Iowa House District 98 (redistricted in 2023) covers southwest Davenport and Buffalo in Scott County.
Incumbent Democrat Monica Kurth is not seeking another term. Democrat Andrew Fitzgerald, an automation technician, and Republican Nathan Ramker, a small business owner, are vying for the open House District 98 seat.
WVIK interviewed Fitzgerald and Ramker. Listen to their interviews or read their answers transcribed below.
Introductions:
Andrew Fitzgerald: Yeah. Name's Andrew Fitzgerald, running for House District 98, obviously. Born and raised in Davenport. Graduated from Davenport West, just grew up in the area, love the area, family in the area and all that. And I just love the area. I'm honestly very proud to be able to run for this seat and also to have Monica's endorsement. It's been interesting, that's for sure.
Nathan Ramker: Well, I'm— I've been married for 35 years to my wife, Becky. We have 7 kids, 13 grandkids, 2 on the way. Why I'm running? We, we got involved with politics a little bit at the beginning of '24. Volunteered. My wife volunteered to work at the caucus, and I ended up getting on the Republican Central Committee and found out there was an open seat. And I've ran my own business or been an independent contractor my entire life. I thought those are pretty good qualities to have, you know, to run. You know, so I wanted to try to take that seat back in '24, and we got within 47 votes of taking it.
Why should voters select you over your opponent?
Fitzgerald: Well, again, I'm from the area. I know the area really well. I got, uh, just growing up here, living here, I know what we need. And I can see over the last, you know, 10 years with Republican control what has changed and just the slow decline of everything. That's why I'm running. Uh, also, my opponent seems to be a yes-man for the Republican Party. I have no ties to the Democratic Party. You know, a year and a half ago or 14 months ago when I started running, I didn't know anybody at the Democratic Party. I just kind of got frustrated with everything going on and decided to run. So I'm not a yes man and I'm not going to be. I'm going to fight for my constituents and listen to them.
Ramker: Um, well, I'm a little bit older, have a little bit more life experience. Um, I've been working in the West End area, which is pretty much, um, you know, runs out the, the District runs out to the Scott County-Muscatine line. It's the entire city of Buffalo, the outskirts of Blue Grass, and it works in towards pretty much the west end to Davenport. And I've moved here in 2005, and we've ran businesses and been in that community ever since then. So I worked with a lot of people. In that area. All of my kids, we moved here in '05, so my oldest daughter was a junior in high school. My youngest son was only a year old. They all went through, you know, the school system here. They grew up here. My grandkids, 13 of them that— well, actually all, even the 2 that aren't born yet, are going to be in this district. So like I said, I've already worked in this area, dealt with a lot of people in this area. You know, I'm invested in this area. You know, and, you know, running the state, I think, you know, should be, should be, you know, done by people that understand, you know, business. So, you know, one thing when you run your own business or you're an independent contractor and you're not collecting a paycheck every week, you have to work with budget. You have to decide what's a real want and what's a real need. And it seems like a lot of times with government, they push their wants onto everybody. And we need to really focus on needs. You know, right now, five of my kids live in the district that I'm running for. They all own homes. And, you know, their budget is getting tighter every single year with, with increased property taxes. You know, and other expenses. And every dollar that the government collects from us, you know, for taxes is one less dollar we get to use on our own family for gas, groceries, or other needs that the family needs. And, you know, the government, you know, is increasing its budget every year. I think the government needs to be in the same boat. They need to really reevaluate what they're spending money on, and we need to focus on just the needs. And maybe some of these wants need to be put on the back burner, you know, because my kids aren't the only ones in the area. I've knocked a lot of doors. And, uh, I mean, it's senior citizens, it's, it's, it's everybody. Every— everybody is, you know, everything's tight right now. And, um, you know, the government, I don't think it should be collecting, increasing its budget every year and, uh, decreasing our budget by, by taxing us. So I think we need to really get that under control, keep taxes under control, and, you know, live with a real budget. You know, that's one attribute I think I have.
What specific policies are you wanting to introduce in the state legislature?
Fitzgerald: Well, first, I want to get our education, public education back on track. My number one priority. Growing up here, we were number one, and now we're, I think, 27th. And then you got teachers' pay, it's 43rd. Uh, there's so many metrics just in the 40s. I think 8th grade reading is at 42nd. Um, we got to focus on that. And we've been just— I think it's a 2% increase every year, which is a slow pay decrease basically with the cost of living going up. So I think they're asking for like a 5% increase, and we can do that if we eliminate the ESA system. Or I've put it out there that instead of totally eliminating it, if we had something for some kind of assistance for low-income families to have some kind of assistance. Or— but if we do that, we have to allow or the private schools need to follow certain guidelines, and they have to accept everybody if they're going to accept public tax money.
And other than education, were there any other policy initiatives that you were thinking of wanting to propose if sent to Des Moines?
Fitzgerlad: Yeah, I guess a little different from what everybody's saying is we have to focus on this budget. We're looking at a $1.3 billion deficit right now, and we got to find ways to make this up without cutting stuff, which we're kind of running out of stuff to cut. So I think legalization of marijuana's a big one that we can make a couple hundred million off that $1.3 billion. So that would definitely help get some money flowing. And I think it's something that could be bipartisan by this time. And if we got people going across state lines, obviously in the Quad Cities here, you can just go over to Illinois and people are spending money over here. It's money going to Illinois. Let's keep it in Iowa.
Ramker: Well, one, I'd like to see property taxes frozen at your purchase price on your primary residence. You know, this way families would be able to— you know, some people I'm talking to say they don't want to improve on their home because they're worried they're going to get taxed more. You know, and then every year, like I just talked about a second ago, the government's increasing its budget by taxing us more on our properties, where if it's our primary residence, it should be frozen at your purchase price until you know that way the government increases its budget every time a house gets sold and it's taxed at the new highest level. But while you're living in that home, I mean, I've talked to people that that have lived in their homes for sixty years, you know, and they're worried about not being able to keep up with the property taxes because one woman, like I said, she was in her nineties. And her husband and his brother built their home, and she's worried about not being able to keep up with the property taxes. So I'd like to see a property tax freeze at your purchase price. You know, that wouldn't include rentals, and it wouldn't include, you know, some of the commercial properties that, you know, that's another thing I was made aware of. Some of the commercial properties that are paying property taxes are paying less than what the homeowners are. And some of these apartment complexes or multifamily homes, you know, like I said, they're under the commercial property taxes and they're owned by people out of state. You know, I mean, if we're going to give a discount for commercial property, it should be at least businesses that are in this state. You know, sometimes, you know, their headquarters are in states that don't collect income tax. So we're missing out on the income tax. They claim residency down in Florida where they don't pay any state income tax. And so the money that they're generating from renting, you know, apartments or townhouses or whatever from Iowans, all the profits going out of state. So they're not paying income tax. So we're losing out on the property tax and then we're losing out on the income tax. So I'd like to see something done to where any tax breaks that were given, they're given to businesses that are located headquartered in Iowa.
The cost of living is rising faster than wages, causing economic hardship for many Iowan families. What type of legislation would you support that could alleviate this strife?
Fitzgerald: Yeah, that's— I mean, I know I'm hurting in the pocketbook right now, especially with gas prices and grocery prices. Healthcare is, I think, something we can focus on lowering prices. We switched to, you know, the privatization of healthcare. And I think we've made it state-run again, it would lower costs. But we can also cap the cost of like insulin and medications that are needed. And that's at the state level. And I think that's something that we can do. And I definitely would support this or if I can, you know, introduce it.
Ramker: Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, property taxes wouldn't end everything, but that's, that's, I mean, that's one of the big things is, uh, you know, people I'm talking to, their property taxes, you know, are increasing at a higher rate than their wages do. And, uh, you know, just, I think we need to really focus on reevaluating all the, you know, town budgets, the, you know, city budgets, the state budget, to get it in line to where we're only focusing on what we really need to cover at the state level. And another thing I'd like to do is see if we could come up with programs that would, you know, attract businesses to move to Iowa so we could generate more tax revenue off the businesses. They would have more employees, we'd have more income tax brought in. You know, we generate more sales tax by having people wanting to stay in our state, you know, younger kids instead of moving to another state to get a better job, have them stay here in Iowa. And, you know, that would help grow our economy.
And this past week, the legislature came back for a special session to pass financial incentives for a proposed steel plant in southeast Iowa. Explain why you would or wouldn't vote for the financial package.
Fitzgerald: Yeah, I— this is a tough one because I am all for good-paying jobs, and that would bring a lot of jobs here, but I'd need more guarantees. And this package is more about, uh, giving tax incentives. I don't know if giving a $1.5 billion incentive for this company to come here is worth it with what we have on the table right now. We need more guarantees. And I can't say yes or no on that. I don't know, I would have to read everything and see what was all talked about. It's a hard one, because we do need some economic growth. And this would be great for Iowa.
Ramker: Well, if it's going to be the largest steel plant in America, they're manufacturing steel to be manufactured, you know, into something, you know, to be made into something else. One of the things— oh, to kind of go back to what you asked me earlier, why I think I'd be a better choice than the Democrat opponent. The west end is been the seat held in the west end area of Davenport has been held by a Democrat for at least the last 12 years, and more and more businesses are moving out of the west end. I have 2 daughters that own homes within walking distance of the Hy-Vee that just closed up. That's hurting a lot of people. If we can— and some of the seniors I talked to, you know, used to walk to that store. Now they're relying on a ride to get to some other spot. You know, with the west end leaving, or, you know, getting more and more gutted, everything's moving to North Davenport or to Bettendorf or some other place in the country. If I'd like to focus on keeping industry in the west end or bringing it back to help revitalize it. So if we're bringing in that steel plant a couple hours south of us, um, and they're gonna manufacture steel. You know, it'd be nice to see some new industry move to the west end, you know, where we already have infrastructure set up with the railroads, the river, the highways. The land there already has water and sewer ran to it, so we wouldn't have to tear up new farmland. If we could, at the state level, if we're attracting businesses to move to Iowa, I'd like to point them to the west end. And that's one area that I think the Democrats have neglected. you know, over the last 12 years. So I'd like to really put a lot of emphasis on generating new businesses in the west end, you know, and, and just kind of figuring out what we can do to do that. So with that steel plant, if it does get— if it does get approved and put in a couple hours south of us, a lot of the cost in manufacturing is shipping. So they wouldn't have to ship it very far to get it to you know, the west end of Davenport to turn it into something else. And that would, that would help revitalize the West End. We'd have new industries in the west end, um, that could feed off of that steel plant. That would help generate more taxes to help fix up the roads. Um, you know, if we were bringing in more families, uh, to work at these industries that are feeding off that big steel plant, we're going to have to open up some more schools in that area. You know, hopefully bring back, you know, businesses like the grocery stores, pharmacies, restaurants, and just get that area, you know, kicking again, get it, get it back.
What is your main message to voters ahead of the November 3rd election?
Fitzgerald: It's time for change. We've had Republican control for the last 10 years. Just ask yourself, have things got better? If the answer is no, let's vote blue.
Ramker: Yeah, really just get out and vote. You know, it's, it's one of our most important rights that we have as Americans. And, you know, like, like I was saying earlier, I'd like a chance at representing this area and really focusing on issues that matter, you know, like trying to revitalize that whole west end area.
Early voting begins in Iowa on October 14. Election Day is November 3. Links to the Auditor's website for more election information: Scott.
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