Republican Holly DeBoer is taking a no-nonsense approach to her campaign as she jockeys for a new job in Lansing.

DeBoer is running for Michigan’s 81st House District, which includes Ada, Comstock Park, and northeast Grand Rapids. She first got her start in politics after she ran for her local school board during the Covid-19 pandemic, before later becoming involved in the Kent County GOP. 

As a member of the Forest Hills school board, DeBoer is known as one of the Chalkboard Four, a group of conservative board members which have received support from groups such as Moms For Liberty and Republican State Board of Education members, Tom McMillin and Nikki Snyder. If not elected to the state House, she will have two years remaining on her six-year term.

DeBoer joined a contentious school board race in which 10 candidates were vying for three seats on the board in 2022. She said that decision came out of concern for the “hypocrisy” and “double standards” schools applied when making policies regarding Covid-19.

“I remember showing up to meetings, and I just saw things that really kind of angered me,” she said. “I remember getting up and speaking, and the next day, I get a phone call from a group of parents saying ‘We want you to run.’”

“I got fired up watching the hypocrisy of staying six feet apart and all the rules that were in place, then I watched somebody put a mask on, fist bump the athletes in the hallway, then came back and touched their face and took the mask off,” she said. “I just thought ‘what is going on?’”

While she looks to push back against similar hypocrisy at the state level, DeBoer said she also wants to focus on making Michigan a more affordable state to live in while improving state education by introducing students to career training through their coursework.

“Education is also very important to me,” she said. “I’d like to see more opportunities for students to be exposed to practical skills and different career paths.”

DeBoer is also passionate about immigration, a hot-button topic that has played into several local races. While immigration is largely a matter of federal policy, DeBoer said she is concerned with doing her part to secure the state’s borders.

DeBoer is an outspoken advocate of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a perspective which she says came from her time spent volunteering in a United Nations refugee camp.

Before 2020, DeBoer was involved in her church and joined two different missionary trips to Northern Africa where she worked with refugees displaced by the Western Sahara War. During the trips, DeBoer said she regularly experienced 115-degree temperatures and worked in buildings made from repurposed shipping containers. 

She said the experience gave her a unique perspective on the United States’ immigration issues, which has been at the forefront of political debate since now-President Donald Trump’s candidacy in 2016.

“It just gave me a different perspective that not everybody gets,” she said of her time in the camp. “When I started paying attention to what was coming over the border, I was basing it on my experience of walking miles and miles and miles in the desert and living in tents provided by the UN.”

DeBoer said her mission trips taught her the value of the U.S. immigration system for the way it allows individuals facing such dire circumstances an opportunity of a better life while managing safety risks. She said this perspective is often overlooked in the conversation surrounding ICE activity under Trump.

“Everybody is angry at ICE right now,” she said. “At the same time, look at the situation we’ve had with Laken Riley. How do you protect your community from people who might be here to hurt us?”

Since going on the trip, DeBoer has hosted five exchange students from different countries around the world and said she takes an interest in learning from each one how their governments work. 

DeBoer is vying for a seat currently held by Democratic State Rep. Stephen Wooden. DeBoer said she wants to highlight her willingness to cooperate on bipartisan solutions in her legislation.

When she joined the school board, DeBoer said she “came out like a bucking bronco” as one of the body’s more conservative members. She described having felt little awareness of the importance of cooperation with other board members. 

Since then, DeBoer said she came to appreciate colleagues who can have respectful disagreements while working toward productive results and hopes to have similar discussions if elected to serve in Lansing.

“I came off thinking I was going to conquer the world, but I’m not going to be able to do that,” she said. “I know that I’m going to be an effective member on a bigger team.”

DeBoer even said she would forgo short-term legislative wins in favor of long-term solutions that may not even manifest until after she leaves office. 

“I’m willing to do my part for a better Michigan, for a better United States,” she said. “Michigan is worth saving. She’s worth fighting for.”

Write to jackson@grherald.com