The Establishment Is Pushing Ex-CIA Agent Elissa Slotkin
The President of Michigan’s state Board of Education, Pamela Pugh jumped into the US Senate race this week. Her campaign website doesn’t say much about where she stands on policies— it’s just an identity politics thing— but I hear she's progressive-ish and she’s got to be better than military industrial complex and Establishment fave Elissa Slotkin, a New Dem with a solid “F” grade from ProgressivePunch.
As is so often the case, Slotkin’s conservative politics are accompanied by the kind sleazy ethics that gives the public the idea that DC is one fetid swamp. In 2022 Slotkin moved into the condo of one of her big donors, lobbyist Jerry Hollister, so that she could run in the newly drawn 7th congressional district. Hollister, who lives in Connecticut, is the chief lobbyist for Niowave, a medical materials supply company that Slotkin urged the Department of Energy to give a $13 million grant in 2021 and over $28 million total since Slotkin was first elected to Congress in 2018. An FEC complaint filed against Slotkin claims that the $2,000 per month she was charged by Hollister is not fair-market value considering the home was fully furnished, and utilities were also covered. In other words, she accepted an in-kind bribe from a lobbyist and campaign donor.
Bad enough, but that’s not the only disqualifying shortcoming in Slotkin’s ethics profile. She and one of her staffers signed NDAs to take part in talks with Gotion Inc., a China-based electric vehicle company that is trying to open a humongous locally-opposed battery plant near Big Rapids Michigan, 100 miles away from Camp Grayling, a major military base.
Slotkin, a very wealthy heiress, former CIA agent and the most right-wing Democrat in Michigan’s congressional delegation, was endorsed by Liz Cheney and, almost needless to say, EMILY's List. Her 2022 election was the most expensive congressional race of the year. Slotkin spent $11,324,889 to Republican Tom Barrett’s $2,788,628. On top of that, the DCCC spent $4,957,735 and Pelosi’s SuperPAC spent $4,402,137 on her behalf. She was reelected with 51.7% of the vote, losing Livingston, Clinton, Shiawassee, Oakland and Genesee counties and winning big enough in Ingham and Eaton counties to get her over the hump in a district with an R+2 PVI.