Lessenberry: Another blow to conventional wisdom

DETROIT — Could the conventional political wisdom be wrong about Shri Thanedar, the scientist-turned-congressman from Detroit?

When he won his seat two years ago, African-American leaders in Detroit were horrified. Mr. Thanedar, an immigrant from India with a doctorate in chemistry, won the Democratic primary in 2022 with a mere 28 percent of the vote.

To be sure, Mr. Thanedar, a 69-year-old self-made millionaire, spent his own money lavishly. But his victory, in one of the most solidly Democratic districts in the nation, was blamed on the fact that many other well-known candidates were also in the race.

Wayne County Executive Warren Evans was especially furious, saying that Black Detroiters would now be disenfranchised.

“If Wayne County’s diverse Black leadership of faith-based, business, educational, political, community groups, and grassroots organizations had united our support behind a single consensus candidate, rather than eight Black candidates entering the race … we would not be in this position,” Mr. Evans wrote at the time.

Well, this year, most of the political establishment, Black and white, did rally around a single African-American candidate: Mary Waters, a former legislator and well-known member of Detroit’s City Council, was endorsed by Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, many of her colleagues, and some Black legislators from Detroit.

But when the primary votes were counted Aug. 6, Mr. Thanedar had won easily, with 54 percent of the vote to 34 percent for Ms. Waters. The district, which is about 45 percent Black and 37 percent white is safely Democratic, and while the congressman will face Republican Martell Bivings in November, that’s essentially token opposition.

Since the sitting congressman got an absolute majority of the vote, might it be possible that Black Detroiters like being represented by another person of color, who grew up surrounded by poverty more stark than most of them have known?

Shri (pronounced Shree; he encourages everyone to call him by his first name) was the oldest of nine siblings from a small village in southern India. Somehow, he managed to earn a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Mumbai before he was 20.

He came to America in 1979 and earned a PhD from the University of Akron and an MBA from a small college in Missouri. His career took off; he bought and sold analytical chemistry firms and eventually moved to Ann Arbor, where he started a testing lab called Avomeen Analytical Services, which he later sold for millions.

He’s had personal blows; his wife, Shamal, killed herself in 1996, which he disclosed in painful detail in his self-published 2013 memoir, The Blue Suitcase: Tragedy and Triumph in an Immigrant’s Life . Mr. Thanedar was left with two small boys, but he remarried and seems to have a very happy family.

But he wanted more than riches. In 2018, he startled the political establishment by coming out of nowhere to run for governor in the Democratic primary. He had no name recognition when the race started, but he threw $10 million of his own money into the campaign. (When I interviewed him then, I found he had generally liberal views but was rather naive about politics.)

Mr. Thanedar caused some excitement, but in the end, plagued by stories about his business practices and allegations that he had abandoned beagles used for research without food or water hurt him, and he finished a weak third.

But he won in Detroit. Two years later, he won a seat in the state House of Representatives, and two years after that, went to Congress.

Few congressmen make much of an impact in their first term, especially when they are in the minority, and Shri Thanedar was no exception. He became a strong defender of Israel, which hasn’t pleased some, but has gotten him praise from more conservative circles.

He has, however, attracted credible charges of poor constituent service and an often chaotic office. The Detroit News reported that the new congressman spent nearly half his office budget on advertising himself, while the Detroit Free Press found he had hired less staff than usual to deal with the problems of people in his district.

U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a fellow Democrat from a neighboring district, said that some of Mr. Thanedar’s constituents have turned in desperation to her office for help. (The congressman said those people were probably confused about which district they lived in.)

There were also complaints of frequent staff turnover and of employees improperly told to spend their time on Shri’s re-election campaign. Nevertheless, both newspapers “reluctantly” endorsed Mr. Thanedar after admonishing him to try and take his job more seriously.

Whether he will take that to heart is uncertain, but it seems less and less likely he can be turned out of his congressional seat. On more than one occasion, he has said “the elites in the party, not the people I represent, are troubled that I’m not Black.”

Based on the election returns, he may just be right.

Jack Lessenberry is a former national editor for The Blade. Contact him at: omblade@aol.com