Michigan State Senator Tonya Schuitmaker announced her candidacy for Attorney General today.
Her fate will be decided next year, when delegates vote for the Attorney General Republican nominee at the GOP State Convention. Delegates to state conventions tend to be much more conservative than the primary electorate.
Many delegates will pass on Schuitmaker, in search of a more conservative option. Schuitmaker hasn’t exactly been a strong proponent of limited government.
MIRS News does an annual ranking based on voting record to determine the most conservative and liberal legislators.
Only 2 Republican senators in Michigan were ranked more liberal than Schuitmaker.
And since this ranking just takes into account 2016 votes, it’s only a small snapshot of her overall liberal record as a state senator.
She voted in favor of Michigan road bills in the house that would have raised taxes and fees upwards of $145 million.
She supported the “Good Jobs” package this year, that promised $250 million of taxpayer dollars to private corporations in exchange for creating jobs.
She was also a vocal supporter of Common Core legislation before back tracking and cosponsoring repeal legislation in attempt to try to show she was against it.
The list goes on and on, but there is already plenty of evidence for conservative delegates to reject Shuitmaker as their Attorney General and select a more conservative option.
Many believe that her run for Attorney General is really just a setup at Mackinac to position her to run for Congress in the 6th Congressional District when Congressman Fred Upton decides to move to the US Senate race.
The potential candidate for Attorney General that most conservatives across the state are urging to run his Michigan House Speaker Tom Leonard. Leonard has been a leader on conservative issues such as the 2nd Amendment and Right to Life, while showing a willingness to challenge the powerbrokers in Lansing. He is consistently rated one of the most conservative legislators, a sharp contrast with the more liberal Schuitmaker.
Schuitmaker served in the Michigan House of Representatives for three terms. She was then elected to her current position as State Senator of Michigan’s 20th District.
Prior to her time in the state legislature, she unsuccessfully ran for a Van Buren County Circuit Judge seat, after practicing law for 3 years at her family’s law firm, Schuitmaker, Cooper, and Schuitmaker.
