Hart’s on the job, but Democrats still face a rocky path

Rita Hart, chair of the Iowa Democratic Party, likes to compare her job to picking up rocks in a farm field before planting begins.

“We do that every spring. And that's what this job is, is like,” Hart told me in an interview. “Despite the heat and the boringness of the task. And the insurmountable nature in the fact that you look across the field, and it looks like you're raising rocks, instead of picking them up. But you got to do it anyway. And you see the results as the wagon fills up. That's the job here.”

Democrats in Iowa have been crushed by political boulders over the last four election cycles. Then there are the fossils, who insist looking backward is the best way to move forward. Hart’s rocky metaphor is intended to describe the grunt work needed to rebuild county parties, recruit candidates and raise money needed to make those candidates competitive.

Hart said she’s uncovered some gems while picking through all those stones.

An Iowa Poll showed Democratic State Auditor Rob Sand is the most popular statewide elected official, receiving higher ratings from respondents than Republicans such as Gov. Kim Reynolds and Attorney General Brenna Bird. The same poll showed that the 1st and 3rd Congressional District seats held by Republicans are potentially in play for Democrats. With some luck, maybe Democrats whittle down the size of massive GOP legislative majorities.

So, what would success look like on Election Day?

“Yeah, I would be realistic about that I'm not expecting, you know, for everything to turn on a dime here, it's not going to,” said Hart, a former state lawmaker who was Fred Hubbell’s gubernatorial running mate and lost a congressional election by six votes. “But we're going to do better this fall than we have in past in the last couple of cycles.”

Hart believes the key to victory is talking a lot about Republicans and their extreme agenda. She points to changes in the way Area Education Agencies operate that stoked opposition across party lines. There’s the six-week abortion ban, which would deliver one of the nation’s sharpest blows against reproductive freedom. There’s school library book banning, the assault on public education and publicly funded private school scholarships expected to cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars yearly when fully implemented.

“There's been a lot of things that have happened here. I hear from so many people who say they don't recognize the Iowa I grew up in,” Hart said.

If Democrats have a bold new agenda beyond assailing Republican misdeeds, Hart wasn’t sharing it.

Take environmental protection.

I asked her about the fact that most Democrats still embrace ethanol, despite how the overproduction of corn to produce the fuel additive is polluting our water. Few Democratic candidates have been willing to call for even modest regulations imploring farmers to protect our waters.

“Our economy depends so much on agriculture, and these are not easy solutions to come by. You know, you’re talking to a farmer here,” Hart said. “My husband and I farm, and I would tell you that farmers are talking about this all the time and take it seriously.

“I think, again, you know, the Democratic Party is a big tent and, and there's lots of room for lots of different opinions on how to go about this,” Hart said.

Hart said a change in state leadership will make environmental protection a priority. She pointed to Minnesota, which requires buffer strips along waterways that help soak up field runoff. She said regulation is possible, but only if done “in cooperation.”

So, it sounds like the Democrats’ message on water quality will be status quo?

“Well, now, Todd, you know, you're not talking to a legislator anymore, you're talking to the party chair,” Hart said. “And so, I'm going to leave that to the legislators. But I can tell you that this is something that Democrats value, and we want to see a change in.”

Value more than not ticking off agricultural interests? Signs point to no.

I also asked Hart about criticism that Democrats failed to make rural inroads by taking a stronger public stance against using eminent domain for private pipelines carrying carbon from ethanol plants to underground storage.

“I would tell you that, you know, yes, we've got, again, under the Democratic umbrella, we've got lots of opinions about issues like the pipeline,” Hart said. “But the bottom line is, Democrats don't believe that private entities ought to be able to make a lot of money utilizing eminent domain.”

That’s encouraging. But will Democratic candidates faced with a choice between a bold stance on ethanol’s downsides and the easier choice of propping the industry up yet again be able to quit ethanol? We’ll have to see what emerges from the big tent.

And I get it. Hart is trying to rebuild her party, not get into the policy weeds. But simply opposing Republican actions is not enough. It’s been tried.

Democrats are going to have to take a stronger stand in arguing their vision is better. And they won’t be getting an airdrop of big bucks from the national party.

“My message to Iowans is that nobody's coming in to save us, we've got to do this ourselves,” Hart said. “And there's no reason why we can't. The Republicans are obviously out of sync with Iowa values. And so, we are determined to turn these things around.”

Call me a hopeful skeptic. But Hart is out in the field, fighting the good fight and clearing away the rocks.

(319) 398-8262; todd.dorman@thegazette.com