The American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa has filed a second lawsuit charging that state government violates the civil rights of transgender Iowans. Plaintiff EerieAnna Good is a Medicaid recipient who has been denied coverage for transition-related surgical care, because Iowa Department of Human Services administrative rules exclude Medicaid coverage for surgery related to “Sex reassignment.”

Professional associations representing doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers support transition-related care as medically necessary, and more than a dozen states prohibit transgender exclusions in private health insurance or Medicaid.

In a news release enclosed in full below, ACLU of Iowa legal director Rita Bettis noted that “Iowans who are not transgender routinely receive coverage for a medically necessary mastectomy—but a transgender Iowan would be banned from coverage for the same care to treat gender dysphoria regardless of medical need. That’s a violation of the Iowa Civil Rights Act and equal protection under the Iowa Constitution.” (Since 2007, the Iowa Civil Rights Act has prohibited discrimination on the basis of gender identity.)

A second transgender Iowan, Carol Ann Beal, will likely join this lawsuit after the Iowa DHS finishes processing her appeal of Medicaid’s denial of coverage, the ACLU said.

Last month, the ACLU filed suit on behalf of a former Iowa prison nurse, who “was continuously denied the use of restrooms and locker rooms consistent with his gender identity, because he is transgender,” and also denied “the same level of health care benefit coverage” the state plan provided to employees who are not transgender.

Although Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus) has nothing to do with the historic city in the Middle East, I thought it would be appropriate to feature these late summer wildflowers on the eve of the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashanah.

Why are these plants, native to most of North America, called Jerusalem artichoke? One theory: “The Jerusalem part of the name probably came from a mispronunciation of “girasole,” which is Italian for ‘sunflower.’” During the 17th century, European explorers found what had been “an important food plant for native Americans” for centuries and brought tubers back to the European continent.

The Missouri Botanical Garden’s website notes,

Plants are still grown today for harvest of the tubers which begins about 2 weeks after the flowers fade. Each plant typically produces 2-5 pounds of tubers per year. Raw tubers have a nutty flavor. Tubers may be grated raw into salads, boiled and/or mashed somewhat like potatoes, roasted or added to soups. Unlike potatoes, tubers do not contain starch. They do contain inulin which converts into fructose which is better tolerated by people with type 2 diabetes than sucrose.

Some people find the taste of the tubers (called “sunchokes”) similar to artichokes. If you decide to grow these plants, be aware that they can spread aggressively and “are difficult to remove from the garden. Tiny pieces of tuber left in the soils will sprout.”

Jerusalem artichokes are blooming now near many Iowa trails and roadsides. I took all of the enclosed pictures on trails that run along the banks of North Walnut Creek in Windsor Heights or Walnut Creek in Des Moines.

Governor Kim Reynolds won’t call a special legislative session to balance the budget for the year that ended on June 30, her office announced this morning.

They haven’t explained how a fiscal year 2017 shortfall that non-partisan analysts estimated at $104 million in July and around $75 million a few weeks ago became a $14.6 million shortfall, according to the governor’s staff.

Reynolds didn’t take questions from the press today. She didn’t even attend the briefing where Department of Management Director Dave Roederer handed out a puzzling table.

Whatever the Reynolds administration did to avert a short-term political problem will likely worsen the strain on the state budget in the coming months.

To all the Democrats who want to hear directly from each contender in the Iowa governor’s race before deciding how to vote next June: this post’s for you.

Since Bleeding Heartland published seven pitches for gubernatorial candidates from a major party event this summer, Todd Prichard has left the race and Ross Wilburn has joined the field.

All seven Democrats running for governor appeared at the Progress Iowa Corn Feed in Des Moines on September 10, speaking in the following order: Cathy Glasson, Fred Hubbell, John Norris, Ross Wilburn, Jon Neiderbach, Andy McGuire, and Nate Boulton. I enclose below the audio clips, for those who like to hear a candidate’s speaking style. I’ve also transcribed every speech in full, for those who would rather read than listen.

As a bonus, you can find a sound file of Brent Roske’s speech to the Progress Iowa event at the end of this post. With his focus on single-payer health care and water quality, Roske should be running in the Democratic primary. Instead, he plans to qualify for the general election ballot as an independent candidate, a path that can only help Republicans by splitting the progressive vote.

Nearly two months after a jury awarded former Iowa Senate Republican communications director Kirsten Anderson $2.2 million in a sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuit, the Senate GOP caucus has finally parted ways with the man who most egregiously contributed to a hostile work environment for women.

However, senators who have claimed Anderson lost her job because of substandard writing still aren’t demanding high-caliber work from current communications staff.

Bill Anderson will soon resign from the Iowa Senate and from U.S. Representative Steve King’s district office to become executive director of the Cherokee Area Economic Development Corporation, he told the Sioux City Journal‘s Bret Hayworth today. “I want to do something else and broaden my horizons,” he explained. He will officially step down in time for Governor Kim Reynolds to set a special election before the legislature reconvenes in January.

Ordinarily, a young lawmaker wouldn’t resign in the middle of his second term, soon after his party gained majority status. But Anderson didn’t seem like the happiest camper at the statehouse. For reasons that remain unclear, he supported an amendment opposed by leadership, which would have made the workers’ compensation bill Anderson had introduced slightly less bad for people suffering shoulder injuries.

He also missed quite a few votes during this year’s legislative session. Those factors may have prompted Senate Majority Leader Bill Dix to remove Anderson as Commerce Committee chair in May. (Neither Anderson nor Senate leaders ever responded to my requests for comment.)

Iowa Senate district 3 covers most of Plymouth County and a large area of Woodbury County, including neighborhoods on the south side of Sioux City. I enclose a detailed map below. Though anything can happen in a low-turnout special election, the GOP will be heavily favored to hold this seat, where voters favored Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton by 68.12 percent to 27.32 percent last November. According to the latest figures from the Secretary of State’s office, Senate district 3 contains just 8,741 active registered Democrats, 17,635 Republicans, and 13,035 no-party voters.

Peter Deegan and Marc Krickbaum will serve as U.S. attorneys for Iowa’s northern and southern districts, after the Senate confirmed them by voice votes on September 14. A White House press release in July provided background on the nominees:

Who could have guessed that privatizing Medicaid would lead to for-profit companies cutting essential services to Iowans with disabilities? Aside from anyone who spent five minutes reading how the same approach had played out in Kansas?

When Iowa Democratic lawmakers sounded the alarm two and a half years ago, Governor Terry Branstad and his aides dismissed the warnings as “Washington D.C.-style partisan attacks.” They insisted privatization would allow Iowa patients to “enjoy the increased quality of service and care that comes with modern plans administering Medicaid.”

Instead, thousands received less in-home care or had trouble accessing medications and services after private insurance companies began managing their cases. The state now faces a class action lawsuit on behalf of 15,000 Iowans with disabilities.

Iowa Department of Human Services Director Jerry Foxhoven admitted yesterday what should have been obvious from the start: letting for-profit companies control access to health care for people with disabilities makes no sense.

Ever since I featured a relative of this week’s featured wildflowers three years ago, I’ve been on the hunt for Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis). Sometimes called orange jewelweed or spotted touch-me-not, this plant is native to most of the U.S. and Canada.

Jewelweed thrives in wet habitats: “moist woodlands, partially or lightly shaded floodplains along rivers, edges of woodland paths, swamps, seeps and fens, and roadside ditches.” Anecdotally, less of it is blooming in Iowa this year, due to our unusually dry summer. But a reader tipped me to a large colony of these bright orange flowers at the edge of Greenwood Pond in Des Moines.

Candidates backed by Iowa’s largest teachers union did well in the first school board elections since Republican lawmakers and the Branstad/Reynolds administration scrapped meaningful collective bargaining rights for public workers.

“It is time for Democrats to stop treating the presidency like it’s the only office that matters,” said South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, in one of the most memorable lines from his speech at the Progress Iowa Corn Feed in Des Moines on September 10. He missed a Notre Dame home football game weekend to spend time here, because in his view, we are facing “the most important season for progressives in our lifetime. And so much of what has to happen—so much of what has to change—starts right here in the middle of the country.”

Last year’s rout in state legislative races allowed Iowa Republicans to enact a long list of destructive policies. Although today’s school board elections are non-partisan, as are the city council and mayoral races in November, the turnout level and outcomes should provide some clues about whether Democrats and progressives are able to translate their anger into effective political action.

Buttigieg recognizes the challenges facing a party at a low point nationally and in states like Indiana and Iowa. On the plus side, he is convinced Democrats already have a message that can resonate with voters, and “It’s not even complicated.”

Republican policies on education funding and working conditions for teachers have inspired many newly-engaged Iowa activists to run in tomorrow’s school board elections.

School board members don’t control the budget, but they decide what programs to cut or spare when resources are scarce. They influence contract negotiations, so can mitigate the harm Iowa’s new collective bargaining law will do to educators. Winning non-partisan, local races can also help build the Democratic bench, as many successful candidates for the Iowa House and Senate previously served on a school board.

Turnout for school board elections is typically low in the absence of some hot-button local issue, like this year’s Iowa City school bond proposal. A handful of voters may determine the outcome. Rob Barron won his at-large seat on the Des Moines School Board by just 28 votes in 2013.

Three progressives are seeking the two at-large seats on the Des Moines board this year: the incumbent Barron and first-time candidates Louisa Dykstra and Kyrstin Delagardelle Shelley.

I’m encouraging my friends in the Des Moines district to cast one of their votes for Dykstra.

Gary Kroeger describes the values and ideas he shares with Dr. Andy McGuire, who “inherently understood that an effective governor must hear and be open to the voices from the fringes to the middle.” -promoted by desmoinesdem

Someday I’ll stop writing articles that begin with: “When I ran for office…”

Having taken the plunge in two races, a unique perspective is gained. Too many speeches to count, too many phone calls to remember, so many doors knocked, so many hands shaken, and so many endorsements won or lost. The collective weight is both exhilarating and exhausting. And in the end, even if the ultimate prize was not won, the experience validates one’s resolve, convictions, and purpose. No one, absolutely no one, gets into the ring unless they wish to do what they perceive as something good.

And so, with that in mind….when I ran for office….

“I am done with being a candidate,” Hillary Clinton told CBS “Sunday Morning” anchor Jane Pauley in an interview aired on September 10. “But I am not done with politics because I literally believe that our country’s future is at stake,” she added.

The unequivocal statement is welcome, even though I don’t know any admirer of Clinton who thought she was planning another presidential bid.

The U.S. House easily approved legislation on Friday to keep the Federal Emergency Management Agency from running out of Hurricane Harvey disaster relief money over the weekend. The same bill included a short-term debt ceiling hike and language to fund the federal government through December 8.

I was surprised to see all four of Iowa’s House members in the yes column (roll call). Both of our senators had voted against the Harvey aid package in the upper chamber. I expected Representative Steve King (IA-04) and possibly Representative Rod Blum (IA-01) to follow suit.

The hits just keep on coming from the health and human services budget Iowa Republicans enacted this year.

As if big spending cuts to public health programs, child care assistance, social worker field services, the closure of four Planned Parenthood clinics, and ending on-site ombudsmen visits to nursing homes didn’t do enough to harm vulnerable people, that budget bill also called for short-changing Iowans who sign up for Medicaid.

The Reynolds administration is moving forward with the plan to end decades-long practice on covering health care for new Medicaid recipients.

With only a few days left before the Federal Emergency Management Agency runs out of disaster relief funds, the U.S. Senate approved $15.25 billion in funding for those affected by Hurricane Harvey today. Eighty senators voted for the legislation, even though GOP lawmakers were said to be “furious” when President Donald Trump agreed yesterday to a Democratic proposal linking Harvey aid to a short-term debt ceiling hike and language to fund the federal government through December 8.

Iowa’s Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst were among the seventeen Republican senators who voted against today’s bill (roll call). In a statement enclosed in full below, Ernst said she supported a “clean” Hurricane Harvey relief bill, like the one U.S. House members approved on September 6 by 419 votes to 3. All four Iowans supported that bill: Republicans Rod Blum (IA-01), David Young (IA-03), and Steve King (IA-04), and Democrat Dave Loebsack (IA-02).

Carefully avoiding direct criticism of Trump, Ernst added in her statement, “Unfortunately a final deal was cut and while it includes initial relief funding, it also raises the debt limit and kicks the can down the road once again on our overall government spending levels. This is not the right way to legislate, and quite frankly, it is exactly what the American people are sick and tired of.”

I assume Grassley opposed the Harvey aid bill for similar reasons. At this writing, his office has not released a statement; I will update this post as needed with any public comment.

The Senate bill goes back to the House, where Democratic support is assured but a large number of Republicans will bolt over the debt ceiling hike and short-term spending resolution. I’ll be surprised if King or Blum votes for the bill; Young could go either way. UPDATE: All four Iowans voted for the revised bill in the U.S. House. I posted statements from King and Blum here.

A few words about the five Creston High School students who got in trouble over a picture showing them dressed up like Ku Klux Klan members, burning something like a cross and waving a Confederate flag.

Good fortune struck this week. The talented photographer Wendie Schneider shared some of her wildflower pictures from a Story County prairie, and one of the star attractions was a plant I’ve been meaning to feature in this series for years.

Round-headed bush clover (Lespedeza capitata) is native to most of North America east of the Rocky Mountains. Sometimes known as rabbit foot or roundhead lespedeza, its flowers are not nearly as “showy” as other late summer prairie attractions, such as blazing star or compass plant or even ironweed. Nevertheless, Wendie told me that round-headed bush clover is one of her favorites: “I am a sucker for anything with a strong silhouette.”

According to the Illinois Wildflowers website, this plant “adds nitrogen to the soil, and is easy to grow” in sunny conditions. It can thrive in different types of soil and attracts many pollinators.

Governor Kim Reynolds is considering at least four Republican farmers–all current or former state lawmakers– to replace Bill Northey as Iowa secretary of agriculture, James Q. Lynch reported for the Cedar Rapids Gazette today. In addition to State Representative Pat Grassley and former State Representative Annette Sweeney, whom Bleeding Heartland discussed here, State Senators Dan Zumbach and Tim Kapucian are in the running, according to Lynch’s story.

“I’ve had a couple conversations with governor about it,” Zumbach, 56, said Wednesday between meetings on housing development and soybean production. “I’d certainly be available and honored” if appointed to fill out Northey’s term that runs through early 2019. The position will be on the statewide ballot in 2018.

Zumbach, whose “heart, soul and passion has always been in agriculture,” said serving as state secretary of agriculture would be an “opportunity to share my lifetime of experience to guide Iowa agriculture in a good direction.”

Zumbach chairs the Iowa Senate Agriculture Committee, having previously served as its ranking Republican. Kapucian, who has long served on the Senate Agriculture committee, “could not immediately be reached for comment” by Lynch. As the top Republican on the chamber’s Transportation Committee, he was a strong voice for raising the gasoline tax in order to fund better maintenance of farm-to-market roads. Grassley and Sweeney are both former leaders of the Iowa House Agriculture Committee and confirmed their interest in Northey’s job to Lynch.

Iowa law gives Reynolds the authority to fill Northey’s current position after he resigns upon confirmation to a senior U.S. Department of Agriculture post. The person she selects will be heavily favored–if challenged at all–in next year’s GOP primary for secretary of agriculture.

Choosing a relatively low-profile lawmaker like Zumbach or Kapucian would allow the governor to avoid taking sides between Republican power-broker Bruce Rastetter (a major donor to Reynolds and decades-long friend of Sweeney’s) and Senator Chuck Grassley (Pat Grassley’s grandfather). The downside for Reynolds: that path could anger both Rastetter and the elder Grassley.