A national review of state policies on reproductive health and rights gave Iowa a mixed grade for policies on sex education and access to abortion and family planning.

The nonprofit Population Institute‘s 50-state “report card” gave Iowa a C based on thirteen metrics related to “effectiveness, prevention, affordability, and access” to sex education and reproductive health care. The “minus” was added because of a 2019 law that made Planned Parenthood ineligible for certain sex education grants. That law is on hold pending the Iowa Supreme Court’s review of a lower court ruling, which found the statute unconstitutionally targeted Planned Parenthood while allowing another abortion provider to continue to receive the sex education funding.

Bruce Lear covers some low points of this year’s Republican work in the Iowa House and Senate. -promoted by Laura Belin

Even though this Iowa legislative session may seem like a sketch from Saturday Night Live, it’s real.

But if it had a theme, it might be “Solutions in search of a problem,” or maybe “If it ain’t broke, fix it anyway.”

In a legislative session this extreme, it’s really hard to focus on specific bills solving nonexistent problems, not because they are hard to find, but because there are so many.

Spenser Mestel is a freelance journalist and author of Spenser’s Super Tuesday, a weekly newsletter about voting rights. -promoted by Laura Belin 

The race in Iowa’s second Congressional district, the closest U.S. House election since 1984, isn’t over just yet.

On December 22, Democratic candidate Rita Hart filed a “notice of contest” in the House, officially challenging the six-vote margin that separates her from Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks. Now, the issue goes to the House Administration Committee, which recently agreed on rules to hear the case. Should it agree to investigate further, the winner could be decided by a majority vote in the House.

Hart’s bid is a long-shot. In the last 107 elections to be contested under the Federal Contested Elections Act, 104 failed. However, other circumstances favor Hart: Democrats control the chamber (221 to 211) and have already taken the unprecedented step of expelling Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene from her two committees. Plus, the Hart campaign has credible evidence that the initial vote-counting and subsequent recounting were flawed.

Bleeding Heartland user “Bill from White Plains”: It’s been a good ride and a great deal of fun. But let’s be honest: nothing about this state warrants first-in-the-nation status. -promoted by Laura Belin

Oh, if only Ira Lacher’s February 25 piece, “Junk the caucuses? Extend neck. Cut.,” provided some nationally-significant basis on which the national powers-that-be could maintain Iowa as the first-in-the-nation state for choosing presidential candidates!

It does not.

That it does not, did not escape me. Yet, Mr. Lacher, offering no good reason, or any reason really, criticizes Jason Noble and Kevin Cooney for providing what he considers bad reasons for abandoning the Iowa caucuses.

Evan Burger speculates on how statutory requirements for drawing new Iowa House and Senate districts could impact partisan control of the legislature during the 2020s. -promoted by Laura Belin

Last month, I wrote about the rules governing Iowa’s Congressional redistricting process, and made some predictions. For this post, I’ll do the same for the legislative side of redistricting – but first, a quick mention of two related developments since my last piece. 

“No person should be discriminated against, no person should be bullied because of who they are, and no person should be discriminated against in the workplace, for any reason,” Republican Congressional candidate Ashley Hinson told an eastern Iowa magazine geared toward LGBTQ readers last fall.

Hinson had a chance to put her stated beliefs into action on February 25, when the U.S. House considered the Equality Act. The bill would ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity in the areas of employment, education, housing, public accommodations, jury service, and access to credit or federal funding. But the new member of Congress from Iowa’s first district voted against it, as did all but three House Republicans (roll call).

Representative Cindy Axne, the lone Democrat in Iowa’s Congressional delegation, co-sponsored the Equality Act and was part of the 224 to 206 majority that approved it.

Governor Kim Reynolds and 21 of her Republican counterparts complained on February 27 that the latest Democratic COVID-19 relief package “punishes” their states.

It’s a strange take on a bill that would provide $350 billion to state and local governments across the country, including more than $2.5 billion to Iowa. In contrast, a smaller coronavirus response proposal from Republican members of Congress would allocate zero new dollars to state and local governments.

James Larew: Seasoned local citizens, steeped in historical knowledge and aware of the cultural sensitivities of their own neighborhoods, once played significant, anchoring roles in Iowa caucus campaigns. They seldom do so anymore. -promoted by Laura Belin

Starting nearly a half-century ago, in 1972, and continuing for every presidential election year, thereafter, our state—initially, colored deep-red, more recently taking on a purplish hue—has hosted waves of intense political campaigning.

In the first waves of every presidential election cycle, large casts of candidates and their campaign entourages have competed ferociously in our sometimes-troubled democratic experiments called the “Iowa caucuses.”

Then, nine months later, general election campaigns have ended in hard-fought, expensive, exhausting efforts aimed to capture our state’s meager six electoral college votes.

Herb Strentz: After a combined nine decades in elected offices, Iowa’s longtime senator and former governor are increasingly a liability to democracy. -promoted by Laura Belin

U.S. Senator Charles Grassley and former Governor Terry Branstad have served in elected offices for a combined 94 years. It really is time for Iowans to bid goodbye to them. The two have more than paid their public-service dues, but sadly are increasingly a drain on public confidence and a liability to democracy. The evidence of the latter includes their unconscionable silence when it comes to holding former President Donald Trump accountable and their implicit support of him.

Both Grassley, 87, and Branstad, 74, were around when the Iowa legislature merited praise. Now they insist on sticking around when the Republican Party needs new people to lead it back to being concerned about the fate of our state and nation instead of soothing Trump’s ego, downplaying his temper tantrums and thousands of lies, and catering to a lunatic fringe to help assure re-election.

Jim Chrisinger: When elected officials act in bad faith, they poison the well of democracy in many ways. -promoted by Laura Belin

We now know that democracy is more fragile than we thought; democracy requires more than laws and institutions.  For example, elected officials need to speak and act in good faith.  

Acting in good faith may not seem like the most important thing right now.  What makes bad faith so bad?  

Bad faith is insidious because people are by definition not honest about what they are doing and why they are doing it.  Dishonesty is corrosive, to relationships and to democracy.  For example, Iowa Republicans have just passed a voter suppression bill without admitting why they did it.  

Ira Lacher makes the case that the Iowa caucuses are too important for Democrats to do without. -promoted by Laura Belin

Kill the Iowa caucuses? Really, Jason Noble and Kevin Cooney?

Yes, the 2020 edition of the quadrennial Iowa Winter State Fair was a worldwide embarrassment, at least on the Democratic side, due to poor results reporting, stacked atop tremulous party management, training, and supervision. (Don’t look so smug, Republicans; you’ve had your kaukus kerfuffles too.)

But the arguments published recently in the Des Moines Register by those otherwise well-regarded gentlemen, who have been close to the process, as journalists and then (for Noble) as a Democratic Party insider, are far less convincing than the Pepsi Challenge.

UPDATE: Governor Reynolds signed the bill on March 8. Top Democratic election attorney Marc Elias posted on Twitter, “This is the first major suppression law since the 2020 election. Expect litigation here and elsewhere GOP legislatures follow this path.” Bleeding Heartland covered the lawsuit Elias filed here. Original post follows.

On a party-line vote of 30 to 18, the Iowa Senate on February 23 approved Senate File 413, a new version of a bill that would restrict every aspect of the early voting process. The following day, the Iowa House approved the bill on a party-line 57 to 37 vote. Governor Kim Reynolds is expected to sign the bill; Republican Senators Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley have each endorsed limits on early voting in recent days.

Although State Senator Roby Smith’s amendment addressed a few of the concerns raised by county auditors and advocates for vulnerable populations, the revised legislation would make it even harder for thousands of Iowans to have their absentee ballots counted. In a new twist, it shortens election-day voting hours as well.

Anne Schechinger: President Joe Biden and Congress must reform a wasteful and unfair farm subsidy system. This report first appeared on the Environmental Working Group’s website. -promoted by Laura Belin

Taxpayer-funded farm subsidies have long been skewed in favor of the richest farmers and landowners. But under the Trump administration, even more money went to the largest and wealthiest farms, further shortchanging smaller, struggling family farms.

The Environmental Working Group’s analysis of records from the U.S. Department of Agriculture finds that subsidy payments to farmers ballooned from just over $4 billion in 2017 to more than $20 billion in 2020 – driven largely by ad hoc programs meant to offset the effects of President Trump’s failed trade war.

Janice Weiner is a community activist and city council member in Iowa City. The Iowa Senate approved an amended version of this bill, which cuts early voting in many ways, along party lines on February 23. A forthcoming Bleeding Heartland post will discuss those changes in detail. -promoted by Laura Belin

The draft bill aimed at fixing voting problems that don’t exist, which is moving through the Iowa legislature at breakneck speed, galvanized me to speak out. We had only two minutes each for public comment at the February 22 public hearing. This is the original slightly longer version of my remarks:

I come at this from many directions.

During my 26 years as a U.S. diplomat, I served places where people literally risked their lives to vote. When I spoke with them, I held up my home state as a shining example of making it easy to exercise the franchise.

Andy Kopsa: Iowa’s new member of Congress from the fourth district brags that he “delivers for farmers.” Unless you are a Black farmer, that is. -promoted by Laura Belin

Politicians love farmers. Every caucus season they prove it: they throw a foot up on a hay bale and stump to a crowd at the Iowa State Fair, shove a pork chop into their mouth, use the term “heartland” and “kitchen table” a minimum of 400 times.

Vice President Mike Pence and the Iowa GOP love farmers so much that he came to town just after the August 2020 derecho to launch the Farmers and Ranchers for Trump Coalition. Senator Joni Ernst and Governor Kim Reynolds took time out of their disaster recovery schedule to accompany Pence to Living History [not a real] Farms. Pence didn’t visit a single farm, but he found time to host an exclusive fundraiser in Urbandale before flying away home.

U.S. Representative Randy Feenstra (IA-04) also loves farmers a lot. He introduced an amendment to allocate more aid to Iowans impacted by the derecho last year during a House Agriculture Committee markup of the proposed $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill. Feenstra’s amendment passed by a single vote.

That vote came from Representative Cindy Axne (IA-03), the lone Democrat to cross the aisle.

James Larew, an attorney in Iowa City, delivered part of these remarks at a February 22 Iowa House public hearing on a bill that would restrict early voting. -promoted by Laura Belin

We live in troubling times.

The good news is that a democracy, such as Iowa’s, is inherently self-correcting.

Here, the people are sovereign.

Inept politicians can be replaced.

Foolish policies can be changed.

Disastrous mistakes can be reversed.

The greater the voter participation, the more likely, the more speedily, self-corrections will be made.

Laura Hessburg is the public policy director of the Iowa Coalition Against Domestic Violence. -promoted by Laura Belin

We believe the sweeping election bill rapidly advancing through the Iowa legislature (Senate File 413 or House File 590) is bad for everyone. Iowans with the most to lose are those who rely on early voting: working people, busy people, senior citizens, college students, and survivors of intimate partner violence.

Current Iowa law gives people multiple opportunities and choices to exercise this fundamental right before election day. That is exactly what victims of domestic violence need to vote safely. Iowans can vote early at satellite voting stations conveniently located near them, they can drop a ballot off at a drop box, ask a friend to drop off a ballot for them, or they can vote completely by mail.

By undermining every single one of these choices and limiting the time and opportunities for early voting, this bill makes it harder for Iowans to vote and will disenfranchise victims of domestic violence. That is not what democracy looks like.

C.J. Petersen is a rural organizer and board member of OPE PAC. He was the 2020 Democratic nominee in Iowa Senate district 6. -promoted by Laura Belin

Iowa nice. It’s the thing anyone who hails from the land of rolling cornfields and hog barns dotting the horizon loves to brag about. 

Ask anyone—you’ll hear an anecdote about farmers rallying together to finish a harvest due to an unforeseen illness, that time somebody from two towns over changed a teenage girl’s tire when she had a flat, or the way the community came together to clean up after a storm. My own neighbors invariably scoop my driveway before I have a chance to trudge out of the garage with my snow blower at least once every harsh winter. And at almost every gas station you’ll find a coffee can filled to the top with dollar bills to help a family with medical expenses they can’t afford.

In a nationally televised interview this week, Former Governor Terry Branstad joined the ranks of prominent Iowa Republicans who still refuse to debunk Donald Trump’s Big Lie about fraud in the 2020 election.

Ira Lacher: Maybe Iowa has become a place to grow hatred, especially of government, because the state, as has its rural neighbors, lost much of its small-business economy, community institutions, and sense of self. -promoted by Laura Belin

The harrowing news coming out of Texas is a warning of what could happen in Iowa.

Fortunately, we believe our power installations could freeze, and our elected officials didn’t blame last summer’s derecho on the Green New Deal.

But make no mistake — we are heading in that direction by punching our ticket on the reactionary railroad, terminating at Denialville, where science, education, and common sense are mothballed on rusted tracks.