Fourth District Focus: Kicking off my 5th biannual 36 County Tour with a town hall in Cherokee
On Thursday February 20th, I kicked off my fifth biannual 36 County Tour with a town hall in Cherokee hosted by Cherokee County Economic Development and the Iowa Farm Bureau. Nearly 25 Iowans joined us for a productive and engaging conversation about a wide range of issues from agriculture and tax reform to border security and domestic energy production. Since I was first elected, I have made more than 320 stops on my 36 County Tour, and I look forward to another successful year of meetings, visits, and tours across Iowa’s 4th Congressional District.
Before we discussed what’s happening in Congress, I highlighted how our office helped Nor-Am Cold Storage in Cherokee cut through government red tape and receive approval from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to ship refrigerated products – including Iowa-raised meat – to the European Union. This approval from USDA will protect more than fifty good-paying jobs in Cherokee and ensure that goods like Iowa beef, pork, and poultry can be exported. At the federal level, I had my FRIDGE Act included in the Farm Bill to support businesses like Nor-Am by building new refrigeration infrastructure at home and abroad so that our producers can access new export markets.
Sticking with agricultural issues, I also talked about the urgent need to secure year-round access to E-15 nationwide and pass a five-year Farm Bill for our farmers, producers, and rural communities. As a member of the House Agriculture Committee, I voted for, and the full committee passed, the Farm Bill last May. Yet, Democrats in the U.S. Senate blocked its consideration, forcing us to approve a second one-year extension of the 2018 Farm Bill at the end of 2024. The dysfunction in Washington is unacceptable. I am committed to working with our Agriculture Chairman, G.T. Thompson, to pass a Farm Bill that includes increased reference prices for corn and soybeans, stronger crop insurance protections, greater oversight of foreign purchases of American farmland, investments in foreign animal disease prevention, and dollars for rural broadband.
On a separate, yet equally important note, it is a top priority for me to get the bird flu outbreak under control, support our producers as they work to repopulate their flocks, and bring egg prices down for our families. That’s why I led a letter to Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins asking that the USDA do everything possible to address this crisis, proactively prevent the spread of foreign animal disease, and help our farmers mitigate outbreaks when they occur. Representing the top egg-producing congressional district in the country, I look forward to working with the Trump administration and Secretary Rollins to promote biosecurity on our farms, lower the price of eggs, and support our farmers and producers throughout this process.
Additionally, I had the opportunity to recount my time at the White House when President Trump signed the Laken Riley Act into law. This bill – the first that President Trump signed as our Commander in Chief – includes my legislation, Sarah’s Law, in memory of 21-year-old Iowan Sarah Root who was killed in 2016 by an illegal immigrant who was driving while drunk. Scott Root, Sarah’s father, also joined me for the signing ceremony where we spoke to Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of Homeland Security Krisi Noem about Sarah’s story. With his signature, President Trump prioritized Americans over criminal illegal immigrants and delivered justice for Sarah Root and her family, ensuring that illegal immigrants who harm or kill American citizens answer for their crimes and do the hard time that they deserve.
Another topic of importance that we covered is the looming expiration of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) and my work serving on the House Ways and Means Committee to protect these tax cuts for our families, farmers, and businesses. If TCJA expires, the average U.S. taxpayer would face a 22% increase in their tax obligations, 91% of taxpayers would see their standard deduction cut in half, and 26 million small businesses would face a top tax rate of 43.4%. We cannot let that happen. I’m working to maintain the doubled standard deduction, protect income tax cuts, keep the increased child tax credit, and defend the 20% tax cut for our small businesses and rural main streets. I also recently introduced the Death Tax Repeal Act with more than 170 of my colleagues to permanently eliminate the death tax on our family farms and small businesses. It is ridiculous that the federal government sends grieving families a massive tax bill when a loved one passes away. It must be stopped.
Over the years, I’ve made several stops in Cherokee County. I have visited the new MMCRU Elementary and High School in Marcus, checked out a Hy-Vee distribution center in Cherokee, stopped by the Cherokee Public Library, attended the grand opening of the Cherokee Locker, spoke to the Cherokee Rotary, met with cattle producers in Cherokee, toured Wetherell Manufacturing in Cleghorn, and held a roundtable discussion with first responders and emergency management in Cherokee following last summer’s devastating floods. My pledge to Iowans is that I will always be a strong voice in Congress for our families, farmers, businesses, and rural communities.
This op-ed was originally published in the Cherokee Chronicle Times on February 27, 2025.