Know the Candidates: Incumbent Penelope Tsernoglou is Challenged by Frank Lambert for 75th District House Seat
Over the next several weeks, ELi will bring you articles highlighting the choices for state- and county-wide election. We seek to interview each of the major candidates for these offices and share an objective look at their backgrounds and goals for office.
Today we look at the candidates for the Michigan State House of Representatives in the 75th district. The race will feature Republican Frank Lambert and incumbent Democrat Penelope Tsernoglou.
The 75th district includes portions of East Lansing north of Grand River Avenue.
Frank Lambert
Frank Lambert of Haslett has worked on the line at General Motors for 22 years. Specifically, he works at Lansing’s Delta Township plant, specializing in quality control. It’s here he’s learned from co-workers — people he refers to as his “union brothers and sisters” — about challenges they’re facing in their lives, forging his own worldviews.
“I’ve never actually felt well-represented by the state,” he said in a phone interview with ELi. “Well maybe in the ‘90s.
“But I’m tired of Lansing constantly trying to take away local rule, the ability of the local government to decide their own affairs, imposing what they want, such as the green energy [issue]. They want to take farmland, the farm area, [to build solar farms or wind farms] why aren’t they using the brownfields?”
Brownfields consist of land that is developed but has since been abandoned. Lambert specifically mentioned land that had been used for GM plants but is now not utilized.
When asked if he can accurately be described as a moderate Republican, he agreed with the assessment, quickly adding, “I do not support ‘right to work’ and I would vote against it” before the topic is even broached.
He moves quickly to taxes.
“We’re spending way too much money on unnecessary projects, unnecessary things,” he says.
Lambert zeroes in on his own employer for an example of unnecessary government spending.
“We’re putting money into things and we’re not getting anything out of it,” he said. “Just like they gave tax credits and tax money to GM, and I work there, to create or retain 5,000 jobs. All they did was retain 5,000 jobs in Michigan. Why are you giving them literally hundreds of millions of dollars of dollars for that?”
In his interview with ELi, his most passionate stance was on the state of education in Michigan.
“We need to get back to actually teaching students how to actually do math, English, communications, written and verbal forms,” he said. “You need good math skills, not saying you need calculus or things like that unless you’re going to be an engineer. Right now, you have so many jobs available in HVAC [heating, ventilation, and air conditioning], electrician, plumbing, all of these that are more of the blue collar-type work, all of these jobs pay $100,000 a year.”
Lambert called for an entire redesign of the K-12 education system, saying the United States is falling behind the rest of the world. He specifically called for K-12 schools to operate from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., serving students breakfast, lunch and dinner.
“You cannot teach a hungry child,” he said.
When asked why East Lansing voters should consider supporting him in the November election, he paused to think.
“Consider what the vision is,” he said. “I want people to be responsible for themselves, not for the government to be responsible for them. I want people to be able to make their own choices for the most part. The government is there to level the playing field so that we’re all the same; not to give one group or another group the advantage. The government’s laws are supposed to apply to everybody and not pick winners and losers.”
Penelope Tsernoglou
Penelope Tsernoglou has lived in East Lansing for more than 20 years, but grew up in Southfield. She began practicing law in 2004, working primarily as a court-appointed public defender for both adults and children. Before being elected to represent the 75th district in the Michigan House of Representatives in 2022, she served several terms on the Ingham County Board of Commissioners.
“I wanted to do good things on a state level and be able to make our state better,” she told ELi in a phone interview when asked why she made the initial run.
During her first term, Tsernoglou introduced nearly three dozen bills, some of which became law and others she still hopes will work through the legislative body.
“I had a bill banning AI [artificial intelligence] generated explicit images that has passed the house,” she said. “Not a lot of people knew about it until it happened to Taylor Swift and that brought a lot of attention to the issue. It’s affecting a lot of women and girls. It passed the house almost unanimously, almost with bipartisan support, and I’d like to see it all the way so we can have that regulated in Michigan.”
A related bill addressing AI-generated political deepfakes passed both chambers and was signed into law by the governor.
Tsernoglou has also worked to address PFAS in the environment.
According to the Food and Drug Administration, “Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a diverse group of thousands of chemicals used in hundreds of types of products. PFAS in the environment can enter the food supply through plants and animals grown, raised, or processed in contaminated areas.”
Also known as “forever chemicals” because of how long they can persist, PFAS can contaminate drinking water and pose a variety of health risks, according to the CDC.
Tsernoglou has targeted nonessential PFAS that are added to various products.
“PFAS can cause a lot of different health issues and they are just in so many products that we wouldn’t even think about,” she said. “In some cases they are essential and we need them and they have to be in the product or the product wouldn’t work, but in a lot of cases they don’t have to be in the product and they’re just put in there for convenience sake and I’m continuing to work on bills that would require disclosure and phase out the use of them in certain products.”
If she is reelected, Tsernoglou said she is also eager to continue her committee assignments in the house. She is the elections chair and said she has had several dozen laws come through her committee and signed into law, making Michigan “one of the top states in voter access and democracy.”
She also serves on committees for housing, insurance and financial services, and criminal justice and judiciary, the latter she said relates to her background as an attorney and advocate.
“We’ve had a lot of bills come through our committee addressing domestic violence,” she said. “For example, we had one dealing with firearms and [whether] firearms be taken away when individuals are committing domestic violence offenses. Things dealing with housing and sentencing. There are so many issues dealing with survivors in that space.
“I’ve been working with [the] ASPCA [American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals] on some bills that would allow domestic abuse agencies and shelters to get grants for providing housing for not only the survivors and their children but for their companion animals. That can be something that holds them back from leaving and seeking safe harbor, that they can’t bring their pets.
“There’s so much I want to continue doing,” she said. “[including] fighting for working families, expanding healthcare access, increasing voter access.”