The congressman from the 3rd Congressional District is Leonard Boswell, a Democrat first elected in 1996. Boswell grew up on farms in Ringgold and Decatur counties, near the Missouri border. He was drafted in 1956, at age 22, and was a private in the Army. He re-enlisted as an officer, graduated first in his class in both fixed-wing and helicopter flying school, served two years in Vietnam, and retired as a lieutenant colonel in 1976. He then taught at the Army command college at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Boswell settled down on his Decatur County farm and became head of the local farmers’ co-op, which he managed to keep out of bankruptcy during the farm depression of the 1980s. Read More

The congressman from the 3rd Congressional District is Leonard Boswell, a Democrat first elected in 1996. Boswell grew up on farms in Ringgold and Decatur counties, near the Missouri border. He was drafted in 1956, at age 22, and was a private in the Army. He re-enlisted as an officer, graduated first in his class in both fixed-wing and helicopter flying school, served two years in Vietnam, and retired as a lieutenant colonel in 1976. He then taught at the Army command college at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Boswell settled down on his Decatur County farm and became head of the local farmers’ co-op, which he managed to keep out of bankruptcy during the farm depression of the 1980s.

In 1984, he was elected state senator from a six-county Republican district, served as chairman of the Appropriations Committee and, after 1992, Senate president. Boswell was also the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor in 1994. In 1996, he ran for an open seat in the old 3rd District, which was largely rural and extended across the state’s southern tier. Boswell flew his four-seater Piper Comanche 250 across the district, campaigning for a balanced federal budget, higher education spending, and fewer Medicare reductions, all to be financed with Pentagon cuts and eliminating waste in Medicare. Poweshiek County attorney Mike Mahaffey ran as a moderate Republican. Boswell was endorsed by the Farm Bureau, which usually backs Republicans. He raised more money than Mahaffey and, like other Democrats, ran ads attacking GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia and cuts in Medicare. The result was a 49%-48% victory for Boswell.

A member of the Blue Dog Coalition, he has a voting record in the most conservative quadrant of House Democrats, though he has demonstrated more loyalty to his party in recent years. When President Obama took office, Boswell joined the majority of his party in backing the president’s economic stimulus bill, his health care overhaul and the Democrats’ cap-and-trade bill to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

From his seat on the Agriculture Committee, Boswell has supported normal trade relations with China, the world’s biggest market for pork, a major Iowa commodity. He had a hand in writing the 2008 farm bill as chairman of the Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry. Boswell added provisions to the House bill that gave pricing benefits to food processors, and changed the dairy price support so that it was based on all dairy products, not just milk. On the Intelligence Committee, his military background and his security clearance made him well-positioned to investigate the nation’s response to terrorism. He voted to authorize military action in Iraq, but later criticized the Bush administration for not spending enough money on counter-terrorism. In 2007, he won enactment of a bill for a suicide prevention program for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The nonpartisan redistricting plan after the 2000 census created enormous political problems for Boswell. Only seven of the 27 counties and 24% of the population in his former district were moved to the new 3rd District. Decatur County, where he continued to operate his family farm, was one of eight counties moved to western Iowa’s new, heavily Republican 5th District. His only other option was to move to the new 2nd District, which leans Democratic but where he would have faced a tough contest against then-Rep. Jim Leach, R-Iowa. Boswell decided to move to Des Moines and run in the newly redrawn 3rd District in 2002. His Republican challenger was Stan Thompson, a Des Moines lawyer who worked for George W. Bush in the 2000 Iowa caucuses. Thompson argued that Boswell was out of step with the new district’s philosophy. He won several important endorsements, including a joint designation with Boswell from the Iowa Farm Bureau. Boswell won, 53%-45%. Thompson came back two years later for a rematch. In that contest, the Des Moines Register complained that Boswell had become “almost so low-key he is no longer heard.” But he still won 55%-45%, and carried Polk County 57%-43%.

Nonetheless, in 2006, Boswell faced yet another tough challenge—from state Senate Co-President Jeff Lamberti, scion of a family-owned chain of convenience stores and gas stations. Lamberti got help from national Republicans and highlighted his differences with Boswell on taxes, spending, and border control. In a strongly Democratic year, Boswell won by only 52%-46%. In 2008, Boswell spent more than $1 million to defeat a primary challenge from Ed Fallon, a former state legislator, 61%-39%. Fallon, who suggested that Boswell might soon retire, was backed by the Register, which called Boswell “out of touch” and criticized him for a relatively light record of accomplishments. In the general election, Boswell attracted a politically savvy but little-known GOP challenger, lawyer Kim Schmett, and prevailed with 56% of the vote.

Early in the 2010 election season, when a Register poll pointed to a highly anti-incumbent mood in the district, Republicans again took an interest in dislodging Boswell. The GOP primary attracted seven candidates, including former Iowa State University wrestling coach Jim Gibbons, who later became a Wells Fargo vice president. Gibbons got support from some House Republican leaders, but the eventual nominee was Brad Zaun, a GOP state senator and former mayor of Urbandale. He called for tax cuts and lower government spending, and sharply rebuked Boswell for saying that the economy was improving. But the Republican was hit by a swarm of negative publicity—a nine-year-old report showed that police had once warned him to stay away from an ex-girlfriend, who had accused him of harassment, plus subsequent news articles about unpaid medical bills, missed mortgage payments and a federal tax lien against him. The race, which had been a tossup, swung in Boswell’s favor in the closing weeks, and he won 51%-46%, with Socialist Rebecca Williamson getting 3%.