Division, challenges await new speaker Jason Wentworth. But he's not stressed about it

LANSING – Jason Wentworth might be the only person in the world right now who isn’t stressed.

Stress, at least work stress, is for other people, not the newly elected speaker of the Michigan House of Representatives.

The Farwell Republican says he feels the weight and responsibility of his new role, leading the lower chamber of a divided government within a politically fractured state and nation.

But stress? Crafting legislation and squabbling over politics during the last four years in Lansing do not compare to what he felt as an 18-year-old enlisting in the U.S. Army.

“I was coming into the military to be a police officer because you can’t be a cop until you’re 21 in Michigan, so I figured I would join the Army, get my experience, become a cop in the Army, get out of the service and be a police officer somewhere in the states,” said Wentworth, 38, sitting in the speaker’s office at the Michigan State Capitol.

“And then 9/11 happened and that switched everything.”

More: Rep. Jason Wentworth to be new GOP speaker of Michigan state House

More: House GOP leader: 'People just don't trust their government or their politicians'

Before joining the Army, Wentworth said he’d never been on a plane and only left Michigan once — for a vacation to Florida. The terrorist attack that changed the course of history happened while he was in basic training at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri.

Shortly thereafter, Wentworth says he was on a plane to Seoul, South Korea. He called it “probably the most stressful time of my life.”

“You know, just, there’s lots of things in my life where I felt stress, so when I have a job like this, I take an immense amount of pride and I have responsibility that I feel to represent my district. But it’s different, it’s not stress,” Wentworth said.

“I can’t say there’s been a time in this job where I’ve been stressed. It’s just, I feel a weight of responsibility. It’s different than the stress I felt as an 18-year-old kid knowing we’re going to go to war, to a 19-year-old kid jumping on a plane to go to Seoul. ... That’s stress for me, not knowing what’s happening next."

Wentworth made the comments in December on the same day his predecessor, Lee Chatfield, formally bid farewell to the House. Wentworth wasn’t actually speaker at the time. But Michigan politics work in a way that as soon as Republicans again secured the majority of seats in the House, Wentworth knew he would lead the chamber.

Since speaking with the Free Press:

Lawmakers publicly fought with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer over unemployment insurance and COVID-19 financial relief Several Republican members of the Michigan House advocated for overturning the results of the November election based on conspiracies and debunked allegations A bomb threat temporarily closed the Michigan Capitol Insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol The Michigan Capitol Commission banned the open carry of firearms in the statehouse President Donald Trump was impeached for a second time Democrats called on Wentworth to punish Republican colleagues who championed efforts to undermine election results And Whitmer called up the National Guard in response to reports of possible armed protests outside the state Capitol. The protests were ultimately small, but "credible threats" prompted Wentworth and Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, R-Clarklake, to cancel session for the week.

Asked again recently whether he’s stressed now, a Wentworth spokeswoman said, “Speaker Wentworth is a calm, unflappable leader who focuses on the issues in front of him, thoughtfully and strategically.”

His new role will put that to the test.

From Farwell to the speaker's office

Wentworth grew up in Farwell, a village with less than 1,000 people about 90 miles north of Lansing. He lives there now with his wife and three daughters. Like many who later ascend to public office, he says he never wanted to be a lawmaker.

After serving as a military police officer for five years, Wentworth worked as a deputy with the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office in Florida for three years before ultimately returning to Michigan. The idea of running for office arose through his work with the Michigan Veterans Affairs Agency.

Wentworth said veterans described some issues they’d had with getting public services. He said he had a few thoughts about possible fixes at the state level, and reached out to his local representative for help. The lawmaker representing the 97th District, Joel Johnson, was term limited and could not run again in 2016. Wentworth went from researching candidates to deciding he would run in approximately 24 hours.

“I elbowed my wife at 4:30 in the morning and said, ‘Hey, I think I’m going to run for state rep.’ And she was sleeping, said ‘you’re crazy,’ rolls back to bed. And a week later I’m driving to Lansing to turn in my paperwork to be on the ballot. A few weeks after that I’m knocking on doors and running a campaign,” Wentworth said.

About 3,300 people voted for Wentworth in the August GOP primary that year, more than enough to propel him past four other candidates for the party’s nomination. He easily defeated his Democratic opponent in the general election, earning the right to represent constituents in parts of Arenac, Clare, Gladwin and Osceola counties.

More: Michigan House passes rate relief for no-fault auto insurance

More: Michigan legislators worried about maskless GOP lawmakers, lack of gun control at Capitol

Wentworth is not prolific in terms of the number of bills filed: He was the lead sponsor on 20 bills or resolutions during his first two-year term and the lead sponsor on six during his second. However, he played a key role in crafting what ultimately became a substantial overhaul to Michigan’s no-fault auto insurance system.

His work as leader of the House Select Committee on Reducing Car Insurance Rates is a highlight of his time in the Legislature, he said. It was also a chance to work closely with Democratic state Rep. Donna Lasinski, D-Scio Township. At the time, she was the leading Democrat on the committee — now she’s the leader of the Democrats in the House.

Wentworth said he “gets along great” with Democrats in the House, and appreciated his time working with Lasinski.

“When she walks in, I know where she’s coming from, I know who she is as a person, and I respect that. I know she’s here to work for her people on the Democrat side, and her constituents as well,” Wentworth said.

In a recent interview, Lasinski said Wentworth is a “man of honor and integrity.”

“Speaker Wentworth and I dealt with each other openly and with transparency. We were able to share in a meaningful way what were the key concerns of the folks that we represent and our different constituencies, and we were able to make progress together on those issues,” Lasinski said, speaking of their time working on insurance reform.

Before either formally assumed their leadership roles, Lasinski sent a letter to Wentworth calling on him to punish House Republicans who either signed on to legal efforts or otherwise participated in false and misleading campaigns to overturn election results.

Wentworth declined to take any action: each were assigned to committee posts, with some taking on leadership roles. Late last year, he did concur with two punishments levied in the last few days of Chatfield’s tenure: The decision to remove from committees state Rep. Cynthia Johnson, D-Detroit, and state Rep. Gary Eisen, R-St. Clair Township.

Johnson posted a controversial message to Facebook that House GOP leaders deemed threatening, in response to death threats she’d received following her role in hearings involving Rudy Giuliani. Eisen told a local radio host he planned to participate in an effort to disrupt the Electoral College vote in Michigan and said he could not rule out violence.

The battle over punishing Republican members foreshadows broader problems for Wentworth and other party leaders in the state. As Democrats call on him to sanction those who spread misinformation about voting, there are many Republicans still falsely arguing widespread fraud or misconduct hampered the fall election.

In December, Wentworth said the election “has to be front and center next term.” He joined Chatfield, Shirkey and other Republicans on a widely criticized trip to the White House to visit with the president at a time when Trump was exploring avenues to overturn election results.

More: Fiery Giuliani tells Michigan lawmakers election stolen, offers no credible evidence

More: Dominion tells Mellissa Carone, others to stop spreading election misinformation

During the lengthy hearing where Giuliani testified, a litany of false and misleading statements largely went unchecked. Even when Republican and Democratic lawmakers did refute testimony, witnesses and the gathered crowd became combative. The meeting garnered a spoofing on "Saturday Night Live" and considerable angst from critics.

Wentworth avoided directly answering a question about whether he thought the hearing exacerbated the spread of harmful election myths, but stressed lawmakers need to work to restore faith in public institutions.

“Our vote has to count, it has to be secure, it has to be counted, and I think that regardless of a politician saying one thing or the other, I think this is bubbling up from the grassroots,” Wentworth said.

“I hear from across the district — Trump supporters, non-Trump supporters, just people in general, clerks, other people coming forward saying, ‘Listen, there are gaps and issues with our election system.’ We have to fix these issues, whether it be a funding thing, whether it be a process.”

A decentralized leader

On the first day of session, Wentworth heralded a bill and a resolution that he argued would help increase integrity in Lansing. The bill aims to stop lawmakers from voting on measures that could provide a personal benefit, and the resolution would make it harder for either chamber to approve controversial bills at the end of a two-year session. Known as a "lame duck session," lawmakers passing big bills after some colleagues were voted out of office or are otherwise leaving is contentious.

Ethics reform generally receives bipartisan support. Election policy almost assuredly will not.

Republicans in the House and Senate are expected to introduce a series of bills taking aim at who is on the voting rolls, verification of signatures for absentee ballots and more — Democrats are already gearing up for this legislation, arguing it will make it harder for Michigan residents to vote.

More: Michigan Legislature issues subpoena to state election officials in rare Saturday hearing

More: Whitmer appoints new member to elections board after GOP wanted replacement

While Wentworth specifically mentioned elections, ethics and access to affordable health care as his focus, he said it will be up to members to decide legislative priorities this session. He said he has preferred to operate behind the scenes in the past, citing leadership skills he learned in the Army.

He said he intends to do some of that as speaker. That may prove to be a challenge as he ascends to one of the most powerful policy and political positions in the state, but he pledged to rely on the members of his caucus to dictate what happens during session.

“It wasn’t about me (in the Army), it was about the troops that I served with. People that were on my left and my right. And so that’s the way I look at leadership. I’m here to serve the members. I’m here to serve my district and the members that I represent as the speaker,” Wentworth said.

“So my approach will not be a top-down approach. I’m more of a decentralized leader. Autonomy and respect to chairs and other committee members to ensure that they’re making those decisions based on the right reasons and why they’re there, serving their people.”

Leadership style aside, lawmakers atop their parties are generally expected to wrangle their caucus. With 58 of the 110 seats, House Republicans have members that are all over the political map. Some are new or moderate, but at least a few wanted the Legislature to go further in appeasing Trump and his illegitimate claims of election fraud.

One member, Rep. Beau LaFave of Iron Mountain, introduced articles of impeachment for Whitmer last year. Democrats want several others, chiefly Rep. Matt Maddock of Milford, censured or removed after he was in Washington, D.C., when Trump supporters mobbed the Capitol. And Eisen, the St. Clair Township member who suggested there may be a violent effort to disrupt Electoral College proceedings, remains in the chamber.

Wentworth suggested any ongoing election frustrations in the caucus could be appeased once lawmakers “boil this down to what the actual root causes of these issues are, what caused this issue in the first place in the process and fix it.” There will be plenty of disagreements within the caucus, he knows, but he said they’ll largely be handled behind closed doors.

More: Courts rejected claims of fraud, misconduct in legal challenges to Michigan election

More: Trump repeated lies about Michigan's election before pro-Trump supporters stormed Capitol

Working with Whitmer

Wentworth and Republicans are quick and proud to broadcast their issues with the governor, though.

Despite his statements about operating under the radar, Wentworth said Whitmer’s call for a law mandating masks was a “press stunt” during his first news conference as speaker-elect. Later, he accused the governor of lying about the ramifications of a line-item veto, arguing the political line that her move nixed an extension of unemployment benefits. Whitmer countered, saying Republicans tied those benefits to an unnecessary and massive corporate tax handout.

While he doesn’t appear to have a Twitter account, his statements echo a dichotomy in rhetoric used by fellow legislative leaders: on the House and Senate floor they praise bipartisanship, and on social media they ruthlessly attack political opponents.

“That’s the politics that obviously the everyday Michigan citizen just does not like,” Wentworth said.

“Gov. Whitmer spent a lot of time in the minority when she was in the House and the Senate. She knows exactly what she’s doing, she knows exactly what we’re doing. And when the door closes, it’s about getting results for the people. We’re going to disagree on what those results look like, but we handle those disagreements and we move forward.”

Wentworth said he’s still getting acquainted with the governor, but complimented her staff and said he looked forward to working with her. In a statement, a Whitmer spokesman said she looks forward to getting to know the speaker and continuing a “record of bipartisan successes.”

Despite the political feuds and the fact members of his caucus either want to impeach Whitmer or believe lies about election fraud, Wentworth agreed the executive and legislative branches have found a way to work together. He thinks they’ll find a way to continue to make that happen this session.

“We’ve been successful, as crazy as that sounds. We’ve been successful working together over the last couple of years. And that’s regardless of the front page of the papers or the press releases. At the end of the day, we’re getting results. And that’s what matters.”

Contact Dave Boucher: [email protected] or 313-938-4591. Follow him on Twitter @Dave_Boucher1.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Division, challenges await new speaker Jason Wentworth. But he's not stressed about it

___

(c)2021 the Detroit Free Press

Visit the Detroit Free Press at www.freep.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.