The congressman from the 8th District is Mike Rogers, a Republican first elected in 2000 and the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. (He is one of two Republican Mike Rogers in the House; the other one is from Alabama.) Read More

The congressman from the 8th District is Mike Rogers, a Republican first elected in 2000 and the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. (He is one of two Republican Mike Rogers in the House; the other one is from Alabama.)

Rogers grew up in Brighton, in Livingston County, and graduated from Adrian College in southeastern Michigan. He graduated from the FBI 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 into the closest race in the country that year. It took six weeks to count the final tally, and Rogers won by 111 votes.

He 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 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.

Well-respected by the Republican leadership, Rogers in 2010 was named the new chairman of the intelligence panel after the GOP won a majority in the House. The position gives him a perch from which he could play a key role in challenging the Obama administration on national security and anti-terrorism issues. As a member of the committee in recent years, he called on the Obama administration to stick to its September 2009 deadline for the Iranian regime to agree to negotiations over its nuclear program or be subject to sanctions. He also criticized the Justice Department for administering Miranda warnings to the Christmas Day 2009 bomber in the Detroit airport who had not even legally entered the United States for his failed attempt to blow up a passenger airplane. “We don’t need to treat terrorists like U.S. citizens,” he told MSNBC. “We need to treat them like terrorists.”

He also has been an active member of the Energy and Commerce Committee. The House passed his bill to eliminate state food safety warnings that are stronger than comparable federal warnings. He also sponsored a 2007 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 the waning years of the Republican majority, Rogers sought a post in the party leadership. He positioned himself to run for whip in 2006, but the Republicans lost the majority that year and there were fewer leadership positions to go around; Missouri Rep. Roy Blunt got the whip job. In the 2010 election, Rogers was called on to help the National Republican Congressional Committee as chairman of incumbent retention. Borrowing from the Democrats’ successful campaign tactics, Rogers sat down with incumbent Republicans and discussed ways they could shore up their support before the election and pressuring delinquent incumbents to step up their fundraising, both for their own campaigns and for the party overall.

Rogers can be overtly partisan. In May 2007, Rogers stood up to a threat by then-Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and confidant of then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, when he challenged a $23 million earmark for Murtha’s district. Rogers failed to cut the earmark from the bill, and maintained 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 said that he replied, “Is that supposed to make me afraid of you?” Republicans tried to reprimand Murtha and, though that move was tabled, Murtha apologized. Later, in 2009, Rogers’ spirited speech against the Democrats’ health care overhaul got more than 5 million hits on YouTube.

Less frequently, Rogers can also be bipartisan, especially when he wants something for his constituents. He persuaded the Republican leadership not to strongly oppose the Democrats’ 2009 “Cash for Clunkers” program, which helped Michigan’s automakers by offering government reimbursements for replacing old cars with new fuel-efficient models. In August 2009, he voted to extend jobless benefits by 13 weeks, an important issue in Michigan’s many pockets of high unemployment. He also co-sponsored with Democrat Edolphus Towns of New York a bill to provide relocation assistance to families of federal law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty; it became law in 2010.

Rogers won re-election with 55% and 57% of the vote in 2006 and 2008, respectively, which were difficult years for a Michigan Republican. In 2010, he had only nominal competition from Lance Enderle, a former football coach and Michigan State University graduate student. Rogers won, 64%-34%.