Peter Meijer says he’s optimistic about finding bipartisan solutions as he prepares to join Congress as part of a Republican minority in the U.S. House.
Meijer won in the race for the 3rd Congressional District, a district that’s now represented by the Libertarian, Justin Amash. Amash decided not to run for re-election.
"It's important that the Republican party looks more like the country as a whole," says Peter Meijer.
Meijer notes that Republican House candidates who managed to flip seats this election were women, minorities or – like him – veterans.
“It’s important that the Republican party looks more like the country as a whole, and that we also have a government that reflects more of the people it seeks to represent,” Meijer said Thursday in Grand Rapids.
Meijer says he believes Republicans will still hold the majority in the U.S. Senate, and that will create an incentive for the parties to work together.
He declined to comment on the unverified claims of voting irregularities made my other Republicans in the state.
“The legal process will do its job,” Meijer said. “We’ve often seen in close races that it comes down to that. And that’s not a failure of the process, that’s the process working.”
Meijer praised the work of the Grand Rapids city clerk, Joel Hondorp, and Kent County Clerk Lisa Posthumus Lyons in counting tens of thousands of absentee ballots this election.
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