The son of one of Linn County’s most influential Republicans during the past three decades will run for the Iowa House as a Democrat in 2012. Daniel Lundby on July 5 launched his campaign in the new Iowa House district 68. This swing district covers most of Marion (a suburb of Cedar Rapids) and some rural areas of Linn County, including the small towns of Ely and Bertram. As of April 2011, the new House district 68 contained 6,834 registered Democrats, 6,290 Republicans and 7,871 no-party voters.
Lundby’s Republican opponent will be Iowa House Local Government Committee Chairman Nick Wagner. He has represented current district 36, covering suburban and rural parts of Linn County, since winning an open-seat race in 2008.
Lundby’s first campaign press release refers repeatedly to his late mother, Mary Lundby. She was co-chair of the Linn County Republican Party before being elected to the Iowa House in 1986. After four terms as a state representative, she won several terms in the Iowa Senate, where she was among the more moderate Republicans. During the final weeks of the 2006 legislative session, she surprised most Iowa politics-watchers by ousting Stew Iverson as Senate Republican leader. She stepped down from the Senate in order to run for Linn County supervisor, but she dropped out of that race for health reasons. She died of cancer in early 2009.
Daniel Lundby’s message to Linn County voters will be that today’s Republican Party no longer shares his mother’s values. From yesterday’s campaign press release:
“My mother believed in a common sense approach to solving problems through partisan politics. I want to bring that common sense back to the Iowa House. My mother also strongly cared about children in Iowa and wanted them to get the best education possible. Unfortunately, the needs of our young people now seem less important with the Republicans insisting on zero percent growth for local schools and education cuts to state universities. None of which my mother would approve of. Nor would she support cutting programs that protect our natural resources and our environment. She would definitely not support attempts to deny equal rights to any Iowan. Being my mother’s son, I want the chance to continue her work for a better Iowa.”
The comment about “equal rights” alludes to the fact that Mary Lundby was one of four Iowa Senate Republicans to vote against a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage in 2004. That amendment failed by a single vote in the upper chamber. Had it passed, the Varnum v Brien lawsuit challenging Iowa’s Defense of Marriage Act probably would never have been filed.
I’ve posted a detailed map of the new House district 68 after the jump, along with the full text of Lundby’s campaign announcement.
July 5, 2011:
For Immediate Release
For further information contact:
Daniel Lundby
319-377-6673Daniel Lundby Announces for Iowa House, District 68
Marion, Iowa – Daniel Lundby, 35, announced today he is running for the Iowa House in Marion, Iowa and its surrounding areas. Lundby, son of the late Senator Mary Lundby, will run as a Democrat.
“My mother believed in a common sense approach to solving problems through partisan politics. I want to bring that common sense back to the Iowa House. My mother also strongly cared about children in Iowa and wanted them to get the best education possible. Unfortunately, the needs of our young people now seem less important with the Republicans insisting on zero percent growth for local schools and education cuts to state universities. None of which my mother would approve of. Nor would she support cutting programs that protect our natural resources and our environment. She would definitely not support attempts to deny equal rights to any Iowan. Being my mother’s son, I want the chance to continue her work for a better Iowa.”
Lundby said his decision to run for the Iowa House, in the same area his mother held for almost a quarter century, is for the same reason his mother did in 1986. “She saw a need for fresh new ideas not fueled by party agendas, but through listening to the voters who elected her. It is that same attention my mother gave her voters that I want to bring back to the constituents of House District 68.”
Explaining his decision to switch parties, Lundby said, “I changed my party affiliation from Republican to Democrat because the Republican Party and the people I was supporting no longer placed the best interests of Iowa and its voters before their own party agenda.”
For example, Lundby named improving the educational system in Iowa, to offer young Iowans more options for getting good jobs in the ever-changing workplace, as one of his main reasons for running for state representative. In addition, Lundby wants to create jobs by finding better ways to recruit new small businesses to come to Iowa and assisting those businesses that are already creating jobs in Iowa, like his Grandmother Betty Hoehl’s bridal shop.
Daniel Lundby was born in Cedar Rapids and raised in Marion. His father, Michael Lundby, is a Machinist painter at Quaker Oats and has been a member of Machinist Local Union 831 for 29 years. Daniel attended St. Joseph’s Elementary school, in Marion, and graduated from Regis Catholic High School. He was active in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts and spent summers as a camp counselor. He also spent time in the summers at his grandparents’ farm in Decorah. From the age of seven, he began campaigning at his mother’s side.
Daniel received an AA from Kirkwood Community College and a BS from Iowa State University. He is currently working on a MS degree from Iowa State and is scheduled to graduate in December 2011.
Like many young Iowans, Daniel moved to New York City, for work, after receiving his BS degree but returned to Iowa to be with his mother in her last weeks of fighting cancer. Shortly after the passing of his mother, his grandmother on his father’s side also passed away. He returned to Iowa to support his father and family.