As Iowa Republican lawmakers advanced Governor Kim Reynolds’ wide-ranging education bill this month, they expanded on language spelling out parents’ right to make decisions affecting their own child.

The latest version of the bill inadvertently admits that Iowa’s new law banning gender-affirming care for minors violates a “fundamental, constitutionally protected right.”

The Iowa House State Government Committee did not take up a controversial public lands bill during its last meeting before the legislature’s second “funnel” deadline. Failure to act means the bill almost certainly will not move forward this year.

Senate File 516 would have required the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to “prepare a statewide, long-range plan that shall prioritize the maintenance and protection of significant open space property throughout the state.” The state Department of Transportation would have been directed to “prepare a long-range plan for the development, promotion, management, and acquisition of recreational trails throughout the state.”

The Iowa Farm Bureau Federation advocated for the bill, on the grounds that “the state of Iowa should concentrate on management of currently owned land and reduce the efforts to acquire more public land.” Conservationists pointed out that Iowa has less public land than the vast majority of states.

Scott Syroka is a former Johnston city council member.

There’s something missing in the debate over Iowa’s proposed carbon capture pipelines. Too often the discussion breaks down along familiar frames of the pipeline companies against landowners, or labor unions against environmentalists. When we stop the analysis here, we lose sight of what the fight is really about: the role of monopoly power in Iowans’ lives.

To date, no politician of either party is making this connection. Some have gotten close in their critiques of the pipeline companies, but none have highlighted the role of corporate monopolies in enabling these proposed schemes to exist in the first place. It’s strange because, as prominent politicians like U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar note, history is sitting right there in front of them.

Six of Iowa’s 34 Republican state senators introduced a resolution this week urging the federal government “to investigate and arrest” officials running the Washington, DC jail where some involved in the January 6 attack on the Capitol are being held pending trial. Senate Resolution 8 characterizes conditions at the jail as a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishment” and akin to “the most notorious concentration camps of World War II, the gulags of the former Soviet Union, the prison camps of Communist China, and the torture camps of North Korea.”

Five of the six senators who co-sponsored this resolution represent solidly Republican districts, where Donald Trump received more than 60 percent of the vote in the 2020 presidential election.

Then there’s Brad Zaun.

It’s the latest sign Zaun is not moderating his behavior to reflect the mostly-suburban Senate district 22, where he is expected to seek re-election next year. That’s a risky approach for the five-term Republican from Urbandale, given that voters in Senate district 14 sent the arch-conservative Senate President Jake Chapman packing in 2022.

What’s worse than signing bills that will torment transgender children and could drive many to harm themselves?

Pretending you’re doing it reluctantly, because you care about their “best interest.”

Tony Leys is Rural Editor/Correspondent for Kaiser Health News, where this story was first published. Follow him on Twitter @TonyLeys.

KNOXVILLE, Iowa ― Bette Helm was glad to have someone to talk with about her insomnia.

Helm lives in a nursing home in this central Iowa town of about 7,500 people, where mental health services are sparse. On a recent morning, she had an appointment with a psychiatric nurse practitioner about 800 miles away in Austin, Texas. They spoke via video, with Helm using an iPad she held on her lap while sitting in her bed.

Video visits are an increasingly common way for residents of small-town nursing homes to receive mental health care. Patients don’t have to travel to a clinic. They don’t even have to get cleaned up and leave their bedrooms, which can be daunting for people with depression or anxiety. Online care providers face fewer appointment cancellations, and they often can work from home. While use of some other telehealth services may dwindle as the COVID-19 pandemic winds down, providers predict demand for remote mental health services will continue to increase in rural nursing homes.