Democratic politicians have long struggled with authenticity problems, going back several decades, but recently have become better at branding to appear moderate to the unwashed masses by using poll-tested buzzwords, phrases, and code switching to speak more authentically to whatever coalition of voters they happen to be standing in front of at the moment.
The woman running to be Michigan’s junior senator, Elissa Slotkin, is a case in point.
Her family founded Hygrade Meats, known for Ballpark Franks. She graduated from two Ivy League schools, worked in the government defense establishment for more than a decade, then won a seat in the U.S. Congress.
During her first congressional run, she crafted a narrative as a wife and stepmother, struggling with all the concerns and worries of the working class, and very effectively used the death of her mother from breast cancer in 2011 as a campaign tool.
In speeches and interviews in 2019, while running her first campaign in a traditionally Republican district, Slotkin stated that her mother, Judith Slotkin, was diagnosed in her 30s with breast cancer and faced difficulties getting and keeping health insurance due to her pre-existing condition. It’s a terrible struggle most Michigan voters can empathize with and a terrible loss for Slotkin, as her mother eventually lost her fight in 2011.
The congresswoman has referenced this terrible event often to lament the issues around pre-existing conditions and the Affordable Care Act, and has also stated that her mother was enduring a bankruptcy during the terminal illness. Given the wealth of the Slokin family, and the affluent area where Judith Slokin lived in Oakland County, I think this political narrative Slotkin has used on the campaign trail deserves a closer inspection.
Slotkin herself has said she had to manage her mother’s bankruptcy paperwork, adding in the same interview: “If you get sick you shouldn’t go broke,” heavily implying the bankruptcy was due to her medical debt. Slotkin has also made vague claims about a loophole that eventually allowed her mother to get some coverage.
Enjoyer found federal court records that did verify Judith Slotkin filed Chapter 13 bankruptcy 16 years prior to her passing in 1995; however, no medical debt was found to be discharged. In fact, the bulk of her debt appeared to be owed to business associates, property management vendors, and credit card companies.
Judith Slotkin’s domestic partner at the time of her death, Anne Adelson, also filed chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2008, with the vast bulk of her debt being held by several credit-card companies. One of the creditors listed in Adelson’s filing was Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak for an amount under $2,000 dollars and no debt claim documents indicating Judith Slotkin’s debt were attached.
No evidence was found indicating a bankruptcy in the years leading up to Judith Slotkin’s passing, and no evidence was found indicating she or her domestic partner were struggling with mounting medical bill debt as a consequence of her terminal cancer.
None of this is to suggest that losing her mother wasn’t an enormously difficult event for Slotkin, but her usage as a political narrative seems vulgar given that the timeline and facts do not exactly line up.
This in conjunction with the bizarre address change in 2022 to a home in Lansing, owned by a prominent lobbyist who was donating money to her campaign. Her address and issues were serious enough questions that, though she won her election from the porch of her Lansing rental, she moved back to the family farm in Holly, prior to announcing her Senate run.
Reporting by the Detroit News in 2022 revealed Slotkin’s seven-month lease agreement with Jerry Hollister, the owner of the Lansing rental, was set to expire one week after the election, which seems particularly weird. She only briefly resided in her district prior to her election and left immediately after winning. Who does that?
Aside from speaking of her mother’s cancer fight and associated health insurance issues, Slotkin rarely, if ever, speaks of her personal life. When news of her divorce broke last year, she made no public statement, and her office released a PR-crafted request for privacy.
Slotkin as a person seems vaporous. The Cranbrook High School graduate spent hardly any of her adult life living in Michigan prior to 2017, and her legal residency in Michigan until 2022 is questionable. Unmarried and childless, she has almost no vested interest in the state or the community of Holly where she currently resides, if she even lives there. And her family history seems massaged and exaggerated at best, heavily embellished at worst.
J.Z. Delorean is a writer for Michigan Enjoyer and has been a Metro Detroit-based professional investigator for 22 years. Follow him on X @Stainless31.
