Brixie is a longtime public servant, having held a seat on the Meridian Township Board since 2000 as both trustee and treasurer. She said she felt compelled to run for the House after the 2016 election.

“I woke up after the election in November 2016, and I decided that I needed to do more,” Brixie said. “If I wasn’t happy about the outcome of that election, I needed to do more than I was doing and get more involved in both the Democratic Party and the Legislature.”

Before she decided to run for state House, Brixie worked with township officials to balance Meridian Township’s unfunded pension liabilities. She said even though topics like unfunded pensions aren’t “sexy to talk about,” she felt it was an important issue.

“We’re going to go from the bottom 20 percent of communities in the state to fully paid-off in nine years,” Brixie said.

The partisan makeup of the Legislature she’d be working with if elected would impact her policy positions, she said.

“What my agenda will be will depend on who my colleagues are,” Brixie said. “If we (Democrats) have control in the House of Representatives and the governorship, then we’ll be able to accomplish a lot more things.”

Brixie said repealing a state law requiring women to purchase additional insurance for abortion costs — including in cases of rape and incest — and amending the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act to protect LGBT Michiganders are her top priorities if elected.

Her Republican opponent, Nastas, is a retired marketing professor at MSU and was the Republican nominee for the district in 2012, 2014 and 2018

He’s running on a traditional Republican platform of tax reform and decreased government spending.

“(I want to) reduce dependency on government and reduce politician use of other peoples’ money — taxes — to promote dependency and buy votes through income redistribution and subsidized services,” Nastas said.

Another important issue to Nastas is reducing the influence of special interest groups.

“Government should work for people, not special interests,” Nastas said. “Special interests should work in the private market to secure funding for their goals, not use government to tax people to fund special interest goals.” 

While he has never held elected office, Nastas said he is active in his local Republican party and has published articles on government and tax reform.

He said he chose to run to present a Republican alternative to voters in a heavily Democratic area. 

“It is time for a change — smaller, limited government, lower taxes, and higher personal disposable and discretionary income will promote happier families that can afford a better life,” Nastas said.