Game on
Congressman Gary Peters faces two solid primary opponents in the newly-drawn 14th Congressional District in Michigan, Congressman Hansen Clark and Southfield Mayor Brenda Lawrence, a situation intentionally created by Republicans during the redistricting process last year.
This morning, Peters announced that he has picked up the much-coveted endorsement of the SEIU:
I’ve got some great news to share with you – we just received word that the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Michigan State Council has endorsed our campaign for Congress in the new 14th district. This endorsement means that we’ll have the support of the nearly 30,000 SEIU workers in Southeast Michigan. With an ever expanding list of labor and other endorsements, I’m confident that we’ll be able to run an exciting grassroots campaign to bring our region together and ensure that I can keep fighting to strengthen our local economy and help families in the Greater Detroit region.This endorsement is especially meaningful to me because I grew up in an SEIU household. Just about everything I ever learned about the importance of organized labor came from my mother, an SEIU Union Steward at a local nursing home. She showed me that when you fight to improve the lives of working men and women, you improve the lives of everyone. We truly can achieve anything by working together.
I truly hate seeing these three good Democrats having to battle each other. This endorsement, however, certainly improves Peters’ situation heading into the primary. I would also say his recent actions with regard to saving Pontiac from losing millions of dollars in federal aid and in working to make sure funds secured for Troy’s transit center would have stayed in Michigan if that city had foolishly voted the development down are helping out, as well. It will be interesting to see how this pans out.
