If your aim is true as a politician, then you must be willing to go where you are needed most. For over a year I have dreamt of representing the people of Iowa’s First District in Washington and have worked toward that end every day and night. Along the way, however, I have become increasingly aware that the issues we’ve been talking about exist with the most relevance at the state level.
In every corner of the district Iowans have shared concern that our public schools have been given a low priority by our current Governor and complicit members of the Iowa legislature, as well as concern over the privatization of Medicaid, and a general neglect of essential infrastructure. Many legislators are more interested in giving corporate tax breaks to lure companies, rather than to create what companies actually look for: Quality of Life.
Quality of Life includes education, job opportunities, access to healthcare, and attention to mental health services. It is stewardship of the environment, also roads and bridges, and the technologies that create new jobs and ease of commerce. In these areas, our state has gone from leadership to budget decay in order to appease an unnecessary austerity fever in Des Moines.
I believe that it is imperative to put more progressive legislators in the Statehouse in order to stem the tide of the Governor’s agenda that does not support working families, labor, students, or the infirmed. For that reason, I am ending my Congressional campaign and am forming an Exploratory Committee for District 60 in the Iowa House.
A lot of people have been enthusiastically supporting my Congressional bid, and I am eternally grateful to all of them. To those who may be bothered by the debate delays 
that precipitated this decision, I hope you can understand that this is not a compromise; it has always been my primary goal to do public service at whatever level so that people who need a strong voice to represent them, will get one.
I believe that good work radiates outward and that a stronger state of Iowa will, in turn, help to move America toward a better future.
– Gary Kroeger
