Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council and can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. 

Here is a tidbit from my years as a newspaper reporter and editor:

I never voted in a primary election, never attended the Iowa caucuses, never stuck a candidate’s sign in my yard, never had a bumper sticker on my car, never signed a petition, never donated to a campaign.

When Sue and I married, she got something more in the deal than my sparkling personality. She knew she could not have any yard signs, because people driving past our home would not know which part of the yard was for her opinions and which was for mine. To eliminate any confusion, there were no yard signs. Period.

Kali White VanBaale is an Iowa-based novelist, creative writing professor, and mental health care advocate. Find more of her work at kwhitevanbaale.substack.com (where this essay first appeared) and www.kaliwhite.com.     

This month, Governor Kim Reynolds signed several critical pieces of mental health care legislation, including House File 626, “an Act relating to continuity of care and non-medical prescription switching by health carriers, health benefit plans, and utilization review organizations.” This legislation has a long, contentious history at the Iowa capitol.

Why was this bill important enough to lobby for it year after year with no success? What exactly is non-medical switching?

Diane Porter of Fairfield first published this post on My Gaia, an email newsletter “about getting to know nature” and “giving her a helping hand in our own backyards.” Diane also maintains the Birdwatching Dot Com website and bird blog.

Ohio Spiderworts (Tradescantia ohiensis) wake me up when I look out the window. Although only a few flowers are open at a time, the bright golden anthers play against their color-opposite purple petals. My eyes shimmer.

It’s a morning-only vision. Around noon the flowers close up tight. As if to say, “Come back tomorrow.” For the rest of the day, spiderworts are simply green, easy to overlook.

But next sunrise, a fresh crop of purple-petaled blossoms opens. From the center of each flower, slender columns reach up. These are the reproductive parts of the flowers.

Writing under the handle “Bronxiniowa,” Ira Lacher, who actually hails from the Bronx, New York, is a longtime journalism, marketing, and public relations professional.

Imagine, for a moment, you have fallen on hard times. You’ve lost your job, you’re being evicted or foreclosed, and you have nowhere to go. However, your parents, who built a rich, prosperous life out of their meager immigrant beginnings, invite you to stay with them, for as long as you like. And you breathe a welcome sigh of relief—you’re not going to have to sleep on the street!

But little by little, you discover some excruciating and unsettling facts about the people who are beckoning you home.

Jim Chrisinger is a retired public servant living in Ankeny. He served in both Republican and Democratic administrations, in Iowa and elsewhere. 

Character once counted in Iowa Republican politics. We could take pride in Governor Bob Ray, U.S. Representative Jim Leach, and the early U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley. They led with integrity. They willingly crossed the aisle to achieve bipartisan goals. They served as role models for our children, standing up for democracy, truth, and accountability. Our state enjoyed a reputation in public administration circles as a “good government” jurisdiction.

Donald Trump has upended all this. He is the antithesis of character. He’s the skunk at the church picnic. He lies incessantly, bullies, commits fraud and adultery, sexually assaults women, mocks wounded veterans, and cheats contractors. He’s a racist. He puts his attempt to overthrow a free and fair election at the center of his campaign. Donald Trump is everything we don’t want our children to be.

In this historic moment, Iowa’s representatives in Washington—Chuck Grassley, Joni Ernst, Ashley Hinson, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Zach Nunn, and Randy Feenstra—are failing the character test.

Transparency advocates found something to celebrate in Governor Kim Reynolds’ final bill signings on May 17. The governor rejected House File 2539—her only veto of the Iowa legislature’s 2024 session—due to language that would have created an “enormous loophole” in the open meetings law, experts inside and outside state government warned.

Drafting a better bill to strengthen penalties for open meetings violations should be easy, if Iowa lawmakers return to the topic in 2025.

But fixing the process that allowed such a poorly-worded bill to reach the governor’s desk would be a tall order. Because while House File 2539 suffered a unique fate, its journey through the legislature illustrated broader problems with how the GOP-controlled House and Senate do business.

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

Where does your primary loyalty lie: as a citizen of America, or as a citizen of Iowa?

Probably seems like a meaningless question. But around the nation, more and more states these days are enacting laws in opposition to those of the federal government, placing the loyalty question front and center. And a growing number of U.S. residents are declaring a preference to honor their state laws above those of the United States.

ORIGINS OF THE SUPREMACY CLAUSE

In terms of settled law, there’s no real dispute: federal law outranks state law. The U.S. Constitution leaves no doubt. Article VI, Clause 2 (the “Supremacy Clause”), reads as follows:

Rev. Cathy F. Young of Waterloo is a retired pastor in the Presbyterian Church. The following is an abbreviated version of a sermon about Christian Nationalism.

My father, who served as a Naval officer in the South Pacific, shared fascinating World War II stories with me. With ensuing history classes I became troubled by America’s slow response to Hitler’s atrocities in Europe and incredulous that Christians in Germany blindly followed their deranged dictator.

While pursuing a Master of Divinity degree at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary, I took a course titled Christianity and the Holocaust. I learned that Hitler’s strategy to build loyalty and support within German churches was masterful. He encouraged kids in his German youth organizations to get their families to attend Sunday worship with them. Church attendance skyrocketed; pastors were thrilled. Eventually, Germany’s government rule and religion became one.

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  

Starting in 2016, Netflix streamed Stranger Things, a horror, science fiction series set in a small Indiana town with tweens and teens as main characters. In its four seasons, the audience travels to the “Upside Down,” an alternate universe where bizarre replaces normal.

It’s fun fiction.

But in real life, we have veered into the “Political Upside Down.”

Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council and can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. 

You don’t often hear anyone extol the benefits of the COVID-19 pandemic. But I did a few weeks ago—when I stood before the Storm Lake Kiwanis club and talked about government transparency in Iowa.

I did not wade into the debate over masks, social distancing or vaccinations. It was a polite audience, but I was not silly enough to needlessly venture onto that thin ice.

What I said about the pandemic was this: State and local governments embraced, even if grudgingly, the benefits of live-streaming their board meetings during the pandemic so the public could watch from wherever they were.

Iowa Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver is undergoing radiation therapy for a brain tumor, he announced in a May 17 news release. He said his condition was diagnosed after the Iowa legislature adjourned for the year in April, adding that he is “responding well to the initial treatments.”

Whitver said he will continue to serve in the legislature and as majority leader. Senate GOP staff did not respond to Bleeding Heartland’s questions about where Whitver is receiving medical care, or the expected time frame of the treatment plan.

Many elected officials from both parties—including Governor Kim Reynolds, Attorney General Brenna Bird, State Auditor Rob Sand, U.S. Senator Joni Ernst, Iowa House Speaker Pat Grassley, Iowa Senate Minority Leader Pam Jochum, and House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst—expressed prayers and well wishes for Whitver’s health in statements sent to news organizations or posted on social media.

Henry Jay Karp is the Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Emanuel in Davenport, Iowa, which he served from 1985 to 2017. He is the co-founder and co-convener of One Human Family QCA, a social justice organization.

Governor Kim Reynolds came to Beit Shalom, the home of the Quad Cities Jewish community, on May 15 to sign House File 2545, a bill containing controversial new social studies curriculum requirements.

Why Beit Shalom? Because the bill requires Iowa schools to teach Holocaust education, following the model of Illinois, which has required it for several years.

Though members of the Quad Cities Jewish community are divided about the policies of the governor and the Republican-controlled legislature, we do stand united on the issue of Holocaust education in our schools. According to FBI statistics for the past several years, more than 50 percent of religion-based acts of hate in the U.S. targeted the Jewish community, more than all the other faith groups put together. Since the atrocities of the Hamas attack on Israeli communities on October 7, 2023, the number of antisemitic attacks in the U.S. has more than tripled.

“What I saw in that courtroom today is a travesty,” Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird told reporters in New York City on May 13. She was speaking outside the courthouse where former President Donald Trump is being tried for allegedly “falsifying business records to conceal hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.”

The Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) organized the trip and paid for Bird’s travel to Manhattan, a spokesperson for Bird’s campaign told reporters after the attorney general declined to answer that question directly.

Ed Tibbetts highlighted Bird’s disrespect for the legal system when she declared the case “a scam and a sham.” Dave Busiek ridiculed Bird’s hypocrisy after she denounced the prosecution’s witness Michael Cohen (“a perjurer, disbarred, convicted of lying”) “without any apparent sense of irony that she’s appearing on behalf of Donald Trump, who lies as easily and frequently as the rest of us breathe.”

It’s also worth noting that Trump loyalists like Bird and RAGA have no room to point fingers about political prosecutions or “election interference.”

Spring wildflowers are exploding, Iowa’s longest drought in decades is abating, and Bleeding Heartland’s wildflowers series returns today for its thirteenth year.

As grateful as I am for the rain, the warm, wet spring weather is boosting some invasive plants as well as native ones. I’ve pulled up enough garlic mustard over the past couple of weeks to fill several garbage bags, but I’ve hardly made a dent in the wooded area closest to our Windsor Heights home. Something blooming out there is triggering my spring allergies as well.

Emily Bredthauer gave me permission to publish a selection of photos she took in April and May at Margo Frankel Woods State Park in Polk County. I’m always excited to share images of a plant I’ve never seen before, and Emily was fortunate to find some naked broomrape (Orobanche uniflora), an unusual parasitic plant shown above, and in a few pictures below.

Please let me know if you would like to write a guest post for this series, either featuring one kind of plant or a selection of wildflowers seen in one location. This Iowa wildflower Wednesday archive is alphabetized by common name of the plant. Last year I compiled links to previous posts featuring many plants encountered during visits to parks, prairies, natural areas, or trails.

Ed Wasserman is a 52-year resident of Iowa and a professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at The University of Iowa. The views expressed in his piece are his own and do not in any way reflect those of his employer.

Observers often puzzle over the chummy connection between former President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. What links these two leaders to one another? Largely ignored among several possibilities is their common political philosophy.

In a column for the New York Times in February, Carlos Lozada sharply criticized Donald Trump’s ostensible lack of political philosophy: “The difficulty with Trumpism is Trump himself, who renders any coherent ism impossible.” His assessment echoes the widespread belief that Trump is utterly unschooled in geopolitical history or philosophy. Although few would disagree with Trump’s scholarly naïveté, I fear his political acumen may have been seriously underestimated.

A comprehensive academic study found “causal evidence” that Governor Kim Reynolds’ Education Savings Accounts policy (commonly known as school vouchers) “led Iowa private schools to increase tuition” during its first year.

Princeton University doctoral student Jason Fontana and Princeton sociology Professor Jennifer L. Jennings published their working paper, “The Effect of Taxpayer-Funded Education Savings Accounts on Private School Tuition: Evidence from Iowa,” at Brown University’s Annenberg Institute in April.

Fontana and Jennings collected tuition data from 70 percent of Iowa’s private schools, focusing their analysis on 51 percent of schools (educating 62 percent of Iowa students attending private schools) for which they had multiple years of tuition data as well as grade-level enrollment numbers.

The researchers compared private school tuition in Iowa and Nebraska. Both states enacted taxpayer-funded “school choice” policies in 2023, but Iowa implemented Education Savings Accounts for the 2023/2024 school year, while Nebraska delayed its start date until 2024/2025.

Tommy Hexter is running as a Democrat for Iowa House District 53, representing Poweshiek and most of Tama County. He is currently Rural Organizer and Educator with the Iowa Farmers Union, a commissioner of the Poweshiek County Soil and Water Conservation District, and the director of a local food business called Grinnell FarmToTable that sources products from 35 local farmers.

Sour cream is just one of several tastes being left in Iowans’ mouths as Daisy Brand, a company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, plans to build a new plant with state and local support in Boone County. 

Recent announcements from the City of Boone, Iowa Economic Development Authority, Governor Kim Reynolds’ office, and Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig all emphasize the positive economic impact associated with the start-up of a new Daisy dairy processing plant in Boone.

John Clayton grew up on a farm in Poweshiek County, which he now farms. During his childhood, going to Meskwaki Pow-Wows in neighboring Tama County was the highlight of each summer. He is a 2024 candidate for Poweshiek County supervisor.

Minnesota officially adopted a new state flag on May 11, replacing the previous design, which had long been criticized for its depiction of a Native American on horseback with a spear and a white pioneer farming with a gun. The flag’s imagery was viewed by many as a symbol of Indigenous defeat and displacement, which was considered offensive by the state’s Dakota and Ojibwe tribes.

Poweshiek County in Iowa uses a caricature of a Native American as its icon. The Poweshiek County Board of Supervisors acknowledged in a public open meeting held on May 6 that the county’s icon caricature isn’t of Chief Poweshiek. 

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 segment of America has always been intrigued by anti-hero characters, fictional and real. Think Tony Soprano, Dirty Harry, Jesse James, Bonnie and Clyde, Billy the Kid. We might not want them as neighbors, but there’s a secret fascination with their antics. They give a wink, a smirk, and a middle finger to society while being outrageous and often breaking the law.

Enter Donald J. Trump.

Sami Scheetz represents Iowa House district 78, covering part of Cedar Rapids.

As a State Representative, my job is to serve the needs of all Iowans and to ensure that our state’s tax policies benefit everyone—not just the wealthy. That’s why I’ve proposed legislation with my fellow Democrats to reduce the state sales tax by one cent.

Higher sales taxes largely impact lower-income families and Iowans on fixed incomes. When there’s less money to go around, tough decisions have to be made: do you purchase school supplies for your kids or personal hygiene care for yourself? That kind of pressure on Iowa families is unsustainable, and it’s wrong. Unfortunately, in Governor Kim Reynolds’ Iowa, it’s by design.