First trans elected official in Iowa is vying for the Iowa House seats.

Hiawatha City Council member Aime Wichtendahl, a Democrat, announced Monday she is running for Iowa House District 80.

The district covers Hiawatha, Robins and part of Cedar Rapids.

State Rep. Art Staed, D-Cedar Rapids, currently represents the district, but intends to run for the Iowa Senate seat being vacated by Democratic incumbent Todd Taylor.

The House district leans Democratic. Biden won the district in 2020 with roughly 55% of the vote. Staed won re-election with about 54% of the vote over Republican Barrett Hubbard in 2022.

Wichtendahl, who in 2015 became the first transgender Iowan elected to public office, has advocated against state legislation that would affect transgender youth. She was re-elected to the Hiawatha City Council for a third term in November.

She said sweeping new laws passed this year by Republican lawmakers and signed into law by Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds that place restrictions on LGBTQ students, school materials and access to abortion, and create new taxpayer-funded private school scholarships prompted her to run for the Iowa House seat.

“We have a government that wants your vote, but not your opinion,” Wichtendahl said. “That, you know, routinely does things that Iowans don’t agree with.”

She pointed to state and national polling suggesting widespread disapproval of banning books, restricting abortion access and using taxpayer money to pay for private schools.

However, majorities of Iowans support Republican legislation to restrict instruction on LGBTQ topics in schools and ban gender-affirming care for transgender minors, according to a March Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll.

“I think something is fundamentally broken in Des Moines, and it’s going to require new leadership to change,” Wichtendahl told The Gazette. “Granted, that’s going to be a long, hard road, but it’s one that has to happen … if we are to truly have a government that works for its citizens instead of pushing people they don’t like to the borders.”

If elected, Wichtendahl said she would push to raise the minimum wage, expand access to affordable housing, use the state’s budget surplus to create tax credits for child care and reverse state laws passed this year that place restrictions on LGBTQ students, ban nearly all abortions in the state and provide taxpayer-funded private school scholarships.

Wichtendahl said she also supports legalizing recreational marijuana for adult use, expanding the state’s medical cannabis system and enabling voters to place statewide referendums on the ballot.

“I truly think we need to live by the values written on our (state) flag: ‘Our liberties we prize, and your rights we will maintain,’” she said. “And the simple fact is LGBTQ kids have fundamental rights that are being abused by this government.”

Supporters argue the measures assert parents’ rights to control and guide their child’s education, and protect children from medical care and treatments when the science is not settled, even though all major medical groups in the U.S. say the treatments are safe and the vast majority of studies show that the care leads to better mental health outcomes.

Cedar Rapids veteran also running for House seat

Cedar Rapids veteran John Thompson, a Republican, filed paperwork in October with the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board of his intentions to run for the seat.

Thompson serves as president of Salute to the Fallen, a nonprofit he created to help veterans and first responders and their families with mental health issues, homelessness and more. He also is a member of the Carpenters Union Local 308.

Thompson said he enlisted in the U.S. Army in 2007 and was discharged in 2012 due to injuries. He said he served as an infantryman and deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.

He moved to Cedar Rapids eight years ago from Texas, and founded Salute to the Fallen in 2019. The nonprofit provides a crisis intervention hotline, as well as financial assistance to pay for therapy for trauma-related disorders in veterans and first responders. It also provides peer support and assistance pairing veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder with trained service dogs, as well as help with food, clothing and household goods.

Thompson said he’s running for the Iowa House to better help and be a louder voice for veterans, first responders and small businesses, and improve Iowa’s mental health care system.

Thompson said he also is opposed to recommendations from a state panel to cut or consolidate more than 100 administrative boards and commissions as part of a state government reorganization plan signed into law earlier this year.

The recommendations would need to be approved by the Republican-controlled Iowa Legislature in next year’s session and signed into law by Gov. Kim Reynolds before they take effect.

Thompson said he felt the recommendations were done “hastily,” without consideration of the “unintentional consequences” that would arise from eliminating some Iowa boards.

Thompson gave the example of the state’s Board of Athletic Training, which the panel initially recommended be eliminated. Athletic trainers warned that losing licensing for the profession would disincentivize qualified trainers from working in the state and allow unqualified people to work as athletic trainers. Thompson said his wife is an athletic trainer at Xavier High School in Cedar Rapids.

The state panel this fall reversed some of its recommendations to eliminate some government boards after Iowans expressed concerns. Rather than being eliminated, the state’s Board of Athletic Training would be merged with the Board of Chiropractic, Board of Massage Therapy and Board of Physical and Occupational Therapy.

“Some of the boards recommended to be shut down didn’t need to be,“ Thompson said. ”They were volunteer-based and there was no effect on financial gain for the state in any direction, and so it made no sense.“