Name: Sean Hanley, Republican
Office/District: State Representative District 89
Hometown: Davenport
Profession: Realtor
Why running for office: “I actually knew I was going to run for office at the age of 15, I just didn’t know when. The last few years I was just kind of watching how our economy has been doing and watching how Davenport — I live in west-central Davenport — the troubles that we are running into, and I was looking at who our elected official is and so I looked back and I started looking at how she votes and what she’s putting out there. I realized she is literally just a straight party-line voter. One thing I was taught growing up is that you are always going to have to be free-thinking and be willing to reach across to the other side and find things you can work on. You can’t always fight. It just seems like our representative always fights. I think we can do better.
“I think we need to come back and look at politics as, I’m not working for the state, I’m working for the people in my community. They’re my bosses. Their concerns are the concerns I have to pay attention to and not my concerns and my pet projects. I never saw (the current representative) in the community.
“I’m a full-time realtor, so I look at homeownership, housing rights, property rights. We look at homeownership and we look at the real estate market and it is tied to the economy. When I look at my district and when I was looking around the state, if we’re no longer promoting and helping the small businesses, which is the backbone of Iowa, then we’re going to head toward a direction that is not going to be good for the housing market. I kind of look at it right now, we’re lucky with this whole virus that we have a rainy day fund because a lot of states don’t have that. But we need to encourage more small business growth and I don’t see that happening or being promoted from our district’s representative.
“I have seven children, so education is insanely important to me. And the thing about education is we’ve been throwing money at education for years and saying, ‘well, it just needs more money.’ I think money is always going to be an issue, but yet if we’re putting more money into it, why do teachers still have to get their own materials? Are we putting money in the right place? If we’re just throwing more money but hiring more administrators, are we doing the right thing for the children? How we are teaching the children is another big concern of mine. I talked to a teacher over in Des Moines. Her kids have to read 160 words a minute to pass them on, so she’s so busy doing that, she doesn’t get an opportunity to teach them how to absorb or utilize what they’re reading. I want my kids to succeed just the same as any other parent. Are we getting to a point where we’ve thrown so much bureaucracy into the school system where we’re handcuffing them and keeping them from doing the job they need to do? Education is probably my biggest issue.”
Facebook: Sean for House
