Theresa Greenfield, candidate for Iowa’s Third Congressional District, spoke to about a dozen Perry citizens at the El Buen Gusto Restaurant Thursday evening.
Greenfield, who lives in Des Moines and is the owner of a commercial real estate business with nine employees, grew up on a farm in southern Minnesota. She went to Iowa Lakes Community College and Iowa State University before taking a bachelor’s degree Minnesota State University in Mankato, Minn.
Greenfield said she is aware of the many problems Iowans are going through. Growing up on the family farm, she watched her father struggle through the farm crisis of the 1980s. She is aware of the problems facing farmers today and the agriculture economy.
Greenfield has also dealt with a personal crisis: the death of her first husband. He was an electrical lineman and was accidentally electrocuted on his job after three years of marriage.
She was just 24 at the time and had a 1-year-old child and was four months pregnant with their second child when the workplace tragedy struck.
Greenfield told her Perry audience she was grateful for U.S. Social Security and the union benefits she received. She said she wants to keep Social Security strong because she knows how important it is, and she is a union supporter. She remarried, and she and her husband have four grown children.
Her eldest son is serving in the U.S Army.
Greenfield said if she is elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, she will work to improve education and reduce college debt. She feels that it is a burden for young people to start working with a large amount of college loans. She wants to increase the rate of Iowans with post high school education by making college and vocational training more affordable and accessible.
The farm economy and agriculture are very important for Iowa, and she wants to help agriculture, she said, as well as the economy of small towns. Greenfield believes the state’s infrastructure needs to be improved and maintained. She said she will work for a cleaner and greener environment, and she wants to see the ACA and the health care system improved.
She answered questions from the audience on topics such as environmental issues, Planned Parenthood, First Amendment rights and freedom of the press, education, gun control and right-wing media propaganda.
The members of the audience were impressed with her breadth of knowledge regarding the issues and her candid responses. She said that she did not have all the answers but would study issues and listen to her constituents.
Greenfield has a Facebook page and a Twitter account, and both are accessible on her campaign website, GreenfieldForCongress.
