that “he’s been campaigning for 10 months on the issues.”

Mongo added that Young would run in the Aug. 7, 2018, Democratic primary. Gov. Rick Snyder (R) called for a special election for the seat on Nov. 6, 2018.

Conyers’s son said he has not yet decided whether or not to run for his father’s old seat, while the longtime congressman’s grandnephew, state senator Ian Conyers, has said he would run for the seat. 

Conyers, 88, resigned on Tuesday amid mounting pressure from fellow Democratic lawmakers after sexual harassment allegations were levied against the congressman, though he and his son have insisted on his innocence and said the resignation would not tarnish his legacy.

– This report was updated at 3:45 p.m. EST