Chuck Isenhart is an investigative reporter, photographer, and recovering Iowa state legislator offering research, analysis, education, and public affairs advocacy at his Substack newsletter Iowa Public Policy Dude, where this essay first appeared.

The century started out with such promise. On July 1, 1999 (technically fiscal year 2000), Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack inaugurated the College of Public Health. The first new academic unit at the University of Iowa in 50 year recognized the growing impact of research being conducted there.

In years that followed Iowa passed the Smokefree Air Act and the Public Health Modernization Act. Major steps forward in infectious disease testing and surveillance were enabled when the State Hygienic Laboratory opened a state-of-the-art facility at the University of Iowa. Stakeholders were engaged to create the Healthy Iowans 2010 plan, setting state benchmarks to increase life expectancy, combat obesity and reduce deaths from chronic conditions like heart disease and cancer.

Today, public health in Iowa is frayed. Tattered threads are held together by a dedicated corps of health professionals who refuse to let the public down.

On her way out the door, Governor Kim Reynolds has put in motion a process that will sideline local public health agencies and eventually privatize public health in Iowa.

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 

I was a few weeks from college graduation, on my way to my first teaching job interview. I was driving a jacked-up, dented 1967 Ford. As I reached town, I started to coast feathering the gas pedal only when necessary. I didn’t want a bad muffler announcing my arrival. 

I was wearing a borrowed tie and a too tight sport coat courtesy of the dreaded freshman 15, still lingering after three years. Sweat trickled down my back as I stepped out.

The principal asked questions about classroom management, curriculum and where I saw myself in five years. The questions were challenging, but I thought I handled most of them.

Then came the hardest question.

James Enright is a Sioux City native, avid hiker, fish keeper, and prairie enthusiast.

In the spring of 2025, I began a job on the road that would eventually allow me to visit over 50 different prairies and preserves all over northwest Iowa over the summer and fall. I’ve been hiking the Loess Hills most of my adult life, but I typically cut back on my hikes and prairie visits during the long, cold Iowa winters. Working on the road, however, allowed me to continue to seek out new prairies and hiking spots that I could enjoy once the weather warms up and the prairies become lively again.

Last summer, I visited as many different prairies as possible, mainly because they were all new to me, and I had no expectations. This continued through early winter when I decided to take a different approach. I began visiting prairies with the hope of learning how to ID seed heads, so I could spend the rest of the winter determining which prairies were the most diverse and interesting to visit in 2026. I love all of our public lands, but some prairies are just more diverse and undisturbed than others.

After visiting dozens of prairies—remnant, restored, and completely reconstructed—I decided to narrow my focus to remnant prairies, at least through spring until the reconstructions, which tend to be summer-heavy in terms of seeding, can catch up.

A new poll conducted for Chris Jones’ campaign shows the Democratic challenger is “within striking distance” of Republican Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig and leads the incumbent after respondents read information about both candidates.

Change Research conducted the poll on behalf of Jones’ campaign from July 28 to August 1 and published key findings in a memo provided to Bleeding Heartland.

Naig led Jones by 42 percent to 40 percent in the first ballot test, before respondents heard biographies of either candidate. That’s within the margin of error (+/- 3.1 percentage points) for the survey of 1,071 likely general election voters. Some 16 percent said they were unsure.

After respondents read background information about both contenders, Jones led Naig by 46 percent to 40 percent, with 13 percent unsure.

Jones told me the poll backs up what he’s seen on the campaign trail: “Iowans are fed up with the status quo and ready for change.”

Naig’s campaign has not released any internal polling. But several signs point to Republican anxiety about the secretary of agriculture race.

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.

One fist of iron, the other of steel
If the right one don’t get you then the left one will
—from “Sixteen Tons” as sung by Tennessee Ernie Ford

——————————

That’s the challenge the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness faces today along the Minnesota-Ontario border. The pristine area, the largest U.S. designated wilderness region east of the Rocky Mountains and north of the Everglades, with two million acres of forest and lakes, is threatened on two fronts, one of them unavoidable and the other entirely manmade.

The unavoidable danger is the forest fires that are currently ravaging western Ontario and northern Minnesota, including wilderness within the Boundary Waters. More than 73,000 acres in the area have burned so far, and as of this past weekend, some of the blazes are still uncontrolled. Other fires continue to devastate many more forest acres in Ontario to the north and west of the Boundary Waters.

Lightning has sparked most of the fires, as hot, dry weather continues across the area. It’s nobody’s fault. We can’t yet control lightning.

But President Donald Trump doesn’t see it that way. He blames the nation of Canada for the thick, choking smoke that blanketed much of America’s Midwest and East.

Anna Pesek is the co-owner of Over the Moon Farm in Delaware County, Iowa. She raises farrow-to-finish hogs and pastured poultry which she sells directly to consumers across Iowa and the lower 48 states. She’s been involved in food systems advocacy for the past decade including with organizations like the Alliance for Fair Food, the National Family Farm Coalition, Farm Aid and more. Presently, Anna is a farmer-leader of the FACE Ag Network (Farmers for Animals Communities and the Environment), the first national network of pasture-based livestock farmers fighting for common sense policy solutions. Additionally, Anna serves on the board of directors of the Iowa Farmers Union. She holds an MBA from the University of Northern Iowa.

This column was first published at the Barn Raiser website.

Iowa is known for its agricultural production, often proudly boasting that it is home to more pigs than people. As a young and beginning independent Iowa farmer trying to make a living raising pigs and poultry on pasture, I am acutely aware of the scale and impact of Iowa’s corporate agriculture industry.

Policies that further entrench industrial agriculture matter so much to farmers like me. So it’s disappointing to see Republican Representative Ashley Hinson (IA-02) once again championing the Save Our Bacon Act, legislation she introduced in 2025.

While the bill was successfully included in the version of the farm bill passed by the U.S. House on April 30, it was not included in the Senate’s draft of the bill, whose latest version was recently released ahead of the Senate Agriculture Committee’s markup on August 6. With another markup planned in September, the fight is far from over.

David Elbert is a former business editor and columnist for the Des Moines Register. He now writes about local history for DSM Magazine. 

Iowa’s long history of low wages is producing a crisis that state officials either can’t see or choose to ignore. The extent of the damage can be seen in a study commissioned last December for the Iowa Department of Education.

The Iowa Capital Dispatch revealed last month that officials who commissioned the report expected it would support their efforts to persuade lawmakers that four-year degrees should be added at Iowa’s two-year community colleges.

Instead, “The study attributes workforce shortages to the business climate, not the higher education system,” wrote Dispatch reporter Brooklyn Draisey.

Since the demise of the Des Moines Register’s Iowa Poll, we have rarely seen snapshots of Iowa voters not connected to any campaign or group planning to spend heavily on behalf of one candidate.

So it’s worth digging into the numbers Emerson College Polling/Nexstar Media released on August 6 after surveying 712 “likely voters” from August 2 through August 4. The toplines show Democrat Rob Sand leading the governor’s race and Republican Ashley Hinson slightly ahead (but within the poll’s margin of error) in the U.S. Senate race. Let’s look under the hood.

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.

The campaign to change the rules on how the state of Iowa raises tax revenues kicked off last month, and the message from the special interests is clear: Don’t resist. You can’t win.

Iowans for Tax Relief convened reporters to pitch the plan to amend the state constitution to lock in recent Republican tax policies. In the process, the group touted a new poll that reportedly shows 74 percent of likely voters would approve the amendment.

Don’t believe it. Look at the poll closely. It asks whether people would support requiring a two-thirds supermajority in the legislature for “any tax increase.” But that’s not what the amendment says. Amendment 1, as it’s being called, would require a supermajority to raise just some taxes, specifically the kind that affect the wealthy the most: individual and corporate income tax rates.

Herb Strentz was dean of the Drake School of Journalism from 1975 to 1988 and professor there until retirement in 2004. He was executive secretary of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council from its founding in 1976 to 2000.

Ten years ago in Iowa, Donald Trump spoke the truth — perhaps an occasion warranting a monument or maybe a shrine to him in Sioux Center.

The times may demand it.

Any truthful statement from Trump merits recognition, because the Washington Post calculated that during his first term as president, Trump made “30,573 false or misleading claims.”

Iowa’s first Congressional district was among the closest U.S. House races in the country in 2024 and is a top target this year. Judging by candidates’ early messages, both sides expect access to health care to be a paramount concern for voters.

In her first television commercial of the cycle, which aired in May and June, Republican incumbent Mariannette Miller-Meeks highlighted her work as a nurse and doctor.

Democratic challenger Christina Bohannan promised to take on insurance companies in her first TV ad, which went up on August 4.

In addition, the Democratic-aligned group 314 Action has announced a large ad buy criticizing Miller-Meeks’ record on pharmaceutical companies and health insurance coverage.

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. 

When District Court Judge Adria Kester studied at the Drake University Law School, she must have opted out of the “Law of Holes” coursework.

I have written before about the first Law of Holes, in connection with Davenport city officials and their penchant for hiding facts from taxpayers. The Law of Holes is common-sense advice that says when you are in a hole and want to get out, the best thing to do is put down the shovel and stop digging.

Judge Kester found herself in a hole — actually, a Boone County highway ditch — on the night of November 4, 2025. She ended up there in her GMC Canyon Denali after an evening of drinking too much.

John Whiston is a retired lawyer and law professor in Iowa City.

Dave, one of my oldest and best friends from childhood, passed away a few weeks ago. One of my regrets is that in his last few years I was never able to get him to write his own story about his remarkable political conversion in midlife.

So, I think I have to tell my version of how he changed from being the most conservative friend I knew in school to being the most progressive friend I had in my senior years. It says something about how we humans change our minds and has a Corn Belt subplot.

Kevin Techau is a former United States Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa. He previously served as Director of the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals, and later as Commissioner of the Iowa Department of Public Safety. Kevin is an attorney-at-law in Cedar Rapids. Dean Lerner is a former Iowa Assistant Attorney General and former Chief Deputy Secretary of State. He, too, served as Director of the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals. Dean is an attorney-at-law in Des Moines.

With the 2026 election approaching, Governor Kim Reynolds and Attorney General Brenna Bird have unveiled a new priority: cracking down on Medicaid fraud. That comes as a big surprise to those of us who know the system and have actually fought Medicaid fraud. 

Why such a surprise? Because our governor and attorney general have long disregarded the most effective tools already at their disposal to fulfill their pronounced objective. 

The real purpose of their newly created “Medicaid Fraud Elimination Task Force,” chaired by Bird, appears to be generating political headlines rather than meaningful results. And with each task force meeting streamed to the public, they have concocted a pretext for sustained Medicaid fraud political theater.

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 

Long before Congress passed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) establishing special education in public schools, there were gifted teachers who recognized how to help struggling students learn. 

I was one of those students.

My early elementary teachers believed in oral reading for fluency. I could see the lips of my fellow “slow readers” silently counting the number of paragraphs to find which one they’d be reading out loud. They silently practiced sounding out each word. That didn’t work for me. I was also a slow math student and often miscounted which paragraph was mine.

Melissa Wubben lives on a farm in Warren County.

Monarch butterflies have become an iconic species, representing the plight of all of our native pollinators struggling with habitat loss and population decline. They are great ambassadors for conservation because they are so easy to love. From the scientific fascination of their unparalleled migratory journey to the symbolism of their metamorphosis from caterpillar to beautiful butterfly, they have something to offer everyone, and nature enthusiasts have begun planting and nurturing milkweeds to help them recover.

Milkweeds and Monarchs are linked together in people’s minds, and for good reason: milkweeds are the host plants for Monarch caterpillars. They are a necessity for any Monarch to complete its life cycle. Milkweeds do not, however, provide everything that a Monarch needs. While the adult Monarch butterfly will consume the nectar of milkweed flowers, they need additional sources of nectar to sustain them throughout the season, which typically runs from May through early October in Iowa.

In order to create a successful Monarch habitat, it is helpful to consider the whole life cycle of these butterflies.

John Deeth serves as the Caucus To Convention Chair for the Johnson County Democrats. He has volunteered for the Johnson County Democrats and been involved in caucus planning since 2004. He was the lead organizer for the Johnson County caucuses in 2016, 2020, and 2024. Deeth has also worked in the Johnson County Auditor’s Office since 1997. This post first appeared on his website.

An open letter to: Johnson County Democratic Legislative delegation, Johnson County Democrats Executive Board, IDP Chair Rita Hart, and anyone reading this.

The DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee met on July 24 and voted on the early state calendar. While this is not final, it is important to note that Iowa did not receive even a single vote from the committee for the Midwest slot in the early states, let alone for First In The Nation.

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. 

Whether you work for the federal, state or local government, you best just accept that blame and criticism go with the job and move ahead.

Decatur County Attorney Alan Wilson learned that lesson a few years ago. 

So, too, did Michael Hansen, the Newton mayor at the time.

It is a lesson top officials at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will have to learn for themselves.

Brooklyn Draisey is a Report for America corps member working for Iowa Capital Dispatch, where this story first appeared. To read the full report, scroll to the end of this article.

Iowa’s community colleges told lawmakers this year that portions of Iowa are lacking access to a higher education and one solution to eliminate “education deserts” is to offer bachelor’s degrees at their institutions. Private colleges pushed back against this premise, disagreeing about the perceived need.

A state-commissioned study received by the Iowa Department of Education last month, but not released until now, says the vast majority of the state is in reach of higher education resources, and that Iowa’s colleges and universities are rising to meet student and workforce needs. The study attributes workforce shortages to the business climate, not the higher education system. But community colleges argue the study misidentifies higher education deserts and says the state could still benefit from four-year degree programs at their schools.

Parties on opposite sides of the debate on whether Iowa’s higher education institutions are adequately meeting student and workforce demand had different takeaways from the report that maps out degree demand and access, though both agree the public and state officials would benefit from seeing it and adapting its recommendations.

“Higher Education and Workforce Alignment in Iowa: Final Report” was prepared for the department of education by the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS) after the department contracted the nonprofit consulting organization in December, according to the report. It is dated March 6. The Iowa Capital Dispatch obtained the report on July 23 through a public records request.

Dean Lerner served Iowa as an Assistant Attorney General for sixteen years, Chief Deputy Secretary of State for four years, and about ten years as Deputy Director, then Director of the Department of Inspections & Appeals. He then worked for the CMS Director of the Division of Nursing Homes, and the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa. He is a graduate of Grinnell College and Drake University Law School.

Reflecting upon the extraordinary 250th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence, it seems important to again contemplate and admire the bravery and devotion of our founding fathers to the cause of liberty. The incomparable creation of this everlasting document and its corollary Constitution are nothing short of a miracle penned by extraordinarily gifted men.

Their genius provided us with living parchments establishing lofty ideals and aspirations for a new nation and the construct to preserve it. One principal, unmistakable safeguard to its preservation was the formation of three co-equal branches of government, each responsible for providing checks and balances to excesses of the other.

Today, regrettably, one could reasonably conclude that our executive branch has methodically co-opted these essential safeguards—with assistance from weak and/or cowardly sycophants. How, one should ask, could this happen?