Debbie Stabenow

Debbie Stabenow

Deborah Ann "Debbie" Stabenow née Greer (born April 29, 1950) is a Democratic United States Senator from Michigan.

In the 2000 election, Stabenow defeated the Republican incumbent, Senator Spencer Abraham. She is the first female U.S. Senator from Michigan. She and Washington's Maria Cantwell were the first women to defeat incumbent elected Senators in a general election, Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois having done so in a primary in 1992. Stabenow was re-elected in 2006.

Stabenow was born in Gladwin, Michigan, to Anna Merle Hallmark and Robert Lee Greer. She grew up in Clare, Michigan, where her father and grandfather owned an auto dealership. She graduated from Clare High School. She received a B.A. from Michigan State University in 1972, a M.S.W. magna cum laude from Michigan State University in 1975, and an honorary doctorate degree from Grand Valley State University in 2008.

While in graduate school, Stabenow won her first election, to the Ingham County Board of Commissioners, a position in which she served from 1975 to 1978. She has also worked as a social worker, and a leadership training consultant. She served in the Michigan House of Representatives from 1979 to 1990, where she became the first woman to preside over the House. She also served in the Michigan Senate from 1991 to 1994. In 1994, she made an unsuccessful primary run for Governor of Michigan, after which she was chosen as nominee Congressman Howard Wolpe's running mate, but lost to the incumbent ticket of John Engler and Conie Binsfield.

She was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1996 from Michigan's 8th congressional district and served two terms. She did not seek reelection to the House of Representatives in 2000, but was elected to the U.S. Senate. Stabenow was considered the underdog for much of the Senate race, but rallied in the final weeks of the campaign to unseat Spencer Abraham by a narrow margin. Matthew R. Abel of the Green Party placed third, followed by four other candidates. Abraham's wife Jane was rumored to be a Republican candidate for Stabenow's seat in the 2006 election, but opted out of the race.

Stabenow was a leader in the passage of the one of the first laws in the U.S. that required all Michigan children to ride in car seats until age five. She authored a domestic violence law which increased criminal penalties for those committing domestic violence offences. Republican members of the State legislature nicknamed her "D-Stabs" around this time. She was the first woman to preside over the House.

In the Michigan Senate, Stabenow was a leader in the passage of bills including Michigan's property tax cuts and school funding reform, small business reforms, and legislation to protect families and children in the state.

Stabenow is currently a member of the Finance Committee, along with the Budget Committee and the Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee. Previously, she also served on the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee and the Special Committee on Aging.

Stabenow is only the second person from Michigan to have served in both houses of the Michigan State Legislature and in both houses of the United States Congress. The first was Thomas W. Ferry. Stabenow is also the first person to have served as a Michigan state legislator to be popularly elected to the U.S. Senate (until enactment of the Seventeenth amendment to the United States Constitution in 1913, U.S. Senators were selected by the state legislature). No former Michigan state legislator had served in the U.S. Senate since 1894, when Francis B. Stockbridge died.

Stabenow introduced S. 2986 in 2002 attempting to move forward a land claims settlement with the Bay Mills Indian Community (Brimley, Michigan) and allow the tribe to develop a casino off-reservation almost 350 miles (560 km) away in Port Huron, Michigan. In 1996, the Bay Mills Indians made claims to lands in Michigan including more than 100 acres (0.40 km2) in the "Charlotte Beach" area on Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The claims were rejected by both state and federal court at the time on administrative grounds and have never been officially heard or validated. Nevertheless, then Michigan Governor John Engler, a Republican, entered into a settlement agreement with the Tribe in which the Tribe would agree to extinguish claims to the Charlotte Beach lands in exchange for the right to build a casino in Port Huron. The tribe has two casinos already. Michigan casino syndicators Marian Ilitch and Michael J. Malik, Sr. are bankrolling the tribe's pursuits. According to records on file with the Federal Election Commission, Ilitch Family members and Malik contributed more than $117,200 toward Stabenow's 2006 re-election — significantly more than they gave to any other federal candidate in either the 2004 or 2006 federal election cycles. Neither Ilitch or Malik contributed to Stabenow's previous campaigns. There have been no allegations of wrongdoing on the part of the Senator and the casino in question has not been built or authorized.

During the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, Stabenow was the first Senator to author legislation that would waive all transportation fees to Americans trapped in Lebanon, so that their deportation back to America would not cost them.

Stabenow became the third-ranking Democrat in the U.S. Senate on November 16, 2004, when she was elected by her colleagues to be secretary of the Democratic caucus. As caucus secretary, she assisted Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to set the Democrats' agenda and priorities. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) was elected Minority Whip, the Democrats' second-ranking spot. In November 2006, Majority Leader Harry Reid announced that Stabenow would leave the caucus secretary position to succeed Hillary Rodham Clinton as chair of the Democratic Steering and Outreach Committee, charged with "engag Democratic Senators and community leaders across the country in an active dialogue".

Stabenow faced her first re-election in the 2006 election. There were three Republicans who declared their candidacy: Reverend Keith Butler, a former Detroit City Councilman; Dr. Jerry Zandstra, a former director at the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty; and Michael Bouchard, the Oakland County sheriff and former state Senate majority leader. Jerry Zandstra failed to be placed on the ballot, due to insufficient certified petition signatures. Michael Bouchard won the Republican primary but was defeated by Stabenow in the general election. Stabenow received 57 percent of the vote while Bouchard received 41 percent.

Stabenow has expressed support in regulating talk radio via a measure like the Fairness Doctrine. On February 5, 2009, she stated "I think it’s absolutely time to pass a standard. Now, whether it’s called the Fairness Standard, whether it’s called something else — I absolutely think it’s time to be bringing accountability to the airwaves." Her support for these measures has been met with concerns about a conflict of interest, given that the primary target is conservative talk radio and that her current husband, Tom Athans, has been an executive at a number of liberal progressive talk radio networks.

Being a supporter of environmental issues, she authored the first law to ban drilling in the Great Lakes.

On August 31, 2006 Stabenow, along with Senator Carl Levin and Rep. John Dingell, announced an agreement that would completely cease Ontario's dumping of solid waste in Michigan within four years. This issue has been a crucial issue in Michigan for the past several years. Previously in the Senate, Stabenow wrote legislation intended to reduce the dumping of Canadian trash into Michigan by requiring machines to search trash being dumped across the border. More recently, she unanimously passed a law requiring the payment of $420 inspection fee for every truckload of Canadian trash being brought into Michigan.

Stabenow was first married to Dennis Stabenow; the couple divorced in 1990. They have two children, Michelle and Todd.

She belongs to the Grace United Methodist Church.

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United States Senate election in Michigan, 2006

The Michigan United States Senate election of 2006 was held on November 7, 2006. Freshman Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow was re-elected to a second term over Republican Michael Bouchard.

The filing deadline for major parties was May 16, 2006; the primary was on August 8, 2006.

Jerry Zandstra - a minister and conservative activist; Zandstra's Campaign Website. He was campaigning for the Republican nomination, but failed to meet the petition requirements to get on the primary ballot.

The following results are official.

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Howard Wolpe

Howard Eliot Wolpe, III (born November 2, 1939) is a politician from the U.S. State of Michigan who served in the United States House of Representatives as a Democrat representing Michigan's 3rd congressional district from 1979 to 1993.

Born in Los Angeles, California, Wolpe was an associate professor at Western Michigan University and a Kalamazoo City Commissioner before serving in the Michigan House of Representatives from 1973 to 1976. He first ran for Congress in 1976 but lost to Garry Brown. In 1978 he was elected to the 96th Congress and was re-elected six times. In Congress, Howard Wolpe chaired the Subcommittee on Africa of the House Foreign Affairs Committee for 10 years. He also chaired the Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee. His other roles in the Congress included the co-chairmanship of the bipartisan Northeast-Midwest Congressional Coalition and the Congressional Energy and Environmental Study Conference.

In 1994, he won the Democratic nomination for Governor of Michigan and selected his former rival in the Democratic primary, state senator Debbie Stabenow (now a US Senator), as his nominee for Lieutenant Governor. The Wolpe-Stabenow ticket lost the general election to incumbent Governor John Engler and Lieutenant Governor Connie Binsfeld.

He later served as President Bill Clinton's Special Envoy to the Great Lakes Region of Africa, where he led the United States delegation to the Arusha peace talks, which aimed to end civil war in the war-torn nation of Burundi.

He is currently the Director of the Africa Program and the Project on Building State Capacity at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, part of the Smithsonian Institution, where he leads capacity-building efforts in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Liberia. He is an endorser of the Genocide Intervention Network.

Howard Wolpe lives near Washington, D.C..

His wife, Judith Wolpe, drowned in a swimming accident in Guatemala on June 16, 2006.

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Dick Chrysler

Richard "Dick" Chrysler (born April 29, 1942) is a politician from the U.S. state of Michigan.

Chrysler was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and graduated from Brighton High School in Brighton, Michigan. He became vice-president of Hurst Performance and the founder and president of Cars and Concepts (which bought out Hurst), and RCI.

In 1986, he campaigned for governor of Michigan as a Repbulican, but lost a hard fought primary to Wayne County Executive, William Lucas.

Chrysler lost in his first campaign for the United States House of Representatives in 1992 to Bob Carr. He was elected in 1994 as a Republican from Michigan's 8th congressional district to the 104th Congress, serving from January 3, 1995 to January 3, 1997. While in Congress, he worked on the issue of changing the income tax to a flat tax, but was unsuccessful. He was defeated by Democrat Debbie Stabenow in the 1996 election for the 105th Congress.

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