Collection Highlights
Campaign Ads
The Mike Rogers Collection contains a wide selection of campaign advertisements. Most of these mailings were professionally produced by the Michigan Republican Party and were intended for Michigan constituents during Rogers’ reelection campaigns in 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, and 2014. In this collection, most of the campaign advertisements originated between 2008 and 2012, though other years are also sporadically represented. Historical campaign advertisements are useful for researchers and the public because they reveal a candidate’s approach to constituents, and therefore tell us what a candidate believed was important to those constituents at the time. They are also important because they allow us to hold representatives accountable for the claims of their campaign. With the benefit of hindsight, we are able to determine which representatives have held true to the promises they made during their elections when they were in office. The 2008 advertisement below describes Mike Rogers' ideas about the housing crisis in 2008, and recommends, among other things, an increase in the home mortgage tax deduction.
Issue Mail
“Issue Mail” refers to letters from and to constituents regarding specific issues. Responding to constituent’s questions about a candidate’s stands on issues is a major portion of the work of a representative’s staff, particularly the legislative correspondent. The Mike Rogers Collection contains thousands of examples of issue mail. Most of the issue mail is from Rogers’ career in the Michigan Senate (1994-1999), as well as his first three years in the US House of Representatives (2000-2002). Issue mail is valuable for documenting the concerns of constituents during a given time period, as well as a representative’s perspective on numerous issues – some of which are not documented elsewhere.
Note that routine constituent correspondence, which deals with personal constituent issues, is closed until 2085 to protect the personal information it contains.
Speeches
The Mike Rogers Collection features drafts of hundreds of speeches by the Congressman. The Collection has not only dozens of finished speeches, but also notes created during the formulation of speeches and lists of talking points. This allows researchers to track how Rogers and his staff approached speech writing. The Collection consists of speeches from Rogers’ career in the Michigan Senate (1994-1999) and the second half of his career in the US House of Representatives (2008- 2014, in particular).
Press Releases
As they represented an important and high-profile member of Congress, Mike Rogers’ staff released a voluminous file of press releases over his career. Press releases are an integral component of a Congressional representative’s public relations apparatus, because they allow the representative to project their own perspectives and narratives to the public, without intervention from the writers and editors of the press. While press releases inevitably only provide one side of a story, they allow researchers to see the unfiltered statements of Congressional representatives, and are therefore a key tool for anyone who wants insight into a representative’s views and approach to the public. The Mike Rogers collection contains the vast majority of press releases Mike Rogers released during his entire political career, with a full run of releases from 1997-2004, and 2006 to 2014.
This document is a press release in which Chairman Rogers and Democratic Congressman Ruppersberger of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence express their approval of the House's vote on the Intelligence Authorization Bill in 2014.
Note: selected press releases and other committee publications are available on the website of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Videos
Mike Rogers was a steady presence on Sunday news shows during his tenure in Congress: particularly after his appointment as Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The Mike Rogers Collection includes nearly 200 of these appearances from ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and other networks. In addition to providing an interesting and informative look at how media pundits reported on politics during a given week in the past, these appearances are helpful for showing us how Rogers responded to specific issues over the course of his career, and how he thought it was best to interpret his views to the public.
Newsletters
In his six years in the Michigan Senate, Mike Rogers’ staff produced a newsletter, released to constituents approximately each month. Named Coffee Break News, this newsletter details Rogers’ legislative activity and updates on the Michigan legislature in general during the middle and late 1990s.
It is rare to possess such a complete record of how a state elected official discussed state issues with constituents. The newsletters are an uncommon window on the operations of a state leader during a half-decade of dramatic technological and cultural change. In this issue of Coffee Break News, from June of 1999, Rogers’ staff discuss early reading programs, the presidential primary, the activities of the Michigan Senate, and transportation grants.
Artifacts
The Mike Rogers Collection includes dozens of framed photographs, awards and other objects given to Mike Rogers in the performance of his work as a Michigan Senator and then as member of the House of Representatives. Some illustrate Rogers' legislative work. Others document various aspects of a Representative's public duties. Some bear the signatures of prominent political or business leaders, like the White House Easter Eggs below.
Please refer to this collection's Finding Aid for a full inventory of materials.
