Breanna Oxley, who launched a campaign in June for the Cedar Rapids-based Iowa Senate seat soon to be vacated by Rob Hogg, announced on Friday she will run for the Linn County Board of Supervisors instead.
“After much encouragement and many calls, I decided that I will be running for Linn County Supervisor!” Oxley said in posts on Facebook and Twitter. “I never thought I would have the opportunity to follow in my grandmother Jean Oxley’s footsteps as a supervisor. She left such an amazing legacy in her role as the first woman on the Linn County Board and I intend to proudly follow in her footsteps!”
Jean Oxley was indeed the first woman on the Linn County Board of Supervisors, serving 24 years, from 1972 to 1996. In 2010, the county named its public service center, where the Board of Supervisors meets, in her honor. Oxley died in March 2020 at age 94.
Breanna Oxley has been a public school teacher for almost a decade in the Cedar Rapids and Dubuque school districts. She is currently a social studies and government teacher at Roosevelt Middle School.
Oxley is also a board member for the Linn County League of Women Voters and the Cedar Rapids Education Association.
In June, she became the first Democrat to declare as a candidate for the seat in Senate District 33 after Hogg said he would not seek reelection.
“Many things over the last two years have changed in our country, our state, even right here in our county,” Oxley told Little Village at the time. “Obviously, the pandemic, derecho, things that hit really close to home here gave us an even more unique perspective. … I just can’t sit back anymore. I’m ready to jump into this political arena and start getting some real change for the things I see every single day in my classroom.”
Fellow Democrats Sami Scheetz and state Rep. Liz Bennett subsequently also announced runs for the seat. After Bennett declared, Scheetz withdrew from the race, opting to run for Bennett’s Iowa House seat instead. Oxley’s decision leaves Bennett as the only Democrat currently running to take Hogg’s place.
Oxley’s announcement came three days after Linn County Board of Supervisors Chair Stacey Walker made public his decision not to run for reelection in 2022.
“At this point in my life, it is time for me to make space for new leaders, and to pursue other opportunities,” Walker said in a written statement. “It was important to me to make my announcement soon, so that I can leave a long runway of opportunity for potential candidates to consider whether they will run for this seat.”
Oxley would become the first woman to serve on the Board of Supervisors in more than half a decade. The most recent woman to serve as supervisor was Linda Langston, who was first elected to the board in 2002 and resigned her seat in 2016.
Langston endorsed Oxley during her run for the Iowa Senate.
