Ira Lacher reacts to the latest news in Iowa’s pandemic response.

On this occasion of Governor Kim Reynolds ending her COVID-19 disaster emergency declarations in Iowa, effective February 15, I thought you’d like to hear from the main beneficiary of her proclamation. Take it away, SARS-Cov-2!

Thank you! I don’t know what to say or tell you how grateful I am for this opportunity!

Iowa and places like it have given me and my humongous extended family such a warm welcome; a welcome that, frankly, we weren’t getting in much of the world. Why, our birthplace even denied our right to exist; then, after admitting that yes, we were really there, tried to keep us penned up, tried to keep us from engaging with our community.

Kurt Meyer writes a weekly column for the Nora Springs – Rockford Register, where this essay first appeared. He serves as chair of the executive committee (the equivalent of board chair) of Americans for Democratic Action, America’s most experienced liberal organization.

Several weeks ago, working on a writing assignment unrelated to this column, I explored the remarkable career of Patsy Takemoto Mink, a U.S. representative from Hawaii. From 1978 to 1981, she served as President of Americans for Democratic Action, a national advocacy organization currently celebrating its 75^th anniversary. Mink’s crowning legislative achievement was guiding Congressional passage of Title IX, signed into law by President Nixon on June 23, 1972.

Title IX is a mere 37 words: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

Two items worth noting: First, while the law clearly forbids gender discrimination, athletics is never mentioned. Second, in the intervening 50 years, female participation in high school sports has grown by 1,057 percent, 614 percent at the college level.  

For the second straight year, the state of Iowa missed a deadline for releasing a detailed report on state finances. Officials publicly acknowledged the delay last week but have not explained why the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report for fiscal year 2021 is not complete.

Staff at the Iowa Department of Administrative Services, which compiles this report, have not responded to five inquiries from Bleeding Heartland about the matter over the past two weeks. Staff at the Iowa Department of Management, which prepared a public notice about the late report, likewise ignored three attempts to clarify the source of the problem.

Keegan Jones is a lifelong Iowan and 2013 graduate of Fort Dodge Senior High. He currently works as a financial analyst and consultant.

Against the backdrop of a conservative culture war on schools, Iowa Republican lawmakers are again determined to pass a version of “school choice,” which cleared the state Senate last year but failed to win enough support in the House.

We all remember the days when Iowa was known for having one of the country’s best public school systems. Years of inadequate funding increases that fail to meet schools’ rising operating costs have put additional strain on teachers and degraded the quality of education for our students.  

Governor Kim Reynolds now seeks an overhaul of Iowa’s education system to fix the problems she and her colleagues created. Her latest school choice proposal, Senate Study Bill 3080, is scheduled to be considered in an Iowa Senate subcommittee on February 2.

Richard Lindgren is Emeritus Professor of Business at Graceland University in Lamoni, Iowa, now retired in Gulf Coast Florida. He blogs at godplaysdice.com.

When economists talk about rent-seeking, they are usually not referring to literal payments to temporarily use someone else’s physical property. Except in Iowa:

“[Iowa Governor Kim] Reynolds proposes that retired farmers no longer be taxed on cash rent for their farmland…”

More about how economists define rent-seeking differently from Iowa farmers in a moment, but here is the key point — This is not about the retired farming couple who earns $20,000 in cash rent on their paid-for farmland on top of their Social Security income. Income taxes are among the least of worries for this couple. They are likely paying nothing or very little in either federal or state income tax. And in rural Iowa today, these folks likely have many more pressing needs that could be met by an effective state government, but they won’t be.

Instead, this is all about the retired farmers who would receive $100,000 or more in cash rent, either to avoid passing the land on to younger farmers or as part of a complex tax scheme involving their children’s inheritance.

Jim Chrisinger: We shouldn’t solve our hyper-partisanship problem the way we did after the Civil War.  

How can we ever reverse the toxic polarization and partisanship that have broken our politics? How can we regain civility and bipartisanship? 

History provides an example, but it’s not a good one. Bear with me.

Glenn Hurst is a family physician in southwest Iowa and a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate.

Article One, Section 5 of the U.S. Constitution, gives each legislative body the right to develop its own rules for conducting business. The U.S. Senate currently has 44 rules addressing the expected structure of a legislative day such as the order of business, quorum, and voting procedures. They also open the door for partisan influence on the business of our government and perpetuate a power structure that perpetuates power within the two-party system.

Because of this structure, progressives, and those who cannot bear to align within this narrow illusion of choice, have often been forced to find unique niches in which to attempt to exert influence.

Sondra Feldstein is a farmer and business owner in Polk County.

Governor Kim Reynolds wants to exempt all cash rent income for retired farmers from state income tax. This horrible idea would harm rural Iowa and make it even harder for young people to break into the profession of farming.

Iowa already has a problem with an aging population of farm operators. According to the USDA’s 2021 census of agriculture, the average age of farmers in Iowa is 57.1 years. Four times as many farmers are over the age of 65 than under the age of 35. In other words, we don’t have a new generation of farmers to replace the ones already retired.

Why would we want a tax policy that would worsen the problem?

Herb Strentz draws inspiration from three Americans who spoke truth to power when McCarthyism was ascendant.

Edward R. Murrow was among America’s greatest 20th century journalists. He helped see the nation through World War II, mostly through his broadcasts from Nazi-bombed London. He also helped the country get through the “Red Scare” of the 1950s.

Both episodes are distant memories now, even for those who are old enough to remember. But some of us still cling to those memories, and rightly so.

Ellen Goodmann Miller is a community and resource development specialist and political consultant.

I’m a fourth generation Iowa Democrat activist. One of my great grandfathers helped found the local carpenters, molders, and machinist unions in Dubuque and another ran for state senate in Union County. My mom was party chair when I was a kid and my siblings and I would spend Saturdays roaming the halls of the UAW Local 94 or in the legendary smoke-filled Riverside bowling alley.

I loved it. I loved being surrounded by working-class Iowans who valued fairness and community. These experiences instilled in me a commitment to service and to justice.   

Throughout my life, I’ve volunteered on and staffed many campaigns, recently on the political teams of the Biden-Harris campaign and State Representative Ras Smith’s gubernatorial campaign. And I’ve carried on the tradition of bringing my daughters with me into this world. For so long, I’ve taken pride in the values of the party and found a home among the people within it.

After my experience on Smith’s campaign, and as I’ve seen more clearly what we’re valuing as a party, I don’t feel the same pride I once did, nor am I clear on our vision for the future.

Ira Lacher: Nominating Vice President Kamala Harris to the U.S. Supreme Court would accomplish two critical political objectives for President Joe Biden.

The news that Justice Stephen G. Breyer intends to retire at the end of the U.S. Supreme Court’s current term should warm the cockles of those who welcome the appointment of a justice who believes in something other than “might makes right (wing).” Do we dare to use the words “Joe Biden victory” in a headline?

We can. But to succeed, he will have to carefully plan strategy, the way a winning football team must anticipate every defense formation and tactic — along with the offense’s inevitable missed blocks, miscues, and outright fumbles. So, in this season of NFL playoff games, I offer myself as the Biden administration’s offensive coordinator.

Editor’s note from Laura Belin: I’m interrupting the winter hiatus of Bleeding Heartland’s wildflowers series to bring you some lovely images by a new guest photographer, Paul Laning. He first shared these pictures in the Iowa wildflower enthusiasts Facebook group, which has remained active this winter.

I’ve had professional training in photography and design and been taking pictures since 1978. I take many nature photographs, but hoar frost is one of my favorites. I hope you enjoy my art.

I took the first five pictures with my cell phone near Buffalo Center (Winnebago County). I shot the last with a Canon EOS in Clear Lake.

Bruce Lear: What if, instead of shunning masks early in the pandemic, Donald Trump had marketed them like his resorts and his casinos? 

Most of us have a few “What ifs” in our lives. What if I had taken the other job offer? What if I had sunk that buzzer beater? What if I had gone on the blind date and met my soulmate? What if I had invested in Apple instead of Enron?  

Continually second-guessing ourselves is about as comfortable as being a loud liberal at a Sioux Center Chamber of Commerce meeting. But indulge me as I ponder the road not taken by Donald Trump, since he never apologizes or admits to having regrets. 

The “What ifs” of those who led the country during a once-in-a-century public health crisis could make us all sick. 

State Senator Joe Bolkcom represents Iowa City and is outreach and community education director for the University of Iowa’s Center for Global & Regional Environmental Research.

We Iowans love to talk about the weather. But not Governor Kim Reynolds. She didn’t mention the recent off the charts weather disaster in her rosy Condition of the State address earlier this month.

On December 15, Iowans once again experienced a set of events that no one alive has witnessed. A record high temperature of 74 degrees preceded the first December derecho recorded in U.S. history.

Randy Richardson: Most of the benefit will go to middle class students in regular education and small districts in heavily Republican areas.

During her recent Condition of the State address, Governor Kim Reynolds announced her intent to create Students First Scholarships. Among educators these “scholarships” are more commonly known as “vouchers.”

Parents could use the scholarships to cover the costs of moving their children from public schools to private ones. Any remaining funds could help cover qualified education expenses such as tutoring, curriculum or material costs, vocational or life skills training, and community college or other higher education expenses.

Each voucher will be equal to $5,359, or 70 percent of a state education funding for each K-12 public school student. The remaining $2,270 or 30 percent will remain with the state to be reallocated to smaller, often rural, school districts.

According to the governor, this will be done because losing funding for just one student can have a significant impact in a small rural school. Of course, this is an election year and those small schools happen to be located in heavily Republican parts of the state.

Kurt Meyer discusses Governor Kim Reynolds’ recent assertion that some “explicit” books are in school libraries because teachers are trying to push “their worldview” on students.

It was the summer before my senior year in high school, 1971, more than a half-century ago. I drove three miles to the village of Otranto to visit the “bookmobile” and checked out several books, including one with the word “revolutionaries” in the title. A recent google search identified the book: The High School Revolutionaries, published in 1970. I was engaged in student government; this was a modest attempt at preparation.

The book included conversations with students from across the country. One review noted, “The quality is uneven, but five pieces are exceptionally well-argued and provocative… (providing) the most graphic picture of the experience and sensibility of high school students today.” Unfortunately, it was only marginally relevant to someone in rural Iowa seeking to be a conscientious student council member.

Sonya Heitshusen: It’s time to turn the page on bitter, divisive politics and usher in a new era of civility, courage, and common sense. 

For nearly three decades, Iowans allowed me into their living rooms to deliver the news. I’m now asking you to allow me to represent you in the Iowa legislature, in the new House district 28.

The filing deadline for campaign finance disclosures is always an exciting day for political reporters. My plan for this week was to write a series of posts about fundraising and spending for each of Iowa’s statewide races: governor, attorney general, state treasurer, secretary of state, state auditor, and secretary of agriculture.

I shifted gears after reviewing the latest reports for Governor Kim Reynolds and Deidre DeJear, the only Democrat actively campaigning for governor.

Unless things change dramatically in the coming months, Reynolds will be able to use most of her war chest to help down-ballot Republicans.

Dave Swenson: Treating the unemployed as if they were social pariahs is not the path to economic recovery.

When a bogus meme gets a head of steam, watch out!

Conservative circles decided last summer that the economy wasn’t growing because of lucrative, federally-funded unemployment benefits. It was clear to those with this view that eliminating extra unemployment benefits would shock all of those over-compensated idlers into finding work.

And so it was that about half of the states, Iowa included, declined extended and emergency federal benefits for their unemployed beginning in June of 2021. A boom in job growth, they were convinced, would soon follow.

It didn’t.

U.S. Representative Ashley Hinson tried to pull a fast one on Iowans this week.

After the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approved funding for two lock and dam projects along the Mississippi River, Hinson took credit for the spending. “We secured $829 million in federal funding to upgrade locks & dams along the Upper Mississippi River,” she tweeted on January 19, describing the projects as “game-changing for Iowa’s agriculture industry & our Mississippi River communities!”

The trouble is, Hinson voted against the bipartisan infrastructure bill that provided this “game-changing” funding.