Hillary Scholten
Hillary Jeanne Scholten is an American politician and attorney who has served as the U.S. representative from Michigan's 3rd congressional district since 2023. She is the first woman to represent the district and the first Democrat to represent Grand Rapids in Congress since the 1970s. Before her election, Scholten worked as an attorney for the Department of Justice and in private practice. Her district, which was once represented by former President Gerald Ford, is based in Grand Rapids and much of the urban core of West Michigan.
Early life and education
Scholten was born on February 22, 1982, in Michigan. She grew up in Hudsonville, a suburb of Grand Rapids. Her mother worked as a public school teacher and her father was a sports journalist for The Grand Rapids Press. Her great-great-grandparents emigrated to West Michigan from the Netherlands; and her parents raised her in the Christian Reformed Church, a Calvinist denomination having its roots in the Dutch Reformed Church.Scholten went to Unity Christian High School and then attended Gordon College, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in 2004. After college, she worked as a social worker, focusing on housing advocacy for the AIDS Action Committee. She later did immigration work for Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington. She went on to earn a Juris Doctor from the University of Maryland School of Law in 2011.
Legal career
Following law school, Scholten clerked for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, specializing in immigration law. She later joined the U.S. Department of Justice as an attorney adviser for the Board of Immigration Appeals from 2013 to 2017, where she worked on federal immigration policy during the Obama administration. Afterwards, she went back to Michigan and became a staff attorney at the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center and later worked in private practice.U.S. House of Representatives
Elections
2020
In July 2019, Scholten announced her candidacy for the United States House of Representatives in in the 2020 elections. She was unopposed in the Democratic Party primary. She lost the general election to Republican nominee Peter Meijer, but came the closest a Democrat had come to winning the district since 1982, when incumbent Republican Harold S. Sawyer was held to 51% in what was then the 5th district. It was also only the second time since 1982 that a Democrat had received 40% of the vote; the Democratic nominee received 43% two years earlier.2022
Scholten ran again in the 2022 elections. She was again unopposed in the Democratic primary. She was initially preparing for a rematch against Peter Meijer, but Meijer lost the Republican primary to a considerably more conservative challenger, former Trump administration official John Gibbs.Scholten was running in a district that had been made much friendlier to Democrats in redistricting; it had been pushed to the west to grab a large portion of the Lake Michigan shoreline, including Muskegon and Grand Haven. Had it existed in 2020, Joe Biden would have won it with 53% of the vote; Donald Trump carried the old 3rd with 51%. Scholten defeated Gibbs 55% to 42% to win election to the 118th United States Congress.
2024
Scholten ran again in the 2024 election. She had token opposition in the Democratic primary, winning 91% of the vote. She went on to win the general election winning 53.7% of the vote against a Republican opponent.Tenure
Scholten was sworn into office on January 7, 2023. She joined in the calls in 2024 for Joe Biden to step aside as the Democratic presidential nominee, becoming the first in Michigan's congressional delegation to do so, leading to retaliation from Biden allies. During Donald Trump's address to Congress on March 4, 2025, Scholten wore pink, together with many other members of the Democratic Women's Caucus, as a protest.In the 119th Congress, Scholten was part of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.
Caucus memberships
- Black Maternal Health Caucus
- Congressional Equality Caucus
Political positions
In 2025, Scholten was one of 46 House Democrats who joined Republicans to vote for the Laken Riley Act.
Scholten is considered a strong supporter of Israel and has refused to join calls for a ceasefire in response to alleged war crimes as part of Israel's ongoing occupation and destruction of the Gaza Strip. In July 2025, Scholten placed blame entirely on Hamas for the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, stating, "Hamas started this war and can end it today. But they choose not to." Israeli human rights organizations like B'Tselem disagree with this assessment, writing that the current conflict "must be understood in the context of more than seventy years in which Israel has imposed a violent and discriminatory regime on the Palestinians, taking its most extreme form against those living in the Gaza Strip."