Residents of Hiawatha, Robins and northeast Cedar Rapids in District 80 will have the chance for change this November, as current Iowa House of Representatives incumbent Art Staed is eyeing an Iowa Senate seat in a neighboring district.
District 80 voters have the choice between current Hiawatha City Council member Aime Wichtendahl, a Democrat, or first-time candidate and Cedar Rapids Republican John Thompson.
Wichtendahl, 44, is a freelance writer and consultant with U.S. Cellular. She’s been serving on the Hiawatha City Council for nine years, and if elected to the Iowa House, would be the first transgender representative in the state’s history.
Thompson is 35 and lives in northeast Cedar Rapids. He’s the founder and president of Salute to the Fallen, a military nonprofit that focuses on providing mental health care access to veterans and first responders.
IPR News has been reaching out to candidates in some key Statehouse races to ask them about their positions on important issues. Here are what Wichtendahl and Thompson 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's the most important thing the Legislature should do next session?
Wichtendahl: The main thing the Legislature should be focusing on is making Iowa a place to move to, rather than escape from. It’s always been hard to keep Iowans here; besides corn, beans and hogs, our greatest export has been our college graduates.
These days, the Legislature’s been pouring fuel on that fire and giving graduates no real reason to stay here. Whether that’s a lack of competitive wages, ignoring the water crisis or ratcheting up the culture wars, it's making people feel unsafe in their own homes, and it’s the Legislature’s job to fix that.
Thompson: One of the things I’ll be pushing for is totally revamping and improving Iowa’s mental health system. We should allow more private facilities to open, and I’d also want to reopen a state facility, because one of the biggest issues I keep hearing from EMS is they’re driving, even from Cedar Rapids, all the way to Omaha for bed space. To me, that’s an atrocity.
Do you support eliminating the income tax, as Gov. Reynolds has said is her goal? How should the state adjust taxes to make up that revenue?
Thompson: I agree with eliminating the income tax, but we must do it fiscally responsibly. Iowa has a lot of money in the bank, so there is a way to eliminate the income tax without raising taxes anywhere.
There’s a lot we can do without raising taxes, from fixing the water issues to other things, if we just quit making it political and actually think outside the box. I’ve talked to mayors of several cities who’ve seen property taxes go up in the past couple years, and I asked them if that’s because of the reduced income tax. It’s not, it’s due to the infrastructure improvements that are going on.
Wichtendahl: I don’t support it. I think there are alternatives, like reevaluating the grocery tax, which would go a long way to alleviating food scarcity, as well as helping Iowans stretch their dollar a little further.
If you eliminate the income tax, what, are you going to bump up the sales tax too? That number is around 14-15%. It’s going to hit most Iowans hard. Despite a little more in take-home pay, you’re going to be spending a lot more at the store.
We already have the worst bridges and roads in the country, so those are going to get further neglected. We’re not doing enough to address water quality, so the water’s going to get worse. The investments that the government makes in the citizens of Iowa is going to be greatly diminished beyond what it already is.
In a 2023 special session, the 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?
Wichtendahl: We should go back to the pre-2017 bill, before the Republican trifecta came into power and started changing the law.
We should enshrine and protect abortion rights within the state code. We should also put it to a constitutional amendment vote to Iowans, so those laws don’t change when the politicians do.
Thompson: I am pro-life because I am pro-family. I come from a large family, and I have a large family. One thing I would like to see is an added constitutional amendment. I come from Texas, and when you’re voting on controversial issues, they always go directly back to the ballot so the people can decide.
We’ve seen this exact issue go in eight different states in different ways through different bills. So, for me, the issue should go directly to the ballot so the people can decide. That’s how America was made. We’re supposed to be for the people, not for anything else.
Given the abortion ban after around six weeks, what, if anything, does the Legislature need to do to ensure access to fertility treatments or contraception?
Thompson: I am 100% for making contraception and IVF readily available. I’ve met plenty of people who might have made a poor choice one night and had to take Plan B the next day.
I’m all for keeping that stuff available. I know people who’ve had to use it — I understand it.
Wichtendahl: The main thing is to reverse the six-week abortion ban. Even though you can technically get an abortion in those six weeks, it’s virtually a complete ban.
Most women don’t know they’re pregnant before those six weeks, and it also has a chilling effect on doctors and health care providers. If they keep changing the law, it’s going to make things like infertility treatments and IVF more of an uncertainty.
Take what we saw in Newton with the reproductive care center closing, you’re either going to have to go farther or out of state for that care. Currently, UI still has a great fertility care center, but how long can that endure if the Legislature keeps interfering with peoples’ lives?
Next year, the state's Education Savings Accounts that families can use to send students to private schools will be available to everyone, regardless of income. Should there be a cap on what the state is willing to spend on ESAs?
Wichtendahl: I don’t support the voucher program because I think it’s an unaccountable boondoggle, and we’re paying more money to educate fewer students. It’s a fundamental misuse of tax dollars.
I went to private school from preschool through high school, and my parents understood that they’d take on that financial responsibility. They didn’t have the expectation that the state would be there to help out.
Iowa has great private schools; we’re spoiled for choice here. But the state should be funding its public schools. That’s the responsibility of the State of Iowa.
Thompson: Everything has to have a cap. You can’t just be spending as much as possible on everything, because that’s not fiscally responsible.
With the ESA program, from what I’ve heard from legislators and people using them, is that it’s tax money which is already available, which means it shouldn’t actually affect the state. My stance on the ESA program and public schools is that they both need to be funded.
My kids are in public school. I love that they’re there. We need to take politics out of this and focus on providing the best possible outcomes for the child. If we do that, we could have one of the best education systems in the United States. But we have to make it about the kids.
What more should the Legislature be doing to grow and improve Iowa's workforce?
Thompson: We need to cut red tape on businesses. Working in a nonprofit, I see the staffing struggles facing all kinds of businesses.
As a state legislator, it’s not our job to create jobs. That’s for businesses. Our job is to make it easier for them to create jobs, expand and grow.
What I would like to see is more tax breaks for small businesses. You see this everywhere, at the federal level and not just Iowa. We tend to give tax breaks to large corporations, which are funded by smaller businesses. I’d like to see that somewhat reversed.
That’ll grow our population, it’ll grow our economy, but we have to be business-friendly. We have to start working with small businesses.
Wichtendahl: There’s a lot the Legislature can do to promote workforce development. I know rural Iowa is being hollowed out because, despite promises from the Legislature, they never seem to invest in rural Iowa.
What we have right now is a workforce shortage — we simply can’t find enough people. I’ve talked to a lot of seniors who are concerned about who’s going to take care of them as they get older.
We can fix this through deferable, forgivable student loans that make it easier for health care providers to stay and practice in Iowa. That means we can give out a college loan for health care, but forgive it should the student decide to stay and practice in Iowa. No interest for ten years, and if you stay in Iowa for those ten years, the loan is automatically forgiven. That ensures that students stay in Iowa, and it's an investment in Iowans so they can get the services they need.
It provides a long-term benefit for a relatively reasonable investment.
