Conversation with Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer | 2023 IWF World Leadership Conference

It is my absolute pleasure to introduce our first program segment, a fireside chat between one of America's most dynamic governors and an IWF member who has been a part of the U.S. and global policymaking landscape for three decades. Please join me in welcoming Michigan Governor, the Honorable Gretchen Whitmer, and Executive Director of the Clinton Foundation and a member of IWF Arkansas, Stephanie Street. Thank you. It's so good to see you again. What are you wearing? You know, okay, so I was really debating on whether to wear this. I love it so much. But when I saw you in New York a few weeks ago, you had on leather pants and this really cool outfit. And so I asked Steph O'Keefe last night, we had a drink, and I said, you know, I bought this leather pantsuit. I've never worn a leather pantsuit before. Is that too over the top? I want to be cool like Governor Whitmer. Is it too over the top? No way. It's fantastic. It's fabulous. I love it. Well, thank you. I'm going to have to get one. It is quite an honor to be here today sitting on the stage with you. You know, you're kind of a big deal. You know that, right? You're a big girl. You're a big deal. And before you came out this morning, I was sort of telling everybody that I'm a fan girl. So this is really quite an opportunity. So we have so much to talk about today. So I'm going to go ahead and get started, if that's good for you. All right. In January 2023, 12 women moved into governor's mansions around the country. And that may not seem like a lot, but it's a pretty impressive record, I think. And up until now, only 45 women governors in total, and only nine have served simultaneously. You are, of course, part of that special club, and I cannot imagine it was easy to get there. Can you talk a little bit about some of the biggest catalysts and impediments for your success and engagement in politics, particularly as a woman? I'd love to. I'll just start with this. When I was elected, I was the second woman governor here in Michigan, and Governor Jennifer Granholm was a trailblazer and someone for whom my own mother worked. And she had a great cadre of fellow female governors in their class, with Kathleen Sebelius and Donna Shalala, and a number of phenomenal, wonderful governors that she became very close to. And so coming in, I got to know my fellow female governors, and they're a bunch of badasses. I love them so much. There are eight of us are Democrats right now, so my besties are Laura Kelly from Kansas, who has defeated all odds that she could period the state of Kansas twice, Janet Mills from Maine, Michelle Lujan Grisham from New Mexico, Kathy Hopel from New York, Katie Hobbs from Arizona, and Tina Kotak from Oregon. And I had them all up on Macon Island this past summer. All but two were able to be there, so there's six of us governors. Everywhere we went, there were at least 35 state police officers following us. But having other women to talk to in these heady roles as we're navigating some of the most unimaginable challenges, from a pandemic to threats on our lives to the vitriol and ugliness that is uniquely waged against women, I think has been such an important source of support for me and for me to my colleagues. And we're always mindful about how do we level barriers so other women seek these offices? Because we bring something to the table that most men can't even conceive of, and that's why it's so important that we are at the table, setting the agenda, debating the facts, giving voice to lived experiences. You know, this past week, I spent a lot of time at the hospital with my father. He's a very private guy, I'm not going to give you gory details, but he's 83, he's got significant health challenges, and my brother's a wonderful guy, but as a 45-year-old bachelor, he's not gotten the same kind of level of skills that I have taking care of my mom when she was dying 20 years ago, taking care of kids that I was raising. And these are barriers to women getting involved because we do shoulder so much of this responsibility, but it's also why it's so important that we are, because we represent more than, we represent most of the population. When you think of the men and boys, we take care of too, right? And that's why it's so crucial that we are leading and we're seeking ways to level barriers for other women to get into these roles. I love the way that you talked about your fellow other women governors and how you sort of are this unique club and support each other. That's so important, and with this group of women here, I think we all know how important it is for women to support other women, to pull up that seat at the table, to kick down that door to make sure that the folks that come after us to have that opportunity. So thank you for continuing to do that. You were elected governor in 2018 and assumed office in 2019, and previously you served in the Michigan State Senate and House of Representatives. Can you tell us a little bit so far, what is the legislative achievement to date or achievement in general that you were the most proud of? Well, I'll tell you, you know, 14 years in the legislature, I was in the minority the whole time. We had gerrymandered seats, there was never really a path to majority. And so I was a, you know, important and loud voice in the minority, but not able to really set the agenda. When the results of this last election came in, I felt pretty confident going to bed that I had won, although I hadn't been called yet. And the folks in the legislature kept saying, if you win by four points, we are going to flip the Senate. I was like, oh, that would be great just to have one house in the legislature. By 5 o'clock in the morning, I got the text, we won by 11 points and flipped this house as well. Incredible! Woo! That is awesome! For the first time, for the first time in 40 years, we had a real opportunity to set an agenda. And that agenda included things that I am really proud of. Finally, wiping the 1931 law that was all out ban on abortion in Michigan from ever coming back into life. And I'll tell you, you know, as a mom, I'm always thinking about my girls and their generation. I have a 21-year-old and a 19-year-old. They're both at the University of Michigan, despite my best efforts to get them to go to Michigan State. And they, but my oldest is a gay woman. And for Michigan to even have a shot at being the place where she stays and builds a life, she has to make her own choices about her body, and she better have full civil rights under the law. And so I signed the Elliott Larson Civil Rights Law with my daughter by my side, and that was my personal happiest day. I feel you here. I have three daughters as well, 21, 20, and 16, and I am doing everything I can to make sure that they have opportunities in the state of Arkansas, which is a little challenging right now. So thank you. Well, you know what? There's so many great jobs in Michigan. Okay. And they have full rights to make their own decisions. Why don't you give me their number? I will. I'll give you the number after that. Let's talk a little bit about some barriers to women. Talk a little bit to us about what you think are some of the biggest barriers to entry for women who would like to run for office, and how can they overcome those? I think the biggest barriers are in between our ears. You know, it's being socialized to assume that we have to have a certain credential or a lived experience or run for a specific office before you're eligible to run for another. Men just don't operate that way. They come out of the womb thinking they should be President of the United States. We need, you know, we need to, I think, be bold. And I think about people like Secretary Clinton, who was such a trailblazer and took so much heat. And by doing that, she made it a little easier for the people, the women who come behind her. Think about Governor Granholm, or Secretary Granholm, when she was Governor, doing the same. I think about when young women come up to me and tell me, you know, they're fired up and they're engaged and they care and they're thinking about running for office, whether it's because, you know, we did something funny on, you know, our social media or because it's about fundamental rights. And so I do think that women, we need to support one another, we need to encourage one another. Not everyone's going to run, but every one of us cares and can play a role in that. And so I do think that that's a real barrier. And I also think that the vitriol and violence that we've seen is as well. You know, I have been the subject of a lot of ugliness and threats and plot to kidnap and to kill me. The last three defendants were just acquitted a couple weeks ago, which was pretty depressing. So that being said, the majority of the plotters are serving hard time, and they should be, and accountability is really important if we're ever going to get this back to a place where we can disagree without turning to guns and violence and hurting one another. But I think it's, women are going to lead the way. Women are going to lead the way. We're the ones who are going to have to walk through the fire to do it, but we are going to lead the way. And I think that, you know, when you look at my Attorney General, who's been so staunch in terms of getting justice, and you look at my Secretary of State, who has been the one who's been fighting to protect democracy and voting rights here in Michigan, and the new Senate Majority Leader, the first woman in Michigan history. When one of us owns our space, it gives, you know, legitimacy and space for others to step into their power as well, and I think that's really important. I call that women with big shoulders for other people to stand on, that's for sure. Well, we are so thrilled to be in your beautiful state, and the hospitality by the host committee here, I was saying before you came out, has just been unbelievable. And I hope you're going to get one of these Carhartt gift bags that we all got. They are pretty fantastic. Your daughters will- I would like one if I haven't yet, so, I love Carhartt. Your daughters will want to steal it, so just keep an eye on it for sure. So let's focus on Michigan for a few minutes. We know that the global auto industry is undergoing a transition from combustion to electric vehicles in the next few decades. What is Michigan doing to prepare for this transition and take advantage of it? And secondly, what opportunities are there here for workers and domestic manufacturers? So you know, I'm really excited about some of the work that we've done to lay the ground for the transition to happen here, for the cars of the future to be built here, for the workers of today to be trained for the jobs of tomorrow. We've invested a lot into upskilling our workforce. We know that EV jobs take a different set of skills. We also know that long-range batteries are going to be an important part of it. Chips are crucial. Anyone who drove around Michigan during the pandemic saw cars piling up in lots because we couldn't get semiconductors from Taiwan to the States. And so we've landed a lot of great investments. I don't think we can talk about this without sharing some concern about the prospect of a prolonged strike and what that could mean for a lot of this work. But as I look and read some of the commentary out there about how, you know, maybe we shouldn't be so forward-thinking when it comes to EVs and maybe we should just do internal combustion engines until we have all the infrastructure. If we wait, we're going to be left behind. This transition is happening. It is happening around the globe. I was in Japan last month. I was in Germany earlier this year. It is happening. And in order for us to have a strong economy, we've got to be leading the way. So we can't get side, you know, we can't be taking down, you know, paths that aren't focused on how do we make sure that we continue to lead in this industry. And that's supporting our workforce and making sure we've got the skills to do it. It means working with the companies to make sure that they've got what they need to grow right here in Michigan. And it's resolving this strike as soon as possible. You brought up chips. And ladies, I'm not talking about potato chips. I'm talking about microchips. And we're hearing more about chips, I think, than we ever had before. And it was a bipartisan priority in Congress last year with the passage of the Chips in Science Act. Tell us why chips are important not only to Michigan, but to really our entire country. So, you know, the semiconductor was something that was invented in the United States. And then we stopped really being aggressive in terms of manufacturing it. Taiwan is now the world leader when it comes to manufacturing semiconductor chips. They are in everything from the phone in your pocketbook to the car that you're driving to the washing machine in your house. Whirlpool, which we love and are glad to have a headquarters in Michigan, always was eager to remind us that, you know, you're just talking about autos, but there's chips in all of the products that we produce as well. We rely on these tiny little semiconductors. We have Hemlock Semiconductor in the Bay Area that produces the hyper-pure polysilicon, which is a fundamental to chips. So we are doing some of this work, but building out fabs so that we can mass produce these chips. And there are a few different types. There's memory chips. There's the analog chips. But making sure that we are doing that work here is really important. We saw during the pandemic, when we are not manufacturing things, we are vulnerable. Whether it was swabs that we couldn't get from Italy because Italy was shut down, or it was N95 masks in China because China was shut down, people died because we couldn't get some of those fundamentals. And those are pretty simple things to manufacture. When we're talking about chips, so much of our world relies on them. And one F-150 takes, I think, you know, hundreds, maybe thousands of chips. It's not like a vehicle needs one chip. I heard someone say, I'm just waiting on a chip to get my vehicle. Well, no, you're waiting on thousands of chips. But these are computers that move people. And that's what is in your pocketbook. These are computers that rely on these chips. And that's why it's so important. They're semiconductors. You talked a few minutes ago about sort of the trifecta of leadership, women's leadership in Michigan, and this is a real success. Talk about sort of the secret to your success here and some of the takeaway learnings that might be applicable elsewhere. I think that the biggest takeaway learning is don't listen to anyone who says you can't do it. You know? And when Jocelyn Benson and Dana Nessel were running for Secretary of State and Attorney General respectively, that in Michigan is decided through a political convention. So the Democratic Convention nominates the people who serve and who are going to be on the ballot in those two offices. It's not a traditional primary. It's working stakeholders at a convention. When you run for governor, you got to win a primary, a statewide primary. And each of us was told, well, if this sequence happens, you can't be the candidate because we can't have all women at the top of the ballot. Why? Exactly. Why not? But none of us listened to them. And I remember a time when, you know, there was a dust up and some folks were trying to see if they could lure a high-profile man to jump in the race pretty late in the process. And you know, I was frustrated. I called Debbie Stab and I said, you know, what do you make of this? You know what? She said, ignore it. Just keep working. You're outworking everyone. It's not going to end up happening. Just keep doing the work. And I thought that was really good advice, just to tune out the noise. Do what you know to be the right thing, whether it's making a decision in a pandemic or it's running for office or it's any other facet of your life. The best barometer of what to do is getting the facts and then making a decision that is right for you. Yes. Debbie Stabenow. Wow. What a role model. What a rock star. She is incredible. It'll be a big loss when she ends her term, but she's been a great source of counsel and a great friend to me over the years. And you know, I'm lucky I've got a lot of strong women like Debbie Dingle and Jennifer Granholm. Debbie Dingle. Yeah. A lot of women that I can look to. Brenda Lawrence. So, you know, we're very fortunate that we've had some strong women leaders in this state. Right. Mentoring is so important. I can't underscore, and I'm sure for you and your career, mentoring was really foundational for me, like having other women that I could see doing things that perhaps other people told me, you know, oh, that's not your lane. You should, you know, do X, Y, and Z and just love hearing about all these tremendous women. What an inspiration, I'm sure, for you and obviously the women around your state. Yeah. I'm going to switch gears just a little bit here. A couple of weeks ago, you and I both had the opportunity to attend the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City, and you were on an incredible panel with Governor J.B. Pritzker and Secretary Hillary Clinton regarding the future of reproductive rights, a topic for which you were obviously an unwavering champion. And in your State of the State address this year, you said, I'm looking at you, Ohio and Indiana, when you were talking about reproductive freedom and LGBTQ plus rights. Talk about what you have done to take Michigan's message of freedom and opportunity to other states where they are enacting abortion bans and anti-LGBTQ plus laws around our country. Well, one of the things I said in my State of the State is that bigotry is bad for business, and I mean it, and most business leaders know it. In this last election, we had abortion rights on the ballot, and it drew a lot of people out to the polls. It drew an incredible, massive group of volunteers who collected signatures and got the constitutional amendment passed, and then I was able to follow up by getting that 1931 law off the books so it never could come back to life. But this was a huge effort. It was young people that turned out in droves on campuses. We had the highest youth vote turnout in the country per capita here in Michigan, and they stayed in line because they could register same day and vote, and so they stayed in line to register and vote. Lines on campuses at University of Michigan, Saginaw Valley State, Michigan State, all across the state, young people were engaged, and that confirms for me what I think I've learned from my daughters and a lot of their friends and their generation. They care about these fundamental rights. They're willing to fight for them, whether it is LGBTQ rights, whether it's women's rights, whether it's simple things like the Crown Act, which I also signed into law earlier this year that prevents discrimination based on wearing natural hair. So bigotry is bad for business. If a company is going to be looking for the talent they need, you're going to need to be in a state where everyone is respected and protected under the law, where there is real equitable opportunity for every person. This younger generation cares about it. They're not a monolith. They're not all the same, but the majority of them care about it. They're willing to fight for it. They're willing to stand in line to vote for it, and I think that ultimately we are already seeing young people looking at what are the state's policies if I'm thinking about going to college there. I talked to our college admissions. It has had an effect on that. We talked to a woman who moved up here from Ohio because she's the mom of a daughter, and she wanted to make sure that her daughter could never be in a state where a seven-year-old had to go to Indiana, which they couldn't go to anymore, for an abortion from being raped. Michigan is boldly leading in this space where other states are going backwards, and we're going aggressive. We're going into states and saying, if you want rights, come on up to Michigan. Why would anyone go to the West Coast or the East Coast when you can go to the Fresh Coast, right? Have you found that your dedication to protecting choice earned you some unlikely allies and votes? For sure. One of my favorite things to do is roundtables. I love to engage with people. COVID was so much heavier because I felt disconnected. I did Zooms with different stakeholders, teachers, and health care providers, but being in person, there's no substitute for it. We did roundtables. We didn't curate who was at the roundtable because we wanted to have an honest dialogue. Because I assumed Michigan was still a very pro-choice state, but I don't know that anyone had actually done in-depth research because it was a right that everyone thought was locked in, right? We've had it for 50 years. It's never going away. We did these roundtables and we had so many interesting conversations. I sat across the table from three or four women at different roundtables that looked me in the eye and said, I am a Republican and I did not vote for you, but I'm knocking doors for you because you are the only one fighting for my daughter's rights. Women who would share their stories about having a woman I met in Macomb County, African American woman, had seven pregnancies. Between each healthy birth, there was a miscarriage. She had a baby and then a miscarriage, a baby and a miscarriage, a baby and then a miscarriage, and then she got pregnant again. And she and her husband decided that they could not in good conscience bring another child into the family. She was, for health reasons, couldn't take birth control, like it was just a terrible conundrum for them. But their third child has autism and needs so much support and resources and time that they couldn't do it for their family without compromising. That was a choice they made early on in the pregnancy and she shared that and got vulnerable. In Flint, there was a young woman in a wheelchair who shared that the disabled community, disability community is more vulnerable to sexual assaults than the average person. And if she had been sexually assaulted and got pregnant, she would not live. She would not live through a forced pregnancy. And so it was these voices, I had a trans man at one of our roundtables who said, I still have a uterus and my community is uniquely vulnerable as well. And these were stories that weren't mainstream, that people don't think about when we're having this debate, but really important voices. And I think one of the takeaways for me was that we need to use the accurate language and not, you know, tiptoe around it and not use different phraseology for the same procedure. When a woman is going through in vitro fertilization and they implant four healthy embryos and wait to see in hopes that one of them takes, if more than a couple of them take, they often undergo selective elimination. It's an abortion. They just eliminate a couple of the embryos to increase the odds that the others will make it to term. It's an abortion. When a woman doesn't fully have a natural miscarriage and it doesn't complete, she goes to the hospital. It's not a DNC. It's an abortion. And I think we've done ourselves a, you know, done ourselves, you know, given ourselves a harder hand to play because we've kowtowed to different sensibilities using different phrases and confused the issue. And that's one of the takeaways I think is really important. This is an inclusive, important right that women of all walks and all different types of situations rely on and we need to protect it and make sure that women have that ability. I want to pick up on the point where you talked about women's stories. I think on a lot of difficult issues, hearing people's real stories, it sort of helps help people bridge and find common ground. We're never going to be able to solve issues, continue to solve these issues if we can't try to put ourselves in other people's shoes. And I love the way that you talked about your sort of listening to her or the stories because that really does bring these issues to light and gets away from just the sound points and the talking points and the language. Yeah. I'm glad you said that. It reminded me to add something that I spoke about a couple of weeks ago, but I would always open up these roundtables sharing the story that I had been raped when I was in college, freshman year. And I did that because I wanted people to feel comfortable being vulnerable to see that I too am a human being that's been through something that informs my position on these issues and why I'm here and why I fight for these rights. And it was really, you know, when I first shared the story on the Senate floor in 2013, it was impromptu, it was hard and I had to call my dad on the way home from it to tell him before he saw it in the news. And I didn't change a single vote, it was one of the most depressing days. But by the time I got to the Capitol the next day, hundreds of people had reached out through email and phone call to say, I too have had experience and I'm really grateful that you talked about it. And so I shared that at the beginning of each of these roundtables because I wanted to show, you know, my humanity so that I could help others show theirs. That was such a brave thing to do. How did you summon the courage to tell that very personal story and share that publicly? I mean, I bet that took a lot of soul searching or was that just something you decided, okay, I've got to do this? I was pissed. Yeah. Hey, whatever motivates, right? Yeah. Yeah, the legislature was changing the law. They didn't have a single hearing. They wouldn't let medical providers testify. They wouldn't let women testify. And they were creating a law that says that women have to pre-plan for an unexpected event by buying an insurance rider to have abortion care covered in their insurance. And I was encouraging one of my colleagues, he and his wife had just lost another pregnancy, desperately wanted pregnancy. She was hospitalized, needed to have an abortion to save her life. I was encouraging him to tell the story and he couldn't. It was too hard. And I thought, how can I encourage him to tell his story when I have a story that is somewhat relevant here? And so I started with some prepared notes and I just kind of threw them off the rostrum and spoke from the gut. It was interesting. Right before I did it, I thought, I grabbed two of my senior staff people and I said, what do you think? Should I? I'm thinking about sharing this. And they both were just shocked because they didn't know what no one knew, except for a few partners over my lifetime. No one, I didn't share it with anyone. And the female staffer said, I wouldn't do it. It's not going to change a single vote and you're just putting yourself out there. And the male staffer said, I don't know what to tell you. Do whatever you think the right thing to do is. He was wise enough not to have an opinion. But you know, it was, I still was kind of undecided when I went to the microphone and then it was, it hit me, I've got to, I've got to do this. I got two little girls at home and I'm going to fight. Thank you for showing that courage. I think all of us need to be willing to be more vulnerable to allow other people to be able to come forward and share their stories as well. And everyone's different. We all come to find our voice at different times. You know, I went 20 years without talking about that, you know, I never wanted to talk about that. So, and now that I have, it is liberating, but I had to do it when it was right for me. When it's right for you. Well, before we go to our final question, I wanted to, I want to follow up on one thing we talked about young people and particularly young women. How do we continue to inspire young women that their voice counts, that their voice can make a difference and really get them to understand the power that they have? Using it at the voting, you know, using it in the voting booth, the power they have by speaking out, by sharing stories. How do we inspire young women to continue to sort of put one foot in front of the other? I think by making space for their voices and, you know, I've got a young woman who's in high school shadowing me today. I know her dad. He was like, she's really into it. Could she come and follow you? I'm like, absolutely. Bring her along. Trying doing the work of the outreach, right? So like this forum, you think about groups like Emily's List, groups that are in the trenches trying to help women get the skills and open up their minds about things that they can do. But on our campuses all across our state, they inspire me more than I think I inspire any of them. To see women who are engaged and more thoughtful at an age where I was thinking about where the best tailgate was going to be on Saturday. There's one of my sorority sisters going, yes, she was. But on our colleges, on high school campuses, there's engagement whether it is around climate or it is around women's rights or it is around LGBTQ rights or Black Lives Matter or a variety, you know, equitable economic opportunity. All of these things I think are pulling people in. But we've got to be intentional about lifting them up and attending their events and legitimizing what they're doing so they know they're making a difference because they are undeniably, this young generation is already making a difference and they can and should be the most powerful voice in any election going forward. Thank you. Well, finally, I have a two-part question. First, what is your call to action for voters in your state and around the country? And do you think that America will finally be ready for a woman to become President of the United States in 2028? So the call to action is to get ready for this upcoming election, register to become a poll watcher, to stay engaged. Just because we've got a great Secretary of State and Attorney General and Governor who's going to make sure we fight to ensure every vote is counted and registered, we are anticipating threats, intimidation, threats of poll workers, people trying to undermine the outcome of an election. We've got to already start preparing for that. And that's why engagement and turnout and early voting is going to be really important. And we've made great strides making it easier. But we can't rest on this. As I talk to people who are in, you know, states that have protected these fundamental rights, it very much could go away at the federal level. And that's why we can't just assume, okay, we're in this safe place here in Michigan right now. Because if we get a major change on the federal level, they can wipe it out for all of us. And so I'm not into fear-mongering. I just want you to have the facts to know this is yet another really high-stakes election. And by God, we need to have a woman President in my lifetime. Yes. Ladies, will you please join me in thanking Governor Whitmer for such an inspiring and insightful conversation this morning. Thank you. Thank you so much.