Several Democratic candidates for federal and state office held a County Line Fundraiser at Sutliff Cider, Saturday, Sept. 3.
The fundraiser, organized by U.S. Congressional District 2 candidate Liz Mathis and U.S. Congressional District 1 candidate Christina Bohannon’s staff, was hosted by Rita Hart and Dave Loebsack. The Linn and Johnson County line is one of the division points between both districts, and Sutliff straddles the Linn and Johnson County line.
U.S. Senate candidate Michael Franken and Mathis both made return trips to the Mount Vernon and Lisbon area with Saturday’s visit, with Franken’s previous visit in February and Mathis in July.
Eric Van Lancker, Democratic lieutenant governor candidate, spoke about why he was running with Deidre DeJear for the governor’s office.
Van Lancker grew up in Cedar Rapids, graduating from Cedar Rapids Prairie.
“When I graduated from Prairie, Iowa was still number one in education,” Van Lancker said.
The state has now slipped to 20th in education, primarily because of the lack of proper funding for public schools.
One of the key tenets that Van Lancker and Dejear are proposing are student loan forgiveness plans for public school teachers, to help retain educators to remain in the state and help with the worsening teacher shortage the state is facing.
“We need to attract some of the best teachers to this state,” Van Lancker said.
Van Lancker as well said he supports Mathis and Christina Bohannon to serve in Congress because he knows they won’t play political games with health care for veterans the way Marionette Miller Meeks and Ashley Hinson did.
Secretary of State candidate Joel Miller delivered a speech highlighting what he would change.
“My first priority is to make voting in this state easy again,” Miller said.
Miller said that current Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate has pursued a number of issues that are not related to elections, including gun rights and human trafficking, items that are not under the purview of the Secretary of State.
Miller said Pate’s dereliction of duty and lack of leadership has allowed bills to sail through legislature that many county auditor’s across the state opposed.
“One of those bills removed more than 244,000 people from the voter roles, including many 17-year-olds who pre-registered ahead of the general election,” Miller said.
Miller also said the shrinking timeline for registering for absentee ballots has already impacted people who voted in the primaries and will impact this year’s general election and encouraged people to come up with a plan for voting this year.
Other speakers at the event included Jennifer Konfrst, Zach Wahls and Bohannon.
Joel Miller, Democratic candidate for secretary of state race, speaks at an event at Sutliff Cider Saturday, Sept. 3.