May 8, 2026 | This Week in Government: Slotkin Pushes Bill to Keep Chinese Cars, Parts Out of US Market

U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin said Thursday that for national security reasons and to protect the United States’ automotive sector, legislation she introduced to ban Chinese-built vehicles and parts from being imported to the U.S. needs to be passed.

Speaking during a panel discussion hosted by the Detroit Regional Chamber, Slotkin, D-Holly, repeatedly stressed that the U.S. needs to protect itself, residents and the auto industry from potential harm from China or other “adversarial nations.”

She told the audience about a bill she co-sponsored with U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, that was introduced last month that would prevent Chinese vehicles and vehicle technology from entering the United States market.

The U.S. Department of Commerce issued rules last year that enacted tight restrictions on Chinese-imported vehicles and parts. Her bill would codify the rules.

She said the technology in Chinese-made vehicles can obtain data from drivers and passengers and send it back to the Chinese government, which could be a huge national security risk. Further, it could put U.S. residents at risk of having their data stolen or being hacked while also undercutting the U.S. auto industry.

Slotkin said the timing of the bill’s introduction was critical, coming ahead of President Donald Trump’s May 14 visit to China.

She said when Trump spoke in Detroit in January, he made remarks about allowing Chinese automobiles into the United States, which she said was startling to her for national security reasons as well as for economic reasons.

“We wanted to send, very deliberately, a bipartisan signal to the world that regardless of which party we’re in … that on the issue of bringing in Chinese automobiles into the United States, we were in agreement,” Slotkin said.

Slotkin said she would like to see movement quickly, and if something could pass within one year, she would be happy.

“That would be breakneck speed for the way Washington is working,” Slotkin said.

The senator used the example of Europe, where Chinese vehicles have been allowed into the continent and a large portion of the market share has been taken up due to cheaper, heavily subsidized vehicles.

China’s market share in the European Union has grown rapidly in only a few years, to about 6% through the end of 2025 as well as 14.2% in Great Britain.

Outside of losing significant market share to the Chinese, she cited national security concerns.

“As an intelligence officer, the idea that could have a felt of these folks driving around Selfridge Air Force Base or at major infrastructure sites, taking all that data, all that video, all that mapping and sending that back … that is the exact detailed information an adversarial nation loves to have in their war plan,” Slotkin said.

When pressed on mitigation measures and whether that can be addressed in other ways, Slotkin said the United States has far different standards for automobiles and the use of data compared to China.

“We all know that the cars have become very, very sophisticated, but my faith in what Ford, or any other American company or allied company, is going to be doing with my data is fundamentally different than what I know an intelligence officer in Beijing does with the data,” Slotkin said. “It’s not that we want our American cars to be less sophisticated. I just believe that before we ever let a vehicle drive around this country, they should be able to set up the same national security standards of any other device would have coming in here.”

Slotkin said Trump in his China visit needs to have a serious conversation with leadership and press them on “economic cheating” and its military expansionism.

She stressed that any negotiations with China would be very difficult, and she is not alone in hoping that Trump does not quickly try to conclude a deal that might have negative effects on the U.S. and its auto industry.

“I think a lot of us putting down a marker was just to say: ‘hey, it’s not that any deal is better than no deal. Please don’t make a bad deal,’” Slotkin said.

The Detroit Regional Chamber on Thursday released the agenda for this year’s Mackinac Policy Conference, which will include a U.S. Senate Democratic debate and a theme meant to find common ground.

Some of the big-ticket items of the conference includes a U.S. Senate-centric schedule Thursday, with a debate with all three Democratic candidates, U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Birmingham, Sen. Mallory McMorrow, D-Royal Oak, and Abdul El-Sayed. Separately, the conference will feature a conversation with Republican candidate Mike Rogers.

The keynote speakers, which will all be featured in morning sessions, include former Vice President Mike Pence and former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg on Wednesday, and Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield on Thursday. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer be featured in an afternoon slot Thursday.

Former Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan will also be a featured speaker on Tuesday evening.

There will also be 10-minute speeches called “Mackinac Moments,” featuring speakers like House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, and journalist Devin Scillian.

Detroit Regional Chamber Chief Executive Officer Sandy K. Baruah said the Chamber is changing some of the traditional conference format to limit theater sessions to morning and moving other panels to the Brighton Pavillon or Grand Pavillon. The reason for this “experiment,” he said, is to reflect what the audience is looking for, noticing over time they overprogrammed the theater, not taking into consideration the willingness of participants to sit in a theater for that long.

There will not be a gubernatorial debate, Baruah said, as the debate task force was unable to secure the participation of key candidates in the race.

Bob Riney, President and Chief Executive Officer of Henry Ford Health and Chair of the Conference, said the theme, “A Quest for Common Ground,” stems from an “outcry” for “leaders to rise above divisiveness and champion pragmatic solutions that respond to Michiganders clear demand for meaningful action and tangible results.” He said the conference is looking to role model productive exchange this year to shape the future of the state.

Baruah and Riney will be opening the conference Tuesday evening with a talk entitled “Michigan’s House is on Fire” to discuss how the state is slipping in national rankings. However, Baruah said they won’t just be focusing on problems, but talking about solutions in their “WTF” sessions, or “What’s the Fix?” sessions on various topics like economic development, data centers and education solutions.

“With each of these sessions, we’re going to be showing real life examples of how, although we rank unfavorably in so many categories, there is a path, and it’s not necessarily a long path to move us up dramatically in those rankings because other states have done that,” Riney said. “So this will be inspirational and motivational for people to not only accept where we’re at, but to realize there is a path to change this trajectory in a significant way.”

The team is also working to build relationships during the week, giving networking opportunities with a fun twist outside of the session including group fitness classes such as yoga, morning walks, bike rides, a pickleball tournament and a euchre tournament.

The annual horse race poll will also be released ahead of the conference.

Other events include a conversation with Gary Sinise, best known as Captain Dan in “Forrest Gump” on his humanitarian work, a sit-down with both U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield Township, and U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Holly and a conversation with New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu.

Saginaw Democrat Chedrick Greene won the 35th Senate District special election Tuesday in an astonishing 19-point landslide, returning the long-vacant seat to Democratic control and restoring the party’s 20-18 majority in the Senate for the rest of the year.

Democrats were jubilant with the victory, saying it showed voters were increasingly on their side and that it strengthens their position in the Senate ahead of the battle for control of the chamber in the fall.

Greene’s margin – triple the 6-point margin former Sen. Kristen McDonald Rivet posted in 2022 – was huge and the latest special election nationally in which the Democratic candidate massively overperformed.

Republicans largely focused on the more than $1 million spent by the Democrats to hold a Tri-Cities region seat that they took by nearly 7 percentage points in 2022, adding that the GOP will be better positioned to compete for the seat, and the Senate majority, in the fall. Republicans seemed to have no confidence from the moment the February primary produced the Greene-Tunney match and spent little on the race.

Greene will get to run as an incumbent in the fall and will be the heavy favorite.

Unofficial results had Greene with 58.8% of the vote, easily securing the win over Saginaw Republican Jason Tunney, who had 39.4% of the vote. Greene won by a just over 12,000-vote margin.

“We delivered this decisive victory by listening and speaking to the things keeping everyday people up at night – worries about affordability, safety and freedom,” Greene said in a statement. “I am honored to have earned the trust of so many voters across our Great Lakes Bay region. And I am excited to go to Lansing to fight for every policy and dollar that helps hardworking men and women build better lives here in Bay, Midland, and Saginaw counties and sets our kids up for brighter futures.”

The victory for Democrats ensures the party will have control of the Senate through the rest of the year. The battle for the long-vacant seat has been closely watched as a potential indicator of the prevailing political winds ahead of the November elections.

Tunney in a statement conceding the race thanked his supporters and vowed to continue to fight on to November, where a full four-year term will be up for grabs.

“Tonight, we fell short in the special election, but I’m incredibly proud of what this campaign accomplished together. We worked hard every single day to run the best campaign,” Tunney said. “This is only the halfway point. As we head into November, the contrast between Chedrick and myself will only become clearer to more and more voters. I’m excited about what lies ahead, and I’m not going anywhere. Thank you for fighting alongside me. We’re just getting started.”

The 35th Senate District has a slight Democratic lean and consists of parts of Bay, Midland and Saginaw counties. The seat is one of several that are important for both parties in their efforts to secure control of the chamber in the November elections.

Greene’s victory Tuesday, however, blew the competitive nature of the district out the window, at least for a special general election in which voter turnout was 30% in Midland County, 28.5% in Bay County, and 27% in Saginaw County.

Unofficial results showed that in Saginaw County, Greene won most decisively, by a 61.4% to 36.6% margin. Greene’s margin in Midland County was a 58% to 40.7% margin, while in Bay County his margin was 56.5% to 41.5%.

With Tuesday’s special election, Greene becomes senator-elect after McDonald Rivet resigned in January 2025 after being elected to Congress. The 35th District has been vacant for nearly 490 days as of Tuesday. That vacancy will end up being about 500 days when Greene is sworn in, a gap that is easily the largest in modern state history and a sharp departure from the time it has taken to fill over recent Senate vacancies.

“Chedrick Greene has dedicated his life to service. As a retired Marine and a firefighter, he always does what is right for our community,” McDonald Rivet said in a statement. “Chedrick is the person to fight for us in Lansing, and I’m so proud to call him my senator.”

Greene will be sworn in in the coming weeks after election results are certified by local boards of canvassers and the Board of State Canvassers.

The victory by Greene not only strengthens Democrats’ majority, but it also avoids what could have been a nightmare scenario for them with a 19-19 tie with Republicans in the Senate, which would have required Democratic Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II’s tie-breaking vote to move key legislation. Republicans could have just withheld a vote to deny Gilchrist the ability to cast a tie-breaking vote.

Michigan Democratic Party Chair Curtis Hertel in a statement called Greene’s win “monumental” and “resounding,” saying the party will have a stronger majority to work with in the coming months.

“The nation’s eyes were on Michigan for this special election, and voters saw Chedrick is laser-focused on lowering costs, protecting freedoms, and stopping Trump’s attack on the working class,” Hertel said. “Republicans ran with their typical playbook of bending the knee to Trump and putting corporations over working people, and it failed – miserably. With gas prices spiking and grocery bills up, it’s clear that voters are fed up with Trump and Republicans’ cost-raising agenda.”

Senate Republicans were less than impressed in statements following the calling of the race, saying Democrats had to spend big for what they called a short-term rental of the seat.

“Congratulations to the Democrats on burning multiple millions of dollars to keep a Democrat-held seat Democratic,” Sen. Roger Hauck, R-Mount Pleasant, co-chair of the Senate Republican Campaign Committee, said, adding that Democrats broke the bank to rent the seat until November. “Chedrick Greene knows that we won’t be able to hide in his basement much longer. And he won’t get a pass from us in the fall when swing voters start paying attention, Republicans show up to vote, and turnout is two-three times greater than in the special.”

Sen. Michael Webber, R-Rochester Hills, the other SRCC co-chair, echoed Hauck’s comments in a statement.

“By watching them burn through their cash, we’ve now extended our cash-on-hand advantage to well over two million dollars,” Webber said. “For some reason they felt they needed to outspend us 10-1 here.”

Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks, D-Grand Rapids, in a statement said the voters gave Greene an emphatic endorsement at the ballot box on Tuesday.

“They voted to send the battle-tested leadership of a decorated Marine and a dedicated fire chief to represent them in Lansing, and in doing so, they voted for a steady hand to deliver on the tough issues facing us in Michigan and the country,” Brinks said. “This is a decisive win for Chedrick, and I can’t wait to welcome him to the Senate.”

Sen. Darrin Camilleri, D-Trenton, chair of the Senate Democrats’ campaign operations this year, in a statement Greene is the right candidate for the current moment.

“At a time when things feel unstable and chaotic, voters turned to a devoted public servant to lead,” Camilleri said. “Republicans and pundits should take note – wedge issues and manufactured divisiveness will not win this year. Integrity, honesty, and awareness of the real problems that Michigan families face will win the midterms, and Chedrick’s landslide victory tonight is proof of that.”

Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt, R-Porter Township, in a post on X, formerly Twitter, said Tunney put up a strong fight and urged GOP voters to keep up the fight into November.

“He worked tirelessly against a stacked deck, fighting an uphill battle created by a Governor who intentionally kept this seat vacant for an entire year just to manipulate the timing of this special election.” Nesbitt said. “To our voters: stay engaged and stay in the fight. We are going to make sure Democrats lose this seat in the fall when we finally have a fair fight on a level playing field. Onward.”

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer congratulated Greene in a statement that was issued through her Fight Like Hell PAC.

“Today, voters put a check on Republican policies which have led to skyrocketing gas prices and higher costs of groceries, housing, and health care,” Whitmer said. “Michiganders need real relief right now, and they know that Chedrick Greene will help get the job done. I look forward to working with Senator-elect Greene and the entire legislature to keep cutting taxes, fixing the damn roads, feeding our kids free breakfast and lunch, and protecting Michiganders from the economic uncertainty coming from Washington D.C.”

Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee President Heather Williams in a statement called Greene’s victory a decisive win in a key battleground.

“His victory defends the Democratic majority in the Michigan Senate and builds undeniable Democratic momentum for November, which is an all-hands-on-deck moment for building state legislative power all across the country,” Williams said. “Our strategy to remake the landscape of state legislative power doesn’t end with special elections – we’re just getting started.”

Greg Manz, senior strategist with Republican advertising firm Direct Edge Campaigns, in a statement said the high level of spending from Democrats showed they are not as strong as they believe heading into November.

“Senate Democrats and their Washington D.C. allies spending millions to cling to a seat they’re supposed to win isn’t strength – it’s a warning sign for them come November,” Manz said. “This was a low-turnout, high-dollar scrimmage on friendly Democratic turf. Let’s also not forget that Senate Republicans currently have a $2 million cash-on-hand advantage.”

Local government organizations are closely following the roll out of House Republican’s property tax cut proposal and are interested in having more conversations.

Early this week, the House held the first committee meetings for the bill package, which includes HB 5873, HB 5874, HB 5875, HB 5876, HB 5877, HB 5878, HB 5879, and HB 5880.

House Republicans are championing the legislation as a revenue-neutral way to address affordability and the housing crisis, while House Democrats remained skeptical about the math of the plan and how it would affect the School Aid Fund budget and the budgets of local governments.

The package, which includes more roughly $5 billion in property tax cuts, is being labeled as revenue neutral by Republicans because they are also planning legislation to expand the sales tax to some services. That bill has not been formally discussed or completely defined, however.

“We watch this sort of thing intently and we’ll engage if needed to make sure that the rhetoric around making local governments whole is just that,” said Mike Spence, manager of government affairs and strategic coordination with SEMCOG. “Will the math actually math?”

Spence said local governments are accustomed to the Legislature making policy decision that “nibble around the edges” of property tax revenues. One example, he said, was the veterans’ property tax exemption. Local governments have long lamented the policy was passed by lawmakers without the state providing any funding to cover the loss.

“Certainly, we want to take care of our veterans, and we communicated that when it was being considered,” he said. “The key is just that local governments are being made whole when Lansing is making policy decisions that impact their revenues.”

He said that generally, residents have supported property tax millages.

“There is confidence among residents that their local governments provide critical services to them,” Spence said. “Not only do we and our local government members feel that property taxes are critical to provide those services, but the residents in the communities also tend to agree … and they approve millages at a higher rate than they deny them.”

Ultimately, local governments need a predictable and stable source of funding, Spence said, pointing to the Revenue Sharing Trust Fund bills the Senate passed on Thursday.

“Wherever we’re talking about those substantial areas of revenue for local governments, they need to be stable in order for local governments to plan for the future and engage in exact kind of best practices and sound budgeting that the legislature likely wants to see out of local governments.”

John LaMacchia of the Michigan Municipal League said he was glad that the Legislature was having a conversation about property taxes.

“For over a decade, we have talked about how this system is broken. One of the things that wasn’t discussed was the history of how we got to where we are,” he said, pointing to Proposal A and the limit put on increases in property taxes.

One of the concerns municipal governments have is eliminating the pop-up tax.

“While there are no limits to how far we can fall, there are very clear limits to how fast we can grow,” he said. “So, we are still dealing with the ramifications of (the recession in the mid and late 2000s) a decade and a half later, and so we have some really serious concerns about locking those inequities into the system.”

LaMacchia said the system is complex, though, as it’s intertwined with both the services local governments provide and the strengths and weaknesses of the housing market.

Judy Allen with the Michigan Townships Association said townships were willing to talk about changes to property tax, but the biggest concern was consistent funding levels for local government.

“The final piece of this puzzle is HB 5880… but the concern with the revenue mechanism is the estimated impact of this proposal is approximately $4.9 billion. What has been discussed is that the replacement would generate roughly $4.7 billion,” she said. “The replacement mechanism is structured so that schools will be held harmless, and any remaining revenue that would be generated from this new sales tax on services would go to local units of government, but if it’s not matching dollar for dollar there would not be sufficient funds.”

When it comes to budgeting at the local level, Allen said governments have made decisions to try to attract development, and that property taxes can go down, which affects how much revenue local governments can expect.

“The revenue streams for local governments have not been predictable,” she said. “Just look at revenue sharing. We’ve seen some recent increase, which has been hugely beneficial, and I will use townships as an example… 88% of our members did not receive any statutory revenue sharing for nearly two decades.”

More details are needed about the service tax, Allen said.

“We’ve heard the words ‘luxury items.’ We’ve heard different things mentioned, but the bill itself does not outline what would be subject to that,” she said. “But there’s a loss, and the bill clearly states that schools get first reimbursement. Local units of government are second.”

The Legislature will need to have a broader conversation, both about property tax and the diversity of revenue streams at the local level, LaMacchia said.

“We need to understand all of the impacts that are associated with this, along with the original construction and its intent to ensure that we are not putting local government in a position where ultimately, they’re going to have less revenue, and at the end of the day be unable to manage cost pressures that we have,” he said. “We need to make sure every voice is represented at the table, and that we come to a comprehensive solution that just doesn’t try to address one piece of it but collectively addresses the systematic deficiencies that exist in our tax system right now.”

U.S. Rep. Tom Barrett made an appeal for the passage of his legislation to prohibit mid-decade redrawing of U.S. House districts in a Tuesday op-ed. The bill would also limit which residents of a congressional district could be counted toward that district’s population under the U.S. Census.

Barrett’s op-ed, published in The Detroit News, cites the recent decision by Virginia voters to allow lawmakers to redraw the state’s congressional map, the new version of which will favor Democrats, as “just one of the latest developments in an all-out political brawl by both Republicans and Democrats to draw new districts in the middle of the decade to gain a partisan advantage in Congress.”

“Partisan redistricting isn’t a new issue, but what’s unusual about the back-and-forth we’ve seen in the last few years is the timing,” Barrett said in the op-ed. “This is not how our representative democracy is supposed to work, which is why I’m leading the fight to end this tit-for-tat and bring some stability back to American elections.”

Barrett did not make any mention of Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry’s decision to call off his state’s primary elections last week, even though early voting had already begun, after a U.S. Supreme Court decision related to the state’s U.S. House map opened the door for state lawmakers to redistrict. The plans to begin redistricting to a new map is expected to remove one of two majority-Black districts currently held by Democrats, before a delayed July primary kick off Friday, State Affairs’ LaPolitics reported Tuesday. The decision has already sparked confusion among primary voters and prompted a recall petition to be filed against Landry.

The practice of redrawing congressional districts is supposed to take place once per decade, after each U.S. Census is conducted. States redistricted ahead of 2022 midterms after the 2020 census, pursuant to the regular calendar, but many have pursued additional new maps since then, with four years still to go before the 2030 census is complete.

Barrett said he was motivated to introduce legislation by the particularly volatile redistricting environment facing the states in 2025 and 2026, in which state lawmakers from both parties have admitted they’re pursuing new maps for political reasons. Barrett did not mention President Donald Trump’s campaign to pressure Republican state lawmakers in Indiana and other majority-Republican statehouses to pursue redistricting.

“Earlier this year, I introduced a bill to stop this vicious cycle, part of my broader Blueprint for a Better America to reform our federal government and rebuild the trust of the American people. The Make It Count Act would prohibit states from redrawing their congressional districts mid-decade,” Barrett said. “Once a state redistricts after a Census, those districts would be locked in for 10 years until after the next Census. The bill would allow mid-decade redistricting only if a court determines a district map violates the Constitution or Voting Rights Act.”

Barrett’s proposal wouldn’t just prevent states from redistricting between censuses, though – it would change the U.S. Census to include a question about respondents’ citizenship status, designed to limit noncitizens from being counted toward total population which determines the number of congressional districts a state is allotted after each census.

“Importantly, the Make It Count Act would also require that congressional districts be based on the number of citizens in each community. Right now, some states have outsized weight in Congress because noncitizens and illegal immigrants, who aren’t allowed to vote, add to their total population for congressional representation,” Barrett wrote in the op-ed. “Michigan has lost at least one congressional seat after each Census for the last five decades. If districts had been calculated based on citizenship, Michigan would currently have 14 representatives instead of 13.”

Adding a citizenship question to the census has been attempted by Republicans in prior congresses in hopes of tilting district outcomes in their favor: rough estimates of what the 2020 census’s congressional apportionment would have looked like if noncitizens were removed from the count indicate a national map slightly more favorable to Republicans, though statisticians have cautioned against basing policy around such a speculative model of data manipulation.

Barrett referred specifically to “illegal immigrants” in his op-ed, but his bill would require census respondents to indicate if they are a legal permanent resident or visa holder as well. Census experts have said if such a measure passed, there would likely be logistical concerns beyond the legal challenges likely to be brought under the 14th amendment: if people knew the census contained a citizenship question, many would be less likely to participate and it would be more difficult for the U.S. Census Bureau to fulfill its objective of counting all residents of the country, regardless of their legal status.

Nonetheless, Barrett argued that the changes within his legislation are necessary to restore public trust in the federal government and the process by which it operates.

“Illegal immigrants counted in other states have diluted our voice in Washington, weakening our advocacy for Michigan’s communities, manufacturing, agriculture, the Great Lakes and other priorities,” Barrett said. “Determining congressional districts based solely on citizenship and ending mid-decade redistricting would help prevent political gamesmanship that undermines fair representation for the American people.”

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesperson Katie Smith responded to Barrett’s op-ed in a Tuesday statement to Gongwer News Service, arguing the congressman’s decision to introduce the legislation in early 2026, after the bulk of Republican map disputes from 2025 were resolved, indicated his selective concern about the issue of redistricting outside of the census cycle.

“Talk is cheap from Tom Barrett, who had nothing to say as his Washington bosses tried to rig the game for his party’s benefit,” Smith said. “Barrett proved he’s unwilling to stand up to corruption and inside dealing when it matters, and Michiganders deserve better.”