Linn County Republicans and state party disagree over candidates for Iowa House of Representatives

Two Linn County Republicans are challenging the nomination of the chairwoman of the local branch of Moms for Liberty as the party’s candidate for a seat in the statehouse.

The Linn County Republican Party nominated two candidates at its convention last week to run against incumbent Democrats for two seats in the local Iowa House of Representatives.

Republicans also nominated former Alburnett school board candidate Terry Chostner as their candidate for Linn County auditor against Democratic state Rep. Todd Taylor of Cedar Rapids, who is resigning from the Iowa Senate to run for auditor.

Longtime Linn County Auditor Joel Miller, a former Democrat turned independent, is not running for re-election.

Contested seat in the Iowa House

At the special nominating convention on Tuesday, the candidacies of two Republicans were heard for the 73rd electoral district of the Iowa House of Representatives, which had no Republican candidate because no one ran in the June primary.

The district includes part of Cedar Rapids and much of northern and eastern Marion and is currently represented by Democrat Elizabeth Wilson, who is running for a second term.

Wilson, a former Linn-Mar school board member who owns a financial services company, won the vacant seat in 2022 — defeating Republican Susie Weinacht, a former Cedar Rapids City Council member, after a recount. Wilson did not respond to a message seeking comment Monday.

The two Republicans seeking to challenge her are Geralyn Jones, chair of the Linn County chapter of Moms for Liberty, and Jim Conklin, former chairman of the Linn County Republican Party Central Committee.

Conklin and Justin Wasson, who serves on the Republican Party’s Iowa Central Committee and was asked to chair the special nominating convention, said the meeting began with more than an hour of disagreement over whether a quorum had been reached. After determining that a quorum had been reached, Jones and Conklin presented their proposals to the members of the redistricting committee who live in House District 73.

Wasson said Conklin received nine votes and Jones seven and was declared the winner by an Iowa Republican Party staffer.

After the nominating convention adjourned, Wasson and Conklin said they had completed the paperwork they would submit to the Iowa Secretary of State’s office so that Conklin could be on the ballot in the fall. This included a signed and notarized affidavit of candidacy and a convention certificate.

The next day, however, the Iowa Republican Party reviewed the votes cast and discovered an error in the vote count, Iowa Republican Party spokesman Luke Wolff said in a statement to The Gazette.

Wolff said the error “turned an already close election on its head, making Geralyn Jones the rightful winner of the convention.”

Wasson said the state party declared Jones its candidate based on a “weighted vote” based on the vote strength of each district represented at the convention.

Iowa Code allows a state party to adopt a constitution or bylaws that allows the votes of party district committee members to be “proportionate to the votes cast for the party’s candidate for the office in question at the last general election for that office in the respective districts.” This means that a committee member from a district with more active GOP voters has more say.

Wasson and Conklin, however, argue that the state party reached its conclusion too late and that no one challenged the outcome on the evening of the convention.

Wasson told the Gazette on Monday that he was not prepared to sign the papers confirming Jones as the candidate “unless someone can show me that we can arbitrarily change (the result) after the fact.”

“I can make a compelling case for both sides,” he said of Jones and Conklin.

Conklin told the Gazette on Monday that he intends to appeal Jones’ nomination to the Iowa Secretary of State’s office.

The deadline to submit a written objection to the Secretary of State’s office is August 29 at 5 p.m., after which a hearing will be scheduled before the State Objection Panel, which consists of Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate, Attorney General Brenna Bird and Comptroller Rob Sand. Pate and Bird are Republicans; Sand is a Democrat.

Jones, who ran unsuccessfully for Linn-Mar school board in 2021, told the Gazette in a statement Monday that Conklin was mistakenly announced as the candidate at the party’s convention and that the state party’s audit correctly recognized her as the winner.

The Secretary of State’s office said Monday afternoon that nomination papers for the 73rd House District had not yet been received and that the final answer would come from state party bylaws, which address how proportional representation works at party conventions.

Another candidate nominated by Moms for Liberty

Linn County Republicans also nominated Barclay Woerner as the party’s candidate for Iowa’s 79th House of Representatives District in the November 5 election.

The district covers the northwestern part of Cedar Rapids and is represented by Democrat Tracy Ehlert. Ehlert, an early childhood educator and entrepreneur, is running for a fourth term.

Woerner ran unsuccessfully for Cedar Rapids School Board in 2021 and 2023. He was endorsed by Moms for Liberty-Linn County, a conservative political organization that opposes school curricula that reference LGBTQ+ rights and racial and ethnic discrimination in the United States.

Moms for Liberty, which has chapters across the country, entered the political scene in 2021 as some parents protested pandemic-related restrictions on public schools.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization, last year labeled the national nonprofit an “extremist” coalition of “far-right, anti-government parents” known for “intimidating and harassing teachers and school officials.” The conservative school activist group says the label is false and defamatory.

Woerner told the Gazette on Monday he is running to cut taxes, support law enforcement in Iowa and give parents more say in education. He said he supports a proposal by Republican lawmakers to further reduce income taxes for Iowa residents and reduce property taxes.

Woerner, who has five children, said his family and many others in the state continue to struggle with high food and gasoline prices and higher property tax payments and are looking for relief.

“In Iowa, it’s a real struggle to put food on the table, pay the house and feed a family,” he said.

Iowa’s tax revenues have remained largely stable since previous tax cuts took effect, so Iowa Republicans are demanding even deeper tax cuts because the state is taking in more money than it needs. Critics argue that accelerating cuts will put even more strain on underfunded public schools and public services.

Woerner said he is also running to give parents of special needs students a voice in light of ongoing changes to the state’s regional education boards. Woerner, whose son struggles with reading, said he supports the changes.

“Competition is good,” he said, adding that in addition to increasing teacher salaries, the AEA amendment would also provide more transparency and accountability regarding the provision of services to students with disabilities.

Ehlert, the Democratic incumbent, said she is running to increase wages and benefits for working Iowans, support good-paying jobs and expand access to affordable health care in the state, especially for Iowans battling cancer. Ehlert was recently diagnosed with cancer and has been undergoing treatment.

She said she is also running to increase state investment in public elementary and secondary education, “while making sure we focus on our youngest learners and support early childhood education as well.”

CComments: (319) 398-8499; [email protected]