Representative Mary Wolfe – Iowa House District 98

Hi there, and welcome to my blog (which I created in lieu of a website, as for some reason I have been absolutely unable to pull off a website). I am a member of Iowa’s 88th General Assembly, elected to represent House District 26 in November 2010 — but thanks to redistricting, I am running for re-election in new House District 98.   The best way to reach me is at my legislative email, which is:  Mary.Wolfe@legis.state.ia.us.  I live in Clinton, Iowa, (the eastern most point in Iowa) with my 17 year old son,  and when I’m not at the State Capital in Des Moines I practice law with my father, Jack Wolfe, in a 1888 house with a big front porch.

I’m the oldest of 8 children — 6 girls/2 boys — and we moved to Clinton when I was in grade school. I attended North Catholic Elementary School, and went to Mt. St. Clare Academy for the first three years of high school — my senior year Mt. St. Clare merged with St. Mary’s, and thus I was a member of the first graduating class of Mater Dei High School.

I spent a year at Georgetown, a few years at Loyola, and a few more years traveling before  landing back in Iowa, where I settled down and graduated from college, and then from the U of IA’s law school in 1992 — I’ve been in Clinton working with my dad ever since, more or less (had a second office in Iowa City from 2005-2008, but turned out there were already plenty of lawyers out there, and the commute was killing me). I love being a lawyer, and being self-employed, and I am so grateful to have had the chance to work on a day to day basis with both of my parents (my mom’s our office manager) for the past twenty years.

I never considered running for public office until former Rep. Polly Bukta decided to retire after representing our district for fourteen years, and asked me if I’d be interested. I warned her that I don’t have much patience, that I pretty much always say what I think, and that I’m somewhat socially backward — but Polly encouraged me to run anyhow, and I’m so glad she did. My first session was one of the most exciting times of my life, trying to figure out who was who and how things worked; this session I’m concentrating on trying to do a better job of keeping in touch and up to date w/my constituents … thus the blog.

I’m a member of the Democratic minority in the IA House (40-60…good times); I’m the ranking member on our House Judiciary committee and also serve on Human Resources, Transportation, Public Safety, and the Justice Systems Budget Subcommittee. I am a big believer in social justice and smarter sentencing and President Obama (no, he’s not perfect, but hello, the ACA, pretty darn impressive). I am honored to have the opportunity to serve the people of my district, and I look appreciate any feedback/comments/ suggestions that you care to share on the bills and issues I discuss in my posts.