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Kildee Stays Ahead of the Headlines

January 27, 2016

Kildee Stays Ahead of the Headlines

The Michigan lawmaker—and possible governor candidate—was talking about the Flint water crisis and U.S. hostages in Iran before much of the world noticed. Amid a flurry of cable-news hits and press re­leases last week, Rep. Dan Kildee made some time to talk—and even if he wer­en't among the House's most me­dia-savvy mem­bers, Kildee would have been in some de­mand. Pres­id­ent Obama had just de­clared a fed­er­al emer­gency in Flint, Kildee's ho­met­own, where lead-poisoned wa­ter has be­come a huge pub­lic health crisis. Mean­while, the second-term Demo­crat traveled to Ger­many to greet Amir Hek­mati, a con­stitu­ent of Kildee's who was among the pris­on­ers re­leased by Ir­an. And while both stor­ies dom­in­ated na­tion­al news last week, Kildee has been talk­ing about both is­sues long be­fore many people were pay­ing at­ten­tion. "Be­ing a voice for people is something that I've al­ways taken ser­i­ously," Kildee said. "Some­times nobody's listen­ing but a few people. Some­times it seems like the whole world ends up listen­ing. … We are sup­posed to rep­res­ent our people. That's not just cast­ing votes, that's be­ing their voice." As a sopho­more member of the minor­ity caucus, Kildee has em­braced his role as an ad­voc­ate—ac­know­ledging that speak­ing up is some­times the only al­tern­at­ive when a dead­locked Con­gress can't pass le­gis­la­tion. That act­iv­ism has paid off, to the point where House col­leagues see a bright fu­ture for him in the cham­ber, and in­siders back home view him as a top-tier can­did­ate for Michigan gov­ernor. In the House, he's quickly made a name for him­self, head­ing the Demo­crat­ic Con­gres­sion­al Cam­paign Com­mit­tee's "Front­line" ef­forts to pro­tect vul­ner­able in­cum­bents. He also serves as a re­gion­al whip and helps co­ordin­ate caucus mem­bers' speeches on the House floor. "He sees his own role as an ad­voc­ate, and in ad­di­tion to it, what you see is his stick-to-it-ive­ness," said Minor­ity Whip Steny Hoy­er. "He doesn't just get in and get out. … Once he takes on a pro­ject and be­lieves that pro­ject is im­port­ant, he stays on it un­til it's solved." Rep. Jared Huff­man of Cali­for­nia, whose former con­stitu­ent Jason Rezai­an was also among those re­leased by Ir­an, said Kildee's long­time tenacity in ad­voc­at­ing for Hek­mati provided a tem­plate for him when Rezai­an was im­prisoned. "What im­presses me most about Dan is that he ar­rived here on Day One fo­cused like a laser beam on get­ting Amir Hek­mati out of pris­on in Ir­an," he said. "I would call it an ob­ses­sion, but that has a neg­at­ive con­nota­tion. … Every caucus gath­er­ing with the pres­id­ent, every time we had a chance to talk with Sec­ret­ary [of State John] Kerry or any­one in the ad­min­is­tra­tion, Dan was beat­ing the drum for Amir." Kildee said his work for Hek­mati proved re­ward­ing. "[Meet­ing Hek­mati] was one of the best mo­ments I've had in pub­lic of­fice," he said. "We can't al­ways get the le­gis­la­tion through that we like, but we have the abil­ity to help people. We have a plat­form that we can use to help people. … To be able to see him re­united with his fam­ily, it's all worth it." Back home, Kildee's friends say he was rais­ing the alarm over Flint's wa­ter even as state of­fi­cials down­played con­cerns. The city, while un­der state-ap­poin­ted emer­gency man­age­ment, had switched to Flint River wa­ter as a cost-sav­ing meas­ure. Without prop­er treat­ment, wa­ter pipes leached lead in­to the sup­ply. Des­pite cit­izens' com­plaints about the wa­ter's col­or and taste, of­fi­cials ap­poin­ted by Gov. Rick Snyder said the con­cerns were over­blown. In his State of the State ad­dress last week, Snyder apo­lo­gized for the re­sponse. "I'm sorry and I will fix it," he said. "… Gov­ern­ment failed you at the fed­er­al, state, and loc­al level." Emails re­leased by Snyder show that his former chief of staff, Den­nis Much­more, work­ing to co­ordin­ate a re­sponse to the prob­lem in Septem­ber, re­ferred to Kildee's ad­vocacy as a "press hound routine." Kildee doesn't see it that way. "When you hear something that is out­rageous, you have an ob­lig­a­tion to speak up and try to provide some con­trast. … Like with Flint wa­ter, you've got to ar­tic­u­late what people are feel­ing to put those who are in a po­s­i­tion to ac­tu­ally do something about it, put them in a po­s­i­tion where they know we're pay­ing at­ten­tion to what they're do­ing." Gene­see County Treas­urer Deb Cherry has known Kildee for more than 30 years, pre­ced­ing their time in loc­al gov­ern­ment to­geth­er, and she's not sur­prised by his ap­proach. "He en­joys this. He doesn't love the fact that there's an emer­gency in Flint, but he's taken a really strong ad­vocacy role," she said. "He's very good at shap­ing his mes­sage in a way that gets good press cov­er­age. All through his ca­reer he's been good at that. It has served him and it has served his com­munity." Of course, it's also a polit­ic­al giv­en that speak­ing up force­fully—wheth­er on TV or the House floor—can come with pro­file-burn­ish­ing re­wards, and Kildee's stock is cer­tainly on the rise. "It's kind of a re­mark­able con­flu­ence of events," said Susan De­mas, the pub­lish­er of In­side Michigan Polit­ics, a well-sourced news­let­ter in the state. "He has been the most prom­in­ent ad­voc­ate for both causes, and he's really rock­eted to na­tion­al prom­in­ence." Kildee, De­mas noted, has long been touted as a po­ten­tial 2018 gubernat­ori­al can­did­ate, and re­cent events have done noth­ing to dis­pel those ru­mors. "There's not much doubt that he's ex­tremely in­ter­ested in run­ning," she said. "Giv­en all these events, at this point, he has to be the Demo­crat­ic front-run­ner." State Sen­ate Minor­ity Lead­er Jim Ananich, a fel­low Flint nat­ive, has known Kildee since he vo­lun­teered for the cam­paign of his uncle, former Rep. Dale Kildee, in 1998. He de­scribed him as a nat­ur­al lead­er. (Dan won a seat on the Flint Board of Edu­ca­tion as an 18-year-old, fol­lowed by stints as a Gene­see county com­mis­sion­er and county treas­urer. He suc­ceeded Dale Kildee in Con­gress, win­ning the seat after his 18-term uncle an­nounced he wouldn't run in 2012.) "An im­plied role [of Con­gress] is ad­vocacy, and not every­one does that, but he's one of the best," Ananich said. "He'd be a heck of a gov­ernor. … But if he de­cided to do it, we'd lose a great con­gress­man." For his part, Kildee said polit­ics is far from his mind right now, and his de­cision will be de­term­ined by how he be­lieves he can best serve. "You just do your job, fight for the things you care about, and when the time comes, make a de­cision about what role you're go­ing to try to take on to make the biggest im­pact." In the House, col­leagues say Kildee has a bright fu­ture if he chooses to stay. "Dan rep­res­ents the very best of what it means to be the voice of the voice­less," said Rep. Ben Ray Lu­jan, his boss at the DCCC. "He goes to the House floor, he's on loc­al me­dia or na­tion­al me­dia—whatever the stage re­quires, Dan al­ways stands up to it." With House Demo­crats' mes­saging chief, Rep. Steve Is­rael, re­tir­ing at the end of this term, Lu­jan said Kildee should be among those con­sidered for the job. For now, Kildee said he's fo­cused on deal­ing with the fal­lout in Flint. Snyder pledged $28 mil­lion of aid in his State of the State ad­dress, and Obama said $80 mil­lion in fed­er­al money is on its way. But that may be just the start. Kildee is push­ing to get cit­izens set up with fil­ters im­me­di­ately and for a ro­bust test­ing re­gi­men to mon­it­or pro­gress. As soon as pos­sible, he wants private lead-ser­vice lines to be re­placed, a pro­ject that could run as high as $75 mil­lion. The more long-term re­sponse, he said, will re­quire years of edu­ca­tion­al and nu­tri­tion­al pro­grams for kids who were ex­posed to lead—which will re­quire buy-in at the state and fed­er­al level. Kildee did score one policy vic­tory in the om­ni­bus, trans­fer­ring $2 bil­lion to a pro­gram that funds blight re­mov­al for cit­ies like Flint. Wheth­er he runs for gov­ernor or stays in the House, he says he'll bring the same mind-set to work. "I take the ap­proach that I've nev­er changed jobs in my life," he said. "It's ba­sic­ally about the same things, try­ing to get it right for my ho­met­own and places like it."

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