Early voting now open for House District 78. Here’s where the candidates stand on the issues

CEDAR RAPIDS — A long-standing member of Linn County Republican leadership and a Cedar Rapids community organizer are vying for an open spot in the Iowa House in an upcoming special election.

Republican Bernie Hayes faces Democrat Angel Ramirez in the race to represent House District 78, which includes a broad swath of southeast Cedar Rapids. Election Day is April 29, with polls open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

District 78 voters now can cast ballots early at the Linn County Auditor’s Office, 935 Second St. SW in Cedar Rapids. This week, the office is open 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday for early voting.

The winning candidate will replace former Democratic lawmaker Sami Scheetz, who was appointed April 1 to the Linn County Board of Supervisors and will serve out the reminder of an unexpired term through 2026.

Hayes and Ramirez, both of Cedar Rapids, are running on starkly different platforms that they each believe will benefit Cedar Rapids and the state. Here’s where they stand on key issues facing the Iowa Legislature:

Candidates outline priorities

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Bernie Hayes

Job: Retired systems engineer

Age: 70

City of residence: Cedar Rapids

Political experience: Current chair of Linn County Republicans, former member of the Republican State Central Committee. Assisted with several local and state-level campaigns.

Hayes, a retired systems engineer from Cedar Rapids and chair of the Linn County Republicans, is running on a platform of traditional family values and conservative fiscal practice.

If elected, he said three of his top priorities would be increasing landowner protections against eminent domain, lowering property taxes and helping Iowans’ weather the current economic uncertainty.

“People are concerned about their taxes … and they’re being hit everywhere else with some type of (cost) increase,” Hayes said. “I think we need to find a way to not just alleviate, but really address the whole issue.”

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Angel Ramirez

Job: Cofounder and executive director of Our Future

Age: 25

City of residence: Cedar Rapids

Political experience: Legislative aide to former state Sen. Rob Hogg, internship with the Linn County Board of Supervisors, assisted on several local campaigns

Ramirez also cited ongoing economic uncertainty as one of her motivations to run, noting that one of her key priorities if elected would be identifying ways to lower costs for working families. Her other priorities include bolstering state support for Iowa’s public schools and safeguarding the rights and civil liberties of Iowa’s marginalized populations.

Ramirez is cofounder and executive director for Our Future, a nonprofit fellowship program for emerging leaders in the Cedar Rapids area, and board president for equity-advocacy group Advocates for Social Justice.

“I believe that as Iowans we have some core values: We care about our community. We care about our kids and our workers,” she said. “These are some of the values we need to get back to, and I plan to use my skills” to make that happen if elected.

Candidates differ on education funding

Both candidates stressed the importance of Iowa’s education system, although they expressed different perspectives of the role of state government in that.

Hayes said be believes, like Ramirez, that education is a key tenant of supporting the success of young Iowans. Be he cast doubt on the utility of increasing state-allocated education funds to bolster that success.

Instead, Hayes pushed for identifying ways to directly reward students for finishing school — such as a program that would provide graduating students with a financial incentive such as a one-time payout or tax break.

“We need to reward people for doing life right … and I think there are ways we and the Legislature can look at that and incentivize folks to do the right thing,” said Hayes, the child of two teachers. “It gets back to the foundation of building solid families and solid support.”

Further, Hayes applauded recent moves by the Legislature to increase state oversight of schools’ curriculum and materials such as a 2023 law restricting schools from curriculum and instruction related to gender identity and sexual orientation for kindergarten through sixth grade.

Ramirez serves as a peace facilitator at the Kids First Law Center to bring restorative justice practices to the Cedar Rapids Community School District. She said she would push to increase state support for Iowa public schools.

She expressed opposition to Iowa’s educational savings account program, which allows families to use public funds to pay for private school tuition, and said those state funds should be channeled to better support public education.

“Our education system is the foundation of how we lift people up and out of poverty,” Ramirez said. “But if our schools are not funded (properly), our classroom sizes get bigger, we lose good teachers and we lose the resources we need to support students.”

Ramirez said matters of curriculum and materials should be left up to the districts and that the Iowa Legislature should step back from mandating or banning certain topics, books or other educational materials.

Property tax reform a shared goal

Both Hayes and Ramirez pledged to push for reforms to Iowa’s property tax system but espoused different plans for achieving that goal.

Hayes endorsed current Republican-led legislation that would implement a “revenue-restricted” system allowing taxation of the full assessed value of a property but adds exemptions for homeowners and limits the amount of new tax revenues that local governments are allowed to collect.

Local property tax revenues could increase each year by no more than 2 percent under the bill, with exceptions for new construction or in times of high inflation.

Further, he pushed for a more robust investment portfolio for state funds that would generate a higher return, which he said would offset the need for increased property tax collection.

“We need to fund the services that we get from the government, but the question is how we do that,” Hayes said. “Why don’t we invest in our state and … with the increased value, we don’t have to go digging into the pockets of residents.”

Ramirez also said she’d like to push for property tax relief, though she said a 2 percent cap for revenue growth is a step too far and could degrade local decision making.

“Local governments have more of a direct tap into what their community members need, so I would more so support letting those localized entities be able to dictate property tax rates” rather than the state, she said.

Instead, she’d like to see a slate of progressive reforms that could help residents, such as lowering the minimum age for the homestead tax credit currently only offered to homeowners who are 65 or older. The latest version of a bill in the Legislature calls for a $50,000 property tax exemption for every Iowa household.

Ramirez said residents’ property tax burden could be lessened by legislation aimed at improving their overall economic health, such as increasing the state minimum wage or bolstering the role of labor unions.

Find your polling place

In the April 29 special election for Iowa House District 78, polls will be open for in-person voting from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. To confirm your polling location, visit LinnCountyElections.org/lookup.

If you are voting by mail, all mail-in ballots must be returned and received by the Auditor’s Office by 8 p.m. April 29.

Abortion, DEI divide candidates

Hayes and Ramirez were most starkly divided on the social issues that have dominated recent legislative sessions, such as abortion and programs related to diversity, equity and inclusion.

Hayes, a longtime anti-abortion rights advocate, said he strongly supports Iowa’s current law that bans abortions when cardiac activity is detected within the embryo. He expressed his belief that life begins at conception, but said that would be difficult to codify into law.

“I’m pretty comfortable with the legislation that we have,” he said. “Now I think what needs to happen — and this isn’t necessarily a legislative thing — but we need to work with our neighbors and friends to convince them that life is valuable at all stages.”

Ramirez said current abortion laws are too restrictive, and that Iowans should have more say when it comes to their reproductive freedom.

She also expressed frustration with recent Iowa laws taking aim at diversity, equity and inclusion programs such as Senate File 507, which would ban city and county governments from establishing or maintaining DEI offices. The bill is one of several floated this session to limit or ban similar efforts at Iowa municipalities, schools and state-level entities.

“Some people would have you believe that diversity, equity and inclusion are dangerous ideas, but in reality, it’s having accessible buildings, better mental health rates for members of the LGBTQ community and giving people the resources they need to succeed,” Ramirez said. “Inclusion is not a threat. It’s actually our strength.”

Hayes said he would support state efforts to minimize publicly-funded DEI programs, arguing instead for “merit-based” programs and practices that do not expressly consider demographic factors.

Comments: grace.nieland@thegazette.com