T-R PHOTOS BY LANA BRADSTREAM LEFT: Stephanie Steiner stumps at the Marshall County Democrats Spring Picnic last Thursday. She is running for the U.S. House of Representatives District 4 seat against Ashley WolfTornabane and Dave Dawson. RIGHT: Ashley WolfTornabane speaks to the Marshall County Democrats gathered for the annual picnic held at Riverview Park last Thursday. She is running for her party’s nomination for the U.S. House of Representatives District 4 seat against Stephanie Steiner and Dave Dawson.

Two of the party’s three candidates running for the United States House of Representatives District 4 seat gave speeches at the Marshall County Democrats Spring Picnic last Thursday.

Stephanie Steiner of Sutherland was the first to speak and opened with a brief self-history. Born in Alabama to a working class family, most of her younger years had plenty of anxiety over money, housing and parents struggling to find employment.

“Those hard moments shaped my life and they landed me where I’m at today,” she said.

She moved to Iowa 1996 at the age of 15 when she was pregnant and a high school dropout. When she was 21, Steiner was living in poverty with four children and in an unhealthy relationship she was trying to escape, which she finally did at the age of 23.

“It took a lot of courage, strength and help — things like SNAP, Medicaid, LIHEAP,” she said. “Then I went to college to become a nurse, and that’s difficult when you’re in poverty with four children.”

Steiner worked as a union nurse for six years before switching to a vocation as a traveling nurse. The reason she is running for the Congressional seat ties to healthcare. Her best friend, ex-husband and father of her three youngest children died in 2019 because he could not afford the necessary medications to survive. Waiting for EMS to arrive, Steiner performed CPR for 18 minutes, but it was too late. Then she knew she would have to give the news to their children when they came home from school.

“This is something that should never happen,” Steiner said. “The ‘Big, Ugly, Murder’ bill, the money that was cut out of Medicaid, the money cut out of the ACA, is going to kill people. An estimated 50,000 people across the United States are going to lose their lives. This should never happen — not in the wealthiest country in the world.”

The reason the country is in this predicament is because people have not fought hard enough and demanded for something better, she said.

With her medical background, one of the picnic attendees told Steiner the rising cancer rates of Iowa need to come down. Steiner agreed.

“The fact that the agriculture in our state has been taken over by agribusiness that really doesn’t care about the farming practices, and a lot of the farming practices cause high nitrate levels, high pesticide levels, high cancer rates,” she said.

WolfTornabane

The other District 4 Democrat in attendance was Ashley WolfTornabane of Storm Lake. Now a stay-at-home mom, she was an instructional assistant in public school and the director of Christian education at a church. So, public education is very important to WolfTornabane.

“I believe public dollars only belong in public schools,” she said.

WolfTornabane became interested in politics at a young age, and after observing for years, she determined those who care about the poor are only keeping them afloat instead of addressing the root causes of poverty.

“In the Fourth District, where it’s been Republican representatives my whole life, what I’ve seen is them favoring corporations over Iowans, and giving voice and power to the billionaires and special interests instead of the constituents and people they are supposed to be representing,” she said. “That has to change.”

More than 11 percent of the nation’s population is living in poverty because the poverty line is set too low, WolfTornabane said. Plus, a large percentage of the population lives paycheck to paycheck, which is exhausting. Therefore, when President Donald Trump promised to knock down the status quo, all of those people thought that sounded great. However, she felt that he ultimately had “nothing to offer,” and it is up to the Democrats to address the problem with the status quo and say they are not okay with people living in poverty in this country.

She wants to combat this by fighting corruption in the government, addressing the healthcare crisis and raising the minimum wage. It is time universal healthcare such as the happiest countries in the world benefit from, WolfTornabane said.

“A lot of money has been spent to keep people afraid of this healthcare model — the wait times are going to be too long or the taxes will be too high, but the happiest countries on earth have this healthcare model,” she said. “So we know the wait times must not be too long or the taxes too high or else they would not be the happiest countries. Meanwhile, we’re not even in the top 20 happiest countries.”

So many people avoid going to the doctor because they don’t want the high medical bill, she said.

“Medical debt is the highest cause of bankruptcy in the United States,” WolfTornabane said.

To raise the minimum wage, she proposes using a formula rather than a flat rate. Iowa would have the wages the people need, and California would have the wage it needs.

“To make the minimum wage increase sustainable, we index it to the cost of living,” she said. “Nine states are already doing this. Instead of wages and costs going up like some people are afraid of, it has stabilized. That is how we make it equitable and sustainable and we don’t end up with 16 or 17 years without a minimum wage increase like we have now.”

Steiner and WolfTornabane will be on the June 2 primary ballot with Dave Dawson, a lawyer and former state representative from Lawton. In November, the winner of the Democratic primary will face Republican Chris McGowan to take over the seat currently held by U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-Iowa), who is running for governor.

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Contact Lana Bradstream at 641-753-6611 ext. 210 or

lbradstream@timesrepublican.com.