Debbie Stabenow is Moving On

Giving up power in Washington is a hot topic these days. The 2024 presidential election was originally shaped by 81-year-old Joe Biden insisting on running for a second term and then reshaped when he bowed to intense pressure and stepped off the Democratic ticket. Age has finally prompted Republican Mitch McConnell and Democrat Nancy Pelosi to relinquish their leadership posts, but both plan to remain in Congress at least until 2026, when they will be 83 and 85, respectively.

Michigan’s senior senator, Debbie Stabenow, went the other way. At the relatively young (for the U.S. Senate) age of 74 and in excellent health, Stabenow retires at the end of this, her fourth term. After a half-century in public life, starting as an Ingham County commissioner in 1975 and serving in both houses of the state Legislature before heading to Washington as a House member, she’s done.

The state’s first female senator sat down with Hour Detroit in August to discuss why she’s leaving, how she feels about her tenure, the issue she’s evolved on the most, and that time she wanted to throttle a colleague.

(This conversation was edited and condensed for brevity and clarity.)

Unlike President Biden, you decided more than a year ago not to run in 2024. Why?

First of all, I do think it’s important to pass the torch. … And then you put that with another very, very real piece for me: my family. It’s not just another six years in the Senate; it would have been two years of aggressively campaigning, where you’re rarely home. My mom’s 98 years old. These are pretty important years for her, and she counts on me.

Did your mom or anyone else in your family say not to run?

She would never say that to me. You know, I have five grandkids. The oldest is a senior in high school. The youngest is 8 years old. I am so lucky because they have just been supportive of me no matter what. Nobody said, “Don’t run.” I did have some close friends who were saying, “Oh my gosh, you’re sure you want to do this again?”

Did that persuade or influence you?

You know, I really was planning on running up until just a little while before I decided at the end of 2022 not to. It was a hard decision. I love what I do; I love the issues. I’ve been effective at getting things done for Michigan.

Did the fact that your last reelection, in 2018, was the closest reelection have anything to do with it?

It wasn’t that close.

Well, you won by about 6.5 points. Compared to the margins you enjoyed in 2006 and 2012, it was a squeaker. The criticism was that you coasted, that you didn’t take the challenge as seriously as you should have.

Oh, I never do anything halfway. Whoever said I was coasting wasn’t following me around every day.

Then why was the margin closer?

Michigan is just getting to be a tougher state. The very first race I ran against [incumbent Republican] Spencer Abraham for the Senate, I barely won, by half a percent. Next one was better, and the next one was even better. For normal races around the country, my margin in 2018 would have been viewed as a landslide. In Michigan, the only reason it wasn’t was because the polls had been wildly off base. We knew the polls saying we were up 10, 11, 12, 14 percent [age points] were not accurate. We ended up about where we thought we would end up.

How did the nature of running change between 2000 and 2018?

Every time I ran, the amount of money you had to raise went up exponentially. I love retail politics; I love retail campaigning. I loved visiting Detroit neighborhoods, talking to folks, knocking on doors, putting up [signs], every parade, everything. But since the Supreme Court ruled [in 2010] in Citizens United that corporations are people and that you couldn’t put caps on how much money people put into independent committees, it means a lot of travel, a lot of being on the phone, and so on. Plus, you couple that with what has come with social media where anybody can make anything up at any time, and it’s just a whole other dimension now.

What did you raise for your first campaign for the Ingham County Board of Commissioners in 1974?

Oh my gosh. It may have been $5,000, which for the time was a lot. I’ve always been a very good fundraiser. [Adjusted for inflation, that’s about $32,000.]

And why is that?

I’m not afraid to ask. Last time, it was $25 million or $30 million.

The presidential campaign this year between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump is a lot about candidates changing their positions. Are there positions you took long ago that you’ve changed your mind about?

Oh, that’s a really good question. I don’t think so. The closest would be gaining a deeper understanding of the climate crisis. My dad and my grandpa had car dealerships, Oldsmobile dealerships, so I grew up on a car lot, I grew up around manufacturing. But over the years, I’ve become panicked about what we are seeing happening to our nation and the world. The Great Lakes are now warming faster than the oceans. Lake Superior is one of the five fastest-warming lakes in the world [of those studied to date]. We’re going to lose cold-water fish. So for me, I’ve always advocated for the automobile industry, but things need to change. Over 30% of our carbon pollution comes from transportation. It’s essential that we move to cleaner transportation.

You’re the first woman elected to the Senate from Michigan. What sort of sexism have you encountered?

Well, in 1994 when I was running for the Democratic nomination for governor, the Michigan AFL-CIO president said he would never support a candidate in a skirt.

That’s not really that long ago. How long did it take for folks like that to change their tune?

Actually, two years later, the powers that be in the Democratic Party urged me to run against [then Republican U.S. Rep.] Dick Chrysler. It was some of the same folks who felt a woman shouldn’t run for governor who wanted to financially support me immediately when I decided to do it.

You served two terms representing that district before running for the Senate in 2000. Interestingly, both candidates to replace you this year, Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin and former GOP Rep. Mike Rogers, have represented the same district. Why is that district, which includes Lansing and East Lansing but also rural Shiawassee and Livingston counties along with all or pieces of five others, such a bellwether?

That part of the state is urban and rural and suburban. It’s manufacturing, it’s agriculture, it’s small business, it’s a major university. My districts, even when I was a state rep and state senator, have always been viewed as ticket- splitting districts ever since my first race.

There’s long been a bipartisan camaraderie among women in the Senate. Did you feel that?

Oh yes, I always enjoyed the dinners with the women of the Senate. We’ve had a rule that sometimes we end up breaking, but most of the time, it’s that we don’t talk business. We’re trying to just get to know people and talk about their lives or support them. For instance, Kay Bailey Hutchison, the Republican senator from Texas, adopted a child and Dianne Feinstein, who was famous for this, did a baby shower. We need that in the Senate. It’s really important we find humanity and some common ground so that we can get things done.

Did it help bridge the partisan divide?

Sure. The Republican women most likely to vote with us as Democrats are Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and who are terrific, but I also work with Shelley Moore Capito from West Virginia, whose mom died of Alzheimer’s. She and I have led the efforts on Alzheimer’s research and support for caregivers. Very conservative women like Deb Fischer from Nebraska or Joni Ernst from Iowa are on my agriculture committee.

Is there a moment in the Senate that was particularly emotional to you?

Years ago, I went to the floor of the Senate and talked about my dad. My dad was what we now call bipolar. For years, when I was growing up, he was misdiagnosed. He didn’t get help, then he finally got help. After I spoke about that, a number of women colleagues, as well as men, but a number of women in the Senate thanked me for sharing my story and started sharing their own stories. Connecting with people personally — it’s just really important.

You project a sunny, happy warrior persona. Have you gotten really angry at colleagues or presidents?

I have! One of them involved Sen. Rand Paul from Kentucky. About a year and a half ago, we were trying to pass a permanent summer meals program for children. He was blocking it. We were sitting together, and he went off on this diatribe about “Well, you know, Debbie, there are no hungry children.” My face is turning red. And John Boozman, who is a Republican from [Arkansas] working with me on this, thought I was going to jump across the table. He’s like, “Debbie, don’t hit him, don’t hit him.” I just said, “You have got to be kidding me. You didn’t just say that. That didn’t just come out of your mouth. You represent Kentucky, one of the poorest states in the country, and you’re telling me you’ve never seen a hungry child in Kentucky?” “Well,” he says, “we have a lot of food waste — if we just managed food better …” We ended up getting this done, but I had to cut back some of what I wanted to do to get him to back off.

Did you ever put holds on bills to extract better deals?

I put a hold on a bill going through that related to where money goes for dredging and water-related construction projects. The big harbors get all the money, so we were trying to carve out something for the Great Lakes. We thought we had something agreed to and then it wasn’t in there, so I held up the bill until we were able to get that.

This story originally appeared in the December 2024 issue of Hour Detroit magazine. To read more, pick up a copy of Hour Detroit at a local retail outlet. Our digital edition will be available on Dec. 9.