The Headlines

In the past few weeks I’ve given updates on Voters Ed Fund’s My City Votes program and the Michigan Supreme Court outreach Voters Not Politicians is doing. This week, I’m going to share with you another important campaign: the Pro-Democracy Candidate Slate through Voters Action Committee. 

Voters Action Committee is an independent expenditure committee which aims to protect (and hopefully expand) the pro-voter majority in the state house so that we can continue to push legislative pro-democracy reforms next session. There are very close races all around the state, and we’re focused on districts where we can make the biggest impact. 

The Details

• In past updates I’ve laid out why we decided to re-launch Voters Action Committee this year and the districts we’ve targeted in this campaign. To summarize:
  • Voters Action Committee was formed in 2022 to stand against election deniers running to take power away from voters and to help elect a pro-voter majority to the Michigan legislature. 
  • This year, Voters Action Committee is working to protect our pro-voter majority by targeting anti-democracy candidates three key state house districts:
    • Kathy Schmaltz (HD 46) and Donni Steele (HD 54) are incumbent lawmakers who voted against legislation to expand and protect the constitutional right to vote.
    • Steve Frisbie (HD 44) has been labeled a threat to democracy because he participated in election denial activities.
  • We are also lifting up the pro-voter candidates in these races who closely align with our values:
    • Challengers Daniel Mahoney (HD 46) and Shadia Martini (HD 54) are both VNP Pro-Voter Approved candidates and both signed the Taking Back Our Power Pledge.
    • Incumbent Jim Haadsma (HD 44) is VNP Pro-Voter Approved because of his consistent record of supporting pro-voter legislation including implementation of Proposal 22-2, regulating AI in political ads, and adoption of Secure Automatic Voter Registration. 
• Voters Action Committee is reaching voters in these three key districts through direct mail, phone calls, text messages, digital ads, and door knocking. 
• Through this multifaceted campaign, we’ve already reached well over 85,000 voters across the three districts.
  • In Jackson (HD 46), for example, digital ads like this one have been viewed almost 250,000 times, and literature like the piece below is being shared with voters at their doors. 
  • We’ve identified several thousand voters in these districts who have indicated that they will vote for the pro-voter candidate.

• In conversations with voters, we’re hearing from people who are excited to vote and take advantage of early voting. We’re also walking voters through their voting plans and getting commitments so that we can follow up and make sure these voters make their voices heard for pro-democracy candidates. 
• We’ve used this opportunity to identify voters who are supportive of campaign finance reforms to ban regulated utilities and corporations with government contracts from donating to candidates and political campaigns, aligned with our work as part of the Taking Back Our Power coalition.
• With the many volunteer opportunities open to people during this election cycle, we’re proud to have Voters Not Politicians volunteers continue to join us to support critical state-level campaigns.

What’s Next

Our volunteers and supporters are well aware of the effect that a pro-voter majority in Lansing has on our democracy. We’ve seen what happens when the anti-democracy crowd takes control of our legislature and others around the country, and what happens when pro-voter lawmakers have control. 

With an even stronger pro-voter majority in the Michigan House of Representatives, we can hold key voter protections and push through campaign finance and ethics reforms to make state government work better for voters. 

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