Mallory McMorrow Talks Governing, Bipartisanship on WJR

MICHIGAN — Yesterday, Michigan Senate Majority Whip and candidate for U.S. Senate Mallory McMorrow appeared on WJR’s ‘JR Morning show. McMorrow discussed Governor Whitmer’s State of the State Address, Michigan’s economic and education challenges, and her efforts to work across the aisle.

Key Excerpts

McMorrow on strengthening education in Michigan:

“Over the last year, we’ve seen high school graduation rates increase, we’ve seen test scores increase. We’ve seen the number of people with college degrees increase. There are positive signs that we are moving in the right direction.

We passed legislation, as the governor mentioned, to restore phonics education back into curricula. We had more than 400 different curricula being taught across the state, and yes, local control is really important, but when you can’t even agree about the way that we should be teaching kids to read, it’s no wonder a lot of kids can’t, and that is frustrating. I’ve sat with some kids who really struggle in putting the words together, and you can just see how deflated they are. I want to make sure we’re not maligning kids. It’s not the kids’ fault.

So by restoring phonics education, I think we’re going to see Michigan start to make those gains. By making sure we’re testing every child for dyslexia, we’re identifying early who needs extra help, who needs tutoring.”

McMorrow on the state of the economy: 

“We had the State of the Union the night before, the State of the State the next night. One night, we had the president claiming that there’s a golden age and that he’s tired of everybody winning. And that’s not what I hear on the ground — that for certain people, yeah, you might be winning. The president himself has now padded his pockets to the tune of $1.4 billion since taking the presidency, that we know of. But a lot of people are canceling their health insurance plans because their ACA premiums skyrocketed, and they can’t do both. They can’t pay for health care and child care and their mortgage. And I think striking a tone of empathy, recognizing, yes, some people are doing really well — a lot of people aren’t — that is the role that we have as public officials, to make sure everybody has the chance to have the American dream.”

McMorrow on governing, and what Michigan has gotten done:

“The reason that I did this work, the reason that I opened a PAC, the reason that I supported a dozen other candidates running for state Senate was not just to win, it was to govern. So I am incredibly proud that we passed sweeping gun violence prevention — I lost a friend to gun violence, that is something deeply important to me — that we’ve invested in community violence intervention, which has been proven in Detroit and around the country to lower crime rates by building trust in the community, in creating a breakfast and lunch program and creating a pre-K program.

So that, to me, is what leadership is. It is not just politics. Politics is the process of running and asking for votes so you get into the seats, but when you get the seats, you better do what you told people you were going to do. We are never going to restore faith in government and institutions if it’s just about politics and who can throw a punch and who’s going viral. That’s not it.”

McMorrow on economic development:

“You’re right on per capita income. That’s been something that I have found a great partnership in Sen. John DaMoose on, recognizing we need long-term, comprehensive direction for economic development that doesn’t just center jobs created. That’s our traditional metric. Every time we see a press release, it’s, ‘we announced this many jobs were created’. Well, that’s great, but if those jobs are paying $13 an hour, that’s not going to get you to a salary that makes you able to buy a house.

So we need to really retool where we’re going as a state, and I think we need to be centering metrics like median household income and not just jobs created. If these are low-wage jobs, we shouldn’t be competing for them. Let’s compete for the top so we can set our people up for success.”

Listen to the full episode here .

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