Peter Meijer, congressional representative for Michigan’s third district, has generated a significant amount of controversy in the first few months of his term. Only a few weeks into his term he voted to impeach Donald Trump along with nine other Republicans. Meijer’s vote prompted significant conservative backlash, particularly from local Republican groups. Meijer has been censured by multiple local branches of the Republican Party, including Cass and Allegan county Republicans, garnering national attention.

COVID relief

Chimes interviewed Peter Meijer this week about his vote to impeach, current legislative priorities, and the COVID relief bill recently signed into law by President Biden. “I was not supportive of the American Rescue plan for the sole fact that it is not actually a COVID relief stimulus package, it’s more of a multi-year appropriations omnibus package.” Meijer said of the $2 trillion piece of legislation which included direct payments to Americans, aid to state and local governments, money for vaccine distribution, and money to reopen schools.

Meijer said that he supported elements of the bill, particularly direct payments to Americans. Earlier this year, Meijer proposed an alternative plan that was roughly half the cost of the American Rescue Plan. Meijer’s legislation raised the check amount from $1,400 to $2,400. “This (the American Rescue Plan) was a plan that was sold out of a sense of urgency,” Meijer said. Meijer said that Democrats were using the urgent messaging around the COVID relief bill as a “smokescreen to cover over $1.3 trillion of unrelated expenses.

Budget reconciliation and the filibuster

Meijer disapproves of Democrats’ use of budget reconciliation. Budget reconstruction allows bills that deal with appropriations and budget issues to be passed in the senate with a simple majority instead of having to pass through the filibuster, which would require a minimum of sixty votes to pass. Meijer said that “politically, it is a smart thing for [the Democrats] to do. For the country, I don’t think it will be beneficial.” 

“For those of us who are willing to engage in a bipartisan way, it is throwing up the middle finger,” Meijer said. According to Meijer, “The Democrats can get away with it because the Republicans are too busy talking about Dr. Suess and Mr. Potato Head.” Meijer also defended the filibuster on the campaign trail, even when other Republicans like Donald Trump supported removing it. He believes that it encourages “majority politics.” 

“All of the sudden, what Democrats had been using for years when they were in the minority in the Senate is somehow a racist relic of Jim Crow because it stands between them and undivided control of the government,” Meijer said.

Immigration

Meijer has recently co-sponsored legislation dealing with the border crisis. The flow of people entering the United States illegally is higher than it has been in the last 20 years. Meijer’s bill would “make sure that within DHS there are appropriate funds and authorities in able to study the underlying causes” of border crises like the current one. Meijer was not optimistic about the current situation at the U.S.-Mexico border.

  “This [bill] is just how do we make sure we’re managing the problem as best as we can while we work towards a solution,” Meijer said.

“I’m a bit dumbfounded that the Biden Administration is surprised by what is occurring. It flows in an incredibly logical sequence,” Meijer said, recalling how many Democrats in the 2020 primaries were in favor of legalizing all border crossings, “It is literally a cause and effect relationship.”

“I am absolutely supportive of continued wall construction,” Meijer said. However, he thinks that a wall alone won’t solve the border crisis; he stressed the need for a legal pathway to citizenship and reform to the legal immigration system. Meijer said that too often in the immigration debate, there is no nuance. Meijer says he stands for a merit-based immigration system, but said “We should also be a country that has a heart when dealing with asylum seekers and refugees.”

Capital Insurrection, Impeachment & Misinformation

Meijer was on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, 2021, when pro-Trump rioters staged an insurrection. Meijer, unlike many other Republicans in Congress, denounced what happened on Capitol Hill. “The further Republicans retreat from fact into fantasy, the more the Republican Party is signing its own political death warrant,” Meijer said. 

He also voiced electoral concerns with Republicans’ conspiracies about the 2020 election. “We have laid the foundation for a really passionate party that cannot gain more than 40% of the vote in competitive elections if we continue down this path.” 

Meijer doubts the political strategy that some Republicans, including Tom Norton, his primary challenger, have taken. “Republican party that lost the majority in the House in 2018, lost the White House in 2020 and lost the Senate in 2021 somehow sees the solution as doubling down on the same losing strategy.” 

According to Meijer, not denouncing misinformation and the insurrection is “ultimately incredibly cowardly” and will eventually lead Republicans to electoral defeat. Meijer speculated that many Republicans embrace Trumpian conspiracies because many Republicans want to have access to the Trump fundraising apparatus. 

Other Republicans have attacked Meijer’s motive behind voting for impeachment. Tom Norton, running for Meijer’s seat in 2022, told Chimes that Meijer was attempting to gain favor with House Democrats and Nancy Pelosi. “I can assure you that Speaker Pelosi and I do not have a positive relationship,” Meijer said.  

“There was no tangible benefit (of voting for impeachment) to be derived except the fact that I could look myself in the mirror at the end of the night and know that I didn’t prize my own reelection over doing what I viewed as right and necessary for the country,” Meijer said.

Meijer deviates little from the average Republican in terms of policy. However, Meijer is not a “Trumpian” and desires for the party to expand its coalition. “I believe in trying to open the doors… rather than continuing to tell a smaller and smaller group of people what they want to hear.” 

Meijer’s electoral strategy will be tested when he faces primary challengers that are to the right of him in 2022 in a battle between Trump’s legacy and more traditional conservatism.