metro

Meet The Chairman

Bobby Schostak, leader of the Michigan GOP,
talks strategy and the future of the party.

Jackie Headapohl

that President Barack Obama had won the
top of the ticket by nearly 9 points.
"With that kind of strength at the top
of the ticket, we should have been wiped
out down the ballot and we were not:'
Schostak said. "That shows the strength of
our political plan. That shows the strength
of our grassroots operations:'
Recently, Schostak stopped by the offic-
es of the JN to answer questions about the
future of the state GOP.

I Managing Editor

or five years, first as finance chair
and then as the elected chair-
man, Robert "Bobby" Schostak
has lent his efforts to building up the
Republican Party in Michigan. No one
can argue he hasn't done a good job: the
GOP has a clean sweep in the state, hold-
ing the governor's office, state House, state
Senate, attorney general and secretary of
state as well as a conservative-leaning state
Supreme Court.
He was re-elected chairman this year,
defeating Tea Party contender Todd
Courser.
Schostak lives in Bloomfield Hills with
his wife, Nancy, and attends Adat Shalom
Synagogue in Farmington Hills. They have
three adult children and two grandchil-
dren.
He sits on the board of his family-owned
business, Schostak Brothers & Company
Inc., which operates commercial proper-
ties in 19 states as a full-service real estate
development, management, leasing and
consulting company. Schostak has been
active in the commercial real estate busi-
ness since 1976.
A longtime conservative activist and
Republican fundraiser, Schostak became
an active player in the state Republican
Party after the 2008 election, during which
he had volunteered on John McCain's
campaign. He was asked by then-chair
of the party Ron Weiser to become the
finance chair of the state party. Generally,
a finance chair is someone who puts in a
few hours each week raising money.
"After six years of [former Gov. Jennifer]
Granholm, we saw that Michigan would be
ready for a significant change in Lansing:'
said Schostak, who got together with his
brothers Mark and David to discuss the
opportunity.
"I decided that I would go into it with
gusto and really put more than a tradi-
tional volunteer effort in place. Instead, I
gave it a full-time effort:'
He and Weiser worked together to raise
record sums of money and Republicans
swept the ticket in 2010, going from a
16-seat deficit in the state House to a
13-seat Republican majority. The GOP also
went from a majority to a supermajority in
the state Senate.
"We won the governor's race; we won
the attorney general; we won the secre-
tary of state Schostak said. "And in the

F

10 July 4 • 2013

Q: Are there schisms between the Tea
Party wing and traditional wing of your
caucus? If so, how does that affect the
governor's agenda?
Schostak: I'm a social conservative,

Chairman Bobby Schostak at the state convention

Supreme Court, which was 4-3 in favor of
a more liberal-leaning elected court, we
took it to a 4-3 conservative rule-of-law
court:'
After Gov. Rick Snyder took office, he
asked Schostak to run for party chairman.
"I discussed it with my family and decided
to run:' he said.
He was elected in January 2011 and
spent the next few years building the
party, raising money, and working with
local grassroots county operations and Tea
Party groups leading up to the 2012 elec-
tions.
"In the 2012 elections, people from
across the board were questioning the
direction the country was going on spend-
ing, debt and the rest of it," he said. "We

were out to protect Michigan and Gov.
Snyder by making sure that our state
House majority returned, making sure
we kept our Supreme Court rule of law,
and making certain that the proposals to
amend the constitution were defeated:'
The most significant of those proposals
was Proposal 2, which sought to amend
the state's constitution to guarantee public-
and private-sector employees the right to
organize and collectively bargain.
"We defeated collective bargaining;
Schostak said. "We kept our state House
majority and our Supreme Court, which
allowed the governor to continue his
agenda and Michigan's re-invention for the
next two years:'
What made that success so sweet was

constitutionalist Republican Party chair-
man. That's who I am to the core as an
individual. I'm very supportive of the Tea
Party as I'm very supportive of our con-
servative Republicans. We have factions in
the party (as do the Democrats) that lean
more to the right on social issues, govern-
ment spending and taxation issues. That's
what makes our party dialogue vibrant
and productive.
We have proven in the last several elec-
tions that Republicans and Tea Party orga-
nizations can work together productively,
proactively and constructively toward
electing good, solid conservatives.
Gov. Snyder follows his heart in doing
what he believes is best for all Michigan
citizens, and people will disagree with him
on areas. That hasn't dissuaded him from
doing what he thinks is right. There are
going to be disagreements. What party or
political operation doesn't have opposing
views on issues? That's the democratic pro-
cess. There are certain people in our party
in the legislature who will not vote for
Snyder's agenda because they feel strongly
it's not the right thing to do. That's their
choice. It's not my job to referee that.

Q. Traditionally, the majority of Jews
vote Democrat. How is the Republican
Party in Michigan trying to attract
Jewish voters who might agree with the
Republican Party's fiscal policies but not
its social policies, such as efforts to limit
women's reproductive freedoms?
Schostak: In the last election, the

largest increase in votes by any coali-
tion out there, from Democrat in 2008
to Republican in 2012, was the Jewish
community across the country. I believe
it went from 24 percent of Jews to 30
to 31 percent of Jews who support the

