Around Des Moines

The Democratic challenger for the Iowa House seat now held by Ralph Watts (R-Adel) was in Des Moines on May 3, 2008, to talk about the women’s suffrage movement and to raise money for her campaign. Susan Temere (D-West Des Moines) said she chose to view the documentary, Not for Ourselves Alone, because of the affinity she has with Susan B. Anthony and Carrie Chapman Catt.

Temere’s issues include a world-class education, the environment, affordable and accessible healthcare, and the economy. She currently teaches in the Adel and Waukee school districts and at the Des Moines Area Community College (DMACC). She spent 15 years at General Motors, working in management-related and union positions.

While working on a rape reform task force to strengthen the sexual assault laws in Michigan, Temere, then 22, decided she would run for office some day. “I saw the caliber of the all-male legislature [and] knew [I} could do better,” she said. Jennifer Temkin in her book Rape and the Legal Process, as excerpted on Google Book Search, notes that 2 years before the Women’s Task Force on Rape worked to help enact “radical and influential legislation in 1974,” 90 people in the entire state of Michigan were convicted of “unlawful carnal knowledge,” as rape was then defined. In contrast, “in Detroit alone, at least 3,370 alleged victims of rape were treated in hospitals and 900 rapes were reported to the police.”

It was at a public hearing on pay equity held by the Iowa Commission on the Status of Women that I first met Temere. I was giving testimony as editor of Leading Voices: Iowa and Temere was attending as part of a pay equity committee she headed for an area chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW). I told of a woman at an old-line manufacturing business in Boston who expected the company to promote her because she earned a master’s degree, while the company continued to see her only as a secretary. Temere shared that she had similar stories from her time working in Detroit.

District 47 is essentially Dallas County with a sliver of Guthrie County to the east and a square of Boone County to the north. Portions of Dallas County, one in the southwest and one in the north central, are in Districts 73 and 48, respectively. District 47 includes the rapidly growing communities of Dallas County’s eastern half and the rural communities of the western half. The 2000 U.S. Census has a countywide population of 40,750. Perry is the largest town completely in the county with a population approaching 8,000. Approximately three-quarters of the population is in towns or cities. Linden, with a population of 226, is considered part of that statistic. According to the Iowa State University extension office in 2006, 82% of the land in Dallas County is agricultural.

Temere, who supports VOICE legislation for publicly-financed elections, said she was just getting started on her fundraising for the general election. She will not have a primary contest. She has been endorsed by the South Central Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO.

Since Temere’s list of issues includes both developing an energy independent Iowa and promoting clean air and water, I asked her how she intended to balance those two items, giving the proposed Marshalltown power plant as an example. The candidate said she did not support coal-fueled power plants. When I then asked her about bio-ethanol, she said she needs to learn more about it but leans toward it. Although, she acknowledged there is concern about food supplies when crops are grown for fuel.

M.R. Field covers local issues for AroundDesMoines.com.