Zach Wahls, of Two-Mom Video Fame, Announces Iowa Senate Run

• Politics and Law • iowa, queerspawn, zach wahls

Zach WahlsZach Wahls, who shot to fame in 2011 when his speech to the Iowa legislature about growing up with two moms went viral (twice!) has announced he is running for the Iowa Senate.

Wahls, who was a University of Iowa student when he gave his speech in support of marriage equality, has been busy since then. The former Eagle Scout co-founded Scouts for Equality, which helped overturn the Boy Scouts of America’s ban on gay scouts. He authored an inspiring memoir about his family and the lessons his moms have taught him, My Two Moms: Lessons of Love, Strength, and What Makes a Family.  (My review here.) He co-founded The Rainbow Letters, a great project that collects and shares the stories of those who have LGBTQ parents. And last year, he joined with his sister Zebby Wahls to launch “The Woman Card(s),” a deck of cards featuring strong and accomplished women, in response to Donald Trump’s dismissive comments about Hillary Clinton. Along the way, he also graduated from college and now is working on a Master’s degree in public policy from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton, which he will finish remotely, he said today on Twitter.

Also via Twitter, he addressed his reasons for running (tweets compiled here for ease of reading; follow him @zachwahls):

I am running for Iowa Senate District 37, which is my home. It is where I grew up, where I went to high school, where I got my first job, and where I started my first business. I’m running for a simple reason: our state is at a crossroads that will define the future of our state for generations to come. No state in the country had a bigger swing from Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016 than Iowa did. Iowa Republicans took over our state legislature and immediately began to dismantle our state’s social foundation.

He spoke of his commitment to listening to women and his work for LGBTQ equality:

Two quick notes about how we’re going to run this campaign. FIRST, I am incredibly conscientious of the fact that I am a straight white guy running in the #MeToo moment. I am running because I believe all Iowans need a seat at the table. That absolutely means more women running, it means more young people, it means more people of color. This is an all hands on deck situation that is going to determine the future of our state for generations to come — and all hands means all hands. I am going to listen to women. I am going to hold myself and the men around me accountable for our behavior. For our generation, this is a basic qualification, but I feel it is one that is important to name and to say out loud. Standing up to patriarchy has been an important part of my work in support of LGBTQ rights and that is not going to stop now.

‏On policies, he spoke of addressing the mental health crisis in the state, including lack of public psychiatric beds, and increasing suicide rate; the harms of Medicaid privatization; making college more affordable; and supporting K12 spending and collective bargaining for public employees, including public school teachers.

I don’t know Zach personally (although I had the pleasure of participating in an online forum with him once back in 2012), but if his book, public speeches, and record of advocacy are anything to go by, he’ll be a formidable candidate and (we can hope) legislator.

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