Kathy Dolter, one of four Democrat candidates for the US District 2 seat, made a campaign stop in Mount Vernon Sunday, March 15.

Dolter touted her qualifications to be a member of Congress by highlighting her service in the military, health care and education quadrants over her career.

Dolter has worked in health care as a nurse, and as part of the military, helping to establish three hospitals and 27 clinics in one deployment.

After her military career, Dolter began working at the University of Iowa as an educator, before moving onto Kirkwood Community College and others. She’s served on the Iowa Board of Nursing, being appointed by Gov. Kim Reynolds to the top seat.

As for why she is running for the seat, Dolter said as a nurse she has a hard time standing by and watching people suffer if she could do something to help ease that.

“As a nurse, we’re trained to stop the bleeding and relieve pain of those suffering, and Iowans are suffering under the impacts of the Big Beautiful Bill passed by Republicans,” Dolter said.

She recalled when she had her pinning ceremony as a nurse and took her oath to protect the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic, she took that as a huge responsibility.

“One of the biggest threats to our democracy is our current President,” Dolter said. “I’m worried that for many, the American Dream is on life support due to greed in politics.”

Dolter has an ABC plan for her campaign.

A stands for alive and healthy, and access to needed health care.

B stands for bucks, or employment and ability to buy the things people need for their lives.

C stands for constitutional freedoms.

The first point of her Alive plan is to get back to preventing illnesses, and insuring people have access to clean air and water.

Point two is repealing the Big Beautiful Bill, especially its impacts to Medicaid and Medicare funding that threaten hospitals and clinics.

Point three is repealing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as director of Health and Human Services for damage he is doing to the health of the country.

Point four is shoring up Medicare and Medicaid and working to enact Universal Health Care.

Her first point under Bucks is establishing a living income for all workers and seniors.

“Twenty four percent of Americans are earning less than $17 per hour, which is a livable wage in this country,” Dolter said.

Point two is stopping Trump’s tariff acts.

As to the Constitutional freedoms, point one was shoring up Voters drive act and making it easier for people to vote.

“We have a large number of people who choose not to vote at all,” Dolter said.

Point two is to stop gerrymandering from happening in the nation.

Point three is implementing campaign finance reform so legislators are listening to their constituents, not the opinions of corporations.

Point four was defunding ICE until proper hiring and training of officers occurs, including de-escalation techniques, names and badges being visible and officers not wearing masks when conducting their jobs.

Point five was establishing a No Kings Amendment to the constitution.

Dolter said the thing she hears most on the campaign trail right now is that everything is an issue that is bothering Iowans.

“When we used to have an electorate that had one or two issues important to them, things like education, water quality, the economy, we’re now having people angry about how everything is being handled at the federal level,” Dolter said.

Dolter encouraged voters to research all candidates and vote for the one with the most experience in the areas important to them for voting this midterm.

During questions, Dolter was asked about the first three things she’d do in Congress. Her first answer was start impeaching the department heads who have been making illegal actions. Her second would be working to repeal the Big Beautiful Bill. Her third was starting work on a living wage amendment.

When asked if she has considered who she would vote for speaker of the house, she said that she would take a measured response and look for the best candidate.

A section of questioning asked about Dolter’s targeting department heads and how that wouldn’t impact American people or lead to more suffering.

“The department heads have done illegal actions,” Dolter said. “There’s basis for impeaching some of them. And the goal is not to impact or hurt the civilian workforce, but put in place people who can do the jobs effectively.”

Another questioner asked about the patience level of working with an agency that moves so slow.

Dolter said that was something she has had experience with, pointing out her experience in getting a hospital to allow staff to utilize apps on their phone that had text book resources, as opposed to the textbooks. That process took three years to implement.

Another questioner asked for more details about Dolter’s proposed No Kings amendment.

Dolter said the amendment would curtail the power of presidents to issue pardons, would limit executive orders, and would take back the ability to declare war or declaration of emergencies back to the legislative branch.