Priorities

I grew up in a trailer, and neither of my parents graduated high school. When my dad got sick and his health insurance was canceled, my family lost everything. It’s thanks to teachers and public education that I got a fair shot, becoming the first in my family to graduate from college. 

Not so long ago, Iowa ranked number one in public education. Iowa was a destination for young families seeking great public schools. Our schools were a source of pride and the heart of our small towns. In recent years, however, our public schools have consistently suffered from a lack of funding – under Governor Reynolds’ new law, we will spend hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money each year to private schools at the expense of our public schools. Many schools in our rural towns have already closed. The cost of higher education continues to rise, and job training programs are not accessible to all who need them. 

Rep. Miller Meeks supports Governor Reynolds’ voucher plan. She has verbally attacked teachers in congressional hearings and has voted for congressional budget cuts that would eliminate more than 100,000 teacher jobs.

In Congress, I will fight to:

• Make Iowa number one in public education once again
• Reinvest in public education at every level: pre-K and K-12 schools, community colleges and universities, and skills training and apprenticeships
• Guarantee every child access to a high-quality education by pushing for a federal bill that invests in public education, with a special focus on rural and small-town schools  
• Expand CTE and career education programs so that students who do not choose to go to college can find good-paying jobs in the trades or manufacturing
• Ensure every Iowa child has access to school lunch and summer lunch so that every child can eat, and every child can learn

After a 25-year career at the University of Iowa law school teaching Iowa’s sons and daughters about the US Constitution and the rule of law, I feel a profound responsibility to defend these values.  In the Iowa Statehouse I fought to defend Iowans’ constitutional rights regardless of party, whether it was ensuring free speech, a right to privacy, or the right to vote. I’ll do the same in Congress. 

Our country faces unprecedented threats to our Constitutional rights and freedoms. Extreme partisanship and special interests plague Congress – and deprive citizens of real representation. My opponent is a prime example. You can draw a straight line from the money she has taken from special interests to the votes she has taken against everyday Iowans. She has taken over $250,000 from big pharma, over $200,000 from the insurance industry, over $150,000 from the oil and gas industry, and over $1,000,000 from Wall Street. And then she voted against letting Medicare negotiate for lower drug prices, against capping the price of insulin for our seniors, and against holding the oil companies accountable for price gouging at the gas pump.  There’s a word for that, and that word is corruption. 

It’s time we put our Constitution over corporations, and our country over party. I will reject the corrupting influence of special interests, and will work with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to deliver real representation to Iowans. I will be laser-focused on the things that matter most to Iowans: defending our rights and freedoms, fighting inflation and lowering costs, bringing down the price of healthcare and prescription drugs, creating jobs and improving our infrastructure, supporting our small businesses, and taking action now to strengthen Social Security, curb climate change, and reduce the national debt.

As an environmental engineer, I learned that when it comes to improving water quality and protecting the environment, it is important for government to work with farmers and business owners, not against them.

Iowa’s water quality and climate change are serious threats to our children and grandchildren’s futures. Climate change is also a clear and present danger to Iowa’s agricultural economy. Iowa farmers are already being hit hard by heat, drought, and extreme weather conditions. But our farmers are also smart and resilient. With the right resources, they can enrich the soil, make their crops more profitable, improve our water quality, and be part of the solution for a sustainable future. 

Iowa is also well-positioned to grow its economy and create more good jobs in renewable energy. In fact, Iowa is already a leader in this area — we get more of our electricity from renewable energy than most other states. With strategic investment, Iowa has huge potential for economic growth in this sector. 

To address these threats and opportunities, we must take on Big Ag, where a lack of competition in seed and fertilizer inputs – as well as in meat and grain processing outputs – drives up costs for family farms. We also must take on Big Oil, corporations that want to dominate the US energy market, ignore climate change, and prevent the growth of Iowa’s renewable energy economy. 

Rep. Miller-Meeks has shown time and again that she is on the side of these special interests, not on the side of Iowa farmers. She and her US House colleagues allowed the Farm Bill to expire, leaving farmers who are already being squeezed unsure of what the future holds. She has taken more than $160,000 from the oil and gas industry, and then: she voted against providing resources to protect farmers from the effects of climate change; against holding big oil companies accountable for price gouging and unfair practices; and against investing in renewable energy to create good jobs and make the United States more energy independent. 

In Congress, I will fight to:

• Expand markets for Iowa farmers and protect family farms 
• Enhance Iowa’s agricultural and renewable energy economy, and make America more energy independent through renewable energy  
• Secure a sustainable and vibrant future for generations to come   
• Ensure the next generation of family farmers can thrive and continue our farming tradition

One of the last things my father gave to me was his gun. I am a proud gun owner, and nobody will take my gun away from me. I believe in the Second Amendment. But I also believe in keeping kids safe in schools, and in making sure all of us are free to go to movie theaters and grocery stores and to go about our daily lives. 

I believe we need common-sense gun laws that:

• Ensure universal background checks  
• Close loopholes so we can get guns out of the hands of domestic abusers 
• Crack down on illegal gun trafficking

The Farm Bill has to support family farmers rather than corporate agricultural giants. Iowa has lost 30,000 family farms because giant companies and their lobbyists are crowding family farmers out. The shift from community-oriented family farms to out-of-state corporate ownership seeking only to extract as much profit from Iowa as they can has been devastating. 

The Farm Bill must:

• Ensure that family farmers are supported with fair crop insurance rates that protect against extreme weather
• Include programs that support next-generation and first-time farmers
• Include investments in agricultural R&D to boost farm productivity and resilience, in sustainable ways that keep local communities healthy

We must secure the border. Our current Congress had a golden opportunity to pass the toughest bipartisan border security bill in a generation, a bill that was backed by the Border Patrol. Yet Rep. Miller-Meeks chose to play partisan political games and refused to support it. If that is not the worst example of putting party over country, I don’t know what is. We hear year after year from politicians in Washington that they support border security and want to fix our broken immigration system, but they refuse to take any action.  We are a nation of laws, and those laws need to be enforced. I’ll work with anyone to secure the border – that means putting more Border Patrol agents on the ground, stopping fentanyl trafficking, and increasing processing capacity.

To me, freedom is being able to control your own destiny. That means the right to grow through education, the right to control your own body and make your own healthcare decisions, the right to safe and healthy communities free from crime and pollution, and the right to participate in a fair and open economy in which people who work hard aren’t oppressed by corporate greed but instead get a fair shot to get ahead.

Iowa now has one of the strictest abortion bans in the country. It bans abortion before most women know they are pregnant. As we have seen in other states with extreme abortion bans, women’s lives, health, and fertility will be put at risk when we can’t get the medical care we need. As we knock thousands of doors across this district every week to talk with voters, it’s clear that Iowans believe in our freedom, and they are sick of politicians like Miller-Meeks pushing her own dangerous agenda instead of listening to the will of the people.

Rep. Miller-Meeks supported and paved the way for this very ban. Then she fought to go even further, sponsoring a nationwide abortion ban with no exceptions for rape, incest, or the life of the mother. Her abortion ban could also end IVF nationwide.

When I’m in Congress, I will fight every day to put Roe v. Wade back into federal law where it belongs and restore reproductive freedom for all Iowans.

When I was growing up, both of my grandmothers lived with my family, and I have always believed seniors are precious members of our families and communities. At the Statehouse, I worked on a bipartisan elder abuse bill to prevent abuse against Iowa’s seniors. I worked closely with many seniors and learned more about the unique challenges seniors face in our state. I was delighted to help pass a bill to crack down on physical, emotional, and financial abuse against our elder Iowans. 

Rep. Miller-Meeks represents a dangerous threat to the future of these programs. She has supported privatizing both Social Security and Medicare, which would put at risk the guaranteed benefits seniors have paid into.  Miller-Meeks has also called for raising the retirement age for Social Security, which would cut benefits and force seniors to work longer. 

Then she voted against allowing Medicare to negotiate for lower prices, against capping seniors’ out of pocket drug expenses at $2,000 per year, and against capping the cost of insulin at $35 per month for seniors on Medicare.  

It seems clear that Miller-Meeks is working harder for big pharmaceutical companies than she is for the people of southeast Iowa.  

When my dad got sick, Medicare and Social Security were lifelines for my family. I understand what is at stake for our seniors, and in running for Congress, I have continued to work on their behalf. I have talked to many seniors who tell me that Medicare and Social Security are vital for their survival. That’s why I’ll:

• Always fight to protect Medicare and Social Security – Iowans worked hard for these earned benefits, and they deserve to retire in economic security and with access to the healthcare they need
• Work to stop any cuts to these programs, and extend their solvency by ensuring the wealthy pay their fair share
• Expand Medicare to cover dental, vision, and hearing care
• Save seniors and taxpayers money by allowing Medicare to negotiate for lower prices on more drugs so they pay less for their prescriptions