Fred Hubbell, Des Moines businessperson and Democrat candidate for the Iowa governorship, brought his campaign bus to Perry Thursday morning, where about 75 supporters greeted him at the Perry Perk coffeehouse.
Warren Varley of Stuart, Democrat candidate for the Iowa House of Representatives district 20 seat, warmed up the crowd prior to Hubbell’s arrival about 9:45 a.m.
Hubbell briefly outlined his policy priorities for education, healthcare, mental health and substance abuse treatments and restoring funding to Planned Parenthood. He said he would like to see collective bargaining rights restored for public-sector workers and a raise in the minimum wage in communities around the state.
Hubbell also claimed his opponent and the state’s Republican legislators have their sights set on reforming the Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System (IPERS).
“She and the Republican leadership introduced bills last year to take away IPERS and make it a defined-contribution plan,” he said. “Republicans are already talking about doing it again. At the same time, she just got a massive contribution from a man down in Missouri, and his whole approach in Missouri is to get rid of defined-benefit plans for state employees. That’s not the direction to go.”
Hubbell said he called on Gov. Kim Reynolds to fire Rep. Steve King as one of her campaign’s co-chairs after King’s recent meeting with Austrian neo-Nazis. Reynolds described the controversial Congressman as a “defender of freedom, our conservative values, candid, independent, principled,” in a 2017 press release.
“That’s not Iowa values,” Hubbell said of King’s statements about immigration and white supremacy, which some critics have characterized as racist.
In his brief remarks, Varley discussed the privatization of the state’s Medicaid system, calling the results “disastrous.” He also outlined his ideas for rural economical development.
Varley praised Monica Peitz of Perry for her tireless activism in the Perry area on behalf of Democrat candidates. He encouraged all attendees to vote between now and Tuesday, Nov. 6.
