When Terri Lynn Land poured $1.66 million of her own money into her U.S. Senate campaign last year, she boasted about her family’s west Michigan real estate business that is credited as the source of her wealth, Chad Livengood reports in the Detroit News.
“We’ve been fortunate enough to grow what started as a very small, family business into a successful Michigan-based company that employs hundreds of Michigan residents,” Land said in August 2013 after disclosing at least $34 million in assets tied to “my personal and family income.”
But as the November election quickly approaches, Land has separated herself from the actions of Land & Co. She has denied ever working for the company — despite public records suggesting otherwise — after Democrats criticized the firm for evicting residents of Land’s childhood trailer park and leveling it for redevelopment that hasn’t materialized.
The former Republican secretary of state has instead portrayed herself as a small business owner independent of her family’s fortune, which her husband, Dan Hibma, helped amass as a partner at Land & Co. Land recently released to The Detroit News her 2012 and 2013 personal income tax returns, filed separately from her husband’s returns.
