Redistricting eliminated Iowa’s 5th Congressional District, and changes to districts 3 and 4.
Republican Tom Latham will run against Democrat Leonard Boswell for the right to represent Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District.
Latham currently represents the 4th District, while Boswell is the incumbent representative for district 3. During a recent Iowa Press debate, the two discussed the importance of a new farm bill.
When asked how he would convince lawmakers from major that they should support subsidies for farmers, Latham said ag producers want to help reduce the national debt.
"They want to help with deficit reduction; they are willing to give up the direct payments and reform counter-cyclical payments. All they want is some kind of way of ensuring their risk. But I think your urban friends have to understand that this is a food bill. It's not a farm bill. Over 80% of the spending in the "farm bill" is for feeding programs.”
Boswell agreed the farm bill is crucial, and says leadership is needed to get the bill passed sooner rather than later.
"Well, first off, the farm bill is extremely important and I agree with the food bill, it's a nutrition bill as we refer to it at times. It's extremely important. We ought to be back to working on it. It's a failure of leadership not to bring it to the floor. It passed the Senate last June, bipartisan out of committee, bipartisan from the Senate, came over to the House passed a bill out and there it sits and leadership has not brought it to the floor.”
The complete debate is available at www.iptv.org.
