Begin with listening

During her trip to Newton, Second Congressional District Democratic Candidate Rita Hart made a stop to talk with citizens with COVID-19 dominating the discussion. The former Iowa state senator said it is a time for leadership to come together rather than continue to divide the country.

“We need to be listening to the voices that are saying there is too much strife, too much division. We need leaders who are going to Washington that are talking about bringing us together, uniting us,” Hart said. “This is an opportunity through this pandemic for all of us to come together to fight a common enemy and figure out how we can do this together. That is the kind of leadership we are hungry for.”

An eastern Iowa native, Hart grew up on a farm before attending community college and later the University of Northern Iowa before starting a career in education. Still living on a farm today, she knows the struggles, especially this year, rural communities are going through.

“We got hit pretty hard on our farm with the derecho. It is going to be a tough fall for farmers, particularly when we have lost grain storage and places to store our equipment and the crops are down ... It is just going to take a lot of time,” Hart said.

Rural communities were also the focus during a discussion on healthcare, education and equal opportunities. With many districts fluctuating between in-school, hybrid and virtual learning, she said it is important now more than ever that children have access to quality internet outside of cities.

“We had some programs that were moving in the right direction and helping our small telephone companies expand and get to that last mile, but those efforts were thwarted by the bigger industries. They didn’t want to lose, they didn’t want the smaller telephone companies to expand,” Hart said. “It is obvious that it is effecting us educationally. If you can’t do what everybody else can do ... The access is very important.”

With COVID-19 the cause of many issues currently facing not only Jasper County but the state and country, as well, Hart said it was interesting to talk with a colleague from another state who is having a very different experience through the pandemic.

“We were talking about COVID and it seemed we were having the same conversation and I had to stop him and say, I don’t think you get it. I know several people who have had COVID and my uncle died from COVID. He said, what, he was really shocked by that,” Hart said. “That’s because not every state is like Iowa. We have really struggled to get this infection rate down, it is going the wrong direction.”

Community members also voiced their frustrations with the lack of mask mandate and flippant attitude toward the older population who is more vulnerable to serious effects from the virus.

“I’m going to get really radical. When we were in Texas, the Lt. Governor down there said basically let the old people die,” one woman said. “That is how much they care, we might as well face it.”

Moving forward with her campaign, as it moves into the final weeks, Hart is staying focused her priorities she started out with.

“The message has been the same throughout. I think it is so important to talk about bringing people together to work on these really tough important issues, to find common ground. The only way we are going to get that done is if we listen to each other,” Hart said. “We are facing these health issues, we are facing the unrest around racial equality, we are facing people’s worry on are we going to get this health insurance fixed, what is going to happen, those are all issues that we have to come together on. The only way we are going to come to that common ground is if we listen to each other.”

Listening has been a theme throughout her life. Her mother, who had rheumatic fever as a child, later lost her voice down to a whisper. She said it was her job to make sure if her mother was talking, everyone stopped to listen.

“I learned from that, that sometimes the loud voices, the ruckus voice, the voices that are taking up all of the oxygen in the room are not necessarily the voices you ought to listen to,” Hart said.  “Sometimes that voice that you have to lean in to hear, you have to take the effort to listen to, is the most important voice at the table, the wisest voice at the table and can make the biggest different in your life.”

Contact Jamee A. Pierson at 641-792-3121 ext. 6534 or jpierson@newtondailynews.com