Editor’s note: Paul W. Johnson died on February 15, 2021. His family wanted to share the text of these previously unpublished remarks, delivered to the Iowa Environmental Council’s Annual Conference on October 11, 2013. Paul was introduced by Ralph Rosenberg and recorded by Matt Hauge. Mike Delaney shared this text in a February 16, 2021 special edition of the email “Raccoon River Watershed Association News.”

I can’t help but comment on Ralph; he was the chair of our Energy and Environmental Protection Committee for years in the Iowa legislature when I was there, and when David [Osterberg] was there. We had a wonderful time–it was almost Camelot–we couldn’t do anything wrong. Whatever we wanted to do Ralph would guide us and we got it done. We did REAP [Resource Enhancement and Protection]; we did energy efficiency we did groundwater protection, a number of things, and it was a lot of fun. And it was bipartisan believe it or not; we really worked together.

We had a unanimous vote on REAP in the Iowa House of Representatives. I think there were 98 members there that day, and everyone voted for it, so it was a good time, and I often think back on those times as some of the best times of my life.

UPDATE: The Iowa Senate and House approved a revised version of this bill on February 23 and 24. Original post follows.

Republican-controlled states “are increasingly not ‘laboratories of democracy,’ but ‘laboratories of democratic backsliding,’” political scientist Jake Grumbach noted in a new article by Perry Bacon Jr. for FiveThirtyEight.com.

Look no further than the Iowa legislature, where House and Senate Republicans unveiled a wide-ranging election bill on February 16. The 37-page legislation would make it much harder for Iowans to obtain and cast absentee ballots, either using the mail or voting early in person.

While House Republicans worked with Democrats to remove many voter suppression provisions from election bills the Iowa Senate had approved in 2019 and 2020, House State Government Committee chair Bobby Kaufmann is now on board with every piece of this year’s attempt to make it harder for Iowans to vote.

Evan Burger: Despite census delays, what we know about Iowa’s redistricting process allows us to say a surprising amount about how the new Congressional districts will look. -promoted by Laura Belin

Last month, I wrote that census delays might prevent the Iowa legislature from fulfilling their constitutional requirement to finish redistricting by September 1. Since then, the U.S. Census Bureau announced that they will not finish compiling the data necessary for redistricting until September 30, so the legislature is now guaranteed to miss their deadline.

All eyes are now on the Iowa Supreme Court. Will the justices exercise their authority to take over redistricting on September 15, or will they give the legislature more time to finish the standard redistricting process? So far, the judicial branch hasn’t said.

How the legislature will handle the delay is also not clear. Facing a similar situation, California legislators asked their state supreme court for an extension of the constitutional deadline, which the justices unanimously voted to grant. Legislative leaders in Iowa have not said whether they will take a similarly proactive approach. Iowa Capital Dispatch and Radio Iowa have quoted Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver and House Speaker Pat Grassley as saying they are evaluating their options.

The census delays continue to add uncertainty into Iowa’s redistricting process. But we do know some things about redistricting – and that allows us to say a surprising amount about how the new districts will look.

Eighth in a series interpreting the results of Iowa’s 2020 state and federal elections.

During her first six weeks serving in the U.S. House, Representative Ashley Hinson has been speaking in two distinct voices.

In many public statements, she has positioned herself as a unifier within the House Republican caucus and Congress at large, willing to work with anyone for the benefit of her constituents. Meanwhile, she has regularly demonized Democrats as threats to America, especially when speaking to perceived supporters or on conservative platforms.

The dual messaging reflects Hinson’s dependence on Donald Trump’s base in a swing district where future Republican victories are not assured.

Seven U.S. Senate Republicans joined all 50 members of the Democratic caucus in voting on February 13 to convict former President Trump on the sole count of incitement of insurrection. Although the number who voted guilty fell ten short of the 67 needed to disqualify Trump from holding any future office, it was the most bipartisan Senate vote on impeachment in U.S. history.

The Campaign Legal Center has sued Iowa Values, a 501(c)4 nonprofit that backed U.S. Senator Joni Ernst’s re-election campaign without disclosing its fundraising or spending.

A contact recently asked what Steven Leath is up to lately. Longtime Bleeding Heartland readers will recall this site’s extensive coverage of the scandal regarding the Iowa State University president’s misuse of state-owned aircraft. Leath resigned as ISU president in March 2017 to accept a position as president of Auburn University in Alabama. However, that university’s trustees agreed in June 2019 to pay Leath $4.5 million to walk away from the job two years into a five-year contract. He is due to collect the last of three $1.5 million payments this July.

While Leath was still at Auburn, President Donald Trump appointed him to the National Science Board, a body that advises Congress and the presidential administration on matters related to science or engineering. His term will expire in May 2024. Leath walked then-candidate Trump across the field before the Iowa/Iowa State football game in September 2015, a controversial act he said was not meant as an endorsement. He has long been friendly with Donald Trump, Jr., with whom he sat during the Iowa State men’s basketball “Sweet Sixteen” game in Madison Square Garden in March 2014.

The younger Trump and Leath share an interest in hunting, which is the focus of the former university president’s newest position. The Council to Advance Hunting and the Shooting Sports announced in October that Leath would serve as the organization’s executive director, beginning January 1, 2021. How much he will earn in that job is not clear; available tax returns indicate the nonprofit has been paying a firm owned by the council’s CEO between $186,139 and $193,584 annually for “general management services.”

In late 2017, Leath sold the Hardin County land he had purchased the previous year, with the help of a company run by then Iowa Board of Regents President Bruce Rastetter. He still has at least one formal connection to Iowa, though, as an advisory council member for the World Food Prize Foundation in Des Moines.

Let’s start with the good news. The Iowa House on February 10 approved a bill that acknowledges LGBTQ Iowans don’t deserve to be physically attacked just for existing.

The brief debate and unanimous vote provided a rare moment of goodwill during a state legislative session marred by attacks on LGBTQ equality and dignity.

Herb Strentz reviews some of the demographic and political issues that threaten Iowa’s future role in the presidential nominating process. -promoted by Laura Belin

No doubt about it. Iowans benefit from the every-four-years caucuses on our preferences for candidates for the Office of President of the United States. (If you visit the Oval Office replica at the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri, President Harry S Truman will tell you the presidency is “the most important governmental office in the history of the world.”)

Iowa likely leads the nation on a per capita basis in terms of how many of us get a good look at those seeking that “most important office….”

But there have long been questions about whether the nation benefits from Iowa being a crucial step for those seeking to be president.

UPDATE: As expected, Iowa’s senators voted to acquit Trump. Their statements explaining that decision are posted here. Original post follows.

Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial began on February 9, with House Democrats arguing it is constitutional and necessary to convict the former president, and lawyers for Trump making a less coherent case that the trial is unconstitutional.

Even if you are not inclined to watch the full four hours of the proceedings, every American should watch the 13-minute, graphic video montage of the January 6 coup attempt, as well as Representative Jamie Raskin’s heartbreaking account of that day at the Capitol. These words from Raskin offered the most concise case for conviction: “This cannot be the future of America. We cannot have presidents inciting and mobilizing mob violence against our government and our institutions because they refuse to accept the will of the people.”

All 50 Democratic senators and six Republicans voted late in the day that Trump is “subject to a court of impeachment for acts committed while president.” The other 44 Republicans, including Iowa’s Senators Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley, voted against the premise of this trial.

Neither Ernst nor Grassley released any statement explaining their vote, and they didn’t mention the impeachment proceedings on their social media feeds. However, form letters sent directly to Iowans in recent weeks shed light on how the senators will likely justify their votes to acquit, which are a foregone conclusion.

UPDATE: Campaign Legal Center filed suit against Iowa Values on February 12. Original post follows.

A group formed to support U.S. Senator Joni Ernst’s re-election may face a lawsuit over its ongoing failure to disclose its fundraising and spending.

Iowa Values, created as a 501(c)4 political nonprofit, has not registered with the Federal Election Commission. The FEC has yet to act on a complaint filed more than a year ago, seeking to bring the group into compliance with campaign finance law.

The Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit organization supporting public access to the political process, has asked a U.S. District Court in Washington, DC to find that the FEC failed to comply with a court order to address the Iowa Values matter. If the court does so, federal law allows the center “to sue Iowa Values directly” to force disclosure of its financial activity. That option is on the table, an attorney for the center told Bleeding Heartland on February 8.

When the Iowa Department of Public Health created a new advisory council in December to draft recommendations on allocating coronavirus vaccines, the body’s “guiding principles” were supposed “to ensure vaccine availability to specific populations, particularly in groups that are at highest risk for severe outcome from COVID-19 infection.” The council’s framework stated, “These priority recommendations and subsets must also recognize the importance of treating individuals fairly and promoting social equity, by addressing racial and ethnic disparities in COVID mortality […].”

Nevertheless, people of color in Iowa are being vaccinated for COVID-19 at substantially lower rates than white people, analysis by Sara Anne Willette has found. As of February 7, white Iowans had received more than double the doses of vaccine per 1,000 population as Black Iowans, Native Americans, or people of Asian descent, and Iowans not of Latino ethnicity had received more than triple the doses per capita as had Latinos in Iowa, Willete calculated.

Ira Lacher: To regain the trust of critical voting blocs between the coasts, Democrats need a new Marshall Plan for America. -promoted by Laura Belin

It was in 2016 that Lenka Perron, a self-described long-time Democrat, jumped off the bridge into QAnon hell-hole oblivion.

The suburban Detroit resident told The New York Times how she saw working-class jobs disappear after the passage of the Bill-Clinton-inspired NAFTA trade agreement, despaired over how her preferred presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, succumbed to what she considered an orchestrated campaign to anoint Hillary Clinton, and lamented that Hillary Clinton’s leaked emails unmasked a let-’em-eat-caviar disregard for those Americans the party of FDR was supposed to champion.

Bruce Lear: Donald Trump has already stung the GOP. But unlike the animals in a well-known fable, Republicans haven’t learned, “It’s just his nature.” -promoted by Laura Belin

As the Republican Party struggles with how to handle Donald Trump in his post-presidency, it may do well to remember the fable of the scorpion and the frog.

Never underestimate the value of capable Congressional staffers, or of senators who can spot an opportunity.

The U.S. Senate voted on dozens of amendments during a marathon session starting on February 4 before passing the fiscal year 2021 budget resolution at 5:23 am the next day.

The “vote-a-rama” is “the price the majority party pays to approve a budget resolution,” Jennifer Scholtes and Caitlin Emma explained in Politico. The budget reconciliation process allows the Senate majority to move an important bill, like the next COVID-19 relief package, with only 51 votes, rather than the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster. On the other hand, senators in the minority can use the unlimited amendment process “to set up inconvenient or embarrassing show votes that might come back to haunt members of the majority during a reelection campaign,” in Ed Kilgore’s words.

Iowa’s Senator Joni Ernst prepared for this battle and got one of the roll calls she wanted. All but two members of the Democratic caucus opposed her language on immigration law enforcement, prompting Ernst to declare in a news release, “Majority of Democrats Side With Violent Illegal Criminals.”

However, she failed to force Democrats into a corner over what her staff called “blocking a drastic federal minimum wage hike during a pandemic.”

Herb Strentz ponders recent reaction to Marjorie Taylor Greene and the sinister appeal of conspiracy theories. -promoted by Laura Belin

Scene One: Iowa’s U.S. senators and others comment on the terrifying conspiracy beliefs of rookie U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.

Governor Kim Reynolds and other officials with important roles in Iowa’s COVID-19 response received talking points from Domo, Inc. before filming a promotional video for the company on state property last July.

The Utah-based firm, part of a group that received a $26 million no-bid contract to create the Test Iowa program, provided each interview subject with questions and “key statements” in advance, documents Bleeding Heartland received through a public records request show. State Medical Director Dr. Caitlin Pedati, the governor’s chief operating officer Paul Trombino, and others voiced some of those messages on camera.

Despite official claims that “no state resources were used” for the video, email records indicate two of the governor’s staffers spent time on preparations such as securing permissions to use different areas of the state capitol building. In addition, Trombino asked Dr. Michael Pentella, director of the State Hygienic Laboratory, to participate in the Test Iowa video.

Michael Loebach: A fast-moving Republican bill would give parents and schools alike a strong incentive to game the new subsidy system. Those incentives have nothing to do with education quality and would result in a net increase in education spending in Iowa. -promoted by Laura Belin

Governor Kim Reynolds and Republican legislators have introduced a “school choice” bill (Senate File 159), ostensibly to improve the K-12 education system in Iowa.

One of the bill’s goals is to take some of the state’s worst performing schools and create an “education market” where traditional public schools, private schools, and newly created charter schools compete to attract students. The bill’s proponents are trying to harness the power of markets to improve education.

When confronted with opposition, the proponents often respond, “Why would public schools be afraid of a little competition?” They assume 1) competition will improve education outcomes, and 2) the state can actually create competitive education markets.

For the sake of simplicity, let’s assume competition has been proven to improve educational outcomes (even though it hasn’t). With that said, we can turn our attention to whether this bill can create competitive education markets.

Editor’s note from Laura Belin: The Governmental Accounting Standards Board and the Government Finance Officers Association now discourage use of the common acronym for this report, because when pronounced it sounds like a racial slur. Bleeding Heartland will avoid using the acronym in the future. Original post follows.

The state of Iowa missed a deadline for publishing a key report on its finances because Iowa State University was unable to provide the data on time.

Iowa’s public universities have typically submitted their financial information to the state by October 1, allowing the state to complete its Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) by December 31. But ISU is more than four months behind schedule in submitting data for fiscal year 2020.

The delay stems from the university’s transition to a new accounting method using Workday software, raising concerns about the functionality of the computer system state government committed to in 2019.

Governor Kim Reynolds announced on February 1 that she had selected Michael Bousselot to serve as director of the Iowa Department of Management, effective February 8. That agency handles state budget planning as well as disbursements from Iowa’s general fund and various other funds, such as the Coronavirus Relief Fund and other federal money flows related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The appointment means that loyalists who formerly worked in the governor’s office will head Iowa’s budget and homeland security departments, provided that state senators confirm Reynolds’ nominees.