Laura Renée Dunn

NS Nation Name: Sanabel

Character Name: Laura Renée Dunn (née Schneider)
Character Gender: Cisgendered Woman
Character Age: 58
Character Height: 5’9”
Character Weight: 135 lbs
Character Position/Role/Job: Large-animal veterinarian (1985-Present), Member of the Iowa House of Representatives from the 57th District (1995-2007), Speaker of the Iowa House of Representatives (2003-2006), President and Co-Founder of Heartland Patriots (2009-2010), Governor of Iowa (2011-2017), United States Ambassador to Germany (2017-Present)

Appearance:

Character State of Origin: Iowa
Character Place of Residence: US Embassy in Berlin, Dyersville Iowa
Character Party Affiliation: Republican
Main Strengths: Popular among conservatives- especially Evangelical protestants, connected to small donors through Tea Party ties, reasonably successful as a governor, firebrand.
Main Weaknesses: Incredibly divisive diplomatic tenure, reputation for lack of intelligence especially among the media, controversial statements made while acting as a conservatice activist.
Biography:
Laura was born in 1960 in Dyersville, Iowa, a small town outside of Dubuque. Her family lived in a fairly upscale household, as Laura’s father was a middle manager for Deere and Company, which had a major manufacturing center in Dubuque. Laura was always an ambitious girl, learning to play the piano and ride horses at a relatively young age. In high school she made the decision to become a veterinarian, something her parents encouraged despite the socially conservative nature of her community.

So, in 1977, Laura attended the University of Iowa where she earned a B.S. in biology, and became president of her sorority. Immediately following, she attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison where she earned her veterinary degree. Following this point she returned to Dyersville to practice veterinary medicine and marry her high school sweetheart, Bob Novak, who was an Evangelical minister at that point.

Over time, the couple had four sons. They did very well for themselves, the veterinary practice succeeding and Bob working his way up to minister and director of the massive Dubuque County Community Church. Her ambition continued, however. In 1994, inspired by her distaste for the Clifford administration, Laura ran successfully for Iowa’s part-time legislature. Serving as a state rep while maintaining her practice. As a fairly mainline Republican, she worked her way up to Chair of the Republican Caucus, then to Speaker of the House following the 2002 elections. From this position, she promised voters to serve as a check to the Democratic governor and state senate. As the years rolled by, she became infamous within Iowa’s largely genteel political scene for outright refusing to take up bills from the Democratic senate, or compromise with the governor. She burned bridges but also inspired many, making both friends and enemies within the state legislature and Iowa as a whole.

In 2006, Laura’s ambitions drew her to look beyond the statehouse. She made the decision to run for US House in the first district. The divisive speaker and her neophyte opponent devolved the race into a bare knuckle boxing match, with mudslinging and a large amount of national attention. In the end, the national environment proved difficult to overcome, and her opponent won by a decent margin in the swing district. Some in the Iowa GOP were relieved, glad to toss Novak into the dustbin of Iowa political history.

Laura crushed. She returned to motherhood, to her veterinary practice, but still desired more, and her husband continued to support her ambition. With Baharia’s rise, the Novaks began to drift further to the right, disgusted with their perception of the country’s direction. Laura quickly noticed she was not the only one- others were angry too. She realized that if she could be the angriest, she could have her ticket back into politics.

Throughout 2008, Laura and her husband organized on behalf of local tea party organizations. A noted conservative leader, people gravitated to her, and she became a major grassroots organizer and fundraiser for the movement, becoming a mainstay of massive tea party rallies across the midwest. Her rousing, firebrand speeches were shared across tea party circles. In 2009, she founded the group Heartland Patriots, to coordinate between the various organizations of the fragmented movement. From this position she was involved with organizing a number of protests, including a very large one in Washington, D.C. in early 2010 to protest the Affordable Care Act. Using her newfound tea party fame as a launching point, Laura ran for governor of Iowa in 2010. A popular former governor and moderate was seen as a heavy favorite in the Republican primary, but Laura managed to raise large sums off of small donors and outmaneuver him in the debates, harnessing the conservative anti-establishment rage that consumed the party. In one of the most stunning upsets of the 2010 primary cycle, she narrowly won the primary.

Though she did not moderate her tone or change her divisive style, Laura won the general election by a comfortable margin. She was aided by the national environment, and that her Democratic opponent, a long-time state auditor, endorsed the Affordable Care Act. After taking office as Iowa’s first female governor in 2011, she moved to Des Moines while her family stayed in Dyersville so her husband could remain a minister at a county-wide megachurch and her children did not have to change schools.

Her first years as governor was a bit rocky, due to a testy relationship with the legislature. Despite having a Republican majority in both houses, they proved unworkable due to Laura’s burned bridges with more establishment-minded politicians. However, Laura still took some actions, including a refusal to allow Iowa schools to participate in Common Core. She used authority over executive agencies to relax economic regulation, allowing her to take credit for economic growth that was mostly a result of the national recovery. She also stood her ground contra the legislature publicly, an ostensibly principled and assertive stance that proved popular with the electorate. As the legislature grew warmer toward Laura, she was able to pass some legislation during the end of her first term. Her greatest accomplishment was a tax reform bill that included historic tax cuts. Property taxes and income taxes were reduced, and the earned income tax credits were expanded.

In 2014, she easily defeated her Democratic opponent in a favorable environment, remaining governor with an even larger conservative majority in the state legislature. With this majority she was able to pass a heartbeat ban, legislation banning sanctuary cities, and balance the budget (even though it controversially included borrowing slightly more).

When 2016 rolled around she seemed like a kingmaker in the Republican Iowa caucus. After some deliberation, she decided to support the natural tea party fit, (Not-Ted Cruz) at the last moment, credited with helping him pull off his narrow caucus win. Angling for a spot on his ticket, Laura became a strong surrogate for his campaign, frequently stumping across the Midwest and appearing on television. This helped him pull of buoying victories in Wisconsin and Kansas. When he lost the primary, Laura changed gears to back Wolf, endorsing him strongly in an RNC speaking slot.

In the general election, she stumped for Wolf, and organized for him in Iowa. She hoped to take a cabinet position, but Wolf kept her at arms-length due to criticism and negative comments she made during the primary season. She was, however, offered the position of ambassador to Germany. While many politicians would have seen it as an insulting offer, Laura saw potential to make a splash and readily accepted her nomination in early April of 2017.

Following her nomination, Laura set to work learning about the history of US-Germany relations, and studied international affairs more broadly. Concurrently, she worked with the legislature to pass her last major piece of legislation in mid-April. It was a law expanding gun rights in Iowa, enacting a stand-your-ground law, expanding the right of citizens to sue if they believe their Second Amendment rights are being infringed, and expanding the gun rights of minors, among several other provisions.

In early May, she travelled to Washington for her nomination hearing. Despite being grilled over a lack of foreign policy experience in what was clearly a political appointment, Laura managed to avoid most verbal traps and make it through the gauntlet unscathed. In the end, her confirmation broke practically around party lines, with 52 senators voting for and 47 voting against.

Laura was sworn in by Vice President Tawney and moved into the Ambassador’s Residence in Berlin. Within hours, she received backlash from German politicians and businesses for saying that German businesses should end their operations in Iran immediately. It set the tone for her tenure in Berlin, wherein she expressed skepticism toward the European Union, mass migration, and the German political establishment. Throughout her time as Ambassador, Laura was a regular contributor to Fox News and conservative radio, criticizing the German chancellor, the funding imbalance in NATO, and more. She frequently urged Germany to stop buying Russian gas and stop doing business with Iran. She appeared alongside the ambassador to the European Union and President Wolf at rallies in Poland and closed-door meetings with European leaders to urge increases to NATO funding. In 2018, she called for the investigation of German media over their anti-American bias, after she was accused of acting like “the high commissioner of an occupying power” by a German politicians. By the end of that year, she was threatening sanctions over the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. She considered lobbying for the position of Ambassador to the United Nations after a vacancy emerged, but opted to wait.

Domestically, Laura maintained a good relationship with tea party actors, and gained popularity among conservatives more broadly as her antics in Berlin were reported upon fondly by right-wing media. Frequent trips to Washington were made to raise money for conservative politicians and organizations, and she spoke annually at CPAC and AIPAC. She rebuilt her rapport with Wolf, and ostensibly boosted her foreign policy chops. However, her antics were reported with disdain by liberal and international media. Fortunately, Wolf’s even worse antics gave her a lot of cover.

When Wolf announced he would not seek a second term, Laura was reportedly called and urged to return from Berlin to run for president by a prominent member of the House Freedom Caucus.

Other Info: Good rapport with Evangelical groups through her husband. Has 3 adult sons.

I have read and accept the rules of the roleplay: Middle Finger.