PLYMOUTH, MI – When you enter John Stewart’s law office, in a century-old house on a leafy street in lovely Plymouth, you may think you’ve gone back in time more than half a century.
The shelves are lined with books, not just law books, but biographies of Jefferson and Lincoln, and there’s a prominent American flag behind the desk. A sign on the front porch says “John Stewart, Country Lawyer,” and, indeed, the office seems the sort of place where a Jimmy Stewart character would be comfortable.
In fact, John Stewart is a man you could easily imagine hanging out with George Bailey from It’s a Wonderful Life. Now 73, he’s still a proud Eagle Scout, upstanding member of the First Presbyterian Church of Plymouth, and deeply in love with his wife Beth, the executive director of the Michigan Philharmonic.
Instead of letting us go out to lunch, his longtime assistant, Martha Trafford, a 79-year-old retired teacher, insisted on making us wonderful ham sandwiches and homemade cookies.
Stewart is, as you might expect, a lifelong Republican, who began his political career as a township trustee, served three terms in the state legislature from 2001 to 2007 and is now a trustee again.
The town he serves is only ten miles from Detroit, but is a gentrified, nearly all-white community of 9,300. Michigan’s attorney general is among its current residents; U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm lived here too. Once reliably Republican, the area shifted as a result of the culture wars; there are few MAGA supporters here.
Small-town America was once filled with John Stewarts, who in 1970 could no more imagine voting Democrat than they could imagine their hands falling off. Mr. Stewart proudly displays biographies of his heroes, George Romney and William Milliken, two progressive Republicans who served as governors of Michigan from 1963 to 1983, when the state had a strong economy and an education system that was ranked as one of the best in the country.
But today, he and others like him feel totally alienated from the party of his birth. “Republicans are going to go extinct if they continue to push moderates and independents out,” he says, shaking his head. “Whatever happened to the big tent?”
My eye caught sight of a little flag sticking out of a bookshelf. He noticed, and unfurled it. “Yes, that’s an LGBTQ flag,” he said, laughing heartily. “I may be the only (Republican) lawyer in the state that has one,” he said. Perhaps not — but it does signal that he believes in the idea of a Republican Party that doesn’t have any business intruding into adults’ private lives.
He also believes that “Republicans better start to think about real issues that matter to people and find candidates who can win. He cheerfully admits he was unable to support any of the GOP’s statewide candidates for office last year, all of whom lost badly.
His prescription for reviving Michigan’s Republican Party? Hammer out an agenda for sustainable economic development in the state, a state that once put the world on wheels and was famous for good paying jobs and one of the best and best-funded systems of public education in the country. Next, fix education, and don’t be afraid to spend money to do so. Stewart comes from a family of educators; his mother, Virginia VanderVen Stewart, was one of a dozen kids, mid-Michigan descendants of sturdy Dutch settlers who valued public education as much as anything.
Seven of his uncles and aunts became educators, one of whom, James VanderVen, virtually created a modern education system in the Lansing suburbs after World War II, replacing a scattering of one-room schoolhouses with modern buildings and curricula. One of John Stewart’s two daughters is a teacher.
Proposals to cut education spending didn’t get a sympathetic ear from him when he was in the legislature.
Though he’s past typical retirement age, Stewart shows no sign of thinking about it. While he praises Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, this is the last term she can serve under Michigan term limits, and he is still a Republican after all.
These days, he believes former Lt. Gov. Brian Calley would be an ideal GOP candidate for governor in 2026 — and openly says that he would love to be his choice for lieutenant governor. Stewart will be 77 then, and that may sound improbable, but maybe not as much as an 82-year-old President running for re-election.
There are some who may think Plymouth’s country lawyer is a something of a cornball blast from the blast, a man who enthusiastically dresses up and marches in Holland, Michigan’s annual Tulip Time festival every May. I suspect he doesn’t care.
Instead, he thinks the values he represents ought to get a new revival, such as rule that attorneys should only tell at least “the closest approximation of truth,” in court.
He thinks it is high time the rest of his party should recognize that the country “is now a mosaic” on many levels. But just don’t call John Stewart a RINO (Republican in Name Only) as some on the right have done. “RINO!” he snorts. “RINO?”
“They need to see that Donald Trump is the real RINO.”
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