Democrat Gretchen Whitmer 1st to File for Michigan Governor

Democrat Gretchen Whitmer, a former state Senate minority leader, is the first candidate to officially file paperwork with the state to set up an election committee and begin fundraising efforts. Whitmer served in the Legislature from 2001 to 2014, first as a state representative and then as a senator. She was the Democratic leader for the upper chamber from 2011-2014.

In an email message to supporters, the East Lansing lawyer said current leaders in Michigan have been “content to manage our decline.”

“We went from leading the nation to lagging,” she wrote. “If we want change, we can’t wait for Washington to solve our problems. And we can’t elect the same old politicians, on the same old platforms and expect a different result. We can do better. We deserve better.”

In a Facebook post, she said Michigan leaders “haven’t been straight with the people” and have “politicized our problems instead of fixing them.”

“We deserve better,” she wrote. “We deserve a leader who will put people first, and work for good-paying jobs, high quality education, and economic opportunities for all. A leader who will never cut corners when it comes to people’s health and safety. A leader who will fight for us.”

Whitmer is the first major party candidate to the file papers to replace current Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, who is prohibited by state law from running again. Whitmer could face opposition for the Democratic nomination from U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, a Democrat from Flint Township who has been exploring the possibility of a run for governor and is expected to make a decision in the coming months.

Potential Republican candidates include Lt. Gov Brian Calley, of Portland, and Attorney General Bill Schuette, of Midland.

Whitmer most recently worked as interim Ingham County prosecutor, an appointment made by the the 30th Judicial Circuit Court after longtime prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III resigned under the cloud of a prostitution scandal. Dunnings pleaded guilty to a felony misconduct in office charge and a single misdemeanor count of soliciting a prostitute and was later sentenced to a year in jail.

Whitmer’s six-month stint as interim prosecutor ended last week. She wrote in a year-end report:

“It has been a great challenge, to go from writing our state’s laws to enforcing them. I am moving on, hopeful that I have helped to restore the public’s trust in this important office.”

In a statement, Michigan Republican Party Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel accused Whitmer of using the job as a platform to launch her bid for higher office.

“If we needed further evidence that career politician Gretchen Whitmer’s brief stint in the Ingham County Prosecutor’s office was anything more than an attempt to grab a headline, here it is. Whitmer didn’t even wait a week after leaving her temp job to file for Governor.

“Gretchen Whitmer would be a disastrous return to the unsuccessful policies of the Granholm era where jobs and families were fleeing our state and unemployment skyrocketed. Whitmer, a staunch Granholm ally while in the legislature, would be a step backward for our state. Michigan is looking forward to a brighter future and Gretchen Whitmer would be a flashback to the failed past.”

Michigan’s unemployment rate hit a high of 14.9 percent in 2009, two years before the end of Granholm’s second term as governor. The jobless rate has steadily decreased under the Snyder administration and stood at 4.9 percent at the end of November, an increase from 4.7 percent the month prior.

The midterm elections, where voters tend to vote against the party in the White House, could provide an opening for a Democratic candidate.

“But nothing is guaranteed,” Susan Demas, editor of Inside Michigan Politics, told The Detroit News. “Certainly Democrats have had a really tough run here, and it’s really a huge test to see if they can compete statewide, because that’s really in question at this point.”

Known as a skilled and impassioned orator, she argued against Michigan’s right-to-work legislation signed into law by Snyder in 2011. Whitmer successfully fought against a religious exemption in an anti-bullying proposal that she argued would have allowed discrimination of gay students. The provision was removed before final passage.

In 2013, she made national headlines when she said on the Senate floor that she had been raped two decades earlier as a college student. She made the disclosure during debate on an abortion insurance law, which bans third-party coverage of abortions and requires women to buy a rider for their health insurance plans if they want abortion coverage. The law, which took effect in 2014, applies even when an unwanted pregnancy is a result of rape or incest

“Thank God I didn’t get pregnant as a result of my own attack,” Whitmer said in impassioned opposition to the legislation, “but I can’t even begin to imagine now having to think about the same thing happening to my own daughters.”

Photo via Gretchen Whitmer public Facebook page