WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - The WRFH Interview: State Rep. Jennifer Wortz, 10/21/26

Episode Date: October 21, 2026

Michigan State Rep. Jennifer Wortz joins WRFH's Sophia Mandt for a conversation about accounting for research funding in the state, Michigan's auto insurance market, and the state of our schools. From 10/21/26

You're listening to Sophia Mant. Interview Michigan State Representative Jennifer Warts on Radio Free Hillsdale, 101.7 FM. She represents the 35th District in Lansing, covering most of Hillsdale and Branch counties. A recent audit by the Michigan House found that only 1% of research funding actually went to research. Where did all the rest of the money go? Do you want me to answer that question, Sophia? Yeah. Yeah, I'd like to know as well.

You're referring to the House Oversight Committee hearing that took place and involving Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, and their findings were by the Auditor General Report, that, yeah, less than 1% of the money that was supposed to go for research and programming of new technology that was supposed to be partnered with universities around the state to implement, less than 1% one to that, and the rest of it went to funding and fattening the payroll of members of MDHS instead. It seems like this is kind of a pattern.

I feel like we've talked about these issues of misused funds before. This just seems like another one of those problems. Yeah, and this is why it's so important that we choose very wisely who we vote for. because we find these. This is what's happened in the last two years since we've had control in the House. And our oversight committee has done these investigations, but then the Attorney General's office takes no action. And so we can't bring about charges.

I mean, the director of MDHS has stepped down at this point in time. But this all happened under her watch. And there needs to be people held accountable for this, but that requires an attorney general willing to take action. So hopefully in the first of the year with the new AG will be able to move forward with some charges on some of these findings. You testified on behalf of a bipartisan package that would give Michigan drivers more affordable options for auto insurance. In what ways is Michigan's auto insurance system flawed? And how would these bills help local residents? Well, there's a lot of issues with Michigan's auto insurance policy.

In the 70s, the thought was by going to no-fault auto insurance that we would actually save money statewide and prevent frivolous lawsuits. The problem is we have such high bodily injury amounts and personal protection that it is, it, sorry, it's bodily injury liability and personal property protection that we, um, we are five times higher than every other state in the country. Most require a 50,000 maximum. We start with a 250,000 minimum. Um, and so these would allow us to be more in line. Um, In fact, if you are on Medicaid, you are the only person right now that can have $50,000 coverage. All the rest of us have to have $250,000 minimum coverage. And so it would bring that down and be more in line with what we allow during the changes that happened in 2019.

It also currently right now, every six months, you have to choose to opt out of PIP coverage on your policy. and most people forget to do that or simply don't do it. And so it automatically puts you in back in. There's not a huge difference right now in savings on that, but if we could lower the amount, that would provide a huge additional opportunity for savings. And I would encourage people to pull out and look at their deck sheet on their auto insurance package and see exactly where the breakdown is

and what you're paying. But for a lot of us, it's that. hip or the bodily injury liability where we're incurring the bulk of the portion of our bill that's significantly higher when we look at our neighboring states, 30% usually by comparison to Indiana and Ohio, I think, is a little less than that, but not much. And so other states have options. We don't have options. and that's what these bills would do.

It would give options. If you still want to continue to have the premium no-fall and you want to have maximum unlimited coverage, you could still do that. But then it would give options for people who simply can't afford that. And unfortunately right now, are opting to not have insurance, which then increases the rates for all the rest of us as well.

Governor Gretchen Whitmer has signed an executive order allowing Michigan farmers and loggers using eligible vehicles to use dyed diesel through the end of 2026? What kind of a difference will this make? Well, this is huge for agriculture. It's agriculture and forestry as well. And so currently the law is that there's red dye diesel that can be used in off-road equipment and machinery. to farm equipment, logging equipment. The president made this allowance about 10 days ago,

and maybe it was two weeks ago. And then the governor followed last week. I actually was in the process of putting forth a resolution requesting this, and then the governor did it. So it's one of the things I'm thankful for that she chose to follow the president. lead on this and do the same thing because it allows for farmers to use the red dye diesel, which then doesn't have any tax on diesel. So it's about 56 cents a gallon savings, and they can use that fuel to transport commodities and lumber to market right now on the road. So in

and trucks that are plated for farm use and that you're transporting farm products to market. You're listening to Sophia Mant interview Michigan State Representative Jennifer Wartz on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. She represents the 35th District in Lansing covering most of Hillsdale and Branch counties. You sponsored a bill that passed the House back in June that would provide for an accredited election official to step in when a township clerk and all deputy clerks are unavailable. What is the most significant vulnerability in Michigan's election administration that you believe needs to be addressed? Yeah, well, this is a growing problem. I was just reading an article that was in MERS yesterday about this, that there's, been analysis done and there's upwards of 150, I think, about open positions when it comes to

village and township vacancies for the November ballot. Now, that's not necessarily just clerks. Sometimes it's village mayors or council members or township, council. members as well. But clerks has become a growing issue with the 10 days of early voting, that requires a lot more responsibility with the continuous absentee ballot that you can sign up for now. Clerks spend hours prepping and sending out those ballots at the beginning of election season. And unfortunately, the funds to increase the salary for clerks hasn't come. So the demand and the time of what someone signed up for to be a maybe part-time position has turned in to a full-time

position, especially when it comes to election time. And that's the 10 days of early voting is required for every federal election. The absentee ballots is for every election. And so it's putting a lot more burden and responsibility. And then there's a lot of hot topic issues that are happening in townships and cities where people, they don't want to be in the hot seat, if you will. They want to have backlash from the public. And so they're just simply choosing and you can't get people willing to step forward and run for these positions.

And so the bill I introduced would be a fix that would allow for townships. or villages and cities to contract with another local clerk. They still have to appoint someone on their board to serve as acting clerk. Oftentimes that's the treasurer if you want to look at that township here in Hillsville County is an example of that. So they appoint a clerk. But if that person has not gone through the training, that's necessary to run an election, then it's very difficult.

They can't fulfill the duties and the requirements to run the election. So then the township can contract with someone who is certified to do so. And so that's what this bill would allow for. It's just, in my mind, it's a temporary fix. I really think we have to start looking at. There are options. in the state statute of how townships and villages could consolidate. I think that's something we need to consider.

I think there's some small townships that also need to look at possibly consolidation. That's maybe not a popular opinion, but the factor the matter is, as baby boomers age and millennials are coming up, one simple fact is there's a lower amount of people in that age range who are willing and able to run for office as well. And so it may require that we have to consolidate some of these smaller areas to have a larger pool of people that are actually available to fill these positions. How do you distinguish between an administrative error that needs correcting and evidence of a broader process? with election integrity. Can you say that again? I'm not sure what you mean.

I think it's kind of in relation to like the vulnerability with a township clerk and deputy clerk. Like is it an administration error? Is there any relations to that with election integrity? Or do you see that as more of an administration error? Well, I wouldn't really say it's an administration error. It's just a simple fact. It's a problem right now with this is what's in statute versus the demographic and your people willing to step forward and be involved.

And this isn't even just in local government. If you look at service organizations like Kiwanis, Exchange Club, Rotary, everyone's numbers are down. Is that, you know, my generation millennials, is it because we're less willing to step forward? and be in service organizations, maybe I think it's more that, you know, by and large, usually the saying is that in an organization, 20% of the people do 80% of the work. We've heard that oftentimes in church and you kind of see it and it holds true. The problem is when you had the baby boomer, baby boomer generation that had significantly larger amounts and those people are aging into their 70s and 80s now and stepping out of these service roles or government

roles, you don't have the same number of people following behind them. And you have less population there already. And then you take less population and then take 20% of that population. And it might even be more like 10% now who's willing to step forward and serve. You just have less people willing to do A recent report indicated that Michigan slipped once again this year in college readiness. According to the results, only one-fourth of 11 graders in Michigan are college-ready based on SAT results, a slight dip from 26.6% last year. A decade ago, it was 35%. Is that an accurate picture of what's happening in our high schools across the state?

Yeah, this whole education system and, Michigan is failing. I think we can see it from all aspects. I sat in a board meeting several years ago. It's probably four years ago in Lansing. And it was the Michigan School Board. And they voted to actually lower even the standard. I think it's 35% now to make it so that if a kid passes, standardized testing, the meet standardized testing, at a 35% they're considered proficient and pass on to the next grade. I mean, this is just crazy what we've done to education standards as a whole. Meanwhile, I met with a group of teachers a couple weeks ago, and we compare salaries. I mean, I taught. I started at 32,000, and that was over 20 years ago. A new higher teacher today starts at $42,000. And that's in a good district.

It might even be less than that and some others. So you have a rate of pay that's not kept pace with the rate of inflation when it comes to education. We have changed the structure for health insurance and education. Health insurance has become way more expensive as a whole. And then classroom management, the expectations that we've, put on teachers and frankly from from the state level very poor curriculum requirements and our universities are not doing a good job of training teachers and equipping them for how to actually manage a classroom how to teach phonics based reading how to reach as far as I'm concerned

we need to return to class classical based education you know steps we may in the house. We have banned now, cell phones in school. I think that is a huge step forward. I think we need to look at eliminating a lot of technology for the younger ages in particular, and we need to return to paper and books, real books, paper and paper and pencil writing. We have a lot of work to do to turn this around. It was one of the reasons I did not vote in support of the education budget this year because we're sending way too much money to higher education in our state education budget and that money needs to go to actually fixing the issues that we have in K-12 education, which is what that money is supposed to be used for.

There are two ballot initiatives in November. Let's talk about one. It asked Michigan voters to convene a constitutional convention for the purpose of drafting a general revision of the state Constitution? What should we know about this proposal? Yeah, so this proposal comes on up for a vote every 16 years, and it is in statute within the Constitution about allowing the people to choose whether to vote to do a constitutional amendment. People who are for this say, you know, there's a lot of issues with our Constitution. I'm actually one that's leaning for this amendment. I think there's some things that we really need to fix going back to the education issue. I think the Blaine Amendment needs changed within the Constitution and it would allow for more of a free market economy and options when it comes to allowing parents to choose where to send their kids and to be able to use some of those state tax dollars to do so for better education across the state.

That's one issue. Some of the other issues, amendments that have been put forward that we could actually improve and fix with a constitutional amendment. People who are against it say, you know, there's a risk factor. Things could get worse. There could be things that change that could make it worse than what we already have. But I just don't really see it at this point. I'm not sure what could really get worse than some of the major issues

that are in the Constitution currently that we need to work through. So I'm planning to vote yes on that one. What are some races to watch out for as the Hillsdale general election approaches? Well, obviously in the city of Hillsdale, you have a mayor race, You have several council members up for election.

I think those are the races that are most contested within the county. And then obviously at the state level, the Michigan Senate race, that's going to be a big one to watch, the governor. And then the Attorney General Secretary of State. And then we have all the Senate and the House up for re-election this year. So it's a pretty big year in Michigan. Gotcha. Yeah, are there any like races or stuff that, um, you think are particularly tight? I mean, I know like the, uh, uh, say it and Rogers race in the Senate has been like getting a lot of attention as well. Um, are there others that maybe are getting less coverage that do you think are important for voters to know about? Yeah, well, I would say obviously the Senate race is the U.S. Senate race. Yeah, I was Rogers and Elsa Aided's. taking huge attention.

That one they say right now is in a dead heat. And so that's going to be a big one. But I think more at the state level, as I mentioned earlier, the attorney general race. You know, I'm really hopeful that Doug Lloyd can win that race. We need him. We need a real common sense attorney general. and I think Doug is that.

And so I'm hopeful that he can win. And then obviously the Secretary of State, Anthony Forlini, that one's, I think, going to be a little tighter. The current lieutenant governor is the Canada on the other side. And so I think that's going to be a pretty tight race there. But again, I'm hopeful there. We have several things within, in particular, Bureau of Elections that we need to address and bring back in line with the federal rules and laws

and rules sets that have been changed without the consent of the legislature within the Secretary State's Office. So those are probably the big ones that I'm watching. And then we have several, we have several very tight races in the House, and we're hoping we can keep a majority there. Two of my neighboring districts in Jackson and Calhoun. County. Those are 50-50 races right now as well. So I'll be watching those very closely. Thank you. This has been Sophia Mant, interviewing Michigan State Representative Jennifer

Warts. She represents the 35th District in Lansing, covering most of Hillsdale and Branch counties. This is Radio Free Hillsdale, 101.7 FM.