LEAPing into new congressional campaigns: your guide to Michigan Politics – MLive.com

If you’re reading this newsletter Sunday morning, with any luck I’ll still be asleep in my tent at Fisherman’s Island State Park, where my fiancée and I escaped for a weekend getaway.

And like me, the legislature has departed Lansing for a break back in their districts. They left Gov. Gretchen Whitmer with a fat stack of potential statutory language to review, between a freshly-passed budget and other bills.

She’s already signed legislation into law that bans child marriage, made Juneteenth an official state holiday and a package of sexual assault protections Democrats say were additional necessary reforms responding to Larry Nassar’s crimes, but there’s more to review.

Read more: From teacher unions to cocktails to-go: new Michigan laws pending Whitmer’s signature

And in a surprise move, MLive learned the Governor would make a significant reorganization to state government, taking oversight of pre-kindergarden and university education away from the state’s education department, which is governed by an elected board.

Amid a larger shuffle, she established the Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement, and Potential (MiLEAP) to handle those duties along with career readiness programs.

The response from two Democrats on the State Board of Education at their department’s shrinkage? Tepid at best.

If you didn’t catch it last Sunday, my colleague Jordyn Hermani’s dispatch from Montmorency County should be on your reading list today. MLive first visited the rural Northern Michigan county in July 2016 to hear from residents about their ardent for then-candidate Donald Trump.

Hermani and photographer Kaytie Boomer returned recently to get a read on how the relationship with the ex-President has evolved in the intervening years.

While support around the three-time candidate has calcified, they also found a community that’s far wearier of politics than it was in 2016.

“Look what everyone’s been through over the last 10 years,” Jennifer Holmes, a dispensary manager, told them. “Now, everything’s different. Everybody wants to say that you’re supposed to speak your mind and you’re supposed to have your own opinions. But you can’t, because you’re immediately shut down.”

Dive in: In the Michigan county where Trump was once king, the relationship is growing complicated

Despite facing multiple indictments and having losing reelection in 2020, Trump remains the frontrunner in his party’s primary, and Republicans in Michigan’s congressional delegation demonstrated just how tight Trump’s grip remains.

Read: Every Michigan Republican in Congress endorses Trump for 2024

With the legislature on break and away from Lansing, a couple of key Michigan races for Congress came into clearer view this week as two former colleagues in the Michigan Senate announced competing campaigns for Congress within 24 hours of each other.

Democrat Curtis Hertel, Jr. and Republican Tom Barrett are both vying to replace U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin in a Mid-Michigan district encompassing Lansing and its hinterland, along with a fringe of Metro Detroit.

It’s more than a year before the primary and other candidates could certainly enter the race. Hertel, however, picked up Slotkin’s endorsement moments after his announcement.

Slotkin, who is vacating the seat for a run at U.S. Senate, confirmed she’ll have some new primary competition this week after actor Hill Harper launched his long-simmering campaign for Congress’ upper chamber.

Harper is the sixth candidate to enter the crowded Democratic primary, but the most prominent name after Slotkin. Harper, an actor know for his roles in “CSI:NY” and “The Good Doctor” moved to Detroit in 2017.

What’s Harper revealed of his platform thus far firmly establishes himself as a progressive, a potential complication for Slotkin, a relative moderate who repeatedly won election to the U.S. House running in purple districts.

Harper touts his connection to former President Barack Obama – he served on a cancer panel for the former president, who reportedly won’t be offering a primary endorsement – told MLive he aims to offer a message that can bring together Michiganders throughout the state.

The interview: Actor Hill Harper, running for U.S. Senate, believes he can unite Michigan

While praising some longtime elected Democrats in the state, Harper also made some subtle digs at, well, other politicians he’ll be facing.

“I believe our government should work for the people, be a force for good and protect our freedoms,” he said in his campaign announcement. “That won’t happen if we keep electing the same type of people to office.”

Update: The longstanding voting machine investigation is at a crossroads. An Oakland County judge this week cleared what appears to be the last hurdle before a decision can be made on whether nine individuals should face criminal charges for allegedly seizing and tampering with ballot tabulators.

It’s not clear if a decision is imminent or what the timeline will be for the years-long inquiry to move forward. Appointed prosecutor DJ Hilson has offered little public information about the investigation’s status. A grand jury was empaneled to consider the charges.

In local politics Up North, Traverse City was pulled into the culture wars this week after one salon owner’s incendiary Facebook post told transgender patrons to seek hairstyling not just at another salon but at a “pet groomer.”

It’s not so clear that a business could just turn away a person because of their gender identity alone, however. A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision cleared the way for companies offering creative services to refuse to produce work that conflicts with their beliefs, but legal experts expressed some skepticism to MLive about whether that interpretation could extend to a haircut.

“We don’t believe that she falls under that exemption,” Jay Kaplan, an attorney at the ACLU of Michigan said. “That applies to (careers) like speech writers or muralists, where they’re conveying a certain message with their product. Very few customers are going to come to somebody who says, ‘no, I don’t care what (haircut) you want.’ That’s not the way she’d operate.”

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