By Brenda Ortega
MEA Voice Editor

Democracy relies on active-duty armed forces to be guided by a non-partisan ethos. For that reason Elissa Slotkin remained apolitical across her high-level career in national security and three tours of duty in Iraq alongside the U.S. military.

She served under presidents from both parties: in the National Security Council under George W. Bush and as an acting Assistant Secretary of Defense under Barack Obama.

But like others with accomplished military and public service records who would later step up to run for public office – including educators in Michigan and elsewhere – Slotkin says her focus shifted as a civilian deciding how to respond after Donald Trump assumed the presidency.

“I remember watching in outrage as my then-congressman smiled and celebrated, right next to Donald Trump, as they attempted to overturn the Affordable Care Act,” Slotkin says now. “Their behavior – ignoring constituents and voting against their interests – was what we (in national security forces) call a dereliction of duty, and it’s a fireable offense.

“So I ran against that congressman and won. We fired him and flipped a battleground House district from red to blue.”

In 2018 Slotkin ousted incumbent Rep. Mike Bishop from the 7th District U.S. House seat by appealing to voters as a commonsense, straight-talking, patriotic American who possessed a clear vision for the future and the experience, empathy, smarts and grit to get things done.

Now a third-term Congresswoman representing a district stretching from Lansing to East Lansing, Brighton and Howell – which mirrors the state as a whole in its mixed partisan makeup – Slotkin seeks to replace long-serving Debbie Stabenow who is stepping down from the U.S. Senate.

“I’m running to ensure everybody has the opportunity to live the middle-class life in the state that invented the middle class,” Slotkin says. “I’m running to preserve our rights and our democracy – so that our kids can live their version of the American Dream.”

Stabenow will retire in January after a long career in elected offices – from Ingham County to both houses in Congress – as the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate and the first woman from Michigan ever elected to the upper chamber in 2000. She has endorsed Slotkin in the statewide race.

Stabenow says it’s not enough to be the first if there’s not a second and third, so she’s excited to pass the torch to Slotkin who is “grounded in the communities she represents,” knows how to be an effective legislator, and dedicated to making a better life for families in her district.

“Elissa understands the skills you need in the Senate – not just to give speeches – but to actually get things done,” Stabenow said in her endorsement. “From her leadership on the House Agriculture Committee during Farm Bill negotiations to securing millions of dollars for affordable child care, I’ve seen her in action.

“I’ve seen firsthand how engaged, accessible and present she is across her district.”

Slotkin has garnered endorsements from more than 200 community leaders and elected officials in Michigan and from labor unions representing 600,000 Michiganders, including by MEA’s Statewide Screening & Recommending committee – a diverse group of members from across the state.

“Throughout her time in Congress, Elissa Slotkin has been an amazing advocate for everyday teachers, school support staff and higher education employees across Michigan,” MEA President Chandra Madafferi said.

“Educators, parents and students need a champion on their side, and that’s why the MEA is proud to recommend Elissa Slotkin for the U.S. Senate.”

Public education builds the future for our young people, state and nation, Slotkin said in a Zoom interview. “Most people understand that public schools and access to good education is a key to the middle class.

“It’s how people go from struggling and living hand-to-mouth to secure jobs and lives.”

Knowing the vital role schools play in their communities, she supports fully funding special education and last year fought back against Republicans’ effort in Congress to gut 80% of Title I funding for schools in high-poverty neighborhoods.

“There is no more central institution to our communities than our public schools,” she said. “They are the glue within a community that brings people together and unifies them.”

Slotkin groups educators with nurses, doctors, firefighters, police officers, and first responders as “the professions that keep society going.” To address workforce shortages in those areas, she wants to work with state partners to fund free college for those who sign a continuing service agreement.

“In the military, if you’re going to be an officer and you get into one of the academies, everything is free if you agree to five years of service after you graduate. And if you don’t complete it, then you owe a pro-rated amount of money back. I want to do something like that for teaching in Michigan.”

For many in the education world, Slotkin emerged as a public face of outrage over gun violence in schools when she became the first member of Congress to have two deadly school shootings in her district – at Oxford High in late 2021 and Michigan State University in early 2023.

At news conferences in the immediate aftermaths, Slotkin spoke powerfully of the devastation those communities experienced. She has since made commonsense gun safety legislation a cornerstone of her campaign – at times against political advice, she said.

“How sick is it that I was having to call parents who had one child at Oxford High School and another child at MSU—sometimes the same child as a senior and then a freshman—and what’s more universal than wanting to protect our kids?”

Slotkin met with Oxford students in the weeks after a 15-year-old classmate used a gun bought for him by his parents to kill four students and injure others. The survivors described feeling stressed, jittery, agitated, and hyper-aware of surroundings, she said—all signs of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

“It was exactly the reaction I had after coming home from a tour in Iraq, and I had to give those 14- and 15-year-olds the PTSD talk that was given to me as a CIA officer coming out of a war zone: ‘Your brain has been temporarily rewired because of trauma, because of that intense fear.

“‘Your decision-making abilities are terrible right now, so make no big decisions for six months, OK?’ I didn’t plan on it, but I gave them that talk.”

Slotkin introduced legislation to require safe storage of firearms in homes with children and won bipartisan passage in the House. She also supported gun laws requiring universal background checks and extreme risk protection orders.

Growing up on her family’s farm in Holly, Slotkin learned to shoot guns. In Iraq, she carried a Glock and M4 semi-automatic. But she and most Americans refuse to accept that gun violence has become the number-one killer of children in the U.S.

Protecting kids, responsible gun ownership—those shouldn’t be political or divisive, she said.

“The number-one killer of children when I was growing up was car accidents because no one wore seat belts. What did we do? We passed federal legislation mandating seat belts and car seats. We changed regulations for the car industry. It was controversial at the time, but it’s no longer the number-one killer of children.”

A tireless campaigner, Slotkin carries a resonant message of restoring Michigan-based manufacturing, creating middle-class jobs, supporting labor rights, and tackling costs of health care, prescription drugs, housing, post-secondary education, and child care.

She has always admired educators, but her respect deepened witnessing their work on the front-lines of COVID-19 while coping with their own personal lives and dealing with angry, misguided people directing vitriol at schools amid the crisis.

At MEA’s Summer Conference in Grand Rapids in July, Slotkin shared her appreciation. “You are at the crossroads of so many societal issues going on right now, and I want to thank you,” she told members at an MEA-PAC event. “Thank you for protecting children in more ways than I can count.”

MEA member Andrea Jegier, president of the South Haven Education Association, attended the event to hear Slotkin and other candidates speak and to grab a yard sign along with inspiration to keep fighting the good fight.

“I donate to MEA-PAC, and I sit on a lot of screening and recommendations in my county,” Jegier said. “This is such an important election, and we need friends of education in office from the school board up. I want everybody to vote for Elissa Slotkin.”

Among the most-watched U.S. Senate races this year, the Michigan matchup – which could determine control of the chamber – is a tossup. And Slotkin notes that a familiar figure hopes to influence the outcome.

Betsy DeVos and her extended family of wealthy GOP donors are some of the top supporters of Slotkin’s opponent, Mike Rogers, a former Congressman endorsed by Donald Trump, according to campaign finance reports.

Trump’s former U.S. Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos has maxed out campaign contributions to Rogers, who supported DeVos’s voucher scheme to funnel public money to private religious schools. The voucher plan has twice failed to get past voters in ballot initiatives she bankrolled.

In recent months, DeVos has been making campaign appearances with Rogers.

“As Michiganders know, for decades the DeVos family’s #1 issue has been weakening Michigan’s, and the country’s, public education system,” a Slotkin campaign mailer warned. “Betsy DeVos used Michigan as her petri dish before becoming Trump’s Secretary of Education…

“Betsy DeVos is now back – and willing to serve in a second Trump administration. So what does that mean? As if there weren’t a million reasons to defeat Donald Trump, there’s now one more: keeping Betsy DeVos out of any role of prominence in Washington, D.C.”

A third-generation Michigander, Slotkin takes pride in the family business her great-grandfather built, Hygrade Foods, a company that created iconic Ballpark Franks and she says instilled in her the values of integrity, decency and hard work as she grew up.

After earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Cornell and Columbia universities, Slotkin embarked on a career path she chose at a turning point in American history, which she explained in a speech on Aug. 22 at the final night of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

“My life in service began in New York City on September 11th,” she said in a self-introduction before convention delegates from across the country. “As the smoke cleared, I knew my future career would be spent protecting the country we all love.”

Slotkin told cheering delegates – and a national audience watching on television and online – to choose Kamala Harris as the next Commander-in-Chief whose vision “is based on the values that took us to the shores of Normandy and helped us win the Cold War.”

In contrast, she said, Donald Trump admires autocratic leaders around the world and “treats our friends as adversaries and our adversaries as friends.”

America should lead not just with a strong military but by working with allies to solve global challenges, she added. “Vice President Harris understands our strength abroad is inextricably linked to our strength here at home: our schools, a strong middle class, the health of our democracy.”

Slotkin urged the crowd to proudly claim their patriotism.

“You are here because you love your country. Do not give an inch to pretenders who wrap themselves in the flag but spit in the face of freedoms it represents! This November let’s elect a president who will lean forward to embrace the future.”