Michigan's U.S. Senate race: Meet Democratic candidate Hill Harper

Michigan’s primary election is on Aug. 6. The U.S. Senate race is on the ballot. Voters will decide who advances to the general election in November in the race to replace Democratic U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, who’s retiring.

Michigan Public's Morning Edition is featuring a series of interviews with major-party candidates. (You can link to the rest of the candidate interviews at the bottom of this page.)

There are two Democrats running for their party’s nomination. One of them is Hill Harper.

Harper spoke with Morning Edition host Doug Tribou.

Doug Tribou: Some of our listeners might know you from your long career as an actor in Hollywood. Your credits include the TV shows The Good Doctor and CSI: New York, among many others. You’re a graduate of Harvard Law School and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. And you own a coffee shop in Detroit. What motivated you to run for Senate?

Hill Harper: I'm running for U.S. Senate because so many people are hurting and they don't feel that they're represented in Washington. They don't feel like anybody has their back. This is an opportunity to redefine what a U.S. senator is. It's the people's seat.

And it's just an extension of what I've always been doing, actually, through my books and through my foundation. And when President Obama appointed me to the president's cancer panel, it was an extension of that as a cancer survivor — understanding that the tool and purpose of government is to create and expand opportunity, and to create a safety net so that all people have an opportunity to truly flourish.

DT: You mentioned working on former President Obama's cancer panel. And you and he were classmates at Harvard Law School. Why hasn't he endorsed you in this race at this point?

HH: You know, we talked about that. And he believes that — he's a very principled individual — and he believes that a former president should not endorse in an open seat primary.

DT: You've made a "no new taxes" pledge. I think it's fair to say that that's an unusual stance for a Democratic candidate. Why did you make that pledge?

HH: It's a very clear pledge because the money is there to do all of the things that I talk about, and all of the things that so many Michiganders want. Health care. We need to solve our health care crisis. And we can do that with a $7-trillion budget. We need to solve our public education crisis. We need to solve women's reproductive freedom issues. All of these things can get done. We do not need to raise taxes to complete these things.

DT: Well, operating within the same total number of dollars would require some shifting or cutting. Are there areas that you would think of targeting to make those kind of moves happen?

HH: Absolutely. We rubberstamp the NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act, almost automatically. I'm not talking about cutting troop salaries. Actually, I'd like to see the salaries of troops and enlisted people increase. What I'm talking about is cutting our defense contractor spending.

DT: You have a son who's in elementary school, and you've talked about education quite a bit during this campaign. You've said that you support universal pre-kindergarten. What are your other priorities when it comes to education?

HH: I support universal pre-K, and I also support a universal higher education. So what I'm talking about is pre-K through 16. I'm the product of a well-run, well-funded public school system. But I ended up going to Brown University, and not only was I able to compete at Brown, I got a degree in economics and a degree in sociology, and I graduated as valedictorian of my department.

When we decided as a country to have universal pre-K through 12, when you finished with a high school diploma, you actually could earn a living wage. Those days are gone.

DT: You mentioned universal pre-K through 16. That would add preschool and four years of college to the public education system. You said you're a product of the public schools, but you attended two very prominent private universities. How do you see that universal higher ed portion working?

HH: Well, it has to work, obviously, through our public institutions and our public universities, and it wouldn't impact and it doesn't impact on the private side.

Here in Michigan, we want to keep the talent here. And so what do we do? We create an ecosystem of jobs and opportunity and infrastructure here, but also create an opportunity to say, "Hey, we'll pay for college, if you if you stay for 4 or 5 years afterwards."

That's an interim step to get there, and it also helps to retain talent in the state. But ultimately, there should be a public option for kids who want to continue higher education that they don't have to go into lifetime debt for.

DT: The seat you're running for has been held by Sen. Debbie Stabenow, who won four elections for the seat starting in 2000. She also served in the House. Stabenow has been known for being a key part of budget and finance legislation, especially related to agriculture. She sits on some powerful committees. What would you do, as someone without that political experience, to try to fill the role she has played in looking out for Michigan's interests in Washington?

HH: I would absolutely request to be on the [Senate agriculture] committee. You know, I met with a blueberry farmer outside of Traverse City. She's selling her farm, and I asked her why. She feels that she can't compete with the price of blueberries coming in from Peru and other places. And I want to fight for the farm. The other piece is around SNAP, and I think this is a phenomenal.

DT: SNAP is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

HH: And it runs through the Department of Agriculture. We have so many communities across our state that people call "food deserts." There's one near my house here in Detroit. There's a liquor store, and sure, the only thing you can buy are Funyuns, Faygo, Vernors or Hennessey through three inches of Plexiglas, but there's no fresh produce.

We can get a double benefit by providing SNAP benefits to communities that are so-called food deserts, allowing the farmer coming in with their produce into these communities, and everybody wins. These are the type of solutions I think people want to see in government.

DT: Well, sticking with the topic of experience, your opponent in the Democratic primary is current U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, who has served three terms in the House. She's a former CIA intelligence analyst. Where do you see strengths and weaknesses in your own experience when compared to Slotkin's resume?

HH: When we talk about lived experience, and we talk about the experience of coming to the 100-person body, which is the U.S. Senate, right now, I think our best senator out of that 100-person body is Elizabeth Warren [of Massachusetts]. She was a professor at my alma mater, Harvard Law School, and she'd never been elected to any office. [Georgia] Sen. Raphael Warnock had never been elected to any position. He's doing a fantastic job. So I think our top performers in the U.S. Senate right now are actually folks who didn't come up through the system.

DT: To bring it back to you and your opponent, Elissa Slotkin, prior to her three terms in the House, she also had not been elected to any office. Are are you saying that her time in the House hurts her ability to be an effective senator if she were to win the seat?

HH: Not at all, not at all. Again, it goes back to lived experience. She's only held government jobs. I respect her for her service. We're just very different people. I'm going to fight for different things in a different way. I'm not going to fight for military expansion. I'm not going to fight for sending taxpayer dollars to fund foreign violence. And she has voted in favor of those things. So we're very different.

Editor's notes: Quotes in this article have been edited for length and clarity.

This interview was recorded before the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump.