Wahls ready for generational change
OTTUMWA — Zach Wahls is campaigning for a changing of the guard in the U.S. Senate.
He wants to be the model of this change.
Wahls, already the youngest member of the Iowa Senate, hopes to become the youngest member of the U.S. Senate in November. The Coralville senator stopped at the Temple of Creative Arts on Saturday for a meet and greet, marking 66 of the 99 Iowa counties he has visited since announcing his candidacy for Joni Ernst’s open Senate seat.
“I learned at a very young age how it feels when the government doesn’t work for your family. You’re afraid of what’s happening around you,” he said. “The stakes couldn’t be higher for our state. We see factories closing, people being laid off. We see the impact of these tariffs devastating our state’s agricultural and manufacturing economy.
“We see the increase in costs, whether at the grocery store or at the doctor’s office.”
Wahls, 34, is disappointed with his party’s leaders. He said that if elected, he would not support Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
“I will never hesitate to challenge the leaders of our party. [Schumer] said the Democratic Party should discard rural voters and blue-collar voters, because for every one of those voters that we lose, we’re going to gain two back in the suburbs,” Wahls said. “That math might work in New York, but it doesn’t work in Iowa.” This is not the Democratic Party I joined.”
Wahls’ senatorial district includes areas inside Johnson County, but formerly extended into Cedar and Muscatine counties, which are more rural.
In the Iowa Senate, Wahls voted against vouchers for private schools, the state’s six-week abortion ban, and also voted against legislation that would allow local law enforcement officials to work with federal agencies, particularly U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to deport immigrants.
“My view is that we should be asking law enforcement to work to protect Iowans, not work with federal agents,” Wahls said. “This is legislation that has made our state more dangerous. We are a state in a nation of immigrants. We are a nation of laws, but we want to welcome our neighbors here, not kick them out of the state, especially if they have done nothing wrong.”
Wahls also chastised a potential Republican opponent, U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson, while both were in the House, and he described a closed-door meeting as an example of corrupt politics that he wants to combat.
The issue involved foreign companies purchasing mobile home communities and offering to raise the rent by at least 50 percent in many cases.
“We’re not talking about a 70 percent increase over a few years; we’re talking about June to July. I was outraged by this because a Utah company purchased three trailer parks in my district, and I saw it as my responsibility to hear directly from my constituents. We formed a bipartisan group and we passed a bill 48-0 in the Senate.
“We sent that bill home, thinking it was a done deal. I was called into a closed-door meeting two days later,” Wahls said. “Sitting on one side was a Republican representative who was sympathetic to what we were trying to do. On the other side was the lobbyist who represented these big companies. He smiled at me a little, because next to him was a legislator who was in his pocket.
“I saw with my own eyes Ashley Hinson, preparing to run for Congress, carry out this lobbyist’s orders, kill our bipartisan legislation and sell us out.”
Wahls, who will run in a primary with state Rep. Josh Turek, said his campaign “will be the strongest grassroots campaign this state has seen since we re-elected Barack Obama in 2012.”
He also said he would only serve two terms in the U.S. Senate and that one of his goals would be to lower the Medicare enrollment age to 55.
“I’ve witnessed what happens when good people stay too long, but it’s much worse when bad people stay too long,” Wahls said. “In this state, we know that crop rotation is good for our soil, and you better believe it’s good for the U.S. Senate, too.
“We need to make sure we also expand Medicare coverage to include vision, dental and hearing. There are so many common-sense things that aren’t happening right now.”
