ATLANTA: Sami Scheetz, a 25-year-old community organizer, is set to become the first Arab-American member of the Iowa state legislature in elections to be held in November.

The Democrat is running unopposed in the 78th District, which means he is almost guaranteed to make history in state politics by serving in the General Assembly.

Scheetz is no stranger to state and national politics. He told Arab News from his hometown of Cedar Rapids that he had worked on political campaigns for Democratic candidates at the state and national levels for 10 years. He gained his political experience by organizing community activities and working for the presidential campaigns of Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden. He also contributed to a Democratic gubernatorial campaign in Iowa in 2018.

When he takes his seat in the Iowa legislature, Scheetz said he will work to promote greater diversity and inclusion in state politics. Key issues he intends to focus on include improving the education system and advocating for the introduction of universal health care to ensure that every person has adequate access to medical care.

“Education, health and workers’ rights are my top three causes,” he said.

The current representative for the district (which is currently called the 65th district but was renamed the 78th district starting with this year’s election, following the most recent redistricting process) is Democrat Liz Bennett, who has held the seat for eight years.

The Iowa General Assembly is currently controlled by a Republican majority. The 78th District has a diverse electorate that includes large Latin American, Arab American, and African American communities. Scheetz said he will represent everyone in his district equally and work to improve their standard of living.

He pointed out that minority ethnic and racial groups in the district have historically lagged behind white people in terms of involvement and participation in the political process.

“Arabs and Latinos and all other communities have as much interest and interest in the political process but they don’t participate at the same level, or even close to the same level, as their white counterparts,” a- he declared.

Scheetz added that he will work to change the political culture by pushing for more inclusion and a greater degree of political integration of minority groups.

He said he would leverage the experience he gained working on the Sanders presidential campaign, which established satellite caucuses in various areas to encourage first-time and reluctant voters, especially immigrants and especially those of the Arab-American, Latino-American and Afro-American communities.

“It’s the smart thing for the Democratic Party to do,” he added.

Scheetz’s mother, Hala, immigrated to the United States from Damascus, Syria more than 35 years ago, and her father, Raphael, is an Iowa native with German heritage.

He said he was very proud of his Arab-American heritage and would ably represent that community in his district and in the state at large. He is fluent in Arabic, as well as Spanish.

Iowa has a large Arab-American community that began settling more than a century ago. The state is home to the Mother Mosque of America, which was the first mosque to be built in the United States and opened in 1934.

The exact number of Arab Americans in the state is difficult to measure precisely because there is no specific category for them in the US National Census and therefore their only option for describing their racial and ethnic origin is “white”. .

According to the Arab American Institute of Washington, an organization that works to increase the participation and representation of this community in American politics, more than 17,000 Arab Americans lived in Iowa in 2017. Recent crises and conflicts in the Middle East brought new waves. Arab and Muslim immigrants. A large community of Iraqi refugees has settled in Des Moines, Iowa’s largest city and capital, for example.

Other Midwestern states, including Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, have large Arab American populations that number in the hundreds of thousands. Overall, the AAI estimates that there are at least 3.7 million people of Arab descent living in the United States.