Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer Charts a ‘Pragmatic-Progressive’ Course

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer Charts a ‘Pragmatic-Progressive’ Course

Democrats, led by Whitmer, are in control for the first time in 40 years. They have been fast-tracking their priorities, including expanded background checks for gun purchases and repeal of an abortion ban.

www.wsj.com

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer Charts a ‘Pragmatic-Progressive’ Course​

Democrats, led by Whitmer, are in control for the first time in 40 years​

By Ben Kesling

| Photographs by Emily Elconin for The Wall Street Journal
May 27, 2023 at 9:00 am ET

LANSING, Mich.—Gretchen Whitmer spent years toiling as a state legislator in the minority party. Now that the second-term governor is atop a government controlled by fellow Democrats, she is a woman in a hurry.

For the first time in four decades, Michigan Democrats have a “trifecta”—control of the governorship and majorities in the state’s House and Senate—as well as a Democratic attorney general and secretary of state. With the Republicans sidelined, Democrats have been fast-tracking their priorities, including repeal of a right-to-work law, expanded background checks for gun purchases, civil-rights protections for the LGBT community and repeal of an abortion ban.

“The way they’re doing policy is they expect to have the trifecta for two years and that’s it, they’re just rammin’ and jammin’ whatever they can through,” said Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt, a Republican.

Whitmer and Democratic leaders said they are building support for future elections. Issues like abortion and guns, considered so polarizing in the U.S., can be harnessed and made into successful policy and politics, they said.

Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt, a Republican, says Democrats are pushing through whatever they can with their majorities in Michigan.
“Things that were considered third-rail issues 10 years ago, like gun-safety measures, are now mainstream,” Whitmer said.

“If you look at what we’ve been able to accomplish, these are things that we talked about on the trail that the people of Michigan expected us to do, and we are delivering,” she said.

Some Democrats say Whitmer is doing what many others in the party have tried, but failed to do: pursue a long-held version of a progressive goal but not in a way that’s likely to provoke a backlash. “I would call it a pragmatic-progressive route,” said David Axelrod, a longtime Democratic political consultant.

Expanding abortion rights represents one of those goals. After the U.S. Supreme Court struck down federal abortion-rights protections last year, Michigan Democrats sought to get rid of a 1931 antiabortion law. They steered clear of culture-war arguments and framed abortion access in terms of healthcare, women’s rights and sound economic policy that would attract businesses to the state.

“It finally allowed us to have a nuanced conversation with people,” said Democratic state Sen. Mallory McMorrow.

Supporters reacted as preliminary results came in for Michigan Proposal 3, a measure to end a 1931 antiabortion law, last year. Photo: Ryan Sun/Ann Arbor News/Associated Press
McMorrow said Whitmer is able to connect with constituents to have those conversations.

“Something that can’t be overstated about her is she seems very normal,” McMorrow said. “She has a weird Michigan accent, she talks about the craft beer she likes.”

Whitmer, 51 years old, was born into Michigan politics. Her father served as a Republican state official and her mother as a Democratic state official. After earning her undergraduate and law degrees from Michigan State University, she began her political career working for Democrats in the state House, where the representatives were split evenly. That first experience, she said, shaped her view of the need for comity in politics.

 

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“I’m always striving to make a seat at the table for people who don’t have the same vantage point or experience, or necessarily the same agenda as I do,” she said. “I don’t pick fights, but I also don’t shy away from them.”

She was elected to the state House in 2000, then won a seat in the state Senate in 2006 and served there until 2015. It was a period of GOP dominance.

Whitmer won the governorship in 2018. She handled the Covid-19 pandemic with bipartisan support at first, but as she extended lockdowns she lost the backing of some, faced criticism from the right and was confronted by armed protesters gathered in the state’s Capitol.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer greeted participants at a reproductive-rights discussion in Detroit last year.
In 2020, she was picked to deliver the Democrats’ response to then-President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address and became an early supporter of then-candidate Joe Biden (she was named a co-chair of his re-election committee in April). Later that year, she was the target of a foiled kidnapping plotby right-wing extremists, something she said made plain to voters the stakes of the 2022 Michigan election.

That election was also shaped by a redistricting effort first undertaken the year before, considered by political scientists to have reduced gerrymandering in the state. The Democrats took a one-seat majority in the House and a two-seat majority in the Senate for the term that began in January. Whitmer bested her GOP opponent by a double-digit margin.

And with that first trifecta in the state since 1984, the party pounced to introduce Democratic priorities, passing a number of measures.

House Minority Leader Matt Hall predicted the focus on social issues wouldn’t pay off in the long run.

“They’re going to overreach and put the GOP back in power in the House,” he said.

Democratic priorities have bipartisan support among voters, according to some polling, and some of Whitmer’s legislation has passed with some Republican support, but in the legislature many votes have been along party lines, especially in the state Senate.

Michigan House lawmakers gather on the floor of the state Capitol in Lansing, Mich., this month.
Whitmer is focusing on effectiveness as well as specific issues, her Democratic colleagues said.

“We want to show that Democrats can govern,” said House Speaker Joe Tate. He said Democrats have backed economic legislation like an earned-income tax credit and cuts to retirement taxes.

Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said Democrats are seeking to make the machinery of government run better, including measures like boosting budgets for the department that regulates motor vehicles and licensing. Before taking office, Benson wrote a book on how secretaries of state from any political persuasion can make objective improvements to state government.

Benson said, “What the trifecta means is now I can propose solutions to challenges that just simply are about making government go smoothly and efficiently, and I have people who will listen as opposed to just shut the door because they aren’t interested in supporting anything that could be seen as supporting a Democrat.”

Nesbitt and the Democrats might not agree on much, but they do acknowledge that Michigan remains a purple state. Nesbitt said that he expects the trifecta won’t last very long but that Whitmer will try to make the most of the time it lasts.

“It’s a one-seat majority,” Whitmer said of the state House. “It’s important to live your values, to show the voters you are going to do what you said you were going to do when you were campaigning and earned their support for office. But also to be pragmatic.”

 

[Secure Da Bag]

So Minnesota vs Michigan?

 

[Pressure]

So Minnesota vs Michigan?

Not sure they’re doing much differently tbh.

Most progressive initiatives have support across party lines but republicans refuse to do what is popular, largely because their constituents won’t penalize them for it.