There are two candidates running for Iowa House District 23, and we talked with Democratic candidate Karen Varley.

Varley grew up on a dairy farm in northeast Iowa, where she did livestock chores and baled hay. Later in life, she was a legal secretary and court reporter for a district judge, before working at Iowa State University Extension, then AsGrow Seed. Varley now works as a lawyer with her husband at Varley Law Office in Stuart. She tells Raccoon Valley Radio what she believes some important topics for the next session will be.

“I’d like to highlight three issue areas. The first is eminent domain, because there’s been recent action by the Iowa Utilities Commission with respect to the CO2 pipelines. The second area is education funding. We’ve seen that vouchers are now taking hundreds of millions of dollars each year, taking that money away from our local public schools and giving it to private schools with no accountability. And third, we’ll be reevaluating the impacts of the restructuring of the area education agencies.”

Varley mentions that in talking with Greenfield residents after the May 21st tornado, a commonly voiced frustration is with insurance, where many have been having issues getting ahold of their providers, while some are finding they don’t have the coverage they thought they had. She also shares why she is running for office.

“I’m running to focus on the things that Iowans care about and work on the issues that can really make a difference in our lives. I’m not running on personality, I’m running on policy, I’m running so that Iowa can be number one in education again, I’m running so that local school boards, and city councils, and county supervisors can be trusted to do what they think is best for their constituents and not be preempted by the state legislature.”

Varley shares that when it comes to working with legislators across the aisle, she plans to approach things just like she has in her other careers. With respect, meaning that they listen to and respect each other even if they disagree, and with humility because no one person has all the answers. Varley says it doesn’t matter who gets credit for something, just that the legislators do their job.

For the full candidate interview, along with interviews with other candidates in contested races in the KKRF in Depth Meet the Candidates News Magazine, click the link below.

https://www.raccoonvalleyradio.com/2024/10/15/kkrf-in-depth-meet-the-candidates-news-mag/