(Photo) Elizabeth Creekmore Byrd Affair. Leisha Pickering Want Divorce

Republicans seem to be in a race with each other in proving their infidelity. So you wonder who is it this time.

Well the wife is seeking a divorce and letting the cat out of the bag in the process.

The estranged wife of Chip Pickering claims in a lawsuit that the Mississippi Republican had an affair that ruined their marriage and derailed his political career.

Leisha Pickering seeks unspecified damages in the alienation of affection lawsuit she filed this week against Elizabeth Creekmore Byrd of Jackson. The Pickerings filed for divorce in June 2008, but the divorce is not complete.

The lawsuit says Chip Pickering and Creekmore Byrd dated in college, reconnected and began having an affair while Pickering was in Congress and living in a Christian building for lawmakers on C Street, near the U.S. Capitol.

Pickering, 45, was elected to Congress in 1996, retired in January and is now a lobbyist in Washington for Cellular South, the company Byrd’s family owns. The lawsuit does not say when the affair started.

He said in a statement Thursday that his marriage is irreparably damaged and he will not comment further.

What do you think about it? Where exactly is the morality of the whole country going. People seem to have become numb to these kind of cases now.

Chip Pickering:

Charles “Chip” Willis Pickering, Jr. (born August 10, 1963) is a politician in the U.S. state of Mississippi. He represented Mississippi’s 3rd congressional district as a Republican in the United States House of Representatives.

In mid-August 2007, Pickering announced that he would not seek re-election in 2008 due to insufficient attention to his family. Pickering was considered a top Republican contender if U.S. Senator Trent Lott had retired in 2006, and was waiting a decision by Senator Thad Cochran to make his re-election plans clear in 2008; it is widely suspected that Pickering’s decision to leave Congress reflected Cochran’s decision to run for re-election.

When Trent Lott announced his resignation as Senator from Mississippi, Pickering was rumored to be the likely appointee of Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour to replace him. However, in December, Pickering announced that he was not interested in the post, and fellow Republican Congressman Roger Wicker, of Mississippi’s 1st congressional district, was appointed to Lott’s seat.