The end of the trail: democratic candidates stop in Wright County

On Wednesday, six days before their campaigns’ end, the Democratic Party candidates for state senate and house seats, as well as Kim Weaver, candidate for U.S. House of Representatives opposing incumbent Steve King, visited with a small group of dedicated supporters at the Clarion Pizza Ranch. Though today the votes wil be cast, the candidates at that time were in the home stretch of their campaigns. “It’s like the last leg of a marathon,” Weaver said.              

The Sheldon area resident, who formerly worked in the Department of Human Services for 10 years and is currently a long-term care ombudsmen, cited financial stability for the elderly as one of her chief issues. She believes in promoting affordable options for long-term care and expanding Medicare to cover some of those options.  “It’s definitely something that affects everybody. It crosses party lines,” she said.

She also has a plan for options to reduce and defer payments for student loans based on volunteer hours. She says such efforts would give more opportunities for young people to return to live in rural areas, since they will be less pressured to find a high-paying job.

Her other positions include support for production of industrial hemp in Iowa, opposition to eminent domain abuse for private profit (citing the Dakota Access Pipeline), and opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership. “There’s always the unintended consequences to these treaties,” she said.

Susan Bangert, candidate for Iowa Senate District 4, said her chief legislative priority is education. “We need to decide on the funding early in the season so the schools know how much they will get,” she said. (This year, legislators had not decided on a funding amount before school budgets had to be finalized.) She believes if no decision is made, the state should default to an increase of a percentage of annual growth.

Another major funding issue is the formula that calculates funds given per student in each school district, which has some major discrepancies between schools. “We can’t get it even all at once—but in some cases it’s like $180 [difference] per student,” Bangert said.

Nancy Paule Huisinga, Wright County resident and candidate for the Iowa House, district 8, agreed, and added that school transportation costs are an issue. “We need to be able to bring some of those dollars out to rural areas,” she said.

Huisinga’s other concerns are chiefly for water quality and the newly privatized Medicare system, which she said was changed over too quickly and is causing problems for smaller healthcare providers.

Regardless of who you vote for today, Iowans can hope that these and other issues will be addressed for the best in our state and national legislatures in the future.