Walker visits Iowa hometown, gets earful on immigration

Journal Sentinel (Wisconsin)

By Patrick Marley

July 19, 2015

Walker visits Iowa hometown, gets earful on immigration 

Wrapping up a three-day tour of Iowa on Sunday, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker tried to focus on his Midwestern values but found himself confronted by an immigrant family challenging his views on deportation policies and said he didn't know whether being gay is a choice.

After a week on the road to roll out his presidential campaign, the Republican governor returned to Wisconsin on Sunday night. On Monday, he will attend a meeting of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. in Oshkosh and sign a bill banning abortions 20 weeks after fertilization. In the week ahead, he will campaign in California, Tennessee and North Carolina.

On Sunday, he told CNN he didn't know whether being gay is a choice. He stuck by that response in a brief meeting with reporters in Dubuque.

"I don't know and I don't think most people know," Walker told reporters.

In response, U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) said Walker was pandering to GOP voters and wondered if he had been "cryogenically frozen in the '70s."

Walker has called the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision legalizing gay marriage a "grave mistake" and said the U.S. Constitution should be amended to allow states to decide the issue. Last week he said he supported the Boy Scouts' previous policy of banning gay Scout leaders because it "protected children," saying later that he meant that it protected them from a political and cultural debate.

"For whatever reason, he keeps doubling down on ignorance when it comes to this issue," said Pocan, who is gay. "I think the real question back for Gov. Walker is when did he choose to be straight?"

Walker kicked off his presidential campaign July 13 in Waukesha and spent the week dipping into Georgia and states that hold early contests — Nevada, South Carolina, New Hampshire and Iowa. The three-day trek across Iowa in a Winnebago motor home was the longest leg of the trip and shows his commitment to the state, home to the first-in-the-nation presidential caucus.

He tried to capitalize on his Iowa roots by visiting family friends in Plainfield, where he lived from the time he was 21/2 until third grade.

He reminisced about collecting change from neighbors to raise money to put an Iowa flag on the small town's municipal hall and said his time there helped instill in him an ability to calmly work through tough problems. At the campaign stop, he drew tough questions from a family from Waukesha.

"Governor Walker, why are you trying to break my family apart?" said Leslie Flores, 13.

She was accompanied by her father, José, and her 7-year-old brother, Luís. They traveled to Iowa with the assistance of the immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera.

Leslie said she feared her parents could be deported and wanted Walker to drop a lawsuit he and other governors filed last year to block President Barack Obama's policy known as the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans that would spare as many as 5 million people from being deported.

Walker told the three he sympathized with them but believed the nation had to stick by its immigration laws.

"The president of the United States can't make law without going through the Congress," he told them before a media throng.

"No one man or woman is above the law. That's the beauty of America."

Afterward, the family members said they were dissatisfied with his answers. They questioned how he could sympathize with them if he was sticking with his lawsuit.

Walker made stops in 11 Iowa counties over the weekend and said he was committed to hitting all 99 before the caucus. That's a strategy that has been embraced by Republicans from the corn capital, including Gov. Terry Branstad and U.S. Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst.

The weekend trip is "part of us pulling a full Grassley," Walker told about 75 people in Cedar Falls at a fundraiser for state Rep. Pat Grassley, the grandson of the senator.

The stop in Plainfield was a family reunion of sorts. It was held at the farm of Janice and Merlin "Charlie" Dietz. Janice Dietz baby-sat Walker and his brother, David, when they moved to Plainfield from Colorado Springs, Colo., when their father, Llew Walker, became the Baptist pastor in town.

Charlie Dietz and Llew Walker served on the municipal council together, and the Walkers and Dietzes have remained in touch since the Walkers moved to Delavan. Walker's parents came to the farm for Sunday's event, and Pat Walker brought chocolate chip cookies — a trait she is well-known for among friends and campaign staffers.

Janice Dietz said she never thought about whether the boy she was baby-sitting might become a governor and run for president.

"I thought he was just another kid I was watching," she said. "But he was very good for me."

Plainfield Mayor Tom Geise said Walker's success teaches a good lesson to children in Plainfield.

"Scott Walker brings us the idea our children can do whatever they want to do as long as they keep their dreams open," said Geise, who is originally from New Berlin.

Jim Fink, a retired high school teacher from Waverly, Iowa, came to see Walker in Plainfield because he's been impressed by what he's done in Wisconsin.

"I think we need someone like him to bring some change at the national level," he said.

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