Conlin prepared to challenge Grassley
WAPELLO -- Roxanne Conlin is fed up.
The Des Moines-based lawyer and Democratic Senate candidate is fed up with the unemployment rate. She's fed up with her party's lack of a backbone.
But most of all, she's fed up with the Republican she hopes to challenge: Sen. Charles Grassley.
"We can respect Sen. Grassley's 50 years of public service, 30 of them in the United States Senate," Conlin told a small group of Democrats assembled at the Wapello Ambulance Barn Friday evening. "I think he deserves a rest."
Conlin said it was Grassley's provocative language on health care reform -- specifically when he referred to a provision aimed at giving voluntary end-of-life counseling to patients as "pulling the plug on grandma" -- that caused her to enter the race.
It's her overall frustration with the process, and knowing how it feels to be without health insurance, that took a lot of her focus during her "Fight to Fix It" tour through Louisa County.
Conlin started with a story about her childhood ear infection that her family couldn't afford to treat. While her immune system ultimately took care of the problem without the aid of a doctor or medicine, it did leave her partially deaf in one ear.
She said there often wasn't enough food or heat to adequately take care of her or her five other siblings, but she was able to push through high school, college and law school, which she completed at 21.
"I decided that I would dedicate my career to giving voice to people who don't have one," Conlin said.
To that end, she wrote the first law in the nation protecting the privacy rights of rape victims and helped write the nation's Violence Against Women Act, all before taking on computer giant Microsoft.
That last case awarded Iowa $180 million, with $500,000 coming to Louisa County for improving technology in their schools, Conlin said. It also offers evidence of her willingness to take on Goliath to stand up for David.
"My circumstances have changed. I'm not going to be hungry again. I'm not going to be cold again, but I sure do remember what it felt like," Conlin said.
Conlin's main goal if elected -- before Grassley, she has to face two Democratic primary candidates in Tom Fiegen and Bob Krause -- is to get people back to work.
The unemployment rate from December 2009 is 10 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That number doesn't count those who are partially employed or who have ceased looking for jobs.
"I think I can fix it. I fight for a living," said Conlin who now owns a private firm in Des Moines but previously served as an assistant attorney general and as a U.S. attorney.
To bring back jobs, Conlin first suggested she would change the North America and Central America free trade agreements.
"NAFTA and CAFTA have not been as advertised," Conlin said. "We need to renegotiate so we have not just free trade but fair trade."
She also proposed a targeted small business tax credit that would be tied directly to whether that outfit creates jobs. Grassley introduced a bill last summer to give tax relief to small businesses but it was not tied directly to job creation, but would leave more money in the hands of small businesses to expand or create jobs.
Conlin said she is looking at other alternatives, including an accelerated depreciation of certain equipment, but she wants to ensure they are tied directly to spurring employment.
"Everybody seems to agree we've got to get this economy straightened out," Conlin said. "One in four is effected by unemployment or underemployment."
Conlin not only wants to make policy changes but also philosophical changes if she makes it to Washington, D.C.
She vowed to stand up for what's right even if it isn't going to win her re-election. But more importantly she wants to be a politician who doesn't think just from election to election.
"I see as one of the basic problems: no long-term thinking, (instead) thinking from election to election, but not from election to 10 years or 20 years out," Conlin said.
Conlin continues her "Fight to Fix It" tour today. As part of the respective county's caucus, at 11:30 a.m., she will be at the Salem Community Center, and at 1 p.m., she will be at the Southeastern Community College little theater room.
Information about Conlin is available at her Web site www.RoxanneforIowa.com.
Source: Burlington Hawkeye
