30 | MARCH 30 • 2023 

L

osing his re-election 
battle for the U.S. House 
of Representatives was 
far from the end of the road for 
Andy Levin. The Bloomfield 
Township resident recently 
accepted a position as distin-
guished senior fellow at the 
Center for American Progress 
(CAP), based in Washington, 
D.C.
At CAP
, Levin will focus 
on connections between eco-
nomic growth and democratic 
accountability, both in the U.S. 
and around the world. He will 
also help guide CAP’s work to 
implement the infrastructure 
law, the CHIPS and Science Act, 
and the Inflation Reduction Act.
“I’m so thrilled to join CAP 
to help develop and disseminate 
policies designed to make our 
nation and world more just 
across the board — racially, 
economically, socially, environ-
mentally,
” he said.
Levin served two terms in 
Congress, starting in 2019. 
When Michigan lost one of 
its House seats in redistrict-
ing before the last election, 
he was forced to run against 
Haley Stevens, another strong 
Democrat.
Levin, 62, is the son of the 
late Sander Levin, who served 
36 years in the House, and the 
nephew of the late Carl Levin, 
who served the same number 
of years in the U.S. Senate. But 
although the worth of public 

service was something drilled 
into the Levin children, elected 
office was never seen as any 
kind of family destiny. 
Andy Levin sought election 
because of the values his family 
instilled, “not because it’s some-
thing my father did,
” he said, 
noting that there are myriad 
ways to work for the public 
good. 
In addition to his work at 
CAP
, Levin says he will become 
more involved with Lean & 
Green Michigan, which he 
helped start in 2012. The orga-
nization helps commercial, 
industrial, multifamily, non-
profit and agricultural property 
owners find ways to finance 
projects that foster energy effi-
ciency, water conservation and 
renewable energy. It has been 
headed by Levin’s wife, Mary 
Freeman, since Levin started 
working in government. 
Before being elected to 
Congress, Levin served as dep-
uty director and acting director 
of Michigan’s Department of 
Energy, Labor and Economic 
Growth, and as Michigan’s first 
chief workforce officer. During 
the Clinton administration, he 
worked in the U.S. Department 
of Labor. He also worked with 
several large unions to protect 
workers’ rights. 
Levin is an honors graduate 
of Williams College and holds a 
law degree from Harvard and a 
master’s in Asian languages and 
cultures from the University 
of Michigan, where he was a 
Mellon fellow.
Levin’s new job will enable 
him to live in Michigan while 
spending a few days a week in 
Washington, where he main-
tains an apartment. His young-
est child, Molly, 17, still lives at 
home. A senior at International 
Academy, she hopes to study 
classical vocal performance in 
college.
His older children have left 

the nest. Koby, 29, is a reporter 
for Chalkbeat Detroit, an online 
news service. Saul, 27, is a pol-
icy advisor to U.S. Rep. Cory 
Bush in St. Louis. Ben, 25, is a 
nanny in Boston.
At Lean & Green Michigan, 
Levin is promoting the Property 
Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) 
model, an innovative mech-
anism for financing energy 
efficiency and renewable ener-
gy improvements on private 
property. PACE programs 
help recover land occupied by 
decommissioned coal-burning 
power plants and turn it over to 
the public by having it become 
part of national or state parks or 
conservation areas. 
He’s also looking to preserve 
the union jobs those plants once 
provided through the creation 
of new jobs in clean energy pro-
duction and storage.
Seventy-four percent of 
Michiganders live in a county 
served by one of these projects, 
he said.
Levin says his work with 
CAP and with Lean & Green 
Michigan are deeply tied to his 
Jewish values. He is a member 
of Congregation T’Chiyah in 

Fermdale, where his parents 
were founding members, and 
a founder and former board 
member of Detroit Jews 
for Justice, which started at 
T’Chiyah and is now an inde-
pendent nonprofit organization.
On May 10, he will receive 
the Raphael Lemkin Human 
Rights Award from T’ruah: 
The Rabbinic Call for Human 
Rights at its annual banquet in 
New York. T’ruah says Levin 
is being honored for his stead-
fast commitment to protecting 
workers, fighting climate change 
and advancing justice and 
human rights for Israelis and 
Palestinians as a representative 
of the United States govern-
ment.
Levin lost some Jewish 
support in the 2022 election 
because of his longtime com-
mitment to a two-state solution 
to disputes between Israel and 
the Palestinians, a position he 
continues to espouse.
While he would, of course, 
prefer to have won the election, 
Levin says he has no regrets and 
is enjoying his life.
“I’m having a really great 
time,
” he said. 

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Life after Congress 
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