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The Conservative Reader:
Iowa

3 Questions With Iowa House Candidate Jim Givant

3 Questions With Iowa House Candidate Jim Givant

After talking to a number of Des Moines based candidates in the last few weeks, we head out to Northeastern Iowa to touch base with the Republican candidate for Iowa House District 64, Jim Givant.

The republican side of the ledger in this district was pretty chaotic leading up to the filing deadline, as incumbent Republican Dan Rasmussen opted not to run at the last minute.  Oelwein Republican Jim Givant stepped up to the plate and set up a showdown with Democrat Oelwein City Council member Bruce Bearinger.  After getting a late start, Givant now has the campaign on schedule and already has sent 4,000 mailers and has signs and banners on the way.  For further info on his campaign and positions head to his website at www.givantforiowa.com.

House District 64 is composed of the Southern half of Fayette County and all but the Southeast corner of Buchanan County, with the biggest population centers by far being the cities of Oelwein and Independence.  HD 64 firmly qualifies as a swing district with a Democrat registration advantage of 1,355, and 8,553 Non-Party registered voters.  A win by Mr. Givant in November would go a long way in strengthening the Republican majority in the Iowa House.

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#1.  What is the feeling on the ground in your district concerning all the races on your ballot this November (presidential included), and give us a brief summary of how your campaign has been going so far?

It is going to be a tough race. Both Romney and Obama visited Iowa recently, both to large crowds of supporters. The current polls show Obama ahead by 2 percent but Iowa is listed as a tossup state.  In my county/district local races will also be close.  Republicans will need to get involved to turn this election around.

My campaign has had a slow start. I will be getting some signs out and building name recognition. I have a new website at www.givantforiowa.com . In the June primary I received 99.2 percent of the Republican vote which is a good sign. In my district there are a greater number of registered Democrats over Republicans.

 

#2.  As you call on voters in your district, what are the two or three state-level issues that are concerning them the most? 

A) Property Taxes – There have been many discussions about raising both business and personal property taxes.  House speaker Kraig Paulsen stated, that with a 60-40 split in the house, we will need to pick up two seats in the senate to gain a majority to push though the tax reforms that are needed.

B) Education – I believe in honoring good teachers, providing them with a competitive salary and the tools they need to teach the students. To serve as an example for the rest. There is also much discussion of leaving the no child left behind mandates and putting more control of Iowa education at state and local levels.

C) Gas Taxes – These need to be regulated, when gas prices go up all prices for goods and services go up accordingly. This is one of the major issues that affect our economy.

 

#3.  Assuming you win in November and enter the Iowa House, what are the three votes that you most look forward to casting and why?

A)  DOMA – I believe in the bible that it states that marriage is between a man and a woman.

B)   Agriculture issues – Legislation to protect family farmers.

C)  Education Reform – As stated previously.

 

 

3 Questions With Iowa House Candidate Patti Branco

3 Questions With Iowa House Candidate Patti Branco

Patti Branco is the Republican candidate for Iowa House District 34, which covers the Southern portion of Des Moines.  She is running against long entrenched Democratic incumbent Bruce Hunter, in a district that has been traditionally tough for Republicans.

Bruce Hunter has “Labor Union Liberal” written all over him, as not only does he sit as the ranking member of the Labor Committee, his wife happens to be the State Political Director for the AFL-CIO.  His top three priorities, in his own words, are all union strengthening give aways–leaving absolutely no doubt on how he feels is the best way to grow the economy.

An example of the type of candidate we are talking about here is as follows, and I am not making this up.  Among his top priorities for next session are increasing the minimum wage, “investing in infrastructure”, ensuring that teachers are “well rewarded”, and codifying “better protection of workers rights”.  After doing these things his plan then is to “aggressively market Iowa’s (low) cost of doing business“.  You can’t make this stuff up, and it’s high time this antiquated nonsense is voted out of office.

Beyond this, he appears out of touch in other areas.  Apparently his district is the only one in the state that is unconcerned with soaring taxes, and he lists one of his missions as “to work to keep Iowa school’s the best in the nation”.  It seems he has not studied any education data since the mid-1990’s.

Mrs. Branco is a very strong candidate who brings a long and impressive business background to the table.  She has been working hard, remaining highly visible, and doing everything it takes to wage a successful campaign.  All Republicans, especially those of you in her district, should take the time to check out her website and resume, and get involved to help her effort.

The Conservative Reader: Iowa recently reached out to her for our continuing “3 Questions With” series.  Below is Mrs. Branco’s take on the HD 34 race and what she views as her top priorities should she win.

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1) You are running in a traditionally tough district for Republicans—how is the campaign going? And are you finding voters receptive to a change in ideology?

I feel good about the campaign.  I have a strong business background and quite a bit of nonprofit work on boards, but this is my first foray into the political arena.  I have had excellent mentors from the House and the Party sharing ideas and strategies that work, and I have several able and enthused volunteers.  We are door knocking daily, attending events and getting signs out in the in the district, making calls and raising money for a final mailing in October.

I am finding that some voters are going to pull the straight ticket, Democrat, but many others seem to be disillusioned and open to my message. At one door I was told…”I am firing every incumbent, so if you are not one, you have my vote”.  Others have indicated that maybe it’s time for change. I guess the final answer to the first question will be given on November 6th!

 

2) What would you characterize as the top two major differences in political philosophy between you and your opponent?  And how/why would your approach better serve the people of your district?

In a nutshell, I am conservative, and my opponent is liberal. I am for smaller government, lower taxes; I am for Veterans benefits,  I am pro-life,  I am for communication with the constituents to learn of their issues, and of the many doors I have knocked I find very little recognition or awareness of who the current 10 year incumbent is.  Let me say, without making disparaging comments, that I believe he is the opposite on most issues, and his voting record is public information.

The first thing I would do if elected is set up a data base so that I could reach out to my constituents, learn what is important to them and share what is happening in the halls of the Capitol.  I would be a full time pro business legislator, having no other full time career.  I am a people person, I love Iowa and I love America.

I have been endorsed by the Iowa Right to life Organization, the Family Leader and The National Federation of Independent Small Business Owners (NFIB).

 

3) Should you prevail and enter the Iowa House next year, what are the two or three votes that you most look forward to casting? And why?

A. Taxes! Real estate, property and corporate.  We have some of the highest taxes in those categories and if we want to continue to attract business to our state we need to reform the tax rates.  More businesses in Iowa means more jobs, a robust economy, increased net worth for families!  Lower taxes often means additional discretionary income.

B. I think Voter ID is an important issue and the fact that the ACLU and the courts are making it such a big obstacle course makes it even more suspect. Why would any law abiding citizen want to encourage voter fraud or prevent measures to eliminate votes from deceased voters, non-citizen voters or legal voters who manage to vote multiple times posing as others for the same ballot?

C. Education reform. Give tax paying parents more options. Give community leaders and local directors more control. If a teacher isn’t producing let parents choose the school they prefer. Demand accountability from teachers and from the educational boards of directors.

 

 

3 Questions With Iowa Senate Candidate Vicki Stogdill

3 Questions With Iowa Senate Candidate Vicki Stogdill

(This is the second installment of a continuing series posing 3 questions to Republican candidates statewide) 

Vicki Stogdill is running for the seat representing Senate District 18 in the Iowa Legislature.  She has been campaigning hard for months to give this traditionally Democratic territory a new voice at the State House.  Every race in the Iowa Senate this year is of utmost importance, and Stogdill’s effort to engage the voters of District 18 will reveal much about the Iowa electorate at large.  Voters both in and out of her district should take the time to check out her positions and background on her website, and to show her support in any way they can.  She brings to the table a long career in small business and a host of new ideas to strengthen Iowa’s communities and economy.

Recently, Vicki was kind enough to sit down with The Conservative Reader:Iowa to talk about her campaign and answer three questions that will have a direct impact both on her constituents and the state of Iowa.

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1.) Nearly 28% of the voters in your district are not registered with either political party, what two things would you like these folks to know about you and your candidacy before they vote in November?

A.  I ran as an Independent/NP candidate in 2008 – which demonstrates that I’m not afraid to stand up for principles before a party affiliation.  I won’t support a bill that’s not good for Iowa, regardless of party recommendations.   I want to foster greater cooperation between the two parties.  People are tired of the “partisanship” at our State Capitol, and I’d like to help minimize that.  Instead of the two parties going to their “opposing corners” in a disagreement, I will attempt to sit down and discuss where there are differences and find common ground, without compromising on principle.  I will put “people before politics.”

B.  I will self-impose term limits to allow more Iowans to have a chance to participate in the process.  I want to bring my business experience, creativity and problem-solving skills to the Iowa Capitol and have a positive influence on improving the future of our State.  Let’s bring fresh ideas and perspective to the discussion.

2.) Education is both an issue you are passionate about and one that will be front and center next session.  What major reforms need to be implemented to improve results state-wide (and in Des Moines especially), and why should voters resist the urge to not make these changes?

First of all, I don’t claim to have all the answers on how to “fix” Iowa’s Education system.  However, I believe one of the biggest keys to restoring our State to excellence in education is to restore more local control to school districts.  I am also a strong proponent of giving parents more choices in educating their children, and to having the dollars “follow the child” in those choices.

Iowa should repeal the “core curriculum” mandates and instead offer recommendations which would allow local school districts to decide how and what to teach again.  Locally elected school boards and administrators should make curriculum decisions based on the needs of their community, such as whether to enhance vocation programs for kids who do not choose a 4-year college after graduation, etc.  The Iowa Dept. of Education should be downsized to serve as an advisory support agency instead of an umbrella.  The State should continue to license and certify teachers.  School districts should conduct annual assessments (such as ITBS) and scores should be published locally for taxpayers to see what kind of results they are getting for their investment.  The State would only step in if a school district is consistently under-performing.

While technology and cutting edge learning must be a priority — we can’t lose sight of the “tried and true” teaching methods and foundational basics that have served us well in the past.  And throwing out “old” methods just because they’re old isn’t necessarily progress.  Teachers should have the ability to use their creativity again – to inspire kids to learn, with oversight from their local school administrators and school boards, instead of the State.  Iowa must stop trying to mold each child into a cookie-cutter curriculum and teaching methodology that obviously isn’t working. Iowa should continue to reject “No Child Left Behind” mandates.

In Des Moines our test scores and drop-out rates demonstrate that local voters need to recruit better local school board candidates and then “clean house” at the voting booth.  The results of our local schools are unacceptable at best, and it is not the job of the State to fix it – it is the responsibility of the community to demand it.  Local taxpayers must hold their local school boards and administrators accountable.  When searching for administrators, we should look first at the wealth of Iowa educators who are qualified to lead our schools – instead of conducting expensive searches to bring in out-of-state educators.   We have more than enough talented educators in Iowa who already know the landscape, challenges and history of our state.

A few other ideas that are worthy of consideration are to implement a dress code so students could focus on learning instead of fashion, which might also improve discipline and respect in our classrooms.  We must also realize that it’s not the job of schools to “socially engineer” our kids—that task is the duty and responsibility of parents.  In the Iowa Senate, I will work with educators, parents and the business community to arrive at recommendations which will prepare students for a career path after graduation.  Iowans deserve better than what we’re currently delivering in Education, and I will work tirelessly to achieve positive results for Iowa’s kids, parents and taxpayers.

3.)  Should you prevail in November and enter the Iowa Senate, what are the two or three votes you would most like to cast, and why?

While there are many bills I’m passionate about seeing passed – these three are among the most commonly suggested from my constituents, so they will be top priorities for me in the upcoming session:

A.  Voter ID – because NOT verifying the identity of voters is unconstitutional – and my vote is disenfranchised when fraud is allowed to potentially cancel it out.

B.   Property tax reform – on all classes of property.  For businesses, this will spur more expansion and investment which in turn will create more jobs when we stop penalizing the very engine of economic growth.  For homeowners it will mean leaving more money in the pockets of those who earned it. For farmers, it will mean using a funding formula that doesn’t penalize them for success.

C.   Education Reform, as discussed above.

The Conservative Reader: Iowa Interview with Representative Kevin Koester (Part 1 of 2)

The Conservative Reader: Iowa Interview with Representative Kevin Koester (Part 1 of 2)

After easily defeating a primary challenger in June, Iowa House member Kevin Koester was kind enough to sit down with The Conservative Reader: Iowa to discuss his upcoming general election in November, as well as the many issues he will be dealing with should he earn a third term in the Iowa Legislature.

The Primary, The General Election, and the Pulse of House District 38

The process of winning re-election for Rep. Koester began even before the legislative session ended, as the first order of business was winning a primary challenge by Saylor Township resident Brett Nelson.  As the session ran long, Koester made several hundred phone calls in his downtime and began getting acquainted with the voters in his newly re-drawn House District 38.

He handily defeated Nelson 456 to 80, and took many positives away from the effort this challenge required, “I’m very grateful for both the margin of victory and for the experience of the primary because it really helped energize my campaign for November, and gave me a great familiarity with the new territory in the district.”  In an interesting aside, after not meeting or speaking to each other throughout the primary, the two have since met and Nelson even took up an offer by Rep. Koester to join him in a weekly bible study—a great, albeit rare, good ending to a primary challenge.

Talking to voters throughout this process affirmed to Rep. Koester that the dominant issues for his November show-down with Democrat John Phoenix will include the state budget, government over-spending, and the economy.  Besides these economic issues, the background of the two candidates, combined with the issues still facing the legislature, serve to telegraph the subject matter that will be front and center in this race—education reform and public sector unions.

While Koester has decades of experience with education in Iowa, Phoenix was elected to the Des Moines School Board where he served for six years.  In addition to this, Phoenix also has been a long-time union steward, has already been endorsed by the AFL-CIO, and strongly believes that “unions help make our country stronger and improve the lives of all workers.”

Speaking to these differences, Rep. Koester believes that, “because of his role and his voice on collective bargaining issues and union viewpoints, there will be plenty of distance between us to give the voters a clear choice”.  Given the fact that Mr. Koester is a strong Conservative Republican and Phoenix is a pro-union, former school board member who featured Des Moines super-liberal Ako Abdul-Samad at his first fundraiser—the gulf between the two is likely to be enormous on a long list of issues.  Here is a look at two of these issues, and where Rep. Koester stands on them.

Education Reform

Like most Iowa Republicans, Mr. Koester was very disappointed in the progress made on education reform by the last General Assembly.  “The things we voted on last session were not reforms, they were Band-Aids.  We did not do surgery, and that is what is truly needed.”

After seeing countless specific and detailed proposals get torn apart by the opposing sides, he stands ready to work on a broad frame of reform that can be agreed on in principle and passed.  “What I have is a drive to dismantle the fluff, and no patience for the simple arguments that only serve to attack valid ideas.  We need to stop the nit picking and the warring, and come up with a product and move forward on it.”

Two realities in the current system that he sees as negatively affecting students are the lack of teachers being removed for poor performance and the practice of “last in first out”, which is the seniority structure that protects long-time teachers from being let go, in favor of removing less tenured teachers when staff sizes are cut.  This practice has long been under fire by Republicans because it refuses to take into account the skill level and effectiveness of each teacher.  “Last in first out is bad for kids.  We need to look at who is performing and have that be the prime focus, and not necessarily just who has the most experience.  A pay raise needs to be given for performing better, not just given out for coming back the next year and being a year older”.

In terms of the reforms needed to reverse our recent embarrassing trend in education, the crucial ingredient in Rep. Koester’s view is to quantify the performance of the employees in our education system.  He will not support any proposal without this component, and he concisely summed up his position on education by saying:

We will have meaningful and fundamental reform when we agree on how we are going to measure student learning, how we are going to measure each of our Principal’s leadership and influence in the classroom, and how we are going to measure teachers and instruction.  That is where the rubber meets the road on this issue.

Unions and Collective Bargaining

With Governor Branstad recently signaling a desire to look at their financial impact on the state, and John Phoenix’s close personal ties to them, there is little doubt that public sector unions and collective bargaining will be hotly debated in this race.

Rep. Koester has already taken several votes on this issue, all with the goal of bringing public sector unions more in line with the realities of the private sector, and attempting to prevent the payouts involved from breaking the bank as we have seen in several other states in recent years.

The votes he has taken include voting three times for employees of the Legislative branch, including himself, to pay a portion of their health insurance cost.  The first was for a contribution of $50 a month, the second for a $100 a month, and the third for $200 a month.  “I have gone on record every opportunity I have had insisting that Legislators are charged something, and I strongly believe that all state employees should help pay for the cost of their health insurance.”

He also voted in favor of the measure that went into effect July 1st, which changed the formula for calculating retirement benefits for state employees.  In the past payouts were figured using an average of an employee’s top three wage earning years, which has now been changed to take the average of the top five years.

In the larger picture, he supports having a policy ensuring that the number of government employees does not swell beyond what is needed and can be financially sustained in the long run.  To this end he favors implementing breaks on the growth of state government that ties the number of workers and salaries to the overall growth of our state economy, and prioritizes the issue the following way:

I want to start with how we plan for how many state jobs there will be.  You don’t grow the economy by growing the number of public jobs—that is socialism.  The second thing is then addressing the disproportions in the health insurance contributions and the retirement benefits.  The benefits are out of control compared to what the private sector is doing, and to what Iowa taxpayers are doing to take care of their families.  We need to get those things in line, and what is fair for the rest of Iowans should be fair for the public employees that they are paying for.

Next Stop: November

Anyone who talks issues with Rep. Koester immediately realizes that he has a deep grasp on nearly all of them, including all the moving parts involved with each.  On substance, he can go toe-to-toe with anyone and will shine in the public forums and debates with Mr. Phoenix.

As this contest slowly unfolds till November, the topics these two candidates debate along the way will be a roll call of every major issue facing the citizens of Iowa.  In particular, the colliding ideologies on taxes, education, and public sector unions will be a true foreshadowing of the debates that will consume the next General Assembly.

How strong a candidate John Phoenix will be remains to be seen, but Republicans throughout Iowa and HD 38 can be assured that Kevin Koester is up to the challenge—and will remain a strong Conservative voice for the Party in the coming years.

 

 

84th General Assembly: Preview of Coverage

84th General Assembly: Preview of Coverage

The gaveling in of the Iowa Legislature’s 84th General Assembly last week signaled an end to the 2012 Presidential Caucus season and the return of a more local political focus for Iowans.

There is no doubt that much of the session’s oxygen will be sucked up by the major issues that failed to produce any legislation following last year’s battles. These issues include reforming the tax code, mental health services, and education, as well as another round of sparring over Iowa setting up a health insurance exchange to work in conjunction with Obama Care.

While these will grab a majority of the headlines, and a good share of our attention here at The Conservative Reader: Iowa, there have already been a number of very interesting bills introduced that we will also be following.

As of now the bills and issues outside “the big 4” that we have flagged to watch closely are as follows: Term limits, random drug testing for recipients 84th of certain state benefits, banning red light and speed cameras, and the fate of nuclear power in Iowa.

After being deluged for so many months with candidates and their ever changing poll numbers, it is easy to forget that in many ways the caucus season is an imperfect method for measuring Iowa’s current ideological perspective. Removing the factors attached to individual candidates such as “likeability” and “electability”, and instead gauging the debate and the public reaction of Iowans to more hyper-local issues is a far more telling indicator of where we stand. Ironically these debates and their results likely will tip our hand as to which Presidential candidate will be awarded our 6 electoral votes in November.

In the following weeks stay tuned for investigations, updates, analysis, and opinions on the major issues being debated at the State House. As mentioned earlier, while we will not ignore the most publicized topics of debate this session, a number of bills that will exist in the shadows of the major priorities are just as important.

Though we will be closely watching with an appropriate level of skepticism, we wish all those involved with the 84th General Assembly well in their efforts to make improvements for all Iowans. When we feel they have achieved improvement—we will trumpet it. When we feel they have caused damage to our way of life—they will be called to account.

On with Democracy…

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