Brooklyn native Bruce Braley is headed to Washinton, DC., after voters in Iowa's1st Congressional District elected him last week to the US House. Braley defeated Republican Mike Whalen for the seat that was left vacant when Jim Nussle ran for governor.

Braley was born in Grinnell in 1957 and raised near Brooklyn by his parents, Byard and Marcia Braley.  His father died in 1980, but his mother still lives in Brooklyn and continues to work as a substitute teacher in the BGM school district.  In 1959, Braley's father was injured at the grain elevator he managed in Brooklyn.  His father's accident prompted his mother to begin commuting to the Iowa State Teacher's College (now University of Northern Iowa) to get her teacher's certificate.  It also prompted Bruce, beginning in the third grade, to hold a series of odd jobs to help his family.

Braley delivered newspapers, mowed lawns, baled hay, detassled corn, did janitorial work, and worked on road maintenance projects for Poweshiek County.  He also found time to be a five-sport athlete at BGM High School.  Braley worked his way through an undergraduate degree in political science at Iowa State University and law school at the University of Iowa.  He moved to Waterloo in 1983 and has lived there ever since.  He is married and has three children.

Braley will be part of a newly-elected Democratic majority in the House, and he says he has one request for party leaders when they begin making committee assigments.  He says he would like an appointment on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees legislation relating to energy production.

Braley said an appointment to that committee would help him to push Iowa as a center for the expansion into renewable fuels.