Iowa State Senator Jim Carlin is putting together a campaign for United States Senate. The seat is currently held by Sen. Chuck Grassley and is up for election in 2022.
Grassley has not made his intentions for 2022 known.
Carlin, a U.S. Army veteran who currently serves Iowa Senate District 3 (Plymouth and Woodbury counties), filed campaign documents with the FEC earlier this month.
Carlin is a grandfather and has been married for 25 years. He has spent 28 years representing the people of Iowa as a trial attorney across all economic spectrums.
“I know the people of Iowa very well,” Carlin told The Iowa Standard. “I’ve literally represented the forgotten man for the last 30 years.”
Carlin said he is running out of concern for the incremental loss of freedom.
“I think a lot of people right now are very concerned about the direction our country appears to be on,” Carlin said. “Our Founders intended that America be defined by freedom. America is freedom. That’s why our Founders wrote the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. This was to be a country where we limit government, we respect people and we recognize their inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
“Right now we are going in the polar opposite of that very thing. You see this incremental incursion on every one of our freedoms — our free speech, our privacy, our religious freedom, our right to defend ourselves, our right to private property. All the ways we determine how to define ourselves as free individuals are being threatened right now by government overreach.
“This last episode now where we basically all have doubts in our minds over whether or not our vote even counts. And if our vote doesn’t count, we no longer have a representative form of government, we have something else. We should be concerned.”
Carlin is expected to formally announce his candidacy on Monday.
