Jennifer Wortz Courtesy | Jennifer Wortz
When Jennifer Wortz refused to wear a mask at a local health board meeting in the fall of 2021, police escorted her out within minutes.
About 18 months into the pandemic, the Branch-Hillsdale-St. Joseph Community Health Agency still required her son to wear a mask at school, and the mother of four “had just had it.”
Wortz had staged a protest before. After her sixth-grade band teacher cursed at the class, she stood up and led her classmates out of the room.
“I have a high sense of justice,” Wortz said. “I don’t have a problem with good rules. But when rules are stupid, and expectations are put upon you that are not accurate or line up with truth, I buck that.”
The next band class, the teacher was gone, she said.
At the next tri-county health board meeting, Wortz brought about 20 maskless allies with her to speak against the rules during the time for public comment. But the board canceled the meeting because the attendees were not masked.
“That was the launch, if you will, into why I’m running for office,” Wortz said.
She’s the Republican candidate for the 35th State House of Representatives district, the strongly GOP district that includes Hillsdale County. Wortz is set to replace Rep. Andrew Fink, who is running for the state Supreme Court, but first she must defeat Democrat Don Hicks.
A Michigan State University agricultural communications major-turned-homeschooling mom of four, Wortz owns Central Grace Farms with her husband, Nathan.
She said she never intended to run for public office but felt called to step up. Wortz first got involved in politics when — frustrated with the public education system — she ran for school board in Quincy in 2016 and won.
“I think no matter where God calls you, if you don’t have him at the forefront of your life, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing, it’s going to be hard for you and it’s going to be hard to change anything in any environment that you’re in,” she said.
With her father, Gary Leininger, serving as county treasurer in Hillsdale County and her mother serving on the school board, Wortz said her family modeled for her the importance of local politics and investing in the community. Her brother, Brent Leininger, is a Hillsdale County Commissioner.
“My dad and I probably have similar personalities in that right is right and wrong is wrong, and whether or not people agree with you, you’re going to pursue truth and stand up for truth,” Wortz said. “And that was the example I was given.”
Wortz said her father ran for treasurer because he experienced the effects of poor economic policy as a farmer trying to raise cattle and provide for his family. Wortz’s favorite meal as a child was “shit on a shingle” — chipped ham gravy on toast.
“It’s the cheapest meal you can ever eat,” Wortz said. “I never realized that it was terribly unhealthy. But it was cheap.”
During the pandemic, Wortz became even more frustrated by state and local masking requirements and other measures. Her family was not allowed to see her grandmother before she died.
“I watched my grandmother die alone here in Hillsdale County,” Wortz said. “We saw her on Thanksgiving Day. They brought her to a glass door. They cracked the door so we could say hi. And she died that Monday, alone.”
When Fink announced last fall he was running for state Supreme Court, Wortz almost stayed out of the race. She began looking for someone to replace Fink, but after attending the Michigan March for Life and later meeting Hillsdale Mayor Adam Stockford — her primary competitor for the Republican nomination — Wortz decided to run for the seat herself.
“There’s an attack on women, children, and the unborn,” Wortz said. “There’s some things that need to be said that a man in this day and age probably cannot say and not be annihilated.”
Wortz won the primary with 52% of the vote and even defeated Stockford — who came in second — in every ward in the City of Hillsdale except Ward 2, where she lost by only four votes. She said she knocked on 2,500 doors personally, and her team knocked on 10,000 doors during the campaign.
Wortz said her “big priority” is to repeal a new law that centralized solar panel project approval. After Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed the new law in November, a state government board can now override local government opposition to new solar panels.
“Returning that to local control is very important,” Wortz said.
But unless Republicans can flip at least one seat in the Michigan House of Representatives, Democrats will keep control of the governor’s mansion and both chambers of the state legislature — the “terrible trifecta,” Wortz calls it.
“If that doesn’t happen, people have asked ‘What are you going to do?’” Wortz said. “I’ve said, ‘Bang my head against a wall for two years in frustration.’”
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