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Libertarian will run write-in campaign

On the ballot

By Winona Whitaker, Hometown Current

 

https://www.southeastiowaunion.com/se-iowa-union-hometown-current/libertarian-will-run-write-in-campaign/

 

MARENGO — Nicholas Gluba, a candidate for Iowa’s 1st Congressional District, will not be listed on the ballot with Republican candidate Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Democrat Christina Bohannan.

 

On Wednesday, the Iowa Supreme Court upheld a state panel’s decision that three Iowa Libertarian congressional candidates, including Gluba, should not appear on the state’s 2024 general election ballots.

 

The Libertarian Party failed to follow the law when nominating them, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled unanimously.

The state Libertarian Party held its county caucuses the same day as precinct caucuses Jan. 15, despite Iowa Code stating that convention delegates elected at the caucuses do not officially take the position until the following day.

 

“If our appeal doesn’t go through properly, we will go into a write-in candidacy,” said Gluba before the decision. “Just off the support I’ve already garnered since June, it would be unfair … to not continue running as a write-in candidate.”

 

Born in Iowa City, Gluba grew up largely in the Lone Tree, Williamsburg and Parnell area, he said in a recent interview. “My parents are cattle ranchers.”

 

Following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Gluba joined the Marines. He served for six years.

“I kind of decided that I wanted a different life than what we had in the military,” said Gluba, so he returned to Iowa. He works as a production leader at Whirlpool Appliance and is a chef at Price Creek Event Center in Amana. He serves on the Lone Tree City Council.

 

A fellow Marine introduced Gluba to the Libertarian Party. “I looked at the other two major parties in Iowa,” said Gluba. “There were aspects of either of them that I liked,” he said, but he saw many things he didn’t like.

 

Gluba looked over the tenants of the Libertarian Party and found it more in line with his views.

 

“A lot of people around here noticed that the incumbents haven’t been answering to the people in the District,” said Gluba. Neither of the other two parties are “really representative of the people in Iowa,” he said.

 

Iowa’s 1st District is largely blue-collar, said Gluba. The average income for a family in this area is about $66,000 a year.

 

The other two parties “don’t really have a conceptual idea of what it’s like to be a struggling person living in the Southeast Iowa area,” said Gluba.

 

Gluba is very average, he said. He has a median house, a median income and is of median age, “literally right at average for this District.”

 

Gluba, who served in Iraq, is anti-war, he said. “While I was over there, I realized this wasn’t benefiting either side. This wasn’t benefiting the United States.”

 

The war served only corporate interests that were making money off it, Gluba said.

 

Gluba would like to see the U.S. stay out of the wars such as those between Russia and Ukraine, Israel and Palestine and China and Taiwan.

 

“We’re being pushed into another war, and … as a nation we can’t afford another war,” said Gluba. Not financially, and not in loss of life and mental distress.

 

Gluba would like to see the elimination of the use of eminent domain for private entities and private corporations, as with CO2 pipelines and wind farms.

 

Large corporations are using the Iowa Utilities Board to take land from farmers, Gluba said. Farmers are the only ones who have a knowledge of how to properly use that land, he said.

 

Gluba would like to see a rebalancing and restructuring between governmental powers. Currently the executive branch of government has been too heavily weighted, Gluba said.

 

“We allowed the executive branch to begin writing its own laws … by use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act [and] Executive Orders.”

 

The legislative branch is supposed to write those laws, said Gluba.

 

The government has also allowed agencies, such as the ATF, CIA and FBI, to make their own laws, superseding the Legislature. The county needs to go back to the original foundation of the Constitution, Gluba said.

 

Gluba would put a term limit on all branches of government, including the Supreme Court. “No branch of government should have a lifetime term,” Gluba said.

 

“If we cut back those terms, you wouldn’t have these lifelong politicians that have worked their way around the system,” said Gluba.

 

 

(“On the Ballot” is a Hometown Current series profiling candidates in Benton, Iowa and Poweshiek Counties. Articles will run as candidates are interviewed. Candidates who do not respond to requests for interviews will not be included in the series.)