[ [link removed] ]Elissa Slotkin for Congress
Team,
As I finish my first week running for Senate, I wanted to be sure to keep you updated on the tectonic shifts happening in Michigan politics — and how deeply connected they are to the elections we just had last November. In 2022, voters elected the first Democratic majority Michigan House and Senate in 40 years — and we’re already seeing results.
Today was a particularly historic day — with three major pieces of legislation advancing through the legislature. The first is a repeal of Michigan's 1931 abortion ban, which criminalizes abortion in almost all circumstances. Back in November, Michiganders overwhelmingly voted on a ballot initiative to enshrine reproductive freedom in our constitution. Today’s vote in the legislature brings us one step closer to doing away with the 1931 ban and ensuring our daughters have the same rights and freedoms that their mothers and grandmothers had.
The second is a repeal of Michigan’s “Right to Work” law. This is a huge win for organized labor. Michigan’s “Right to Work” law was passed back in 2012 and essentially states that employees don’t have to pay union dues in workplaces that are already unionized. Ultimately, this makes it a lot harder for workers to form unions and collectively bargain for better wages or working conditions. Michigan’s unions helped create the middle class, and now we’re building on that movement by protecting and expanding workers' rights.
Finally, the legislature also passed an expansion of the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act to include protections for LGBTQ Michiganders. This one is personal for me, and as we celebrate this win I can’t help but think of my mom. She came out in the 1980s in suburban Detroit — not an easy thing to do. She passed away in 2011, and while I miss her greatly, it makes me smile to think of how excited she would have been to see this progress.
These three pieces of legislation are in addition to the package of bills currently moving through the legislature to address gun violence in the wake of the tragedy at Michigan State. These are no-brainer proposals that the vast majority of Michiganders support like universal background checks, red flag laws, and safe storage requirements. I’m especially happy that the package includes the state version of a safe storage bill I wrote in Congress after the shooting at Oxford High School. All it does is require firearms be stored to prevent children from accessing them.
This is another example of what I’ve been saying for months: elections really matter. Michigan is quickly becoming the case study on not only how to elect Democrats up and down the ballot in a swing state, but on how to put a Democratic majority to good use with meaningful legislation.
As we move toward 2024, a year where our state will be a deciding factor in control of both the White House and the Senate, showing we can quickly deliver these wins is critical. I’ll be making that case to voters as I campaign in this unpredictable swing state — chip in below if you would like to help me show what Michigan Democrats are capable of.
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Elissa
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