Schulz Blasts Michigan G.O.P. Mailers As ‘Full of Lies’
MIDLAND, Mich. — Out-of-district and PAC money is pouring into the race for State Representative in Michigan’s 98th District, as the Michigan Republican Party tries to bolster its incumbent candidate after a scare in 2018. The race is a rematch of that matchup: incumbent Annette Glenn and Democratic challenger Sarah Schulz.
Ms. Schulz came close in 2018. Too close, for area Republicans and the Michigan GOP, which is dipping into its network of supporters.
In August, Ms. Glenn raised a staggering $107,160 during the one-month post-primary campaign finance reporting period. PAC money contributed heavily to Ms. Glenn’s fundraising haul, totaling $92,000 during the period. In contrast, Ms. Schulz received $3,770 from PAC money is the same reporting period.
In 2018, Ms. Glenn defeated Ms. Schulz, 20,209 votes to 18,629, however Ms. Schulz received more votes in the City of Midland. The Michigan Democratic Party put a target on the 98th District after 2018, however the Schulz campaign says that the Democrats withdrew major support around August, leaving the campaign to fend for itself. In contrast, the Michigan G.O.P. has been mailing out multiple negative campaign flyers portraying Ms. Schulz as a radical and falsely accusing her of being a member of Michigan United and supporting efforts to “defund the police.”
“I do not want to ‘defund the police.’ To the contrary, I support the police. I was endorsed by them in 2018, I think we need to make sure the police have adequate funding – especially when it comes to police pay, benefits and pensions. I think we need to support the police with mental health services because it is such a tough job. For Annette and her friends to say I want to defund the police is a total fabrication,” Ms. Schulz told the City Paper.
Michigan United also says that Ms. Schulz is not a member of its organization.
“For the record, Ms. Schulz has never paid dues to our organization nor applied for membership,” Erik Shelley, Michigan United’s communications coordinator, told the City Paper.
The website CounterPunch.org does say that Ms. Schulz is a member of Michigan United in a brief author bio attached to an op-ed Ms. Schulz wrote on immigration.
“I wrote an opinion piece about immigration years ago that they picked up and published. That’s all. I am not a member. I am not affiliated in any way,” Ms. Schulz told the City Paper.
During a Midland Daily News/WCMU virtual town hall, Ms. Schulz blasted the mailers as lies with a dramatic visual collage of the mailers, with sticky notes labeling each mailer with the number of lies Ms. Schulz alleges each mailer contains.
Anther G.O.P. flyer says that Ms. Schulz “pledged to support a plan to defund the police.”
“These ads … are run by the Michigan Republican Party, not the Annette Glenn for Michigan campaign, and therefore we cannot correspond with the G.O.P. at all regarding the ads or the messaging,” Ms. Glenn’s campaign manager Anna Dean told the City Paper. “We would draw the conclusion, however, that these ads by the Michigan G.O.P. are claiming that Sarah Schulz supports defunding the police because Schulz has signed Future Now’s candidate pledge promising that if elected, she will vote to implement the group’s ‘America Goals’ agenda. One of Future Now’s goals is to ‘Reinvest Police Savings’ and have ‘police budget reallocation,’ otherwise known as defunding the police.”
Ms. Schulz rejects the excuse that Ms. Glenn is powerless over the mailers or the messaging, saying that Ms. Glenn could publicly denounce the ads or ask that they stop.
“One thing I hear all the time is that you’re not responsible … you’re not responsible for some of the attacks because they were paid for by PACs and other things,” Ms. Schulz told Ms. Glenn during the town hall, “but if you’re so powerless against the Republican Party and other Super PACs, then I’m not sure the kind of power you have in Lansing.”
Ms. Schulz says that the only pledge she has signed is that of the Future Now Fund, which she says doesn’t mention police in its seven ‘American Goals.’
“Sarah Schultz [sic] needs to research the pledges she signs, before she signs them. If she had, she would have seen that the ‘Pledge to Achieve America’s Goals’ was based on model legislation which clearly calls for policies associated with the defund the police movement,” Tony Zammit, Communications Director for the Michigan Republican Party, told the City Paper.
Future Now distributes a model policy for police reform under the header “Improve Public Safety by Reinvesting Policing Savings in Community Based and Prevention Programs.” The model policy is entitled “Community Reinvestment Act” and calls for a comprehensive review of police funding and, using a data-driven community-based approach, developing policy recommendations for legislative and executive consideration to reduce excessive policing and reinvesting the money that would be saved into proven strategies and programs to support communities and reduce crime.
The Michigan G.O.P. portrays this policy as radical.
“Making accusations like ‘defund the police’ or communism based on incredibly tenuous and lose associations is the same as lying,” Ms. Schulz told the City Paper.
The election is Tuesday, Nov. 3.
“All of this proves that if you are backed by big money PACs and special interests, you can make up whatever lie you want and pay for a slick commercial or flyer and suddenly it is on everyone’s TV and in everyone’s mailbox,” Ms. Schulz told the City Paper. “This is not how democracy is supposed to work.”
Michael Westendorf is the chairman and executive editor of Chemical City Paper. As Executive Editor, he leads the City Paper’s news coverage and editorial team.