Michigan
District 8
Rep. Mike Rogers (R)
Michigan 8th District
Rep. Mike Rogers (R)
Lansing is Michigan’s state capital, chosen in 1847 because of its geographic position halfway between Lake Huron and Lake Michigan—and away from the border with Canada and the threat of invasion by British forces. The only drawback was fewer days with sunshine than anyplace else in the state. But it is a tidy and pleasant city with more than its share of amenities. It has a beautifully restored Capitol and a fine state history museum and is neighbor to Michigan State University in East Lansing, started in 1855 as America’s first land-grant college. Its Oldsmobile plant stimulated growth in the first half of the 20th century, and state government did the same in the second half. GM closed its Olds line in 2004, but two new highly efficient GM assembly plants have been constructed in the Lansing area, and the Oldsmobile name remains alive at two local museums and at the baseball stadium where the Lansing Lugnuts play. Historically, the Lansing area voted Republican, up through the 1960s. But as public employee unions have grown in membership and strength, Lansing, like some other state capitals, has become heavily Democratic, as is university-influenced East Lansing.
2008 Presidential Vote |
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| Obama | 198,206 | (53%) |
| McCain | 172,344 | (46%) |
| Cook Partisan Voting Index R+ 2 | ||
Just east of Lansing’s Ingham County is quite another part of Michigan, Livingston County (most of the counties in these parts were named for members of President Andrew Jackson’s Cabinet: Livingston was secretary of State and Ingham secretary of the Treasury). Forty years ago, Livingston County was mostly rural, known mainly for its many lakes. But over the years, thousands of Detroit-area residents have driven out Interstate 96 to Brighton and Howell, and other Livingston townships and subdivisions, schools and shopping malls have sprouted up. Most of these people are conservatives, happy to leave the urban problems of Detroit behind, angry at high taxes, annoyed by government regulations, and hewing to traditional religious faiths. They have made Livingston Michigan’s fastest-growing county—its population rose 59% from 1990 to 2007—and one of its most Republican. Meanwhile, Lansing’s population has been slowly declining, and local leaders have begun to explore a merger with East Lansing. In 1970, Livingston had 58,000 people to Ingham’s 261,000; in 2007, Livingston had 183,000 to Ingham’s 279,000. So as Ingham has grown more Democratic, Livingston has been casting bigger Republican margins as a counterbalance to Ingham’s Democratic margins. In the presidential election of 2004, 93,000 people voted in Livingston and gave George W. Bush a 25,000-vote margin. By comparison, 133,000 voted in Ingham and gave John Kerry a 22,000 vote-margin. In the 2008 election, Barack Obama won in Ingham by 48,000 votes, with 66% of the vote, and lost to John McCain in Livingston by 13,000 votes, getting 42% of the vote.
The 8th Congressional District of Michigan includes all of Ingham and Livingston Counties, Shiawassee County south of Owosso, plus Clinton County, directly north of Lansing. It also takes in the partisan battleground of northern Oakland County.
Michigan District 8
Rep. Mike Rogers (R)
Elected: 2000, 5th term.
Born: June 2, 1963, Livingston Cnty. .
Home: Brighton.
Education: Adrian Col., B.A. 1985.
Religion: Methodist.
Family: Divorced; 2 children.
Military career: Army, 1985-88.
Elected office: MI Senate, 1995-2000, Maj. floor ldr., 1999-2000.
Professional Career: Co-founder, E.B.I. Builders, 1985; FBI spec. agent, 1988-94.
The congressman from the 8th District is Mike Rogers, a Republican first elected in 2000. (He is one of two Republican Mike Rogers in the House; the other one is from Alabama.) He grew up in Brighton, in Livingston County, and graduated from Adrian College in southeastern Michigan. He was commissioned by the ROTC as commander of an Army rapid-deployment unit. He graduated from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s academy and focused on public corruption cases as an FBI special agent in Chicago for six years. In 1994, he returned to Michigan, started a home-construction business and was elected to the state Senate, where in 1999 he became majority floor leader. In 2000, when Democrat Debbie Stabenow gave up the 8th District seat to run successfully for the Senate, Rogers and Democrat Dianne Byrum, a fellow state senator, both ran for the seat. Each candidate raised about $2 million, and it turned out to be the closest race in the country that year. It took six weeks to count the final tally, and Rogers won by 111 votes.
| Election Results: | ||||
| 2008 General | ||||
| Mike Rogers (R) | 204,408 | (57%) | ($1,565,888) | |
| Robert Alexander (D) | 145,491 | (40%) | ($214,282) | |
| 2008 Primary | ||||
| Mike Rogers (R) | Unopposed | |||
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Prior Winning Percentages: 2006 (55%), 2004 (61%), 2002 (68%), 2000 (49%) |
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Rogers has described his political philosophy as a version of “compassionate conservatism,” with a bit more conservatism on cultural issues than on the economy. With his military, law enforcement and legislative backgrounds, Rogers made an impression on colleagues with his sound advice in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. He provided expertise on the high-technology tools used to track terrorists and on the use of wiretaps, and he urged that airport screeners have federal supervision.
He has been an activist member of the Energy and Commerce Committee. Citing the fact that only a few hundred gas stations nationwide have the requisite equipment, he won bipartisan House approval in 2006 of a bill to help independent businesses purchase equipment for ethanol gas pumps. The House also passed his bill to eliminate state food-safety warnings that are stronger than comparable federal warnings. He sponsored a bill to give Michigan more authority to limit its flow of trash from other states and Canada. “We love our Canadian neighbors. We love their trade. But you don’t throw your trash in your neighbor’s yard,” he said when the House passed the bill in April 2007.
His energetic legislating has made Rogers popular among House Republicans, though Rep. Thaddeus McCotter in the adjacent 11th District was first to make it into the leadership, as chairman of the Republican Policy Committee. With his significant fundraising skills, Rogers has been tapped by Republican leaders for prime assignments in contested races. He positioned himself to run for House Republican whip in 2006, but Missouri’s Roy Blunt did not relinquish the post. He showed his mettle in May 2007 when he stood up to a threat by the powerful Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat and former Marine. On the floor, Rogers challenged a $23-million earmark for Murtha’s congressional district, but failed. Rogers maintains that Murtha came over to him afterward and said, loudly: “I hope you don’t have any earmarks in the defense appropriations bill, because they are gone, and you will not get any earmarks now and forever.” Rogers replied (according to Rogers): “Is that supposed to make me afraid of you?” Republicans tried to officially reprimand Murtha, and although that effort was tabled, Murtha apologized. In 2008, Rogers also battled John Dingell, the most powerful member of the Michigan delegation, to stop a proposed casino in Port Huron near the Canadian border. Dingell favored settling a land claim by an Indian tribe that could allow it to operate a casino far from its reservation, but Rogers argued that the move would violate a 2004 statewide referendum to restrict expansions of casino gambling.
At home, Rogers has won re-election without major problems, but not by the huge margins that many incumbents enjoy. In 2006, he won 55%-43% against Royal Oak Deputy City Attorney Jim Marcinkowski, a former CIA agent. In the difficult climate for Republicans in 2008, Rogers was re-elected with 57% of the vote against East Lansing progressive activist Bob Alexander. Rogers lost Lansing’s Ingham County by 11,500 votes, but he won Republican Livingston County by 37,757. Political insiders in Michigan have speculated that he might make a strong statewide candidate, though the recent climate has not been hospitable for Republicans.
