Salim Al-Shatelis bidding to be the democratic nominee for Michigan's third congressional district. I sat down with him to hear his stances on the issues. This interview was conducted on June 20th and has been edited for clarity.
WHO ARE YOU?
I was born and raised in Muskegon, Michigan. I went to Muskegon and Mona Shores public school systems before moving on to Michigan State University where I earned my engineering degree, worked in automotive and manufacturing for two years after college. Then from there, I moved back to the lakeshore. I ran my first full-time business in Ottawa County. It was a beach wedding business. I also had a nonprofit called "The Better Coast Foundation' where we removed over 800 pounds of trash from Grand Haven and Muskegon Lake shores. I also earned my real estate license during that time in 2021. I service clients along the lake shore in the Grand Rapids area. So after I was finished with the wedding business, and then moved over to Grand Rapids, and serviced clients for real estate, it was also my first opportunity to run for office. I ran for State Representative in 2022. So in all aspects, the Third Congressional District really hits all parts of my life from Muskegon of where I was born and raised, to Ottawa County, where I ran my first business and then my first nonprofit, then to Grand Rapids, where I grew my real estate business. I have two rental properties that I invested in as well. And then also running for office for the first time and getting into that political arena as well.
WHAT GAVE YOU THAT ITCH TO GET INTO THE POLITICAL ARENA?
Biggest thing for me is I want to restore confidence for people in politics and politicians. There was a stat and poll that came out that only 26% of people are confident in our democracy, and have confidence in their politicians. And to me a big thing with that, I've had a lot of conversations with Republicans, Democrats, Independent people. And the biggest thing they say is I don't feel like my politician represents me, I don't feel like they listen to me feel like they're going to Washington, D.C. just to get rich. And a big thing of that is political actions, committees that are in Super PACs that are donating. It's a multibillion dollar industry, political lobbying. I've refused all corporate PAC, super PAC money, even individual contributions to be made by campaign, because I want people to know that I'm an honest candidate here in this district. So when I first decided to run for this position, I was the last one of the four of us to run for to announce my campaign, I saw two people that were bought by Super PACs, I saw one that was kicked off the ballot in 2022 for submitting fraudulent signatures. And I said, you know, I'm gonna give everyone an honest candidate to put forward here and say — Hey, I'm against super PACs and outside lobbyists. And so I'm going to vote for Salim, because that guy has not accepted any corporate or super PAC money. He's running an honest campaign. He's against politicians trading individual stocks. I've even gone as far as selling all of my individual stocks as well. During this campaign, I plan to push that type of those types of bills as well, when I'm in office. And I took the initiative to sell my stocks just to show that type of honesty of the candidate that I am as well.
HOW ARE YOU FINDING FUNDING IN THIS CASE?
Yeah, is the biggest question, right? I actually saw an article by the Detroit Free Press this week that endorsed my opponent, they called me a non credible candidate because of donations and funding. And like I said, I've refused any PAC, super PAC and individual contributions because I want to run an honest campaign. My opponent in the Democratic Primary, 79% of her individual contributions during the last election cycle came from outside of the district. If we look at total contributions, we're looking north of 90% of her money has come from outside of this district. So what I'm funding, funding my race here, it's self financed, I'll be honest, and I'm not a millionaire. So it's a very low cost campaign that I'm running here. But that means I'm going out. I'm having hard, tough, sometimes awkward conversations where I'm showing up to someone's door. And I'm having those conversations where I'm put on the spot constantly with people to answer any topic that they want to talk about and that they have on their mind. But I think it's important that we bring that type of transparency back to politics and have those honest and hard conversations, because I feel like a lot of people are losing the connections to their politicians, because they're not having these conversations. They're hiding behind the money, the donors, they're not getting out there in the community to meet with people. And that's what I've said, I'm happy to do if you invite me to anything, if I'm free, I will make it I don't care if it's Republican or Democratic, Independent events. I need to show up there and have conversations with people at all times in in any spaces and and that's what I'm willing to do for the people this district.
WHAT ARE YOU HEARING FROM PEOPLE? AND WHAT DO THEY WANT? AND WHERE DO YOU COME INTO SOME OF THOSE NEEDS THAT YOU'RE HEARING FROM PEOPLE?
That's a great point. It is David versus Goliath in a way, especially when we look at financing here. But when I've gone out and had conversations with people, I've said, you know, hey, I'm challenging Hillary Scholten too and I'm challenging this Democratic incumbent. And they'll say, sorry, who is that? I don't know who that is? Because, again, it goes back to are you willing to get out there and have conversations and put yourselves out there, you're gonna have some times where people are, you know, upset with you, with this job, you're usually never contacted because somebody's happy or satisfied, you're never celebrated. It's usually because they're frustrated with something. But I've been willing to go out there and have those conversations. And a lot of people have respected that because of willing to go out there having tough conversations. So again, back to your question of David versus Goliath here, how are the conversations going? People, again, are going back to the the transparency, this guy has not accepted any corporate super PAC money, he's sold all this stocks as well. So he's an honest, transparent politician to me, then when we get into the details of what I'm actually running on what I support and different policies, I'm putting all that forward on my website. You can even go on my priorities page of my website, and you'll see not only my Democratic opponent, but my two Republican opponents and their priorities pages, because I want people to take just five minutes and look at every single person's page and see what are people putting forward here. Because I believe that's a part of the transparency of me putting my opponent's page out there. But I also believe I'm the only person who's actually has a plan when they get into office, because there's a lot of pilot or lobbyists that are going to be there trying to pull your ear and have your conversations with you. So it's important that you don't lose sight of that when you're in Washington, D.C., and you don't lose sight of the constituents in your district.
IF YOU HAD TO PICK THREE TOP PRIORITIES THAT YOU WOULD SAY YOU WOULD WANT TO GET ACCOMPLISHED IF YOU'RE ELECTED, WHAT WOULD THEY BE?
I think the biggest thing for me right now and top of mind, for a lot of people are the forever wars that we're seeing right now, both in the Middle East and in Europe. I'm against the forever wars and this foreign military spending that we're seeing, I think we need to be seeking seeking diplomatic solutions. My family has been impacted by wars. My dad was born in UNRWA refugee camp, actually, in Jordan, because of the same conflict that's going on today. That's a refugee group that Hillary's actually voted to cut funding for. And my dad, and my, myself, I would not be around today, if it wasn't for that funding to UNRWA, which is a refugee group that helps with refugees around the Middle East with education, job training, all this up. She voted to cut that which goes against traditional Democratic values. I also look at my mom, and she's from Czechoslovakia. She was raised under Soviet Union occupation as well. And I feel like that's a proxy war that we're continuing on over there as well. So an end to the foreign military spending and needing to invest here domestically. Another thing that I'd like to focus on is infrastructure here, as well. Michigan's ranked 42nd When it comes to infrastructure, that was the American Society of Civil Engineers that rated us that. Hillary had a project that that she just celebrated in Muskegon Heights, the Broadway Avenue Project, they requested $5.1 million to complete that roadway project, she got them $500,000. But then she voted to send $95 billion overseas to foreign military. We all know Muskegon Heights is a very underfunded district or underfunded area. And it's stuff like that, that only multiplies the problem that we're seeing there as well. I support funding our education system as well. I also support our manufacturing industry as well. So to me, that comes along with tariffs with trade and tax policies, which are going to be up in 2025. So it's important that we have a business friendly, but then also somebody that values those social values as well for our community and making sure that that people have good paying jobs, but then also that it's competitive with our job markets as well. So I'm against tariffs, because I feel like it only increases the prices as well. I also am against increasing the corporate tax rate, which I can get into as well. But that's something that our President is pushing for an increase in corporate tax, corporate tax rates from 21 to 28%, something that would definitely hurt our communities, our small business.
WHAT ARE SOME OF THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES AFFECTING THE COMMON VOTER?
I think a lot of people we look at with jobs. Manufacturing jobs, I think is a big thing. For common voters, I think we really need to look at investing here and making it a competitive job market for corporations. So whether it's investing in infrastructure, so we have a sound infrastructure system for companies to come here and invest in is a great tool that we can take. We can also look at tax policies as well, to make it more incentivizing for corporations to come here. I've talked about those tax rates are gonna go up and 2025. So it's important that we have someone who's who's thinking about this on a global scale as well. Common voters as well are thinking about housing prices, might have noticed my national debt calculator going on here. So every time that, you know Hillary, or other people vote for increase in spending, you're lowering the dollar value, the American dollar value, which is causing these home prices to increase even more, I track this every day. But that's something that's impacting the daily voter, and especially people my age, I'm 31-years-old, I thankfully already have a house, but there's a lot of people my age, they're trying to get into their first house. And it's very challenging with the amount of foreign military spending, and corporate handouts that we're giving to these Fortune 500 businesses that make it very challenging for younger people to get into home. They're increasing the prices, the home prices have gone up from, from $260,000, approximately in 2020, to now, the national average is about $400,000. That's quite an increase, not not to mention the interest for these mortgages as well have gone up from about, you hear some stories of to 2.5% for interest rates to now seven, north of 7%. That's quite a mortgage payment that a lot of these younger people are going to be struggling with.
IF YOU HAD TO PICK THREE TOP PRIORITIES THAT YOU WOULD SAY YOU WOULD WANT TO GET ACCOMPLISHED. IF YOU'RE ELECTED, WHAT WOULD THEY BE?
I think the biggest thing for me right now and top of mind, for a lot of people are the Forever wars that we're seeing right now, both in the Middle East and in Europe. I'm against the Forever wars in this foreign military spending that we're seeing, I think we need to be seeking seeking diplomatic solutions. My family has been impacted by wars. My dad was born in UNRWA refugee camp, actually, in Jordan, because of the same conflict that's going on. Today. That's a refugee group that Hillary's actually voted to cut funding for. And in my dad, and my, myself, I would not be around today, if it wasn't for that funding to UNRWA, which is a refugee group that helps with refugees around the Middle East with education, job training, all this up. She voted to cut that which goes against traditional Democratic values. I also look at my mom, and she's from Czechoslovakia. She was raised under Soviet Union occupation as well. And I feel like that's a proxy war that we're continuing on over there as well. So an end to the foreign military spending and needing to invest here domestically. Another thing that I'd like to focus on is infrastructure here, as well. Michigan's ranked 42nd When it comes to infrastructure, that was the American Society of Civil Engineers that rated us that Hillary had a project that that she just celebrated in Muskegon Heights, the Broadway Avenue Project, they requested $5.1 million to complete that roadway project, she got them $500,000. But then she voted to send $95 billion overseas to foreign military. We all know Muskegon Heights is a very underfunded district or underfunded area. And it's stuff like that, that only multiplies the problem that we're seeing there as well. I support funding our education system as well. I also support our manufacturing industry as well. So to me, that comes along with tariffs with trade and tax policies, which are going to be up in 2025. So it's important that we have a business friendly, but then also somebody that values those social values as well for our community and making sure that that people have good paying jobs, but then also that it's competitive with our job markets as well. So I'm against tariffs, because I feel like it only increases the prices as well. I also am against increasing the corporate tax rate, which I can get into as well. But that's something that our President is pushing for an increase in corporate tax, corporate tax rates from 21 to 28%, something that would definitely hurt our communities, our small business.
WHAT ARE SOME OF THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES AFFECTING THE COMMON VOTER?
think a lot of people we look at what jobs. Manufacturing jobs, I think is a big thing. For common voters, I think we really need to look at investing here and making it a competitive job market for corporations. So whether it's investing in infrastructure, so we have a sound infrastructure system for companies to come here and invest in is a great tool that we can take. We can also look at tax policies as well, to make it more incentivizing for corporations to come here. I've talked about those tax rates are gonna go up and 2025. So it's important that we have someone who's who's thinking about this on a global scale as well. Common voters as well are thinking about housing prices. [You] might have noticed my national debt calculator going on here. So every time that you know Hillary, or other people vote for increase in spending, you're lowering the dollar value, the American dollar value, which is causing these home prices to increase even more, I track this every day. But that's something that's impacting the daily voter, and especially people my age, I'm 31 years old, I thankfully already have a house, but there's a lot of people my age, they're trying to get into their first house. And it's very challenging with the amount of foreign military spending, and corporate handouts that we're giving to these fortune 500 businesses that make it very challenging for younger people to get into home. They're increasing the prices, the home prices have gone up from, from $260,000, approximately in 2020. To now the national average is about $400,000. That's quite an increase, not not to mention the interest for these mortgages as well have gone up from about, you hear some stories of to 2.5% for interest rates to now seven north of 7%. That's quite a mortgage payment that a lot of these younger people are going to be struggling with.
YOU'RE 31 NOW. WHY DID YOU DECIDE NOW'S THE TIME TO ENTER THE POLITICAL ARENA?
That's a good question. I get asked that a lot. I think a big thing for me was I was the last of the four people to announce their campaign and to enter this race. Because I looked at the people that were in this race, I saw two people, including my Democratic opponent that are bought by for, bought by Super PACs. My Democratic opponent is bought by a Super PAC called AIPAC. It is a group that acts on behalf of a foreign country, refuses to register with FARA, which is Foreign Agents Registration Act, refuses to acknowledge that. You can also look on the website AIPAC tracker, she has received over $200,000, according to that website, from AIPAC. So again, two candidates, both Democratic and Republican side that are bought by Super PACs. And I look at a Republican candidate as well, that was kicked off the ballot in 2022, for submitting fraudulent signatures. Now, we had to submit 1,000 signatures and a maximum of 2,000 signatures to get on the ballot for this race. I went out there and I earned the signatures by myself, because we're always told by the baby boomers, hey, you need to pull yourself up, pull yourself up by the bootstraps and get out there and get that work done. So I did it. I went out there. There's a lot of cold, cold days that I went out there. But I feel like I embody what this district is about. It's, it's honest, hard working people in this district. And, you know, it's a split district, I will say leans democratic, but it is very Democrat versus Republican and Independents in this district. But one thing that everyone can really get behind is hard, honest work. And I feel like that's something I really embodied and showed, not only with the signature collecting, I was the only candidate that didn't pay canvassers to go out there and to get those signatures. Throughout this whole canvassing process, I've also gone out to all these public events, had discussions with people. And I feel like going back to the conversations that I've been having with people, they're acknowledged that they respect that and say, Hey, you're a Democrat, I usually vote Republican, but I can at least respect someone that's getting out there meeting people and having these conversations and putting in that hard work. So why I got it back, or why I entered this race to answer that question again. And because I saw who was possibly going to represent us, both Democratic and Republican side, and I said, that doesn't represent my values. And instead of complaining about it on social media, as a lot of people I'm sure do, you know, what, I'm gonna give people an option, they can either vote for Super PACs and corporate lobbyists, or they can vote against them on August 6, and in the general election in November, as well. I'm giving people that option if they want to choose that.
LET'S TALK ABOUT THE CLIMATE OF POLITICS RIGHT NOW. WE'RE IN ONE OF THE MOST DIVISIVE DISTRICTS AND ONE OF THE MOST WATCHED DISTRICTS AS WE HEAD INTO ANOTHER PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS. WHAT DO YOU THINK YOUR DEMOCRAT OPPONENT HAS ACCOMPLISHED IN HIS TIME IN OFFICE OR HAS DONE WELL IN HER ROLE?
Now. Look, she's, you got to separate politics from the person. I've had a lot of conversations with people both in the party and then just out and about. She's a nice person, I don't have any ill will towards the person. We've met before I was helping with her reelection efforts until October this past year, as an alternate delegate through the state party, I decided to step away to challenge. That's what our country is all about. She's a very kind person. As far as policies go, I'm having a tough time thinking of some. I have seen some infrastructure bills that she's tried to put forward, they did pass that bipartisan effort, the Chips Act she did push forward. I do have problems with the infrastructure bill, just from like the the amount of spending that's gone into it. But again, going back to the compliments to her, I will say there was bipartisan effort. I understand it's a very tough and like you said problematic and divisive climate right now that we have with politics. And you got to work with both parties, both sides of the aisle, when it comes to politics in general.
WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU CAN WORK ACROSS THE AISLE WITH REPUBLICANS?
I believe with with tax policies is a big thing that I can really align with some of them on. Because I constantly with our party, I feel like it, it, we're always told that we need to hold billionaires and corporations accountable for their tax policy or to pay their fair share is the cliche line that you usually hear. But there was a world economic forum discussion a couple months ago. And 250 billionaires and millionaires came forward and said, We would like a 2% wealth tax put forward on us, Janet Yellen, our Secretary of Treasury was the only person that came out and said, We will not support this. You've had Warren Buffett even come out and say, if that he'll pay $5 billion in taxes, and if the next 800 wealth, 800 wealthiest people would pay their fair share in taxes, not a single person would have to pay any taxes or into the system. So and you can read articles, as well as Fortune 500 companies that don't pay any federal tax rates. And so, to me, that's something I can definitely align with is it's not the mid sized corporations that are skipping out on their taxes. I've been a small business owner myself, and it's it's the wealthy corporations of Fortune 500 corporations and billionaires that are avoiding avoiding paying their taxes because they're offshoring it elsewhere. They're moving it to other countries, I can tell you about a city called Dorado in Puerto Rico, it's now Act 60. But at the time, it was Act 20 and Act 22, in Puerto Rico, where there's a huge group of expats of hedge fund people from New York that have moved down there to avoid paying the US federal tax rate, they paid the Puerto Rico tax rate, which is about 4%. So I can definitely align with Republicans on those types of tax policies, and then also working with them on trade as well. Those are some of the things that I've been looking towards.
WHAT DO YOU THINK IN YOUR PAST CAREER ROLES REALLY SETS YOU UP FOR THE MOST SUCCESS IN THIS ROLE?
That's a tough question. It's been pretty diverse. I mean, if you look at my professional background, yes, I've been an engineer, I've worked in an international corporation, where it was a bilingual office, Japanese office where we had to have, I was constantly negotiating in multiple languages for people. I've been a small business owner, where I was invested in the community, and real estate as well. My personal hobbies is, I go scuba diving, I've gone scuba diving with sharks have an yoga teacher as well. So I think a combination of all of them really, will help me out when I go into office. Just because I think when you're running, or when you're in office, you need to have conversations with a lot of different people. There's 435 house representatives, and they all come from different backgrounds. So you need to be able to relate and connect with them. And so I feel like my background will be able to connect with as many people as possible. I grew up visiting my dad's family in the Middle East as well, which meant that I spend about a month or so working on my grandpa's farm. So when we talked about people, typically Republican people that come from the center of the country, I can relate to them. I know about farming and the farming industry as well just because of working on my grandpa's farm as well. So I don't think it's one specific thing. I think it's a lot of different things. I've been a substitute teacher as well in the school districts around here. So I think a combination of everything has really helped me to connect with as many people as possible.
LET'S TALK ABOUT A FEW KEY ISSUES REALLY TOP OF MIND FOR VOTERS WHEN THEY ARE CHOOSING THEIR PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE THIS YEAR. YOU BROUGHT UP REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS AND BRINGING A MORE HOLISTIC APPROACH TO THE ISSUE. CAN YOU GIVE US SPECIFICS WHEN IT COMES TO WOMEN'S RIGHTS, REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS THE HOLISTIC APPROACH YOU'D TAKE?
It's a hot topic. In 2022, you know, you had Democrat versus Republican who's pretty much you're either pro life or pro choice candidate, I felt like there was nothing else on the ballot that was going on at that time. I, I've called it out, I've gone through the stats and everything. I'm supportive of the Equal Rights Amendment, something that has been already ratified by 38 States is ready to become law, except our current President Joe Biden has not called the archivists to make that become a law. And opponents of the era have actually called out and said, If the era if the President had made the call to make this become law, then we would not have had to worry about Dobbs versus Jackson, which is what overturn Roe v. Wade. So I brought that up that my party, especially Democrats kind of use women's reproductive rights as the quote unquote, boogeyman to make sure that people stay with the Democratic Party. So I support the Equal Rights Amendment Act, which again, would have protected that. I've also brought it up to people as well, because I look at the stats, I think it was 930,000 abortions was what we were looking at. 63% of those occurred for people between 18 to 30 years old, 93% of them were occurred in that first term. So to me, that was the date of the data points on that scream out that it's an economical issue. And that's why people are making those decisions, very little of them are happening late term. So I look at those stats, because, you know, I support freedom and wanting people to have the freedom to make the decisions that they need to. But I want to make sure that you're you're we're making as little or excuse me, we're, there's as little of abortions happening as possible. So that's why I support universal childcare, because I believe that it's an economical issue that these people are making decisions on. So if we had a universal childcare option, then people may be limiting the amount of abortions that they make.
BORDER SECURITY IS ANOTHER HOT BUTTON ISSUE THIS ELECTION CYCLE. WHAT'S YOUR STANCE RIGHT NOW ON PRESIDENT BIDEN'S APPROACH AND WHAT FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP IS PROPOSING?
I do, I do support an increase the amount of asylum seekers. Hillary voted against a bill called and the border catastrophe act that would have made it illegal for people to notify the locations of federal local and border patrol officials, which I've talked to more conservative tradition, traditionally conservative groups, and I've said, hey, this is something I personally would have voted yes on, she voted no on. Is that something that you would have been okay with and satisfied with? And they've said, Yes, that's something that, you know, we just didn't want the locations of these people being being being aware of. Another part of that was also that it would have made it illegal. I believe a part of it was it referred to immigration, which to me came off as human trafficking. And then also with as it relates to agriculture as well on that, to me that calls out invasive species, especially as it relates to farmers. So those are the parts of that bill that I supported. And why would have voted yes on. I do support Biden's path forward too for citizenship as well for the undocumented. Because I've talked to farmers around here, and a big thing for them, as well as is wanting more of these temporary visas to come through. We look at the H2A visa program as well. And wanting to rehab that a big thing that farmers have complained to me about that is it's a long, strenuous process to go through that. And then there's also the costs that go along with it as well. It's quite expensive, because just the administration process and the administration fees for farmers of that age to a visa program. So those are things that I would like to see improvements on that I believe would get a lot of people bipartisan, independent people behind as well.
GIVE VIEWERS YOUR THREE SENTENCE ELEVATOR PITCH TO WHY THEY SHOULD VOTER FOR YOU.
[I] should be on the ballot because I'm an honest, hardworking candidate who's refusing any corporate super PAC money. Always make sure that I represent my district to the best of my ability and have open and honest conversations. I'll always show up to every event. I'll always show up and have tough conversations. I'll never accept corporate or super PAC money. You can put me on record with that. And I'll always, I'll never hide behind that as well. So if somebody doesn't like a vote of mine, they can say it to my face and we'll have those discussions as well, and I think that's something that would get credibility back to politics for a lot of people
HERE IS THE FULL INTERVIEW:
