The current Congressperson for the 1st District, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, needs a clearer voting strategy in Congress. For instance, she voted against the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxic Act (PACT) that would have improved Veterans’ health after they had been exposed to ‘burn pit lung’ and/or Agent Orange because she said there were two conflicting bills-one was bipartisan and one wasn’t. Then she voted to underfund Veterans’ Health Care that would have paid for this health benefit after the bipartisan bill passed.

On other matters, she voted for Jim Jordan to be Speaker of the House and when that nomination was doomed, she had ‘a come to Jesus moment’ and decided to vote against him only to vote for an even more radical reactionary, Mike Johnson. He brags that he is in constant contact with the Republican who is running for President on issues, even though the nominee-to-be has been legally defined as a sexual predator, convicted for fraud in his public business dealings, and has had to pay millions for defrauding his students in his phony Universities.

Miler-Meeks is so concerned with the border issue that she took a junket to the border paid for by Iowa taxpayers and now she is siding with the other Reactionaries who are killing a bipartisan bill that was being negotiated in the Senate dealing with comprehensive immigration reform, which incidentally was one of the first pieces of legislation that the President tried to get Congress to take action on.

In May 2021, she cosponsored the Life at Conception Act and has aligned herself with MAGA extremists to chip away at reproductive freedom and enact draconian bans on health care for women – a total abortion ban with no exceptions for rape, incest, or to save a woman’s life. Then, on July 21, 2022, Miller-Meeks voted against the Right to Contraception Act, legislation that was designed to safeguard the right to birth control. This action contradicts the assurance of accessible contraception, impacting women’s reproductive health choices. I’m just not sure the eye doctor is seeing very clearly on the issue of women’s health issues.

The thing most clear to me about her ‘representation’ is this. As a veteran, she doesn’t represent me; as a grandfather of granddaughters, she doesn’t represent my interests; as a grandfather to a legal immigrant soldier, she does not represent me.

It’s time for change. Vote Blue—vote Bohannan.

Harold R. Frakes

Brighton