WASHINGTON – The Green New Deal, with its promise of zero greenhouse gas emissions and guarantee of jobs and health care for everyone, may be the hot new thing in Congress, but new U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin is taking a pass.

She’s more interested in something that has a chance of passing.

“Listen, I think we all believe that we need to take aggressive steps to mitigate the effects of climate change,” said Slotkin, D-Holly. “But I think when you have something like the Green New Deal, which tends to be about big, bold ideas, instead of specifics, and then adds in other controversial topics like universal health care, and a guaranteed job for all Americans, it makes it less likely that it will pass, not more.”

“And I want something that is result-oriented.”

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Twelve weeks into her first term, Slotkin, a former Pentagon official and former career intelligence officer who did three tours in Iraq, is staking out her independence from some of those big ideas coming out of the new Democratic caucus that now runs the U.S. House and which, in some ways, has appeared to lurch more leftward.

It's not just her, of course. Slotkin, like fellow Michigan Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Rochester Hills, is one of 43 new Democrats in the U.S. House who flipped former Republican seats, many of them in districts won by Donald Trump in 2016. Each is wrestling in his or her own way with how to react to a more liberal-seeming bent in Congress.

But that may be especially true for Slotkin, having defeated a two-term incumbent, U.S. Rep. Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, in a traditionally Republican district that runs from northern Oakland County west through Livingston and Ingham counties and which the GOP would desperately like to recapture next year.

Slotkin, as she did in her campaign, has continued to focus on improving health care, protecting coverage of pre-existing conditions, and taking corporate money out of politics — all of which track with her Democratic colleagues no matter who they are. But she has also taken some more moderate stances, on the need to control the deficit, for instance, or saying that more fencing — at appropriate locations — might well be warranted along the southern border to deter undocumented immigrants.

More:Tlaib submits measure calling for impeachment probe into President Trump

While the media has paid rapt attention to new, more liberal members including U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Michigan’s own Rep. Rashida Tlaib — and the party has been consumed with vast progressive proposals such as the Green New Deal and Medicare for All — Slotkin is admittedly looking for something more modest, but also more defined and potentially doable in an era of divided government:

She’d like to see a Medicare buy-in plan that would allow people of any age to purchase coverage in the popular plan for older Americans. But she wants it to be an alternative to — and not supplant — private insurance in the way Medicare for All proposals would do.

She has embraced a prescription drug plan that would lower costs for Medicare recipients by having the government negotiate prices — a plan that has been endorsed by President Donald Trump — believing it might have a chance of passing a Republican-controlled Senate.

And unlike Tlaib, D-Detroit, she’s only interested in talking about the possibility of impeaching Trump after she has read Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report and seeing what’s in there that does, or doesn’t, make the case against the president.

Meanwhile, she’s not afraid to speak up about behavior, even among her Democratic colleagues, that she thinks has crossed a line.

One such moment came last month, when Ocasio-Cortez went on Twitter, where she has 3.7 million followers, to chide Slotkin and 25 other Democrats from more moderate districts for voting with Republicans on a provision — in legislation requiring background checks on gun purchases — requiring that Immigration and Customs Enforcement be notified if someone illegally in the country tried to buy a gun.

“My job is to represent my district. That’s who I’m responsible to and for,” Slotkin said during a wide-ranging interview this month with the Free Press. "I personally believe that members of Congress should … focus on their own districts instead of worrying about what other people are doing with their time."

Of course, Ocasio-Cortez could argue that she is worrying about her district by calling out other members of Congress for their votes, if that's what her constituents are looking for. Tlaib recently told the Free Press that members from all kinds of districts across the political spectrum — including Slotkin and Stevens — are "focusing on what they ran on" and that, if they continue to do that, "they'll be successful."

But it's equally true that people in Slotkin's district may have some tough questions about Ocasio-Cortez and whatever power she seems to wield in the party.

“I’m certainly asked about Alexandria many times over when I’m out over a weekend in the district, but it is not my job to get into cat fights with other members of Congress," Slotkin said. "I’m not going to do that — I don’t think that’s how leaders should act."

Fascination with AOC and others a distraction

Staking out her independence from the caucus may be harder than it seems, however — and Slotkin knows it.

She already takes issue with the fact that the news media seems smitten with Ocasio-Cortez and Tlaib especially, and devotes vast attention to their every move.

For her part, Tlaib believes that the emergence of new, more liberal and less establishment-minded members — including those such as Ocasio-Cortez and herself — only served to help candidates like Slotkin in the last election, increasing Democratic enthusiasm overall. And she may have a point.

But Slotkin also says that while Tlaib’s a friend, the media’s fascination with her, Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who made remarks critical of Israeli supporters that many saw as anti-Semitic, has taken away attention from worthwhile stories in districts such as hers.

And those districts were responsible for putting Democrats in charge of the U.S. House.

“It doesn’t take a genius to see that the media has this extreme focus — (the) national media, especially … and I understand that they’re interesting in many ways. … But it does crowd out some of the reporting that I think could be happening on equally interesting stories.”

“Maybe pragmatism isn’t as sexy but there’s quite a lot going on there,” Slotkin continued. “And I think it has a direct connection to what we’re going to see in the presidential election.”

GOP working to link all Dems with 'radical proposals'

It’s not just breaking through media distraction, however. Slotkin — and Stevens, who won an open seat in a previously Republican district — know that Republicans are eager to link them to more liberal proposals that may not fly in their suburban (and in Slotkin's case, partly rural) districts.

That includes the Green New Deal, which, although only a resolution that recognizes a presumptive duty on the part of government, could be seen as antagonistic to Michigan’s dominant auto industry, and encouraging a preemptive move toward zero-emission cars.

That more liberal agenda also includes suggestions to disband ICE and to embrace a single government-backed health care plan for everyone without addressing up front the potential costs. So, it’s easy to understand why, in districts seen as more fiscally conservative, Slotkin or Stevens might be more eager to discuss technology and infrastructure, less dramatic health care changes and jobs.

“Generally, we find at the more local level, voters vote more for the person than the party. But this leftward tilt (among House Democrats) is so persuasive from the top down, I do think it’s going to have an impact,” said Dennis Cowan, a former Oakland County Republican Party chairman who still advises GOP candidates. “They (Slotkin and Stevens) are going to have to stake out where they stand with these — I have nothing else to call them — radical proposals.”

For her part, Stevens — a former member of President Barack Obama’s auto task force who was elected co-president of the Democratic freshman class — says she, too, is focusing on health care, on practical responses to climate change, on the need for better infrastructure and how to improve manufacturing. But she recognizes that there is “lot of energy” in what is the big new class on all sides of the political spectrum.

"People are speaking to their constituents,” Stevens said. “I’m focused on where we can compromise.”

And even as Trump won a key victory last week, with special counsel Mueller’s report saying there was no collusion with Russia in the 2016 election, the administration almost as quickly seemed to give Democrats something else to turn the conversation to their benefit.

His administration said it would ask a court to invalidate, in its entirety, the 2010 Affordable Care Act — also known as Obamacare — putting insurance for millions of Americans in jeopardy. That came as Democrats, including Slotkin and Stevens, introduced a measure to support it, lowering premiums and presumably strengthening coverage of pre-existing conditions.

While big, bold ideas are great to ponder, Slotkin said it’s necessary to push Congress to pass something substantial that’s going to have an actual impact on people in the next year or so, or she’s not doing her job.

“So that’s maybe the difference between me and maybe other members — that I will never let perfect be the enemy of the good,” she said. “Because I get stopped in the grocery store by the mom who’s clutching my arm in the Kroger, telling me that she can’t afford her son’s insulin."

"I have to answer to that woman, not any other member of Congress.”

Practical changes needed now, not later, Slotkin says

Last week, Slotkin held a town hall meeting at Oakland University, packing a room and taking written questions. It went smoothly, though not all questions were friendly ones.

She explained that while she thinks technology — drones and such — can solve a lot of problems at the southern border, she's not against putting up barriers where they are needed.

She also staked out some moderate ground by saying she was “leaning toward (being) fiscally conservative,” saying there might well be places where the federal government should be cut. Such comments are not generally considered Democratic talking points.

David Dulio, a political science professor at OU, believes that extreme positions in either party “or the appearance of extremes in either party” could hurt officeholders like Slotkin, whom he considers a moderate. But he also repeated a long-held notion that “all politics are local.” “I think both Slotkin and Stevens are focusing on their districts,” he said. “Which is what they should do.”

Chris Smith — a Michigan State University law and public policy professor who lost in the Democratic primary to Slotkin in 2018, but endorsed her after that — said he’s not ready to criticize her, even if he believes she is being careful not to be labeled a “progressive.” He also doesn’t think that will necessarily hurt her — even with more liberal Democrats in Lansing and elsewhere — who understand that to hold onto the district, a little more political moderation may be called for.

Slotkin, certainly, seems to understand it, too.

“I think everyone in our district knows we have a very politically diverse district, right? You certainly have very different opinions on things if you go to East Lansing or Pinckney or Lake Orion or Rochester Hills,” she said. “But the one thing ... people feel the same about is that they want someone who tells them the truth and who gets something done.

“I’m always going to have a strong preference for things that can actually pass into legislation,” she continued. "We can talk about big issues and have big goals while also working on pragmatic things. I just think that it can’t be all big, bold ideas that may not have a shot at passing the Senate.

“We better be doing the practical stuff and showing what we can affirmatively do to help people’s lives now. Not in five years, not in 10 years but now.”

Contact Todd Spangler:tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter@tsspangler. Read more onMichigan politics and sign up for ourelections newsletter.