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Erin Byrnes
Erin Byrnes (Democratic Party) is a member of the Michigan House of Representatives, representing District 15. She assumed office on January 1, 2023. Her current term ends on January 1, 2027.
Byrnes (Democratic Party) ran for re-election to the Michigan House of Representatives to represent District 15. She won in the general election on November 5, 2024.
Biography
Erin Byrnes earned a bachelor's degree in women's and gender studies from the University of Michigan at Dearborn in 2007 and a master's degree in education from Brooklyn College of the City University of New York in 2010. Byrnes' career experience includes working as an educator with the University of Michigan and a middle school special education teacher. She has been affiliated with the League of Women Voters, Dearborn Goodfellows, and the Women of Tomorrow Mentor & Scholarship Program, and has served on the Dearborn City Council.[1][2][3]
Sponsored legislation
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.
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.
2023-2024
Byrnes was assigned to the following committees:
- Elections Committee
- Communications and Technology Committee
- House Oversight Committee, Chair
- Education Committee
- Local Government and Municipal Finance Committee (decommissioned), Majority Vice Chair
Elections
2024
See also: Michigan House of Representatives elections, 2024
General election
General election for Michigan House of Representatives District 15
Incumbent Erin Byrnes defeated Gary Gardner in the general election for Michigan House of Representatives District 15 on November 5, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Erin Byrnes (D) | 56.3 | 19,974 |
 | Gary Gardner (R)  | 43.7 | 15,512 | |
| Total votes: 35,486 | |||
| = 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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Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for Michigan House of Representatives District 15
Incumbent Erin Byrnes advanced from the Democratic primary for Michigan House of Representatives District 15 on August 6, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Erin Byrnes | 100.0 | 6,391 |
| Total votes: 6,391 | |||
| = 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 15
Gary Gardner advanced from the Republican primary for Michigan House of Representatives District 15 on August 6, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Gary Gardner | 100.0 | 2,794 |
| Total votes: 2,794 | |||
| = 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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Campaign finance
Endorsements
2022
See also: Michigan House of Representatives elections, 2022
General election
General election for Michigan House of Representatives District 15
Erin Byrnes defeated Steven J. Mackie in the general election for Michigan House of Representatives District 15 on November 8, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Erin Byrnes (D) | 61.6 | 17,864 |
| Steven J. Mackie (R) | 38.4 | 11,119 | ||
| Total votes: 28,983 | |||
| = 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 15
Erin Byrnes defeated Bilal Hammoud and Afaf Ahmad in the Democratic primary for Michigan House of Representatives District 15 on August 2, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Erin Byrnes | 61.8 | 5,288 |
 | Bilal Hammoud | 34.9 | 2,986 | |
| Afaf Ahmad | 3.2 | 276 | ||
| Total votes: 8,550 | |||
| = 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 15
Steven J. Mackie advanced from the Republican primary for Michigan House of Representatives District 15 on August 2, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | Steven J. Mackie | 100.0 | 3,970 | |
| Total votes: 3,970 | |||
| = 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 finance
Endorsements
To view Byrnes' endorsements in the 2022 election, please click here.
Campaign themes
2024
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Erin Byrnes did not complete Ballotpedia's 2024 Candidate Connection survey.
2022
Video for Ballotpedia
| Video submitted to Ballotpedia Released Mar 27, 2022 |
Erin Byrnes completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Byrnes' responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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As an educator, I have always been focused on community empowerment and uplifting future generations. This approach has led me from teaching middle school to working as an educator at the University of Michigan, and to serving in local government as a Dearborn City Council member.
In Dearborn and Dearborn Heights, we are united by our shared hopes and dreams. As your State Representative, I will work for you and with you to advance quality of life in our community and throughout all of Michigan.
- Education impacts every facet of our lives as individuals and communities. Having served as a teacher in New York City public schools, a girls’ empowerment program planner in Southwest Detroit and now an educator at the University of Michigan, I am incredibly passionate about supporting our students of all ages. Per pupil funding is a key element of educational equity, as is providing literacy instruction support at all grade levels. While a common goal is to have children reading well and independently by the end of third grade, this is too often not the case, and older students are left without the structured support they need. Staffing and training for our educators to provide literacy support throughout K-12 is a necessity.
- Dearborn Heights and Dearborn experienced catastrophic flooding in 2021. Both cities have worked to mitigate future impact on the local level in the past year, and funding at all levels of government will be necessary to create long term protection for our residents. Green infrastructure including water retention systems and urban forestry will offset some impacts of climate change, and funding for flood mitigation along Ecorse Creek and the Rouge River will be critical.
- Reproductive rights are under attack from the highest levels of our government. The fight to protect a woman’s right to choose now lies within State Legislatures and I am prepared to stand strong for reproductive rights and specifically the right to have an abortion, in Michigan. Abortion is a medical procedure and one that must remain fully accessible and legal in Michigan and across our country. I will fight like hell to repeal Michigan’s 1931 abortion ban that would criminalize women and medical providers and I strongly support the right to choose being enshrined in our state constitution.
I am committed to ensuring that people who can give birth have the right to bodily autonomy and are free to make decisions in the best interest of their overall health well-being. As a Dearborn city Council member, I have been proactive regarding environmental justice, having worked with my colleagues to pass air quality and bulk solid waste storage ordinances. Clean air, water and land are essential to the health of our communities and Michigan is a resource-rich state where our environment must be protected for future generations.
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.
Campaign finance summary
Note: The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties. Depending on the election or state, this may represent only a portion of all the funds spent on their behalf. Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer. Campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete. For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at the FEC website. Click here for more on federal campaign finance law and here for more on state campaign finance law.
Scorecards
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.
2024
| To view all the scorecards we found for this legislator in 2024, click [show]. |
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In 2024, the Michigan State Legislature was in session from January 10 to December 23.
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2023
| To view all the scorecards we found for this legislator in 2023, click [show]. |
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In 2023, the Michigan State Legislature was in session from January 11 to November 14.
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See also
2024 Elections
External links
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Candidate Michigan House of Representatives District 15 |
Officeholder Michigan House of Representatives District 15 |
Personal |
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on July 18, 2022
- ↑ LinkedIn, "Erin Byrnes," accessed April 30, 2023
- ↑ Michigan House Democrats, "Meet Rep. Byrnes," accessed April 30, 2023
| Political offices | ||
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| Preceded by Jeffrey Pepper (D) |
Michigan House of Representatives District 15 2023-Present |
Succeeded by - |
