U.S. Senate candidate Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) has long used her experience of growing up on a family farm to relate to working Michiganders; however, one report states that she greatly exaggerated the size of her family farm.
“We grow soy and corn on about 300 acres, little bit less than 300 acres right now,” Slotkin said.
However, as the New York Post reported, the property does not exceed ten acres. The Post noted that Slotkin has also benefitted from a grandfathered agricultural tax exemption, which saves her roughly $2,700 in property taxes.
The Post continued:
That’s despite the fact that the family stopped raising cattle on the property — the reason for the original exemption — decades ago.
And, despite her claim that soybeans have been sown on the land, it appears there’s no proof any agriculture is taking place.
That property is itself classified as vacant agricultural land. Aerial shots, available through land records, show no evidence of farming.
The Slotkin campaign still claims that the Slotkin farm plants soybeans and that the Oakland County government has approved the agricultural zoning status.
Austin Cook, a Slotkin campaign spokesman, said in a statement, “Rep. Slotkin’s farm has been in her family for three generations, since 1956. During her early life, the farm was a working cattle farm. The land is now used to grow soybeans, which are currently planted.”
Even though Slotkin has a “dubious” status as a farmer, she has still attacked her Republican opponent, former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers.
She said in an attack ad against Rogers, which Politifact rated “false,” that he “left Michigan to trade on his D.C. connections, helping Chinese tech companies get access to the U.S.”
Before Slotkin ran for Congress, she worked at the CIA, National Security Council, and the State Department, and then returned to Michigan in 2017 to run for office.
“She sure paid her property taxes in Washington, DC, all those years. She didn’t claim a credit there. She took one here on the backs of law enforcement and firefighters and schools,” Rogers said.
Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.