Christina Bohannan, a Democrat who hopes to challenge Republican Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks bid for reelection, says it’s time for a wide-ranging government ethics reform plan that would include term limits, age limits and a ban on members of congress, their immediate families and congressional staff from being lobbyists.
Bohannan said an independent, bipartisan agency should be established to review potential ethics violations. “Confidence in congress is at an all time low,” Bohannan said during an interview with Radio Iowa, “and people see that there are all kinds of abuses of the privileges and perks of being in office and no accountability.”
Bohannan pointed to recent posts on social media showing Miller-Meeks flying first class. Bohannan proposes that members of congress be prohibited from using money from leadership PACs to finance their travel and Bohannan said taxpayer dollars should not be used to buy first class or business class plane seats for members of congress. “That’s just unseemly,” Bohannan said. “It’s just wrong.”
A spokesman for Miller-Meeks said the congresswoman’s flights back and forth to D.C. for official business are all booked at a government rate and the congresswoman uses her own money or frequent flier miles to cover any upgrade to a first class seat. Both Bohannan and Miller-Meeks support banning members of congress from buying and selling stocks. “We just need to bring some accountability back to congress and restore faith in our government,” Bohannan said.
A spokeswoman for the National Republican Congressional Committee says Bohannan needs to divest of the individual stocks she and her husband own before throwing stones at others. Bohannan’s husband is a doctor who’s an associate dean in the University of Iowa Medical School.
Bohannan believes many of the items on her ethics reform list for congress can be accomplished with legislation, but some, like establishing term limits and age limits for politicians, might require passage of a constitutional amendment. “There are obviously people who stay in congress for way too long and this happens on both sides, both parties. It happened with our president, arguably, last cycle,” said Bohannan, who publicly called on President Biden to end his bid for another term after his performance in a June 2024 debate.
Bohannan said when members of congress aren’t capable of fulfilling the duties of their office, unelected people are the ones making decisions. “The other issue here, though, is when people have been in congress for so long, they really lose touch with everyday people,” Bohannan said. “They spend so much time over the years with lobbyists, with corporate donors, with CEOs, with other politicians they kind of lose sight of what everyday life is like for people.”
Bohannan has run against Miller-Meeks twice before and, in 2024, finished 799 votes behind Miller-Meeks. Bohannan said the voters she’s met this time around are angry congress hasn’t stopped Trump’s tariff policies or extended health care subsidies for up to 135,000 Iowans that are set to expire December 31. “All of these things have ripple effects in the economy,” Bohannan said. “I mean the tariffs are causing John Deere to have to lay off workers because when farmers are struggling, they are not going to buy farm equipment.”
Two other Democrats are running in the second congressional district. Travis Terrell is a patient access specialist at University of Iowa Health Care and Taylor Wettach is a lawyer from Muscatine.