Meet the candidates: Three Democrats vie to unseat E. Iowa GOP lawmaker

Three Democrats are seeking their party’s nomination in the hopes of taking on a longtime Republican incumbent for an Eastern Iowa Statehouse seat.

John Anderson of Tama, Tommy Hexter of Grinnell and Jennifer Wrage of rural Gladbrook will appear on the June 4 primary ballot in a three-way race for the Democratic nomination to run in House District 53 against longtime incumbent Dean Fisher, a Republican from Montour, in the November general election.

The district covers Poweshiek County and most of Tama County. Only Democratic voters in the district can vote in the primary.

Fisher is a retired farmer and founder and board president of the newly created Tama-Toledo Christian School. He is serving in his sixth term in the Iowa House.

Anderson, an engineering technician, previously ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for the redrawn Iowa House seat in 2020 and 2016. He also unsuccessfully ran last November for Tama mayor, losing to incumbent Brian Hanus. Anderson said he’s running to root out what he asserts is “high-level corruption in the academic community” related to the placement of subliminal messages in college textbooks.

Hexter currently works as a rural organizer for the Iowa Farmers Union while also serving as executive director of Grinnell Farm to Table. In 2020, he was elected to the Poweshiek County Soil and Water Conservation District.

Wrage is a sixth-grade teacher for the Gladbrook-Reinbeck Community School District in Reinbeck.

John Anderson

Age: 62

Home: Tama

Occupation: Engineering technician

Party: Democrat

Political experience: Previously ran unsuccessfully for the Iowa House in 2020 and 2016 and for mayor of Tama in 2023.

Highest level of education: Attended the University of Iowa and studied engineering

Tommy Hexter

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Age: 24

Home: Grinnell

Occupation: Hexter works as a rural organizer for the Iowa Farmers Union and serves as executive director of Grinnell Farm to Table.

Party: Democrat

Political experience: In 2020, he was elected to the Poweshiek County Soil and Water Conservation District

Highest level of education: Bachelor’s degree in anthropology from Grinnell College

Hexter said he’s running out of a desire to put the needs of Iowans over corporate interests he sees having an outsized hand in guiding legislation in Des Moines.

He pointed to a push by Bayer, maker of the glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup, to prohibit lawsuits over warning labels on pesticides. The proposed legislation ultimately failed to gain sufficient support among Iowa lawmakers to pass this year. The topic is likely to return to the legislative agenda in 2025.

The bill’s supporters say it is needed to close a legal loophole and help pesticide manufacturers manage the costs of weed killers, while critics say Iowans who get sick from pesticides should have legal recourse, including over its labeling.

“I’m running to try and represent decisions that will actually benefit the average person, rather than big industry,” Hexter told The Gazette. “I think there’s too many people going unrepresented in my district. I meet a lot of families that are struggling hard to find food to eat or an affordable place to live or medical care, or all of the above, through no fault of their own.”

Hexter said he’s running to make Iowa a more livable place, particularly for young people like himself.

“There are young people … who would like to live in Iowa, but are afraid to because of how bleak things are here,” he said.

He said insufficient funding of public education and sparse access to reproductive health care are “turning away opportunities for the next generation to live here.”

Hexter said he opposes Iowa’s law that provides taxpayer-funded scholarships to families to send their children to private school.

“You’re explicitly taking money way from public schools and leaving public school teachers and students out to dry,” he said.

If elected, Hexter said he would push the state to reinvest in public schools, remove new requirements for receiving public benefits that make it more difficult for low-income Iowans to receive food and health care assistance and continue support to expand local and regional food systems.

“I’m young. I’m frustrated with our government,” Hexter said. “Frustrated with centralization of government and power of corporations in Iowa, and I think that’s a unifying message across parties.”

Jennifer Wrage

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Age: 62

Home: Gladbrook

Occupation: Sixth-grade teacher at Gladbrook-Reinbeck Elementary

Party: Democrat

Political experience: Served on Tama County Extension Board for 13 years; chief negotiator for local teachers’ union

Highest level of education: Bachelor’s degree in elementary education from the University of Northern Iowa

Wrage said she was prompted to the run for the seat in the wake of recent laws she fears will undermine public education in Iowa. That includes passage of publicly funded education savings accounts used by eligible families to cover tuition, fees and other qualified education expenses at private schools.

It also includes a new law that changes the funding and function of the state’s area education agencies that provide special education and other services to Iowa school districts.

“I want to be an advocate for local schools,” Wrage said. “We rely on the AEAs for so many things, not just for special education, but they help with crisis management and to assist students who are hearing impaired. I just am afraid those services are going to disappear and (school districts) will have to self-fund them.”

Regarding ESAs, Wrage said parents should be able to decide and have the option of which school to send their children and choose the best educational environment for their child.

“I don’t have any problem with that, but the public tax money should go to public schools,” she said. “I think the voucher system will be the downfall of our public schools. When they take the income cap off, we’ll see the full impact — especially when they’re funding the public schools at 2.5 percent (supplemental state aid) when inflation and cost-of-living adjustments are much higher.”

Wrage also spoke of the need for stronger mental health services for students and families, and the difficulty getting those services in a timely manner.

If elected, she said she would also fight to protect women’s reproductive rights.

“I am not pro-abortion. I am pro-choice, and it should be a decision left to women … who shouldn’t have to wait until their life is endanger to get an abortion,” Wrage said.

Given Gov. Kim Reynolds and Iowa Republican lawmakers’ push for education reforms in recent years, Wrage said Iowans need people like herself that have experience in education and know what challenges public schools are facing and the implications of lawmakers’ actions.

“I’ve been involved in many different civic, religious and elected positions,” she said. “I’m a lifelong learner. … I will research, talk to people and listen … to make comprises and make decisions” to better the lives of Iowans.

Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com