NEW: “Michael Bouchard Jr. took big donations from real estate execs tied to discrimination claims and unsafe housing”

Per reporting by the Detroit Metro Times, Bouchard Junior took $18,000 from executives accused of:

• “Pregnancy and race discrimination, retaliation, and illegal eavesdropping,” including planting “what appeared to be a hidden microphone embedded near [a pregnant employee’s] desk,”
• Overseeing properties with “rats, cockroaches, mold, holes in walls, and collapsed ceilings,”
• Discriminating against “a 15-year-old wheelchair user whose family had repeatedly sought removal of stairs blocking access to their ground-floor apartment,”
• Managing companies affiliated with “repeated health and safety enforcement actions” that resulted in officials “[condemned] 26 of 33 buildings … [after] numerous health and safety violations had not been addressed,”
• “[Violating] federal housing law because units were inaccessible to people with disabilities.”

One of these executives is “more than a campaign contributor” and in fact is an advisor for the super PAC bankrolling Bouchard Junior’s campaign. So it comes as no surprise that after taking their money, Bouchard Junior backs the bill that has given massive tax breaks to real estate investors while causing housing costs to increase by nearly $1,000 for the average Michigan family.

REMINDER: Bouchard Junior worked for a “Lansing lobbying firm” that “represented pharmaceutical, health insurance, and other corporate interests.”

DCCC Spokesperson Katie Smith:
“Michael Bouchard Junior is bankrolled by the special interests because they know he’ll fall in line and side with them – that includes real estate executives accused of discrimination and violating the law. Bouchard Junior takes their money, supports giving them massive tax breaks, and wants to stick Michigan with the bill.”

Read more:

Detroit Metro Times: Michael Bouchard Jr. took big donations from real estate execs tied to discrimination claims and unsafe housing

The Republican congressional nominee’s donors include executives at companies that have faced race, pregnancy, and disability discrimination cases, tenant complaints, and serious code violations.

• Republican congressional candidate Michael Bouchard Jr. has collected $18,000 from real estate executives whose companies have faced lawsuits, discrimination allegations, tenant complaints, and serious housing-code violations, campaign finance records show.
• The money comes as Bouchard, the Republican nominee for Michigan’s open 10th Congressional District, campaigns on lowering costs while backing a sweeping Republican tax law that delivers substantial benefits to real estate investors and, according to independent economic modeling, is expected to push borrowing costs higher over time.
• Now some of Bouchard’s largest individual donors come from another powerful industry: real estate.
• One of them, Shapiro, is more than a campaign contributor. The owner and principal of M. Shapiro Real Estate Group was also listed as an adviser to Draft Captain Mike Bouchard, the super PAC originally formed to encourage Bouchard to run for Congress. Shapiro gave Bouchard’s campaign $7,000 in December. 
• In June, a leasing agent filed a lawsuit against M. Shapiro Real Estate Group and affiliated companies alleging pregnancy and race discrimination, retaliation, and illegal eavesdropping. The lawsuit includes claims that Amanda Stamper faced a hostile work environment after telling supervisors she was pregnant and that her medical restrictions were ignored.
• McKinley has faced tenant complaints stretching back decades.
• In 1994, the company paid $18,500 to settle a disability discrimination case involving a 15-year-old wheelchair user whose family had repeatedly sought removal of stairs blocking access to their ground-floor apartment, according to the Fair Housing Center. 
• More recently, residents at McKinley properties in Washtenaw County complained in 2023 of rats, cockroaches, mold, holes in walls, and collapsed ceilings, according to Michigan Advance. Weiser was serving on McKinley’s board of directors at the time.
• Bouchard also received $3,000 from Jared Friedman, co-CEO of Friedman Real Estate.
• Properties managed by Friedman-affiliated companies have faced repeated health and safety enforcement actions in Ohio. In March 2025, inspectors in Euclid condemned 26 of 33 buildings at the Parkside Gardens apartment complex after officials said numerous health and safety violations had not been addressed.
• Other Friedman-managed properties in Ohio were cited for code violations and hit with liens. In 2023, prosecutors in Richmond Heights filed more than 1,600 fire-code violations against the owner of one complex and Friedman Management, according to Cleveland.com.
• The smallest of the four contributions came from Warren Rose, CEO of Edward Rose & Sons, which reached a major federal settlement two decades ago over the accessibility of its apartment complexes.
• The U.S. government sued the company alleging that apartment complexes in Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Illinois violated federal housing law because units were inaccessible to people with disabilities. 
• Under a 2005 consent order, Edward Rose & Sons and other defendants agreed to establish a $950,000 settlement fund and pay a $110,000 civil penalty, while not admitting liability. The agreement also required accessibility work affecting thousands of apartments.
• Bouchard has praised the Republican tax package Trump signed into law last year, commonly called the One Big Beautiful Bill.
• The Budget Lab at Yale University estimated that the law’s higher deficits and debt would increase interest rates over time. Its analysis found that a typical 30-year mortgage could carry about $1,060 more in annual principal and interest costs by 2030 than under its baseline scenario.
• Bouchard’s campaign declined to directly answer questions about the specific contributions, the records of the companies associated with the donors, or Bouchard’s support for the legislation.

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