Kalamazoo lawyer jumps into US House race in west Michigan, challenging Bill Huizenga

Jessica Swartz, a Kalamazoo lawyer who has worked with the Department of Veteran Affairs in Washington and with an activist group that helped create Michigan's independent redistricting commission, will run as a Democrat for a west Michigan seat in Congress, hoping to topple U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Holland Township.

Swartz, 46, who grew up in Grand Rapids and is also a Girl Scout troop leader, told the Free Press on Tuesday that she is running as "a pragmatist" and someone who believes both parties should come together not only to protect abortion rights and the environment, but address gun safety, rising costs and the national debt.

"I'm running for commonsense solutions," Swartz said. "There are so many things we can agree on if we just sit down at the table and talk about them."

With a bachelor's degree in political theory from Michigan State University and a law degree from American University in Washington, Swartz also worked with Western Michigan University and MSU after returning to the state and is now senior legal counsel at the Miller Johnson law firm. She also has volunteered with the activist group Voters not Politicians, which advocated for and helped pass the referendum putting into place Michigan's independent redistricting process.

While she didn't choose to address differences between her and the other Democrats already in the race — Joseph Alfonso, a former Marine who worked for the city of Kentwood's inspections department, who lost to Huizenga last year; and Chris Glasser, a child protective services investigator for the state who also lives in Kalamazoo — she characterized Huizenga as aligned with "extreme" elements of his party, voting for abortion restrictions and against legislation that provided road and highway funding for Michigan and allowed the federal government to negotiate drug prices for Medicare recipients.

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Swartz noted that at least in the case of the infrastructure bill, the congressman who used to represent Kalamazoo — former U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R-St. Joseph, who decided not to run in 2022 when his and Huizenga's districts were somewhat merged in redistricting, voted for it.

She also noted that Michigan's new 4th Congressional District — which hugs the Lake Michigan shoreline from St. Joseph north into Ottawa County and runs as far east as Battle Creek in Calhoun County — has been trending more Democratic, with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer winning inside its boundaries and a constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights in Michigan passing within its boundaries.

"We’re trending blue for sure because of all the hard work we did (on the redistricting process)," she said. "It made it a much fairer district."

That said, taking on Huizenga — who hasn't filed to run for reelection as of yet, but is expected to do so — is no small matter given the edge he has as an incumbent and despite his picking up more Democratic-skewing areas in Kalamazoo and, to a lesser extent, Berrien County in the last round of redistricting. In the 2020 election, facing first-timer Alfonso, Huizenga spent $3.4 million. And while pundits noted he won by about 12 percentage points — a landslide until you consider Alfonso only spent about $36,000 on the race — Huizenga still showed he could do whatever it took to win in a newly drawn district.

At present, Huizenga has raised about $723,000 this year for what is presumed to be next year's run. Neither Alfonso nor Glasser filed second-quarter campaign reports as of this week. Huizenga, meanwhile, also has appeared in recent months and years to not only be strengthening his ties with Republican leaders in the U.S. House but joining bipartisan efforts, including those searching for solutions to the nation's increasing debt problems and encouraging Canada to provide more funding for Great Lakes protections.

Last week, Huizenga and Michigan's other Republican U.S. House members endorsed former President Donald Trump for reelection next year. Whether that turns out to be a problem for Huizenga remains to be seen: Trump beat Biden in the district's confines by about 4 percentage points in 2020.

On Wednesday, Chris Gustafson, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee in Washington, responded to news of Swartz' entering the race by calling her "just another liberal activist... who would be a rubber stamp for Joe Biden."

"Bill Huizenga has worked tirelessly to fight big government overreach and deliver results for west Michigan families," he said.

Contact Todd Spangler attspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter@tsspangler.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Kalamazoo lawyer Jessica Swartz challenges US Rep. Bill Huizenga