The congressman from the 1st District is Bruce Braley, a Democrat from Waterloo elected in 2006. Braley is a native of Brooklyn, Iowa. His mother was a teacher, and his father was a farmer who died of injuries sustained in a fall down a grain elevator. The family struggled financially for years as a result. Braley graduated from Iowa State University and got his law degree from the University of Iowa. He was a trial lawyer and is a former president of the Iowa Trial Lawyers Association. His candidacy for Congress drew considerable financial support from the Association of Trial Lawyers of America and many of its members and officers, connections that made him the target of lawyer-bashing. National Republicans disparaged him as “a trial lawyer’s trial lawyer.” In the June primary, Braley overcame two competitive opponents: former state Rep. Rick Dickinson, an economic development official in Dubuque, and Bill Gluba, a real estate agent in Davenport. Although Braley was making his first run for office, he had a distinct fundraising advantage and the support of the Iowa AFL-CIO. He won 36% to 34% for Dickinson and 26% for Gluba. Meanwhile, Republicans nominated Mike Whalen, a Harvard Law School graduate, wealthy entrepreneur, and owner of the Machine Shed Restaurant chain. Read More

The congressman from the 1st District is Bruce Braley, a Democrat from Waterloo elected in 2006. Braley is a native of Brooklyn, Iowa. His mother was a teacher, and his father was a farmer who died of injuries sustained in a fall down a grain elevator. The family struggled financially for years as a result. Braley graduated from Iowa State University and got his law degree from the University of Iowa. He was a trial lawyer and is a former president of the Iowa Trial Lawyers Association. His candidacy for Congress drew considerable financial support from the Association of Trial Lawyers of America and many of its members and officers, connections that made him the target of lawyer-bashing. National Republicans disparaged him as “a trial lawyer’s trial lawyer.” In the June primary, Braley overcame two competitive opponents: former state Rep. Rick Dickinson, an economic development official in Dubuque, and Bill Gluba, a real estate agent in Davenport. Although Braley was making his first run for office, he had a distinct fundraising advantage and the support of the Iowa AFL-CIO. He won 36% to 34% for Dickinson and 26% for Gluba. Meanwhile, Republicans nominated Mike Whalen, a Harvard Law School graduate, wealthy entrepreneur, and owner of the Machine Shed Restaurant chain.

From the start, Republicans knew it would be a tough contest. In his eight terms, outgoing Rep. Jim Nussle (who vacated the seat to run for governor in 2006) never got more than 57% of the vote despite his prominence as the chairman of the House Budget Committee from 2001 to 2006. The candidates disagreed on many issues, including the Iraq war, tort reform, international trade deals, and abortion rights. Braley portrayed Whalen as an out-of-touch millionaire. He attacked Whalen’s opposition to raising the hourly minimum wage. When Whalen insisted that all his employees were paid more than the federal minimum wage, Braley produced a Machine Shed waitress who claimed that, even with tips, she and her co-workers earned only the minimum wage. For his part, Whalen charged that Braley’s litigious occupation contributed to higher health care costs and the medical liability crisis. Although the National Republican Congressional Committee spent heavily on direct mail and television ads against Braley, it wasn’t enough. Braley won surprisingly easily, 55%-43%. He took each of the 12 counties, except for two rural counties. As expected, he ran strongly in Waterloo’s Black Hawk County, with 59%; but he also took Whalen’s Quad Cities base in Scott County, with 53%.

Braley was among the more active members of his freshman class. He won House passage of a bill to require federal agencies to write in plain English, a longtime interest from his days practicing law. He took up the cause of veterans who had been neglected in government hospitals. The 2008 farm bill included his provision to fund advanced technology education centers to train technicians in renewable energy. His success led to an appointment to the influential Energy and Commerce Committee in 2008. He also founded the Populist Caucus, a group of about 30 House Democrats focusing on economic issues affecting the middle class. During the 2009 health care debate, he sharply rebuked what he called Iowa GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley’s “scare tactics” about end-of-life counseling provisions in the House bill. He also promoted tax credits for biodiesel and won House passage of a bill in September 2010 requiring federally bought American flags to be entirely American-made.

Braley was re-elected easily in 2008. He appeared headed for a similar fate in 2010 until an outside conservative group, the American Future Fund, put him in its sights. The group, which was founded by a former Nussle political aide, spent more than $570,000 on anti-Braley ads, including one that falsely accused him of “supporting” a mosque and Islamic cultural center proposed for construction two blocks from New York’s Ground Zero. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce chimed in with $250,000 of its own for attack ads, and as a result, Braley struggled to maintain his lead against Republican attorney Benjamin Lange. But unlike other endangered Democrats who distanced themselves from their votes on health care and other controversial topics, he gave a full-throated defense of his positions and managed to eke out a slim victory over Lange, 49.5%-47.5%. He could not win Scott County this time, but held on to his base in Black Hawk and Dubuque counties. Some local Democrats have mentioned Braley as a possible contender if one of Iowa’s veteran senators retires.