Electing someone who won't give up their existing office

[jimrtex]

A bit late, but someone was elected, who refused to give up an existing office, and was seated.

John Conyers, Jr. resigned in December 2017. Governor Snyder called the special election to fill the vacancy for November 2018, concurrent with the general election to elect a representative for the full term.

In the September 2018 Democratic primary, Rashida Tlaib won the nomination for the full term; while Brenda Jones won the nomination for the final two months of Conyers term. The difference in the plurality result was that the full term had two additional candidates, including State Senator Coleman Young II, son of longtime (20 years) former Detroit mayor Coleman Young.

Jones was elected to the short term in November. She is currently a member of the Detroit City Council, and refused to resign to become representative. She agreed to not take her pay as a city council member, and the city council has a year-end recess. After some delay, she was sworn in as representative. One of her first actions was to hire Conyers' chief of staff.

If she would have been a Michigan legislator, she would have had to resign, but the bar does not apply to other government officials. There apparently were no congressional precedents - probably because there have been few term fill-ins.