Two candidates laid out the reasonings for running for the legislature this year during the Marshall County Democrat Tuesday Talks meeting at Legends American Grill.

Former Marshalltown Police Department Chief Mike Tupper is running for a seat in House District 52 currently held by Rep. David Blom (R-Marshalltown). Running a campaign is new for him.

“There’s good news, bad news with my campaign,” he said. “. . . The bad news is I am not a politician. I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m figuring it out as I go along. I don’t know what I don’t know. The good news is I am not a politician. I think we’ve had too much of that in Des Moines, especially and I think it’s time for regular folks like us to have a voice.”

Tupper said he knows not everyone will agree with him on issues, but that is the beauty of being an American.

“But we should be able to talk about them, and we’ve really lost the ability to have that public discourse,” he said.

Tupper added that he does not have all the right or best ideas, but if elected he will listen to people and seek their advice and guidance on how to address important issues. It would be his responsibility to do the best he can for the people who live in District 52.

He’s said he’s running because he is passionate about Marshalltown. Retirement from the police force in January 2025 did not dampen his desire for public service. Tupper wants to help make the community the best it can be and address important issues. The biggest issue he is passionate about is education, because he had educators who made a difference in his life.

“When I was a kid, Iowa was the cream of the crop when it came to education,” Tupper said. “Across the country, whatever scores you want to talk about, grades, all that stuff, we were the best. We’re not anymore, and I think we can be. I think we can do a better job of listening to teachers and what they need. I don’t support dumping public dollars into private schools. I think it’s a horrible idea. I think we need to do a better job of funding the schools.”

He is tired of politicians vilifying teachers who already have difficult daily jobs and are heroes in their communities.

The second issue Tupper is passionate about is affordability. During his law enforcement career, he worked with a lot of people in poverty. Tupper learned that it is extremely difficult to find a safe, affordable place to live in Marshalltown for everyone on the income scale. In order for the community to grow, there needs to be safe and affordable housing.

While the price of eggs and gasoline has fallen, the price of everything else is skyrocketing.

“We need to figure that out and make Iowa more affordable for people,” he said. “Because we have a lot of families in this community that are struggling.”

The third issue he is passionate about is public safety. Tupper believes the state needs to do a better job in supporting the public safety professionals.

“There are a lot of things we can do to serve our community to make it safer, and there are a lot of things we can do to keep people who are committing crimes from going back to that life of crime,” he said. “You hear ‘Back the blue’ all the time. What does that mean? What have we done to truly back the blue? Are we providing the resources our police officers need on a daily basis to be successful? We’re not.”

After his speech, Tupper was able to answer numerous questions from attendees.

District 51

Marshalltown High School English teacher Teresa Perin of Rhodes is running for the House District 51 seat which is held by Rep. Brett Barker (R-Nevada). She said if she wins, she would consider it poetic justice to take the seat from someone who distributed literature stating that women’s liberation was the work of the devil.

“We need a fresh start from extreme ideas intended to subordinate women,” Perin said.

She graduated from West Marshall Community School District, attended Iowa State University and has spent the majority of her 32-year education career in Marshalltown. Perin does not like the attacks public education and educators have been enduring the past few years.

“This is a personal issue,” she said. “I’m proud to be a member of the local union and I’m grateful of the work they do for teachers, despite the restrictions the governor’s placed on them.”

Perin said the political division has extended beyond the work area into personal and is silencing teachers on their social media pages.

“I’m not going to lie, it might seem a risk to express myself as a political candidate, but I will not be silenced,” she said.

Perin said it will take everyone working together to push back on rhetoric, erosion of rights and abandonment of the rule of law. Reaching across the aisle and working with Republicans on the economy, agriculture and healthcare is vital.

“Our economy has been declining under the Republican supermajority,” she said.

The state will have a budget deficit of more than $1 billion this year and the school voucher program is not going to help it by giving public tax dollars to private schools where accountability does not exist. Perin said too many small town businesses are shutting down and farms are struggling.

“We have to help support our family farms as they navigate the loss of overseas markets and falling prices,” she said. “There will be growing pains, but I trust our family farms to diversify. However, they can’t do it without the infrastructure to sell new crops.”

Part of the transformation in bettering agriculture has to be improving water quality. Better incentives and regulations need to be implemented to reduce nitrate levels, as well as penalties for excessive pollution, something which Perin said might be one of the causes for the soaring cancer rates within the state.

One cancer-causing concern she would like the state to address is radon, which is the number two cause of lung cancer.

“Iowa is ground zero for radon,” Perin said. “We need to remediate older homes and public buildings and improve regulations on new buildings going forward. We can do this. We can work together to lower the number of new cancer incidents in the state.”

Her goal is to reach out to everyone in District 51, not just Democrats, and improve their lives. Perin was unable to stay long after her speech, as she had to make a quick exit to feed the critters on her farm.

Contact Lana Bradstream at 641-753-6611 ext. 210 or lbradstream@timesrepublican.com.