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Mari Manoogian

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Mari Manoogian
Image of Mari Manoogian

Democratic Party

Prior offices
Michigan House of Representatives District 40
Successor: Christine Morse
Predecessor: Michael McCready

Education

Bachelor's

George Washington University, 2014

Graduate

George Washington University, 2017

Personal
Birthplace
Birmingham, Mich.
Religion
Armenian Apostolic Orthodox
Profession
Digital engagement manager
Contact

Campaign website

Campaign Facebook

Campaign Twitter

Campaign Instagram

Personal Facebook

Personal LinkedIn

Mari Manoogian (Democratic Party) was a member of the Michigan House of Representatives, representing District 40. She assumed office on January 1, 2019. She left office on January 1, 2023.

Manoogian (Democratic Party) ran for re-election to the Michigan House of Representatives to represent District 40. She won in the general election on November 3, 2020.

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

Biography

Manoogian earned her B.A. in international affairs from George Washington University in 2014 and her M.A. in international affairs from George Washington University in 2017.

Her professional experience includes working as a digital engagement manager for the Office of eDiplomacy at the U.S. Department of State from August 2016 to June 2017, as a data collector for the International Olympic Committee in Rio de Janiero, Brazil, from July 2016 to August 2016, as a digital associate at Mercury Public Affairs in Washington, D.C., from July 2016 to August 2016, and as a junior program officer for the Office of English Language Programs at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., from June 2014 to July 2015.[1]

The following table lists bills this person sponsored as a legislator, according to BillTrack50 and sorted by action history. Bills are sorted by the date of their last action. The following list may not be comprehensive. To see all bills this legislator sponsored, click on the legislator's name in the title of the table.


Elections

2022

See also: Michigan House of Representatives elections, 2022

Mari Manoogian did not file to run for re-election.

2020

See also: Michigan House of Representatives elections, 2020

General election

General election for Michigan House of Representatives District 40

Incumbent Mari Manoogian defeated Kendra Cleary in the general election for Michigan House of Representatives District 40 on November 3, 2020.

Candidate
%
Votes
✔
Image of Mari Manoogian
Mari Manoogian (D) Candidate Connection
 
57.8
 
38,162
Image of Kendra Cleary
Kendra Cleary (R) Candidate Connection
 
42.2
 
27,897

Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source

Total votes: 66,059
Candidate Connection = 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 40

Incumbent Mari Manoogian advanced from the Democratic primary for Michigan House of Representatives District 40 on August 4, 2020.

Candidate
%
Votes
✔
Image of Mari Manoogian
Mari Manoogian Candidate Connection
 
100.0
 
18,862

Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source

Total votes: 18,862
Candidate Connection = 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.

Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

Republican primary election

Republican primary for Michigan House of Representatives District 40

Kendra Cleary advanced from the Republican primary for Michigan House of Representatives District 40 on August 4, 2020.

Candidate
%
Votes
✔
Image of Kendra Cleary
Kendra Cleary Candidate Connection
 
100.0
 
10,685

There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source

Total votes: 10,685
Candidate Connection = 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.

Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

Campaign finance

Endorsements

  • LEAP Forward[2]

2018

See also: Michigan House of Representatives elections, 2018

General election

Mari Manoogian defeated David Wolkinson in the general election for Michigan House of Representatives District 40 on November 6, 2018.

General election

General election for Michigan House of Representatives District 40

Candidate
%
Votes
✔
Image of Mari Manoogian
Mari Manoogian (D)
 
56.5
 
30,222
Image of David Wolkinson
David Wolkinson (R)
 
43.5
 
23,222

There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source

Total votes: 53,444
(100.00% precincts reporting)
Candidate Connection = 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

Mari Manoogian defeated Nicole Bedi in the Democratic primary for Michigan House of Representatives District 40 on August 7, 2018.

Democratic primary election

Democratic primary for Michigan House of Representatives District 40

Candidate
%
Votes
✔
Image of Mari Manoogian
Mari Manoogian
 
53.1
 
8,914
Image of Nicole Bedi
Nicole Bedi
 
46.9
 
7,883

There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source

Total votes: 16,797
Candidate Connection = 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

The following candidates ran in the Republican primary for Michigan House of Representatives District 40 on August 7, 2018.

Republican primary election

Republican primary for Michigan House of Representatives District 40

Candidate
%
Votes
✔
Image of David Wolkinson
David Wolkinson
 
28.8
 
3,368
Image of Joe Zane
Joe Zane
 
20.0
 
2,348
Silhouette Placeholder Image.png
Submit photo
Mike Banerian
 
16.0
 
1,878
Silhouette Placeholder Image.png
Submit photo
Malissa Bossardet
 
15.6
 
1,828
Image of Paul Taros
Paul Taros Candidate Connection
 
10.1
 
1,179
Silhouette Placeholder Image.png
Submit photo
Paul Secrest
 
9.5
 
1,112

There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source

Total votes: 11,713
Candidate Connection = 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

Candidate Connection

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

Expand all | Collapse all

I was born and raised in Birmingham, the daughter of a union utility worker and a small business owner. As the great-grandaughter of survivors of the Armenian Genocide, my family instilled in me and my sister the importance of hard work, perseverance, and advocating for one's community.

I attended Seaholm High School and then Michigan State University, before transferring to George Washington University, where I earned my bachelor's and Master's degrees in foreign affairs. I learned from some of the top in my field, interning for US Ambassador Samantha Power at the United Nations and the late Representative John Dingell in Congress. After graduating, I worked at the State Department, for the International Olympic Committee, and as a communications consultant.

  • Education
  • Economy / Small business
  • Environment and clean water
Education - I strongly supports better funding for our public schools, improving teacher pay, and giving all kids equitable access to education. This is even more important now in a post-COVID environment.

Small businesses/economy - I have been a champion for our small businesses during the COVID-19 crisis. She is committed to helping our local businesses grow and thrive by supporting legislation that protects workers and gives local businesses the tools to not only get back on their feet, but succeed post-COVID-19.

Environment - I am a strong advocate for protecting our Great Lakes, ensuring access to clean air and water, and expanding renewable energy production and availability.
While this may sound cliché, the person I most look up to is my mom, Sandy Manoogian. Throughout my childhood, my mother started and owned her own private practice in counseling, and cared for my younger sister and me throughout the week, as my father had a job that required him to travel extensively. My mother entered a field of work-vocational rehabilitation counseling-at a time when few women were in the profession. She was young and ambitious, and after working for a large corporation in her field, she took a chance on herself and opened her own practice. She became a successful expert witness with offices in Grand Rapids and in Metro Detroit, and worked on numerous high-profile cases, including helping those who suffered from catastrophic injuries due to the Ford River Rouge Complex explosion in the 1990s. Not only was she dedicated to her career and continuing education, having earned a Ph.D. in counselor education in 2011, but she was also extremely committed to raising her two daughters to be independent yet family-oriented. One of my fondest memories of childhood is our Monday night routine that we had when my sister and I were kids. After a long day at public school, my mother would pick us up and take us to a quick dinner, usually at a local Coney Island, and we would rush off to Armenian language school. After several hours of school, my sister and I were on edge and missed our dad who was traveling for the week, so my mom would often surprise us by pulling out every snack food, often frozen Girl Scout cookies, and we'd lay on the floor in our family room and watch Nickelodeon cartoons way past our bedtime. She would usually stay up after us to fold a load of laundry, pay bills, or get our things ready for school the next day. Her ability to seemingly "do it all" is something that I'll always admire. I know it was never easy, but the grace with which she parented us and managed her career makes her undoubtedly my hero.
In my time in office, I have and will continue to champion policy initiatives for clean water and for quality public education regardless of ZIP Code. I have been a tireless advocate for our small businesses, especially during the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. I also take pride in doing outreach to young women and girls in our community, so that they can see the possibility of pursuing public service as a career path. Whether or not anyone remembers that I was the individual to champion a specific thing, if by passing a bill I have made our state a better, safer, and more pleasant place to live, I think that will be a perfectly acceptable "legacy" to leave.

People think of legacy as having your portrait in a building, your name on a bill, or your statue in a park. In Michigan, your "legacy" is often built upon the stories told about you by folks around Lansing long after you've left office. Frankly, this idea doesn't matter to me. As long as the things that I have done during my political life have helped our communities, given my fellow Michiganders better lives, or afforded people greater opportunities, I will be satisfied with my time in office.
The first historical events that happened in my lifetime that I remember were the September 11th Attacks; I was 9 years old. That day, my mother was supposed to be getting on a plane to go to a conference in Chicago, so I knew something was wrong when she came to pick me up from fourth grade at Birmingham Covington School. My family always talked about politics and world events at the dinner table, and it was important to my parents that my sister and I understood what was happening in the world, especially regarding the attacks. Clearly, these attacks were transformative for our entire country, and the resulting changes that came out of those attacks continue to shape our state and our country today. I have never known a political world without the historical backdrop of the 9/11 attacks and the War on Terror, but the undesirable effects of the laws passed after 9/11, namely the USA PATRIOT Act, are something that we continue to see. Today, those laws are being used to spy on citizens through their digital devices and are allowing overzealous patrolling and arrests at our border by law enforcement, among other things. While we prepare for the next attempted attack on our nation, we must use the lessons of the 9/11 attacks and the resulting wars as warnings as to what can happen when we legislate by fear and allow the government to intrude in our lives for the sake of so-called safety.

I was a waitress at Hunter House Hamburgers beginning in high school; I continued waiting tables when I came home on weekends while in college. Working a service job gave me the opportunity to interact with people, get to know them and what they like, and it taught me the importance of enacting policies that will help the middle class grow and thrive, so that we help workers in the ever-growing service industry, and ensure there will patrons and customers for our restaurants and small businesses.
September by Earth, Wind and Fire!
I think it is beneficial to have some level of experience in state government or politics, although not entirely necessary to do the job. My time at the State Department in Washington, D.C., with the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in New York, and in Congressman John D. Dingell's office offered me invaluable experience that prepared me for being a State Representative. I have experience working with folks from all different backgrounds, and bringing people together for a common purpose. Although it may seem as though we have departed from this, politics and public service is about doing the most good for the most people, and oftentimes it means compromising in order to get there. Having this previous experience helped me to hit the ground running, building relationships and working with folks from different walks of life, right from the beginning.
Several challenges stand out to me. The first is the ongoing "brain drain" of our brightest young Michiganders, who simply don't see living in this state as a viable choice for many reasons - chief among them, this state's lack of a large, transport-linked metropolitan area comparable in jobs, housing, and quality of life to cities like Chicago, Washington, or New York. Without top-quality regional transit, our auto insurance costs are a turn off for young folks, too. Second, I see our education funding structure - and the resultant lack of funding for our public education system - as a top priority for elected officials. By continuing to utilize the 1994 Proposal A system, combined with the ongoing raiding of the School Aid Fund, we do our students and teachers a massive disservice, not to mention the knock-on effects that diminishing public school quality has on local property values. Third, Michigan must transition to a carbon-neutral society, for the good of our state, country, and planet. Climate change is an existential threat to us all, and Michigan's public and private sectors must make significant steps towards bringing our state to carbon-neutral as quickly as possible. This can create hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs for Michiganders in new, green-energy (and adjacent) industries, and revitalize communities that have faced depression due to the decline in traditional manufacturing since the 2008 financial crisis. Finally, there is the challenge of ending racial disparities in all sectors: income, housing, healthcare, education, policing, and more. Michiganders of color lag behind their white counterparts in all areas, except for in incarcerations, where Black Michiganders lead. Black and Native American communities must be supported by elected officials to make changes in our legal system and to create and properly fund necessary social services in order to bring those communities in line with their white counterparts in all sectors.
I do believe that it is beneficial to build strong relationships with other legislators because building relationships means building trust. This is critically important for legislators from differing political affiliations, especially in the current state of polarized politics. Most of the time, when we vote on legislation, it passes either nearly unanimously or unanimously, because most legislators work across the aisle on bills that are not considered incredibly ideologically controversial. However, these strong relationships are most important when we are dealing with controversial legislation, because when tensions run high, relationships could be damaged if there is not a baseline of trust to begin with. In my first term in the legislature, I've worked across the aisle on legislation to curb distracted driving and abusive non-compete agreements for low-wage workers not dealing with proprietary information or processes. I am grateful for the relationships I have built while working on these bills, and strongly believe that this is the way forward for improving our politics and policymaking.
I serve on the following committees: Commerce and Tourism, Energy, and Military, Veterans and Homeland Security. As the daughter of a retired utility worker, I grew up fascinated by energy and electricity. I studied international affairs and security policy, and worked at the State Department in DC, so Military, Veterans, and Homeland Security appealed to me, too. Finally, the types of discussions held by the Commerce and Tourism committee are those that have the greatest impact in the ongoing recovery of our state; many of these policies will be those which begin to stem the "brain drain" of young, educated Michiganders by providing them enhanced opportunities and increased quality of life within our state. I have enjoyed all three of these committees.

Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.

2018

Biographical submission

Manoogian submitted the following campaign themes through Ballotpedia’s biographical information submission form:

“

What is your political philosophy?

I believe in a politics of hope, and I’m driven by a core belief that Michigan’s comeback story is far from over.

This is a critical moment for Michigan. We are at a crossroads; we can continue to be complacent, or we can create opportunities for all Michiganders to succeed in the 21st century. We need a clear voice in Lansing who will choose championing our community’s shared values of hard work, creativity, and optimism over inaction and divisiveness. If we prioritize the safety and well-being of all Michiganders, we can ensure our state government works for all of us.

I’m running for State Representative because I believe that Michigan’s brightest days are still to come. [3]

”
—Mari Manoogian[1]

Committee assignments

Note: This membership information was last updated in September 2023. Ballotpedia completes biannual updates of committee membership. If you would like to send us an update, email us at: editor@ballotpedia.org.

2021-2022

Manoogian was assigned to the following committees:

2019-2020

Manoogian was assigned to the following committees:

Scorecards

See also: State legislative scorecards and State legislative scorecards in Michigan

A scorecard evaluates a legislator’s voting record. Its purpose is to inform voters about the legislator’s political positions. Because scorecards have varying purposes and methodologies, each report should be considered on its own merits. For example, an advocacy group’s scorecard may assess a legislator’s voting record on one issue while a state newspaper’s scorecard may evaluate the voting record in its entirety.

Ballotpedia is in the process of developing an encyclopedic list of published scorecards. Some states have a limited number of available scorecards or scorecards produced only by select groups. It is Ballotpedia’s goal to incorporate all available scorecards regardless of ideology or number.

Click here for an overview of legislative scorecards in all 50 states.  To contribute to the list of Michigan scorecards, email suggestions to editor@ballotpedia.org.




2022

In 2022, the Michigan State Legislature was in session from January 12 to December 28.

Legislators are scored on their votes on bills related to environmental issues.
Legislators are scored on labor issues.
Legislators are scored on their votes on bills related to business issues.
Legislators are scored on their votes on bills related to agriculture.
Legislators are scored on their votes on bills related to environmental issues.
Legislators are scored on a number of bills selected by the editor of MIRS, a state capitol newsletter.
Legislators are scored on their votes on bills related to business issues.


2021


2020


2019






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External links

Candidate

Michigan House of Representatives District 40
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    Footnotes

    1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Information submitted through Ballotpedia's biographical submission form on April 4, 2018.
    2. ↑ LEAP Forward, "6. ENDORSEMENTS," accessed June 30, 2020
    3. ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.

    Political offices
    Preceded by
    Michael McCready (R)     		Michigan House of Representatives District 40
    2019-2023    		 Succeeded by
    Christine Morse (D)


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