At last week’s Town Hall meeting Rep. Scholten left early to avoid being held accountable and State Rep. Grant would not own up to questions on housing and immigration

Last Thursday, State Rep. Kristian Grant hosted a 90 minute Town Hall meeting at Ottawa Hills High School. Her special guest with Rep. Hillary Scholten, along with three Grand Rapids City Commissioners – Lisa Knight, Marshall Kilgore and Alicia Marie Belchak.

As is customary at these meetings, the politicians get to speak first, with Rep. Grant saying a few words and then inviting Congresswoman Scholten to speak. As Scholten was approaching the podium someone yelled, “Stop voting for Genocide.” As I have documented over the past 18 months, Rep. Scholten has consistently voted to support Israel as they carry out genocide with billions of dollars of US weapons sales.

Rep. Scholten spoke about how bad the Republicans are, completely ignore the fact that she has voted with the GOP on numerous issues since January, plus she failed to acknowledge that the Democratic Party is essentially allowing all of this to happen without a real fight.

Scholten did mention that she had introduced legislation that would make the DOGE committee work more transparent, saying that they weren’t trying to shut it down or arrest Elon Musk. Someone from the audience said that Scholten should be proposing that Musk be arrested, which was met by a loud applause. 

Rep. Scholten then took a few questions, but after 10 minutes she said that she had to leave. This meant that Scholten did not have to hear from people who had serious questions and feedback about her unconditional support for Israel and her voting with the GOP on 3 anti-immigrant policies.

Rep. Scholten wrote in her weekly newsletter, “It’s always a pleasure to hear from West Michiganders, and I was proud to kick off State Representative Kristian Grant’s town hall and take questions to share how public servants are working together for you across local, state, and federal levels.” It’s interesting that she omitted the fact that she left after a short period of time, no doubt to avoid challenging questions and comments.

For the remaining hour Rep. Grant opened it up for questions and comments, but in most cases Rep. Grant and the 3 Grand Rapids City Commissioners chimed in, which took valuable time away from people who had things to say. I’m not suggesting that politicians not speak, but most of their responses were weak and often irrelevant, since they did not have anything concrete to suggest to people who were clearly angry and hurting. 

One questioner was demanding that the elected officials on stage be courageous and do what the people were asking, whether that was specific to the federal, state or local government. The same questioners asked why Rep. Grant did not support the many tenant-center pieces of legislation that would have vastly improved the lives of hundreds of thousands of renters in Michigan. Rep. Grant said she supporter many of these bills, but if that were true, then why didn’t she hold public hearings on them, especially since she was the Housing Committee Chair? The truth is that during the Lame Duck session last November/December, the Democrats could have adopted these bills, but they chose not to. 

There were questions posed to the Grand Rapids City Commissioners, specifically about why they were not adopting a Sanctuary policy, they all either danced around the issue or said that they were already doing it because of what the Foreign Nationals Policy states. As I have written previously, the Foreign National’s Policy states: 

The policy allows officers to provide assistance to federal immigration authorities when there is an emergency that poses an immediate danger to public safety or federal agents. 

Many of us from GR Rapid Response to ICE and Movimiento Cosecha are all too familiar that the rhetoric of the City and the GRPD is in dark contrast to what they practice. See my article entitled, the criminalization of dissent in Grand Rapids. 

Near the end of the night, Gema Lowe, with Movimiento Cosecha – an immigrant-led movement – wanted to clarify a point and ask a question. Gema’s clarifying point was that the Congresswoman Scholten stated at the beginning of the night that she was working hard to support refugees and immigrants. Gema pointed out that Rep. Scholten in 2025 alone had voted for three anti-immigration bills:

Laken Riley Act 

Preventing Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act 

Agent Raul Gonzalez Officer Safety Act 

Again, it was too bad that Rep. Scholten wasn’t there to be held accountable for her claim to support immigrants.

The Movimiento Cosecha organizer then turned her attention to Rep. Grant stating that the Democrats promised the immigrant community that they would pass the Drive Safe Bills, since in 2023 and 2024 that Democrats controlled the State House the State Senate and the Governor’s office, yet even during the Lame Duck session they never put it to a vote.  

At this point I spoke up and said that the Democrats promised the immigrant community that they would pass the Drive Safe Bill and they didn’t. Instead they failed them miserably. Rep. Grant said she supported it and I said I wasn’t talking about her but about the Michigan Democratic Party, which did not do what they publicly promised. At that moment, instead of owning this fact, Rep. Grant continued to deflect my comment and blame it on someone else or the GOP.