Interview with Republican by Celeste and Gary Lawson Before serving as the Republican Party of Iowa Chairman, Jeff Kaufmann served in the Iowa House of Representatives from 2005 to 2013, including six years in leadership positions in the GOP caucus and two years as Speaker Pro Tem. Kaufmann represented a competitive district and built a reputation as a consensus problem-solver and constituent advocate. In 2014, Kaufmann took over the Iowa GOP and led the party to tremendous success on the local, state, and federal levels. In his time as the chair, the GOP won control of both chambers of the state legislature and the governorship for the first time in almost twenty years, and the GOP presidential candidate won Iowa for the first time since 2004. Kaufmann is a seventh-generation livestock farmer. He is a department chair at Muscatine Community College, where he teaches history and government. In 2012, Kaufmann was honored as Iowa’s Faculty Member of the Year by the Iowa Association of Community College Trustees. He obtained his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from the University of Iowa. Kaufmann is also currently a member of the Cedar County Board of Supervisors. Jeff and his wife, Vicki, have been married for over 30 years. They raised three sons: Bobby, a state representative in House District 73; Jacob, a middle school science teacher; and John, who now works for Senator Chuck Grassley. Note: Following are excerpts from the interview conducted on September 4, 2020. Jeff Kaufmann, Chairman Party of Iowa Gary: The Republican Party of Iowa’s history embraces some interesting occurrences with reference to the abolition of slavery. One such event is that the Republican Party of Iowa was founded on an antislavery platform during 1856. One of the leading cofounders was Samuel J. Kirkwood. Another leading cofounder was Edward Russell, who introduced negro suffrage, meaning the right for Blacks in America to vote, via a resolution that passed during a Republican Party of Iowa state convention. In addition, Russell’s son was a cofounder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). With that interesting heritage, what is the Republican Party of Iowa currently doing to turn out the vote in the African American and other minority communities in 2020?
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