Republican incumbent Rep. Donni Steele is running for reelection in Michigan House District 54. 

Rep. Steele voted against SB 173, Michigan’s education budget bill that was signed into law by Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Steele joined a majority of Republican legislators in voting against the bill, which increased funding for public education throughout the state, including providing free meals for students. 

Rep. Steele says that “classrooms should focus on education, not social agendas” and that “the pandemic shed light on what children were learning, highlighting the need for increased transparency.”

Rep. Steele has been endorsed by the Great Lakes Education Project, an organization funded by Besty DeVos that supports school vouchers. Members of the DeVos family have donated over $6,000 to Donni Steele’s campaign. The Great Lakes Education Project and the DeVos family were funders of a voucher ballot initiative that would have taken money away from traditional public schools.

Shadia Martini is the Democratic candidate for Michigan House District 54. According to her campaign website, Martini says, “Our children and our teachers are under assault by political extremists through book bans and efforts to defund our schools. In Lansing, I will fight for our children’s right to learn without government interference, mental healthcare in schools, and better access to childcare for working parents.” 

Martini has spoken out against book bans by comparing them to her past experience growing up in Syria, posting on Twitter, now X, “When I was 13 years old in Aleppo, I woke up one night to a secret police agent with a Kalashnikov rummaging through my shelves looking for banned books. I did not immigrate to the United States to watch extremist state legislators attempt to emulate the policies of the dictatorship I escaped. Enough is enough.” 

Martini has stated she supports measures to keep students safe in schools, including “implementing gun-violence prevention laws and ensuring quality mental health support in schools.” 

If elected, Martini would join the Michigan House Democratic Caucus, which prioritizes investing in education and plans to “fund public schools at historic levels.”