The Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy held a virtual “Conversations Across Differences – Voices Across the Aisle in a Challenging Time” event on February 16, 2021 with U.S. Representatives Elissa Slotkin (D-MI 8th District) and Peter Meijer (R-MI 3rd District).
The 117th congressional session has started with an insurrection, an impeachment trial, a disciplinary action in the House, and a push for major legislation that is passing along mostly partisan lines. Can Democrats and Republicans lower the temperature and find common ground to tackle the urgent problems facing the United States? “The Voices Across the Aisle” event dived into a thoughtful dialogue with two of the most dynamic members of Congress.
“Conversations Across Differences” was moderated by Ford School Dean Michael S. Barr, and was co-sponsored by the Ford School, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation, DPTV, and the Domestic Policy Corps.
Video and content courtesy of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy
About the Panelists
Representative Elissa Slotkin
Representative Elissa Slotkin serves Michigan’s 8th Congressional District, a district that includes Ingham, Livingston, and North Oakland counties.
Rep. Slotkin has spent her career in national service. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which took place during her first week of graduate school in New York City, Rep. Slotkin knew that national service would define her career. She was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to be a Middle East analyst and went on to devote her career to protecting the United States from national security threats. In her role at the CIA, Rep. Slotkin worked alongside the U.S. military during three tours in Iraq as a militia expert. In between her tours in Iraq, Rep. Slotkin held various defense and intelligence positions under President Bush and President Obama, including roles at the White House and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. In 2011, Rep. Slotkin took a senior position at the Pentagon and, until January 2017, she served as Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs. In this role, Rep. Slotkin oversaw policy on Russia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa at the Pentagon and participated in negotiations on some of the country’s most pressing national security issues.
A third-generation Michigander, Rep. Slotkin spent her early life on her family farm in Holly, Michigan. She attended Cornell University (BA) and Columbia University in the City of New York (MA).
Representative Peter Meijer
Peter Meijer serves Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District, which includes Barry, Ionia and parts of Kent and Calhoun counties in western Michigan.
Rep. Meijer spent one year at the United States Military Academy at West Point and soon thereafter enlisted in the Army reserves and deployed to Iraq in 2010 as a non-commissioned officer, serving with an intelligence unit at joint US-Iraqi bases in the Baghdad area.
In Iraq, Rep. Meijer conducted intelligence operations, led soldiers and missions that resulted in the detention of enemy operatives responsible for killing American soldiers.
He then joined Team Rubicon, a veteran-based disaster response organization, and led humanitarian efforts in South Sudan dealing with a refugee crisis, New York after Superstorm Sandy, Oklahoma after a series of devastating tornadoes, and the Philippines after Super Typhoon Yolanda.
Rep. Meijer moved on to run International NGO Safety Organization’s advisory operations in southern Afghanistan, eventually becoming acting Deputy Director for Afghanistan, delivering emergency assistance to aid workers after kidnappings and targeted killings.
A fourth-generation West Michigander, he was born and raised in Grand Rapids. Rep. Meijer attended Columbia University (BA) and pursued his MBA at New York University.
Dean Michael S. Barr
Michael S. Barr is the Joan and Sanford Weill Dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, the Frank Murphy Collegiate Professor of Public Policy, the Roy F. and Jean Humphrey Proffitt Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School, and the founder and Faculty Director of the University of Michigan’s Center on Finance, Law, and Policy. He is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. At the Law School, Barr taught Financial Regulation and International Finance, and co-founded the International Transactions Clinic and the Detroit Neighborhood Entrepreneurs Project.
Professor Barr conducts research and writes about a wide range of issues in domestic and international financial regulation. Barr serves in a wide variety of advisory roles. He is a trustee of the Kresge Foundation, and serves on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation FinTech Advisory Council, the FDIC Advisory Committee on Economic Inclusion, ideas42’s Scientific Advisory Board, the Research Advisory Board for the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, and as an advisor to NYCA Partners, SentiLink, CLINC, Savi, and Global ID Framework, among others.
Professor Barr was on leave during 2009 and 2010, serving in President Barack H. Obama’s Administration as the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s assistant secretary for financial institutions, and was a key architect of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. Prior to his Senate confirmation, Barr served on the National Economic Council in the White House. Professor Barr previously served in the Administration of William J. Clinton as Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin’s special assistant, as deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury, as special adviser to President William J. Clinton, and as a special adviser and counselor on the policy planning staff at the U.S. Department of State.
Barr served as a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter during October Term 1993, and previously to the Hon. Pierre N. Leval, then of the Southern District of New York.
He received his JD from Yale Law School, his MPhil in international relations as a Rhodes Scholar from Magdalen College, Oxford University, and his BA, summa cum laude, with honors in history, from Yale University.
