Todd Taylor seeking re-election in new Linn County Senate district

CEDAR RAPIDS — State Sen. Todd Taylor, a Cedar Rapids Democrat, will run for re-election in 2022 in the newly drawn Senate 40 that includes Hiawatha, Robins and parts of Cedar Rapids.

Taylor, 55, who served 12 terms in the Iowa House before being elected to the Senate in 2018, is running because there is “so much we need to do yet to help middle-class families.”

Although Republicans control both the House and Senate, Taylor said Democrats need to “roll back the bad legislation that Republicans have enacted, and we need to pass good legislation to boost paychecks, address our workforce shortage and fix our child care crisis.”

Taylor serves on the Senate Appropriations, Ways and Means, Transportation and Labor and Business committees. He is the ranking Democrat on the Justice System appropriations budget subcommittee, working on public safety and criminal justice issues.

“I think we need to enact laws that help keep us safe,” Taylor said. “We must have a fair court and penal system. I believe in restorative justice and due process, and we need to invest in these systems for a better society.”

As a legislator, Taylor has worked to prevent insurance companies from kicking new mothers out of the hospital within 2 -hours of giving birth, expand access to quality, affordable preschool and enact Iowa’s workplace smoking ban.

Taylor, who has retired from his position with AFSCME, “has wholeheartedly fought for all workers’ rights in Iowa,” according to Rick Moyle, executive director of the Hawkeye Area Labor Council AFL-CIO.

“Whether Sen. Todd Taylor is volunteering on our food bank program, standing with striking workers, walking for a cause like breast cancer awareness, or holding town hall meetings, Todd is involved in our community and seeks to make it better,” Moyle said. He also has helped raise funds for the union’s annual Honor Flight for veterans.

As a union representative and elected official, Taylor has been an advocate for working Iowans by supporting legislation to improve worker safety and compensation, and has prioritized apprenticeship and job training for people transitioning into new work.

“Iowans deserve clean water, great public education and an affordable, high quality of living,” Taylor said.

Taylor, a Graceland University graduate, lives in Cedar Rapids with his wife, Kim. They have two children.

So far, Taylor is the lone candidate in Senate 40. He was unopposed in both the primary and general elections in 2018 when he ran to succeed Sen. Wally Horn, D-Cedar Rapids.

For more on Taylor, visit https://www.facebook.com/toddtaylorforstatesenate/.

Senators serve four-year terms and are paid $25,000 a year plus a $172 per diem when they are in session.

The primary election will be June 7 and the general election Nov. 8.

Comments: (319) 398-8375; james.lynch@thegazette.com