ABOUT REBEKAH WARREN:
Rebekah Warren served in the Michigan Legislature as a State Representative and State Senator from 2007-2020, representing Ann Arbor and parts of Washtenaw County.
Known for her ability to reach across the aisle and negotiate, Rebekah consistently found a way to pass critical legislation without compromising her values. A small selection of her accomplishments includes advancing health care parity laws, shepherding the passage of legislation to require health insurance providers to cover the diagnosis and treatment of autism spectrum disorders, establishing a licensure program for the practice of applied behavioral analysis, sponsoring legislation that created the legal framework for the development and testing of autonomous and connected vehicle technologies, and championing the legislation that enshrined a woman’s right to breastfeed her child anywhere that she is legally allowed to be.
During her time in the House, she shepherded ratification of the Great Lakes Basin Water Resources Compact -- landmark water protection legislation that effectively banned the diversion of water from outside the basin. She was subsequently appointed to represent Michigan on the Great Lakes Commission, a bi-national and interstate commission focused on water use and conservation.
Before being elected, she led NARAL Pro-Choice Michigan, which at that time was the state’s oldest and largest grassroots pro-choice organization, for seven years.
Rebekah is President of Adaptive Strategics, LLC a non-profit and political consulting firm.
RESOURCES:
Michiganders for Civic Resilience
A Defining Moment for Civility: A Forum with Four Governors
Michiganders for Civic Resilience on Facebook
Michiganders for Civic Resilience on X (Twitter)
Michiganders for Civic Resilience on LinkedIn
TRANSCRIPTION:
David Fair: This is 89.1 WEMU, and I'm David Fair. And I want to ask you a question. How do you feel about the level of civility in today's political and social discourse? You're not alone if you believe it to be hostile, polarizing, and ineffective in leading to effective governance and community building. Well, tomorrow we're going to see four former Michigan governors come together. And they're going to make a public call to action for a much greater degree of civility in both politics and our community conversations and interactions. The Michigan Civility Coalition has brought together former Republican governors John Engler and Rick Snyder with former governors Jim Blanchard and Jennifer Granholm from the Democrat Party. Together, they will hold forth in Lansing to urge that we lower the political temperature. One of the member groups in the coalition is Michiganders for Civic Resilience. It's a bipartisan organization led by former Republican State Senator Tonya Schuitmaker and former State Senator Rebekah Warren, a Democrat from Ann Arbor. And it's been a while, but we're so glad to have you back at WEMU, Rebekah!
Rebekah Warren: I was going to say the same thing, David! It's been a minute, but such a pleasure to be back in WEMU Studios and sitting across the table from you having this conversation!
David Fair: Well, you've spent a long time in and around the political arena. What is your assessment of the state of politics and political discourse today?
Rebekah Warren: I absolutely agree with everything you said in the lead-in there, David. It is as polarized and as divisive as I've ever seen it in my political career, and temperatures just seem to stay high and, as you said, solutions are just not as easily found when we are so divided and making such personal attacks instead of looking for the humanity in folks and looking for that common ground.
David Fair: Well, of course, it's not limited to the body politic as you're intimating. The manner of online and interpersonal interactions in our homes neighborhoods and out on the street--more hostile more unyielding and looking at the public's role in our current climate. Is Pandora out of the box on that matter or can we make a return to a greater sense of diplomatic interactions?
Rebekah Warren: You know, that I remain an incredibly positive person, and I look for and see the opportunities for change, for making things better. One thing I'll point to is when we do public opinion research, an increasing number of Americans are with us in looking for ways to make the climate better. They're looking for a return to civility. We see that across the state, across the country. And it was incredible to see how quickly and easily the four former living governors of the state of Michigan were willing to come into the room to have this conversation--not about a social issue, not about the economy, not about elections, but about this core level value of civility and politics and our public life. And then, when we started posting the event, we got so much interest in coming to be part of the conversation that we actually had to move rooms, get a new venue that had twice as much space, and we filled the room within 48 hours. And we had to close registration and have a livestream where folks can watch it online.
David Fair: And where can people watch it online?
Rebekah Warren: The best place for people to find that is our website, which is MiCivic.org. Tune in. We'll have the recording after the event takes place. So, if you're not available Wednesday, February 4th from 12 to 1 PM, you can check in for that recorded link and watch the program at any time that fits your schedule.
David Fair: As we talk about creating a more productive discourse, can we actually be resilient without first changing the manner in which we interact?
Rebekah Warren: I think that's a core value. It is one of the three things that we are focused on as an organization. We have just three goals that we have set out as kind of our guiding principles and mission, and that is, one, to do everything we can to help increase civility and public discourse and public life. Our second goal is to help work to increase Michiganders' and Americans' faith in our elections and its security and safety in our current system. And, three, to stand together in a cross-partisan way, to stand against any kind of identity-based harassment, threats, or violence. It's really important to us in this project that everything we do is cross-partisan. We want folks to feel that they can be part of this work that we're trying to do, no matter whether they identify as left-leaning, right- leaning, or somewhere in the middle. And this project was conceived at the Carter Center, at Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter's Presidential Foundation. In Michigan, we do it in partnership with the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation. So, even our coming together is a cross-partisan coming together. And we're just excited to see how many other organizations in Michigan are already interested in being part of a broader civility coalition.
David Fair: Our conversation with former State Senator Rebekah Warren continues on 89.1 WEMU. Rebekah is now co-leader of the group, Michiganders for Civic Resilience, and part of a coalition putting for greater civility in our political and social arenas. And you mentioned partnership and bipartisanship. The other members of the coalition include the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, the Democracy Defense Project, as you mentioned, the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation, as well as Oakland University's Center for Civic Engagement. Again, a lot of different political perspectives coming together. How have those interactions between groups been in trying to accomplish a common goal?
Rebekah Warren: It's been a fun test, right? We have folks who don't agree on a lot of different issues, but we're committed to a set of guiding principles that bring us together with a presumption of goodwill, with inherent respect for each other and the opinions that we're bringing, this focus on wanting to lead with humility and be active listeners and have constructive communication. So, we start with these guiding principles. And those organizations that you mentioned, David, that are helping become the founding of the Civilty Coalition, we hope are just the tip of the iceberg. Part of what we're going to do on Wednesday when we're all together is call on the other organizations and leaders who are in the room. We're inviting individuals and organizations, associations, businesses around the state to join us in adopting these guiding principles in holding them as a touchstone before we make comments in public before we post anything on social media asking ourselves, "Are we meeting these guiding principles?" And we hope to see a significant number of the folks who are in that room with the four former living governors say, "Yes, I will take these principles as a pledge moving forward!"
David Fair: How will you gauge the response to governors coming together in a unified call? How will gauge the impact moving beyond Wednesday?
Rebekah Warren: Well, I think, first and foremost, like I said, this idea of asking folks to take this pledge to actually say that these are guiding principles I will move forward in my professional and personal life with. I think we'll see what the energy is in the room if folks are skeptical about what they're hearing, or if they are cautiously optimistic, or like me, pathologically positive about what could be possible if we get in a room together, right? And one of the things that I think we all can agree is that the online world has gotten a lot more polarized. It's gotten a a lot more intense and negative. And when we get in a room together and we see people as human first before we see them as partisan, right, if we're Michiganders and Americans first, everything that comes second, hopefully, we can work towards more civility in discussing those things.
David Fair: A wise person once told me that it's really hard to be angry with somebody across the dinner table. So, if you break bread together, you can solve a lot of issues. We have midterm elections coming up. An inordinate amount of money is being dedicated to this. A lot of it is dark money. There are a lot interests from which we don't know who is supporting what and whom. You cannot legislate morality anyway, regardless of who is elected. So, can we achieve a greater degree of civility if we don't first find ways to genuinely hold our political parties and the individuals with them to a much greater degree of accountability?
Rebekah Warren: Well, I'm glad you raised that, David, because it's one of the reasons that we wanted to have this event in the first quarter of 2026. The midterm elections that we will see this year, we know lots of races in Michigan will be up for election, lots of really important races, not just to the state but to the control of Congress. And as you said, we've those organizations that track ad spending have already predicted that more than a billion dollars of ad space has been reserved in Michigan for the '26 election. That means a lot of out-of-state voices, as you said. A lot of voices that we don't even know. Who's paying for the? And in my elected life, I fought a lot for election reform that included financial disclosure and sunshine and things like that. But if nothing else, we need more transparency in who's actually putting these messages out to folks. But the importance in the first quarter of 2026 of having really disparate voices, the impactful voices of the two former living Republican governors, the two former living Democratic governors saying, "We don't agree on much. But we can agree. Michiganders can do better in how we communicate with each other and what kind of voices we bring to our public conversations."
David Fair: Well, thank you so much for the time today in preview of tomorrow's event! And we'll be watching to see if our former governors can push the dial toward more civility!
Rebekah Warren: Thank you so much, David! Always a pleasure to be with you!
David Fair: That is Rebekah Warren, former State Senator from Ann Arbor, co-leader of the group Michiganders for Civil Resilience. That group is part of the Michigan Civility Coalition, which is bringing four former Michigan governors together in Lansing tomorrow to make a public call for greater civility in our political and social discourse. Democrats Jim Blanchard and Jennifer Granholm will appear alongside Republicans John Engler and Rick Snyder in Lansing. We'll have the links and more information on our website at WEMU.org. I'm David Fair, and this is your community NPR station, 89.1 WEMU-FM, Ypsilanti.
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