One Iowa in the News: Will the mud fly in Iowa Senate 18 race?
from The Gazette.
Special elections for Iowa legislative seats have a history of being intense, expensive and often nasty. Folks on both sides of the Senate 18 race say they’re looking for fair, clean, high-minded campaigns — unless the other side goes negative.
“Nasty? It certainly has that potential,” said Troy Price, executive director of One Iowa, the state’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy organization. He’s also predicted the race will be the most expensive in Iowa history — a point on which there is considerably more agreement than whether the race will be a lesson in civil political discourse. Some estimate as much as $1 million could be spent on the race for a job that pays $25,000 a year.
Republican Cindy Golding, 58, of rural Cedar Rapids, “will have the resources she needs to be successful,” said Matt Strawn, chairman of the Republican Party of Iowa. “We’ll do our best to match what the other side does,” Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, said about financial support for Democrat Liz Mathis, 53, of Robins. ...The GOP-controlled House earlier this year passed a resolution to put a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage on the ballot. Although it appears there may be enough votes in the Senate to pass the resolution, Gronstal has promised to block any action. That would be harder to do is Golding wins and he loses his 26-24 majority.
One Iowa’s Price worries some groups will attempt to make the race about same-sex marriage. “But it’s not,” he said. “There are far too many issues facing Iowa for the election to be about any one issue.” If history is any indication, groups on both sides of the issue are likely to make it the central issue. In 2009, the New Jersey-based National Organization for Marriage spent $90,000 in a Jefferson County special election where both the Democratic and Republican candidates supported a measure to allow Iowans to vote on a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. That’s not the case in Senate 18.
“As most Iowans, I support the judges upholding the Constitution,” Mathis said. “There has been a clamoring across the state to just have a voice,” Golding said. “And I think, you know, whichever way it goes, the people ought to decide.” Seattle-based gay rights organizer Joe Mirabella recently blogged at the Huffington Post that “rarely is so much at stake for a local election.” “You have to get involved right now. There has never been a bigger threat to equality in Iowa than this moment,” Mirabella blogged, including a link to One Iowa’s fundraising Web page. Read the full article from The Gazette.
...Right now, the Democrats have a 26 to 24 majority in the Senate that they’d like to hold. The Republicans, who control the Iowa House and the governor’s office, are aiming for a 25-25 sharing of power.
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