This Monday Lunch Zoom session is turning into quite a happening. We have regulars. And each week we have newcomers. They are well informed, and each could be an equally fascinating Monday Zoom Lunch guest alone. They ask great questions.
The vibe feels like 18-20 friends gathered around for a potluck. The edible kind.
State Senator Jackie Smith, D-Sioux City, was our guest last week. She was our third guest in the series, and this format is proving to be a tool to introduce a gaggle of influencers to one another.
Smith is somewhat of an anomaly. She was a career Speech Pathologist who retired to run for the Woodbury County Board of Supervisors. She held the seat for two terms, then lost in a red wave. Smith then challenged a Republican incumbent Senator and won. With her first term almost under her belt, she’s up for re-election in what observers believe to be one of the most vulnerable districts in the state.
She’s knocked on over 200 doors so far and says the conversations are different than what she’s heard in the past. The constituents she meets with are targeted as ‘persuadable,’ either Independents or occasional voters. She asks what’s on their minds, and the dominant issue raised is guns and the need for common-sense reform.
Our meeting with Smith happened shortly after the massacre of children in a Texas elementary school, so it was the dominant issue on the news. This might have been a factor in why it was brought up so often, but Smith did find it remarkable because, in her experience, issues around who can own guns (raising the age limit to purchase, background checks, and ‘red flag’ laws prohibiting domestic abusers from purchasing guns and ammunition) are not brought up in ‘polite company.’
A man on our call told her he had a grandchild who was killed by a ‘ghost gun’ and hoped she would work to outlaw those.
Few Iowans know that in November, there will be a constitutional amendment on the ballot called the Iowa Right to Keep and Bear Arms Amendment. The goal of those who pushed it through the legislature is to stop any future Iowa laws designed to limit who can buy guns. This also guarantees tons of money will be spent by the gun lobby to pass this amendment to the Iowa Constitution. And they’ll be gunning for candidates like Smith again, blasting ads saying she wants to ‘get their guns,’ and pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into the race.
[As I type these words, Senator Chris Murphy of Ct Tweeted: NEWS: We have a deal. Today a bipartisan group of 20 Senators (10 D and 10 R) is announcing a breakthrough agreement on gun violence - the first in 30 years - that will save lives. I think you’ll be surprised at the scope of our framework.]
Zoomer Brice Oakley served in the Iowa Legislature and recently retired as a lobbyist. He acknowledged the Senator for going door to door and harkened back to a revered legislator named Dick Drake from Muscatine, who taught him that even being in the minority, a legislator can have an impact, especially if they door-knock.
“Dick Drake told me that it’s people’s stories that move legislation,” said Oakley. “There might be some piece of legislation that you’re not even involved with, but you learned something from someone you met doorknocking. And you can offer that expertise and make a difference.”
“That’s so true. I needed that,” said Smith. “I’m speaking to firefighters tonight and was asked to talk about what a member can do, even in the minority. You just did my homework for me.”
Chuck Offenburger is in the ‘regular’ category. His questions are steeped in his decades of covering Iowa as a columnist for The Des Moines Register. Pollster J. Ann Selzer is another regular, although she is quick to point out her interest is in learning what is on the voters' minds, not as a politico but as a nonpartisan analyst.
Offenburger made an observation, then asked a question.
“I’ve noticed higher education seems to be under attack,” he said. “Do you know how many legislators have a 4-year college degree?”
Smith had wondered the same thing, got out the Red Book (full of information about state office holders), and discovered not so many. And she believes it helps explain why there is such distrust of education.
The Board of Regents was hit with an $8mm cut about five years ago, said Smith. There was a bit of back and forth, but they still ended up with less than they had budgeted.
Is it hard to recruit candidates to run? The pay is $25,000 a year, and the job is not only that of a legislator, but one must be a legislator and a full-time candidate on the phone raising money.
“It’s not right. It’s not right,” said the citizen legislator. “We have to become a telemarketer, cold-calling people for money. You don’t have a chance of winning if you don’t do media.
“Still, my district is compact. I believe I will win it on my feet, door-knocking, and talking to people.”
And that’s what keeps Smith going. When she was little, she learned at the knee of her folks, Betty and Darrell Strong, whose Sioux City home became precinct headquarters for candidates.
And so, serving too is in her bones:
“I’m a retired educator. I can do this. It’s the people at the doors that keep me going. They need us.”
https://www.senate.iowa.gov/senator/jackie-smith/links/
Smith’s ActBlue link: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/JackieForIowaCampaignKickoff
Monday Zoom Lunch with Laura Belin
Has it not even been a week since the Iowa Primary? How time flies. Today’s Monday Zoom Lunch guest is Iowa political analyst Laura Belin. She follows the Iowa Legislature, and those who seek the office, in her blog Bleeding Heartland.
You will receive a link to this session if you are a paid subscriber. We’ll begin at noon.
Proceeds from these subscriptions help fund the Okoboji Writers’ Retreat Scholarship Fund. Learn more about the retreat: www.okobojiwritersretreat.com
I am the man who mentioned the grandson shot in the head with a so-called ghost gun. Julie, I must write to clarify and perhaps supplement the comments I made during the session last Monday. Thanks to stellar medical care he received, and prayers from many people, the young man is alive today. The projectile hit the occipital bone above his right eye and fragmented upon impact. The fragments entered his skull through the right eye, which he lost. One fragment remains lodged in his brain, deemed too deep to safely remove. The good news is that he recovered quickly enough to complete high school with his class and graduate last month. But the remainder of his life has been inalterably changed by the actions of another 17-year-old boy who somehow acquired the ghost gun and brought it, with ammunition, to a small gathering of teenagers at a suburban home. The ready availability of the components needed to construct a ghost gun to virtually anyone - including minors - must be addressed.