Name: Rep. John Wills, Republican (incumbent)
Office/District: State Representative District 1
Hometown: Spirit Lake
Profession: Water quality/conservationist
Why running for office: “I’ve really been focusing on a group of core issues that I have wanted to tackle. This is my sixth year, so it’ll be seventh and eighth after the next election. We’ve accomplished a few of the things that I set out to do, but I think there’s still more work to do on some of those issues. And some of those issues are tax reform, keeping our rights, keeping more of our Second Amendment rights, making sure our rights to free speech and religion are maintained, preventing abortion — those are kind of some of the core beliefs, things that I really started to set out to do.
“One of my campaign mottos, when I was first running, was I want your kids to stay here in Iowa. And we’ve almost gotten to that point. We’ve got unemployment so low that our kids are crazy if they go out of state. Now, this COVID thing has thrown a wrench into that. We’ve really kind of added Future Ready Iowa and some other programs, those are all things that I really envisioned and wanted to get accomplished six years ago. And, tax reform is probably one of the biggest ones because I believe that’s a way to keep our kids here. We need to just invigorate our rural economy. I grew up in Sibley, man, that’s a dying community. I wanted to revitalize it and make it a growing community and a thriving community again. I’d much rather live in Sibley than Des Moines. I guess, a deep-seated belief of mine is that when you crowd people and get them into a big environment like that, like Des Moines, Ankeny, what you do is you start getting socialized thought.
“And, so, why is it that in the rural areas we’re more independent and we’re less liberal? I believe it’s because of the socialized thought that you get when you crowd together. I think you look through history and I want to spread us out. I want to revitalize our rural communities. I feel like if we can move people here from, let’s say New York or California where they’re liberal, but we can get them into the rural environment, they will not change us, we will change them. And I really do believe that. Those are some of the things that are my core beliefs and thoughts and reasons for running.
“I don’t believe in running for life either. I think at some point I’m going to be done. I’ll know when that time is. I don’t know that, I know it’s not going to be 10 years. But I just believe that you’ve got to run with ideas to get things done and then get out and let somebody else take over who, hopefully, does the same thing that you do.”
Facebook: Wills For Iowa
No Democrat filed to run against Wills.
