At this point, covering Josh Turek’s attendance record is like cleaning out a machine shed. Every time you think you’ve hauled out the last of it, you find another pile in the corner.
Quick refresher for the folks in the back. Between January and early May, Turek missed 261 votes in the Iowa House, nearly 60 percent of the votes he was elected to cast. He still found time to collect $20,100 in per diem. Nice work if you can get it.
And the farm votes just keep turning up.
This past session, the House took up a bill eliminating the excise tax on high-blend ethanol fuel used in farm equipment. We’re talking fuel that’s more than 85 percent ethanol, burned by the same people who grow the corn that makes the ethanol. In Iowa, that’s about as close to a layup as legislation gets. Governor Reynolds signed it. Josh Turek? Wasn’t there to vote on it.
Then there’s House File 1050, which eliminates property taxes on the aboveground tanks farmers use to store fuel. Another easy one. Turek skipped that vote too.
This time, though, we know exactly where he was. He was at a Senate candidate forum with Zach Wahls.
Yes, that Zach Wahls. The one Iowa Democrats later rejected in the primary. Turek blew off a tax cut for farmers so he could share a stage with a guy who found out the hard way that he worked for his staff, not the other way around.
If this were a one-off, maybe you could shrug it off. It isn’t. And when Turek does bother to show up, farmers don’t exactly come out ahead. The rap sheet so far:
- He opposed permanent relief from the death tax for family-owned farms, the kind of relief that decides whether a farm gets handed down or sold off.
- He skipped the vote on the Iowa Farm Bill. The farm bill. In Iowa.
- He introduced legislation that would pile more bureaucratic red tape on farmers, because what every Iowa farmer wants is more paperwork.
- He voted to allow climate-emission lawsuits targeting farmers.
- He voted to allow imitation-meat labeling that would open the door for misbranded products in Iowa schools. Fake meat on the lunch tray in the state that raises more hogs than anybody. Bold strategy.
Josh Turek loves telling Iowa farmers he’s got their back. Here’s the problem: you can’t have someone’s back if you’re never in the room.
Iowa farmers show up every single day, through drought, floods, and markets that’d make a day trader sweat. The least Josh Turek could do is show up for a vote. Turns out that was too much to ask.
We’ll keep digging. At this rate, we’ll still be finding skipped votes at Thanksgiving.
