Abortion, education priorities for Christina Bohannan campaign

DES MOINES — A new election and a new candidate at the top of the ticket are making all the difference, Christina Bohannan insists.

Bohannan, a Democrat from Iowa City, is running a second campaign against Republican incumbent U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks in Southeastern Eastern Iowa’s 1st Congressional District.

Miller-Meeks — who came to Congress with a six-vote victory in 2020 — in her 2022 re-election defeated Bohannan by roughly 7 percentage points.

But this year, with a new Democratic presidential candidate in Vice President Kamala Harris — who Democrats nominated after President Joe Biden ended his re-election bid shortly after the first presidential debate — the difference between 2022 and 2024 is “night and day,” Bohannan said.

“In a presidential year election like this, it’s a whole different ball game, and the level of energy and excitement and momentum we are feeling is just incredible,” Bohannan told The Gazette recently during an interview discussing her campaign at a Des Moines coffee shop. “People who have never put out a yard sign before are taking our yard signs. We cannot keep yard signs in the office. They’ve been flying out the door. We have people who have never knocked a door in their lives wanting to knock doors and get out there. …

“People are energized. They're engaged. They want a change in our politics.”

Bohannan’s challenge of Miller-Meeks could be closer than two years ago. Recently, national elections forecasters have changed their classification of the 1st District election to a toss-up — after previously projecting the campaign with a Republican lean.

The Cook Political Report, Fox News and Inside Elections now consider Iowa’s 1st District a true toss-up. But some forecasters, like Sabato’s Crystal Ball, still have the 1st District leaning Republican.

As of Oct. 1, there were nearly 150,000 Republican active registered voters in the and more than 129,000 Democratic active registered voters, according to Iowa Secretary of State data. Another 126,000 active voters in the district claim no political party. The 20-county district includes Iowa City, Davenport and rural Southeast Iowa.

Outside groups believe Iowa’s 1st District is competitive and worth investing in: They have spent more than $4.2 million on the campaign, according to Open Secrets, a nonpartisan and nonprofit news site that tracks political spending.

Of that outside spending, $2.3 million has been spent to support Miller-Meeks or oppose Bohannan, while $1.9 million has been spent to support Bohannan or oppose Miller-Meeks.

Bohannan, 53, is a University of Iowa law professor and former state lawmaker. She lives in Iowa City.

Bohannan said she believes Iowa’s 1st District voters are tired of “craziness” and “extremism” in federal politics, and of politicians fighting with political opponents rather than working together to represent the people of their districts. She said she believes those feelings will motivate voters in the Nov. 5 election.

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Abortion

A 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturned decades of precedent and eliminated what had been a federal right to an abortion up to roughly 24 to 28 weeks of pregnancy. The court’s ruling cleared the way for states to pass their own abortion laws.

Bohannan said she wants to codify into federal law the provisions of Roe v. Wade before it was struck down. Under that framework, states could not restrict abortions before a fetus could survive outside the womb, which typically occurs around 24 to 28 weeks of pregnancy.

“Go back to the status quo. Go back to Roe v. Wade, before the (2022) decision. Go back to Iowa’s old law, before all of this happened,” Bohannan said. “I think that's a pretty balanced approach to this, nothing extreme, one way or the other. Just go back to what it was, what people were comfortable with for half a century.”

In Iowa, a 2017 law banned abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy. Earlier this year, the Iowa Supreme Court upheld a new law, passed in 2023, that bans abortions once cardiac activity can be detected, which is typically around the sixth week, usually before a woman is aware of the pregnancy.

Bohannan criticized Miller-Meeks’ stance on abortion. Miller-Meeks said she believes there would be “consensus” around a federal abortion ban at 15 weeks of pregnancy, and that she supports exceptions for legal abortions in cases of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is in danger.

However, Bohannan points to Miller-Meeks’ previous support for federal legislation that states life begins at fertilization and would criminalize abortion, but would not allow the woman having the procedure to be prosecuted. It has no exceptions for rape, incest or the woman’s life, and does not spell out protections for fertility treatments. Miller-Meeks cosponsored the bill in the 2021-2022 Congress, but not in the current Congress.

Bohannan also pointed to Miller-Meeks’ votes while she served in the Iowa Legislature in support of an amendment that would have said the Iowa Constitution does not guarantee the right to an abortion, and for a bill that would have changed state law that establishes punishments for the involuntary termination of another person’s pregnancy by changing the term “pregnancy” to “unborn person.”

“The fact is that she has signed on to multiple abortion bans through her time in politics, and has described herself as 100 percent pro-life,” Bohannan said. “So I think it’s really misleading to voters now at election time to say, ‘Oh, I’m moderate on this issue.’ There is nothing moderate about her record on this. Her record is very clear. It’s extreme and it’s very bad for women in Iowa.”

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Immigration

Miller-Meeks has criticized the Biden administration’s enforcement and alterations of immigration policies, pointing specifically to a pair of policies enacted by then-President Donald Trump that President Joe Biden later ended.

Migrant encounters reached a record high by the end of 2023, but have fallen off sharply this year, the Pew Research Center reported.

Bohannan said she would support legislation “to secure the border.”

“We have to secure the border. Full stop,” Bohannan said. “We have to stop the flow of fentanyl coming across. It’s killing our kids. It’s destroying our communities. We have to do that.”

When asked about specific immigration policy, like the so-called “catch and release” policy under which a migrant is released by immigration courts while awaiting a hearing, Bohannan said, “We can talk about the details of some of those things, but we have to elect people who are going to take this seriously and stop playing political games on it. That’s the bottom line.”

Bohannan said she would have voted for the bipartisan immigration enforcement bill that was negotiated by Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. Senate but was shelved by Republicans after Trump encouraged its defeat. Bohannan also criticized Miller-Meeks and House Republicans for not taking up the Senate bill; but that choice is made by party leadership, not Miller-Meeks.

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Economy

While Miller-Meeks has blamed inflation and high prices on federal spending enacted under all-Democrat control, Bohannan said Congress should monitor large companies for price gouging. Bohannan said she believes some companies increased prices when supply chain issues arose earlier in the COVID-19 pandemic, and that those prices never lowered.

“We have to take action on price gouging, on gas, on groceries, on a number of things,” Bohannan said. “I would really be aggressive about going after corporations who engage in price gouging. That includes some of the big ag companies and the food producers, meatpacking as well as gasoline. …

“I will take action, whatever is in Congress’s power, to bring down those costs,” she said.

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Foreign policy

Bohannan said it is in the U.S. national interest that Russian President Vladimir is stopped in his country’s war against Ukraine. But she said U.S. aid to Ukraine should not be “a blank check.”

As for Israel’s war against Hamas, Bohannan stressed a need to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. She said an expanded war in the Middle East must be avoided.

When asked about some calls for the United States to start limiting the military aid it provides to Israel given the devastation in Gaza, including the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians, Bohannan said there is not “consensus” on the issue in the 1st District, and that she wants to focus on issues on which there is consensus — like public education, women’s health care and child care.

“Look, this is an issue. It’s really difficult. I am very sad to see all of the violence that has happened there,” Bohannan said. “But I will also say there is very little consensus on this issue, sadly. I wish there were. I wish we had consensus on what we should be doing there. My district, I think, is split almost exactly half and half on this issue.

“And so what I want to do is focus on the areas where we have consensus and try to do some good things for people right here in Iowa.”

Editor’s note

On Oct. 14, nine days after The Gazette’s interview with Bohannan and after this story published, a spokeswoman for Bohannan reached out to The Gazette to say Bohannan wished to clarify her stance on this topic.

The spokeswoman issued this statement, from Bohannan: “I oppose conditioning or ending military aid to Israel, particularly when Israeli civilians have been under attack from Iranian missiles.”

Comments: (515) 355-1300, erin.murphy@thegazette.com