The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office reports the arrest Sunday night, of 34-year old Justin Wayne Swartz, of Grant. Swartz was charged with Child Endangerment and Simple Domestic Assault, following an incident that occurred at around 9:50-p.m., during which he allegedly hit a residence in the 300 block of 1st Street in Grant, with a skidloader. Swartz was brought to the Montgomery County Jail and held on $2,000 bond. The Iowa State Patrol, along with Deputies from Cass County and Officers with the Iowa DNR, assisted at the scene.

Two people were injured, one of them seriously, during a collision Sunday northeast of Viking Lake State Park, in Montgomery County. Sheriff’s officials say22-year old Bradley Lee Dumler, of Villisca, was transported to the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha by Mercy 3 helicopter, following the crash that happened at around noon, Sunday, near the intersection of 220th Street and S Avenue.

Dumler was a passenger in a 2007 Chrysler HHR driven by 25-year old Melissa Lynn Dumler, also of Villisca. Authorities say the couple was traveling west on 220th, when the vehicle hit loose gravel at the bottom of a hill. The vehicle went out of control and entered the north ditch, where it rolled several times before coming to rest on its wheels in a field. Melissa Dumler suffered minor injuries. She was transported to the Montgomery County Memorial Hospital by Red Oak Rescue, treated and released. The vehicle was a total loss.

No injuries were reported following a collision between a pickup and an SUV Sunday afternoon, east of Red Oak. The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office says the accident happened at around 12:45-p.m., at the intersection of Highway 34 and 200th Street. Official say a 2005 Ford F-150 pickup driven by 40-year old Shelly Rae Jennings, of Red Oak, was stopped at the intersection, when her vehicle was rear-ended by a 2004 Chrysler Pacifica, driven by 32-year old Elizabeth Susan Hausen, of Clarinda. Hausen told authorities she was having mechanical problems with the SUV at the time of the impact. Damage to the vehicles was estimated at $2,000 each.

The race in Iowa’s third congressional district is one of just two in the country that feature two incumbents battling to return for another term in the U.S. House. Republican Tom Latham was first elected to congress in 1994. Democrat Leonard Boswell first won his seat in congress back in 1996. Iowa has had five congressmen for the past decade, but after the 2010 Census, the district lines were redrawn — and divided into just four districts. “Losing a congressional district sort of really re-rolled the dice,” says Creighton university political science professor Richard Witmer. The two congressmen are running to represent Iowa’s new third district. It covers 16 southwest Iowa counties and includes the cities of Des Moines and Council Bluffs.

Witmer says both men have had to use some of their campaign cash to build up their name I.D. in the district. “Sort of stating that opening case and introducing themselves to new voters, which is not something you would expect an incumbent to do,” Witmer says. The battle between these two congressmen has been characterized by attack ads as well as some intense verbal jousting during their six debates. Republicans hold a voter registration edge in the district of about nine-thousand. There are more than 150-thousand independent or “no party” voters in the third district compared to nearly 158-thousand Democrats and about 167-thousand Republicans.

(O.Kay Henderson/Radio Iowa)

The 2012 contest in Iowa’s fourth congressional district pits a five-term Republican congressman against a former Iowa first lady.
Republican Congressman Steve King and his Democratic challenger, former Iowa First Lady Christie Vilsack, are running in what is geographically the largest of Iowa’s four congressional districts. The new fourth district has 39 counties, with Mason City and Ames along the east side and Denison and Sioux City to the west. The fourth district is also the most heavily-Republican area in the state, with 50-thousand more registered Republicans than Democrats.

John Schmaltz, a political science professor at North Iowa Area Community College in Mason City, has been following this race. “You really have two vastly different candidates here,” Schmaltz says. “You have somebody who is really pretty liberal in Christie Vilsack and you have a very conservative candidate in Steve King and this has been identified even nationally by various conservative and liberal groups as one of those races that they want to win.” The intensity of the race has played out over the airwaves in a barrage of advertising and in the debates the two participated in this fall. King has not debated a Democratic opponent since his first congressional campaign, in 2002. King and Vilsack met in seven debates this year.

(O. Kay Henderson/Radio Iowa)