Iowa Farmers Union Lobbying Day:
An encounter with a Family Leader lobbyist, and the paid subscriber link for tomorrow's Office Lounge!
When I heard my friends with the Iowa Farmers Union were to be in Des Moines to lobby legislators to encourage them to support responsible farming practices and our precious natural resources on Wednesday, I decided to tag along.
The Iowa Farmers Union (IFU) is a great organization and I’m proud to be a member. In fact, I’m surprised they let me in. Years ago I was wandering the Varied Industry Building at the Iowa State Fair, and I walked up to the Iowa Farmers Union Table and met Deborah Bunka, who is still with the IFU.
“Do you want to be a member of the Iowa Farmers Union?” she asked me.
“But I’m not a farmer,” I replied.”
“We don’t care…” she told me. “We’ll let anyone in.”
And so I became a member of the Iowa Farmers Union, and have since gained many friends who care about agriculture, food, and our environment.
In the top photo above they are debriefing after the session.
It was fun to watch them in action, corralling legislators of both parties and engaging in issues important to Iowans. In the photo above, they pose with Representative J.D. Scholten, a friend of the farmer and our environment. J.D. is in the center, in a Mr. Rogers-type sweater, which is most fitting.
“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”—Fred Rogers.
There are lots of scary things in the news coming from the capitol this session, and day in and day out, J.D. is one of the helpers. Thanks, J.D.!
From left to right, Tony Thompson, David Andrews, and Lee Tesdell with the Iowa Farmers Union, and Chuck Isenhart, Democrat from Dubuque.
Lee and I are kin. A while back, we discussed that our ancestors, from Norway, homesteaded in Story County in the 1850s. My wife Annie, a genealogist, figured out that our common Sydnes ancestors immigrated from Hordaland. Lee’s ancestor Cyrus Sydnes would have been my great-grandfather Sabin Sydnes’s first cousin. That makes Lee and I “shirttail cousins.” Small world.
I got to the capitol just in time to see the end of the teamster’s protest of a union-busting bill introduced by Republican Aiden Dickey. I spotted Iowa Writers’ Collaborative member Art Cullen, Pulitzer Prize-winning editor of the Storm Lake Times Pilot, who was riding along as part of the protest. Art had a column on the legislation last week, so I shouldn’t have been surprised to see him. Read it here.
As I was leaving the building, a young man fell in behind me. He was trim, handsome and impeccably dressed in what looked to be a tailored suit and expensive, nicely polished shoes. That contrasted with my Carhartt jacket, J.C. Penny everything else, and loafers with too many miles on them (that happens when there isn’t a shoestore in town and my size 14 feet don’t help…).
“Are you a legislator or a lobbyist?” I asked.
“I’m a lobbyist for The Family Leader,” he replied.
Regular readers will know that The Family Leader isn’t my favorite organization, pushing rightwing policies that marginalize the LGBTQ+ community and as dominionists work to impose their religion on all of us. If they aren’t “Christian” Nationalists, they are “Christian” Nationalist adjacent.
Wanting to be polite, I asked him what issue he was lobbying for. Turns out they want pornographic websites to deny access to anyone less than 18 years old.
“That’s not a controversial issue is it?” I asked, and he replied, “No.”
I wanted to ask him why his organization didn’t want to feed the hungry, heal the sick, welcome the stranger and other things I learned Christians were supposed to do in Sunday School long ago, but doubted it would be received well.
As we parted, I said “why don’t you quit the culture war stuff and do something different and positive that will help Iowans?”
He looked puzzled. “Like what?” he replied, or something like that.
Having just left my IFU friends, I responded, “like water. Water quality.”
“Water?”
“Yes, lobby on improving water quality.”
He looked puzzled, and then said, “Is there a problem with Iowa’s water quality?”
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