Hoadley Running for Congress in Michigan 6th

Republican Fred Upton has represented Michigan’s 6th District, the southwest corner of the state, since 1987. After winning by just 4.5 percentage points against a Democratic newcomer last fall, Congressman Upton voted in February to block Trump’s fake border-emergency declaration and voted this month to condemn Trump’s racist tweets against four of his House colleagues.

Rising to the challenge of unseating the seventeen-term incumbent this cycle is South Dakota native Jon Hoadley:

Today LGBTQ Victory Fund, the only national organization dedicated to electing LGBTQ leaders to public office, endorsed Michigan state Rep. Jon Hoadley for U.S. Congress.

…Victory Fund is the latest in a string of endorsements for Hoadley. Ten labor unions, Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist and Attorney General Dana Nessel have endorsed his candidacy. In the first quarter since announcing, Hoadley has raised more money from donors than was raised by Rep. Upton’s previous challenger in all of 2017.

…“For his entire political career, Fred Upton has worked to deny basic rights and protections to LGBTQ people – so it will be poetic justice when he is defeated by an openly gay challenger next November,” said [Houston] Mayor Annise Parker, president and CEO of LGBTQ Victory Fund. “Few 2020 Congressional races are more important than this one – a swing seat in a swing state with a stark choice for voters. Jon aims to uplift all constituents and put real people at the center of his decision-making, while Fred Upton continues to play cynical politics with people’s lives and well-being. I am confident voters will help Jon shatter a lavender ceiling on election night, not because he is gay, but because of his strong record and commitment to representing all residents of the 6th District” [“Victory Fund Endorses Jon Hoadley for US Congress,” Pride Source, 2019.07.16].

I like to mention Hoadley because (a) he represents the debatocracy, former South Dakota high school debaters who should rightfully rule as philosopher kings, and (b) because he presents would progressive politics could be in South Dakota, if we didn’t keep chasing away our best and brightest by acting like Al Novstrup. Thirteen years ago, Hoadley led the campaign against the gay-marriage ban that our majoritarian Christians wanted to write into our state constitution and held the margin of victory down to a remarkable four points. But Hoadley couldn’t wait around nine years for the courts to finally catch up and declare our bigotry unconstitutional. Rather than put up with the crude and weird insults of South Dakota’s fake Christians, he took his political skills to Michigan, where he has continued to vigorous activism while winning and serving three terms in the state legislature.

Smart young progressives like Jon Hoadley leave the state and thrive elsewhere, while opportunists like Dan Lederman, Jason Ravnsborg, Paul TenHaken, and Scyller Borglum come to South Dakota to mouth empty family-values platitudes and scale the corrupt monolith of South Dakota Republican politics.