Andy Levin looks to take dad Sander Levin's seat in Congress
WASHINGTON — First it was Carl, and then it was Sandy: For 40 years, a Levin has represented Michigan in Congress. But if Andy Levin is going to keep that streak alive, he’ll have to work for it.
Running to succeed his dad, U.S. Rep. Sander Levin, D-Royal Oak, who has represented southeastern Michigan since 1983 (Carl Levin, Sandy’s younger brother, joined the U.S. Senate in 1979 and stepped down in 2014), Andy Levin, 57, has attracted a Democratic opponent in former state Rep. Ellen Lipton of Huntington Woods who presents a viable challenge to the family line.
Across the country, women have been winning in several contested primaries, especially among Democrats, and Lipton — who, along with labor lawyer Martin Brook, is running for the Democratic nod in Michigan’s 9th Congressional District on Aug. 7 — presents a compelling narrative. She's a mother who has multiple sclerosis who only entered politics to fight for stem cell research. She ended up becoming well-known in Lansing for taking on several battles, not the least of which were fights over education issues, including the Education Achievement Authority, the state's now-defunct district for worst-performing schools.
But Levin, too, has his narrative, one that may align just as well with a progressive movement challenging traditional Democrats from the left: a history of activism, from union organizing and protest arrests to helping to create a social justice group — “Detroit Jews for Justice” — to go with his own time in government, mainly working in former Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s labor department.
Read more: https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2018/07/13/andy-levin-set-take-his-fathers-seat-congress/780470002/
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