Golding: Media making Iowa Senate 18 election a single-issue race

“Values voters” were encouraged to make their decision in the Nov. 8 special election that could change the balance of power in the Iowa Senate not on a single issue, but a range of issues.

At a rally with the Family Research Council Action's Values Voters Bus Tour and the National Organization for Marriage, a day ahead of an election to fill a vacancy in Iowa Senate 18, Republican Cindy Golding told supporters not to accept media attempts to make the race about any one issue, especially same-sex marriage.

Opponents of same-sex marriage see the special election in the Linn County Senate district as critical for giving Iowans an opportunity to vote on a constitutional amendment banning the practice that has been legal in Iowa since the state Supreme Court struck down a state ban in 2009. That's because Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, has vowed to block action on a House-passed resolution to put the issue on the ballot.

“Sen. Gronstal has said ‘over my dead body.' Where does that fit in our democracy?” Christopher Plante of NOM asked at the rally. “Let the people vote. We're good with that. That's all we're asking for.”

Golding supports a referendum on same-sex marriage, but said there's more at stake.

“I want to encourage voters ‘Don't vote on a single issue, vote on all of those other values that are important to you that make Iowa as great as it has been and as great as it can be in the future,'” Golding said Nov. 7.

“It is not a single issue, it is one of several issues that brings us together to change this state,” she said.

Golding was reacting to the endorsement of her opponent, Democrat Liz Mathis, also of Cedar Rapids, by The Gazette Sunday. After a discussion of various issues, The Gazette editorialized:

“We're also troubled by Golding's call for holding a vote on a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages in Iowa. This editorial page has stood strongly for the right of gay and lesbian Iowans to enjoy civil marriage rights. The fact that Golding would risk those constitutional rights in a divisive public vote to, as she said, take the ‘spotlight' off Iowa, gave us pause.”

Golding found it ironic that, in her opinion, The Gazette Editorial Board's decision came down to the candidates' positions on same-sex marriage, which became legal in Iowa after a state Supreme Court decision in 2009.

“How often has The Gazette chastised voters for being single-issue (voters)?” she asked about 15 people at the rally in the Walmart parking lot in Marion. “The media has made it a single-issue, not us.

“We want to talk about all of the things the Senate has stalled, the 83 percent of the issues that were bipartisan that Sen. (Mike) Gronstal refused to bring to the floor,” Golding said. “It is The Gazette and media that have made this a single-issue (race).”

A poll of Senate 18 voters suggests same-sex marriage is not the chief concern of voters. Public Policy Polling found that only 11 percent of Senate 18 voters identified same-sex marriage as their No. 1 issue.

However, that differs from PPP's polling in October that found a majority of Iowans think same-sex marriage should not be legal in Iowa.

Polling in October found that Iowans favored a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage by a 50 percent to 43 percent margin.

NOM has spent about $25,000 in Senate 18 for mailers and calls to voters.