Michigan GOP voters: Choose Justin Amash, not Mike Rogers in Aug. 6 primary | Endorsement

GOP voters should choose west Michigan conservative JUSTIN AMASH in the Aug. 6 Republican primary.

Amash, who spent 10 years in the U.S. House of Representatives, has an uphill battle to win his party’s nomination for Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat.

But the Free Press Editorial Board believes his depth of experience and principled approach to lawmaking make Amash the best choice for Michigan Republicans.

Michigan's U.S. Senate race is one of the most-watched in the nation. Democrats hold a whisper-thin majority in the U.S. Senate thanks to independents who caucus with the party and Vice President Kamala Harris' tie-breaking vote. Democrats would like to solidify that majority, and Republicans would like to stop them. This fall's general election battle will be hard fought.

Amash is joined on the ballot by west Michigan doctor Sherry O’Donnell, Grosse Pointe businessman Sandy Pensler — and former Congressman Mike Rogers.

Rogers has been the presumptive front-runner for his party’s nomination since he announced his candidacy last year. He leads his Republican primary opponents in name recognition and popularity, and he had raised $2.9 million at the end of the last reporting cycle, and won the all-important endorsement of former President Donald Trump — all the ingredients a Republican candidate in 2024 requires for victory.

But Rogers’ transactional approach to politics, his ideological inconsistency and obeisance to former President Donald Trump render him a poor fit for this Senate seat.

O'Donnell, who had raised around $279,000 at the last reporting deadline, struggles for name recognition with likely voters. Pensler, whose $3 million war chest is largely self-funded, claimed on social media to abhor political “BS,” but also wrote that “America is burning!” and has regurgitated politicized claims about the 2012 Benghazi terror attack in negative ads aimed at Rogers.

Fortunately, Michigan conservatives have a viable option in Justin Amash.

Why Amash gets our nod

Voters, Amash said, are ready for change. And while Amash describes himself as cynical about politics and politicians, he said he believes in the power of the American voter.

He is the son of a Syrian American mother and a Palestinian American father who arrived in this country with little education and few financial resources, but were able to build a better life for their three sons. (Amash lost relatives in Israel’s prolonged siege of Gaza.)

Amash's views on the southern border are more stringent than we might like, but he has a nuanced understanding of immigration many members of his party lack: This country, he said, must understand the value of those who choose to come here, and welcome and support them.

As it stands, he said, the American immigration system favors the wealthy, who are better able to navigate its intricacies. He said that must change.

But, he believes, the American public won’t support immigration reform until the border is secure. “They view it like a joke at their expense.”

Amash wants to restore some of the traditional boundaries of American government, like barring financial support to offensive military operations absent a formal declaration of war by Congress (that includes Israel’s Gaza offensive).

He is concerned about warrantless surveillance, and what he sees as other threats to American liberty.

While he is pro-life, Amash believes abortion should be regulated by the states — a position he held before voters made their preference plain in 2022, amending the state constitution to include reproductive rights — but said he might support national regulation of late-term procedures.

Amash’s roots are on Michigan’s west side, but he said he’s connected to metro Detroit’s sizeable Arab American community. In Congress, he represented Grand Rapids — 18% Black and 16% Hispanic — and said his concerns about civil liberties align with many Black Michiganders.

Why we’re not endorsing Rogers

During his 14 years in the U.S. House of Representatives, Rogers, a former FBI agent whose field of expertise was national security, earned a reputation as a reasonable lawmaker able to build bipartisan consensus. (Rogers left Congress in 2014 to host a show on Cumulus Radio that never materialized.)

For political insiders who’d followed Rogers’ career, it came as no surprise that the former congressman declined to endorse Trump in 2016 or 2020, holding the line when many of his fellow Republicans bowed to the former president’s Svengali-like influence — Rogers is exactly the kind of Republican who should stand up to the forces in his own party seeking to undermine American democracy.

But Rogers performed an abrupt about face earlier this year, granting his imprimatur to the former president after Trump’s efforts to discredit or overturn the results of the 2020 election, a maneuver contingent on disqualifying votes in the state of Michigan, specifically, the city of Detroit; after Trump’s diligent and continual efforts undermined confidence in the American electoral system; after the attempted Jan. 6 insurrection — hardly a profile in courage, and squandering whatever bipartisan bona fides he once claimed.

That alone would render Rogers unfit to serve.

In an interview with the Detroit Free Press Editorial Board, Rogers declined to explain his endorsement of the former president. When asked if he believes President Joe Biden won the 2020 election, Rogers didn't answer. When asked again, he replied: "Having an argument about is or isn't the guy who has been president for four years — my argument is it's been pretty much a disaster." When asked about the attempted disenfranchisement of Detroit voters, and whether he’d defend Detroiters’ voting rights in a future election, Rogers said he preferred to look forward, not back.

That's not as compelling a direction as the congressman believes, because his plans for the future aren’t particularly well-considered.

During an endorsement interview last month, Rogers articulated reasonable concerns about national security and the impact of Chinese manufacturing on the American economy. But he also presented cockamamie ideas like requiring recent college graduates, in exchange for student debt relief, to tutor illiterate people incarcerated at Michigan’s far-flung prisons — and seemed to recommend barring the release of such inmates until they learn to read.

The once resolutely pro-life Rogers now claims he wouldn't vote for a national abortion ban, saying abortion should be legislated by the states; coincidentally, we assume, to the 2022 election, when two-thirds of Michigan voters supported abortion rights.

In short, we detected little consistency among Rogers’ political positions — but had no trouble concluding that the former congressman has learned all too well how to read the political room, a transactional approach to ideology that may well win him the primary.

But in a U.S. Senator, we’re looking for principles.

From Freep Opinion: GOP candidate Mike Rogers' biggest problem in US Senate race

A conservative alternative

Amash is both direct and honest, sometimes to a fault.

In 2019, Amash was the only non-Democrat to vote to impeach Trump on charges of obstruction of justice, and one of few to openly acknowledge that the 2020 election was decided fairly.

The congressman left the Republican Party in 2019 to become an independent, formally joining the Libertarian party in 2020. He’s running as a Republican now, but he said he’s never made any bones about where he stands.

“I've never changed my position ideologically from the moment I got into politics,” he told the Free Press Editorial Board during an endorsement interview last month.

Amash argues that's part of his draw. He says he is more conservative than Rogers, but his beliefs are tempered with a libertarian’s dislike of burdensome government regulation, and by life experiences that lend immediacy to policy matters others sometimes seem to treat as abstract.

More: With Trump endorsement and lead, Rogers tries to fend off rivals in US Senate race

An uphill climb

When members of the editorial board asked the five-term former congressman if there were any senator he would consider a model — a standard question in such interviews — he demurred: “I don't say this to be boastful ... I don't think there's anyone who’s served in Congress who's quite like me.”

Amash elaborated: “We're in a bad place right now in terms of polarization, in terms of the structure of government ... it takes someone who's going to do something revolutionary and bold to actually make a difference. There's never been a time like this, so I don't know how you'd ever take some senator from, say, 10 years ago ... and say, ‘Yeah, I'll model myself after them,’ because I think you have to take a completely different approach.”

As he campaigns, Amash said, he encounters few Michigan Republicans who support Rogers outside of his party affiliation or his relationship with Trump.

“I’m just going to, you know, wipe the floor with him.”

Amash had raised just short of $478,461 at the end of the last reporting cycle. He will have to campaign diligently to win his party’s nomination. But Michigan Republicans would be far better served by a Senator Amash than any of his party mates on the primary ballot.

How to vote

Local clerks will mail absentee ballots to Michigan voters on June 27. Registered voters may cast ballots early, in person, from July 27 to Aug. 4 — check with your local clerk for the location of early voting sites and ballot dropboxes. And, of course, you can vote — and register to vote — in person on Aug. 6, Election Day.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Freep endorsement: Republican Amash in US Senate Aug. 6 primary