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IowaPolitics.com: Vilsack touts climate bill as trio of Dems join IDP Hall of Fame
6/28/2009

By Andrew Duffelmeyer
IowaPolitics.com

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said Saturday evening that the U.S. House’s approval of a climate change bill this week might have been “one of the most important votes in the last 100 years.”

“It is a vote about the future,” Vilsack said. “It is a vote about redefining the economy of this country. It is a vote about creating real jobs here in America that can support families and help create the middle class and support the middle class. It was a vote about a brighter, more compelling future for rural America and it was a vote that was a close vote.”

Vilsack, Iowa's former governor, spoke to an audience of several hundred Democratic supporters as part of his induction into the Iowa Democratic Party Hall of Fame, along with former Lt. Gov. Sally Pederson and former First Lady Christie Vilsack.

Pederson said Vilsack was discussing renewable energy when she first met him and Christie in 1997, back when he was still trying to secure the Democratic nomination for governor.

“Tom was talking about investing in early childhood education, cleaning up our environment, increasing renewable energy and making Iowa the food capital of the world,” Pederson said. “They were both passionate and inspired and made quite an impressive team. I didn’t realize then how much my life was about to change.”

Gov. Chet Culver said that Vilsack’s induction into the IDP Hall of Fame is “a well deserved honor for someone who has given most of his adult life to public service.”

“Simply put, Secretary Vilsack has done enough to exceed anyone’s expectations,” Culver said. “He’s had a complete political life up to this point, and yet he joins us this evening still just 58 years young, and somehow I have a sense that Tom Vilsack is nowhere near the finish line of his amazing journey.”

Vilsack and Pederson broke through 30 years of Republican control of Terrace Hill when they took office on January 15, 1999. The pair earned a second term four years later, and when Culver won the following election the Democrats had managed three wins in a row for the first time in 72 years.

“We have something special going here folks, something historic,” Vilsack said. “And then it was Iowa that made Barack Obama able to win the election. Don’t underestimate the importance of that.”

Vilsack then predicted that the Democrats will set a new record in 2010, when Culver faces a re-election battle amid tough economic times.

“Mark my words, as special as Chet Culver’s election in 2006 was, we haven’t had 16 consecutive years of Democrats in control, but we will,” Vilsack said. “I think 16 years of us is worth 30 of them.”

Vilsack also took time during his speech to say he was proud to be an Iowan when he read the unanimous decision from the Iowa Supreme Court in the Varnum v. Brien case that legalized gay marriage. He also praised Sen. Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, and Rep. Pat Murphy, D-Dubuque, for standing up to pressure to pass legislation that to amend the Iowa constitution and ban gay marriage.

“It has redefined the issue of gay rights in a significant and powerful way,” Vilsack said.

See photos from the dinner


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