The upcoming election will set the balance of power in the Statehouse, where Republicans currently hold large majorities over Democrats in both the Iowa House and Iowa Senate.
Voters in House District 41, which covers the northern parts of the Des Moines suburb of Ankeny, have the choice to elect Democratic incumbent Rep. Molly Buck or her Republican challenger, Ryan Weldon.
Buck, 54, is an elementary school teacher and lives in Ankeny. She was elected to her first term in 2022 and is now seeking a second term.
Ryan Weldon, 40, is a digital business development manager. He served on the Ankeny school board from 2019 to 2023 and served as board president for a year and a half. Weldon also lives in Ankeny.
IPR News has been reaching out to candidates in some key Statehouse races to ask them about their positions on key issues. Here is what Buck and Weldon had to say. Their answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.
Jump to a specific topic:
- Top legislative priority
- Eliminating the income tax
- Abortion rights
- Fertility treatments and contraception
- Education Savings Accounts (ESAs)
- Growing the state's workforce
What is the most important thing the Legislature should do in the next session?
Buck: One of the things that we really need to do is we really need to look at the impact [of] our AEA legislation that we passed last session – look at the impact that that has had on kids with special needs, and the impact that it's had on schools being able to provide those students with the resources that they need and making sure that we did not take away access to services, especially from kids in smaller school districts across Iowa. That's something I think we really need to look at and look at changing and cleaning up.
I also think we need to look at the chronic absenteeism bill last session, and I think that needs a real revamp. The Department of Ed came out with some guidelines around that that I think really don't speak to the spirit of the bill.
I would really like to see us at least look at the educational savings account bill because I do not think that that bill is fiscally responsible. I think we really need to make sure that we are being responsible with taxpayer dollars.
Weldon: Addressing property taxes – providing relief there.
Gov. Kim Reynolds has said it is her goal to eliminate the income tax in Iowa by the end of her current term. Do you support eliminating the income tax? How should the state adjust other taxes to make up for that revenue?
Weldon: I definitely do support the governor's will to do that and the way that they've gone about it by ensuring that we're doing it over time to make sure that we're watching and addressing any of the shortcomings that might happen because of the lower taxes. But I take a little bit of issue with the premise of the question as it relates to “what do we need to do to adjust other taxes.”
The opposition would say that by cutting taxes it means that the government's going to take in less money and that's true. But at the end of the day, the reason that we reduce taxes is to help the economy and stimulate the economy by making sure that people and businesses can keep the money that is rightfully theirs and not pay it to the government.
I believe the money is better spent by the people who earn it, rather than the government spending it, and so that stimulates the economy and it actually helps us better and more by doing that. Will there be other things that have to be addressed? Quite potentially – absolutely, but I think that's why we do it in a wise way over time to get down to that goal.
Buck: I don't know how you're going to adjust to make up for that revenue without taxing people in some other way. It comes down to: How do the people of Iowa want to be taxed? We all need essential services. We need the police, we need roads, we need firemen, we need teachers, we need public schools – these are things that we all need. To have those services, they have to be paid for in some way. If we eliminate income tax, I know that sounds great. However, where are we going to make that money up?
I think if Iowa would legalize marijuana, we could raise a lot of revenue, but Republicans aren't willing to go there. I just think there's a lot more creative experience or creative thoughts we could have if we would actually work together instead of being so partisan on some of these issues.
In a 2023 special session, the Iowa Legislature passed — and the Iowa Supreme Court later upheld — new abortion restrictions. The law prohibits an abortion once the presence of cardiac activity is detected by ultrasound. That can happen as early as six weeks, when some people are still unaware of their pregnancy.
What action, if any, should the Legislature take to change Iowa’s abortion restrictions?
Buck: I would like to see our Legislature codify Roe. I think that there are a lot of circumstances out there where people are going to need access to lifesaving health care, where they're not going to be able to get that health care, and that frightens me. I know that women have had to access abortions when they have wanted a pregnancy – things go wrong and women need access to healthcare.
Weldon: I wasn't in the Legislature at the time the heartbeat bill was put into place or discussed and debated. Based on what I've heard at the doors from the people in my district, there's really not a whole lot of momentum to want to do anything beyond that at this point. My focus is to make sure that mothers and babies and families have what they need and to support the family and protect the lives of the baby and the mother in all those situations.
Specifically, I want to prioritize supporting new parents and kids by expanding access to affordable child care, increasing access to quality mental health care and improving our foster care system.
With Iowa’s abortion law in place banning most procedures after six weeks, what if anything does the Legislature need to do to ensure access to fertility treatments or contraception?
Weldon: I don't think that creating policy and laws based on fears of what could happen in the future is necessarily a good practice. I don't think the current law restricts any of those things, and it certainly is not putting any of those things in jeopardy. At this point, I think the law that is in place right now we just need to move forward with.
Buck: It's a slippery slope we're going down with these laws. I really think that we need to make sure that those things are protected.
In vitro fertilization is a right that Iowans have had access to and I don’t know why we would be in the business of taking away rights of Iowans. I think we need to make sure that those things are kept safe.
Next year, the state’s education savings accounts that families can use to send students to private schools will be available to anyone, regardless of income. Should there be a cap on what the state is willing to spend on ESAs?
Buck: At some point, we're going to have to look at some sort of cap. Right now, it's a blank check – it's an open line item in our budget – and we can't budget that way. I would be against giving public schools a blank check – I think we have to account for taxpayers' money.
We need to be good fiduciaries of taxpayer money and at some point you have to restrict things. At some point you have to say, this is how much money there is for educational savings account[s] and when it's gone, it's gone. I think that's fiscally responsible.
Weldon: No.
What more should the Legislature be doing to grow and improve the state’s workforce?
Weldon: I think that by removing the restrictions and red tape from businesses so that they can do what they do best – which is create jobs – that's the best way that we can support them to create a workforce. I think there's also our ability to create an environment where people want to live, want to work, and things like that – those are kind of the cultural things that we can do as a state.
But for businesses – making sure that they can provide the products and services at a fair price to their customers. I think we do that by removing restrictions and removing the tax burden away from those businesses to support them and let them do that. They're going to invest their money a lot better than we're going to invest it for them, so we should make sure that they are able to keep as much as they can and do their job.
Buck: I think we need to make sure that our state is working hard to be a place where young people are going to want to stay and where young people are going to want to move. We need to be welcoming to all people. We need to make sure that we are being open to people who are LGBTQ. We need to be sure that we are being open to people who are legally immigrating. We need to make sure that we are friendly to the workforce.
We also need to really address the reasons that people might be worried about staying here. You look at our water quality in Iowa and being a cancer survivor for me, and having my oncologist say it was probably environmental – our water quality frightens me. We're going to need to address these issues and make sure that we are not falling victim to politics, and we’re working to make sure that this is a welcoming place for people.
