LWV FORUM WITH CANDIDATES

DAVE MAXWELL & ANN EGLEY

10.29.18

OPENING STATEMENTS

MAXWELL: I live south of Deep River, about five miles. I went to Montezuma High School; I
spent three years in farm draining business; I went to UNI, then ISU. I served in Vietnam (1968-
1969); I spent 1.5 years in military after that; I’ve spent the last 44 years in the farm tiling
business. I am running for a 4th term. I am what I consider a fiscal conservative and a social
moderate – that sums me up.

EGLEY: In the last year of campaigning, I have learned from people in the district – what you
want is what I want; I want quality education for my daughters, including my daughter with
autism; I want healthcare that works—Medicaid in shambles. I have Medica, the only company
on the Iowa [health care] exchange, and I think we want other options; I want workers to have
their rights back; I want safe roads & bridges; clean air & water. We have to elect
representatives that work for us; I am mother, wife, college grad, concerned citizen – I am a
leader & listener. We can get this job done.

QUESTIONS FROM THE AUDIENCE

John Clayton: I have a question about climate change & eminent domain. There’s an oil pipeline
going across Iowa – why are we doing that? Farmlands should not be seized by the government
for a corporation – that should not happen. What would you do?

MAXWELL: On eminent domain, we did quite a bit making it so state can’t seize property for
recreational lake, etc. The Iowa Utility Board okayed eminent domain for pipeline – that Utility
Board is a self-running board, so there’s not much we can do. Nobody loses with eminent
domain – the pipeline gets buried underground – within 5-7 years, you can’t tell it’s there.
Maybe you have a snow strip over it once in a while.

On climate change, climate has been changing ever since God came onto the world; I had
question put to me recently when did you first learn about climate change. For me, when I was
15, I realized that every year the climate changes, it’s either warmer or colder, wetter or drier.
What does climate change do to us? The corn belt might move north and west; or it might
move south and east. I don’t see it having a whole lot of effect on the food supply or farming in
Iowa; I think we are being a bit facetious when we say that man controls climate change.

EGLEY: I completely disagree. 97% of scientists say [climate change] is real and happening; I
don’t know much more evidence we need; look at the strength of our hurricanes; you can’t
dispute rising ocean temperatures; it’s becoming common knowledge
I don’t think eminent domain is every acceptable, it’s your land and you bought it. With a
pipeline, you might not notice it, but what if it leaks? What guarantees do you get for the safety
of the water in your area, etc. We have to think about this when we rely on fossil fuels and
transfer fossils fuels via pipeline to the south; the legislature is turning a blind eye to what
people want; I don’t want contaminated ground water. I would vote against eminent domain
and against more pipelines; and climate change is real.

Lamoyne Gaard: Two weeks ago I was delivering meals on wheels for St. John’s Church. I was
distressed to find that we are doing only 30% of the usual delivery; it’s because state funding
has been cut; many Iowans in this region are not receiving the food they qualify for.

EGLEY: Seniors need to be taken care of. We need to make sure that we are taking care of
seniors.

MAXWELL: When you get to legislature, you will realize that there’s not an unlimited supply of
money. (Maxwell asks question about follow-up about what funding has been cut. Gaard
responds that it’s state & federal funding that have been cut). Well, no one has said anything to
me about it, so I don’t know anything about it. I haven’t received any letters about this, I am
sorry. They have probably sent out general stuff or used it to score a political point; I do read
my mail. You can give me dirty looks if you want—there’s no point in me arguing.

Tim Hammond: I am pretty frustrated by our town being constantly inundated by smells coming
from CAFOs and the spreading of manure. What do you have planned for fixing this issue?

MAXWELL: I don’t have anything planned at this time; the one thing that we can fix with hog
buildings – two different LLCs should not be able to build buildings next to each other and avoid
regulations that way. Grinnell does have a unique problem because you have one of the largest
egg breaking facilities not only in Iowa but in the nation; and you can smell that for miles, and I
understand that; I think we need to force them to put neutralizer into the manure so it will cut
down on the smell; where I live [near Deep River], they are putting in another 325-head unit
this year; so far we haven’t been seriously bothered by smell because we are out in the open.
There’s a lot of nothing between properties these days.

EGLEY: I think CAFOs are a problem. I’ve been outside in Williamsburg and the smell is intense. I
understand that there’s a certain amount of farm smell you have to put up with, but even in
town? There’s not enough regulation – people don’t care enough about what their neighbors
think. I would put a moratorium on [CAFOs]. If it’s a nuisance, we should think about how it
effects other people. It’s not good for people with asthma and allergies… with the particulates,
that’s not good. I would put a stop to new permits.

Ivy Schuster: How do you reach across the aisle? How do you work together with others to find
a middle ground?
EGLEY: I don’t think it’s 50-50. I think there have been legislators in office who haven’t been
listening and don’t represent the people. There are legislators who just look out for their party.
No one is listening, from White House down, and it doesn’t have to be like that. I am tired of
the contention, honestly. I don’t want to go negative. I am here for my family, my friends for
the district, I want Iowa to work for us, and I want to feel like I’m not being listened to, I feel
like audience goes away angry and that legislators and not listening … I think that’s a problem. I
think if you want things to be different, you have to do it at the voting booth.

MAXWELL: I guess I don’t have too much trouble reaching across the aisle and talking with
people, and we won’t always agree. I will say that I am a social moderate and a fiscal
conservative. We won’t agree [with Democrats] on a lot of agriculture issues, because I grew up
with farmers and work with a lot of farmers. But ask Democratic legislators what they think of
Dave Maxwell, they think I am a great guy (and the Republicans don’t always think I’m a great
guy). But we talk. We talk about where we are on bills. One of my better friends in a Democrat
from Des Moines.

Mary Ann Gruman: You will always have competing priorities in the legislature – what will you
champion in next session?

MAXWELL: One thing that I will push hardest for is full funding for the comprehensive mental
health bill that we passed last year. The governor has also come up with a plan for youth
mental health. Once we finally get things moving, I think we need to do what we can for mental
health, I think that’s Iowa biggest problem.

EGLEY: I would agree that mental health is biggest problem. I would champion education, it’s
personal for me, my daughter is on autism spectrum, I think education needs to be funded at
least at the level of inflation. Rural schools are suffering with their budgets. There’s no reason
that we shouldn’t be able to fund education of our children, we should be able to pay it
forward; I haven’t seen the budget, I am not in the legislature, I think we may need to look at
budget with fine tooth comb. I am personally getting a $100 tax break this year, but what’s the
price of that for me? I just had sump pump go out $232, and this tax cut is not even going to
cover that. But it will affect me that my children won’t have quality education – and my friends
are not getting services they need, services that might save their lives; there’s no rationale for
doing that to our children & seniors. To make long story short, I will champion education. I
would also say that EMS is not being properly funded in Iowa; I talked to volunteer EMT from
Oxford and he says they are having to do fundraiser because there is no provision in state
budget for that; how is this going to be handled if there’s no budget for it – when minutes could
mean your life?

Kent McClelland: I have a campaign funding question; there was a big story in Herald-Register
that detailed all the contributions & expenditures for local candidates. There were figures for
Maxwell that I didn’t understand. But the bigger question behind this – what do you think of
the campaign funding system that we have in this state where there’s no limit on how much
money an individual can give to a campaign? I think it’s broken. But specifically in Maxwell’s
report, it said there were $27,500 in contributions, about $20,000 from political action
committees rather than individuals. He also reported a campaign debt of $15,000—old
campaign debts from ’12, ’14, ’16 for advertising. Then he had $36,000 in spending, $32,000 of
which went to state party. I don’t get it—when you have $15,000 debt, why would you send
money to the Iowa GOP?

MAXWELL: I don’t know what you are saying about incurred indebtedness, my campaign
balance has balanced out every year. The money that goes to Iowa GOP goes to House Majority
Fund that takes care of most of our advertising; I have my local advertising ($5,000-$10,000). I
have printed brochures and things like that. I send money to House Majority Fund to take care
of mailings to us –I don’t benefit from it. About one-third of my contributions come from
political action committees; those are interest groups who watch how you vote will try to give
you campaign funds more after you are in office. I have no problem taking PAC money because
I have contributed thousands of dollars to PACs because that’s how you make a difference.

EGLEY: Even since Citizens United, people feel like their votes are being bought and sold; I am
not here to call out Dave, but I am saying this is where we are; it feels like from my perspective,
when you get money from different groups, you are beholden to them for re-election. I don’t
think I’m alone in this opinion; I can tell you I got all small donations and I have been relying on
volunteers to get the word out; I’ve gotten help from local political party organizations, and
they have helped with advertising, and I am grateful for that; and I received a donation from
Teamsters & Hawkeye Labor Council; if elected, I will vote to restore workers’ rights—that’s
affecting teachers. We disagree on campaign finance. I feel like if you get large sums of money
from special interests, they expect something from you. And with unions, they can expect me
to restore collective bargaining. I don’t have corporations putting big money into my account,
and I think it shows.

Vicky Springer: Would you support legislation on cleaning up the waterways?

EGLEY: Yes. In the English Valley Watershed, they are trying to get some mitigation ponds to do
cover crops & engineering – we could start with mitigation ponds and keep soil on the lands
and not washing away; I am not a farmer, so I am learning as much as I can in a year without
working the farm; I don’t think you have to be in the profession to know what makes sense; I
don’t think you have to be a farmer to know what goes into clean air and clean water. And I
don’t want to come to a legislative forum and not have a clue when people ask me about a
problem; I want to make sure I have my finger on the pulse on issues for the district.

MAXWELL: We already passed a clean water bill last session; we have to come up with some
parameters with what we can do on clean water; my wife and I won’t qualify for any cost-
sharing benefits because we have done it before on our own before this new law; The English
River – all my land is on English River watershed – so I know a bit about it. But they are having
hard time to get people to spend this money because of federal rules that go with matching
funds; it will be like a federal highway job, wages will have to be $30 and hour and you’ll have
to be bonded up and how much you take on. It’s better going through CRS [Crop Risk Services]
money – they work directly with the farmers – that’s better than working with federal
government.

John Grennan: Iowa ended up with a $128 million surplus this year, but it also made major cuts
to the Regents’ universities in the middle of the year. What are you going to do about higher
education spending next year and what’s your vision for the role of public universities in Iowa?

MAXWELL: There’s not a lot I can say about that right now. As much as people hate to hear it
said, you have to get that spending under control. They [the universities] have been building
beyond reason; we allow money for tuition grants & assistance –well, some of that money goes
for buildings, and some to lower the cost of education. But they’ve been on a building program
that’s been beyond imagination. They should be able to get their share of budget, and it’s not
fun when you have to decide to de-appropriate. But we take the money that comes in – what’s
estimated, we have to go with what the December revenue estimating committee says; we
can’t change it in March; everything has to be done by May 1. You can only go off what the
December estimating committee says.

EGLEY: Cuts didn’t have to happen to education. I hear a lot of excuses and not a lot of
solutions. I hear a lot of misinformation. I won’t cut education funding, including higher
education—that brings people into state; I don’t think there’s a reason to cut it—it helps local
businesses; it’s a bragging point for the state; we have world-class faculty. Why can’t we set the
bar a little higher on this one?

Marilyn Kennett: What are your taxation philosophies? When they did tax cuts in the past year,
we were promised things would trickle down and there would be more money for businesses to
invest. Would you be willing to raise taxes instead of cutting programs and services?

EGLEY: First I want to know where the tax cuts went…we don’t know where money is going; I
don’t want to do more sales tax because that’s a tax on the middle class. But we have Apple,
Wells Fargo – they are doing business in Iowa, but they don’t have their headquarters in Iowa,
they are not putting money back into Iowa; I don’t want to burden families like mine – I’m a
one-income middle-class family. The tax system doesn’t feel fair right now – tax cuts are not
helping middle class, $100 won’t make or break my budget; and there’s not enough
transparency where the money is going; the state auditor is being called out for not doing
proper fraud investigation And when Medicaid doesn’t pay bills, that affects rural America; I
think we can do better.

MAXWELL: To me, the government takes their money and if they do a good job providing goods
& services, that’s fine. But whatever government takes money, it’s like someone robbing you
with a gun; if that guy with a gun builds a road, then that’s ok. That’s basically what taxation is. I
have nothing against raising taxes, if they need to be raised to cover an issue, but we should
know where that money is going; I am not sure I approved all the tax cuts from this year
because I don’t know where they are, I haven’t received all of them. I was against the tax cuts
that came through the session, but I ended up voting for it, because sometimes you have to go
with the party. I saw a video recently that said: “More freedom, more wealth; more
government, more poverty.” That’s basically the way it is; government can damper the
economy. If the government lets people have their own money, it gets spent right away
because most people need to spend their money right away.

Barbara Brown: Grinnell used to have driver’s license station and we don’t anymore. It’s a state
decision that we can’t do anything about locally. What can you do at the state level to bring this
service back, which is especially important with the voter id issues?

MAXWELL: We’ve been trying for over a year and a half; the Department of Transportation
changed how they were doing things, they were trying to make things easier, I know it’s
inconvenient for Grinnell. The Department of Transportation has its own rules, they work for
the Highway Commission – they did it that way so that politics would not control things. We
can’t always get what we want out of our government. But it makes it very inconvenient,
especially when Grinnell is biggest town in our county.

EGLEY: I don’t know what I can do about this right now, but it needs to be followed up on.
People come with questions, concerns, complaints—and they get answered with excuses. As a
legislator, you are supposed to chase these things down. Is this issue something that the state
can handle? When you are at the State House, you have a large platform and audience; I am
very optimistic, that’s the kind of person I am – you have to do the work, you shoot for the
moon. Government can work for you.

CLOSING STATEMENTS

EGLEY: I may have lack of experience as legislator or public official, but that means you don’t
have to worry about me doing something just for the party. I caucused for Bernie Sanders; I felt
like he’s honest and that he cared about me as an individual – that’s what we are missing from
government right now. There’s no more time for excuses – it’s go time. We have to fight for our
state.

MAXWELL: You make it very difficult to be nice [Ann], I’m sorry. About six years ago, I was the
guy in that chair running for open seat. The one thing I figured out way back then, is that
common sense is the best thing we can have in office; I’m a small business owner and a farmer;
I have a business that’s operated for 44 years; it’s the same business in same spot. Well, I
moved twice. I started 2 miles north of Deep River, we bought a farm in Keokuk, we were there
for 30 years and built a retirement property. My wife just said I didn’t retire – that’s right, I
didn’t. I do have some skills that are very useful in this job. My business is still there, but not as
good as if I were there running it, since I am smarter than anyone else—that’s what we all think
anyway. Well, I am going to keep talk until I am done. I am a veteran, a longtime member of
American Legion … I appreciate you being here tonight. I think people owe it to their
community to serve in government at any level they can.