Check out the website: https://lenspoliticalnotes.com Look at the recent Political Notes and Len’s Letters on the website:
October 17th, 2023 Political Note #594 Christina Bohannan Iowa 01
2024 General Election
In 2022, Christina Bohannan lost by 20,000 votes, just less than a 7 point margin. In 2020, her opponent, the incumbent Marianette Miller-Meeks won by 9. Not points. 9 votes.
This is a Note urging you to donate to Christina Bohannan. Despite her loss in 2022, she could defeat the Incumbent. It will not be easy. Because it is not easy, I begin discussing the incumbent – Marianette Miller-Meeks.
Take a look at Miller-Meeks’ website. She is 68 and soft looking. You can imagine her as a grandma, which she may be. She has children old enough to be parents. In Congress, she has done what she could to seem a Republican Moderate. She supported the need for infrastructure. She co-sponsored a bill with a North Carolina Democrat to make it possible for children of immigrants with long term visas who came to the US legally to stay and apply for permanent residence.
Miller-Meeks was one of the 29 Republicans who voted to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act even though the Act had protections for transgendered women. She was one of the 35 Republicans to support the investigation of the January 6 insurrection. She was one of the 39 Republicans who voted for an antitrust bill to check corporations for anti-competitive behavior. She was one of the 47 Republicans who voted for the Respect for Marriage Act that codified the right to same sex marriage. She, along with all of the Iowa delegations who are all Republicans, voted to support the debt ceiling deal.
Miller-Meeks is not, however, a soft touch. She spent 24 years in the army and retired as a Lt. Colonel. Starting out as a nurse, she earned a medical degree. She had a practice as an ophthalmologist in Ottumwa until 2008.). And she has been a member of the faculty of the University of Iowa medical school.
Miller-Meeks was politically ambitious and persistent in that ambition. She was elected to the Iowa State Senate in 2018. She had previously run for an open Republican seat in the State Senate. She had run unsuccessfully in 2008, 2010, and 2014 against the Congressman who was then Iowa’s only Democrat in the House of Representatives. She may not have been confrontational, though. When she found herself at a forum in 2019 with the notoriously racist Nick Fuentes, she waited a day before excoriating him on twitter.
Miller-Meeks has right wing credentials, too. She voted against the Affordable Care Act and expressed her opposition to legalizing abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or harm to the mother. In her 2014 race, she opposed same sex marriage and she opposed EPA’s regulation of waterways and coal plants because she thought regulation was problematic for farmers. During 2023, the only thing she has done to oppose the dangerous, bullying right wing Republicans was to support the Kevin McCarthy’s compromise with Joe Biden to resolve the debt limit issue.
When the Republicans were reneging on that deal, she issued no criticism at all. She has joined other Republican women Members of Congress urging greater access to contraception, apparently believing that will diminish criticism of anti-abortion positions. Commenting on Miller-Meeks failure to act, Bleeding Heartland suggested that any corporation would fire an employee who created a video of himself killing the CEO. Miller-Meeks and nearly every other Republican did not act, instead voted against censuring Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar for posting a cartoon of him killing Joe Biden. A couple of other things ought to be mentioned. Miller-Meeks opposed the January 6 committee before she was for it. Even though she is a doctor, she joined her compatriots and provided misleading information about Covid.
Miller-Meeks has a couple of scandals to her credit. She got in trouble for not reporting income and wealth information about which she was obliged to report. The amounts were not small. She did not report retirement accounts that were in the millions. But she is a piker compared to Clarence Thomas.
One interesting bit was a scandal at the University of Iowa. In August of this year, eleven football players were investigated regarding betting on Iowa football games of which two were found to have secretly changing official records. A magazine story headlined that Miller-Meeks had some involvement in the scandal. If you click the three stories associated with the headline, they have all been wiped clean.
Christina Bohannan is running against Miller-Meeks again. If I were to characterize Chistina Bohannan’s look on her website pictures it would be “wholesome.” She is 52, has a child in college, and has her own family story to tell. She grew up in a trailer in rural Florida and has a personal understanding of the importance of the Affordable Care Act. Her father, a construction worker, developed emphysema, couldn’t work, and lost his health insurance. “People like my dad, who work hard and do their part, should be able to make a living without the fear of everything they worked for being ripped out from under them [by illness].”
Christina Bohannan credits the support of teachers in her public school for starting her on the way to college. She paid for her undergraduate engineering degree and her law school education picking oranges, cleaning other people’s trailers, and eventually, after serving as an intern, working as an engineer at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Her undergraduate degree and her law degree were from the University of Florida in Gainesville.
Christina Bohannan developed a specialty in intellectual property and got a job teaching at the University of Iowa Law School. Her students say good things about her: “The only professor my first semester to treat me like an actual person.” “Great professor. Very clear, and very helpful. She will scare you at first, but that will wear off because she is extremely nice.”
At the University of Iowa, Christina Bohannan was a success in academic politics – a form of politics that some people think is the toughest of all. She was elected President of the faculty senate and chosen to serve on a presidential search committee. Her one term career in the state legislature was distinctive. She defeated a 20-year legislator in a primary, earned a reputation for tough and critical analysis of proposed bills and proposed constitutional amendments, and prepared detailed reasons for her opposition to Republican proposals. She earned respect, if not friendship.
If you looked for scandals about Christina Bohannan, you would find two. Some Republicans claimed she inflated her resume at the University of Florida, that she never worked as an engineer. She became an employee as an engineer after she completed her internship.
The other type of scandal was a claim that she was a radical, a proponent of abolishing or defunding the police and of ending cash bail requirements. She acknowledged that she donated to a friend’s Facebook birthday donation request without investigating the organization. Among other things, in order to reunite families, the organization paid for the bond for arrested immigrants. Christina Bohannan is clear that she does not support abolishing or defunding the police. She would, on the other hand, find inequities in the bail system in most states. If this becomes a topic again in the campaign, she will have neighboring Illinois to point to. They abolished cash bail. Iowans should watch to see how that works out.
It is possible that Christina Bohannan’s role at the University of Iowa and her academic writing could become a topic of dispute. She served, for a time, as the University’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion officer. Related to that role, she wrote a paper about hate speech at the university. In this writing and in other writing, Christina Bohannan does not meet the expectations of right wingers who believe academics have become authoritarians or opponents of capitalism. She argued that universities should not be shutting down hate speech, but supporting mechanisms so that those who oppose hate speech have forums in which they can speak. Central to her academic work on intellectual property is its value for increasing competition. Her well-known book is titled “Creation Without Restraint” and subtitled “Promoting Liberty and Rivalry in Innovation.”
Help Christina Bohannan compete. Defeating an incumbent is a hard thing to do and money is important. The chaos of the Republican Party in the House of Representatives may be creating advantages for Democrats. Miller-Meeks is #22 on Len’s List of Vulnerable Republican Incumbents in the House. She is tied at #19 on Daily Kos’s List. With enough financial help Christina Bohannan can defeat Marianette Miller-Meeks.
Only one other Midwestern Vulnerable Incumbent Republicans for now
Don Bacon NE 02. #11 nationally on Len’s List, #12 on Daily Kos’s. Support State Senator Tony Vargas in this race. Len’s Political Note #587
For other Midwestern Vulnerable Incumbent Republicans in the House, we do not know who the Democratic candidate will be
John James MI 10 is #3 on Len’s List of Vulnerable Republicans, #13 on Daily Kos’s. At least five Democrats are running for this seat including former judge Carl Marlinga who ran against James in 2022.
Zach Nunn IA 03 is #5 on Len’s List and is tied for #7 on Daily Kos’s. One candidate has announced, but it is not clear that she is credible.
Derrick Van Orden WI 03 is #18 on Len’s List, #22 on Daily Kos’s. Businesswoman Rebecca Cooke, former County Board Chair Tara Johnson, and State Rep Katrina Shankland have announced their candidacies.
Brian Steil WI 01 is #19 on Daily Kos’s List. Village Trustee Anthony Hammes and Naval Reserve Officer Lorenzo Santos have announced their candidacies.
Ashley Hinson IA 02 is #27 on Daily Kos’s List No Democrats have announced a candidacy yet.
John Finstad MN 01 is #28 on Len’s List. No Democrats have announced a candidacy yet.
One Midwestern Republican Senator may be vulnerable
Josh Hawley is running for his second term. Four Democrats are running to oppose him. The likely winner of the Democratic nomination will be formidable enough to be worth investing in – Lucas Kunce. Len’s Political Note #538
