US Rep Iowa 54

In the olmsted county adult when iowa house speaker linda upmeyer announced she planned to leave the state house?

"*?

*- the question statewide was who would be the next house speaker.

Locally, though, the question remains who will represent the 54th representative district that upmeyer has served for 17 years.

Kimt news 3's george mallet is looking at that race and the candidates.

George?

And katie the race for house district 54 is unique because not only are there viable democratic and republican candidates, but also an independent.

The republican seeking to succeed the republican upmeyer is businesswoman shannon latham.

The democrat is former educator karen koenig.

The independent is niacc instructor bennett smith.

I asked each of the candidates what they see as the key issues facing voters in district 54.

The main ones that are near and dear to my heart are the environment.

Having been an environmental educator for ten years that is something that is of a concern to me.

Which also relates to sustainable agriculture which is another area of my interest.

If we learn to take care of the land and leave it better than when we started, i think that's an important thing to do well, george i think there's a short term issue of course in the pandemic that we've got to work harder at containing.

That would be the present crisis that we're in.

But longer term and the theme of my campaign is growing iowa for the next generation because what we really face is a shortage of population and a shortage of skilled workforce in iowa and in north iowa i really believe that covid recovery is going to be the issue that needs to be forefront and i think related to that is rural broadband.

So rural broadband is something that we've continued to talk about.

I know it's a front burner issue but sometimes it takes a real fire to get the issue dealt with, right?

And so if there is one thing that covid taught us, it's the importance of having access to reliable internet everywhere another topic i discussed with all three candidates was the extent to which they believed they'd be able to reach across the aisle.

The independent, smith, obviously sees that as the best way to get things done for the 54th district, but the republican, latham, and koenig, the democrat, both expressed a willingness to work in bipartisan fashion if they should reach the state house in des moines.

Katie?

It was just over a year ago, in september 2019, that house speaker linda upmeyer announced she would step down from her top role in the legislature and not seek reelection in district 54 this year.

In a statement at the time, upmeyer said "it has been the