Incumbent senator runs on ag support, tax cuts

WILLIAMSBURG — State Sen. Dawn Driscoll has served in the Iowa Legislature since 2021, winning a middle-of-term re-election bid after statewide redistricting in 2022. Since July, the Republican incumbent said she’d knocked on every door of every community in Senate District 46, making the rounds as she seeks the office again.

Prior to 2021, the senator was once a president of Iowa County Farm Bureau, chair of the local Ag in the Classroom program, a basketball and volleyball coach, and a religious ed teacher. She’s also a farmer, growing row crops and running a purebred Angus cow-calf operation in Williamsburg.

Driscoll pitches herself to voters as a practical candidate well-suited to represent the rural district’s many other mothers and farmers.

“I put myself out there over the last four years, and continue to show up and advocate for people in Senate District 46,” she said. “I absolutely love being the common sense candidate who is just trying to do what’s best for Iowans.”

The legislator is a registered Republican, and her voting record aligns closely with the party’s priorities. In the last two years, Driscoll has voted in favor of the Students First Act, which established financial aid for private school students, as well as a bill that made illegal immigration in Iowa a state crime. She also supported massive property and income tax cuts, and voted in favor of Iowa’s “fetal heartbeat” bill.

She’s also played a major role in some bipartisan legislation. Driscoll sponsored Senate File 84 in 2023, a law that cracked down on digital stalking and sexual exploitation of children which passed the chamber in a 49-0 vote. She was also among the dozens of senators to sponsor a popular resolution early this year recognizing the term “brain health” in an effort to highlight stigmas around the term “mental health.”

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In the coming term, Driscoll said she’d continue to fight for agricultural interests if re-elected. On that front, she said she anticipated talks about tax incentive programs for cover crops that would directly benefit growers.

In her years as a lawmaker, the incumbent said her position had changed on just one major issue: she’s more adamant about the need for property tax cuts today than she was when she started, even after passing some of the state’s biggest income tax reductions in history.

“That is what I’m hearing on every doorstep that I have knocked on,” Driscoll said, adding that constituents are “begging us for more tax relief, (with) how out-of-control taxes have become … I have never been more sure of myself, providing that sort of relief for our district, since that is what I hear over and over and over again at the doors.”

City and county officials claimed earlier this year that they couldn’t trim their budgets any further without reducing services, lowering salaries or laying off employees. In an interview, Driscoll said she would keep lines of communication open with those local governments when discussing any tax and spending bills.

“We will be in constant contact with city and county officials, and we will continue to discuss furthering our property tax relief,” she said.

In a follow-up email, the senator also stressed that responsible budgeting would remain a priority, balancing the demand for tax cuts with the need for essential government services.

“Not only that, have we passed income tax cuts, but we have also passed responsible budgets that provide sustainable increases for important services and areas in Iowa,” she wrote. “I will continue supporting tax relief every chance I get so more Iowans can keep more of their own money.”

Driscoll has also faced complaints from local Republican elected officials, who argue recent statewide efforts to limit local governments’ tax authority, ability to govern renewable energy developments, or participate in recently downsized state advisory boards all contradict the party’s conservative, decentralized governing philosophy.

Driscoll said she recognized those concerns and generally agreed with the principle, but stressed that decentralization couldn’t be a one-size-fits-all approach.

“There are different circumstances for different processes and different pieces of legislation,” she said. “I think that less government is more (but) you’re talking about so many different things.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com