Johnson County Recorder Kim Painter is among ten openly LGBT elected or appointed officials the White House will honor tomorrow as “Harvey Milk Champions of Change.” Painter became the first openly gay or lesbian non-incumbent elected to public office in Iowa in 1998. She has since served as leader of the Iowa Commission on the Status of Women and president of the Iowa State Association of Counties. A strong supporter of marriage equality, Painter hated having to deny marriage licenses to LGBT couples before the Iowa Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act. She believes those couples’ act of civil disobedience in 2004 started “the conversation about marriage equality here in Iowa.” She married her longtime partner soon after the Varnum v Brien ruling took effect.
Yesterday Painter credited Bill Crews and other Iowa public officials who came out as incumbents before she ran for office. Having lived outside Iowa during the 1990s, I was not aware of the important role Crews played in the LGBT community. He was appointed mayor of Melbourne (Marshall County) in 1984 and re-elected four times. Frank Myers wrote last year,
Although most in Melbourne were aware that Crews and his partner were gay, it was not a topic discussed by anyone until 1993, when Bill and Steve attend the the March on Washington of that year for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation. Crews had written an opinion piece for The Des Moines Register, effectively coming out on a grand scale, that was published in their absence. When the two men returned home they discovered graffiti scrawled on the walls of their home: “Get out,” “No faggots,” “Melbourne hates gays.” A portion of the home’s interior also had been vandalized. This became a news story covered in nearly every market nationwide.
Click here to read an interview with Crews about the experience. During the 1990s, Melbourne was “believed to be the smallest town in the United States to have an openly gay mayor.” Crews was re-elected for the last time in 1995 and moved to Washington, DC in 1998.
Harvey Milk famously urged his “gay brothers and sisters” to come out for the good of the whole community. Painter, Crews, and others including State Senator Matt McCoy have helped make Iowa a more inclusive place.
Bonus Iowa political trivia: Painter was one of 31 Iowans on the LGBT leadership council supporting Hillary Clinton for president in 2007.
2 Comments
First Painter campaign
was one of the most fun I’ve been on. Some history:
The local recorder for life retired in early 1997, just weeks before recorders took over vital records and marriage licenses from the clerks of court. Our supervisors appointed an outsider – LWV type – who had pledged just to serve the interim 18 months. A sitting supervisor from the conservaDem faction wanted the job. He petitioned for the special election, then lost the Dems nomination at convention. So he ran as an independent (with a lot of GOP support) but lost by just 17 votes.
He immediately announced again for the `98 primary and Kim got in, and she was rated as a heavy underdog. But she worked her socks off and the opponent had burned too many bridges, so Kim won solidly if not overwhelmingly. (This is my ever-repeated story about how primaries are local in Johnson County: 1000 more votes in Kim’s race than for governor. The crossover Republicans for Kim’s opponent skipped governor.)
Having lost the Democratic primary, the Republicans recruited a candidate for the general, running on a platform of heterosexuality. Lots of whisper campaign, lots of out of context quotes from Kim’s old Daily Iowan articles (the early 90s equivalent of blogging) It was a closer than usual general election but a win’s a win, and Kim has done such a great job no one’s challenged her since, primary or general. An office that was once a hotspot of controversy is now a smooth running machine despite a lot of added responsibility.
jdeeth Tue 21 May 7:27 PM
that's a good story
The only exciting Polk County race for recorder was in 2006. Julie Haggerty defeated longtime incumbent Tim Brien in the Democratic primary. (The same Brien as in Varnum v Brien.) He ran as an independent in the general, and I had friends doing major GOTV for Haggerty. Organized labor didn’t like Brien, and neither did a lot of progressives. Off the job, he was said to have picketed Planned Parenthood clinics in Des Moines with some anti-choicers.
Haggerty crushed him in the general, 54 percent to just under 35 percent for the GOP candidate Chris Hagenow (!) to 11 percent for Brien.
desmoinesdem Tue 21 May 9:58 PM