Priorities

Iowa's housing stock tells a story most politicians don't want to tell. More than a quarter of our state's homes were built before 1940, and in roughly one in five counties, the total number of housing units actually shrank between 2010 and 2017. The families who rent are hit hardest: cost-burdened households regularly have to choose between paying rent and affording other basic needs like food, healthcare, and utilities. (https://nlihc.org/housing-needs-by-state/iowa)In addition, Iowans are also watching our grocery stores disappear, while prices for those groceries continue to rise. A University of Northern Iowa study found 111 Iowa communities meet the criteria to be classified as rural food deserts (https://iwrc.uni.edu/blog/food-beverage/mapping-rural-iowa-food-deserts)— with over 41,500 Iowans living without local access to wholesome food What fills the gap is usually a convenience store, which often carries no fresh meat or produce but can price a small-town grocer out of business within a year of opening. People living in one of the most agriculturally productive regions on earth are driving 20 or 30 miles for fresh food — if they can drive at all. Then there's the utility bill. Alliant Energy serves much of District 13 — and has raised rates three times in seven years. Its residential rates are already the third-highest among 31 large Midwest utility companies, and 62% higher than what MidAmerican's residential customers pay across the state.(https://www.cleanenergydistricts.org/news-resource/cedi-annual-analysis-of-iowa-utility-rates-2023) In 2024, the Iowa Utilities Commission approved a $185 million annual rate increase for Alliant,(https://www.cleanenergydistricts.org/news-resource/alliants-electric-rate-increase-the-rest-of-the-story) and the company simultaneously eliminated the tiered discount structure that had partially protected higher-usage customers — the very people most likely to live in older, poorly insulated rural homes. The underlying reason for these rate increases isn't hard to find: Alliant co-owns four coal plants with no retirement plan before 2040 — plants that collectively lost $49 million between 2021 and 2023. T(https://www.iaenvironment.org/newsroom/energy-news/utilities-commission-approves-rate-increase-as-alliant-requested)hat loss doesn't disappear. It gets passed to residents who have no other utility provider as options. These pressures don't operate in isolation. An older resident in a pre-war farmhouse pays more to heat it, can't get to a grocery store without a long drive, and struggles to find housing assistance because demand far outpaces supply. A young family that can't find affordable housing near work doesn't put down roots — which accelerates the population decline that makes grocery stores and other services harder to sustain. Iowa's business community has identified housing as one of the top barriers keeping people out of the workforce,(https://www.businessrecord.com/property-taxes-workforce-and-housing-dictate-2026-iowa-legislative-session/) and yet this legislative session the Republican majority let Democratic bills on housing, food access, and utility accountability die in committee. (https://www.iowapublicradio.org/state-government-news/2026-02-20/iowa-legislature-bill-funnel-week-first-deadline-2026) If elected your District 13 State Senator, Brenda will: • Make housing, food access, and utility accountability a legislative priority • Support grants and infrastructure support for locally owned grocers, and regional programs that connect our agricultural and food resources to the people who live here • Hold corporate energy providers accountable — no more rubber-stamped rate increases while money-losing coal plants pass their losses on to families who have no other choice • Fight for state investment to rehabilitate aging rural housing and expand workforce housing so District 13 can grow

The healthcare picture across rural Iowa is stark. Nineteen rural Iowa hospitals are at risk of closure, four facing immediate threat. (https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/760-hospitals-at-risk-of-closure-state-by-state/)Over the past 15 years, 250 more healthcare facilities have closed in Iowa than have opened. The state ranks 44th in patient-to-physician ratio (https://dailyiowan.com/2025/11/18/iowas-mental-health-revamp-shows-little-change/)and last in the nation for OB-GYNs per capita (https://www.businessrecord.com/health-care-leaders-hope-influx-of-residency-slots-will-help-solve-iowas-physician-shortage/)— behind every other state and Puerto Rico. For mental health, the picture is no better: the average wait for a behavioral health appointment is 48 days, and six in ten psychiatrists don't accept new patients. (https://dailyiowan.com/2025/11/18/iowas-mental-health-revamp-shows-little-change/)All of these gaps run deeper in rural areas like District 13, where provider shortages are most acute and distances to care are greatest. Southeastern Iowa has felt this acutely. In February 2026, MercyOne closed its Family and Internal Medicine clinic in Ottumwa,(https://www.kcrg.com/2026/01/14/southeastern-iowa-clinic-announces-closure-another-reducing-services/) directing patients to a facility in Centerville — 50 minutes away. Around the same time, Pella Regional scaled back family practice services in Ottumwa, citing provider recruitment failures. These aren't isolated events. They are part of a pattern of consolidation pulling healthcare toward population centers and leaving rural communities to absorb what gets left behind. Medicaid is the connective tissue holding much of this together. One in four Iowans is enrolled, which means cuts don't just impact recipients. When reimbursement falls below the cost of care, hospitals cut services or close — and when a rural hospital closes, everyone loses access, not just Medicaid patients. (https://familiesusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Rural-Hospital-Medicaid-Analysis.pdf)The Big Beautiful Bill that Zach Nunn supported is projected to cut $941 billion from Medicaid over ten years — far more than the rural health investments in the same legislation can replace, in communities that were already operating without a margin for error. At the same time, the expiration of enhanced ACA tax credits has caused premiums to rise — and in some cases double — for Iowans buying coverage through the individual marketplace,  adding another layer of financial pressure on families already stretched thin. If elected your District 13 State Senator, Brenda will fight for: • Reproductive Healthcare and OB-GYN - Policies that support maternal health access in rural communities, including funding for mobile and telehealth maternity services, and will oppose further restrictions that drive obstetricians out of Iowa at a moment the state can least afford to lose them. • Rural Hospital Funding and state funding formulas that account for the structural disadvantages rural providers face — including inadequate Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates that make it impossible for small hospitals to operate sustainably.

Iowa is in a public health crisis — and the evidence points directly to our environment.(https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2026/02/25/iowa-environmental-council-public-health-connection-to-pollution-cant-be-ignored/) (https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2026/02/25/iowa-environmental-council-public-health-connection-to-pollution-cant-be-ignored/)Iowa has the fastest-rising cancer rates in America and the second-highest overall cancer rate for the third consecutive year.(https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/2026/02/12/ia-lawmakers-introduce-suite-of-clean-water-legislation/) (https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/2026/02/12/ia-lawmakers-introduce-suite-of-clean-water-legislation/)While corporate interests and their allies in the statehouse have been slow to act, researchers are connecting the dots between what's in our water, our air, and our soil — and what's happening in our bodies. Clean Water Is a Right, Not a Privilege Iowa has the nation's highest waterway nitrate concentrations,(https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/2025/12/09/food-water-watch-unveils-iowa-blueprint-for-clean-water/) and is one of only two states with rising cancer rates. Studies have found found that 80% of nitrates in Iowa's water supply come from agricultural runoff —(https://www.kcrg.com/2025/08/05/solving-iowas-nitrate-crisis-will-take-state-local-efforts-water-quality-experts-suggest/) and the biggest contributors aren't the family farmers who have worked this land for generations. They're the corporate-owned confinement operations, the corporate giants who sell farmers their seeds and chemicals at prices they can't negotiate, and industrial processors who dictate what goes on the fields, control commodity prices, and walk away from the consequences. Iowa's family farmers are caught in the middle — squeezed by the same corporate system that is degrading our land and water, and then blamed for the results. Research links nitrate in drinking water to increased risk of birth defects, colorectal cancer, bladder cancer, and other types of cancer. Nitrate levels have spiked so high in Iowa rivers that public health officials banned roughly 600,000 businesses and homeowners from watering their lawns (https://www.ciww.gov/news-1/ciww-issues-lawn-watering-ban-effective-immediately)because filtering the nitrates was too taxing for water utilities. Iowa families — farm and town alike — are left paying the price in their water bills and their medical bills, while the corporations responsible face little accountability. Many farmers are already doing the right things — planting cover crops, maintaining buffer strips, reducing runoff. But these measures alone aren't enough, and individual farmers shouldn't have to bear the cost alone. Brenda will fight for policies that make conservation practices economically viable, provide real support to farmers who lead on stewardship, and hold the largest corporate polluters to meaningful standards. The Cancer Crisis in Our Backyards It's not just our water. Radon is making things worse. Iowa has the highest average indoor radon concentration. An estimated 400 Iowans die every year from radon-induced lung cancer (https://canceriowa.org/radon/)-- many of them, like the farmers and rural families of District 13, living in older homes that have never been tested. More than 70% of Iowa homes measure at or above the EPA's recommended action level — the highest rate in the nation. Meanwhile, in cities near coal plants like some in our district, respiratory cancer risk spikes due to toxic air particulates  — hitting the working families of our district especially hard. Brenda grew up next to farmers. She sat at their kitchen tables and listened. She knows the difference between a family farmer doing their best with the tools the market gives them and a corporate confinement operation producing billions of pounds of waste with no accountability. She will never conflate the two. If elected your District 13 State Senator, Brenda will fight for: • Stronger water quality standards that target the largest corporate polluters, not family farmers • Meaningful incentives and support for farmers who adopt conservation practices like cover crops and buffer strips • Expanded radon testing and mitigation programs, especially for rural and lower-income households • Real accountability for industrial processors, factory farm conglomerates, and coal plant operators whose pollution ends up in our bodies

Iowa's public schools were once a genuine point of national pride. The state led the country in literacy, posted some of the strongest ACT scores anywhere, and built a teacher preparation system that others tried to replicate. Small classes, tight-knit communities, and a belief that every child deserved access to a quality education gave Iowa a reputation it had earned. The spending reflected the commitment: through the 1960s, 70s, and into the 1980s, Iowa consistently invested more per student than the national average. (https://www.iowapublicradio.org/2022-10-17/iowa-week-education-evolution-history) That foundation has been quietly dismantled. Today, according to the Urban Education Network of Iowa, the state ranks 35th in the nation in per-pupil spending — more than $2,000 below the national average,(https://uen-ia.org/capitol-update-january-30-2025) a gap that has roughly doubled since 2013. Test scores have fallen. Graduation rates have slipped. And in the most recent national assessment of post-pandemic academic recovery,(https://educationrecoveryscorecard.org/states/iowa/) Iowa finished last — dead last — in the pace of math and reading improvement between 2022 and 2024. Eighty-two percent of Iowa students are still enrolled in districts where math achievement hasn't climbed back to where it was before COVID. The explanations are real and multiple: poverty, chronic absenteeism, the long tail of pandemic disruption. But policy choices don't get to stand apart from outcomes. Two-thirds of Iowa school districts currently cannot hit state-mandated budget levels because enrollment is falling faster than state funding can compensate. The legislature's answer was a 2% per-pupil increase — less than half the 5% floor that educators said was the minimum needed to tread water.(https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2026/02/19/iowa-house-passes-compromise-2-per-pupil-education-funding-rate/) At the same time, the state expanded a private school voucher program (https://iowastatedaily.com/331292/news/transparency-concerns-grow-over-iowas-314-million-private-school-program/)that means nothing to families in 41 of Iowa's 99 counties, because there are no private schools there to use it. Meanwhile, the population of students with the greatest needs has grown. The share of Iowa children qualifying for free and reduced lunch has doubled — from one in five to nearly one in two over the same period (https://www.ia-sb.org/docs/default-source/toolbox/financial-tools/visualizing-data/student-enrollment-demographics/fy24_free_red_lunchd591840e-c811-439e-a550-54e916558fc6.pdf?sfvrsn=163b7919_1)— more children arriving at school with more needs, in a system that has been steadily defunded of the capacity to meet them. If elected your District 13 State Senator, Brenda will fight for: • Per-pupil funding reform • Voucher accountability • Restoring stable state funding to Iowa's Area Education Agencies and protecting the special education services that rural students and families depend on. • Expanded funding for early childhood education • Competitive teacher compensation and working conditions that make Iowa classrooms somewhere talented people want to build a career