This is the fourth in a series of articles about women in politics, and this story describes a unique friendship between Democrat Mary Riche and Republican Joy Corning. Though in different political parties, their relationship developed because of their shared values.

Women don’t have to be in the same political party to work together to change laws and policies that are unjust, unfair, or inequitable. Joy Corning, the former Republican Lt. Governor of Iowa in 1991-1999, and I proved that during our special friendship over a lot of years, vacation miles, and glasses of chardonnay.

We were two Iowa women who established a friendship with roots as deep as our love for our hometowns in rural Iowa. She was raised in the small town of Bridgewater in SW IA, and I was raised on a farm outside of Stanley in NE IA.

We were in different political parties – she a Republican, me a Democrat – though we shared the same values and spoke the same political language. She was the universally respected, moderate Republican, statewide elected officeholder winning positions of importance and prominence. I was the behind-the-scenes staffer, paid press secretary in the early years of my political work; then continuing as a volunteer on campaigns for candidates and social justice initiatives.

We shared a mutual passion for reproductive freedom and bodily autonomy, and that passion fueled our years of working together on a variety of projects, usually fundraising, for Planned Parenthood North Central States. We each had served on the various PPNCS boards – operating, foundation, PAC – though in different years and for most of our adult lives.

Of course, her Republican party — where she was a leader in the moderate wing — has changed significantly in the last few years. Joy and I were together watching the election results on November 8, 2016, when we were stunned by the outcome of the presidential contest. Her death in May, 2017 spared her the experience of living through his presidency and the resulting extremism of the Republican party today. It also spared her from knowing that a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion ended in 2022 after nearly a half century with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health.

She entered public service with her first election to the Cedar Falls, IA school board where she served as president for several years. Her success in that public position resulted in the Iowa Republican party recruiting her to run for the Iowa State Senate against popular Democrat Ted Anderson. She won by around 100 votes and served as the Republican Assistant Minority Leader in the Iowa Senate from 1985 to 1990. She was instrumental in helping pass bills outlawing physical abuse in schools and extending the statute of limitations on sexual abuse.

Here’s an interesting side story to her State Senate race. She trailed Anderson by 200 votes when she went to bed about midnight. Her bedside phone rang (those were the days before cell phones) about 2 am. It was a reporter from the Des Moines Register asking for a comment about her victorious campaign. That’s how she learned she was headed to the Iowa State Senate!

Many of us remember with great satisfaction when Democrat Jo Ann Zimmerman was elected in 1986 as the first woman Lieutenant Governor in Iowa! She would serve with Republican Terry Branstad who was re-elected to his second term that same year when he defeated Democrat Lowell Junkins. To ensure that future Governors and Lt. Governors would be in the same political party, the legislature then changed the electoral laws to create the current system where the gubernatorial candidate selects the nominee for lieutenant governor, and they run as a team.

In my opinion, that’s when Governor Terry Branstad made one of the wisest decisions in his political career. He asked Joy Corning to be his running mate, and they won election in 1990. Joy became the 44^th lieutenant governor of Iowa, the first Republican woman to hold that job. She served two terms, until 1999.

During that time, she creatively used her office to expand it beyond the traditional ceremonial duties. She led the first statewide effort to celebrate diversity with forums, team-building activities, and conferences. She spearheaded the Family Foster Care program which dramatically raised the number of adoptions of special-needs children. She chaired Iowa’s first STOP Violence Against Women Coordinating Council and the 75^th Anniversary of women’s Suffrage.

Joy was inducted into the Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame in 2004. She was the recipient of the Barry Goldwater Award from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She faithfully served the University of Northern Iowa, her alma mater, as a member of the UNI Foundation board. In 2001, she endowed the popular Joy Cole Corning Distinguished Leadership Award that continues to bring prominent national speakers to the UNI campus for an afternoon with students and free evening lecture for the public.

Her work as an inaugural board member for the group 50/50 in 2020 was dedicated to putting more women in political office. She served as honorary co-chair, with former Lt. Governor Sally Pederson, for Justice Not Politics, a bipartisan group dedicated to protecting Iowa’s proud tradition of fair and impartial courts. She was the Iowa Co-Chair of No Labels, the national movement to bring leaders of all parties together to solve problems.

Joy was a fundraising powerhouse with her substantive contacts, and she was involved in a long list of successful campaigns. She would often talk about one in particular — building the chapel at the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women at Mitchellville. Several of the women there sent cards in the final weeks of her life.

She was a lover of music, and her board service and philanthropic support for both the Cedar Falls Symphony and Des Moines Symphony were instrumental to the success of each. She is named on the Women of Achievement Bridge in Des Moines, and there are countless awards, scholarships and other honors named for her. (I apologize if I’ve unintentionally neglected to mention all her many successes.)

She was a trailblazer, and her legacy remains strong. Though we were separated in age by 15 years, Joy had the energy of the original “energizer bunny.” She was months shy of her 85^th birthday when she died, yet she was active on 12 different statewide and community boards before her death.

As I said in my eulogy of her almost six years ago, Joy was the model of civility, integrity, and honor – values and character traits that are missing in too many of today’s politicians at all levels of government.

      What didn’t I say?

      She was the older sister I never had.

      May she rest in peace.

      Joy Cole Corning

      September 7, 1932 – May 20, 2017