How Iowa's Politicians Avoid Answering Your Questions
It's not an accident. It's a strategy.
You are not alone if you find it hard, if not impossible, to get a straight and direct answer from an Iowa politician these days. Many of them, particularly Republicans simply no longer think responding to questions from the news media or even voters is a significant part of their job.
That’s pretty weird, from my perspective.
When I worked on Capitol Hill, a big part of my job as the Press Secretary and Communications Director to US Representatives, Senators, and Senate Committees was keeping voters informed on the work my boss was doing in Congress, fielding questions primarily from news reporters and answering them.
I’m proud to say that in every ofice I ever worked in, not responding to questions from voters or the news media was simply never an option.
What a different world it is today with Iowa’s current congressional delegation - House and Senate.
Today, in large measure, they just don’t bother. I’m still not sure what the press officers in those offices do in return for their paychecks. I’d ask one of them, but they’d have to take or return my call and, well, you know.
If a reporter has a friendly question - one that gives the office holder a chance to brag or score a political point - they might have a chance. But if that reporter has a simple request for facts, a follow up to a written statement, or an “incoventient” question - one that lays outside the preferred narrative - it’s “Please get in line and kindly wait until Hell freezes over.”
I guess that access to the internet, the ability to put their own propaganda up on tax paid websites, the web of right wing podcasts, blogs and other outlets has convinced many Republicans in Congress that media other than their own is pretty much irrelevant when it comes to communicating with the public these days.
The problem with that way of thinking is that questions from actual journalists - reporters, columnists, analysts - which can disrupt self-serving, inaccurate narratives or simply help clarify things for voters, don’t get asked.
Because those politicians don’t want to be asked. They just want their own propaganda to be out there.
Here are some of the strategies politicians - including Iowa’s Republicans in Congress - use to avoid answering questions from the media - and from you, the voters.
Don’t take questions. Don’t return calls from reporters. If you must respond, do it by email and through staff so you minimize the chance that you ever - god forbid - have to answer a follow up question without a partisan script to read.
I urge. you to start taking note of how often you read that a member of Iowa’s congressional delegation responded to a reporter’s question not with an actualy answer but, rather, with a “written statement” or didn’t respond at all. The frequency with which they do that is not a coincidence. It is a strategy, folks, one meant to avoid being asked - and therefore to avoid having to answer - a question directly, without a script, and to avoid follow up questions
Hand pick those allowed to ask questions. Schedule meetings mostly with small, friendly or even partisan groups where questions that might fall outside the accepted narrative are unlikely to be asked. Peer pressure, especially from higher ups at meetings at corporate meetings, tend to keep the questions light and friendly. At pubic meetings, announce them with short notice and invite partisan allies with more advance notice to pack public meetings - like Town Hall meetings. Call on your allies until the meeting ends.
Put a positive spin on things. If an unscripted question happens to get through - or is unavoidable because you have to vote on it on the House or Senate floor - spin out an answer that is as positive as you can make it and still keep a straight face.
That mob of insurrectionists, who on January 6, 2001, tried to over throw a free and fair presidential election? Trump says they were simply peaceful tourists on a day trip to the Capitol.
That’s how that’s done.
No Iowan in Congress has ever directly challenged Trump on that absurd and dangerous claim. But they have dismissed the January 6 insurrectionists as simply people who broke the law and should be prosecuted.
For what? Trespassing, breaking and entering? Littering?
Or insurrection? They’ve never said, but the implications are certainly nothing as serious as insurrection.
That’s about as far as you can go trying to put a positive spin on an attack everybody witnessed live on television, without going “full Trump” on it.
Iowans in Congress have downplayed the insurrection - putting as positive spin on it as possible. And they’ve not taken or responded to many questions about why they feel that way.
Just the assertion, the smears, the minimization, and no questions thank you very much. Let’s move on.
Deny the obvious. Trump’s multiple convictions - and even more pending indictments - by juries of his peers on multiple felonies? It’s all a political vendetta by Biden’s Justice Department.
Iowa Republicans from Governor Kim Reynolds on down denounced those convictions as Biden driven political shams.
They were prosecuted in a state court and the verdicts were handed down by an impartial jury of randomly selected citizens, vetted and approved for service on the jury by both the prosecution and the defense. Neither Reynolds nor any other Iowa Republican offered a drop of evidence to back up those claims.
Reynolds, in one of the most dangerous remarks afterTrump’s conviction, suggested the guilty verdicts - the product of an impartial judiciary - were irrelevant because “the only verdict that matters is the one at the ballot box in November.”
Reynolds refused to respond to questions about that claim, hiding behind a staffer who sniffed to reporters “Our statement stands (sic) for itself.”
Avoiding questions on those absurd claims means you never have to back up your multiple smears with evidence; or explain how a federal Department of Justice or a President of the United States could ever be responsible for prosecutions taking place in state courts. You never have to even offer a theory on how decisions made by an independent, impartial jury in New York could be driven by federal officials in Washington, DC. Or explain why Trump’s convictions are the result of politics, not an independent trial or the facts presented in a courtroom.
Just smear away and don’t worry about providing any evidence to back up the smear.
Change the subject. If anyone should break through with an actual non-party line question, simply change the subject. Especially in a Town Meeting or at a campaign rally: “Well, that’s not what I’m here to talk about today. I’m here today to talk about blah-blah-blah.”
Chuck Grassley’s demonstrated how this tactic works. On the one year anniversary of the attack he posted on X that January 6 was a “difficult day” but “I believe we need to focus on issues that bring our country together not tear us apart. Lots of work 2do.”
Yes, Senator, by all means. Let’s talk about that “lots of work 2do.”
Now, what would those issues be, those issues that “bring us together” and "don’t “tear us apart.” Ripping away the constitutional right women used to have to make their own health care decisions? Stealing Supreme Court seats? Are those the kinds of issues he wants us to focus on because they bring us together and don’t tear us apart? He seems very willing to talk about those.
The Republican practice of hiding from questions, behind non-existent responses to news media inquiries, behind written statements only, unknown aides, and of not even taking questions - from the news media and from voters - is much more than a response to the on-going changes in the way today’s media is structured and operates. Nor is it a response to the way the news media functions or reports on things.
It is a strategy that is part and parcel of the on-going Republican attacks on democracy, to disempower voters by denying them information about what their elected representatives are doing.
The people have a right to ask and a right to know.
The news media has a responsibility - under the constitution - to ask.
Public officials have a duty to answer and to be accountable for what they do.
Citizens should insist on all of the above. Especially in Iowa these days.