Working People’s Priorities
A Message from Anthony Pennock
Teacher. Advocate. Your Next State Senator.
Dear Neighbor,
Michigan is at a crossroads. We see it in the "orange cones" on our roads, the rising cost of our grocery bills, and the challenges facing our children in the classroom. For too long, the decisions made in Lansing have prioritized corporate interests and wealthy donors over the needs of families like yours.
I’m running for State Senate to champion a new set of goals: The Working People’s Priorities. I believe that one job should be enough to live on, our schools should be the heart of our communities, and the government has no business in your private life or your doctor's office. As a classroom teacher, I’ve seen firsthand how unnecessary mandates and funding gaps hold our students back. As your neighbor, I know the frustration of seeing our infrastructure crumble while corporations receive tax breaks without accountability.
This platform isn't just a list of promises—it's a roadmap to a Michigan where every worker can retire with dignity, every child can attend a world-class school, and every resident can afford a safe place to call home.
I am not just asking for your vote; I am asking to be your voice in Lansing. Together, we can make these priorities a reality.
Sincerely,
Anthony Pennock, EdD
Candidate for Michigan's 18th Senate District
The Working People’s Priorities: At a Glance
Priority Our Action Plan
🛠️ Dignity of Work Fighting for "Just Cause" protections, paid family leave, and secure pensions.
🍎 Focus on Youth Repealing Prop A to fix school funding and ensuring public dollars stay in public schools.
🛡️ Safer Communities Supporting professional community policing and expanding "Clean Slate" justice reforms.
🌉 Modern Infrastructure Rebuilding roads with union labor, fixing rail gridlock, and protecting our water.
🔍 Transparency & Accountability Ending corporate "claw-back" loopholes and expanding FOIA to the Governor and Legislature.
⚖️ Protecting Our Rights Defending voting access, reproductive freedom, and constitutional liberties.
🏥 Advancing Healthcare Funding rural clinics, protecting patient privacy, and lowering costs for public servants.
🏠 Attainable Housing Implementing rent stability, protecting first-time buyers, and freezing utility rate hikes.
🛡️ Sovereignty & Stewardship Defend the local control of our townships and farms while honoring Tribal sovereignty.
Click on the Button Below To Download the Working People’s Priorities
Protecting Every Worker
Every Michigander deserves respect, a living wage, and the right to stand together. Anthony will fight for:
The Right to "Just Cause": Update the Public Employee Relations Act (PERA) to ensure public employees cannot be disciplined or dismissed without a fair, documented reason.
Paid Family & Parental Leave: Move beyond basic sick time to mandate 2-4 weeks of Paid Medical Leave and 4-6 weeks of Paid Parental Leave so no one has to choose between their paycheck and their newborn or a sick parent.
A True Living Wage: Support a minimum wage that reflects the actual cost of living in Michigan, with automatic increases tied to inflation.
Teacher Tenure Modernization: Update the Michigan Teacher Tenure Act to align with current labor laws, protecting our educators' professional rights.
A Retirement You Can Count On
Retirement shouldn't be a time of financial fear. Anthony will work to:
Restore Public Pensions: Fight to bring back defined-benefit pensions and retirement healthcare for public servants who have dedicated their lives to our state.
Expand Private Options: Ensure every worker has access to attainable retirement accounts with employer-match options (401k, IRA, etc.).
Senior Property Tax Relief: Investigate a long-term plan to eliminate or drastically reduce property taxes for retirees on their primary residence, ensuring we replace that funding to keep our schools strong.
ESP Bill of Rights
Our Education Support Professionals (ESPs)—the bus drivers, paraeducators, and custodians—are the backbone of our schools. Anthony will:
Codify the ESP Bill of Rights: Ensure these essential workers receive the thriving wages, affordable healthcare, and job security they have earned.
Michigan was built by the hands of workers. Anthony believes that if you work hard and play by the rules, one job should be enough to live on, and a lifetime of work should be rewarded with a secure retirement.
The Dignity of Work & Retirement
Focus on Youth
As a teacher, Anthony knows that our schools are the heart of our communities. He is committed to removing the barriers that prevent our students from thriving and ensuring every child—regardless of their zip code—has a world-class education.
Strengthening Public Education
Ninety-seven percent of our district's students attend traditional public schools. Anthony will fight to:
Restore Fair Funding: Support a Constitutional Amendment to repeal Prop A, a failed 1994 policy that has left rural and high-poverty schools behind.
Protect Public Dollars: Ensure every cent of the School Aid Fund stays in public schools, as our State Constitution requires—not diverted to private vouchers.
Teach, Don't Test: Replace high-stakes standardized testing with local assessments that actually help teachers support student growth.
Universal Meals: Codify free school breakfast and lunch for all students and staff, because a hungry child cannot learn.
Special Education: Fully fund and codify the recommendations of the State Special Education Funding Taskforce.
Supporting Rural & Tribal Students
Every student deserves a high-quality education that respects their heritage and location. Anthony will:
Honor Sovereignty & Culture: Allow excused absences for cultural holidays and ban policies that limit traditional cultural expression (such as at graduation).
Invest in Rural Success: Expand funding for 4-H programs, school transportation, and farm-to-table partnerships with local farmers.
Truth & Reconciliation: Support the state investigation into Native American boarding schools and advocate for appropriate reparations.
Foundational Skills: Secure dedicated funding for K-4 literacy and math initiatives to ensure every child has a rock-solid foundation.
Safer Communities & A Fairer Justice System
Safety is built on trust, professional standards, and the belief that our justice system should be about more than just punishment—it should be about results.
Modern Community Policing
Anthony believes that when law enforcement is a positive, engaged presence, everyone is safer. He will fight for:
High Professional Standards: Implement a licensure renewal system (similar to educators) that requires ongoing community service and training.
Crisis Training: Mandate de-escalation and mental health intervention training for all officers to handle complex situations safely.
Fair Pay for Officers: Establish state-supported minimum pay structures through grants to local municipalities to attract and retain the best talent.
Academy Reform: Update police academy requirements to include service-learning hours within the communities they serve.
Real Prison & Sentencing Reform
To break the cycle of crime, we must focus on rehabilitation and common-sense sentencing. Anthony will advance:
Expand the "Clean Slate": Build on Michigan's nation-leading Clean Slate laws by expanding automatic expungement for additional non-violent offenses, ensuring that a past mistake doesn't become a lifelong barrier to a job or a home.
Education & Counseling: Expand vocational training and mental health/drug abuse counseling within our state prisons to prepare individuals for a productive life after release.
Fair Bond Practices: End the use of cash bonds for non-violent, low-flight-risk individuals, ensuring our jails aren't used to penalize the poor.
Support for Correctional Officers: Reduce turnover and increase safety by aligning correctional officer pensions with state police and increasing base pay.
Ending Discrimination: Prohibit the use of criminal history questions ("Ban the Box") for non-violent offenders in housing and credit applications to ensure successful reintegration.
Modern Infrastructure & A Clean Environment
Michigan's beauty—our "Pure Michigan"—depends on our ability to build for the future while protecting our natural resources. Anthony will fight for infrastructure that is built to last and an environment that is safe for our children.
Rebuilding with Quality & Purpose
We’ve made progress, but the "orange cones" need to lead to permanent solutions. Anthony will:
Support Union Labor: Ensure state projects prioritize skilled, union labor to get the job done right the first time.
Solve Rail Gridlock: Work to build more bridges over rail crossings, improving safety for emergency responders and cutting down on traffic delays.
Long-Term Planning: Implement a 5-Year Statewide Infrastructure Plan that ensures every county—not just the big cities—gets its fair share of repairs.
Sustainable Materials: Invest in carbon-neutral and high-durability materials to ensure our roads don't just get patched, but truly fixed.
Protecting Our Air, Land, and Water
Michigan's water is our greatest asset. Anthony believes in a "Polluter Pays" standard to keep our communities safe. He will:
Polluters Pay: Mandate that companies are 100% liable for the costs of cleaning up any harmful chemicals they release.
Protect Natural Resources: Require public ecological impact studies before any new pipelines, data centers, or industrial sites are authorized.
Respect Tribal Sovereignty: Strictly ban state construction on Tribal Lands without the explicit consent and approval of the Tribal Council.
Legacy Cleanup: Expand funding to remediate "brownfield" sites and past corporate pollution, restoring our land for future generations.
Accountability and Transparency
Our state government must be accountable to the people, not to corporate donors. Anthony believes your tax dollars should be treated with the same respect you give your own household budget.
Corporate Job Accountability
For too long, big corporations have promised jobs in exchange for massive tax breaks, only to leave Michigan families footing the bill when those jobs don't materialize. Anthony will:
Enforce "Claw Back" Clauses: Every corporate tax incentive contract must include a mandatory "claw back." If a company fails to meet its job-creation targets, they must return the tax dollars to the state.
Protect the General Fund: Ensure all returned funds are reinvested directly into roads, schools, and public safety.
Ending the "Lansing Secret"
Michigan is currently one of the least transparent states in the nation. It’s time to open the doors of state government to the public. Anthony will fight to:
Expand FOIA to Everyone: Close the loopholes that exempt the Governor’s Office and the State Legislature from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
Expose Lobbyist Influence: Require the publication of visitor logs for all members of the State House and Senate so you know who is influencing your representatives.
Open the Courts: Ensure state court filings are public by default, preventing important legal precedents from being hidden behind bureaucratic walls.
Protecting Our Rights
The Michigan and U.S. Constitutions are not suggestions—they are our guiding documents. Anthony believes the government has no business in your private life, your doctor's office, or your ballot box.
Defending Constitutional Liberties
Anthony will be a firewall against any attempt to erode our basic freedoms. He will forcefully vote against:
Infringements on Freedom of Speech and the Free Press.
Efforts to limit the Right to Peacefully Assemble.
Any attempt to violate the Separation of Church and State, protecting your right to practice any religion—or none at all.
Safeguarding the Right to Vote
Having worked the 2024 election first-hand, Anthony knows our system is safe and secure. He will protect the will of the voters (Prop 2) by opposing:
Expensive hurdles or "poll taxes" disguised as documentation requirements.
Efforts to strip Local Clerks of their power to manage their own voter files.
Privacy breaches that would allow sensitive voter data to fall into the hands of outside entities.
Protecting Your Deeply Personal Decisions
Decisions about your family, your body, and who you love belong to you, not the government. Anthony will advance policies to:
Protect Medical Privacy: Ensure medical decisions remain between you, your family, and your doctor.
Modernize Marriage: Support a Constitutional Amendment to replace "one man and one woman" with "two consenting adults."
Secure Family Planning: Defend IVF and surrogacy as protected paths to parenthood for all Michiganders.
End Discrimination: Expand access to non-religious foster and adoption agencies so no qualified parent is turned away because of who they are.
Advancing Healthcare
Michigan families deserve a healthcare system that prioritizes patients over profits. As your State Senator, Anthony will fight to:
Strengthen Our Healthcare Infrastructure
Protect Rural Care: Secure dedicated funding for rural hospitals and clinics to ensure no Michigander is more than 30 minutes from an ER.
Support Caregivers: Increase Medicaid reimbursement rates so providers can afford to see more patients and stay in business.
Innovation: Fund life-saving research at our state universities for HIV/AIDS, drug addiction, and maternal/infant mortality.
Lower Costs for Families & Public Servants
Flexible School Healthcare: Modernize PA 152 to give school employees better options, like the 80/20 funding model, to keep their premiums manageable.
Expand Child Care: Open up MICare to more children and infants, ensuring every child in Michigan starts life healthy.
Public Option: Research a State Medicaid Buy-In program to give families an affordable alternative to private insurance.
Defend Medical Integrity
Doctor-Patient Trust: Enshrine in law that licensed medical professionals—not politicians—should be the ones making medical decisions for their patients.
Special Education: Increase state funding for school-based Medicaid services to support our special education providers and students.
Attainable Housing For ALL
Shelter is something everyone needs to survive, yet for too many in our state, it has become an impossible expense. As your State Senator, Anthony will fight for:
Stabilizing Costs
Implementing state-level rent controls and a moratorium on utility rate hikes to protect family budgets.
Homeownership Access
Pausing corporate rent-to-own acquisitions to give individual families a fair shot at buying a home.
Smart Growth
Setting state standards for mixed-income housing and creating a Community Revitalization Task Force.
Direct Support
Increasing funding for down payment assistance, rental aid, and home renovation grants for sustainable upgrades.
Sovereignty & Stewardship
District 18 is defined by the land—from our family farms that feed the world to the ancestral territories of the Anishinaabek. For too long, Lansing has treated our rural and Tribal communities as an afterthought. I believe that those who walk the land every day are its best stewards.
Supporting Our Family Farms
Our farmers are the backbone of the Michigan economy, yet they face increasing pressure from state overreach and corporate negligence.
Defending Local Control: I will stand against one-size-fits-all zoning mandates from Lansing that threaten the autonomy of our townships and the future of the family farm.
Incentive-Based Conservation: I support voluntary, incentive-based programs that empower farmers to protect our shared aquifers and soil health without the burden of restrictive red tape.
Accountability for Property Values: Following the Enbridge spill, we saw how corporate negligence can devalue our land. I will fight for strict accountability to ensure our "nest eggs"—our farms and homes—are protected for the next generation.
Honoring Tribal Sovereignty
Respecting the sovereignty of our neighbors, including the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi and the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi, is a matter of legal integrity and mutual prosperity.
Restoring Our Natural Resources: I am a proud advocate for Tribal-led restoration of Mnomen (Wild Rice). This indigenous grain is a vital natural water filter; by supporting its return, we protect the water quality that our farmers and families rely on.
Economic Integrity: I will uphold Tribal-State Gaming Compacts to ensure that local revenue sharing continues to provide the essential funding our rural schools and emergency services need to thrive.
Addressing the MMIW Crisis: It is a tragedy that remains largely ignored. I will champion a Michigan VAWA (Violence Against Women Act) to close legal loopholes and provide the resources necessary to end the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women in our state.