The congressman from the 12th District is Sander Levin, a Democrat first elected in 1982 and the ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee. He was the chairman of the committee from March 2010 to January 2011, when Republicans took majority control. He is the older brother of Sen. Carl Levin, also a Democrat. Read More

The congressman from the 12th District is Sander Levin, a Democrat first elected in 1982 and the ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee. He was the chairman of the committee from March 2010 to January 2011, when Republicans took majority control. He is the older brother of Sen. Carl Levin, also a Democrat.

Sander Levin grew up in Detroit and got degrees from the University of Chicago, Columbia University and Harvard Law School. He settled in the Woodward Avenue suburb of Berkley after school and was elected state senator in 1964. In 1970 and 1974, he ran for governor and lost narrowly each time to Republican William Milliken. During the Carter administration, he was a top appointee at the Agency for International Development. In 1982, a House seat suddenly opened up after redistricting when two incumbents retired. Levin won a spirited primary and has held the seat without difficulty. The 1992 redistricting moved him east, into Macomb County, and placed him in the same district with Democrat Dennis Hertel, who decided to retire. Levin had serious competition in the next two elections from retired Army Col. John Pappageorge, and won by just 53%-46% in 1992 and 52%-47% in 1994. Since then, he has won easily.

Levin is a hard worker and a details man, willing to spend endless hours with others working out solutions. On the Ways and Means Committee, he has played an important role on significant issues in recent years. On welfare reform, Levin opposed the 1995 bills passed by Republicans but helped shape the one enacted the following year that overhauled the program by introducing more work requirements. In 2005, as the ranking Democrat on the Social Security Subcommittee, his outspoken opposition to personal retirement accounts in Social Security put Republicans on the defensive and helped prevent any legislative changes.

In 2007, Levin became chairman of the Trade Subcommittee. For years, he has been at the center of trade debates, seeking ways, as he has put it, to shape globalization. He favored the 1980s free-trade agreement with Canada, which helped the auto industry. But he was critical of Japanese trade barriers and pushed unsuccessfully for stringent measures on Japanese minivans. He was a strong opponent of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993, but supported normal trade relations with China, playing an instrumental role in crafting details with the Clinton administration. He opposed giving the president fast-track powers to negotiate trade agreements in both the Clinton and Bush years.

With many union leaders, Levin has pushed for trade agreements to contain provisions on workers’ rights, fair ways of settling workers’ disagreements and environmental protection provisions. He got the Bush administration to make changes in labor and environmental protections in the Peru free trade agreement, which was then approved. He also insisted on changes in agreements negotiated with South Korea, Colombia and Panama. During the years of the Democratic House majority (2007-2010), Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel tended to defer to Levin as support for free trade pacts in the Democratic Caucus declined dramatically. Levin has pressed hard for China to allow its currency to rise in value and introduced a bill to authorize the Commerce Department to decide whether an undervalued currency is an export subsidy; it passed the House 348-79 in September 2010.

On the House Democrats’ cap-and-trade energy bill to reduce carbon emissions, Levin reached agreement with Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman on requiring taxes in 2020 on China, India and other developing countries if they failed to similarly curb carbon emissions. (The cap-and-trade bill ultimately died in the Senate.) He also worked with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., on multiple issues in a 2010 tax bill to extend unemployment benefits, boost oil company payments for oil spills, and create a tax credit for electric vehicle technology development.

While Democrats were still in power, Levin got the gavel at Ways and Means after Rangel became mired in an ethics scandal. In March 2010, Rangel, facing charges he had failed to pay taxes, resigned the chairmanship. For a day, the leadership installed the next most senior Democrat, Pete Stark of California, to the post. But prominent Democrats privately expressed concerns to the leadership about the potential impact on 2010 elections of having the flamboyant Stark at the helm, given his propensity for controversial remarks. In addition, Stark had voted no on the cap-and-trade bill, and so was not in favor with leaders at the time. Next in line in seniority after Stark was the level-headed Levin, who was deemed an acceptable replacement. His first, arguably astute move was to arrange for politically endangered Earl Pomeroy of North Dakota to take over at the trade subcommittee, giving Pomeroy a big promotion just before he faced voters. On assuming the chairmanship of one of the most powerful committees in Congress, Levin told Associated Press, “Every human being is different. I think what I will try to combine is organization, collegiality and making tough decisions.”

Still, after the 2010 election, he was challenged for the ranking minority position by Richard Neal, D-Mass. The Democratic Steering Committee voted 23-22 for Neal. Levin, having paid some dues by giving $570,000 to other Democrats during the election season, took his case to the full Democratic Caucus and prevailed over Neal on a 109-78 vote. That put him in the top Democratic job on the committee, opposite the new chairman, Republican Dave Camp, also from Michigan.

Redistricting could be a problem for Levin. Michigan lost one House seat in the 2010 census, which will come out of metro Detroit. Republicans control the legislature and governorship, and are likely to eliminate a metro district and will probably put black-majority Southfield into one of the black-majority, Detroit-based seats, which have suffered huge population losses. That means that Levin may be put into the same district as 9th District Democrat Gary Peters or into a district with considerably more Republican territory. But his importance to Michigan on the Ways and Means Committee could save him.