Land: Michigan candidates for U.S. Senate must support the auto industry

Home City News Land: Michigan candidates for U.S. Senate must support the auto industry

Support for the Michigan auto industry became a key issue this week in the U.S. Senate race, as Rep. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and former Michigan secretary of state Terri Lynn Land contend to represent the home of the Motor City in Congress.

On Sept. 25, Peters held a listening session with a group of United Auto Workers at Joe’s Top Dog Coney Island in Dearborn.

“In my mind, I don’t know how you can be running for the U.S. Senate and say you would not have supported the No. 1 industry in your state with hundreds of thousands of jobs,” he said, according to the Detroit News.

Later the same day, Peters visited with workers of the General Motors Orion Assembly Plant while on the campaign trail in Lake Orion. Touting his support of federal auto industry bailouts in 2009, Peters explained that when he took office, it looked as if the GM plant would be shut down.

“I worked with other government officials, worked with labor, worked with management of General Motors and we launched a ‘Make it in Michigan’ campaign, had an effort in which tens of thousands of people petitioned General Motors to build here in America, and I’m happy to say that is what General Motors did,” Peters said.

Local 5960 UAW President Louis Rocha showed his support for Peters, presenting him with an Orion plant T-shirt.

“Gary Peters believed in us, and it’s because of that we now have 2,500 employees now here working at Orion,” Rocha said, The Oakland Press reports.

UAW has contributed $11,000 to Peters’ campaign — the third-highest sum donation by the union of any congressional candidate.  Before Peters are Senator Ed Markey (D-Mich.) and former democratic state representative Pam Byrnes, now running for Congress.

Peters also claimed that Land would have opposed the 2009 bailout. His claim was met with immediate criticism from the Land campaign.

“Once again Gary Peters has it wrong: Terri would have supported the auto rescue,” said Swift. “Gary Peters is just trying to distract from the fact that when he talks about supporting the auto industry, he’s talking about outsourcers and foreign corporations. Because of Gary Peters’ lobbying, taxpayers lost $140 million dollars and Michigan jobs were sent to Finland and China.”

The Land campaign ran their newest ad, “Bad Loans,” on Wednesday, accusing the congressman of supporting foreign manufacturers instead of Michigan industry.

“Hypocrite Gary Peters talks about standing up for American automakers,” the voiceover says, “but Peters backed a half billion dollar taxpayer funded loan to a company that built cars overseas, then went bankrupt, before being sold to Chinese owners. With American automakers struggling, Gary Peters outsourced our money on bad loans to foreign car manufacturers.”

The latest poll, released Sept. 27 by ccAdvertising, showed that registered voters supported Land over Peters 34 percent to 33 percent.

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