IWC graduate seeks GOP nod for Iowa House seat

Priscilla Marlar, a candidate for the GOP nod to run for the 78th Representative District Seat currently held by Jarad Klein, said that her campaign is built on ?honorable representation for uncertain times? and she hopes to constantly work with constituents of the district to represent them in Des Moines.

Marlar, a newcomer to the political field, said that she chose to throw her hat into the ring because she feels Klein?s voting record shows he isn?t representing the wants of the people in his district. She said elected officials are meant to represent their constituents and not make decisions for them.

?As a person of principle and a person of deep convictions, I don?t believe you should ever compromise those principles,? she said. ?It is one thing to make a decision based on what other people?s needs are, because you are supposed to be representing them, but when the majority of the people you are representing are lining up with principles you are supposed to be upholding and you are compromising on those in any way, that makes me upset.?

She said that there had been instances where Klein had voted contrary to the issues of abortion, the right to keep and bear arms and keeping taxes low ? all GOP tenants, she said. She said Klein had voted for funding to Planned Parenthood in 2011. She also said Klein had voted not to have discussion on firearm carry permits.

?I believe if you are going to stand strong on something and say it is a principle, you need to fight to the bitter end,? Marlar said.

Marlar said that she was districted out of the 78th District in 2010, but has sublet her residence in Mt. Pleasant and is currently looking for a place to relocate inside the district.

Issues Marlar said she would focus on include the state budget. She said that legislature needs to ensure the budget always takes in more money than it spends. In the past, Marlar said, the state congress has voted to use contingency funds, which have pushed spending past the income level. She said the push to lower spending in the state is not aggressive enough for her.

Educational funding is another issue Marlar is interested in. She said that as a home-schooled student, she wants to be sure that kind of educational freedom will always be offered to parents. She believes there should be less state regulation on how parents can educate their children. She believes there should be more tax exemptions for home schooling.

In traditional education, Marlar said she wants to see more local input into the educational system. She believes there should be less government restriction on what teachers can teach in classrooms.

?I think schools should be a more community-based system,? she said. ?Give it back to schools and give it back to communities and you change some aspects of how state funding works and you give more funding to counties and smaller communities so they are able to use those resources instead of having state mandates come down and say ?this is how your children need to be educated.? That is one of the reasons my parents chose to home-school us.?

Marlar said she strongly supports funding systems ?from the bottom up.? She believes counties should have more control than the state over the budget.

?If I had the pleasure of serving the 78th District, that is one of the first things I would look at,? Marlar said. ?I know that is an issue for people here ? about how funding is handled at the local level, how it affects the counties and how much power the state has over the budget.?

She supports property tax rollbacks, saying she will always be an advocate for fewer taxes. She said that if government needed more money, it should look for places to cut the budget and become more efficient.

?We have billion dollar budgets,? she said. ?I know there has to be a place to make cuts.?

Possible cuts Marlar cited could include the welfare system. She said that state aid should be a program to help people get back on their feet instead of something people stay on indefinitely.

On the subject of social issues, Marlar said that she doesn?t believe the government is there to legislate morality. While she said she opposes things like gay marriage, K2 and gambling, she doesn?t believe the government should regulate personal choices. She would designate marriage in the Iowa Constitution as ?between one man and one woman? but said there should still be civil unions.

?Government is not designed to regulate people?s personal choices,? she said. ?I think it wastes time when we could be focusing on more serious government issues such as spending or maintaining our rights.?

She said that she comes from a political family and has always been politically aware. She said that members of the district had approached her about running for the house. Growing up on a 40-acre farm in rural Washington County, she was home-schooled. She went on to graduate from Iowa Wesleyan College in Mt. Pleasant with high honors in 2010.

While trying to juggle campaigning with two jobs (office administrator and director of children?s music at First United Methodist Church in Mt. Pleasant and part-time at a restaurant), Marlar said that she has relied on knocking on constituents? doors and direct mailings.

She said that if elected she will never compromise her principles.

?People may say I?m young and inexperienced, but I have 24 years of experience of knowing the difference between right and wrong,? she said.