Thursday, July 16, 2009

Robert Jones to Run for Senate

State Representative Robert Jones announced that he will run for Michigan's 20th Senate district.

State Rep. Robert Jones plans to run for state Senate seat: Democrat forgoing 3rd House term

The seat is currently held by Senator Tom George, who is term-limited. The 20th district includes all of Kalamazoo County and part of Van Buren County including Paw Paw.

Jones has represented the 60th house district, which is dominated by the city of Kalamazoo, for two terms. He was previously mayor of Kalamazoo for eight years.

Jones announced earlier this year that he has esophageal cancer, making this announcement somewhat surprising. Unlike his previous campaigns, this one is bound to be long and strenuous. The current state of his health is unclear.

Jones is a down-the-line liberal, favoring more taxes, spending, and regulation, gun control, abortion, and racial preferences.

On the Republican side, state representative Tonya Schuitmaker and former state rep. Lorence Wenke are running.

This move opens up Jones' safely democratic seat. It isn't clear yet who might be interested in the seat. There are seven Kalamazoo city commissioners and seven democratic county commissioners in the 60th district. Kalamazoo Mayor Bobby Hopewell and Vice-mayor Hannah McKinney both spent a lot on their last reelections, even though their seats were safe.

It will be interesting to see if there is a contested primary, as the last three times the seat was open, democrats had consensus candidates in Jones, Alexander Lipsey, and Ed LaForge. The democrat party somehow manages to eliminate contested primaries even for most safe democrat seats.

Robert Jones' Record:
Robert Jones Attacks Free Speech
Robert Jones Supports Crossdressers Over Christians
Robert Jones Wants to Raise Your Taxes
Arena of Conflict
Wild, Wild West
Candidate Forum Report

1 comment:

emergentchurch said...

Jones is a joke; he get's credibility for being a progressive yet you never hear anything about his policy positions. If there is any real progressive in this race, I'd have to say it's myself, James Tyler. You can read about my campaign at JamesTyler.org