Pam Jochum (State Senator, IA)

Why did you run for public office?

Actually, I ran for public office because I really believed, from the time I was a child, in John Kennedy challenging us to give something back, and the government was one of those vehicles that could be used to make a positive difference in people’s lives. And I believe that, and I’ve been involved in politics since I was 19 years old. And in 1992, the seat opened up and I decided to throw my hat in the ring and run, and I was the first woman, believe it or not, to ever run and win in my community.

But I had this passion I had for 20 years by that time that we needed to change how we finance our campaigns, and that until we did that, the rest of our agenda — whether it’s improvements in healthcare or environmental protection or whatever the issue may be — simply wasn’t going to happen until we were able to break the influence of special interest money in campaigns, and make candidates and elected officials responsive to the needs of the people, rather than owing favors to those who underwrote their campaigns.

So, even back in the first time that I ran, I made a pledge to the people in my district that I would run with no political action money, no special interest money, and I’ve kept that promise and, to this day, I still finance my campaign with individual contribution from primarily people in my area.

What’s the main reason you think voter-run elections are needed in Iowa?

Voter-owned elections are needed because we need to make sure that government is responsive to the needs of the people, and I no longer believe it is. I’ve become, perhaps, a little more jaded as time has gone on. But I’ve been on the outside as a political organizer and now on the inside as an elected official, and with each passing election, the cost of the elections almost doubles and as that has happened, candidates have become more and more reliant on special interest money.

And whether people want to admit it or not, they are buying access to their elected officials, and subsequently, we are not responsive, I don’t believe, anymore to the common good. And I believe that’s the reason why we’re seeing so many problems in Washington — even in state legislatures now — in solving real problems that people want us to deal with. We’re not doing it anymore, and that’s very disheartening for me, for someone who believed that government could make a difference and solve problems and make society a little bit better than how we-how we inherited it. And that’s, I believe, our role in life.

Clean elections, I believe, really speak to some of our values of fairness and common sense and accountability, fairness in terms of leveling the playing field. Some will argue that somehow this type of reform legislation, where you actually give candidates a choice on whether they want to publicly finance or privately finance, somehow helps the incumbent, and it could be the furthest thing from the truth. The current system is an incumbent protection plan, when you have 96 to 98 percent of incumbents getting re-elected every year.

They’re the ones with access to the wealth, access to the interest groups; it’s not your challenger. When a challenger unseats an incumbent, it is the exception to the rule that they’ve been able to even come close to raising the same amount of money as the incumbent. This levels the playing field, and I believe it’s going to force all of us to get back to the door-to-door effort, the retail politics, the grassroots organizing, where we are connected to the people who, in my opinion, have leased us their power for two years to make decisions, to make this place a little better.

And so I believe it levels the playing field, the clean elections are just a common sense solution, and it provides more accountability to the public on how we behave.

Do you think that publicly financed elections will allow more people to run based on their ideas and their vision, rather than their ability to fundraise?

Oh, absolutely. It will open up the door, and I think we will see far more candidates running if a clean money campaign system was in place. As I said earlier, it really is about leveling the playing field, the fairness issue, and that means that people who are not well connected to money can actually run for office and have at least a shot at being heard. I’ve always believed the purpose of a campaign should be based on the merits of our ideas and what we believe government should be doing, not based on how much money we can raise and spend.

Even at this level of government in Iowa, that’s considered a very squeaky-clean state, well, it’s here, too, and it’s time to change. A good friend of mine, Senator Bill Bradley — I know that some will advocate for tinkering with the system or partial public financing; it simply doesn’t work — his analogy is probably one that just stuck with me better than anything, he said, “You know, if you have ants in your house, you can’t just get rid of some of the ants, you’ve got to get rid of all of them or you’ve still got ants in your house. And the same goes for money and politics; you can’t get rid of some of it, you’ve got to get rid of all of it or you’re never going to be able to address and solve the problems that government needs to do.”

Do you think that fundraising takes away a lot of valuable time that ought to be spent on making good policy, or on meeting with constituents? What percentage of the time is involved with that?

I would say at least half of a candidate’s time is spent dialing for dollars or organizing fundraising events here in Des Moines or back in their districts. And that is part of the beauty of clean money, clean elections, is that all of that goes away and we actually can spend our time on knocking doors in our district and holding forums to find out what the public thinks, and maybe they have some ideas for solutions that we haven’t even thought of.

So, yeah, it will certainly open up more time, and I think it makes us more connected to the people that we’re asking to hire us.

Why do you think so many incumbents have such hesitation about public financing of elections?

A couple. One is that I think some feel somewhat threatened, that maybe they won’t be re-elected, because this is the system that they used to get themselves elected. And I believe that-that most legislators, most elected officials will be able to get back to their districts and explain their votes and the merits of their ideas, and I think most of them would probably get re-elected again. If you can’t do that, you’re probably in a world of hurt anyway, if you can’t defend your votes and what you believe in.

And I think a lot of times leaders feel somewhat threatened, because right now, they’re the ones that raised huge sums of money and then they dole it out through various funds to candidates, and I think they feel a little bit threatened that maybe they aren’t going to have the same kind of power control over those candidates once elected. They won’t be as beholding to the leadership. So, those are just a few of the issues, I think, that hold people back.

This, I’ve always believed, has got to come from the outside of the capitol; it’s got to be something public demands that we change, and we have put together our own Voter-Owned Iowa Clean Elections Act, and the funding for it, we’re going to use unclaimed, abandoned property money, it’s not tax money. And, of course, just voluntary contributions to the fund, the trust fund itself, five dollar income tax check-offs, so it’s all voluntary. And we can make it work.

We really do need the public to demand that change. And I was in a very unique position because of our first caucus state status with the presidentials, and we have quite a group, quite a coalition building in the state, and that was one thing they all said, we need to all do a better job of making sure that we’re going to all these presidential candidates events in our districts or in our communities, and ask them point blank, what would you do as president to lead the way to change how we finance political campaigns, so that government can be responsive to the people again?

So, I think we’re going to start seeing more of those questions of our presidential wannabes, from both parties.

To what degree do you think agribusiness money has been a factor as a political influence in elections in this state?

Agribusiness has actually had tremendous influence on policy in this state. I know in the last legislative session, Representative Kuhn and Representative Frevert had drafted a bill in the Environmental Protection Committee — I also serve on that committee — and it would have started providing more protections for homeowners and communities in terms of large hog confinement operations. There’s just mountains of research that now are pointing to health concerns and environmental concerns with large confinement operations.

Whenever you concentrate anything, you’re going to have problems, and-and we’re beginning to see that here in our own state. We couldn’t — we got the bill out of committee, it went to the appropriate — to the Ways and Means Committee, and it got stuck. And –

Can you speak about local control there?

Actually, we call it a matrix, and it’s a point system that’s used by the Department of Natural Resources to provide a permit to large confinement operations. And it would have tightened up that matrix, it would have required more done by the Department of Natural Resources in terms of odor and the toxins that are released into the air, and those kinds of issues.

And there would have been a greater distance between those large confinement operations and tourism spots, lakes, rivers, creeks, homes, etcetera. And it got stuck, and got stuck because there is a lot of money coming from the Iowa Farm Bureau and other agribusiness groups that would rather that the state legislature did not change that law. And so right now it’s stuck in Ways and Means, and I’m hoping in the next session we’re able to move forward, regardless of the money.

Can you speak to farm policy, the subsidies?

Breadbasket of the world and lots of subsidies. In fact I saw some numbers the other night that showed that the amount of money that comes into this state for food assistance, something like 18 million dollars, versus farm subsidies that are something like 2.2 billion. And then they did the rollover effect in the economy of both subsidies, and the 18 million dollars in food assistance, food stamps, had a much bigger impact on the Iowa economy than the 2.3 billion dollars that is coming in farm subsidies, and that unfortunately is because a lot of the farms may have absentee landlords or whatever, and the money is just not rolling over in our economy in our own state.

So, at the federal level, Senator Harkin certainly has his work cut out for him in putting together a national farm policy that speaks to conservation and diversifying even what types of crops we use to create or develop ethanol and other biofuels, because that’s where it’s going to be at. And Iowa can’t think that we can do all of our ethanol production based just on corn, or we will fail, and we know that. And that’s why we did create, in the last session, a power fund providing some more funding to Iowa State University and our universities in general, to do more research on diversifying the whole energy sector of what we’re trying to do here.

The National Corn Growers Association, Monsanto, ACM, or Cargill; is their influence felt here as well?

Iowa Corn Growers Association, Monsanto, other large agribusiness corporations, including all those involved in the development of pesticides and fertilizers, have lobbyists here in Des Moines, they have political action committees, and yes, they do contribute to candidates and their races, and their influence is felt a great deal on how we craft legislation, even at the state level. Again, a bill that’s still pending in the Iowa state legislature that would have required more distance requirements, etcetera, from large confinement operations, animal feeding operations, stuck in committee.

They played a role in the fact that that bill it was stuck in committee; in fact, it was stuck in the Agricultural Committee until one of the leaders had to physically remove the bill and place it in another committee because they had locked it up. And we’ve had bills before us that even dealt with fertilizers and application of fertilizer, and application of manure, and how you do that, and making sure that it’s injected into the soil so that it’s not laying on top of the soil, and then you have a heavy rainfall and it all washes off into the streams, polluting our rivers and our creeks and so on.

So, yeah, they’re always there, trying to block some of those issues.

Can you speak to the treatment of water to make it safe for people?

The nitrates in our water, in our drinking water here in Des Moines, is particularly problematic because of the runoff from manure on the cornfields, etcetera, and the fertilizers and the pesticides. Certainly that is playing a major role in the amount of nitrates in our drinking water, that of course, the cities have to remove because it’s not safe for us. But we’re also seeing it just from our own homes, because many people fertilize their lawns, etcetera, and if it’s not applied accurately, it’s going to wash away in a heavy rainfall.

Fertilizer and pesticide regulation efforts have been rolled back or bottled up by agribusiness.

My experience as a legislator, from even the first year I got elected, is that the agribusiness lobby has been very successful in blocking some of the regulations that we have tried to pass in terms of pesticides and fertilizers and application of even manure on farmsteads. And that’s very unsettling to me, because that is not in the interest of the whole state of Iowa and the people of Iowa. It benefits a handful of corporate interests, and that’s not why I’m serving.

The Farm Bureau represents themselves as friends to family farmers.

Well, my impression from the time in the ’70s when I worked at the capitol and did legislature at that time was debating the Family Farm Act, of which the Farm Bureau had taken a position of “no” on. And it just shocked me that the leadership has been a very strong voice for the insurance industry, because Farm Bureau is a very large insurance company, and in agribusiness and corporate farming more so than family farms, and that saddens me a great deal because they try to pass themselves off that way, but that’s not been my experience.

And so, I’ve been far more impressed with some of the work of Farmer’s Union and some of the other organizations that truly are trying to represent family farms and making sure that they remain financially solvent and can continue working the land, and are the real people who believe that we need to be good stewards of the land and the environment. It’s not ours to use.

Getting back to the local control issue, in 2006, you’ve got a Democratic majority now, and the reason seems to be that they were saying positive things about supporting local control. And yet now they’re not doing what they promised.

I do know that there are people in this state who are very upset and disenchanted right now with the Democratic majority because there were promises made for many years, not just in this last election cycle, in terms of providing more local control and regulation for large confinement operations. And the bill has been bottled up. It really does go back to one of the reasons, probably the most important reason, why we need to pass Voter-Owner Iowa Clean Elections, and that is to break that stranglehold that special interests have on candidates and elected officials.

It’s there, and until we can find voice, get it passed, and find a new way to finance campaigns, some of the very issues that we’re talking about just aren’t going to happen, whether it’s, again, healthcare improvements or environmental issues or whatever. To me, the manner in which we finance campaigns is the issue behind all of it at center, and ought to be our number one priority.

And, because if that doesn’t happen, our second and third priorities aren’t going to happen; they don’t have a prayer. And I think that more and more groups are beginning to make that connection. Farmer’s Union, I know of, several years ago called me and I came and spoke to one of their conventions and rallies, and it was because they realized that, even though they thought they had the votes lined up to pass something meaningful in terms of family farms and so on, it didn’t happen, and it’s still not happening.

And then they went back and started looking at campaign reports and realized that agribusiness had contributed huge sums of money to candidate’s campaigns. And again, as the cost of the campaigns escalate every election cycle, candidates and officeholders become more and more reliant and dependent on those big campaign contributions to make it work. And it needs to end, we need to change it.

In Arizona, it’s a slow process getting publicly financed candidates elected.

Maine has had more success. 84 percent of the Maine legislature ran as clean election candidates. So, they have made a lot headway, I think, in terms of electing a legislature that’s much more free of outside interest money, so it’s encouraging.

Do you think that bodes well for family farmers in Iowa?

I do, very much so. I believe that if we can get voice passed and have a large number of candidates running in that Voter-Owned Clean Election system, I believe that our legislators will be far more responsive to just common folks again. And those common folks are those who own the land, live on the land, work the land, and are feeding the people. And they’re going to have their voices heard much more strongly than agribusiness.

What is the link between farm policy, food policy, and health policy?

The insurance industry, which of course includes Farm Bureau because they are a very large insurance company, has as many lobbyists up here almost as legislators. And they have been very successful in blocking a number of health initiatives for children and for adults, and there’s a bill right now bottled up in Commerce Committee that would benefit children a great deal. And again, it goes back to money in politics and the influence that the Farm Bureau and the insurance industry has on the Statehouse.

I think that any time a legislature mandates that certain things need to be covered, the insurance industry immediately goes after it and says no way, it’s going to increase our health costs. And as policymakers, I look at it and say, but the costs not to do it far outweigh the mandate to cover this benefit. And I remember a few years ago they tried to block mammograms, saying it was going to increase health insurance costs. Well, in the long run, it saved them money.

Earlier detection, obviously, and prevention saves money. So, we’ve heard that argument over and over again. Sooner or later, I’m hoping more elected officials know that it’s the same old, same old argument to block anything meaningful that the public really wants and needs to have.

Do you think that some of the policies that lawmakers make in farm policy impact people’s health and diet throughout the country?

Certainly, the foods that we grow and how we grow them impact people’s health in our country. I think that we certainly have a problem with obesity, and although we have plenty of food to eat, we are not necessarily a nourished society. And that’s evidenced by the number of health problems that we’re experiencing directly linked to whether or not we’re getting the nutrients out of our food that we need. And certainly, it has a tremendous impact on the whole country.

And again, it goes back to money in politics. It needs to change.

Do you have any thoughts about this new ethanol craze, and now they’re going to be growing more corn?

It’s very nice to see farmers smile. On the other hand, I think that this state has to be very sensitive that growing fencepost to fencepost with one crop actually is not good for the land. You need to rotate crops. Secondly, just corn-based ethanol, if that’s all we’re going to do, we will fail in terms of being a leader in renewable energies. That’s why we created a power fund to diversify, to get into cellulosic, and biomasses, to produce ethanol.

And we have to do that. And we cannot overlook the fact that we need to be using wind power; no pollution, does nothing, farmers get paid well because they’re paid a rent to put up that windmill on their property. And, yes, so there are many things that we need to be doing, and great concerns about the nitrates and what’s happening to the water supply because of over-fertilization on the farmlands.

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