I’m surprised that the Iowa State Daily appears to have provided no coverage whatsoever of the Iowa House Legislative race in District 46 (north Ames and Boone).

Eric Cooper is a professor at Iowa State, and running for the seat in District 46. I’ve seen him at several different forums and have never seen a more intelligent analyst of the problems now facing our state. Cooper is unique among Ames’ politicians in that he realizes the reason that state universities aren’t as responsive to student needs as they should be is because of the funding scheme the state uses. Cooper wants to attach state money to the individual student and allow the student to use that money at any accredited college in the state, thus forcing the regents universities to compete not just with each other for student dollars but with every other college in the state. Cooper also wants to liberalize drug laws and repeal the smoking ban — both of which would increase the freedom enjoyed by the people of our state.

Cooper is the only candidate who seems to realize that in a state that is having trouble attracting new residents, taxes and government spending cannot continue their unlimited growth. I don’t understand why the Daily would ignore such an exciting candidate, and I would urge the readers of the paper to check out Cooper’s record before voting on Nov. 4 and visit www.coopersmallergovernment.com

James Adams

Senior

Management