Two Democrats look to Iowa House District 24

With Iowa House District 24 on the ballot this November, two Democratic contenders are looking to take on incumbent Sam Wengryn (R-Pleasanton) - Sonya Hicks of Osceola and Paul Davis of Lamoni - as they seek to win the June 2 primaries. Both Hicks and Davis spoke at the Clarke County Democrats’ monthly meeting about themselves, their campaigns and answered top questions. About the candidates

Hicks grew up in Afton and attended college at Iowa State University where she received a degree in botany and later a nursing degree. She and her husband, a family practice doctor at Clarke County Clinic, have lived in Osceola since 2011 with their four daughters.

Hicks has served on the Osceola City Council since 2024, is on the Clarke County Board of Health and serves as president of the TeamMates mentoring program at Clarke Schools. She provides in-home healthcare for people with little or no insurance.

Davis was born and raised in Baltimore. He came to Lamoni in 1973 to play football at Graceland University, where he graduated with a degree in sociology and a minor in political science. Following college, he spent 19 years in television sportscasting before returning to Lamoni more than 20 years ago to serve as the senior director of development at Graceland.

Davis has served in the Lamoni Lions Club, emceed for Lamoni events and since 2022 has been a pastor at the Community of Christ church in Lamoni alongside his wife, Evelyn, and a fellow church member. He and his wife have four sons, one daughter and two grandsons.

Campaigns

Hicks is running for water quality and accessibility, public education and healthcare and the desire to leave Iowa a better place.

“It’s really important as many of us realize… that we are borrowing this state from our children and our grandchildren,” Hicks said. “We need to leave it strong and sustainable for them throughout their life.”

Davis is running in a bid to help calm political infighting, create respectable jobs with affordable healthcare, balance funding for public schools, address Iowa’s cancer rates and water issues and work on the state budget.

“How much disdain do you have for the fascism that’s been going on in the United States? How often do you wake up with a pit in your stomach because you can’t believe what is going on?” Davis said. “How badly do you want to effect change in November?” School voucher system Hicks is against Iowa’s school voucher system that gives money, or vouchers, to parents to use to pay for tuition at private schools. Because public schools receive tax money based on enrollment numbers, losing students to private schools reduces the amount of money public schools receive.

“There’s no accountability. There’s no oversight going on. The money can be spent on whatever that school wants to spend it on,” Hicks said. She noted how private schools can chose not to accept any students for whatever reason.

Davis said statistics show that of the money going to families for school vouchers, 85% of them can already afford to send their children to private schools.

“I think we have to stand up,” he said. “I think we have to continue to make the case that the funding is hurting - the eight grand that leaves the public school and goes to a family that can [afford] it.”

He pointed to how FAFSA is used for college-bound students to determine financial aid and questioned why something similar couldn’t be utilized in Iowa.

Water issues

When it came to the discussion of water and water quality, Davis said that Lake Rathbun has figured out the water game.

“What they’ve got going on in Centerville is special,” he said.

He said that over 33% of people in District 24 drink water that comes from Rathbun Lake. Outside the district, 82,000 people get their drinking water from there. To him, that signals that Rathbun knows how to use bioreactors and edge-of-property sifting processes. However, he said there are farmers who bypass the filtering systems that causes the fertilizer to rain straight into the water.

Hicks said the need was apparent for sustainable ag practices and spoke against Gov. Reynolds’ taking away access to where water quality issues come from.

“We don’t have environmental protection avenues anymore, and she wants to take care of the water quality issue after it’s already in the water,” Hicks said. “We need to have good stable agricultural processes.” Healthcare

Concern was raised about any potential effects on Clarke County healthcare, citing an Appanoose County - which is a small part of Dist. 24 - clinic that is set to permanently close this summer.

Hicks talked of further regionalization of the area that has already been regionalized for mental health access, and how it will affect services people can receive close to home.

“We already had a regional desert down here… access to what we’re going to need here is going to be very limited,” she said, saying the hospital is unlikely to take on any more services as the cost would fall back on the patients. “Unless somebody gets in there and changes it, there isn’t any access.”

Davis spoke about President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” and Reynolds’ Healthy Hometown initiative that will have Iowa receive $209 million each year for the next five years. He said there will be the need to make sure each town gets their cut of that money.

“I think the District 24 rep has to make darn sure, in cahoots with the mayors and the local leadership, where’s our cut of the $209 million earmarked for the state each year,” he said.

Hicks countered that Medicaid cuts offset the money coming from the federal government.