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. 

One of the frustrations of being a former newspaper editor is no longer having a few dozen reporters to pursue answers to questions going unasked and unanswered each day.

Two of my go-to questions were “why?” and “why not?” And my favorite open-ended query to a newsmaker was “explain this to me.”

I never believed newsmakers owed me answers to the questions I or my reporters asked. I was curious by nature. But the most important purpose, I sometimes reminded reluctant newsmakers, was the thirst for information John Q. Public and Jane A. Citizen had about the topics at hand.

All of this is a preamble to help you understand why I am a frustrated consumer of news and information now that I no longer lead a team of information gatherers.

Here are some examples of this frustration in real life:

Larry McBurney is a Democratic member of the Iowa House representing part of Urbandale.

Governor Kim Reynolds’ “Delivering Opportunities for Greater Efficiency” (DOGE) Task Force plans to recommend moving new public employees away from the Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System (IPERS) and into a 401(k)-style defined contribution plan. It’s being sold as a modern update, but the truth is this change would devastate Iowa’s public workforce. It’s a solution in search of a problem, and it targets one of the few benefits still keeping people in public service.

Let’s be clear about the reality for public employees in Iowa. Public sector wages are already 17.6 percent lower than in the private sector. Even after factoring in benefits, public employees still earn 14.5 percent less than their private counterparts.

Peggy Huppert retired in 2023 following a 43-year career with Iowa nonprofit organizations, including the American Cancer Society and NAMI (National Alliance for Mental Illness) Iowa. She is a board member of LIFT Iowa and a long-time progressive political activist.

In September 2023, about 30 longtime Iowa Democrats came together on a Sunday morning to share their grief and anger about the political state of their world. Although they suspected things would get worse before they got better—they could not have predicted how very much worse—most are optimists by nature and, as such, desperately sought a path forward. And they found it.

In that room on that day, LIFT IOWA PAC was born.

Chris Jones is a fisherman who lives in Iowa City. He writes the Substack newsletter The Swine Republic, where this post first appeared. 

Secretary of Agriculture is one of seven executive offices Iowans see on their off-year voting ballot. The Iowa legislature created both the office and the Department of Agriculture (now IDALS) in 1923.

It may seem curious that we have a statewide election for the administrator of a department that employs less than 2 percent of the state government workforce and represents a private industry that is only Iowa’s third-biggest and one with a declining share of the state’s Gross Domestic Product. All sorts of economic sectors are bigger than agriculture; for example, health care now nearly doubles Ag’s GDP in Iowa.

But we have to remember that in 1923, almost 40 percent of Iowa’s population lived on farms. It’s well below 10 percent in the present day, when only 67,000 people in Iowa list farming as their primary source of income (2 percent of Iowa) and many farmers don’t even live on the farm. GMO has made crop farming so easy that some Iowa farmers also farm in Kansas and the Dakotas and probably other states as well.

A person could wonder why we all don’t vote for a Secretary of Teachers, or a Secretary of Bartenders or Hairdressers or Truck-drivers.

Diane Rosenberg is executive director of Jefferson County Farmers & Neighbors, where this commentary first appeared.

Recently, a friend asked how the Iowa state legislature or governor have impeded the work of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and other agencies in cleaning up air and water borne toxins that may be causing Iowa’s increasing cancer rate.

After eighteen years of working on confined animal feeding operation (CAFO) issues, a whole laundry list of impediments rolled off the tip of my tongue.

Numerous studies link high nitrate levels to a variety of cancers. And this major agricultural state has the second highest rate of cancer in the nation and is one of two states where the number of cases is rising.

Water quality is in the news this summer. High nitrate levels are affecting drinking water in Central Iowa, a new Polk County water quality report links 80 percent of nitrate pollution to agriculture, and too many beaches are unswimmable just when we need to cool off in this blistering heat.

Given all that, I thought this is a good time to spotlight some of the ways I see our state government failing us.

Bill Bumgarner is a retired former health care executive from northwest Iowa who worked
in hospital management for 41 years, mostly in the state of Iowa.

Sometime back in the 1990s I watched an interview with George Wallace, the four-term former governor of Alabama and a four-time presidential candidate.

He was in his mid-seventies at the time. In physical decline, Wallace was wracked with Parkinsons and the ongoing effects of an assassination attempt in 1972 that forced him to use a wheel chair for the last 26 years of his life.

Yet the pain that was most pronounced in that interview was his sincere regret related to his prominent role as a leading segregationist of the 1960s. Wallace was the man who stood in the “schoolhouse door” in 1963 to unsuccessfully try to prevent the admission of two Black students to the University of Alabama.

Edward A. Wasserman is a 53-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.

Many concerned citizens are asking themselves this pressing question: How have we come to this point in U.S. history where we are reversing prior progress in civil rights, dismantling vital federal agencies, attacking esteemed universities and their faculty, and embracing an imperial presidency? In fact, these events haven’t suddenly and inexplicably arisen. There are many times across several decades—and vivid personal proclamations—that help explain the origin and evolution of these unsettling trends.

Jo Hain lives on a farm in Cerro Gordo county and likes to explore and photograph nature.

I was in my garden a couple years ago and I noticed some plants coming up. Looked like catnip to me, so I left it alone. It got taller and no longer looked like catnip.

Then I thought it was Stinging Nettle, so I didn’t want to touch it. I used my plant app and it said it was American Dragonhead (Dracocephalum parviflorum).

Plant apps are useful but not always correct. So I did look it up and, yes, it was American dragonhead. I posted it to the Iowa wildflower enthusiasts Facebook group. Someone confirmed it there as well.

Cami Koons covers agriculture and the environment for Iowa Capital Dispatch, where this article first appeared.

More than 500 individuals gathered in Des Moines on August 4 to hear what comes next following the release of an in-depth water quality report commissioned by Polk County. 

Another 500 watched online, to hear years worth of research on water pollutants and key steps forward at the individual, watershed and state levels. 

One speaker said it was the first step in an effort to keep the report from just “sitting on a shelf.”

“They spent over 4,000 hours on research and compiling data,” former Polk County administrator John Norris said. “Their work now empowers us as citizens and voters to demand action be taken to make our waters safe.” 

Emily Boevers is an OB-GYN practicing in Iowa. She lives in Waverly with her husband and children. This essay first appeared on the website of the Iowa Coalition for Reproductive Freedom.

On June 28 of last year, when the Iowa Supreme Court reversed and remanded the prior permanent injunction on a near-total ban on pregnancy termination, the majority utilized the rational basis test, which means the fact that this law inflicts harm on individual rights doesn’t matter. The court held the law is constitutional if it is rationally related to a legitimate government interest.

And so, when the law went into effect on July 29, 2024, women in Iowa were taken back in time, relegated to lesser citizens by the state, and placed squarely behind men and fetuses in their rights.

Now, only two of five clinics previously providing abortion in Iowa remain open for care. Of note, this is a barrier to women, particularly low-resourced women, receiving cancer screenings, contraception, treatment for infections, and a safe place to seek information, not only abortion care. Very pro-life, and especially poignant to reduce care for women that are already struggling to make ends meet.

Tom Walton is an attorney in Dallas County.

Your American citizenship would turn on the subjective judgment of some Citizenship Czar as to whether you have been sufficiently supportive of a MAGA administration, if Vice President JD Vance and the Trump administration have their way.

On July 5, Vance spoke at a meeting of the Claremont Institute, a MAGA think tank. He delivered a shocking and exceedingly poorly reasoned argument for redefining what it means be an American citizen. The speech was backward, bewildering, and without basis in law or logic.

In his speech, Vance urged that we must “redefine American citizenship.” He suggested that “identifying America just with agreeing with its principles” is “not enough by itself.” Think of the oath that thousands of new American citizens take all the time:

When I saw former State Representative Joe Mitchell’s guest column in the Des Moines Register in late June, my first thought was, “What federal government job is he angling for?” His op-ed was an embarrassing piece of hagiography about Donald Trump—or as Mitchell put it, “the most consequential president ever.”

I got my answer on July 23, when the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced that Mitchell will serve as the agency’s regional administrator for the Great Plains, covering Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska.

Mitchell is a rising star again at the age of 28, when many ambitious politicos haven’t begun climbing the ladder. At every stage, he’s had help from the GOP establishment.

His comeback story shows how over-the-top public praise for Trump has become normal and expected behavior for even the most well-connected Republicans.

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. 

My family has called Davis County home for 185 years, all the way back to when William D. Evans and William Henson climbed down from their wagons in 1839 and 1840, a half-dozen years before Iowa became a state.

Evanses, Hensons, and their neighbors were on the town square in Bloomfield in 1877 when the cornerstone was nudged into place in the new county courthouse. Construction of the grand stone building with its soaring clock tower was a testament by those pioneers that this part of rural America, and the new county seat town, needed a home for local government and a fitting gathering space for meetings, speeches, elections and other civic events.

Voters demonstrated their faith in their local leaders when they authorized the building’s construction. The price tag came to about $60,000—the equivalent of about $2 million in today’s money.

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 power in remembering the past. That’s why families, schools, colleges, and friends hold reunions teeming with more old stories than there are mosquitoes on a hot Iowa evening. Those stories strengthen our connections and spark our memories. 

Winston Churchill once said, “Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.” But before people recognize they’re doomed by repetition, they need to understand the history that’s repeating.

Understanding Iowa’s rich history is now at risk.

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.

Governor Kim Reynolds and Attorney General Brenna Bird have chosen their next target.

Fresh off an embarrassing defeat to Winneshiek County Sheriff Dan Marx, the state’s chief enforcers of Iowa RightThink have decided to take on someone they undoubtedly believe is more vulnerable.

The governor has filed a complaint concerning a University of Iowa employee who had the misfortune of being captured on hidden camera disparaging the anti-Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Gospel of the Republican Party.

In a secretly recorded video that Fox News aired this week, an employee who has been identified in news reports as Andrea Tinoco, assistant director of Leadership and Student Organization Development, said that despite being ordered to remove “DEI” from their websites, “we are essentially finding ways to operate around it. … “We were like, ‘oh, OK, we can’t use that word. OK, ‘civic engagement.’ I think that’s a lot of what we’re doing.”

Julie Stauch is a Democratic candidate for governor. She lives in West Des Moines. This column first appeared in the Cedar Rapids Gazette.

In June, after declaring my campaign for the Democratic nomination for governor, I started traveling the state to hold Interview sessions in fifteen Community College districts. The goal is to understand ground level concerns of Iowans through free-flowing conversations. I want to determine what problems most Iowans are concerned about. Iowa’s next governor will need to address those problems.

While most of the participants have been Democrats, there have also been Republicans and no-party voters in the mix. These have been substantive conversations where individual Iowans share what they see as the biggest challenges facing their area and the state and what a successful Iowa would look like. I also answer their questions about my point of view on a variety of issues.

My core reason for running for governor is to solve problems Iowans need solved.

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.

U.S. Senator Cory Booker, a Democrat from New Jersey, was at a meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee—and not in an echo chamber—when he asked Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, “You are a decent man. Why are you doing this?”

And so began still another exhausting chapter in Grassley’s support of President Donald Trump, the nature of Grassley’s role as chair of the Judiciary Committee, and Trump’s efforts to stack the judicial branch with loyalists.

Patrick Kearney is a middle school band director who has taught in Iowa for 35 years. This post first appeared on his WordPress blog on July 27.

Dear Iowa,

A couple of days ago a friend of mine shared that there were 40 unfilled music teaching positions in Iowa right now. That’s a lot of teaching jobs that are not filled in late July. The next day another friend shared that one of the open jobs is the vocal music position at Atlantic High School. Atlantic has a long tradition as an outstanding music program in Iowa. It appears that they’ve been trying to fill this position all summer without success and are trying to figure out how to offer any vocal music at this point.

This news comes on the heels of an article in the Cedar Rapids Gazette detailing the challenges facing the Cedar Rapids school district’s music programs.

As a music teacher, these stories all concern me. I believe in the power of music education, and Iowa has a long history of great school music programs. While music education is a big concern to me, it led me to look into how many total teaching jobs have gone unfilled in Iowa.

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

French President Emmanuel Macron shook up world diplomatic circles on July 24 with his announcement that come September, France will recognize Palestine as an independent nation. How much that decision will affect the Israel-Hamas war is debatable, but it certainly ratchets up the pressure on Israel to ease its brutal treatment of millions of defenseless Palestinians in Gaza. Israel may already be getting the message.

On July 27, three days after Macron’s announcement, Israel announced it would begin 10-hour “humanitarian pauses” in certain areas of Gaza to permit some aid convoys into the besieged enclave, and its intention to create a few permanent “humanitarian corridors” via which convoys would travel.

Tom Foley is an intern reporter for Iowa Capital Dispatch, where this article first appeared.

West Liberty resident Pascual Pedro Pedro, whose deportation has sparked protests across eastern Iowa, told his story by phone from Guatemala during a July 30 news conference.

The call took place one day after around 200 Iowans, including ten pastors, marched on the federal courthouse in Cedar Rapids on July 29 to advocate for the return of Pedro to West Liberty and to free detained Muscatine resident Noel Lopez.

Pedro, 20, was detained on July 1 at an annual U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement check-in and deported less than a week later.