Michigan Advance: “Issues surrounding the residency of the former seven-term congressman from mid-Michigan have lingered for almost as long as he has sought to be Michigan’s next U.S senator”

LANSING — Can someone check in on Mike Rogers? Is he okay after the brutal week he’s had? But wait… “where exactly [is] the former Michigan congressman… laying his head at night?” After lying for months about where he lives, Rogers got caught and finally admitted he does not live in the house he claims he did. 

Across the state, people are asking Rogers “why exactly do you think you have the medical authority to intervene in my personal decision with my doctor?” and “‘if he loses the Senate race, will he move back into that house? Or will he go back to Florida because he hasn’t put that home up for sale?’” 

Here’s the latest on Revolving Door Rogers’ rough week:

• Many people are asking… where is Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood? A bombshell report from Detroit Free Press exposed that “Mike Rogers does not live in the house” in White Lake Township as the house “did not — and still does not — have a certificate of occupancy.” 

• What is Rogers hiding? The Detroit News reported that Mike Rogers has confirmed that he is not living at the house that he claims to, facing questions about “where exactly the former Michigan congressman is laying his head at night.” 

• Rachel Maddow slammed Rogers’ residency issues saying “all of this is turning out to be a problem for U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers” with his unfinished house.

• Detroit Free Press investigative reporter M.L. Elrick pointed out how questionable it is that Rogers’ so-called neighbors haven’t seen him, saying “nobody’s seen him, because I would think the first of people you would meet, is your neighbors and say ‘Hey, I’m Mike Rogers. I’m living at my brother’s house. I hope I can get your vote.’ So you know this would be easily cleared up if his campaign would tell us where he’s been staying.”

• Elrick has heard concerns from Michiganders, “I think a question I’ve heard from a lot of readers, which is a fair one, which is ‘If he loses the Senate race, will he move back into that house? Or will he go back to Florida because he hasn’t put that home up for sale?’”

• Clear loser of the night: Rogers. As Michigan Democratic Party Chair Lavora Barnes pointed out, the first U.S. Senate “debate showed Michiganders the clear difference between Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin’s service to country versus Mike Rogers’ service to self.”

• His (anti-abortion) record says it all. Rogers can’t run away from his extensive anti-abortion record, even on the debate stage. 

• And Michiganders are calling him out on it. On Tuesday, ahead of the U.S. Senate debate, West Michigan leaders sounded the alarm on Rogers’ toxic anti-abortion record. 

• Michigan workers? Add them to the list of things Rogers sold out. American Journal News reported that Rogers backed free trade agreements that hurt Michigan workers, including NAFTA that contributed to Michigan “los[ing] nearly 300,000 manufacturing jobs since 2000.”

See for yourself: 

Detroit Free Press: Michigan GOP Senate candidate Mike Rogers’ neighborhoods have everything but Mr. Rogers

• I don’t know where Mike Rogers lives, but it’s not where he’s registered to vote.
  
  
• Rogers, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, changed his voter registration on July 2 to a home in White Lake Township that is under construction. A month later, he used the White Lake address to vote (presumably, for himself) in the four-way race for the GOP nomination to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow.
  
  
• There’s just one problem: The house did not — and still does not — have a certificate of occupancy.
  
  
• That means Rogers could not live there legally.
  
  
• The Rogers campaign is mighty cagey about the question of just where Rogers has been staying, beyond saying it’s in White Lake Township. They refused multiple requests to discuss the matter, issuing only a carefully-worded statement blaming everyone from White Lake officials, to the housing crisis, to the media, but offering few concrete answers. (Campaign spokesman Chris Gustafson also faulted “constant bureaucratic delays during the construction,” but doesn’t blame Rogers’ brother and erstwhile landlord Bill, who was one of the contractors building the lakefront home and who, as Genoa Township supervisor, presumably knows his way around local government.)
  
  
• Gustafson’s blame-athon does confirm Mike Rogers does not live in the house, however.
  
  
• Rogers’ residency, and accusations of carpetbagging, have been an issue since he moved back to Michigan last summer after U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow announced her retirement on Jan. 5, 2023.
  
  
• Stabenow’s timing couldn’t have been worse for Rogers, who six months earlier bought a posh home in Cape Coral, Florida, worth $1.6 million.
  
  
• Online descriptions of the home call it an “estate” and say it offers “EXCEPTIONAL WATERFRONT LIVING!” The photos on Zillow.com justify the use of the braggadocious capital letters. For starters, it’s on a canal that gives access to the Caloosahatchee River. Its 4,700 square feet include five bedrooms, four bathrooms, a formal dining room, 14-foot high ceilings, a tile roof, a balcony overlooking the water, and a “HUGE POOL with TWO SPAs!” Rogers obtained a homestead property tax exemption on the spread, which you can only do for a primary residence.
  
  
• Nevertheless, on July 1, 2023, Rogers bought a 728-square-foot home with one bedroom and one bathroom in White Lake Township and, one month later, registered to vote using brother Bill’s address in Genoa Township. Instead of moving into the claustrophobic cabin, Rogers decided to knock it down and build the home currently under construction.
  
  
• The Rogers campaign says the former congressman and his wife moved into the 1,800-square-foot townhouse where Bill and his wife live. Now, I don’t know about you, but whenever I think about the brothers living together for nearly a year with their spouses — and sharing that crib’s one-and-a-half bathrooms — I conclude the Rogers boys and their wives must get along a helluva lot better than me and my siblings and their spouses, who would kill me long before Election Day if I moved in with them just to run for Senate.
  
  
• So, I paid a little visit to the Rogerses’ cozy street to chat with residents about their ambitious new neighbor.
  
  
• I spent two lovely afternoons knocking on six of the seven front doors along a short stretch of road tucked into a golf course. The only door I didn’t darken was at the end of a walkway blocked by a gate. The next door neighbor said the gate was there because the occupant didn’t want anyone — even curious reporters — knocking on his front door.
  
  
• I asked everyone I met if they had ever seen Mike Rogers in the neighborhood.
  
  
• “He doesn’t live here, that’s his brother,” said the first gentleman I encountered.
  
  
• He said he did not know Mike Rogers had been using Bill Rogers’ address as his Michigan residence. When I told him Mike Rogers is building a home in White Lake, he posited: “He’s on the campaign trail, so he could be living there temporarily ’til his house is built.”
  
  
• Next, I met a woman who seemed surprised to learn a U.S. Senate candidate was living a few doors down. When I asked whether she had seen Rogers in the neighborhood, she said: “I can’t comment,” and closed the door.
  
  
• On my next visit, I encountered a man who also told me: “I’ve never seen Mike around here. Not one time.”
  
  
• The friendly fellow expressed concern a candidate might use an address where he does not live to qualify to run for office.
  
  
• “I don’t like it,” he said. “Not one little bit.”
  
  
• Everyone I spoke to asked me not to publish their name. I’m honoring those requests because they want to avoid any potential tension in a neighborhood that is so small it has seven units split among three buildings, which means every resident shares a wall with at least one neighbor.

Detroit News: Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rogers not living at home where he’s registered to vote

• Republican hopeful Mike Rogers has been registered to vote at three different addresses this year, raising questions in recent days about where exactly the former Michigan congressman is laying his head at night as he campaigns for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat.
  
  
• Ahead of his first debate Tuesday night with his opponent, Democratic U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, the Rogers’ campaign clarified in a call with The Detroit News that he is currently residing with in-laws in White Lake Township in Oakland County, west of Pontiac, and not at the lakefront property where he’s registered to vote.
  
  
• That lakefront modular home had no certificate of occupancy as of this week, township officials confirmed Monday via a public records request. On Tuesday morning, the Rogers house on Round Lake appeared to be still in a construction phase, with an unfinished deck and a Port-A-Jon next to the driveway.
  
  
• Rogers, a former seven-term congressman who grew up in Brighton, previously faced carpetbagging attacks from Democrats after he launched his campaign for Senate in Michigan last year. He had spent several years living in Florida, where he bought a $1.57 million home in the Cape Coral area in May 2022.
  
  
• Rogers was still registered to vote in the Sunshine State as of April…
  
  
• When he came back to Michigan last year, Rogers and wife Kristi stayed with his brother’s family in Genoa Township in Livingston County, where he registered to vote in August 2023, according to township records. Outside of the new home in White Lake Township on Tuesday, there was a sign advertising EBI Inc., a modular home construction business registered in state records to Rogers’ brother, former state Rep. Bill Rogers, R-Brighton.

MSNBC Rachel Maddow Show: Not Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, It Turns Out

WJR Radio: ML Elrick Interview (part 1 and part 2)

Michigan Democratic Party: Michigan Dems Chair Statement on Tonight’s U.S. Senate Debate

American Journal News: Republican Mike Rogers flip flop on trade raises questions about his commitment to Michigan workers

• Former Rep. Mike Rogers says free trade agreements are hurting American workers, despite backing several such pacts earlier in his career.
  
  
• Critics of FTAs say this creates a financial incentive for corporations to offshore jobs to countries with cheaper labor and less stringent regulations.
  
  
• told the Washington Examiner in July that he would back this law as well.
  
  
• In 2014, however, Rogers played a role in negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement. His office even drafted a form letter to be sent to business leaders in which Rogers endorsed TPP and FTAs more broadly.
  
  
• “It is important to note that in order for any TPP agreement negotiated to come into force, legislation implementing the agreement must be passed by both houses of Congress,” Rogers wrote. “I believe America has the best workers in the world, and while I support efforts such as the TPP negotiations to expand free trade, I believe that we must enforce fair trade.”
  
  
• Between 2008 and 2011, Rogers voted 12 times to advance multiple FTAs, including the Central America-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). Between 2001 and 2008, he voted four times to limit congressional oversight of FTAs.
  
  
• In December 2001, Rogers sent an email to his constituents expressing broad support for FTAs.
  
  
• During Rogers first reelection campaign, the Michigan Republican Party sent out mailers listing “enforcing free trade” as one of Rogers’ top legislative priorities.
  
  
• The most high-profile FTA is the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which took effect in 1994. NAFTA is often blamed for contributing to offshoring and a decline in American manufacturing. According to the New York Times, NAFTA partially contributed to the closure of 90,000 American factories. CNN reports that Michigan has lost nearly 300,000 manufacturing jobs since 2000.
  
  
• In 2000, Rogers praised NAFTA in an interview with C-SPAN.
  
  
• “NAFTA is going to be good for America,” Rogers said. 
  
  
• That same month, the AP reported that Rogers was a NAFTA supporter.