A new investigation from the Detroit Metro Times lays out a picture of Michigan Rep. Bill Huizenga that should bother anyone who thinks public office is about serving people — not family.

Over 15 years in Congress, Huizenga's personal wealth has soared. His campaign has funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to a business owned by his half-brother. And that same brother helped sell the luxury condos Huizenga and his wife built and profited from. Meanwhile, Huizenga is the only member of Michigan's entire congressional delegation who refuses to bring federal project money home to his own district — a district where about 1 in 8 people live in poverty.

Let's walk through it.

$400,000 in campaign cash — to his brother's company

According to the Metro Times review of campaign finance filings, corporate records, and property records, Huizenga's campaign paid at least $400,714 to JB America LLC — a company owned by his half-brother, James "Jim" Barry — between 2013 and 2025.

The money was labeled campaign management, consulting, "strategy consulting," and reimbursements:

• $52,500 in 2013–2014 for "salary of campaign manager" and "salary for campaign worker"
• $123,000 from July 2014 through March 2018 for campaign consulting
• $222,267 from April 2018 through December 2025 for "strategy consulting"

The Metro Times found no other federal or state campaign that paid JB America for anything. Just Huizenga's.

Paying a relative for real campaign work isn't automatically illegal — the FEC allows it if the pay matches fair market value. But the sheer size and length of the arrangement, tangled together with a private family business, is exactly the kind of thing that makes people distrust politicians.

The brother also helped sell the congressman's condos

Here's where it gets worse. Bill Huizenga and his wife, Natalie, co-own Cottages at Riverbend Inc., a company they formed in 2015 that built a 24-unit luxury condo development in Zeeland. Huizenga reported holding a 75% stake in it.

And who served as the company's treasurer and registered agent? His half-brother, Jim Barry — the same man whose company was collecting all that campaign cash. Barry, a full-time Realtor, also personally marketed and sold several of the condos, which went for prices between about $300,000 and $435,000.

Huizenga didn't just own the business — he took money out of it, reporting a $15,000 management fee in 2018 and another $79,000 in consulting fees from 2019 through 2023.

So the picture is this: campaign donors' money flows to the brother's company; the brother helps run and sell the congressman's private real estate venture; and the congressman pockets fees on top. It all stays in the family.

This isn't the first time it raised red flags

Back in 2018, the Michigan Democratic Party and a Muskegon resident filed an FEC complaint accusing Huizenga's campaign of using campaign money for personal expenses and failing to properly disclose more than $41,000 in reimbursements to Huizenga, his wife, Barry, and Barry's company. In June 2019, the FEC deadlocked 2–2 on whether to investigate — which meant no finding either way, and the matter died. Even after that complaint, the campaign kept reimbursing Barry for travel and mileage.

A deadlock is not an exoneration. It's a tie that let the questions go unanswered.

Getting richer while shortchanging his district

While all this was happening, Huizenga was getting a lot wealthier. Federal disclosure forms show that between 2011 and 2025, his net worth grew by as much as five times. Before Congress, he and his wife reported a net worth between $172,015 and $947,998. By his 2025 disclosure, it was between $885,000 and $2.8 million.

At the same time, Huizenga is the only member of Michigan's congressional delegation who has refused to request earmarks — the community project funding other members use to pay for infrastructure, hospitals, and local programs. For fiscal year 2026 alone, Michigan members secured about $205 million for roughly 160 local projects. Huizenga's district — where about 12% of residents live below the poverty line — got none of that from him, by his own choice.

His explanation, per the Detroit News: "Never have. And I won't."

So he'll happily route campaign money to his brother's firm and pull fees from a family condo business — but he won't lift a finger to bring federal dollars to the working families of West Michigan.

It fits a pattern

This is the same Bill Huizenga who voted three times to slash Medicaid, knocking more than 30,000 people in his own district off their health coverage, and who voted for the largest SNAP cut in history while more than 35,000 households in his district relied on food assistance. When it's his own family, the money flows freely. When it's your health care and groceries, he votes to take it away.

West Michigan deserves a representative who works for the district — not one who treats public office as a family business.

Source

• Detroit Metro Times: Huizenga's campaign paid his brother's business $400,000 as he sold the congressman's condos (reporting by Steve Neavling)