Michigan's Fourth Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives will be held by Democrat Sean McCann, who narrowly beat Republican incumbent Bill Huizenga. The fourth district covers Allegan and Van Buren Counties as well as areas of Berrien, Calhoun, Kalamazoo and Ottawa counties.
McCann's victory also makes him the first Native American person to represent Michigan in Congress.
Speaking with Stateside host April Baer, McCann said he's planning on supporting legislation to reverse Medicaid cuts, making food benefits more accessible and ending the war in Iran.
"I'll be trying to reassert Congress' authority and power that it's ceded over the years to the executive [branch]," he said. "It's one of the reasons this tariff policy was able to move forward as it did because Congress has basically become a rubber stamp to the President's agenda."
The 55-year old Detroiter got started in public service as a city commissioner in Kalamazoo. He served on the commission for a decade and then was elected to the Michigan House in 2010 and later in the Michigan State Senate.
A citizen off the Potawatomi nation, McCann said he plans to oppose Enbridge Line 5 and join the Native American caucus in Congress.
"As a representative of Congress I hope to have a respectful town hall where maybe not everyone agrees, but everybody gets a chance to be listened and know that they're heard," he added. "It's not just you call my office, you send me an email—it's that I'm there and present and available ... to anybody who wants to come and meet and speak with me."
Over the next two years, McCann is hoping to bring back congressionally directed spending to the 4th district.
"That's something I really prided myself on as state senator... was to bring back everything from fire gear and fire trucks to investments in senior centers and major infrastructure projects," he said.
Full interview with Sean McCann
April Baer: For the first time since 1933, Michigan's fourth Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives will be stationed by a Democrat. Sean McCann narrowly beat Republican incumbent Bill Huizenga in a race to represent Allegan and Van Buren counties. There are portions of Berrien, Calhoun, Kalamazoo and Ottawa counties as well. His victory also makes him the first Native American person to represent Michigan in Congress. Sean McCann, welcome to Stateside. It's great to have you.
Sean McCann: Great to be with you. Thanks for having me on.
Baer: You're someone who's been around the block politically. You got your start in public service as a Kalamazoo City Commissioner before moving on to the Michigan House and the Michigan State Senate, where you have been serving since 2010. And during that time, you've played a pretty key role in one of the state's most significant election reforms. And that's ending partisan gerrymandering. What prompted you to decide to take a stab at a congressional seat?
McCann: The gerrymandering reform was critical to me, and it was really noticeable early on in my time in the Michigan House, that it was one of the key reforms we needed. And imagine watching this play out in real time over the last two years as to all the reasons why it's so critical and important to our democracy, to not be able to let either party get to sort of tilt the playing field to their advantage and to the disadvantage of voters. So that's something that I couldn't be more thrilled to have seen come about in the time in the Michigan legislature that I've had. And it's a core piece of democracy. So, did it create a district here that's balanced? It seems like it did. I think that's good. You want representatives who are responsive to the voters and not necessarily able to just sort of pursue one agenda without any checks and balances on their role in Congress. So that's been very important to me in my time. How long it took a ballot initiative, it wasn't going to get done through the Michigan legislature, unfortunately, at the time. But here we are. And I think it's been of service to the people of Michigan.
Baer: Were there things you felt you could accomplish in Congress that you weren't going to get done at the state and county levels where you had been serving?
McCann: Yeah. I mean, that's what really motivated me to take this next step. And it was encouragement from other members of Congress for this race. And I was at the end of my state Senate term and that sort of didn't necessarily make this plan to do this. But more and more, as we looked at the issues that are confronting the families of Southwest Michigan, it became more and more clear that I needed to step up and run for the seat and accomplish what we've accomplished. And that's really to turn around some of these huge challenges that people are facing with affordability in their lives.
We see it ourselves with our grocery budget and our two kids, and we want to have a family that reaches the American dream. This tariff policy that's been so chaotic, and particularly to Michigan with our near and dear neighbors, Canada, it's just not been productive to have it be executed, certainly the way it has been. And, if we go back to my time in the state House, 2013, while I was there in my second term, was when we had the opportunity to accept or not the expansion of the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid expansion in the state of Michigan. And over time, we came to insure over a million people in Michigan under expanded Medicaid. And to see that getting rolled back by the One Big Bill in Washington was deeply troubling. And that really drove also this desire to bring this change about and to run for Congress.
Baer: Sean, as I mentioned earlier, you're one of two Anishinaabe people who were elected to join Congress this year. We've got Peggy Flanagan coming in to a Senate seat in the state of Minnesota. Is there anything that you would want people to know about how tribal identity has informed your public service over the years?
McCann: Yeah, I'm really proud of my tribal identity. It's been a great opportunity to connect with some of the tribes that are based in or nearby the Fourth Congressional District. And I expect it to be something that is a factor in how I make my priorities here, representing the district here in Washington, D.C. There are some key tribal issues that overlay with the state of Michigan. Line five, for example, is a big one, and the Match-E-Be-Nash-E tribe in Wayland is in the fourth Congressional District.
Then you have the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi, which is in Fulton, just outside the fourth Congressional District, but with a casino presence in the Fourth Congressional District. And then down I-94 to the Pokagon Band, Potawatomi and Dowagiac. Also, again with a presence in the fourth. And these are constituents of mine. I feel like I have a special connection to them, and I'm going to keep working to know the issues better and better.
Baer: Sean, you ran a campaign against someone who had a great deal of name recognition across West Michigan and who'd been doing the job for ten years. How did you tailor your campaign to voters in the district? And I'm just kind of curious what kinds of things you were hearing for them that may have given you a sense of what they wanted?
McCann: A couple of things really, I think, stood out. One was the lack of sort of town halls and connectivity with constituents, and that's something that people were very hungry for as I did my listening tours and my circulating around the congressional district, that people wanted to be heard. And I think we can and should be able to do that as a country, as a representative of Congress, in a safe and respectful way.
And that's what I hope to lay out here in the next two years. Is that exactly the way to have a respectful town hall where maybe not everyone agrees, but everybody gets a chance to be listened to and know that they're heard. It's not just you calling my office, you send me an email. It's that I'm there and present and available, not just at sort of private functions or company tours, but available to anybody who wants to come and meet and speak with me. And so that I can listen to them.
And then the second piece is that this is a unique district where there has not been congressionally directed spending, community investments that are one time special investments here to this district, brought back specifically by the congressional representative. And that's something that I very much plan to pursue in my role in the next two years. In fact, it's going to start up rather quickly. So to anyone listening, we're going to develop a process for how we can take that input from whether it's organizations or industry or local governments, how we can get that rolling as quickly as possible. That's something I really prided myself on as a state senator representing the Greater Kalamazoo-Portage area was to bring back everything from fire gear and fire trucks to investments in senior centers and major infrastructure projects. And I think that that is a void that I'm looking to fill very much here in the Fourth Congressional District.
Baer: Do you see those as being difficult deliverables, given the state of the federal debt now above $30 trillion?
McCann: Certainly that's a big part of the picture. I think that congressionally directed spending represents a very small portion of that, but a very critical one. And really, it's more of a basis of fairness. Every other member of the congressional district in Michigan, Democrat or Republican, has been bringing community investments back as part of their role. So it's really, for me, a process of joining that process. But we certainly have, beyond some of these other issues we've talked about, a $40 trillion plus national debt that we've got to get under control.
There have been presidencies, administrations, and congresses that have actually gotten the annual deficit under control and actually started to make some progress on reducing the national debt. I'm very much there to do that. We absolutely need to do that for ourselves and our future generations.
We have got to not let this national debt crush our country. So we're going to have to be very fiscally responsible. But when you're spending billions and billions of dollars on this reckless war of choice in Iran versus bringing those resources back to your district that multiply investments through the local economies and lift up all of our prosperity here in the United States. Those are some of the places that we need to have our dollars be spent.
Baer: May I ask, there are many conversations going on right now about what the first few agenda items will be. There are leadership conversations that have been happening at the lower levels before the work of actual legislating gets going in session. But I'm curious if you could maybe talk to us about one or two pieces of legislation that really need to be handled within the first couple of months of the new term.
McCann: Yeah. I'm going to be part of shaping that agenda, that first 100 hours, that first 100 days. And I'm excited to do that. I don't think it's going to be a big surprise. We're going to be looking at changes and restoration of affordable health care. Reversing the Medicaid cuts that came through the One Big Bill. Making sure that food assistance is there for hungry families, SNAP, the provision of SNAP and the farm bill are going to need to be critically important to making sure kids don't go hungry. I'm really proud, by the way, of the fact that the state of Michigan and our budget was able to deliver free school lunch and breakfast for all school-age kids. That's a huge point of pride for me. Now we need to make sure that that's happening at the federal level as well.
I hope we're going to end the Iran war as quickly as possible. I'll be supporting a War Powers Resolution if that's what it takes to do that. And, trying to reassert Congress's authority and power that it's ceded over the years to the executive. It's one of the reasons that this war is going on. It's one of the reasons this tariff policy was able to move forward, as it did, is because Congress had basically become a rubber stamp to the president's agenda. And I think there's great spirit among myself and my colleagues here to take back the role of the House as a co-equal branch of government as designed by our founders.
Baer: Sean McCann is the newly elected representative to Michigan's fourth Congressional District in West Michigan. Sean, thank you very much for your time today.
McCann: So great to be with you. Thank you.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and content.
