At 25 years old, Jeremy Moss became the youngest person ever elected to the City Council of Southfield, Michigan. He would go on to serve four years in the Michigan House and when he won his election to serve in the Michigan Senate, he became the Great Lakes State’s first openly LGBTQ state senator. He was also the first LGBTQ person to serve as the president pro tempore of the Michigan Senate.
In 2023, of all state legislators, Moss sponsored the most bills that were signed into law. He is now running for Congress in Michigan’s 11th district, which is north of Detroit and home to the cities of Pontiac, Royal Oak, Bloomingfield, and Troy. If elected, he will be the first openly LGBTQ member of Congress from Michigan. Article continues below.
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Moss wants the Democrats to punch back
When asked about how he would hold Trump accountable if elected to Congress this November, Moss had pointed words for his party.
“We can no longer be a Democratic party that shows up to the knife fight carrying a pie chart,” Moss said. “Those days are gone. We can’t walk on eggshells. We can’t pull our punches. There’s no shaking hands with MAGA and hoping that they keep their word or are willing to compromise.”
He criticized Trump for a variety of his policies from renaming bodies of water, to taking away people’s healthcare, to asking the RNC to “cheat like hell” this November. Moss observed that Trump thinks he’s popular and so he communicates like it.
“We have to communicate with the same brazen confidence that what we’re doing is popular — because it is,” Moss said. “We have to communicate on equal rights and justice and gun safety and investing in the least of us. We have to communicate that with the same brazen confidence, the same punch, the same strength that MAGA does. People are looking for a Democratic party that is stronger and bolder and tougher and acts like it and communicates like it.”
Dismantle ICE
Moss takes his own advice. When asked about whether ICE can be reformed or not, he didn’t hold back.
“I’m determined to go to Congress and dismantle this agency altogether,” Moss said. “I think there is a rot in it from the top to the bottom. It has lost public trust due to these agents breaking the law, due to the inhumane and cruelty on how they conduct their operations, separating families, eroding due process, kidnapping people and disappearing them to El Salvador without any sort of way to advocate for themselves.”
He criticized ICE — and by extension MAGA — for demanding that immigrants should go about immigrating “the right way,” but then detaining them at immigration hearings when they are participating in the legal process to obtain residency.
In the Michigan Senate, Moss introduced legislation to ban ICE agents from concealing their identities by wearing masks. He also sought to protect safe spaces from warrantless raids, these spaces include hospitals, schools, courts, and places of worship.
He also pointed to Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s successful lawsuit to block a proposed detention center from opening in his district.
Healthcare Costs Dominate Voter Conversations
On the campaign trail, Moss said the number one issue voters bring up with him is healthcare.
“People are just one accident, one diagnosis, one challenge away from losing it all,” he said. “So this has to be our charge to figure out how to make healthcare more accessible, more affordable.”
According to Moss, Michigan saved Medicaid and SNAP benefits by making up for the funding that Trump and Congressional Republicans slashed last year from both programs. But Moss said that the state cannot afford to keep doing that year after year. Because of this he said his priority will be first to reverse the cuts and restrictions Trump and his party have imposed on the country. Then, Moss said, he wants to focus on strengthening Medicaid and expanding access to Medicare.
“People should not have to go without coverage. People should not have to be under-covered when they need these essential medical treatments,” he said. “Healthcare should not be something that they sacrifice.”
The issue is personal to him. In 2025, Moss was in a car accident that resulted in a broken arm. He had emergency surgery and was hospitalized for several days. It was while he was in the hospital that Trump and Republicans passed the so called “Big Beautiful Bill.”
“Here I am literally in a hospital bed while Congress is debating making healthcare more expensive, stripping the ACA subsidies, stripping away or putting more onerous requirements on Medicaid,” Moss said. “It really was a seminal moment to be in that place at that time while this was going on and running for Congress at the same time.”
“Coming Out Is the Most Political Thing You Can Do”
A barrier breaking LGBTQ legislator, Moss cited Harvey Milk’s philosophy as central to his own. Milk was the first openly gay man ever elected to public office in California.
“I’m a big subscriber to Harvey Milk’s creed, which is coming out is the most political thing you can do,” Moss said. “Come out to your neighbors, to your family members, to your coworkers. And it’s not just for your sake, it’s for their sake as well.”
Moss said representation matters at a time when legislators are constantly debating the LGBTQ community.
“Twelve years ago I was elected to the Michigan legislature,” he said. “There were exactly zero LGBTQ people serving in the state legislature, and they were still talking about us. Just because we’re in the room or not in the room, they’re still putting us on the agenda. They’re still determining what our futures are, what our livelihoods look like.”
Moss, now forty-years old, reflected on how his presence helped shaped legislative debates about LGBTQ rights and laws.
“By being in the room and by telling our lived experience, I think it has made all the difference in Michigan,” he said. “No Michigan legislator could say at the time that they didn’t know a gay person because they were serving with me.”
Michigan’s Long Journey From Constitutional Ban to Civil Rights Protections
The Great Lakes State has transformed itself over the past 26 years years, from the state with one of the harshest bans on marriage equality to what Moss said is “one of the strongest states with the strongest LGBTQ protections under the law.”
Moss was 18 when the Republican Party pushed constitutional amendments banning marriage equality onto state ballots across the country in an attempt to turn out conservative voters. In Michigan, it was Democratic and Independent voters who ensured its passage. Bush lost the state with 2,313,746 votes, but the amendment passed with 2,698,077 votes.
“For an 18-year-old struggling with my own path, my own identity, and trying to figure it all out, it was a signal to me and people like me: you don’t have a future,” Moss said. “Not just [that] you don’t have a future in Michigan, you don’t have a future period. If you can’t have freedom of how to live your life, what type of freedom do you have?”
That year was a defining moment for Moss. Nineteen years later, Michigan voters handed the Democrats full control of state government. Immediately, Moss, along with State Rep. Jason Hoskins, introduced legislation to amend the Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act by adding protections for LGBTQ people in employment, housing, and public accommodations. The legislation passed with large majorities in both chambers and Governor Whitmer signed the bill into law. Standing on stage next to her were Moss and Mel Larsen, the co-author of the 1976 Act.
“It was a torch that was passed from generation to generation, this fight, and we were the ones that were finally able to run through the tape with it,” Moss said.
For more information about Moss’s campaign visit votejeremymoss.com. Michigan voters can find information about early voting, polling locations, and more at michigan.gov/vote.
