Before she was a congresswoman, Mariannette Miller-Meeks ran Iowa’s public health department and publicly mocked food stamp recipients. A decade later, she’s voting to cut their benefits.

The Mountain Dew Incident

In October 2013, while serving as Iowa’s Director of Public Health, Miller-Meeks told a World Food Prize conference: “Guess what the number one product is purchased with food stamps? Mountain Dew.”

She couldn’t back it up. Iowa didn’t track what food stamp recipients bought. She later admitted the state didn’t keep such statistics and couldn’t recall where she’d heard it.

She called it a “miscommunication.” She resigned shortly after — claiming it was unrelated.

The Votes

Fast forward to 2025. More than 28,793 Iowans in Miller-Meeks’ district relied on SNAP benefits to afford groceries.

She voted in May and July 2025 for a bill that made the largest SNAP cut in history — slashing $186 billion from the program.

CNBC reported the average family could lose $146 per month in food assistance.

Iowa Starting Line covered the vote with the blunt headline: “Miller-Meeks, Nunn Vote To Cut Medicaid And SNAP.”

The Defense

Miller-Meeks called the bill “a once-in-a-generation victory.”

She suggested to the Daily Iowan that she wanted to roll back SNAP expansion and said there was a need for “reordering and restructuring.”

When protesters showed up outside her Davenport office, she told them she was “voting in their best interest.”

The 28,000 constituents losing groceries might see it differently.