Tim Walberg, Bart Goldberg run in new 5th Congressional District

One candidate in the new 5th Congressional District has almost 30 years of legislative experience but is meeting some voters in his redrawn district for the first time. The other major party candidate is trying for his first term in any elected office. 

U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg won a contested Republican primary election in August. He said he’s running for reelection to keep his experience and conservatism in the House.

Bart Goldberg, an attorney from New Buffalo, was uncontested in the Democratic primary. He said he’s running as a moderate Democrat because he views Walberg as “part of the problem” that led to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and he wants to bring people together to protect American democracy. 

Walberg, 71, has served the eastern part of the 5th District for about 14 years. It was created by Michigan’s new redistricting commission after the 2020 census and stretches from Lake Erie to Lake Michigan and includes Jackson County and parts of Calhoun and Kalamazoo counties.

Before being elected to Congress, Walberg served in the Michigan House for 16 years. He is also an ordained minister. He grew up in Chicago and attended Western Illinois University, Moody Bible Institute, Taylor University and Wheaton College Graduate School, earning his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Between his Michigan House and U.S. House terms, he was division manager for the Moody Bible Institute before retiring in January 2006. He and his wife, Sue, live in Tipton. 

Goldberg, 64, grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, and attended the University of Chicago where he received his bachelor’s and law degrees. He worked as a real estate attorney in Chicago, and in Illinois' 2014 Democratic primary election ran against an incumbent state senator. He was trounced, but he said that experience has been valuable this time around in that he did not go into this campaign naively. 

He said about seven years ago he and his wife, Missy, bought a second home in New Buffalo. During the pandemic, they found they could work from New Buffalo, so they moved there. 

He said he had no intention of running for office, but even before Jan. 6, 2021, he felt “our democracy was just hanging by a thread."

Before redistricting, New Buffalo was represented by Republican Rep. Fred Upton. Goldberg said he respected Upton for his vote to impeach President Donald Trump following the attack on the Capitol and for not rejecting the results of the 2020 election. 

But redistricting put Goldberg and Walberg into the same congressional district. 

“Unlike Fred, Tim was not moderate at all,” Goldberg said, citing Walberg’s vote to disallow presidential electors from Arizona and Pennsylvania. 

2020 election and Jan. 6 

Walberg says his votes regarding Arizona’s and Pennsylvania’s electors were because of concerns raised by colleagues from those states about how their elections were conducted. He said he would have objected to Michigan’s electors, too, but no senator would join him. 

“The vote to object was not to deny (the results of the election),” he said in an interview. “It was to object to certain things that we felt were wrong, and in certain cases unconstitutional, such as Secretary of State Benson deciding to mail out absentee ballot applications without the direction from the Legislature to do that. They’re the ones with the authority on how elections are run.” 

Michigan’s Court of Claims and Court of Appeals disagreed with Walberg on whether Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson mailing out absent voter applications was legal. In a 2-1 decision, the appellate court cited the secretary of state's supervisory authority over local election officials and Michigan's Constitution, which says that the right to vote absentee for any reason "shall be liberally construed" to reach its determination that Benson acted lawfully. The dissent in the appellate decision agreed with Walberg. 

The Michigan Supreme Court declined to take the case, letting the Court of Appeals ruling stand. 

Walberg and Goldberg have different views on the House’s investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Walberg called the hearings “Democrat charade” with “two alleged Republicans” — referring to Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois — “that are there to discredit President Trump and more so the people of the movement around him.” 

Goldberg called the testimony “gripping.” 

“It is such a disappointment to me that it’s not changing more minds,” he said.

He said when he meets people who think the election was stolen from Trump, he asks them where is the book deal with someone on the Democratic side would admit to stealing the election. 

Economy 

The economy, particularly inflation, has been a topic that voters have brought up with both candidates, Walberg and Goldberg said.

The economy is one of the four pillars of the GOP’s “Commitment to America” policy priorities in the 2022 election. The other pillars are safety, individual freedom and government accountability. 

“I was involved in the task forces that put those together and decided on specific pieces of legislation to get ready initially so we can drop it and get moving and show, hopefully within the first 100 days, a difference from what this administration has put us through in the last, by that time, 24 months," Walberg said. 

To grow the economy, Walberg said he’s cosponsored legislation that would make permanent the tax cuts for small businesses from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that was enacted under Trump. Other legislation that’s ready to go in the new Congress, Walberg said, would force Biden to open up exploration of federal lands for petroleum and natural gas, like was allowed under Trump. 

Related to the economy is the cost of education. Walberg said Republicans “will be pushing the idea of giving more choice to parents and benefit to them for the dollars that they will invest in the education for their kids.” 

Walberg said he’s also co-sponsored legislation to expand broadband internet access. 

Goldberg said inflation is not the fault of either party. He said people had money in their pockets, whether from COVID stimulus funds or not being able to buy things during the pandemic, and started to spend that money while supply chains were still disrupted by the pandemic. With demand high and supply low, prices rose. He said high gas prices are the result of the global oil market being affected by the war in Ukraine. 

He said the Federal Reserve should have acted sooner to address inflation. He is for “buy American” programs to prevent supply-chain bottlenecks and increasing funding to the Federal Trade Commission to step up antitrust enforcement. 

Goldberg said he supports labor unions to strengthen the middle class, a $15-per-hour federal minimum wage, and promoting vocational or technical schools instead of college. 

“Anything we can do there to increase people’s ability to have a living wage is very productive for the economy,” he said. 

Abortion 

Walberg said he was “delighted” when the Supreme Court overturned Roe in June, but he is “incensed” that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessel have vowed not to enforce the state’s 1931 ban on abortions. He also said Proposal 3 on the ballot Nov. 8 “goes way beyond Roe” and makes Michigan like China or North Korea in allowing abortion up to birth. 

He said he views abortion as a matter for the states to resolve individually based on the Constitution’s 10th Amendment, but he would consider national legislation to restrict abortion depending on what the states do. 

“I hope with good information, they would at least see that life is unique, it’s sacred, and whether born or unborn, senior citizen or young person, all life has worth and unique abilities that ought to be defended," he said. 

Goldberg said if elected he would support legislation to codify the Roe decision. He said he’s pro-choice and it makes sense to have a national standard, but states could still enact restrictions, such as banning abortions in the third trimester, though he doesn’t think restrictions are necessary. 

“I believe that a woman should be able to make her own health care decisions and to do anything less is to relegate them to second-class status,” he said. 

Goldberg priorities 

If elected, Goldberg said he would seek a seat on the House Agriculture Committee. He said he was surprised to learn none of Michigan’s representatives are on the Agriculture Committee. 

“We have a lot of farmers, particularly small farmers, in southern Michigan, who could use some help with a lot of issues, obviously infrastructure and broadband, labor,” he said. 

He said he would work on a “fair yet humane immigration policy” and the H-2B visa program to help farmers hire migrant workers. He said the current H-2B program is expensive, setting a wage for laborers that is “significantly” above the minimum wage and having so much red tape that farmers need to hire people to help them navigate the program. 

Walberg priorities 

To address security concerns, Walberg said Republicans will question Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas about border security and the numbers of people crossing illegally and will fund police pay and training. 

He said Republicans also want parents to know that they still control their children’s lives and they also expect schools and other governmental entities to respect parents. 

Walberg also wants the House to get back to doing business in person, like it was before the pandemic. He said there is still proxy voting and committees are still having virtual hearings. He said he has not voted by proxy.  

He said there were workers deemed to be essential employees who had to go to work during the pandemic, but that wasn’t the case in Congress. 

“I would think that an essential employee of the people is a member of the U.S. Congress,” he said.

Also running to represent the 5th District are Libertarian Norman Peterson and U.S. Taxpayers candidate Ezra Scott. 

The Detroit Free Press contributed to this report.