Round three in House District 75

Same-sex marriage is not what Eric Palmer or Danny Carroll say they want to focus on, so it’s ironic that for most observers, social issues are the only thing they know about the highly contentious 2008 rematch in Iowa House District 75.

Democratic incumbent Eric Palmer, left, and Republican Danny Carroll will compete for the third time for the Iowa House District 75 seat.

Carroll, a Grinnell Republican, was a rising star in his party when he went from second in command of the state House majority to one of the GOP’s highest-ranking casualties in 2006, a year when he saw his party lose control of both houses of the state legislature and lose the governor’s race.

Carroll narrowly lost his seat to Palmer, an Oskaloosa Democrat whom Carroll had defeated in 2004 by 327 votes.  November marks their third matchup.

Just months after the 2006 race was complete, Carroll learned from the Atlantic Monthly’s Joshua Green that he had been targeted by out-of-state gay rights activists who had poured money into Palmer’s campaign coffers in an attempt to derail Carroll, an evangelical Christian with ties to the Christian Coalition (now known here as the Iowa Christian Alliance) and a high-profile proponent of a state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

Now, the two candidates are facing off again, this time with Palmer as the incumbent. During interviews with the Iowa Independent, both agreed social issues would take a back seat to kitchen table issues like taxes and education in the minds of voters this year.

But in a swing district where turning out the base is key, there is little doubt that at least some voters in the district will have social issues on their minds.

In an Oct. 6 appearance on WHO radio’s Jan Mickelson Show, for instance, Carroll and the conservative talk show host spent a lot of time discussing “homosexual activists” trying to influence Iowa’s elections to advance “the gay agenda,” as Mickelson called it.

“Storm troopers of the gay lobby were successful here,” Mickelson said.

“Out of state homosexual activists seemed to take quite an interest in Iowa legislative races, and mine in particular,” Carroll told Mickelson.  “It came as a surprise to me afterwards how many individuals were involved in that and where they were from.”

Days after the radio interview, Mickelson hosted a campaign event for Carroll in the southern part of the district, which includes portions of Poweshiek and Mahaska counties.

A district divided

Poweshiek County, which includes the city of Grinnell and a small, left-leaning liberal arts college, comprises much of the Democratic base.  County wide, there are 4,744 registered Democrats and 3,680 Republicans.

Mahaska County, on the other hand, has a higher percentage of social conservatives and typically votes Republican. There are 5,558 registered GOP voters in the county, compared to 3,478 Democrats.

Although the district includes only parts of both counties, the general trends county-wide tend to hold true, and it leads to elections that are close and hard fought.

Activists and observers on both sides agree that one of the biggest X-factors in district 75 is the student vote at Grinnell College, a private liberal arts college with a tradition of social activism. Its total student population is less than 1,500.

John H. T. Main Residence Hall on the Grinnell College campus. The school has a long history of supporting liberal, Democratic candidates.

“It’s a really good school, and the students like to think of it as the Harvard of the Midwest,” said Dan Bunnell, a former chair of the Poweshiek Republican Party and retired director of forensic activities at Grinnell College. “I think they’re wrong. It’s more the Berkeley of the Midwest.”

Bunnell said 83 percent of students at the school are from outside of Iowa, and the vast majority are “very liberal.”

“Those kids are very well organized,” he said. “And [the campus Democrats] push to have the kids vote in Iowa. They skew elections here that otherwise might tip to the Republican.”

Since the students will always reliably turn out and support a Democratic candidate, Republicans start at a disadvantage in the district, Bunnell said.

“You get 1,000 voters from the campus, who are voting straight-ticket Democrat in a county that usually has about 6,000 people turnout overall, and you have a huge impact,” Bunnell said.

But the school has been supporting liberal candidates for decades, and Carroll managed to win the district despite that fact for 12 years. So what changed in 2006?

“Republicans just didn’t turn out like they had in elections past,” said Mike Mahaffey, Poweshiek County attorney and former Republican candidate for Congress.

Turnout was down in 2006 from 2004, a typical occurrence in a non-presidential election cycle. But turnout in the Republican stronghold of Oskaloosa was only down 15 percent from 2004, compared with 25 percent in Grinnell. Turnout in Grinnell Ward 1, where the college is, was down nearly 20 percent. But district wide, Democrats saw a 22-percent drop in turnout from 2004 to 2006 while the GOP saw a 27-percent drop.

For his part, Carroll said 2006 just wasn’t a good year for Republicans in general.

“I came in on a wave in 1994,” he said. “I went out on another wave in the opposite direction.”

The Obama factor

Alec Schierenbeck, co-chair of the Grinnell Campus Democrats and vice president of the College Democrats of America, said he expects a much higher turnout from students this year than in 2006, with a lot of that credit going to the presidential campaign of Democrat Barack Obama.

“Obama ignited a flame in the student body,” Schierenbeck said. “We’re seeing a lot more people engaged than ever before.”

He believes they will support Palmer, citing issues like the minimum wage increase that Palmer supported or the work the Democratic legislature has done to slow the rising cost of education.

Barbara Trish, a political science professor at Grinnell College, said the divide in District 75 has less to do with “town vs. gown” and more to do with Oskaloosa vs. Grinnell. In fact, she said Democrats try to recruit candidates from Oskaloosa (like Palmer) in order to draw in supporters from the “Republican” part of the district that might not normally be mobilized.

“I recall that Democratic insiders in recruiting in the past thought that to recruit a Democrat outside of Grinnell made sense, given that Grinnell Democrats will typically offer a consistent level of support – almost guaranteed – to the nominee,” she said.

The Mahaska County Courthouse in Oskaloosa, a Republican stronghold in Iowa House District 75.

That theory proved true in 2006, as Palmer dominated Carroll in Poweshiek County, winning by 700 votes, and drew even in Mahaska County, which he lost in 2004 by 500 votes.

While same-sex marriage, along with presidential politics, may work to drive up turnout, it’s hardly the only contentious issue in the race.

“Rep. Palmer voted for a a bill that would change, modify, perhaps even eliminate Iowa’s Right to Work law,” Carroll said. “That’s a big difference between us right there.”

The legislation in question would have required certain non-union employees to pay union fees in return for services the union provides in certain workplaces.  It passed the Iowa Senate in 2007 but stalled in the House.

Republican leadership have put that bill on the front burner this year, hoping it can carry them back to the majority in Iowa’s House.

Palmer said he has never voted to overturn Right to Work or force anyone to join a union.

“The issue we looked at was to see if people who work in a union shop should contribute to costs of arbitration or negotiations,” he said.

Depending on the bill, Palmer said he would keep an open mind to Fair Share legislation, but he has “never talked about overturning right to work.”

Palmer said he is confident in his record, pointing to the establishment of the Iowa Power Fund to support renewable energy, the passage of the one-cent sales tax increase for school infrastructure repair and legislation that pledges to provide health insurance to every child in Iowa by 2011.

“I made promises in the campaign 2 years ago and I kept them,” Palmer said.

Carroll said regardless of the issues, the district 75 race would be a tossup again this year.

“For as long as I can remember, this district has been decided by a handful of votes,” he said. “This is a unique election, in that both candidates have a recent voting record that can be compared side-by-side. So, the voters will have a unique opportunity to compare my voting record with my opponent and decide based on the issues.”