U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks has been fined again for not wearing a mask in the U.S. House chamber. A January 10 news release from the House Ethics Committee announced that Miller-Meeks did not appeal the fine within the allowed time period.

That statement did not confirm when the first-term Republican from Iowa’s second district broke the chamber’s rules on face coverings. The Office of the Sergeant at Arms notified the committee of the fine on November 30.

During part of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s eight-hour speech on November 18, intended to delay action on a Democratic spending bill, Miller-Meeks can be seen on camera, nodding and laughing with her face uncovered. She’s near the right side of the frame in this clip from a PBS News Hour video.

Former State Representative Mary Ann Hanusa finally gave up her Congressional ambitions and announced on January 5 she’s running for state auditor. She won’t face any competition in the Republican primary, coming out of the gate with endorsements from Governor Kim Reynolds, Senator Chuck Grassley, and Senator Joni Ernst.

Democrat Rob Sand won the 2018 state auditor’s race by 660,169 votes to 601,320 for GOP incumbent Mary Mosiman (50.9 percent to 46.4 percent). Turnout set a modern midterm record for Iowa that year. Participation could be far lower in 2022—perhaps 1.1 million to 1.2 million voters.

Whether Hanusa emerges as a strong challenger will become more clear as her campaign unfolds, but here are some initial thoughts.

During the five years of their trifecta, Republican lawmakers shredded a 43-year-old collective bargaining law and overhauled a judicial selection process that had been in place for nearly six decades.

Now Iowa Senate Republicans are tossing out more than a century of precedent by refusing to seat any journalists on the chamber’s press bench. For the session that begins on January 10, they are relegating reporters to public galleries far removed from the action.

Why should anyone care where reporters sit at the Iowa capitol? Take it from someone who has never been allowed to work on the press bench: losing access to the chamber will greatly hinder news gathering in the Senate.

Jonna Higgins-Freese is the author of Democracy Diary on Substack.

For almost a year, I’ve been deeply concerned about voting rights, and waiting for Democrats (and Republicans devoted to democracy, although there are so few of those left) to move swiftly to protect democracy — and speak more publicly and forcefully about the danger of authoritarianism.

States have proposed and passed hundreds of laws to suppress the vote and gerrymander districts. But, in my view, no one is sounding the alarm loudly enough.

Ira Lacher: We need to pursue hope, and we must prioritize it over our other base emotions such as doubt, fear, and anger.

On a day when the news is filled with record COVID-19 infections, the anniversary of a revolt against American democracy, societal lawlessness, and myriad other ills of our time, it would be facile to begin 2022 with a screed about how lousy it sucks to be us.

Not going to happen.

Rather, on this occasion, at least, I leave it to others to begin 2022 by submerging their keyboards in despair. To paraphrase a speech from Captain James T. Kirk, “We can admit we’ve been doomsayers, but we’re not going to doomsay today.”

Today, let’s speak of hope. Of optimism. Of ways to take comfort of the undeniable miracle we call existence.

This column first appeared in the Jefferson Herald and the Carroll Times Herald.

One evening in late October, the six candidates for the Greene County Community School Board were taking questions from district residents at a candidates’ forum held at Greene County Elementary School. One of the first was what each candidate thought about teaching critical race theory in the school district’s classes.

After a moment of silence, probably as the candidates tried to figure out what to say, they one by one gave brief answers, generally to the effect that they opposed teaching kids that people of difference races are inherently unequal or that they are inherently racist.

At that point another member of the audience asked if any of the candidates could explain “critical race theory.” Extended silence ensued.

That wasn’t surprising. Despite the bludgeoning of critical race theory among conservative politicians and media outlets, there’s very little explanation of what the theory is and how it might enlighten contemporary society.

Senator Joe Bolkcom represents Iowa City and is the ranking Democrat on the Iowa Senate Appropriations Committee.

Iowa’s workforce crisis and rural decline can be traced to irresponsible Republican tax and economic policies year after year.  

Their actions bring to life the words of their puppet master Grover Norquist, who famously said, “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”

As Governor Kim Reynolds and legislative Republicans return to the statehouse, their workforce crisis and abandonment of rural Iowa will only grow worse with more tax cuts for Des Moines millionaires. The Republican strategy is to stay the course by continuing to starve rural Iowa’s struggling public schools, exhausted health care providers, declining state parks, dangerous prisons, and neglected state resource centers. 

W.R. Staplin is a former scientist specializing in utilizing molecular biology techniques to investigate RNA plant and animal viruses, research and development of vaccines to protect against infectious viruses; husband to Ruth Ann Sparks Staplin, a longtime SPPG employee and political wonk; father to two independently minded teenagers enrolled in the Des Moines Public Independent School District; cancer and spinal cord disability survivor; and a supporter of women’s reproductive rights, LGTBQ+, and Black and Brown Lives Matter. He is also a full-time greyhound owner and greyhound cafeteria worker.

He was inspired to draw this cartoon to reflect the “paucity of shame, repulsion, and disgust within the submissive Republican Party, especially within Republicans elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate towards a day that truly shall remain in infamy: January 6, 2021.” For Staplin, the reaction to the storming of the U.S. Capitol “shows how dangerously fragile is the democracy our nation relies on.”

Editor’s note: Bleeding Heartland welcomes guest submissions of political cartoons as well as articles or commentaries. Please contact Laura Belin if you are interested in sharing a cartoon with the site’s readers.

Guthrie County Attorney Brenna Bird launched her second campaign for Iowa attorney general on January 4. Although her Democratic opponent will be Attorney General Tom Miller, Bird signaled that her strategy will be to run against two Democratic presidents.

State Representative Ras Smith suspended his campaign for governor on January 5, saying he had reached “the heartbreaking conclusion that there are barriers that one campaign cannot overcome, no matter how hard we work or how faithfully we represent the majority of hardworking Iowans.”

In a written statement and recorded video message, Smith thanked Iowans who welcomed him a candidate for governor, saying the campaign “has reaffirmed for me the magnitude of mission-driven work that lies ahead.” He added, “Unfortunately, this process has also exposed a drastic disconnect between the current political system and the people.”

U.S. Senate candidate Glenn Hurst contrasts President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms” speech of January 6, 1941 with Donald Trump’s attack on democracy 80 years later.

It was no ordinary January day in Washington, DC. There was an expectation in the air not just on the streets of the city, but across the country. In fact, there was anticipation around the world. The U.S. president was going to speak. It was a time where authoritarianism was finding footholds in Europe, Asia, and even the Americas. Blatant racism went unchecked and was even amplified by governments and world leaders.

It was against this backdrop on January 6, 1941, that the United States took center stage in the battle for freedom. It was not just a demonstration of what could be in the United States, but a demonstration of what every nation on the planet could experience. It set the tone for the century.

Julie Ann Neely: Our democracy is in danger; the basic tenets of our constitution are under attack by the GOP’s authoritarian ideology.

Remember 1984, George Orwell’s dystopian novel about Oceania, where media and educational content were government controlled, and history was rewritten to match the prevailing political climate? 

It was easy to point a finger at the Soviet Union and feel secure and smug, because we had no reason to worry about such things. After all, it couldn’t happen here – we’re a democracy – we are a free country – we have the First Amendment and the Declaration of Independence.

Well – Guess What? It’s Time To Worry.

Steve Corbin is a freelance writer and emeritus professor of marketing at the University of Northern Iowa.

Reflecting on 2021’s highs and lows plus contemplating what’s ahead in 2022 is reality therapy; good for the soul.

During 2021 we witnessed the “Big Lie,” an attempted presidential coup, a Congressional power shift, a booming economy, a botched Afghanistan exit, COVID-19 vaccination success and anti-vax woes, and disinformation and misinformation campaigns. The list goes on . . . including:

Iowa’s COVID-19 cases are exploding, and leaders of major hospital systems and clinics are pleading with the public to get vaccinated and take other precautions, including “masking up—even if you’re vaccinated.”

Meanwhile, Governor Kim Reynolds and top Republican lawmakers prioritize the concerns of those who refuse to do the bare minimum to combat the state’s third leading cause of death over the past two years.

Governor Kim Reynolds has kept one of three positions on Iowa’s Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) vacant for more than a year, and since October has ensured the board operates with Republican members only.

By law, the board that handles public sector labor relations “shall consist of three members appointed by the governor,” of whom no more than two “shall be of the same political affiliation.” Reynolds has left one position unfilled since August 2020 and recently replaced Democrat Mary Gannon with Republican Jane Dufoe. She serves alongside Erik Helland, a longtime Republican and former state lawmaker.

The current situation runs counter to the spirit of PERB’s partisan balance requirement and potentially allows Reynolds to circumvent the Iowa Senate confirmation process, by shifting board members who are not confirmed to an open position.

In addition, state salary records show Reynolds’ GOP appointees to PERB immediately earned higher pay than Gannon, despite the Democrat’s years of experience. For decades, under Republican and Democratic governors, PERB members not chairing the board had received identical salaries.

The governor’s communications director Alex Murphy confirmed Dufoe’s party affiliation in September, then did not respond to eight follow-up inquiries about the PERB appointments over a three-month period.

Rachel Bruns recounts the saga of trying to obtain records that the Iowa Department of Public Health could have provided promptly.

In an article I wrote for this website in January 2021, Provider practices in Iowa lead to more c-sections, complications, I mentioned that I had requested records from the Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH) on the number of cesarean births and vaginal births after cesarean (VBACs) in Iowa hospitals.

A lot has happened related to my request since then. I’m summarizing my experience in case it can help other Iowans seeking what should be public information from a government entity.

It’s time for another review of Bleeding Heartland’s most widely-read posts from the year that just ended. I always struggle a bit with this task, because the work I’m most proud of doesn’t always overlap with what resonated most with readers. Also, I’m wary of watching traffic numbers too closely, because I try not to let potential clicks drive my editorial decisions.

However, I always gain some insight from this review, so here goes.

This list draws from Google Analytics data about total views for 598 posts this website published during 2021: 362 written by me and 236 by other authors. I left out the site’s front page and the “about” page, where many people landed following online searches.

This post first appeared on Julie Gammack’s Potluck Column on Substack.

There’s an Iowa connection to the film “Don’t Look Up,” a satire about society’s blindness to our planet in peril. 

A Des Moines Roosevelt High School graduate, Staci Roberts Steele, co-produces the star-studded film. In addition to her job description, the actress/producer/writer also played the assistant to a tech titan character in the movie. 

During the year that just ended, 114 authors wrote or co-authored 236 guest posts for this website. Those articles and commentaries covered a vast array of topics and employed many different writing styles, from exclusive reporting to in-depth analysis to personal stories to satire. Some were among the most-read of the 598 posts Bleeding Heartland published in 2021.

As in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic was a frequent touchpoint for authors; at least 28 guest posts addressed some aspect of the public health disaster.

Other state government policies inspired 40 posts, covering bills proposed or adopted by the legislature or Governor Kim Reynolds’ actions not directly related to the pandemic.

Nearly two dozen posts related to the January 6 coup attempt, the Big Lie about the 2020 election, or former President Donald Trump’s grip on the Republican Party.

Authors focused on the Iowans in Congress eighteen times, with Senator Chuck Grassley the leading subject.

Seventeen commentaries offered advice for the Iowa Democratic Party or Democrats generally in light of mostly disappointing election results here in 2020.

Candidates for state, federal, or local offices (or their supporters) wrote nineteen posts during the year.

Authors covered many other issues, from reproductive rights to the environment, and occasionally reviewed lesser-known historical events in Iowa or on a national scale.

I’m proud to provide a platform for progressive views and grateful for the hard work that went into creating these pieces, most of them published only at Bleeding Heartland.

Editor’s note: Bleeding Heartland is unlikely to endorse in any Iowa Democratic primaries this year but welcomes guest commentaries by candidates or their supporters. Please read these guidelines and contact Laura Belin if you are interested in writing.

Now that the 2022 election year is here, I’d like to introduce myself. My name is Andrew Dunn and I am an activist, community organizer, and nonprofit leader running to represent Iowa House district 90, serving the northeast and graduate college area of Iowa City.