Theresa Greenfield continued her Small Business Tour with stops in southeast Iowa on Tuesday. Greenfield, the Democrat running for U.S. Senate against Republican incumbent Joni Ernst, stopped in Wapello and Jefferson counties before touring Café Dodici in Washington.
While in downtown Washington with all attendees wearing face masks, Greenfield said, “And I tell people all the time it is an honor to run for United States Senate, but if you’ve been to one small town you’ve been to one small town. Because every small town has a story, it has something special about there, and if you can just slow down enough and meet somebody there, like Lorraine [Williams], and hear about the community, and learn about some of their history or learn what’s special about it. It can be geography. It can be art. You know, it can be all kinds of different things – Knoxville, you know, that’s where the Iowa state flag was designed by a woman in Knoxville and they have a monument to it. It’s just that every small town has something.” She said she’s also holding online town halls to safely communicate with Iowans.
Greenfield, who came of age on a family farm during the farm crisis of the 1980’s when interest rates were 21% and saw her parents sell their hogs and crop dusting business, said helping farm families is part of the reason she got in this race. She highlighted her Fair Shot for Farmers Plan, “I really focus on the future, whether it’s rebuilding those markets. Every farmer I talk to wants their markets back, they want to compete. Leveling the playing field so our independent producers can compete with our big corporate producers. Investing in that kind of competition. Building on and strengthening our ethanol and biofuels. Investing in rural opportunity. But the last one is conservation and I’m pretty fired up about that. I really want to invest to make conservation a new commodity. Where we are investing in our landowners and our farmers if we’re going to ask them to sequester carbon or do some carbon capturing, improve that soil, we’re going to get the benefits from it and they should reap benefits from it too. So, investing in that kind of conservation. And with it can be encouraging regenerative farming or making room for all kinds of farming.”
She also said she’d like to address how campaigns are funded, and says if elected she would work to end Citizens United, end dark money groups or require they disclose their donors, and end corporate PACs donations.
Greenfield’s southeast Iowa tour continues Thursday with stops in Lee, Des Moines, and Muscatine counties.