Voters in Altoona, part of southern Ankeny, a small northeast part of Des Moines, and some unincorporated areas in between have the choice to elect Republican Rep. Bill Gustoff or Democratic challenger Heather Sievers to represent District 40 in the Iowa House of Representatives.
Gustoff, 56, was first elected to the House in 2022. He is a lawyer who lives in Des Moines.
Sievers, 39, is a nurse and works in health care leadership. It’s her first time running for a Statehouse seat. She has led efforts at the Iowa Capitol to advocate for special education and services for children with disabilities. Sievers lives in Altoona.
IPR News has been reaching out to candidates in some key Statehouse races to ask them about their positions on important issues. Here is what Sievers had to say. Her answers have been edited for brevity and clarity. Gustoff initially expressed interest in an interview but ultimately told IPR News he would not be able to make it work with his schedule in the final days of the campaign.
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?
Sievers: I feel like we’re kind of in the defense right now, trying to repair some of the damage done. But I really think that we have to start investing in our public services, and there’s been a lot of energy going into privatization. So there’s so many things that we have to do. So I do believe we have to focus on incremental change. We’re going to have to slowly build up, but I think we have to start with public services.
I would really like to see us be able to give enough funding to our public schools so that they can have the resources that they need. I also really would like to repair some of the funding into special education services that was continuously taken in every legislative session. And as a nurse and health care professional, I really believe that we have to start focusing on health insurance companies. Medicare and Medicaid — we pay into those services our whole lives, and they’re continuing to deny care when care is needed most. And I would like to focus on how we can hold some accountability to those organizations.
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?
Sievers: I do not believe in extreme legislation. Income tax is really important because this is actually what brings in our state revenue. So if we get rid of that completely, we’re not really going to have money coming into the state.
These are things that are so critical for making sure that we have money to reinvest across the state. This includes the public services that I’m talking about. Easterseals is one that I love to talk about because they are one of the greatest places that serves children all the way into adulthood — works with veterans, crisis intervention, housing services — and they really need extra support, and we’re not putting funding into them while we have money.
So I really do worry that we need to find balanced tax reform. That means looking at property taxes, income taxes — we don’t want our sales taxes to go up or our property taxes to go up because we are completely cutting income tax. Money has to come from somewhere.
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?
Sievers: I am in the medical field, and I think the majority of Iowans have been very outspoken about the fact that they don’t want the government involved in women’s health care decisions, or any health care decisions. So I think we need to restore women’s rights here in Iowa.
Most people didn’t want this bill to pass, so I think it needs to be repealed. I have seen what happens in the hospitals when people can’t get access to health care, and this is just driving up the problem. We already have lost so many providers in the state. And the biggest thing that I have a concern with is there’s a lot of rhetoric around this law.
We are not in an abortion crisis in the state. There’s a lot of people talking about late-term abortion. And if people actually do the research on this, this only happens when there is a complication. So a mother has carried their baby all the way into late-term pregnancy, and the only thing this is, is an extreme trauma, and we don’t need government getting involved and making those situations worse.
What, if anything, does the Legislature need to do to ensure access to fertility treatments or contraception?
Sievers: We need to make sure in the next legislative session that not only are we repealing what’s already been put in place, but we also need to make sure that other legislation that came forward last session does not pass. Otherwise, we will be in a situation where IVF will be next on the chopping block. If the prior legislation would have passed, it would have impacted IVF.
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?
Sievers: Yes. There’s a lot of rhetoric around this being about school choice. But if you actually look at the way the legislation is written — this is what people are most concerned about in year three — is even if the state allocates a certain amount of millions of dollars to go into the voucher program, because there’s no caps. It’s unlimited.
So whoever asks for it, even the richest family in the state with kids already in private school, they will get that money. And there’s only so much money for education in the government pot, so the more that we spend, the less that’s left over in that pot at the end of the year to keep our public schools funded. So this is a situation where we have to get control of this voucher bill, and this is not fiscally responsible. This is actually irresponsible with the money and actually is hurting our public schools across the state already. I’m very concerned about next year.
Should the Legislature have a role in making sure private schools that get this state funding don’t rapidly raise tuition rates?
Sievers: Yes. I just feel like if you’re going to be using public dollars, you need to be held to the same accountability. That comes to accreditation, that comes to reporting how that money is spent. Public schools have to report every penny, every nickel, it has to be reported in. And there’s very stringent accreditation standards that they have to follow, and lots of monitoring from the government. I think if our private schools are going to be using that money, they need to be held to the same accountability.
What more should the Legislature be doing to grow and improve the state’s workforce?
Sievers: We have to be investing in trades programs and not just pushing college. We need alternative postsecondary school. Also, 35% of the kids that graduate from here leave. So we don’t need more jobs, we need more people to stay in this state.
We have to make this a place that’s competitive. I know that we are in a place of inflation, but we have to figure out how to work with businesses, and small businesses especially, to figure out how we can increase the minimum wage. We cannot have people trying to survive here on $7.25 an hour. It’s our responsibility as a state to take care of our people, and this is one step forward.
