Washington County members participate in the Iowa Democrats August 2009, 2nd District Workshop meeting held in West Liberty, Iowa. Members attending this year were Kay Ciha, County Treasurer, Rose Jaynes, Candidate Development Chairperson, Terry Phillips, Veterans Caucus Chairperson and Peter Morrison, County Secretary.
The agenda of the meeting included a few brief introductory talks and panel discussion on the inclusion of younger members in the democratic process. The panel consisted of one individual from the Organizing for America group, which is an offshoot of the Obama Campaign and two others that are part of the staff of the IDP [Iowa Democratic Party].
Following the panel discussion, the Muscatine County Democrats provided lunch. During lunch a few individuals talked primarily about the importance of the special election in HD90 [House District 90].
The actual workshops were held in two time slots. The first between 1:00 p.m. and 2:20 p.m., and the second between 2:40 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. Each time slot offered three separate Tracks or topics, lead by a presenter. Our own Terry Phillips lead tract 2, entitled Outreach, in the 2nd time slot. I’m sure that the individuals attending the event would share their thoughts on the workshops they attended.
Between 4:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m., an issues forum, was presented by Rep. Nate Willems, Linn County, discussed the previous legislative sessions attempt to modify the issue of federal deductibility on the Iowa Tax forms. The indication was that the issue would be revisited in the upcoming session. Rep. Willems was assisted by a representative from the Iowa Fiscal Partnership, a joint fiscal policy initiative of two nonprofit, nonpartisan Iowa-based organization, the Child & Family Policy Center in Des Moines [www.cfpciowa.org] and the Iowa Policy Project in Iowa City [www.iowapolicyproject.org] I understand that our representative, Larry Marek was fully behind the passage of this bill in the past session. Rep. Willems indicated that to his knowledge all state representatives and state senators in the 2nd District were in favor of this legislation as proposed in the past session.
The main speaker at the dinner held between 6:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. was U. S. Representative Dave Loebsack (D). He indicated that he had held 4 Town Hall meetings that day and that a few had several trouble makers from the opposite party, but that many in attendance were very much in favor of change in the health care system.
