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The Hot Dish delves into the most pressing issues facing rural America. Hosts Heidi and Joel Heitkamp speak with policymakers, advocates and everyday Americans living across rural America about what's happening across the heartland and what should be done to make life better for rural America.ct's The Hot Dish, former U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp serves up insight into issues affecting rural Americans.
Heidi Heitkamp (00:04):
Welcome to The Hot Dish, comfort food for Middle America. I'm Heidi Heitkamp.
Joel Heitkamp (00:08):
And I'm Joel Heitkamp.
Heidi Heitkamp (00:10):
This is an exciting episode. I'll be speaking with Marilyn Lands, a Democrat who just won a special election to the Alabama Legislature. Yeah, that's right. A Democrat was elected in Alabama. There is hope. Today we're going to find out how she did it, so stay tuned. Then Joel and I will discuss women's autonomy and freedom from a generation that remembers how the original Roe V. Wade decision created more autonomy for women, but first I want to share something special with you.
(00:40):
One Country board member and Iowa State Representative, J.D Scholten, recently read the book, White Rural Rage, and he has a bone or two to pick with the authors. He expressed his thoughts in an editorial published in The Hill, a Washington D.C publication covering Congress, but we thought it would be great for all of you listeners outside the nation's capitol to hear what he had to say.
J. D. Scholten (01:08):
White Rural Rage is a book version of a clickbait article written by two people who don't seem to engage with rural Americans regularly and who used other people's data to come up with their conclusions about why rural Americans lean right. I'm not an academic or a journalist like the two authors, but I am the only Democrat at the state level or higher amongst 32 counties in northwest Iowa and someone who ran for Congress in 2018 in a district Trump won by 27 in 2016, and I only lost by three points. The one thing they failed to mention is the lack of investment by the Democratic Party campaigns and adjacent groups in connecting with rural voters. According to a ruralorganizing.org study with OpenSecrets, for every dollar a Democrat running for federal office spends in rural areas, Republicans spend 14. While 30% of Americans and 20% of registered voters live in rural areas, barely 3% of Democrat-affiliated expenditures occur in these areas. A clear lack of priority given to cultivating world champions.
(02:13):
Media has changed. The 1996 Telecommunications Act allowed media companies to buy up stations at the cost of local news. Combine that with the mis and disinformation on social media and the algorithms that amplify them, and you give conservative messaging a channel to success. Radio stations that used to play AP news, now provide hours of right-wing propaganda a day, leading to voters hearing one side disproportionately. Far-right-wing politicians are able to push their personal agenda in a lot of these deeply red and rural districts. We saw that first-hand in northwest Iowa with former representative Steve King. In many ways, he was ahead of his time when it came to the modern far-right-wing with his racism and xenophobic rhetoric and actions. I would also give credit to the Northwest Iowa voters for being ahead of their time, for voting him out of office.
(03:04):
What makes these right-wing messages resonate with many rural voters has to do with economic concentration. Independent farmers are few and far between, with nearly every sector of agriculture consolidated. Just a few multinational corporations squeeze the average farmer from the input side and on the market side. Wealth gets extracted by Dollar Generals or hospitals or multinational egg corporations with little money invested into these communities. When it comes to new wealth, as of just a few years ago, 80% of venture capital was invested in only 50 counties in our country out of nearly 3,100. A lack of opportunity is eroding rural communities and sowing understandable discontent, discontent that Republicans point in the wrong direction.
(03:51):
For years, I've talked to farmers who will always vote for me and some who will never vote for me and everywhere in-between, and not one of them pushed back when I talked about egg monopolies screwing them over. When I first ran for office, farmers were going through five consecutive years of low commodity prices, but do you know what the number one complaint was? It was the lack of affordable healthcare.
(04:11):
It's not all hogwash. What the book got right is the power the rural vote has in this country. When it comes to the Electoral College, the Senate and the judicial branch of government, rural voters have an enormous voice. It was rural voters in Saskatchewan that led the way for universal healthcare in Canada. Rural voters in America have that same power to create change. The right has spent decades investing in that power, planting seeds of fear that are sowing division. If the left wants to win, or at least in the very least gain ground, we need to invest in rural Americans and make sure our common interests benefiting rural regions are heard.
Heidi Heitkamp (04:55):
Today, I am thrilled to have with me Marilyn Lands. Probably not a household name in the political world until a couple weeks ago when she really shocked so many people in politics by winning a House race in a fairly red district in Alabama of all places and winning that House race on the issue of choice, on the issue of women's reproductive rights. So Marilyn, welcome to the podcast. Before we get into this race, if you could give us a little bit of your political history because I think some people think people like you just land and, "Oh, here I am." That's definitely not your story or your history.
Marilyn Lands (05:41):
Yes, so I actually ran in 2022, and we came very close to winning then. In fact, we were the closest to flipping a House seat in the entire state. I think we had a lot of momentum going into this campaign, but the landscape changed so much even during that first race in 2022. When we developed our messaging and our platform, we hadn't had Dobbs yet, so it wasn't even on our talking points. Then when the Dobbs decision was handed down and Alabama pulled our trigger law, which then other states followed, of course, it became a major theme in that campaign. Then this time around, it was very much different because I shared my story, and I think that really resonated with people.
Heidi Heitkamp (06:34):
You did something that I think a lot of people didn't think was possible. You told stories of late-term terminations that were essential for the health of the mother, and that resonated as well.
Marilyn Lands (06:47):
Exactly. I felt that there was a completely different energy in this campaign from the very beginning, and I think it is because we told stories. I would have women come up and hug me when I knocked doors or even at the grocery store, and I had many women and families share their own stories of heartbreak with me. Many of them told me that they hadn't talked about this in 30 years, or they hadn't told anyone ever except for their immediate family, so the campaign felt very personal right from the beginning, and it felt very reciprocal. It wasn't me just trying to sell myself. It was having these honest conversations around issues of grief, so I chose to share my story, and for me it was such a moment, and I'll tell you how it happened.
(07:41):
I saw the Diane Sawyer special, On The Brink, where she profiled 16 women from around the country, but mostly in the South who were caught up in this abortion ban and having to go outside of state and travel many miles to get healthcare. Some of the stories were just horrific. Women whose fetuses had died inside them and were getting septic, and organs were shutting down.
(08:07):
One of the women in this story, Alyssa Gonzales, was the only woman from Alabama, a very young woman, and her story was so powerful. Her husband also spoke and spoke on behalf of the husbands. Alyssa and I's stories had such parallels. We both were expecting second sons. We both had a genetic defect known as Trisomy. Both of us were told that the pregnancies were absolutely not viable. It was 100% catastrophic, that our lives were at risk. So, it was just the intersection of these two stories and then the fact that there was this key difference and that 20 years later, Alyssa could not get the healthcare that she needed in her home.
(08:55):
I was able to have my own doctor and my hospital and my community around me, and Alyssa had to travel over 500 miles. I know she's not ever been out of the South. I'm not sure if she's ever been out of the state of Alabama. It was a very scary trip for her and her family and a very devastating one in many ways. I mean, she's in shock and grief. Just to me, that became the story, that difference and how we've gone backwards. We're supposed to be moving forward. This is not the way that history is supposed to work. We're supposed to advance and make progress. Here we've just taken this huge step backwards for women. Being of a certain age, I've seen women make great strides, and it just feels so terrible to be moving backwards in this way.
Heidi Heitkamp (09:48):
I think a lot of people when they think about what happened in Alabama, the big news out of Alabama was the decision on your personhood constitutional amendment that resulted in a huge uncertainty revolving around IVF. IVF is a procedure that a lot of people use. It's not normally been in the mainstream of discussion about women's reproductive rights or reproductive freedom. When you analyze abortion politics over a long period of time, I think that there has always been the story of people in your circumstance, Marilyn, and her circumstance. That story is never told. The story was always, "Oh, look at this selfish woman who couldn't make up their mind, who now just wants to have a procedure, and it's late-term. It's all elective and has nothing to do with the health of the mother." That's really kind of the narrative.
(10:54):
You know what? Why is it in the United States of America, women have to tell the most intimate details? The most intimate, personal, horrible, reliving-it details in order to protect other women? That's what we're doing right now, and I just want to applaud you for telling the story. I want to applaud her for telling her story because it takes a lot of courage, but it shouldn't be necessary. People should trust women and their doctors to be making this decision. So, you have given us a lot of hope, Marilyn, that we won't have to expose women who have had this life experience to the political process, that people have a much better understanding now.
Marilyn Lands (11:40):
I also felt that often we don't think enough about the husbands and the fact that it is also a grief for them and the other children involved. That was one of the things that was really central to my mind is what will this do to my other child? The longer that we carry this pregnancy, and if we did carry it to the end, what would that be like for him to know his mother gave birth to a dead baby and that the brother that was supposed to be coming, how would he, in his young mind? He would've been five at the time, how would that impact him in the long run? I think sometimes people don't think about that, so it's not just a woman's issue, but as you said, it's a very intimate thing that happens to women and women's bodies.
(12:35):
I think there's a lot of mystery around that. I think telling the stories has been healthy. When I am able to hear from other women, I think it's been a cathartic thing for a lot of people to be able to say things that, as you said, they've been ashamed of and made to feel ashamed of for no reason. There shouldn't be any shame about this. It was a hard, hard decision to make. Nobody wants to make that kind of decision, but it was absolutely the right decision to make.
Heidi Heitkamp (13:05):
The IVF decision actually awakened America to what personhood bills and constitutional measures could potentially mean. How is the community and the healthcare industry responding to the new legislation in Alabama regarding IVF, and do you see any additional legislative reaction to that decision as well?
Marilyn Lands (13:35):
Well, I think the legislation that was passed to try to be a workaround is simply not enough. Our Mobile clinic is not going to continue services. I've heard from families that were planning to move to Alabama, had a job offer here, and now they're not coming because Alabama doesn't appear to be family-friendly. I can understand that. We don't look family-friendly, so I think there's a lot of unintended consequences. I think people haven't thought through the economic development, the impact on jobs, the impact on the state's reputation, but I did see. While we saw a lot of energy around the abortion issue, I would say the IVF issue brought it to another level, but we certainly have to do more. Very concerned now this is a slippery slope and that contraception will be next.
(14:34):
Leader Daniels, our minority leader, has put forth some legislation that's in committee but will be introduced, the Alabama Right to Contraception Act. So we're looking at getting behind that, but I think there's a lot that we're going to have to do to undo all of this and make Alabama family-friendly and make it a place where women feel like they have freedom. I felt like Alabama has been ground zero for attacks on women's freedom and reproductive healthcare, and it just seems to get worse.
Heidi Heitkamp (15:08):
When you consider the IVF issue, and I think what has maybe brought it so much into the forefront is the explosion of the use of this procedure. Women are waiting longer to have children. I would argue a lot of that is driven by healthcare costs. Not selfishness, but they want to be able to afford to have children, and that's an expensive proposition in today's world when you can't find daycare. What is particularly egregious to me about what Alabama has done is if you're wealthy in Alabama, you can go someplace else and add that extra thousands of dollars for securing this procedure in a state that is more family-friendly than Alabama, but if you're poor and you've been saving so much money, and you're so excited to have an opportunity to have a child, now all of a sudden you have added outrageous amounts of expense to an already really expensive procedure. So, this is not just about healthcare. This is an economic justice issue.
Marilyn Lands (16:17):
I think so, and I've been making an economic well-being argument for a long time now because where I'm from in North Alabama, we truly excel at economic development, but we do not have economic well-being for all of our people. We have many, many people who are struggling. Alabama has the worst maternal mortality rate in the entire country. We have lost so many of our rural hospitals. I think there's so much around all of this, and particularly the unintended consequences that do unduly affect the least of us in this state. I think we don't take into account that women's healthcare decisions largely have to do with privilege.
Heidi Heitkamp (17:06):
I couldn't have said it any better. I want to just turn and ask you about, you're a scrapper. You're a fighter. You've been willing to put your name on the ballot at least twice in a state where no one thought anyone with your profile or your policies and your heart could make it. Now you're there, so spend a little time telling us. Are you glad you got the job? What's been the joy, and what's been the challenge?
Marilyn Lands (17:42):
I am very glad to be here, and this is my third week now. It's been exciting, and it's definitely got a steep learning curve. I have 102 other colleagues at the moment, plus staffers, and then there's the Senate side of things. So it's a lot of names and faces to put together and just even finding my way around in the buildings, but I've been enjoying it. People have been really welcoming. I'm glad to be here. I'm excited. I think one of the things that has bolstered me the most is how many people tell me that our race has given them hope and that for the first time in a long time, they have some hope in Alabama.
(18:25):
I really want to focus on building relationships here and getting to know my colleagues, focusing on what we have in common because we are all human beings living on this planet, sharing a common human experience. We all have joys, and we all have sorrows. So, I'm trying to meet people where they are, get to know them and listen to them. Our son took debate in high school, and I think that was formative for our whole family because I really do want to understand where people are coming from and understand their perspective and their take on an issue. So, I'm looking forward to getting to know my colleagues and to working together and try to build bipartisan support where we can.
Heidi Heitkamp (19:08):
Marilyn, when do you have to run for re-election?
Marilyn Lands (19:10):
I will run for re-election in 2026. So my term here, I came in halfway through the second of a four-year term.
Heidi Heitkamp (19:21):
Terrific. I know that you have inspired not just women in Alabama but women all across. I mean, all across the country and probably the world. How does it feel to go from a scrapper in a tough district in Alabama to being a national icon?
Marilyn Lands (19:41):
Well, I have difficulty thinking of myself as an icon. That's for sure. It has been Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, that's for sure. I just do hope I can provide some hope and inspiration. I really want to inspire more women, more Democrats in general to run for office. I want to inspire people to vote. All of our elections are important, and sometimes we all get hyper-focused on the national level, but state and local issues are really where it meets our daily lives and what really impacts us the most. I also want to encourage people to get involved at whatever level. There are all kinds of commissions and appointments out there to get you involved in local government or school boards, but I think it's time for us all to step up where we can and make a difference.
Heidi Heitkamp (20:35):
Well, as someone who has spent the better part of their career encouraging people like you to run for office, I can't tell you how much I think you are just such a symbol of hope for so many people.
Marilyn Lands (20:48):
I do believe that all things work together for good. It was hard, hard losing in 2022, but you never know where the world will take you. So, we are here, and I'm talking with you today, Heidi. I've admired you for a long time, so this is a treat for me.
Heidi Heitkamp (21:04):
Marilyn, thank you, and thank you for telling your personal, very private story. Thanks to the people of your district who sent a message that I hope will resonate not just across Alabama but across the country, that sometimes what happens to people is pretty complicated, and a lot of times it's none of their business.
Marilyn Lands (21:25):
Very well said. Very well said.
Joel Heitkamp (21:33):
Heidi and Joel banter.
Heidi Heitkamp (21:40):
Joel, it's interesting. I want to talk about just for a minute, the politics of abortion because there's a lot of talk about what's going to happen in this next election. A lot of focus on foreign policy challenges that the President has, a lot of challenges on what's happening with the economy, but the issue that keeps coming up and shocking, I think, America is the issue of abortion. Now we see beyond what happened in Kansas, beyond what happened in Ohio with the reaffirming of a woman's right to choose, we see this narrative playing out politically in the deep red state of Alabama. I think it's fascinating.
Joel Heitkamp (22:26):
See, and I think that people are just taking for granted what your generation did. They did for years, and now it's gone, right? I mean, women got active and they got the right for women to choose. They got that right for women when it comes to their healthcare, and people just took it for granted. My daughters did. Quite frankly, their daughters aren't too far away from this potentially being an issue. So if everyone thinks that this isn't playing out in red states, I think you're being incredibly naive because in North Dakota, the state I live in, and South Dakota, the state I live close to, if those things were on the ballot, I bet you my last 20 bucks that the right for a woman to choose would pass.
Heidi Heitkamp (23:11):
Oh, I think that's right. We rejected a personhood bill, but that's what's in play in Alabama with the IVF. They actually passed a personhood bill. All of that was okay as long as it was basically illegal to implement it. Now, I think on top of what you're saying about that taking something away, you also have the complicating factors of how difficult medically this is because all of the discussion has been on late-term abortions as if they were elective procedures. Now they're finding out these are procedures that are medically necessary. They may not involve the life of the woman, but they could affect her fertility going forward and certainly her mental health.
(23:59):
So now all of a sudden this very uncomplicated issue, are you right to life or are you pro-choice? Do you believe in protecting the unborn? It has gotten so complicated in the United States as this plays out. I think that complication has really added to a lot of the feeling that maybe this has gone too far. You see it with the IVF decision, but also a bigger discussion in states like Texas about the access to late term.
(24:32):
It's interesting. I was listening to one of the women from Alabama who still provides reproductive services. Obviously not abortions, but she was saying that many of the hospitals now, if it's a fetus that is not viable, that they're forcing women to have C-sections to prove that they tried to have a live birth.
Joel Heitkamp (24:53):
Well, and I think the conservatives forgot to call Mike Pence. I know he's not their hero after he certified the election or actually allowed it to go forward, but his family had children through in vitro, and our family had children through in vitro. The reality is the conservatives are so conservative in the middle of this country that the legislation they've put forward and actually are even proposing more make in vitro illegal. In the state I live, the policy that's put forward by the Republican Party actually calls them out as being murderers.
Heidi Heitkamp (25:30):
This is going to play out as the election continues, but for a lot of people, they think, "Oh, well. It's all about the economy." As James Carville famously said, "It's the economy, stupid." Guess what? For a lot of women in this country, it's their autonomy that is on the ballot, and they are definitely voting their desire to continue to maintain their rights to make decisions for themselves and their family. So, it's going to be a major issue once again on the ballot. We saw it in Alabama. We saw it in Ohio. We're seeing it all across the country.
(26:09):
In a bit of good news, we heard from a wonderful listener, Wendy, who is not from rural America. She's from urban America, but she said, "I follow your podcast closely." She's a fan of Heidi's and now Joel's. I don't know why she would be a fan of yours, Joel, having listened to this.
Joel Heitkamp (26:27):
She likes the younger crowd, but go ahead.
Heidi Heitkamp (26:30):
She said, "I'm aware of the problems associated with the lack of rural hospitals, easy access to higher education, migration and other issues facing rural America, but I'm not sure what Washington can do about these issues, especially since culture wars, not problem-solving seems to be the order of the day." She'd love to hear our thoughts on this. What do you think, Joel?
Joel Heitkamp (26:53):
Well, I think that what they're going to do about it is nothing. I mean, they can't do anything because they don't want to do anything. The majority in the House is really not a majority. They don't like each other. They get up every day, and they go to work and they find ways not to work. I think Wendy is right on in her concern. I really think it is. It's going to take an election to fix this, and in the middle of this country, we're still waiting for a farm bill.
Heidi Heitkamp (27:21):
But I also would add to what you've said, Joel, that it's going to take us seeing each other as interconnected. That it's not urban America, it's not rural America. This is the United States of America, and what happens in rural America has to be of concern to urban America and urban legislators, but the reverse is also true.
(27:43):
Joel, you know. How many times have you heard people say, "Well, we're somehow better. In rural America, we're more moral. We're the real Americans." That's not true either, so I think that one of the solutions to all of this is coming up with a common American identity and making sure that basic services like healthcare, like food security, like access to education, that we are just as concerned about what happens in rural America as we are in urban America and vice versa.
Joel Heitkamp (28:19):
Yeah. Well, we had Sister Simone on, and she talked about how she traveled to all 50 states and is working towards connecting with all 50 states. What she found out is that when she communicates with people and just sits down and talks to them, we're not that different. Right? We're not that different, but the difference with all of us is we're not in Congress. So going back to what Wendy is saying is congressional leaders that we elect, knowing that we're not that different, need to get off their butt.
Heidi Heitkamp (28:48):
Well, and the other thing is that if we continue to let the politicians divide us instead of uniting us because it's always the fear of the other. "Oh, look what's happened in that big city of Minneapolis." I live part-time in Chicago, and people say, "Oh, the streets of Chicago are riddled with horrible crime." I'm like, "I walk home at night. I go downtown Chicago. There's a lot of people still walking around, a lot of tourists still in town." I think buying into the narrative of division is not what is going to solve our problems.
Joel Heitkamp (29:25):
Well, it's going to be solved by people like Wendy. People like Wendy that care, that say, "Look. What can we do? What can get done?" By challenging their elected officials to do just that, instead of just plummeting each other in these races. Instead of just doing the, "I'm more this than you." How about, "Well, I will do this." Why couldn't that be a campaign pledge?
Heidi Heitkamp (29:49):
Well, and the other piece of this, not to toot the horn of the One Country Project, but I will. The One Country Project was designed exactly for that reason. I had a lot of people say, "Well, it's about rural America. You should call it the Rural America Project." I said, "No. What I'm trying to get at is we are one country. We have to be concerned about each other across that regional and population divide."
(30:16):
If we aren't able to see each other as Americans, we will continue to build the threat from within. We hope that what we accomplish at One Country is coming up with some really good policy ideas, but also sharing the stories of rural America and pushing back a little bit on the narrative that somehow rural America is better than urban America. We're all Americans, and we all want basically the same thing for our kids. We want a better life. We want good healthcare. We want good education. We want to keep our taxes low and make sure that they're not wasted. These are not urban/rural values. These are American values.
Joel Heitkamp (30:57):
Well, and Wendy's note to us shows that there's still hope out there. I want you, the listeners of One Country to absolutely positively know this. Even though Heidi and I have about as many cousins as you can possibly have, Wendy isn't one of them. We didn't ask her to write that in, even though we love the note.
Heidi Heitkamp (31:19):
Yeah. No, she's not a cousin. Not that we know of, Wendy, but we can adopt you. You'd like our family.
(31:28):
Well, listen, Joel. Thanks again so much for joining us on One Country. These are really important discussions as Wendy points out. I think that as we go forward, we'll be talking about more of the policy solutions. But to Joel's point, you can have all the really great ideas, but if you don't have a political will, if you don't elect the right people, it's not going to get done. So, thank you so much for writing in, Wendy, and we hope that we managed to answer your questions and encourage so many of you to email us at podcast@onecountryproject.org.
Joel Heitkamp (32:05):
And thank you for joining us today on The Hot Dish, which is brought to you by One Country Project, making sure the voices of the rest of us are heard in Washington. Learn more at onecountryproject.org.
Heidi Heitkamp (32:19):
We'll be back in two weeks with more Hot Dish, comfort food for Middle America.