Schauer says district needs an advocate who will ‘actually fight for us in Des Moines’
Don Harrold, Executive Editor
don.harrold@enterprisepub.com
Benjamin Schauer, the Democratic candidate for Iowa House District 15, said he is running so the district has a voice in the Legislature. “I’m running to ensure that this area’s voice is heard, and that we have an advocate that’s going to actually fight for us in Des Moines,” Schauer said.
Schauer referred to Matt Windschitl, the House majority leader he ran against in 2024, who is no longer running. “We see a previous representative that, despite being majority leader, saw quite a bit of decline in these areas during his 20 years in office, and we don’t have much to show for that time,” he said. “We need true representation, and that shouldn’t matter what party we belong to, if we belong to one at all.”
Schauer faces Republican Jason Sherer and independents Blake Johnson and Marilyn Mentzer in the Nov. 3 general election. He said the biggest hurdle for Democrats in rural areas is that the national party “largely abandoned a lot of these areas” 30 or 40 years ago. “They didn’t see them as valuable. They saw themselves able to pick up enough votes to win in their urban centers and some of the quote unquote blue states that they largely abandoned us,” he said.
“We pulled 31% of the votes. We pulled just over 5,500 votes at that point,” Schauer said of his 2024 race. “It was we didn’t have enough infrastructure because I got into the race so late to actually get that message out to enough people with enough time that we had.”
Schauer said the issues he talks about are “the kitchen table issues, clean water, better infrastructure, better access to healthcare, especially here in these rural spaces, solid public education systems. Those shouldn’t be partisan issues. They should just be Iowa issues.” He said his goal is “to look out for all Iowans and what’s best for this district.”
Property taxes are among the biggest issues voters raise, Schauer said, and the Legislature took a swing at them last session. “I don’t think they did it in a way that was necessarily meaningful, especially since they pushed that bill through in the last 36 hours of session. That’s not legislating. That’s mismanagement,” he said.
“I’m really glad that both major parties have realized that water quality is an issue in our state,” Schauer said. He said students in the Pottawattamie County parts of the district go to Underwood or Council Bluffs for public school, and health care is limited. “You don’t have a doctor in your town if you live off of Highway 30 here in Harrison County, and that’s concerning for a lot of folks,” he said.
Schauer said counties, cities and school boards are largely funded by property taxes, and more costs are being pushed onto them. “If we were to truly see a change in this, some of that burden has to come off of these local communities. The state has to step in,” he said. “Lack of funding for schools with our supplemental state aid every year at 2% is not adequate enough to cover the increases.”
“I would propose that we ensure that all of our entities are taxed fairly,” Schauer said. “You look at data centers, for example. I’m not a proponent of bringing them in, but when they are brought in, ensuring that they are taxed to the correct level, that they are taxed the full level, that we close those loopholes to ensure that they’re paying their fair share.”
“You have Republicans that would like to see us slash them completely and go to a sales tax model, which I don’t agree with,” he said. “I think the best way right now is to shift that model toward the state.”
Asked what he disagrees with the Democratic Party on, Schauer cited eminent domain and the carbon capture pipeline Summit wants to put through northwest Iowa. “I’m a union member. I’m a union person,” he said. “Though I love the concept of jobs creation, though I love the concepts of using union work to get that done, when we look at the science behind those pipelines, we look at the environmental issues, the government overreach that we would have by using eminent domain for private gain in that situation, I don’t see that as worth it for the individual property rights of citizens.”
Asked whether he is closer ideologically to Bill Clinton or Kamala Harris, Schauer said he would “probably err more towards” Clinton. “There’s this idea that Bill Clinton pulled the Democratic Party to the right. I don’t disagree with that in terms of things, but I will say that he also was able to get things done. He balanced the budget,” he said.
On Republicans, Schauer said he agrees with fiscal conservatism, “though I don’t think the current iteration of the Republican Party necessarily follows suit with that.” He said he admires the party’s focus on keeping rural communities strong. “That’s something that I don’t feel the Democratic Party is working at enough,” he said. “They want to make sure that these small towns still have value down the road. And I live in one, so that resonates deeply with me.”
Schauer said he considered himself very conservative growing up. “I’m still very religious. I actively practice most Sundays. I’m on my church worship team and stuff like that. But I feel that I can relate to voters in a way because I’ve lived both of those political worlds,” he said. “Most of my family are still very hardcore Republicans. ... It seems so simple and so basic to say that I have the ability to talk to people that don’t necessarily agree with me, but that truly is a superpower when it comes to getting along.”
Schauer, 33, said he grew up in Oklahoma, moved to eastern Iowa with his mother and came to western Iowa 11 years ago for a job at Boyer Valley in Dunlap. “I didn’t expect to even be in Western Iowa for more than two years,” he said. “But then I fell in love with that community, and I got involved in the city council.” He was appointed in 2020 and won a seat in 2021 and again in 2025.
“For me, it’s truly personal because I want to give back to the first place that’s really ever felt home in my life. I want to make it better than I found it,” Schauer said. He said population decline is part of what rural communities have lost, “but also part of it is just neglect from a state and federal government that doesn’t give a damn about these rural spaces and doesn’t give a damn about the people that live here. They see them as disposable or they see them as backwards.”
Schauer said that view is something else he disagrees with his party about. “Rural doesn’t mean backwards. Rural just means we live away from the big city,” he said. “I’ve been told by a lot of people you don’t belong in this position because you’re not multigenerational, you’re not from here, you’re not us. But I’ve chosen to make it home.”
