Dave Leshtz is the editor of The Prairie Progressive.

I’ve written about and gotten to know several members of Iowa’s Satanic Temple. 

They are young and intelligent. They come mostly from small towns in Iowa, where their families still live. They have a sense of humor and like to dress in black. They consider the poet John Milton’s Paradise Lost their foundational text – their Bible, so to speak.

Most of all, they are sincere in their belief that government shouldn’t favor one religion over another, that public services or benefits to religious groups should not be denied because officials disagree with their beliefs.

I don’t personally know any members of the Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal denomination for which Iowa gubernatorial candidate Adam Steen is a credentialed minister. It is an Evangelical church which reported in 2022 a worldwide membership of 69 million. The Satanic Temple claims approximately 700,000 members, according to Wikipedia. Its numbers in the state of Iowa are, well, considerably less.

Ed Tibbetts, a longtime reporter and editor in the Quad-Cities, is the publisher of the Along the Mississippi newsletter, where this post first appeared. Find more of his work at edtibbetts.substack.com.

Lately, you haven’t been able to turn on the TV without hearing how great Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks is.

The American Action Network, a special interest group with ties to the U.S. House Republican leadership, has been blanketing area TV stations and online outlets with ads that claim Miller-Meeks, the member of Congress for Iowa’s first district, “led the charge for high-quality, less expensive health care, especially for rural Iowans.” Then they say that we should “thank her for delivering for all of us.”

Less expensive health care?

In what world?

Adam Shriver is Director of Wellness and Nutrition at the Harkin Institute for Public Policy and Citizen Engagement. This essay was first published on his Substack newsletter, Canary in a Cornfield.

Iowa’s high cancer rates are understandably generating a lot of headlines. And for better or worse, a lot of groups are working overtime to offer their own “interpretations” of some of the various reports on the cancer crisis that have come out. Since there are many opportunities to misunderstand these reports, I thought it might be valuable to clarify a few things in response to some of the claims I’ve been seeing.

One of the most egregious “misunderstandings” (I’m putting this in quotes because I think it’s an extremely charitable way of describing it) was the National Pork Producers Council’s response to a recent Yale University study.

Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring. He can be reached at BruceLear2419@gmail.com 

Dad was a master carpenter. He didn’t graduate from vocational school, wasn’t an apprentice, and he didn’t have a framed certificate announcing his skill. He learned by doing.

For him, “Measure twice and cut once” wasn’t an old platitude. It’s what he lived by, and it made him a master of his trade. He believed consequential planning avoids unintended consequences, and jobs that look simple often aren’t.

Now it appears the U.S. is being led by people who don’t even measure once.

Josh Mandelbaum represents Ward 3 on the Des Moines City Council.

Iowa has the 2^nd highest cancer rate of any state in the country, and our cancer rates are increasing. Iowa’s cancer rates have been going up while the United States on the whole is experiencing declining cancer rates. This makes Iowa an outlier.

The question is what makes Iowa an outlier, and what can we do about it?

The Iowa Environmental Council (IEC) and the Harkin Institute attempt to answer that question with their new report “Environmental Risk Factors and Iowa’s Cancer Crisis.” The report looked at peer-reviewed research and found that environmental exposures to nitrate, pesticides, radon and PFAs are all associated with increased cancer risks. The executive summary noted that:

Rick Morain is the former publisher and owner of the Jefferson Herald, for which he writes a regular column.

I had a commentary on foreign policy on my mind for this week. I still do. But it can wait. The attempted attack at the White House Correspondents Dinner in Washington last Saturday can’t.

It’s sadly ironic that the terrifying disruption of the dinner, just as it was getting underway, took place at an event designed to honor the First Amendment. Violence is the antithesis of free speech. It seeks to erase and replace open dialogue and the exchange of ideas, silencing them instead.

But it’s not really a surprise in the U.S. these days. Our country harbors a growing number of individuals who see violence as the answer to their hopes, concerns, and challenges. If that involves diverting or eradicating other people’s freedoms and rights, so be it.

Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes openness and transparency in Iowa’s state and local governments. He can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. This essay first appeared on his Substack newsletter, Stray Thoughts. 

Come July, Iowa employers may want to add an ominous warning on their job application forms: tell a lie and you could go to jail.

That’s right — no more puffing the resume with false degrees from the University of Okoboji or Faber College. 

And do not claim to have chauffeur’s license when you lack the permit needed to drive a truck.

Adam Shriver is Director of Wellness and Nutrition at the Harkin Institute for Public Policy and Citizen Engagement. This essay was first published on his Substack newsletter, Canary in a Cornfield.

Iowa has a serious problem with nitrates in our drinking water that we’ve known about for decades, and these problems are only getting worse. Numerous studies—extremely high-quality studies—and detailed accounts of underlying biology all present a strong case that nitrates levels in drinking water lower than the current 10 mg/L NO3-N standard are linked to different types of cancer. We discussed that research in my interview with the Chair of a Denmark Ministry of the Environment Report, and the recent Cancer and Environmental Risk Factors in Iowa report covered those studies in detail.

For that reason, it’s extremely important for Iowans to have the best possible data measuring the amount of nitrate in our drinking water throughout the year.

Despite the urgency of the problem, the Iowa legislature cut off funding to the the University of Iowa’s IIHR Hydroscience and Engineering Water Quality Information System in 2024. The Walton Family Foundation agreed to step in and fund the network for two years, but they were very clear that this was only a temporary measure. In short, they were giving Iowa a couple years to get ourselves together.

What that means now: if the legislature does not restore funding in the state budget for fiscal year 2027, many of the sensors in the IIHR network may need to be removed or discontinued, putting Iowans at risk.

Ralph Rosenberg is a retired attorney, state legislator, and non-profit executive. He has followed Iowa environmental, energy, and agricultural policy for decades. He worked in Washington, D.C. for Public Citizen, while opposing the international export of nuclear fuels and materials. 

On April 15, the Iowa House handed NextEra Energy a sales tax exemption worth tens of millions of dollars to restart the Duane Arnold Energy Center near Palo. House File 2757 passed by 94 votes to 1, with Democratic State Representative Beth Wessel-Kroeschell the only dissenter.

Supporters are calling the proposal visionary. I’ve heard that word before. In fact, I’ve been reading about its use from the 1950s and heard it directly since the 1970s.

I’ve learned that powerful interests dress up a corporate subsidy in the language of clean energy and national security. Iowans should ask their legislators to take a very pronounced pause on what they’re doing.

As a longtime skeptic about nuclear power’s promises, I can tell this bill is bad policy dressed up in shiny clothes.

Gordie Felger is a volunteer member of two LGBTQ+ organizations (CR Pride and Free Mom Hugs) and a One Iowa volunteer activist. He is a friend of many LGBTQ+ folks and an ally to the community. He also writes about the state of Iowa politics at “WFT Iowa?”, where this post first appeared.

Republican State Senator Sandy Salmon introduced Senate File 2037 during the 2024 legislative session. The bill prohibits “counties and cities from regulating certain behavioral health and human services.” These services include so-called “conversion therapy.” If enacted in the future, the law would prohibit local governments from banning conversion therapy. 

Conversion therapy tries to “convert” LGBTQ+ individuals. Supporters believe counseling can “correct” a person’s “confused” sexual orientation and/or gender identity. Critics call the widely discredited practice quack therapy that seeks to “pray the gay away.”

But what does conversion therapy entail? And why is it discredited?

I literally shook my head as I read Alex Isenstadt’s scoop for Axios this week: Vice President JD Vance plans to come to Iowa on April 30 to campaign with U.S. Representative Zach Nunn. Isenstadt wrote that the vice president’s appearances (one with Nunn and another at a Turning Point USA rally in Ames) “will be aimed at helping Republicans in this fall’s elections.”

More likely, a joint event with Vance will hurt Nunn’s chances in one of the country’s top-targeted U.S. House districts.

No one could accuse me of being too optimistic about Democratic prospects in Iowa’s statewide elections. But if there’s one race I’m bullish on, it’s the third Congressional district. National forecasters currently rate this district as a toss-up (Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball) or lean Republican (Inside Elections).

I see this race tilting in favor of the presumptive Democratic nominee, Sarah Trone Garriott. Let’s walk through the reasons.

Clark Kauffman is deputy editor at Iowa Capital Dispatch, where this article first appeared.

The Iowa Supreme Court has blocked State Auditor Rob Sand’s efforts to access City of Davenport communications about $1.9 million in taxpayer-funded settlements.

The state auditor has been waging a legal battle to access the recordings of closed-door Davenport City Council meetings where aldermen appear to have discussed settlement payouts with the city’s attorney present.

Sand’s office is investigating those payments, but the city has refused to turn over the meeting tapes, arguing the discussions are protected by attorney-client privilege.

Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring. He can be reached at BruceLear2419@gmail.com 

A few years ago, we visited Northern Ireland. During our trip, we repeatedly heard the Biblical phrase “The time of trouble,” describing the Protestants/Catholic war. This descriptor needed little elaboration, because those who said it lived it.

While our last couple snowbird months in Florida this year don’t compare to 30 years of brutal violence, they did introduce us to the seventh circle of Hell: health care and insurance coverage in the U.S.

It was “Our time of trouble.”

Charles Bruner is a former Democratic Iowa legislator (1978-1990), was the founding director of Iowa Child and Family Policy Center (1990-2015, now Common Good Iowa), and is national director of the InCK Marks Initiative’s Child Health Equity Leadership Group.

For more than two centuries, economists have understood the economy through three essential elements: land, labor, and capital. From Adam Smith to David Ricardo, this framework helped explain how wealth is created—and how it is shared.

But something fundamental has changed.

Today, land is no longer just a passive input. It is strained—by climate change, resource depletion, and environmental degradation, concerns long emphasized by ecological economists such as Herman Daly.

Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson demonstrate that technological change is increasingly shaped in ways that replace rather than augment workers. Capital—through automation, artificial intelligence, and digital platforms—has become powerful enough to produce growth while using less and less labor.

Ed Tibbetts, a longtime reporter and editor in the Quad-Cities, is the publisher of the Along the Mississippi newsletter, where this article first appeared. Find more of his work at edtibbetts.substack.com.

If only Iowa’s school librarians possessed the wisdom of a trio of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

The judges overturned a preliminary injunction against Iowa’s three-year-old book ban law on April and abruptly dispensed with the idea it was vague and difficult to apply.

Such contentions, the judges said, were “unavailing.” Which seems strange. Especially since one of the defendants in the case before them actually admitted there was confusion.

“You might be our secret weapon,” State Auditor Rob Sand told hundreds of people attending the Iowa State Education Association’s annual meeting in West Des Moines on April 11. He was speaking because the ISEA PAC decided to recommend the presumptive Democratic nominee for the 2026 governor’s race.

ISEA has tens of thousands of members across Iowa’s 99 counties, working in every part of public education: preschool, K-12, community colleges, Area Education Agencies, and school support staff. Those numbers alone would make the group’s endorsement valuable.

Sand sees educators as particularly powerful surrogates for his campaign, because of their diverse political leanings and how connected they are in their communities. Their voices could be helpful in another way, too: public education is a focal point of Sand’s promise to take Iowa in a new direction.

Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes openness and transparency in Iowa’s state and local governments. He can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. This essay first appeared on his Substack newsletter, Stray Thoughts. 

The offices of the Des Moines Register’s opinion staff were mostly empty when my telephone rang late one afternoon about fifteen years ago.

The guard at the lobby security desk said two men were there and hoped I had time to meet with them. I said sure and invited them up to our office on the fourth floor.

Within minutes, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and his driver emerged from the elevator. They were on their way to Waterloo. But Jackson wanted to detour to the Register, just to talk about some concerns on his mind.

Al Charlson is a North Central Iowa farm kid, lifelong Iowan, and retired bank trust officer.

I sympathize with Iowa Republican legislative leaders as they wrestle with the realities of trying to reform property taxes. House Appropriations Committee Chair Gary Mohr’s comments from December 2025 tell the story: “What we learned last year is it’s a whack-a-mole game, which we didn’t all know – meaning if you do this with property taxes, it has an effect over here we didn’t think about.”

Guess what – the moles are still popping up! This is nothing new – the property tax system is complicated to begin with, and our history of trying to “reform” it has added layer upon layer of complexity.

Adam Shriver is Director of Wellness and Nutrition at the Harkin Institute for Public Policy and Citizen Engagement. This essay was first published on his Substack newsletter, Canary in a Cornfield.

Earlier in the year, I wrote a response to some of Republican State Senator Ken Rozenboom’s comments in the Senate Agriculture Committee where he made some interesting claims based on his recent trip to the Netherlands. I pointed out that, contrary to his claims, nitrates have been a very serious issue in the Netherlands for decades and that the European Union had a different way of representing nitrate concentration in water, which was the only plausible explanation I could think of for his claim that nitrates levels in Amsterdam were far higher than what we saw in Iowa last summer.

On April 1, Rozenboom delivered some remarks on the Senate floor that indicated more confusion about the science around nitrates. (He may have been triggered by Democratic State Senator Janet Petersen’s comments the previous day; she asked Rozenboom if a bill allowing boats to display blue lights would be the water safety bill the Senate will consider this year.)

Rozenboom claimed the connection between nitrates and cancer is a “myth,” suggested Republicans had been making great progress on Iowa’s water problems since 2017, and said that if you are really worried about nitrates, you should look at the amount of nitrates in spinach.

You can find the full video of his comments and the responses at this link but I’ve pulled out the relevant sections. Here’s the first relevant clip:

Bleeding Heartland’s Iowa wildflowers series returns for a fifteenth year. Past posts are linked here (alphabetized by the plant’s common name) and here (for posts covering many species).

Leland Searles has had a long interest in birding and wildflowers. He combines that with over fifteen years as a consultant in ecological assessment and restoration, along with graduate studies in environmental and psychological anthropology. His recent writing addresses some facet of ecology, often with awareness of social interests and power that shape our regard for the environment. This essay first appeared on his Substack newsletter, Home on Earth.

In the past two weeks, I have already visited three woodlands to see which early plants have emerged. Over those three visits, the phenology is clearly visible: a few small leaves poking from the chilly but warming soil and no trees in leaf; larger leaves and more species on the surface and swelling buds on trees and bushes; and finally, a few leaf buds bursting into miniature, sometimes crumpled leaves and flowers hovering above or nestled within the growing stems.

Among the emerging plants are: Black Snakeroot (Sanicula, leaves only), Bloodroot (Sanguinea canadensis, flowers topping encircling leaves only on April 5), Dutchman’s Breeches (Dicentra cucullata, at first leaves and now blooms), Elm-Leaved Goldenrod (Solidago ulmifolia, recognizable basal leaves), Fragile Fern (Cystopteris fragilis, from tiny fiddleheads to expanding blades), Heart-Leaved or Woodland Blue Aster (Symphyotrichum cordifolium, basal leaves around last year’s dry stems), Violets (Viola, leaves only), Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginiana, from leaves to the first flowers), and Wild Ginger (Asarum canadense, the first fuzzy leaves).