Celia Young-Wenkel

This page was current at the end of the individual's last campaign covered by Ballotpedia. Please contact us with any updates.

Celia Young-Wenkel

Democratic Party

Elections and appointments

Last election

November 3, 2020

Education

Bachelor's

Saginaw Valley State University, 1984

Graduate

Grand Valley State University, 2007

Personal

Birthplace

Reed City, Mich.

Profession

Retired public servant

Contact

Campaign Facebook

Personal Facebook

Celia Young-Wenkel (Democratic Party) ran for election to the Michigan House of Representatives to represent District 97. She lost in the general election on November 3, 2020.

Young-Wenkel completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. Click here to read the survey answers.

Biography

Celia Young-Wenkel was born in Reed City, Michigan. She earned a bachelor's degree from Saginaw Valley State University in 1984 and a graduate degree from Grand Valley State University in 2007. Her career experience includes working for the Department of Health and Human Services.

Elections

2020

See also: Michigan House of Representatives elections, 2020

General election

General election for Michigan House of Representatives District 97

Incumbent Jason Wentworth defeated Celia Young-Wenkel in the general election for Michigan House of Representatives District 97 on November 3, 2020.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Jason Wentworth (R)	71.2	31,602
		Celia Young-Wenkel (D)	28.8	12,794

---

	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 44,396
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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Democratic primary election

Democratic primary for Michigan House of Representatives District 97

Celia Young-Wenkel defeated Shane Atwell in the Democratic primary for Michigan House of Representatives District 97 on August 4, 2020.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Celia Young-Wenkel	66.8	3,398
	Submit photo	Shane Atwell	33.2	1,692

---

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 5,090
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Republican primary election

Republican primary for Michigan House of Representatives District 97

Incumbent Jason Wentworth advanced from the Republican primary for Michigan House of Representatives District 97 on August 4, 2020.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Jason Wentworth	100.0	13,392

---

	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 13,392
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
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2018

See also: Michigan House of Representatives elections, 2018

General election

General election for Michigan House of Representatives District 97

Incumbent Jason Wentworth defeated Celia Young-Wenkel in the general election for Michigan House of Representatives District 97 on November 6, 2018.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Jason Wentworth (R)	67.8	22,476
		Celia Young-Wenkel (D)	32.2	10,652

---

	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 33,128 (100.00% precincts reporting)
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Democratic primary election

Democratic primary for Michigan House of Representatives District 97

Celia Young-Wenkel defeated Bob Townsend in the Democratic primary for Michigan House of Representatives District 97 on August 7, 2018.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Celia Young-Wenkel	50.1	2,652
	Submit photo	Bob Townsend	49.9	2,642

---

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 5,294
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Republican primary election

Republican primary for Michigan House of Representatives District 97

Incumbent Jason Wentworth advanced from the Republican primary for Michigan House of Representatives District 97 on August 7, 2018.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Jason Wentworth	100.0	9,682

---

	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 9,682
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Campaign themes

2020

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection

Celia Young-Wenkel completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Young-Wenkel's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.

Expand all | Collapse all

Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

I'm retired from the MDHHS, where I served for most of my 22years as a Children's Protective Services Worker. I have an MSW. This is my second time at seeking this office. I won a hard fought primary in 2018 by 10 votes. I have 2 sons, a daughter, and one step-daughter. I have six grandchildren. The future of our planet is my most important issue. I want Lena, Ellie, Jack, and Oscar, Agatha and Matilda to have the same opportunity at living their hopes and dreams as all the grandchildren that came before them and all the children that will come after them. Covid-19 has been an unmitigated tragedy and destroyed our economy, but has also given us the opportunity to rebuild it from the ground up. With an FDR inspired "New Deal" we can rebuild our failing infrastructure like the dams located in the 97th District that failed. We can repair our urban water systems, like the one in Flint that ruined the future of so many children. The Nestle water plant in Evart is in the 97th District, I will limit Nestle's access to Michiganders' water. I will seek to charge them more for our water than the 240 dollars that they pay and use the money to end water shutoffs in our urban areas. As part of the new, "New Deal", I will replace carbon based energy with renewable energy. As a proud union member, I will advocate for our unions. We now know who the essential workers are and we should pay them accordingly. I am a "proven fighter for children and vulnerable adults!"

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

• For profit public schools (charter schools and online charter schools) are a means of privatizing our school system. I will fight for our non-profit public schools.
• Healthcare remains our largest employer in the 97th District, I will fight to maintain the medicaid expansion.
• Criminal Justice reform will save money and human capital.

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

After years of Republican control of all three branches of government and Betsy DeVos influence, our school system has fallen from being top-rated, to being in the middle. We must end the fight to privatize our schools,by holding for profit schools to the same standards as our public schools. I support healthcare for all, but at the state level I support the medicaid expansion and a 100 dollar cap on insulin like they have in Colorado. The 97th District is rural and aging. A significant proportion of our population has diabetes. Healthcare for all not only saves lives, but creates jobs and affordable insulin not only saves lives, but is preventive in costing more money in the future. Criminal Justice reform involves many aspects, but just to name a few: 1. Getting the mentally ill out of the CJ system. 2. Addiction is an illness. It is an imperative that we handle chemical dependence separately. 3. We need to end mandatory minimums. 4. End the school to prison pipeline. 5. Examine racial disparities in sentencing. 6. Immediately expunge marijuana convictions. It costs the same to hold a prisoner for a year in a prison as it does to send a student to Harvard or Yale for a year.

Is there a book, essay, film, or something else you would recommend to someone who wants to understand your political philosophy?

Robert Reich is Bill Clinton's former labor secretary. He does one minute animations regarding his economic philosophy. His positions make a lot of sense to me. I follow him on Free Speech Tv. I'm also a follower of Paul Krugman, Nobel Laureate in economy.

What characteristics or principles are most important for an elected official?

Honesty, integrity and leadership. The needs of the constituents come first in all decisions before party, reelection or personal gain. Empathy and understanding for others' feelings no matter if they voted for the particular official or not. A thick skin, an elected official needs to be able to stand by their principles no matter what the press or other people are saying. I look at Governor Whitmer and what she has faced regarding the shutdown as an example. I don't really know her, but I like that she has maintained her dignity in spite of attacks by the president. She hasn't gotten in the mud with him. People have unfairly accused her of all kinds of made up indiscretions and she just continues to do her job fighting to keep people safe during the pandemic.

What qualities do you possess that you believe would make you a successful officeholder?

I

What do you believe are the core responsibilities for someone elected to this office?

An official elected to the 97th District should fight for the people in the district even when it's unpopular. I hope that if I had represented the 97th District, I would have stood up for the people who lived in areas vulnerable to the Edenville Dam. It was cited in 1999 for not having the capacity to withstand a major rain event. Representatives have come and gone during that time and no one ever put their foot down and said as a representative to these people something must be done. As I said, I can only hope that I would have done my job to protect the affected communities, even if it meant permanently lowering lake levels.

I believe that my responsibilities are to the District first and then to the state as a whole. The rest of the state had been experiencing somewhat of a recovery but the 97th District has been behind for decades. Our children in most of our counties are in the bottom third as far as child well-being, Clare being 78th out of 82 and Arenac in the mid-40's, the other two in the mid-sixties. Yet people keep re-electing Republicans, it's time for a change. As a proven fighter for vulnerable children and adults, I will make improving child well-being a priority by fighting to improve our schools, fighting for healthcare and reforming the criminal justice system. Raising the minimum wage isn't popular in the 97th District because even workers are convinced there labor isn't worth it, but raising the minimum wage will improve our children's well-being.

What was your very first job? How long did you have it?

My first job was as a fast food server. I didn't last long because it was too stressful. I later went to college and became a Children's Protective Services worker (I say this somewhat tongue in cheek, but the stress is of a different kind). When I talk to people about raising the minimum wage, I always ask them if they have ever done fast food service. It's hard work and it can be very stressful. I got in trouble with the bosses because, I was never good at staying focused enough to be "fast". I blamed my lack of success on being too much of a thinker. Speaking of "stress", I would like to stress that the fast food workers were considered essential frontline workers; there should no longer be a dispute over whether they deserve a minimum wage. When FDR first proposed the minimum wage, he said, "the minimum wage should provide enough to make a living, not merely a subsistence".

If you could be any fictional character, who would you want to be?

Brenda Leigh Johnson, the chief in the television show, The Closer. She was a leader of several male detectives, and to make matters worse, she was made the leader as an outsider. She was brought in from the outside to lead men in a traditionally male field. When she was first named the Chief of Detectives, she was scorned and doubted by the detectives she led. After a season or two, she won over her unit with her abilities to bring the perpetrators to justice. The characteristics I admired most about her were her ability to delegate responsibility, and her ability to maintain her composure in spite of her very real human frailties. She had a habit of forgetting her purse, smashing police cruisers and an addiction to chocolate. But the thing I admired most was that she didn't change who she was in her role. She was a woman who was a leader. She didn't lead as a woman acting like a man, she lead by capitalizing on her feminine traits. It is beyond time to accept that the qualities of men and women in leadership roles are like apples and oranges, different but equal. The tendency of some women to be more emotional is not a deficit, but an important aspect of leadership, suggesting empathy and an ability to identify with those she leads. Women are over half the population, but no one would know that by our representation as leaders in the house and senate of Michigan or the U.S. House and Senate.

What was the last song that got stuck in your head?

What do you perceive to be your state’s greatest challenges over the next decade?

The entire country is faced with the challenge of rebuilding our economy following the covid-19 pandemic and the shut down of our economy. The pandemic has taken a huge toll in the number of lives lost and the unemployment rate in Michigan. Our governor acted relatively quickly in closing our schools, bars and restaurants, etc., but our death rate is higher than most of the other states. I am proposing a new "New Deal" FDR-style, in the fight to restore our economy; we have a once in a generation opportunity to rebuild our economy from the ground up. The failure of the Edenville dam located in the 97th District is an example of the neglect to our state infrastructure system. In fact, there are many dams in the same condition, in desperate need of repairs. We have the opportunity to rebuild our economy with high paying jobs repairing the dams, repairing our urban water delivery systems like in Flint. Our aging electrical grids are in need of repair, too, meaning more jobs. Switching our energy from carbon based energy to renewable resources means even more jobs. And isn't it about time to fix the damn roads? The problem isn't that we don't know how to create new jobs; the problem is that Michigan has been in the hands of the Republicans who are more interested in tax cuts than investing in our state's economy. Healthcare is the largest employer in each of the counties of the 97th District; the pandemic has placed a huge economic strain on our healthcare system. The current administration is fighting to end Obamacare in the courts. Saving our rural healthcare under the circumstances will be another huge challenge to our state and to the 97th District. I was in a meeting with my Republican State Senator, Jim Stamas, a couple of years ago and he said that without the medicaid expansion, an aspect of Ocare, our rural hospitals will be closed. Our rural hospitals are now faced with the possibility of losing the medicaid expansion and the cost of the pandemic.

What process do you favor for redistricting?

I favor the Citizen's Commission proposed by Voters Not Politicians. I was a circulator for the initiative to end gerrymandering and gathered over 300 signatures. I enjoyed signature gathering so much that it was one of my inspirations for running for office. Politicians drawing the lines and picking their voters has led to the hyper-partisanship that we see today in our Houses of Representatives. State reps can vote for unimaginable propositions with no consequences because they have picked their voters. For example, my opponent in the 97th District has voted to end the state income tax, and to end the requirement to register your hand gun and take a test in order to carry your hand gun concealed. To be fair, I don't know of any examples on the Democratic side, but I am sure there are some.

In 2018, every state-wide race was won by Democrats. There were many more Democratic votes for the State House of Representatives than Republican votes, but the Republicans held onto the House because of gerrymandering. There were many years when the Democrats were in control that the same thing happened and that is why it is a nonpartisan issue. Ending gerrymandering will be the second most important issue in making our politicians more accountable to the voters. The first issue being the influence of money on our politics.

If you are not a current legislator, are there certain committees that you would want to be a part of?

I would want to be on the Committee for Health and Human Services, because I worked for the Department of Health and Human Services for twenty-two years. I know the policies that worked and the ones that didn't from a first hand perspective. I don't have a lot of political experience, but I do have experience with the department with one of the largest proportions of the state budget.

My experience as a Children's Protective Services worker also made me a partner with the criminal justice system. I worked with the mentally ill and those experiencing chemical dependency. Legalizing marijuana was an important first step toward criminal justice reform, but there is much that needs to be done. I would like to be on that committee as well.

I would also like to be on the committee regarding tax and revenue. As I mentioned in another question, my opponent voted to end the income tax. So far, Republicans have only succeeded at cutting the income tax. What has happened as a result, is that we have raised fees and sales taxes to make up the lost revenue. The pension tax was also part of an effort to make up the revenue. My first year of retirement was the first year of the pension tax. The problem with raising the fees on our licenses, raising the sales tax, and taxing services is that those who are on fixed incomes and those making minimum wage pay the same taxes as those who are making 70,000 dollars and more a year. Raising fees and sales taxes are regressive tax systems. The only fair tax is the income tax based on how much an individual makes.

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Footnotes

[show]

Current members of the Michigan House of Representatives

Leadership

Speaker of the House:Matt Hall

Minority Leader:Ranjeev Puri

Representatives

District 1

Tyrone Carter (D)

District 2

Tullio Liberati (D)

District 3

Alabas Farhat (D)

District 4

Karen Whitsett (D)

District 5

Regina Weiss (D)

District 6

Natalie Price (D)

District 7

Tonya Myers Phillips (D)

District 8

Helena Scott (D)

District 9

Joseph Tate (D)

District 10

Veronica Paiz (D)

District 11

Donavan McKinney (D)

District 12

Kimberly Edwards (D)

District 13

Mai Xiong (D)

District 14

Mike McFall (D)

District 15

Erin Byrnes (D)

District 16

Stephanie Young (D)

District 17

Laurie Pohutsky (D)

District 18

Jason Hoskins (D)

District 19

Samantha Steckloff (D)

District 20

Noah Arbit (D)

District 21

Kelly Breen (D)

District 22

Matt Koleszar (D)

District 23

Jason Morgan (D)

District 24

Ranjeev Puri (D)

District 25

Peter Herzberg (D)

District 26

Dylan Wegela (D)

District 27

Rylee Linting (R)

District 28

Jamie Thompson (R)

District 29

James DeSana (R)

District 30

William Bruck (R)

District 31

Reggie Miller (D)

District 32

Jimmie Wilson (D)

District 33

Morgan Foreman (D)

District 34

Nancy Jenkins-Arno (R)

District 35

Jennifer Wortz (R)

District 36

Steve Carra (R)

District 37

Brad Paquette (R)

District 38

Joey Andrews (D)

District 39

Pauline Wendzel (R)

District 40

Matt Longjohn (D)

District 41

Julie Rogers (D)

District 42

Matt Hall (R)

District 43

Rachelle Smit (R)

District 44

Steve Frisbie (R)

District 45

Sarah Lightner (R)

District 46

Kathy Schmaltz (R)

District 47

Carrie Rheingans (D)

District 48

Jennifer Conlin (D)

District 49

Ann Bollin (R)

District 50

Jason Woolford (R)

District 51

Matt Maddock (R)

District 52

Mike Harris (R)

District 53

Brenda Carter (D)

District 54

Donni Steele (R)

District 55

Mark Tisdel (R)

District 56

Sharon MacDonell (D)

District 57

Thomas Kuhn (R)

District 58

Ron Robinson (R)

District 59

Douglas Wozniak (R)

District 60

Joseph Aragona (R)

District 61

Denise Mentzer (D)

District 62

Alicia St. Germaine (R)

District 63

Jay DeBoyer (R)

District 64

Joseph Pavlov (R)

District 65

Jaime Greene (R)

District 66

Josh Schriver (R)

District 67

Phil Green (R)

District 68

David Martin (R)

District 69

Jasper Martus (D)

District 70

Cynthia Neeley (D)

District 71

Brian BeGole (R)

District 72

Mike Mueller (R)

District 73

Julie Brixie (D)

District 74

Kara Hope (D)

District 75

Penelope Tsernoglou (D)

District 76

Angela Witwer (D)

District 77

Emily Dievendorf (D)

District 78

Gina Johnsen (R)

District 79

Angela Rigas (R)

District 80

Phil Skaggs (D)

District 81

Stephen Wooden (D)

District 82

Kristian Grant (D)

District 83

John Fitzgerald (D)

District 84

Carol Glanville (D)

District 85

Bradley Slagh (R)

District 86

Nancy De Boer (R)

District 87

William Snyder (D)

District 88

Greg VanWoerkom (R)

District 89

Luke Meerman (R)

District 90

Bryan Posthumus (R)

District 91

Pat Outman (R)

District 92

Jerry Neyer (R)

District 93

Tim Kelly (R)

District 94

Amos O'Neal (D)

District 95

Bill Schuette (R)

District 96

Timothy Beson (R)

District 97

Matthew Bierlein (R)

District 98

Gregory Alexander (R)

District 99

Mike Hoadley (R)

District 100

Tom Kunse (R)

District 101

Joseph Fox (R)

District 102

Curt VanderWall (R)

District 103

Betsy Coffia (D)

District 104

John Roth (R)

District 105

Ken Borton (R)

District 106

Cameron Cavitt (R)

District 107

Parker Fairbairn (R)

District 108

David Prestin (R)

District 109

Karl Bohnak (R)

District 110

Gregory Markkanen (R)

Republican Party (58)

Democratic Party (52)