A key legislator is urging Iowans to continue to visit the statehouse with their children. House Speaker Christopher Rants, a Republican from Sioux City, made the plea after a part-time capitol tour guide was arrested and charged this past Wednesday with child stealing.
The tour guide was found alone on Saturday, February 4th with a missing four-year-old child in an area of the capitol not open to the public. Rants is in his 14th year as a legislator, and he says this is the first time he’s heard of such incident in the capitol. “No parent should feel like they can’t bring their kids (to the capitol),” Rants says. “I had my kids here last Saturday (February 11). My kids have taken the tours of the capitol and I’d feel comfortable bringing my kids back here, or their friends, to take tours of the capitol.”
Rants says he doesn’t want people to stop bringing their kids or sending school kids to the capitol because of what happened two weeks ago. “It’s a great opportunity for them to learn some history about the state of Iowa,” Rants says.