O’Brien running for Iowa 1st District U.S. House seat to rebuild middle class

Dave O'Brien wants to go to Congress to rebuild the middle class, rebuild America and “bring reason and logic back to public policy debate.”

It's a tall order, the Cedar Rapids Democrat said Wednesday in announcing his campaign in Iowa's U.S. House 1

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District.

There's no shortage of bad, “anti-middle class ideas” coming out of the Republican Party and O'Brien is “sick and tired of playing defense.”

“I want to go the on offensive with an aggressive and progressive policy agenda,” he said at his announcement in Greene Square Park in downtown Cedar Rapids.

He's running for the open seat because “my generation is on the verge of handing the country off to our children in worse condition than we found it.”

“We can and must do better,” said O'Brien, who with his wife, Stacey, has four children.

The first step is to help the middle class share fully in the nation's economic recovery.

“America's coming back,” O'Brien said. “The problem is that the middle class is not feeling the full effect of this recovery. Those at the top have watched their portfolios grow, but too many middle class families are struggling. More than two-thirds of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.”

A strong middle class means a strong America, he added.

He literally means a strong America -- investing in roads, bridges, water treatment plants and other American infrastructure.

“It's shameful that Iowa bridges are third worst in America,” he said. “We can't grow our jobs when 21 percent of Iowa bridges are structurally deficient. We can't ask businesses to relocate into our communities with structurally deficient infrastructure.”

Updating infrastructure is “a solid investment in our future, in our children's future” that creates jobs, connects rural communities and allows businesses to expand, he said.

O'Brien believes his experience as an attorney and his work in Democratic presidential administrations sets him apart from the field of candidates for the seat now held by Waterloo Democrat Rep. Bruce Braley.

So far the field includes Rep. Pat Murphy of Dubuque and Cedar Rapids City Councilwoman Monica Vernon, and Rep. Anesa Kajtazovic of Waterloo and former legislator Swati Dandekar of Marion who have formed exploratory committees.

In addition, it's not O'Brien's first run for Congress. In 1988, a 30-year-old O'Brien unsuccessfully challenged Republican U.S. Rep. Fred Grandy in northwest Iowa. That experience helped O'Brien make connections, including now Vice President Joe Biden and former President Bill Clinton. Later, he served as state chair for the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign and then joined the Department of Labor under Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich.

An attorney, O'Brien's practice consists of representing people whose rights have been violated.

“All of my life I have been willing to listen to the other sides of arguments, consider facts contrary to those I believe and defend my position with reasoned, fact-based arguments,” he said. “You don't see a lot of that in Congress any more, but it's something that is desperately needed.

“I'm proud of what I do for a living,” O'Brien said. “I'm running for Congress because I want to expand the scope of the people I represent from clients on an individual basis to representing every single resident of the 1

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District.”

For more on O'Brien, visit www.obrienforiowa.com.

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