By Lily Guiney
Staff Writer
Posted: May 31, 2024 7:32 AM

MACKINAC ISLAND — With just over six months left in her tenure in the U.S. Senate, U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow is reflective – but has no intention of becoming a lame duck.

After announcing her intent to retire in November 2023, Stabenow has largely stuck to her routine in the Senate, opting to wait on endorsing a candidate to replace her until the Democratic primary takes place in August. She said more than anything, she's currently focused on shepherding a five-year farm bill through Congress, a process that's become pricklier over the course of Stabenow's 23 years in the Senate.

"As chair of the Agriculture Committee, it's time to do a five-year farm bill," Stabenow told Gongwer News Service in an interview at the Detroit Regional Chamber's Mackinac Policy Conference. "It's become much more partisan than in the past, which makes it difficult, but I'm working very hard to get five years."

Stabenow was recognized at the Mackinac Policy Conference Thursday by fellow U.S. Sen. Gary Peters and Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, who reminisced about hard-fought battles throughout Stabenow's career that often ended with her victorious, having secured federal funding for a Michigan project. Now, she said, it's harder to find the inroads with her colleagues that used to consistently lead to results.

"Obviously, there's always been partisanship," Stabenow said. "But I've been able to work through that and get things done all the time, really with the philosophy in which you find the one thing that you can work with somebody on and do. That has changed, honestly, because of Donald Trump."

She said something changed in her Republican colleagues in the Senate after Trump's election: things became more tenuous. Deals became harder to make and some Senators' attitudes towards governing shifted. Stabenow attributes it to former President Donald Trump's approach to politics.

"He wants to be rewarded for his chaos; he wants loyalty," she said. "He doesn't like actually getting things done."

When it comes to getting things done, Stabenow has a wish list for her last months in office, but she remains cautious about the chances of success.

"I would love to see us really take on legislation that would reinstate Roe v. Wade and a woman's reproductive freedom, but it's just not going to happen," Stabenow said. "I'd love to see legislation protecting IVF and contraception, and we are we are going to be doing a vote next week on contraception bills to make sure that women can make their own choices."

Having served terms in local government in Ingham County and later in the Legislature before being elected to the U.S. House, Stabenow said she's been pleased with the recent turn Michigan politics have taken under the leadership of Governor Gretchen Whitmer and the Democratic Legislature.

"I've loved seeing the last two years with what the Democrats have been able to do," she said. "I think it was wonderful to see that only two weeks after the horror at Michigan State they were doing the hearings on gun safety, and then four weeks later, they were passing bills. So, I'm very proud of what they've done."

Despite her party's successes at the state level, Stabenow said she feels many of the same problems that plague the U.S. Senate are causing thorniness in Michigan as well.

"There's always ways to shift things around, but it feels like more people are not rewarded for working together," she said. "It seems like there's more and more election deniers and people who think it's okay to use violence if they don't agree politically, and it's made it much more difficult."

Colleagues praised Stabenow's career-long commitment to securing results through relentless collaboration and cooperation, including, as Duggan recalled, during Detroit's 2013 bankruptcy when the city desperately needed federal assistance. Duggan said when he asked Stabenow to bring $250 million home to Detroit, she was first unconfident that then-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) would ever support it, but eventually won his vote after enlisting business leaders like Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert to lobby Republican senators.

"The reason the population (of Detroit) rose for the first time in 60 years was because of what Debbie Stabenow did," Duggan said. "She helped bring the city back a decade faster than we would have, that's the kind of tenacity one of the greatest senators Michigan has ever had."

Stabenow's congressional colleagues agreed with Duggan's assessment.

"Having Debbie as my partner was a godsend," Peters said. "There is nobody who knows how to get things out of other members in the Senate like Debbie Stabenow. She is the most tenacious person that I know when she goes on a cause."

U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Ann Arbor) said her friendship with Stabenow has stood the test of time, jokingly referring to the two as "the Debbie squared caucus."

"Let's just say you don't want to have both Debbies mad at you at the same time," Dingell said.