Updated: Bill Rogers to Face Willis and Lewis for House 42nd District Seat

Rep. Bill Rogers (R-Brighton) defeated GOP opponent Dale Rogers in the Republican Primary on Tuesday and will go on to face Shanda Willis (D) and James Lewis II (Libertarian) in November.

Rogers, who was first elected to the office in 2008, received 8,575 votes, with all precincts reporting. Dale Rogers, a Novi High School teacher and Hamburg Township resident, received 3,112 votes.

"I'm happy it's over with," Rogers said. "It's one step down and another one to go. We'll be working just as hard. And I have to say Dale was a class act. He came to the breakfast this morning and we shook hands."

Dale Rogers criticized Bill Rogers for his support of using school aid money for colleges and universities, instead of K-12 education.

Rogers said that the school aid budget was the least cut of all budgets when Republicans took over the majority with a $1.8 billion deficit. And because of the importance of education, the school aid budget was only cut 3 percent when other departments were cut up to 15 to 20 percent.

"Within the constitution, it does say it (money) can go to higher education," Rogers said. "Education is education. At some point, you as a parent or a child are going to be dealing with it. We both know that college costs are going way out of whack with kids coming out of school with $50,000 to $100,000 loan payments. I find that offensive. I find offensive what it costs in college and then also the cost of remediation and all sorts of things like that."

Rogers said he is working with the governor on a P-20 educational system to prepare children from pre-natal to college degrees.

Rogers currently serves on the House Appropriations Committee, serving as chair of the subcommittees on school aid and department of education, vice chair of the LARA subcommittee and a member of the subcommittees on Military and Veterans Affairs and State Police.

"I want to continue what we're doing, moving Michigan forward," Rogers said. "We still have a lot of things on the plate that we've started and we just have to keep continuing it. The list goes on and on and on - working on all the budgets I have and get back to the environment we used to have by getting people employed and making a decent living."