greg wickenkamp is a lifelong Iowan.

Republican legislators recently created the University of Iowa’s Center for Intellectual Freedom to advance an agenda around a particular conception of American Heritage. The “freedom” it advances has a specific meaning.

Freedom can, of course, mean different things. Freedom for people to earn a decent living, for example, is different from the freedom to exploit workers or the freedom to stand in line at a soup kitchen. The freedom for a trans child to simply exist unencumbered is different from the “freedom” of teachers and peers to deadname and bully that child. The former results in a more healthy and vibrant society. The latter can result, as Iowans tragically demonstrated, in death.

Since Donald Trump returned to the White House, I’ve sometimes wondered: is there anything this president could do that Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird would find objectionable?

We got the answer this week, when Bird and counterparts from seven other Republican-controlled states quietly expressed “concerns” about one of Trump’s actions.

You’ll never guess why.

Jason Benell lives in Des Moines with his wife and two children. He is a combat veteran, former city council candidate, and president of Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers. This essay first appeared on his Substack newsletter, The Odd Man Out.

A little over a year ago I wrote a piece called “America Needs Farmers, Just Not Their Politics.” It is probably one of my most read pieces, which somewhat broke containment before I even had a space of my own on Substack. I felt like it was a worthwhile endeavor to check back in, since I wrote that piece before the 2024 election.

We’ve had a year to see how the active rural voting parts of our state, alongside the big agricultural entities like the Iowa Farm Bureau and Iowa Soybean Association, would handle the increased turmoil in a Trump administration.

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 

The dictionary definition of intellectual freedom is, “The fundamental right to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas from all viewpoints without restriction, censorship and fear.” That’s the goal of almost all liberal arts public universities in the country.

But politicians on the right have long contended universities are drowning innocent students in liberal think tanks. During the last legislative session, the majority party played lifeguard to save those students.

They created a new Center for Intellectual Freedom housed at the University of Iowa, but managed directly by the Board of Regents and active in all three public universities. It’s no coincidence it’s housed in Iowa City, long considered the epicenter of liberalism in Iowa.

Jon Muller is a semi-retired policy analyst and entrepreneur who previously was a tax analyst and revenue forecaster for Iowa’s Revenue Estimating Conference.

Iowa Republicans appear to be budgeting on pure hope. And that’s probably the only tool they have. That hope appears to be misplaced.

State government is piecing together a budget, but it’s like flying a plane with one engine gone. This piece is an effort to estimate how far they can fly the plane before it crashes.

The three-member Revenue Estimating Conference (REC) left the estimates largely unchanged at its December 11 meeting, with an additional $23 million for the current fiscal year and an extra $105 million for the budget they’ll appropriate next session.

Normally, that would be pretty good news. The state government historically worked on the premise that future expected appropriations could be funded with future expected revenues. Even when the income tax cutting regime got its foothold in the mid-1990s, both the legislative and executive branches used five-year forecasts of revenues and expenditures to make sure the long-term forecast was at least theoretically reasonable. There’s nothing inherently wrong with using reserves to fund tax cuts in the short run, if it’s reasonable to believe future revenue increases are sufficient to fund them.

I sincerely doubt the state government uses this approach anymore. Because they have committed fiscal malpractice the likes of which I have never seen in Iowa.

Francis Boggus is an experienced community development professional in rural Iowa communities and former Democratic State Central Committee member from Council Bluffs, now living in Des Moines. He has endorsed Jennifer Konfrst for Congress. 

Recently, a friend who’s deciding whom to support in Iowa’s Democratic primaries sent me this video from the Des Moines Register’s “Storytellers Project” series in 2023. In the video, State Senator Sarah Trone Garriot (who is now running for Congress in Iowa’s third district) describes the first wedding she performed to marry a pair of Satanists.

I’ll be clear: I have no personal issue with Satanists. Like many other Iowans, I believe their First Amendment rights should be protected just like anyone else’s. I am no stranger to marriages that might be looked down upon—I was in an interracial marriage in the 1980s, and one of my daughters is married to a woman. Marriage equality across race, religion, and sexuality must be protected.

What bothers me is the tone Trone Garriott used when talking about working class people, whether they be in West Virginia or Iowa.

AJ Jones is a writer and creator of art, expressing herself across different mediums. She embraces her neurodivergence as a unique way to view the world in hopes of creating a better future. She first published this essay on her Substack newsletter, Blue Dot Thoughts.

I recently saw an Instagram video highlighting NASA scientist Dr. Kate Marvel, who had been trying to convince her conservative father about climate change. She explained that he finally came around, not because of her data or research, but because capitalism is saying it’s real.

Every insurance company has climate scientists on staff and insurance companies are all pricing in climate risk. There is no financial incentive for them to do that if it wasn’t real. If it wasn’t real another insurance company could come along, undercut the market and offer insurance at much cheaper rates, but they don’t do that because they know that it’s real.

Her father finally conceded, “Well, if capitalism says it’s real, it’s real.”

Wendy Larson will be the newest Republican in the Iowa House, after winning the December 9 special election in House district 7 by a margin of 2,817 votes to 1,201 for Democratic candidate Rachel Burns (70.0 percent to 29.9 percent). Larson’s victory brings the GOP majority in the chamber back to 67-33. Her predecessor, State Representative Mike Sexton, stepped down in September to take a senior position with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The special election outcome was almost a foregone conclusion in one of the state’s reddest legislative districts. House district 7, covering Sac, Pocahontas, and Calhoun counties, plus some rural areas of Webster County, contains more registered Republicans than Democrats and no-party voters combined. Donald Trump received nearly 75 percent of the vote here in 2024, well above the 55.7 percent he received statewide in Iowa.

Still, I was closely watching the race to see what the results might tell us about voter enthusiasm and changing preferences going into the 2026 midterms.

It’s hard to draw any broad conclusions from this election, but I have a few takeaways.

Robin Opsahl covers the state legislature and politics for Iowa Capital Dispatch, where this article first appeared.

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds on December 15 ordered all flags in Iowa lowered in honor of the two Iowa National Guard members killed in Syria.

The two service members were killed on December 13 in Palmyra, Syria, by a lone gunman suspected to be affiliated with ISIS. The two individuals were identified in a news release Monday as Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard of Marshalltown and Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar of Grimes. Both were members of the 1st Squadron, 113th Cavalry Regiment.

Sue Dinsdale is the Executive Director of Iowa Citizen Action Network and the State Lead for Health Care for America NOW.

Millions of Americans are struggling with the high cost of services and goods this holiday season, as politicians in Congress seem stuck in the past rather than looking out for our future. The Affordable Care Act was passed fifteen years ago and has been fully in effect for more than a decade. Despite its proven track record and majority support for the law, here we are again.

There’s no better example than the current health care affordability crisis. It’s not new, but the fight is coming to a head as Republicans in Congress continue to refuse to extend the premium tax credits that millions of people depend on for Affordable Care Act marketplace coverage. Failure to extend the credits could cause 4 million people to drop their health insurance, while millions more would pay double, triple, or more to keep their coverage. 

William R. Staplin is a former scientist specializing in utilizing molecular biology techniques to investigate RNA plant and animal viruses, research and development of vaccines to protect against infectious viruses; husband to Ruth A. Staplin; father to two independently minded young college students; cancer and spinal cord disability survivor; supporter of girls and women’s equal rights, reproductive rights, bodily autonomy and healthcare; supporter of reclaiming LGTBQIA+ civil rights and liberties; supporter of Black and Brown Lives Matter; full-time greyhound owner and walking companion to Tailgater. 

This fall, my wife Ruth and I attended a meet and greet fundraiser for State Representative Josh Turek “4” Iowa. Four was Josh’s jersey number as an elite athlete and member of the Men’s Paralympic Wheelchair Basketball Team. He’s now seeking the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate. (Marine veteran Nathan Sage and State Senator Zach Wahls are the other Democratic contenders.)

It was also important to me as a person of disability and my wife to attend. I wanted to personally meet this former professional wheelchair basketball player, disability advocate, and Iowa House member from Council Bluffs.

Sarah Watson had the scoop for the Quad-City Times: U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks no longer officially lives in Scott County, or anywhere in Iowa’s first Congressional district. In July 2025, she changed her voter registration back to the Ottumwa home she shares with her husband.

Aspiring candidates and campaign strategists could learn a lot from how Miller-Meeks has handled questions surrounding her residency over the past four years. It’s hard to believe an experienced politician could botch this issue so badly.

Wayne Ford is the executive director of Wayne Ford Equity Impact Institute and co-Director of the Brown and Black Forums of America. He is a former member of the Iowa legislature and the founder and former executive director of Urban Dreams.

INTRODUCTION: A STATE IN TRANSITION

For nearly half a century, Iowans have approached our future with optimism, hard work, and a deep commitment to community. But as we enter the next 25 years—from 2026 through 2050—the forces shaping Iowa are fundamentally different from anything in our past. These forces are structural, interconnected, and accelerating. They affect every sector of our society: our schools, our health care systems, our farmland, our water, our workforce, our economy, and the very makeup of our communities.

For decades, states like Iowa have relied on annual budgeting to shape priorities. But a one-year budget cannot capture pressures that unfold over decades. Nor can it measure the true economic cost of challenges such as rural hospital closures, workforce shortages, mental health crises, water contamination, demographic decline, artificial intelligence, or the shifting global market for agriculture.

To prepare for the next generation, Iowa must adopt a broader lens—one that helps leaders understand where the state is headed, not only where the budget is today.

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 

There’s a scene in the 1974 movie Longest Yard, which I’ve always remembered. The prison warden forces Burt Reynolds, an incarcerated former professional football player, to organize a football team to play the guards.

In the huddle, Reynolds tells the offensive line to let a hated guard through. As the guard blitzes, the line parts and Reynolds hurls a pass into the guard’s groin.

The prisoners huddle, and Reynolds calls the same play: “Let’s do it again.” They do. The guard leaves the game in agony clutching his groin. 

Republican State Representative Skyler Wheeler, who chairs the House Education Committee, is signaling he may call the same play during the next Iowa legislative session that was called this year.

Matt Russell is a farmer, political writer, and progressive ag and rural leader. He has published work in the New York Times, TIME, AgInsider, Civil Eats, and many state and local publications. He co-owns Coyote Run Farm with his husband Patrick Standley in rural Lacona, Iowa. A version of this essay first appeared on his Substack newsletter, Growing New Leaders: Perspectives from Coyote Run Farm.

Iowans will have some outstanding Democratic candidates to vote for in 2026. A Democratic candidate for secretary of agriculture is not yet among them, but could be soon.

Chris Jones has announced an exploratory committee and plans to decide whether to run in January. You can read Laura Belin’s interview with him here. Jones, who has a PhD in analytical chemistry, is a longtime advocate for cleaner water. He’s a sharp critic of how the agriculture industry has contributed to the pollution but avoided taking enough (if any) responsibility for dirty water.

Until election day 2024, I had planned to run for Iowa secretary of agriculture in 2026. My plan was to stay in my appointment at USDA with the Biden-Harris Administration until this fall. I’d hoped Christina Bohannan would win in Iowa’s first Congressional district, and as only one or two Democratic members of the Iowa delegation, I’d work with her to identify a great candidate to offer to the Harris-Walz Administration to be the next State Executive Director of the Iowa Farm Service Agency.

“Good job you did! Great job,” President Donald Trump says to U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks in a 30-second commercial that has reached thousands of Iowans on the radio or social media platforms over the past month.

The three-term Republican did not place the ads through her campaign committee, which had accumulated more than $2.6 million cash on hand as of September 30.

Instead, Miller-Meeks—considered one of the country’s most vulnerable House Republicans—has used taxpayer funds to share Trump’s praise with Iowans.

Bleeding Heartland’s review of data from Facebook’s ad library and Federal Communications Commission files suggest that Miller-Meeks’ Congressional office has spent at least $10,000 to run this spot. (Several other taxpayer-funded radio ads have also been in rotation this fall.)

If the 2024 campaign is any indication, Miller-Meeks may spend much more from her Congressional office budget in the coming months, as she seeks to shore up her appeal with conservatives before another competitive primary election in Iowa’s first district.

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.

Attorney General Brenna Bird buried the news. I can understand why.

No self-respecting right-winger would want to be seen backing a centralized citizen registry in Washington, DC.

For as long as I can remember, conservatives were in the vanguard of opposing such big government excesses. Yet, here is Iowa’s attorney general—along with Secretary of State Paul Pate—actually helping to build what some critics are likening to a super database for Big Brother.

Carl Olsen is the founder of Iowans for Medical Marijuana.

The Iowaska Church of Healing is seeking a federal exemption for the religious use of ayahuasca, a hallucinogen in Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substances Act. Several other churches have received exemptions for ayahuasca, so it seems like the process should be straightforward, and that’s what the church argued in the U.S. Court of Appeals on November 14, 2025, after a six-year delay in processing their application.

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) created a Guidance Document for the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) in 2009 which is at the heart of this case argued before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on November 14, 2025. In re: Iowaska Church of Healing, No. 25-1140. The Guidance Document explains how to apply for a religious exception to the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) of 1970 using the regulatory authority in the CSA.

Prior to the decision in Gonzales v. O Centro Espírita Beneficente União do Vegetal, 546 U.S. 418 (2006), the DEA had claimed it lacked the regulatory authority in the CSA to make religious exceptions. The Guidance Document does not include an apology for that error, but it does finally settle the issue of whether the DEA has the authority to make religious exceptions. It does, and it always did.

Rick Morain is the former publisher and owner of the Jefferson Herald, for which he writes a regular column. This essay first appeared on Substack.

What will you be doing in the year 2033?

If you’ll still be younger than 67 years of age, there are innumerable answers. But if you’re 67 or older by then, chances are the number one item on your mind will be how in heaven’s name you’re going to make ends meet.

That’s because 2033 is now the year the Social Security and Medicare trustees calculate the trust fund will go bust. Incoming revenues will drop below what the fund needs to make its payouts.

Peggy Huppert is a retired nonprofit executive who has been active in Democratic politics as a volunteer for campaigns ranging from school board to President since 1984.

As Democrats in Iowa’s third Congressional district, we all share the same goal in 2026: defeating U.S. Representative Zach Nunn and flipping this seat so we can put a real check on the chaos in Washington. That’s why the independent Change Research poll, conducted in late October, should be a wake-up call and a roadmap.

That poll found State Senator Sarah Trone Garriott leads Zach Nunn 53 percent to 40 percent in a general election matchup. That’s not a moral victory or a tie. That’s a clear, solid lead against an incumbent in one of the most competitive districts in the country.

Even more important is who the poll finds is putting Sarah ahead.