Muskegon County Voters Return GOP To Leadership Position

Muskegon County Republican leaders are fielding calls from around the country. Other conservatives want to learn more about how the local party leadership set up the process for the County Board of Commissioners to be dominated by Republicans for the first time since Ronald Reagan was President. Democrats of course are also taking note.

To say the 2020 General Election was monumental for the local GOP is clearly an understatement. What isn’t so surprising is the relative lack of coverage from local media outlets. Individual races were covered. But the totality of the number of people voting for a conservative change in Muskegon County leadership has largely been ignored. But make no mistake. People around the country are taking notice and looking closely at what happened on election day in the Lake Michigan shoreline county. And what will be happening as a result.

Some political observers credit now County Board of Commissioners Board Chairman Zach Lahring with essentially galvanizing conservatives in the county in early 2019 by leading the movement to terminate the lease of Planned Parenthood with the Muskegon County Health Department building.

A more recent move by the Muskegon County GOP leadership may have been the deciding action to get more people supporting the GOP County Commission candidates. In September, the GOP established a public “contract” with the residents of the county. All GOP candidates in the county signed on to support the 5 key points. They are listed on the Muskegon County GOP website:
“There are five basic tenets we can all agree on.
1) Fiscal Responsibility: Spend less than you bring in;
2) Job Creation: Promote jobs and skilled trades training and you quell the largest public health crisis: Poverty;
3) Promote Family: Ending fatherlessness will help reduce illiteracy, emotional, social and behavioral problems in our youth;
4) Equity & Equality: Every life matters and every citizen deserves equal treatment and protection of public health and safety and their inalienable rights given by our Creator;
5) Support Public Safety: We must adequately fund law enforcement and equally apply the rule of law to protect ourselves and our State and Federal Constitutional Rights.”

The complete text of the tents is here. Outgoing Muskegon County GOP Chairman Joe Bush is quoted as saying former Republican national party leadership gets some thanks for helping the local leaders craft the positions,“Credit goes to Ronald Reagan’s 1985 State of the Union Address, Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey for some of the text, and for the idea, similar to the 1994 Congressional Contract with America, but here the focus is on letting Muskegon County citizens know these candidates will protect these rights and advocate for these ideas in carrying out their oath of office when elected.”