Experience and recognition are what Democrat Johnie Hammond hopes will send her into another term as state senator.

Hammond represents Senate District 31, which covers all of Ames, including Iowa State, and several surrounding communities and townships.

As a representative for the ISU area, Hammond has worked with students on several occasions. During legislative sessions, she organized listening posts — meetings between legislators and students where the two groups openly discuss problems and ideas involving post-secondary education. Hammond also put on lobbying workshops where ISU students could learn how to lobby the Iowa Legislature.

“I know it’s hard to reach busy students,” Hammond said. “So I go to the dorms, apartments where students live and to campus.”

Last week Hammond headed a forum at the Memorial Union. The topic of conversation was how ISU can become “the best land-grant university in the nation.”

In light of the recently proposed 5.2 percent tuition hike by the Board of Regents, Hammond said she has encouraged the adoption of the Higher Education Price Index as a method of raising tuition rates.

“The impression I got from the students at the forum was that they would agree to the increase if they knew where and agreed where the tuition money would be spent. For instance, I heard a lot of concern for improvements at the library,” Hammond said.

She said education will be the major focus in the next legislative session due to failures during the last session caused by partisan conflicts. In particular, Hammond supported a forgivable loan for students who stay in Iowa after graduation. However, like several proposals, it was killed in committee.

Her own personal education reform plan calls for a requirement that all students attend preschool.

She also supports size limits of no more than 18 students per class for kindergarten through third grade, sharing the burden of taking care of infrastructure and financial assistance for all students wanting post-secondary education.

A source of contention in this year’s gubernatorial race has been the question of whether to increase tax credits for families whose children attend private schools.

Hammond said if parents want to send their children to private schools, either they should have to pay the tuition or the school should offer scholarships.

Another important issue affecting Iowa is the regulation of hog lots. Hammond said although the government needs to avoid destroying the pork industry, it also needs to protect the environment of the state.

“There needs to be some tolerance of the odor. However, not 365 days of the year — not even 350 days of the year,” Hammond said.

Even before the odor problem is dealt with, Hammond said there needs to be increased regulation of water quality and local authorities need to be given the power to regulate the placement of the facilities.

Senate District 31 includes all of Ames and the towns of Cambridge, Huxley, Slater, Maxwell and Kelley.