by Travis Shane
Politics have fascinated me for as long as I can remember. The research in the books we have read, as well as in the newspaper archives, tells us much about the different political issues over time and their ongoing relevance. This interest leads me to examine the politics of Storm Lake. While I will be heavily focused on my own personal research for this blog post, I will pull up relevant materials from others that have been tagged “politics” in our notation system.
The newspaper archives, discussed by Anna last week, go back as far as 1865. However, our focus has remained on people and events from 1979 to the present. Like everyone else, I was assigned three years to research in the archives in order to collaboratively study Storm Lake’s past and present. I am personally responsible for the years 1987, 2001, and 2015, all of which were crucial to local and national politics. At the time of writing this blogpost, we have taken 656 SourceNotes, with 54 of them related to politics, and more than a quarter of those posts originating from my research.
The politics of the era were interesting, since 1979 marked the tail end of the Carter era and the ascension of Ronald Reagan to national office. In Storm Lake, though, the late seventies and early eighties marked a key change with the closure of the Hygrade meatpacking plant and its reopening in 1982 under IBP. Throughout this time, there were arguments with political undertones familiar to us today: the efficacy of pooling labor from immigrants while laying off local workers, unionization efforts, and other topics.
I began my archive research by focusing on 1987. That year, a number of articles appeared about Democrats making stops in Storm Lake to campaign for the presidential nomination. This included a ‘darkhorse’ candidate, Bruce Babbitt, then Governor of Arizona. With his appearances at the Gingerbread Day Care Center, he fingerpainted with children and outlined the key pillars of his campaign, which most importantly addressed childcare and education. He was also very critical of Reagan’s Star Wars defense system and desired more negotiations for ceilings to the nuclear stockpiles of the U.S. and USSR. Another visitor to Storm Lake in 1987 was Richard Gephardt, then a congressman from Missouri. He stopped at the Country Kitchen to outline himself as an antidote to President Reagan. He espoused similar points on education and trade like Babbitt, while also lambasting the administration’s corruption with the ‘Contra Aid’ scandal perpetrated by Oliver North. Iowa for the past few decades has been a bellwether state and, despite its importance, it was interesting to see more direct stories in how Storm Lake played a key role in the campaign stops of multiple nominees, some of whom actually visited town more than once during this election season.
Shortly after this, in 1990, there was a hearing in Des Moines about the hiring practices of IBP. (Thanks to Anna Rottenborn for her note on this.) The bill proposed fines up to $1000 for the first infraction of knowingly hiring illegal immigrants and then a $2000 fine for every time after that. The bill also outlined that if more than 5% of a workforce in a given company can’t speak English, then an interpreter needs to be provided. The bill also prevented companies from deducting the costs of company housing and safety equipment from their paychecks. A short story like this really exposes the tensions of the time that continue to have relevance in town today.
In 2001, we saw politics come up in other areas that haven’t been discussed much. Early that year, the changes from the Federal Balanced Budget Relief Act were set to help the hospital save roughly $254,000 over the course of five years. The bill was designed to help hospitals across the nation keep costs down, saving them 11.5 billion total dollars. Seeing the impact on the Buena Vista County Hospital itself was interesting because, when looking through the lens of politics, one can draw connections with Storm Lake’s political influence on the outside world, and vice versa.
Other political intrigues from 2001 included the ever-controversial politician, then-State Senator Steve King, declining to run for governor in 2002 against Governor Tom Vilsack. The article went into detail as to why he dropped out. His platform criticized Vilsack for taxing the poor people of Iowa to provide more accommodations for the rich and well-off residents of the state. In 2001, there was also a rollout of a new program that allowed for sponsorships of illegal immigrants to become citizens if they had at least a bachelor’s degree and four employment sponsors. This was notable. Many applauded the program, since leaders disliked seeing families split up, yet others said that the program did not go far enough to help illegal immigrants who could not meet some of the requirements like formal education. There was even a national story on how the government had Microsoft on the ropes with an antitrust case that had been waged since the Clinton presidency, demonstrating an earlier example of the careful relationship between the federal government and big tech companies. Politics have reached into a new stratosphere with the arrival of a candidate who would somehow beat the odds and secure a term as President: Donald Trump. However, my research year of 2015 preceded his victory over Hillary Clinton, and most of the articles covering Trump and Iowa came later in the year. They especially detailed the battle between Trump and Ben Carson, who had surged in the polls. Another article covered Congressman Steve King’s comments about Donald Trump’s campaign platform–specifically immigration. Representative King, in an interview with CNN, said that Trump’s stances on immigration were promising and that Trump owes his success to his ability to tap into the political discontent of middle America.
But 2015 provides other focuses that are more liberal in their point of view. Continuing with the article about Steve King and Donald Trump, another point of view was provided by LULAC, which planned to protest Donald Trump whenever he held a rally in the state. Other articles address the platform of Storm Lake resident David Walker, who was running to keep his seat on the city council, praising the direction of the town.
From 2017 to the present, there are a number of SourceNotes that cover the policies of the Trump administration, but there are plenty of SourceNotes connected to politics that came from our class “news responses.” To learn more about the town and to practice how to properly craft our SourceNotes, we created weekly news responses based on articles in the Storm Lake Times in 2021. As a result, we learned a great deal about the community today and how it is grappling with the political realm. This included community support for a bill that would provide protection for mobile home dwellers, to coverage of the Myanmar-related protests back in February. We are also up to date on the saga revolving around the marina. SourceNotes and our research have allowed us not only to better understand the past, but they give us a sense of what issues are facing Storm Lake at the moment.
While politics may be a source of division between people today, as they always have been, they provide a helpful perspective to understand life in Storm Lake. Here I am reminded of Police Chief Chris Cole, who spoke on truth, trust, diversity, and community building. I am paraphrasing his thoughts here, but I think it is an important point that has stayed with me: in life and politics, only with truth and trust can there be a path to peace.
Travis Shane is a senior history major with interests in American and military histories. Beyond class, Travis also draws, reads, and likes to hang out with friends.
