Iowa House 66 candidates have widely different views on education, abortion

Steven Bradley, Republican candidate for Iowa House District 66.

Tony Amsler, Democratic candidate for Iowa House District 66.

Last year’s redistricting swept two Republican Iowa House incumbents out of their districts and into District 66, which covers Jones County and most of Jackson County. In the June primaries, Steven Bradley beat out Lee Hein for the Republican nomination.

Now Bradley faces Democrat Tony Amsler in the Nov. 8 election.

Amsler, 69, of Monticello, hasn’t run for office before but this time decided to run because he felt someone needed to counter “some of the very extreme views that Mr. Bradley was expressing during the primary,” Amsler said.

District 66 voter breakdown

As of September, the voter breakdown in Iowa House District 66 includes:

7,500 active Republican voters
5,416 active Democratic voters
6,821 active no-party voters
80 other active voters
580 inactive Republican voters
579 inactive Democratic voters
1,842 inactive no-party voters
20 other inactive voters

Steven Bradley

Bradley, 65, Cascade, supports legislation that would limit access to abortion and the voucher bill proposed by Gov. Kim Reynolds that would allow parents to request public funds to send their kids to private schools.

“I want parents to be able to choose what school their kids can go to,” Bradley said. “We were No. 1 in education. I’d like to get that back up to No. 1. We just keep throwing money at this, and we have to educate our kids a lot better.”

When it comes to abortion, Bradley emphasized his previous voting record, which includes voting for the 2018 bill, sometimes called the “heartbeat bill,” that would have made it illegal to perform an abortion after about six weeks into a pregnancy.

That law was blocked in court and has not gone into effect, although Reynolds is asking the courts to reconsider. Bradley said he also plans to support the “Protect Life Amendment,” a proposed amendment to the Iowa Constitution that says the state constitution does not recognize a right to abortion. It could be on the ballot for voters as soon as 2024.

“I don’t just say I’m pro-life, I vote pro-life. With Roe v. Wade being turned around by the Supreme Court, Iowa could be a destination abortion state. So that’s why we need this life amendment, and I’m all for the life amendment,” Bradley told The Gazette in a previous interview.

Other priorities for Bradley include lowering taxes and improving health care options in Iowa.

“I’m always concerned with health care and the price of medication,” Bradley said.

Steven Bradley

Age: 65

Town of residence: Cascade

Occupation: Dentist, flight instructor

Previous offices held: Iowa House District 58 representative

Tony Amsler

One of Amsler’s priorities is opposing legislation like the voucher bill that would take money away from public schools, he said.

Amsler spent most of his career as a high school social studies teacher. He said he believes the voucher bill “could have a devastating effect on the funding system for public education, when those state dollars ”begin to be removed from public schools and dropped into private schools.”

Another reason Amsler said he decided to run is because he wants to support a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion. He said he was concerned by Bradley’s “absolute and no-exceptions approach to abortion.”

“I do not believe that’s the way people in Iowa think. It has been shown many times nationally and in Iowa that people do support reproductive rights,” Amsler said. “It is the decision of a woman and her physician and possibly her faith.”

Amsler said he also is concerned with land and water conservation efforts in Iowa. He said he hopes to help the state with better planning and goal-setting to ensure soil and water quality going into the future.