Nancy Dugan lives in Altoona, Iowa and has worked as an online editor for the past 12 years.

Dr. Mark Z. Jacobson is a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and also serves as Director of the Atmosphere/Energy program at Stanford University, where he has worked for 30 years. He’s spent decades studying ethanol and carbon capture and has published two books that extensively explore those subjects as part of his broader research work examining clean, renewable energy solutions: 100% Clean, Renewable Energy and Storage for Everything (2020), No Miracles Needed (2023).

Thus, Jacobson’s work places him in the eye of the storm surrounding Summit Carbon Solutions’ plan to capture and carry “9.5 million metric tonnes per annum (MMTPA) of CO2 collected from the 34 ethanol facilities, although the pipeline has the potential to carry more.”

Environmental Science & Technology, a biweekly peer-reviewed scientific journal of the American Chemical Society, published Jacobson’s most recent study on October 26. That study, called Should Transportation Be Transitioned to Ethanol with Carbon Capture and Pipelines or Electricity? A Case Study, was funded in part by the Sierra Club.

From left: Author Laurie Halse Anderson, author Malinda Lo, and Iowa State Education Association President Mike Beranek. Screenshots taken during the November 30 news conference announcing a new legal challenge to Senate File 496.

“The right to speak and the right to read are inextricably intertwined.”

So declare the plaintiffs in the second lawsuit filed challenging Iowa’s new ban on certain library books and classroom materials.

The new federal lawsuit focuses on two provisions of Senate File 496, which Republican lawmakers approved in April and Governor Kim Reynolds signed in May. A separate federal lawsuit filed last week challenges SF 496 in its entirety, focusing on additional provisions targeting LGBTQ students as well as the book bans.

Registered Democrats who participate in the 2024 Iowa caucuses by mail will be able to select one of four options for president. The Iowa Democratic Party’s State Central Committee voted on December 2 to ratify presidential preference cards that will list President Joe Biden, U.S. Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota, author Marianne Williamson, and “uncommitted.”

Biden, Phillips, and Williamson were the only candidates who submitted a letter requesting to list their names on the preference cards, Stephen Gruber-Miller reported for the Des Moines Register.

Uncommitted has always been an option at Iowa Democratic caucuses, and won the most delegates in 1976. In recent decades, few caucus-goers have chosen to stay uncommitted.

The party is not calling the preference cards “ballots,” in part to avoid upsetting New Hampshire officials who jealously guard that state’s law guaranteeing the first primary in the country. Although the cards will be tallied like ballots are, the caucus is a party-run operation, not an election administered by county and state officials.

State Representative Josh Turek talks with 6-year-old Hayes Hofmeister in Des Moines during a recent summit on advocacy for people with disabilities. Photo by Douglas Burns.

Douglas Burns is a fourth-generation Iowa journalist. He is the co-founder of the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation and a member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative, where this article first appeared on The Iowa Mercury newsletter. His family operated the Carroll Times Herald for 93 years in Carroll, Iowa where Burns resides.

Six-year-old Hayes Hofmeister of rural Cedar Rapids, a Springville, Iowa farm kid, can’t stop talking about Josh Turek — “that guy in the wheelchair” — the one who plays basketball and has Paralympics gold medals. The one who inspired him at Camp Sunnyside.

Born with Spina Bifida, Hayes, a bright-eyed kindergartner excitedly rolled his own wheelchair toward State Representative Josh Turek of Council Bluffs at the Easterseals Camp in Des Moines on a recent fall Saturday morning. They started talking, one on one, as Hayes’ mom and grandmother beamed.

Quite a few U.S. House Republicans have stirred up trouble for their party’s small majority this year. But the four House members from Iowa—Representatives Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-01), Ashley Hinson (IA-02), Zach Nunn (IA-03), and Randy Feenstra (IA-04)—have generally aligned with the preferences of GOP caucus leaders. It has been rare for to even one of the Iowans to vote differently from top Republicans in the chamber, and they have never done so as a group.

That streak ended on December 1, when Miller-Meeks, Hinson, Nunn, and Feenstra all voted to expel U.S. Representative George Santos.

Santos is only the sixth U.S. House member ever to be expelled, and the 311 to 114 vote (roll call) divided Republicans. While 105 GOP members joined almost all Democrats to remove Santos from their ranks, 112 Republicans opposed the resolution, including the whole leadership team of House Speaker Mike Johnson, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Majority Whip Tom Emmer, Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, and Republican Policy Chair Gary Palmer.

Plaintiffs Puck Carlson (left) and Berry Stevens (right) in photos provided by the ACLU of Iowa and Lambda Legal

Iowa Republican lawmakers and Governor Kim Reynolds enacted several laws this year that discriminate against LGBTQ people. This week, seven Iowa families and the advocacy group Iowa Safe Schools filed the first lawsuit challenging one of those statutes: the wide-ranging education bill known as Senate File 496.

The plaintiffs, who include eight LGBTQ students attending public elementary, middle, or high schools across Iowa, have laid out a compelling case that SF 496 violates LGBTQ students’ First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment rights in several ways, as well as the federal Equal Access Act.

For the second time in three years, Governor Kim Reynolds refused to act on a slate of nominees approved by one of Iowa’s regional judicial nominating commissions.

In early November, Reynolds took the “extraordinary step” of returning one candidate to the District 2B Judicial Nominating Commission. She eventually appointed Ashley Sparks to fill the District Court vacancy, but only after the commission held an additional meeting (at the governor’s request) to nominate a second eligible candidate for the judgeship.

The sequence of events raises questions about the governor’s legal authority to intervene when a judicial nominating commission has not adequately discharged its duties.

The situation also raises broader questions about the District 2B Judicial Nominating Commission. In November 2021, Reynolds refused to fill a vacancy in the same district after determining a judge’s “unprofessional” conduct had tainted the selection process. Since then, the District 2B commission—unlike all of its counterparts around the state—has not followed statutory and constitutional provisions that call for the senior judge of a district to chair such bodies.

Dan Guild is a lawyer and project manager who lives in New Hampshire. In addition to writing for Bleeding Heartland, he has written for CNN and Sabato’s Crystal Ball, most recently here. He also contributed to the Washington Post’s 2020 primary simulations. Follow him on Twitter @dcg1114.

Those who follow polling closely have noticed a surprising shift in recent findings. Curtis Dunn of NBC News recently wrote, “Waning enthusiasm from Black voters presents an inflection point for Biden’s campaign.” Politico’s Steven Shepard also covered “warning signs” for Democrats about Black voters. The political consulting firm Catalyst, which I respect, suggested that Democratic support among African Americans fell in the 2022 midterms.

This table compares exit poll data (I used the Pew validated voter exit poll for 2016 to 2022) with an average of high-quality polling in the last 45 days of the campaign. The results are shocking. Recent polling averages indicate a 35-point shift in margin among African Americans. If that is happening, it is an enormous development in American politics. The African-American vote is vital to Democratic success in key battleground states such as Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

Photo of Neil Hamilton speaking at the Iowa Nature Summit on November 17 provided by the author and published with permission.

Neil Hamilton is the former director of the Drake Agricultural Law Center and professor emeritus at Drake University law school. He delivered these remarks at the Iowa Nature Summit at Drake University on November 17, 2023.

My hope in planning the Summit was our collective work can help change the trajectory and effectiveness of how we advocate for nature in Iowa. I hope you agree we are off to a good start.

Elevating nature in our discussions

One challenge we face is elevating the discussion of nature to the place it deserves in the public discourse. It is too easy for those threatened by our issues to characterize us as just a bunch of nature lovers—people who like to play outdoors while others are trying to make a living. This is a dangerous mind set because if political issues involving nature are reduced to being between Iowa’s pigs and you playing in the river—history shows pigs may win every time.

Our respect for nature is about much more than just enjoyment—as vital as that is. Our respect for nature focuses on the essential role—the foundational role—nature plays in supporting life. Without nature there is no human survival, it is that simple. That is why water quality, soil health, and climate are essential to our future—it is why we need to elevate the importance of nature in our advocacy.

If we want the view of Iowa nature in five years to be better and not just a continuum of little progress and slow decline, what must change? How do we get out of the rut—or ephemeral gully—we find ourselves in today?

U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks officially has competition in the 2024 Republican primary to represent Iowa’s first Congressional district. David Pautsch, best known as the founder of the Quad Cities Prayer Breakfast, filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission this month and held a news conference on November 16 to lay out his vision.

Based on what we’ve heard so far, Pautsch won’t give Miller-Meeks anything to worry about. She defeated several well-funded opponents as a non-incumbent candidate for Congress, and will take more advantages into next year’s race as an incumbent.

Kim Taylor could face years in prison after a federal jury convicted her on November 21 of 52 counts of voter fraud, voter registration fraud, or giving false information in registering or voting. Over the course of a six-day trial, prosecutors presented evidence Taylor forged signatures on voter registration forms, absentee ballot request forms, and absentee ballots in order to secure votes for her husband in the 2020 election. Prosecutors identified Jeremy Taylor, a Republican who previously served in the Iowa House and is now a Woodbury County supervisor, as an unindicted co-conspirator in the case.

The jury found Kim Taylor helped cast dozens of fraudulent ballots—a large number, but small in comparison to the 45,700 ballots cast in Woodbury County in 2020, not to mention the 1.7 million ballots cast across Iowa.

Which raises an obvious question for all Republicans who have expressly or tacitly endorsed Donald Trump’s sweeping claims that the 2020 election was “rigged” or stolen from him.

Iowa’s near-total abortion ban remains blocked by court order. But new details emerged last week about how some provisions might be enforced if the Iowa Supreme Court finds the law constitutional (as the state has requested), or lifts the temporary injunction on the ban while litigation proceeds.

One thing is clear: despite repeated references to “standard medical practice” in the document the Iowa Board of Medicine considered on November 17, the proposed abortion rules bear little resemblance to how physicians actually care for patients seeking an abortion.

Kurt Meyer writes a weekly column for the Nora Springs – Rockford Register and the Substack newsletter Showing Up, 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.

In the spring of 1972, Dad brought a college scholarship application home from work, funds made available through his Hormel union, then the “Amalgamated Meat Cutters & Butcher Workmen of North America,” now the less muscular sounding “United Food & Commercial Workers.” Applicants were required to take a proctored test about the history of the U.S. labor movement. Highest scores would be rewarded at several levels: $1,000 for first, maybe two at $500, probably several at $250.

Instructions included reading a particular book, something like “Mileposts in Labor History.” So, I’ll read the book, take the test, and win the money, ha. As I recall, I had a few days to make this happen, and eagerly swung by the high school library. Not surprisingly, the book was not part of the collection, nor was it in the town library. I did find several relevant volumes, however, one with more photos than narrative (Eugene V. Debs displaying anguish), a Samuel Gompers biography, and a history book with a Haymarket Square chapter.  

Ohio residents voted to add reproductive rights protections to the state constitution on November 7, passing the measure known as Issue 1 by 56.3 percent to 43.7 percent. When that language goes into effect, it will prevent enforcement of a law Ohio’s Republican trifecta enacted in 2019, which would prohibit almost all abortions after fetal cardiac activity can be detected.

Iowa Republican lawmakers approved and Governor Kim Reynolds signed a similar near-total abortion ban in July. A Polk County District Court blocked enforcement of that law, and the state has asked the Iowa Supreme Court to dissolve that injunction and uphold the law as constitutional.

Voters in Michigan, California, and Vermont approved reproductive rights constitutional amendments in 2022, and activists hope to place similar measures on the November 2024 ballot in other states, such as Arizona, Florida, Nebraska, and Missouri.

Some Bleeding Heartland readers have asked why Democrats aren’t trying to do the same in Iowa, where polls indicate a strong majority of adults believe abortion should be mostly or always legal, and the state’s partisan lean is roughly the same as Ohio’s.

The answer is simple: there is no mechanism for Iowa voters to place a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot.

Voters in Iowa’s large school districts overwhelmingly picked progressive candidates over conservatives on November 7. In many urban and suburban districts, candidates backed by local Democrats, the Iowa State Education Association (ISEA), and/or the LGBTQ advocacy group One Iowa Action ran the table, while candidates backed by activists on the religious right fell short.

The results are a rebuke to Governor Kim Reynolds and Iowa’s Republican-controlled legislature, which enacted new laws in 2023 that undermined public schools and LGBTQ students, and restricted school library books and inclusive curriculum materials.

They also show the enduring strength of the state’s largest teachers union. For many years, Iowans elected school boards in September and city councils and mayors in November. The GOP trifecta changed state law so that beginning in 2019, school board and city elections would occur on the same day. The idea was to increase local election turnout and thereby diminish the ISEA’s influence over school boards. Nevertheless, candidates backed by public educators prevailed in many of this year’s most competitive races.

One city election also underscored how unpopular book banning is with Iowans. In the notoriously conservative town of Pella, voters rejected by 2,041 votes to 1,954 (51.1 percent to 48.9 percent) a ballot measure that would have empowered the city council to overrule the public library board.

Nancy Dugan lives in Altoona, Iowa and has worked as an online editor for the past twelve years.

Summit Agricultural Group operates at least seventeen wells in Kossuth County alone that have not applied for water use permits through the Iowa Department of Natural Resources’ (DNR) Water Allocation Compliance and Online (WACOP) permitting system, Bleeding Heartland has learned.

The DNR confirmed the lack of permit applications in response to questions prompted by landowner Alan Laubenthal’s October 5 testimony at the Iowa Utilities Board’s evidentiary hearing in Fort Dodge on Summit Carbon Solutions’ proposed CO2 pipeline.

“The department has not received permit applications for these facilities,” DNR outreach and marketing bureau chief Tammie Krausman confirmed in a November 3 email. “It is the applicant’s responsibility to know if they need a permit and apply according to the requirements. The requirement is 25,000 gallons in a 24-hour period. While facilities are capable of pumping more than 25,000 gallons per day, the permit requirement is based on the actual usage of water.”

It’s a textbook example of spending to influence an election.

A brand-new organization, “Citizens For Des Moines,” was registered with the Iowa Secretary of State on October 20. Its president, Doug Gross, is a prominent Republican attorney and major donor to city council member Connie Boesen’s mayoral campaign. The group paid to print and send at least two mass mailings attacking Boesen’s main rival in the mayoral race, which reached numerous Des Moines voters less than a week before the November 7 election.

Iowa law requires disclosure of independent expenditures that support or oppose a candidate for office, and requires political action committees to periodically report on their fundraising and spending. But Citizens For Des Moines exploited gaps in the law, so voters will be unable to find out who donated to the group or how much was spent on mail targeting city council member Josh Mandelbaum.

Five of the eight Iowa counties with the largest Black populations “had trial juries that were fully representative of their jury-eligible Black population” during 2022 and the first half of 2023, according to data analyzed by the Iowa-Nebraska NAACP. However, trial juries in Polk County and Scott County failed to hit that benchmark, and Dubuque County was “particularly problematic,” with zero Black members of any trial jury during the eighteen-month period reviewed.

The same review indicated that trial juries in Linn and Woodbury counties were close to being representative of the area’s jury-eligible Latino population, while Latinos were underrepresented on juries in Johnson, Marshall, Scott, and Polk counties, and particularly in Muscatine County.

Russell Lovell and David Walker, retired Drake Law School professors who co-chair the Iowa-Nebraska NAACP Legal Redress Committee, examined juror data provided by the Iowa Judicial Branch and presented their findings at the 11th Annual Iowa Summit on Justice and Disparities in Ankeny on November 3.

Nancy Dugan lives in Altoona, Iowa and has worked as an online editor for the past 12 years.

Internal Iowa Utilities Board documents provide little insight into the board’s decision to hire Carolina Dispute Settlement Services and North Carolina attorney Frank Laney to conduct mediation sessions on Summit Carbon Solutions’ CO2 pipeline project.

The records the board provided in response to Bleeding Heartland’s request do reveal, however, that the board hoped for a stronger response to mediation from landowners along Summit Carbon’s proposed path.

According to Iowa Utilities Board general counsel Jon Tack, the board did not enter into a written contract with Carolina Dispute Settlement Services or Laney. “The Iowa Utilities Board does not have a contract with Frank Laney or Carolina Dispute Settlement Services and will ensure any payments do not exceed State of Iowa procurement limitations,” Tack told Bleeding Heartland via email on October 30.

Cheryl Tevis writes Unfinished Business, a weekly Substack newsletter for the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative, where this column first appeared. She is an editor emeritus with Successful Farming at DotDash Meredith, and a contributor to the Iowa History Journal. Cheryl is president of Iowa Women in Agriculture.

My stint on a rural Boone County school board from 1996 to 2005 was no picnic. It was punctuated by controversies over one-way vs. two-way sharing agreements, reorganization votes, and open enrollment petitions. Our board and our new administrator struggled to dig the school out of a financial hole created by a predatory sharing agreement and made worse by the erosion of farm families during the 1980s farm crisis. We worked hard to prevail against a relentless pounding from adverse rural demographic trends.

I’m certain some of the district’s constituents were sorry they ever had voted for me. And as my term ended, personal relationships within our board were strained, and cratering.

Arnold Garson is a semi-retired journalist and executive who worked for 46 years in the newspaper industry, including almost 20 years at The Des Moines Register. He writes the Substack newsletter Second Thoughts, where this article first appeared.

The pair of buildings rising at local taxpayer expense in a field northeast of Sioux City grew out of an idea that would have cost $1.2 million when it was offered ten years ago. Over time, the idea transformed into something entirely different, a new jail facility with what would become an eye-popping price tag. 

The situation has caught the attention of many in Sioux City and may be a cautionary tale for other communities planning major civic improvements.

Iowa Republicans have seen more advertising against former President Donald Trump this year than GOP voters anywhere else in the country.

The Win It Back PAC, a super-PAC with “close ties” to the conservative advocacy group Club for Growth, spent more than $4 million over the summer to run six different television commercials in the Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, and Sioux City markets. The Republican Accountability PAC kicked in $1.5 million on its own series of tv ads in Iowa. AFP Action, an arm of the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity network, has sent numerous mailings with anti-Trump messages to Iowa households and paid for dozens of Facebook ads seeking to convince Iowans the former president is unelectable. New groups have popped up to fund direct mail in Iowa attacking Trump on issues ranging from LGBTQ rights to COVID-19 policies to crime.

Nevertheless, Trump is as well positioned for the 2024 caucuses as ever, according to the latest Iowa Poll by Selzer & Co for the Des Moines Register, NBC News, and Mediacom. Among those likely to attend the GOP caucuses in January, 43 percent support Trump, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley are tied for second place at 16 percent. No other candidate was in double digits.

Selzer’s findings are consistent with other recent polls of Iowa Republican caucus-goers, showing Trump ahead of DeSantis by at least 20 points and in most cases by more than 30 points.

One could argue the barrage of anti-Trump messages dented the front-runner’s appeal. His numbers in Iowa are lower than his support nationally, where he’s been hovering at or above 55 percent lately in presidential GOP primary polls.

But any early success from the television, direct mail, and digital ad blitz seems to have dissipated. Selzer’s polling suggests Trump’s level of support held steady among likely Iowa GOP caucus-goers: 42 percent in August, 43 percent in October. His lead over the second-place candidate grew from 23 points in August to 27 points this month. Trump’s supporters are also more enthusiastic and “locked in” than those leaning toward other presidential candidates.

The latest Iowa Poll validates the conclusions of research Win It Back PAC conducted this summer: most ads seeking to drive Republicans away from Trump either have no effect or increase his support among the target audience.

Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring. 

In a hearing, I always knew when the lawyer on the other side didn’t have a good case. Instead of focusing on facts, they shouted and pounded the table more in hopes the arbitrator might forget and get distracted by a loud passionate argument. 

That’s what Governor Kim Reynolds tried during her October 25 press conference, when asked about book banning in public schools.

Dan Piller was a business reporter for more than four decades, working for the Des Moines Register and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He covered the oil and gas industry while in Texas and was the Register’s agriculture reporter before his retirement in 2013. He lives in Ankeny.

Senator John F. Kennedy rose to a lectern at the Rice Hotel in Houston on September 12, 1960 to face the toughest audience of his presidential campaign; a roomful of Southern Baptist ministers who reflected the longstanding antipathy of the evangelicals toward Kennedy’s Roman Catholic religion.

JFK was just the second Roman Catholic nominee of a major political party, and older Americans remembered the fate of the first. New York Governor Al Smith lost to the lackluster Herbert Hoover in 1928, amidst charges that Smith’s Catholicism would put him—and the nation—under the control of the Pope in Rome.

If Kennedy didn’t win over the skeptical Texans, his sixteen-minute address at least neutralized their hostility by avowing his support for the longstanding doctrine of separation of church and state.

Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter is a freelance journalist from the American Midwest. She covers social justice stories, especially pertaining to disability. Her work has appeared in Parents, Mother Untitled, The Omaha World Herald, The Insider and elsewhere. You can follow her on X/Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Iowa is known for being nice. Old-fashioned values seem rooted in the ground, tracing back to 1846. An idyllic landscape, simple and plain, yet beautiful, as depicted in American Gothic. Stop in this fly-over state for a pork tenderloin sandwich, or a Maid Rite, and don’t forget, its state fair is the greatest state fair.

Set against this backdrop of American dreams is a Republican party introducing bill after bill that have altered Iowa in both subtle and blatant ways. The GOP-controlled legislature approved many controversial bills during the 2023 session. One with potentially great consequences for blind Iowans was Senate File 514, the state government realignment sought by Governor Kim Reynolds.

STREAMLINING, OR A “POWER GRAB”?

The state paid nearly one million dollars for Virginia-based Guidehouse to help develop a plan to streamline state government. Although the final Guidehouse report did not make any recommendations related to the Iowa Department for the Blind (IDB), the bill the governor proposed to state lawmakers included one important change.

Joe Bolkcom represented Iowa City in the Iowa Senate from 1999 through 2022.

Iowans will soon elect city council and school board members. Hundreds of candidates have put themselves forward as they campaign on ideas to address unique local challenges and needs. 

These local elected officials are the backbone of making our small government democracy work. They make decisions for all of us about how our public schools operate, what roads get built and repaired, how public safety, water, sewer and library services are provided, and how to pay for it all.  

In a healthy democracy that’s how things are supposed to work. Unfortunately, we do not live in healthy democracy.

Nancy Dugan lives in Altoona, Iowa and has worked as an online editor for the past 12 years.

Three Iowa women who rely on the Devonian aquifer for their water have filed suit in Polk County seeking to vacate a water use permit granted earlier this year, in connection with a CO2 pipeline project.

Kimberly Junker, Candice Brandau Larson, and Kathy Carter are suing the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR), which on May 29 issued a water use permit to Lawler SCS Capture, LLC. The permit allows the LLC to withdraw up to 55.9 million gallons of water per year from the Devonian aquifer, at a maximum rate of 100 gallons per minute.

Formed in 2022, Lawler SCS Capture is one of myriad Delaware-based businesses affiliated with Summit Carbon Solutions, LLC. The well and associated carbon capture facility would be located on land owned by Homeland Energy Solutions, an ethanol plant and Summit Carbon partner in Chickasaw County. Bleeding Heartland was first to report last month that the DNR issued the Lawler permit.

Attorney Wally Taylor is representing the plaintiffs in his personal capacity. (He is also the legal chair of the Sierra Club Iowa chapter, which opposes Summit Carbon’s efforts to build a CO2 pipeline, but Sierra Club is not a party in this lawsuit.) Here’s the full text of the petition filed in Polk County District Court on October 18.

Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring. 

It’s school board candidate forum season heading toward the November 7 elections. Watching these events, I’ve noticed most candidates, except those with their own political agenda, understand our state is facing a profound teacher shortage. 

Recently, I’ve heard candidates say, “We need to attract and retain teachers.” But how can school boards do that? What must happen in Iowa to make it possible?

UPDATE: All four Iowans voted for Mike Johnson for speaker on October 25. Original post follows.

Iowa’s four U.S. House members didn’t want to be here.

Representatives Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-01), Ashley Hinson (IA-02), Zach Nunn (IA-03), and Randy Feenstra (IA-04) were Kevin McCarthy loyalists from day one of the new Congress. All voted against the motion to vacate the speaker’s position early this month.

Nineteen days after the House of Representatives removed a speaker for the first time in history, the Republican majority is no closer to finding a way out of the morass. A plan to temporarily empower interim Speaker Patrick McHenry collapsed before coming to the floor. House Judiciary chair Jim Jordan was unable to gain a majority in any of the three House votes this past week. Republicans voted by secret ballot on October 20 not to keep Jordan as their nominee for speaker.

At minimum, the House will be without a leader for three weeks. Members went home for the weekend with plans to return for a “candidate forum” on October 23, and a possible House floor vote the following day. More than a half-dozen Republicans are now considering running for speaker; none has a clear path to 217 votes. McCarthy has endorsed Representative Tom Emmer, the current majority whip. But former President Donald Trump, a close ally of Jordan, doesn’t like Emmer, who voted to certify the 2020 presidential election results. Most Republicans in public life are afraid to become a target for Trump or his devoted followers.

The Iowans have adopted distinct strategies for navigating the embarrassing crisis.

Gerald Ott of Ankeny was a high school English teacher and for 30 years a school improvement consultant for the Iowa State Education Association. Laura Belin contributed some reporting to this article.

Like all Iowans of good will, I was painfully alerted to the Hamas invasion of Israel on October 7. Many have compared the events to the 9/11 al-Qaeda terrorist attack, in both its surprise and savagery. The scale of deaths and human loss is enormous; Israel’s total population is around 9 million.

The United States and European Union have designated Hamas a terrorist organization because of its armed resistance against Israel. Hamas has sponsored years of suicide bombings and rocket attacks against Israel, claiming Jewish presence in Palestine is illegitimate, which is counter-historical and denied by the United States.

Nancy Dugan lives in Altoona, Iowa and has worked as an online editor for the past 12 years.

The Iowa Utilities Board announced on October 4 it was canceling the remainder of its 2023 monthly public board meetings, previously set for October 9, November 7, and December 12. The board’s news release cited a “high volume of docket calls,” as well as “the risk of ex parte communications under Iowa law.” Screenshots of the board’s October and November calendars, captured on the morning of October 17, document the board’s schedule in the coming weeks.

The board may be scrambling, in part, due to vacancies in two attorney positions, one for Utility Attorney 1, posted on October 11, and the other for Utility Attorney 2, posted on October 10. It is not known whether these positions are due to staff attrition or staff expansion. An October 12 email to the board’s general counsel, Jon Tack, inquiring about the vacancies went unanswered.

Photo of Christina Bohannan at the Polk County Steak Fry in September 2022 is by Greg Hauenstein and published with permission.

The latest batch of Federal Election Commission quarterly filings from Congressional candidates contained one Iowa surprise: Democratic challenger Christina Bohannan substantially outraised U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks during the third quarter.

Bohannan’s campaign for Iowa’s first district reported raising $663,417.54, of which nearly all ($644,805.03) came from individual donors. Five political action committees donated a total of $12,012.51, and the candidate gave $6,600.

Miller-Meeks’ campaign reported raising $467,286.85, but only $225,385.34 of the total came from individuals. As was the case during the first and second quarters of 2023, the majority of funds donated to the incumbent’s campaign came from PACs or other political committees.

When Iowa Republicans gained the trifecta following the 2016 elections, defunding Planned Parenthood was near the top of their agenda. GOP legislators promised a new state-funded family planning program would increase access to reproductive health care and give women more options, especially in rural Iowa.

The latest official data, first reported by the Des Moines Register’s Michaela Ramm, show the program has flopped. In just five years, the number of Iowans receiving services such as contraception, pregnancy tests, Pap smears, and testing or treatment for some sexually transmitted infections dropped by 90 percent compared to the population served during the last year of the previous Medicaid waiver. The number of health care providers involved is down by a staggering 97 percent.

The Iowa Department of Health and Human Services has done almost nothing to promote the program, even as enrollment crashed.

The reality could hardly be more different from the scenario Republicans described in 2017: “connecting folks with their home health care” for essential services by taking Planned Parenthood’s mostly urban clinics out of the equation.

Democratic State Representative Chuck Isenhart represents Iowa House district 72, covering part of Dubuque and nearby areas. He is a member of the Iowa House Economic Growth Committee, the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators, and the Natural Resources and Infrastructure Committee of the National Conference of State Legislatures. The Dubuque Telegraph-Herald published a shorter version of this article on October 9.

“No eminent domain for private gain” is the catch phrase of opponents contesting three proposals for carbon dioxide pipelines in Iowa.

The Summit Carbon Solutions project would transport up to 18 million tons of the emissions each year, mainly from Iowa ethanol plants, to be buried deep in porous rock formations in North Dakota.

Why? Arguably, to keep the greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere, where it heats the air, causing climate change and weather disasters. At least that’s why the federal government is offering to pay $85 per ton for projects that capture and sequester carbon. At full capacity, that could be a $1.5 billion annual payday for Summit alone.

Owners of hundreds of parcels of land oppose the pipeline, mainly because they believe the productivity of farm ground will be lost and the integrity of drainage tiles will be damaged. Others question the safety of the pipelines.

Zach Spindler-Krage is a reporter for the Scarlet & Black, the student-run newspaper for Grinnell College. He is a third year political science student from Rochester, Minnesota and has written for the Minnesota Reformer, MinnPost, Post Bulletin, and Duluth News Tribune.

An exceptionally conservative presidential candidate. A distinctly liberal college. I probably should have recognized that Vivek Ramaswamy’s event in Grinnell was a recipe for disaster. 

If I had to hypothesize, I would guess Ramaswamy was prepared to capitalize on the politically-charged situation, strategically thinking of ways to engage young people who don’t hesitate to speak out against perceived injustices.

His interactions with students appeared to follow a formula. His goal was to evoke a reaction, often by remaining unemotional and uncaring while discussing important topics to students. Whether it was LGBTQ+ activists, public school supporters, or Ukrainian students, he knew how to solicit visceral responses, carefully documented by campaign staffers recording every interaction from multiple camera angles. With content in hand, he could take to social media, mischaracterizing interactions and ignoring facts.

Sean Flaherty is an election security advocate and chair of Iowans for Voting Integrity, a grassroots citizen group working for voting systems worthy of the public trust.

For folks now skeptical of democracy:

More democracy in the world = more peace in the world.

It’s not an emotional appeal; it’s an empirical fact.

Two Democrats are actively campaigning for a open Iowa House seat covering much of the city of Urbandale.

Urbandale City Council member and U.S. Air Force combat veteran Larry McBurney launched his campaign for House district 44 in September, soon after State Representative John Forbes, who has represented much of this area since 2013, announced he will run for Polk County supervisor in 2024.

Urbandale School Board member Jason Menke made his legislative campaign official on October 10.

John Deeth has volunteered for the Johnson County Democrats and been involved in caucus planning since 2004. He was the lead organizer for the Johnson County caucuses in 2016 and 2020 and is doing the same work for 2024. Deeth has also worked in the Johnson County Auditor’s Office since 1997.

“The Iowa Democratic Caucuses As We Knew Them Are Finally Dead,” read an October 6 headline at New York Magazine. 

The truth is, The Iowa Democratic Caucuses As We Knew Them died on December 1, 2022. That night the Democratic president of the United States said, “Our party should no longer allow caucuses as part of our nominating process,” and announced a calendar of five early states that did not include Iowa. The Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee quickly ratified President Joe Biden’s decision.

What followed was ten months of denial and secrecy from the Iowa Democratic Party, which finally ended Friday. The party announced it would release the results of the “mail-in caucus presidential preference” on March 5—Super Tuesday—the earliest date allowed by the DNC.

Nancy Dugan lives in Altoona, Iowa and has worked as an online editor for the past 12 years.

During the Iowa Utilities Board’s October 3 evidentiary hearing on Summit Carbon Solutions’ proposed CO2 pipeline, Summit attorney Bret Dublinske asked landowner Craig Woodward, “Are you aware that in Cerro Gordo County, 83 percent of the route has been acquired by voluntary agreement?”

Brian Jorde, an attorney for landowners who oppose the pipeline, quickly objected. “Irrelevant. And there’s no evidence of that in the record.”

“I think it’s absolutely relevant, and it can be calculated from the Exhibit Hs, but I’ll withdraw the question,” Dublinske responded.

Russell Lovell was troubled by the segregation and discrimination he witnessed growing up in a small Nebraska town and resolved to work on civil rights while attending law school in his home state during the late 1960s. His passion for justice extended beyond his nearly 40-year career as a Drake Law School professor and recently earned Lovell an award from the Notre Dame Alumni Association “for his outstanding dedication to advancing civil rights and his commitment to providing experiential learning to the next generation of lawyers.”

Iowa-Nebraska NAACP President Betty Andrews nominated Lovell for the Rev. Louis J. Putz, C.S.C., Award, citing his “fifty years of exceptional NAACP pro bono civil rights advocacy.” As co-chairs of the Iowa-Nebraska NAACP and Des Moines Branch NAACP Legal Redress Committees, Lovell and fellow Drake Law Professor Emeritus David Walker have collaborated on eight amicus briefs submitted to the Iowa Supreme Court. They have also successfully pushed for systemic reforms to make Iowa juries more diverse.

The Iowa Chapter of the National Bar Association recognized Lovell’s civil rights work and advocacy for representative juries in 2020.

Two of Iowa’s four U.S. House members laid down their marker early in the battle to elect a new House speaker.

U.S. Representatives Ashley Hinson (IA-02) and Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-01) announced on October 5 that they will support current House Majority leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana for the chamber’s top job.

The House cannot conduct normal business until members elect a new speaker, following the 216-210 vote on October 3 to declare the office vacant. As expected, all four Iowa Republicans opposed the effort to remove House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, but the resolution succeeded as eight Republicans joined all Democrats present to vote yes.

Scalise’s main competition appears to be House Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan of Ohio. Others considering the race include Republican Study Committee chair Kevin Hern of Oklahoma. Several House members have vowed to nominate Donald Trump, but the former president told one of his supporters on October 5 that he is endorsing Jordan for speaker.

At this writing, Representatives Zach Nunn (IA-03) and Randy Feenstra (IA-04) have not publicly committed to a candidate for speaker. Iowa’s House members have voted in unison on most important matters this year. In a statement to the Cedar Rapids Gazette, Nunn said, “I’m waiting to make a decision until we have the opportunity to hear from everybody running about their vision to take on the D.C. bureaucracy, balance the budget, secure the border, and support the critical programs — like Medicare and Social Security — that Iowans rely on every day.”

Rebecca Wolf is Senior Food Policy Analyst at the national advocacy group Food & Water Watch. Get involved in the fight for a fair Farm Bill at foodandwaterwatch.org.

Amidst the Congressional chaos of the past week, one important deadline passed rather inconspicuously. The Farm Bill expired on September 30, the last day of the federal fiscal year. Passed every five years, the Farm Bill is a suite of policies passed on a bipartisan basis to keep our food and farm system running. The longer our legislators delay, the more we flirt with brinkmanship for critical programs that keep people fed and ensure farmers are paid.

Iowa needs a fair Farm Bill. With more factory farms than any other state, millions of acres in mono-cropped corn and soy, and a mounting clean water crisis, Iowa offers a clear case study of the failures of modern corporate agricultural policy. Iowa’s legislative delegation must seize this opportunity to pass bold reforms that support farmers, rural communities, and clean water — not Big Ag.

Every member of Congress from Iowa voted on September 30 for a last-ditch effort to keep the federal government open until November 17. The continuing resolution will maintain fiscal year 2023 spending levels for the first 47 days of the 2024 federal fiscal year, plus $16 billion in disaster relief funds for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is the amount the Biden administration requested. In addition, the bill includes “an extension of a federal flood insurance program and reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration.”

U.S. Representatives Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-01), Ashley Hinson (IA-02), Zach Nunn (IA-03), and Randy Feenstra (IA-04) were among the 126 House Republicans who joined 209 Democrats to approve the measure. (Ninety Republicans and one Democrat voted no.) House leaders brought the funding measure to the floor under a suspension of the rules, which meant it needed a two-thirds majority rather than the usual 50 percent plus one to pass.

Iowa’s Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst were part of the 88-9 majority in the upper chamber that voted to send the bill to President Joe Biden just in time to avert a shutdown as the new fiscal year begins on October 1.

House members considered several other federal budget bills this week and dozens of related amendments—far too many to summarize in one article. As I watched how the Iowa delegation approached the most important votes, a few things stood out to me.

Iowa is tied for seventh among states with the highest disparities in Black incarceration rates, according to new analysis from the nonprofit Prison Policy Initiative. Data released on September 27 show Black Iowans are about nine times more likely than whites to be in prison or jail, and Native Americans are about thirteen times more likely than whites to be incarcerated in Iowa.

Betty Andrews, president of the Iowa-Nebraska NAACP, said in a statement that the findings “underscore the need for systemic reform.” She called on Iowa to “take action in every facet of the justice process.”

Photo of Christina Bohannan at the Polk County Steak Fry in September 2021 is by Greg Hauenstein and published with permission.

Christina Bohannan is hoping to join Neal Smith, Tom Harkin, and Berkley Bedell in the club of Iowa Democrats who were elected to Congress on their second attempt.

Challenging an incumbent is usually an uphill battle, and recent voting trends favor Republicans in southeast Iowa, where Bohannan is running against U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks. The Cook Partisan Voting Index for Iowa’s first Congressional district is R+3, meaning that in the last two presidential elections, voters living in the 20 counties that now make up IA-01 voted about three points more Republican than did the national electorate. The Daily Kos Elections team calculated that Donald Trump received about 50.5 percent of the 2020 presidential vote in this area, to 47.6 percent for Joe Biden.

The Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball rate IA-01 as “likely Republican” for 2024—potentially competitive, but not among the top two or three dozen U.S. House battlegrounds across the country. Inside Elections recently moved this district to the more competitive “lean Republican” category.

That said, no one should write off this race. Miller-Meeks ran for Congress unsuccessfully three times and was considered the underdog against Democrat Rita Hart in 2020. Many factors contributed to the Republican’s six-vote win that year, and I’ve been thinking about what would need to happen for Bohannan to prevail in next year’s IA-01 rematch.

The Iowa Public Information Board will continue to weigh options for giving government bodies more tools to deal with people who allegedly use public records requests in a harassing way.

Discussion during the board’s September 21 meeting revealed sharp differences of opinion over the proper role for the state board, which is charged with providing guidance and resolving disputes over Iowa’s open records and open meetings laws. Board members agreed to have a committee gather more information before deciding whether to proceed with a legislative proposal giving government bodies a way to have troublesome individuals declared “vexatious requesters.”

Nancy Dugan lives in Altoona, Iowa and has worked as an online editor for the past 12 years. 

Last week, North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley denied a request from three counties in the state to investigate Summit Carbon Solutions’ investors. A new statute in North Dakota, which went into effect on August 1, tightens restrictions on foreign ownership of land in that state, among other measures.

But Summit Carbon Solutions, LLC as it exists today was formed in Delaware in 2021, according to the Iowa Secretary of State’s database of business entities. (That database shows the Summit Carbon Solutions, LLC created in Iowa in 2020 as “inactive.”) Wrigley explained in a recent letter to county commissioners that the effective date of the new legislation means “this office is unable to conduct a civil review of the company.”

Wrigley’s argument underscores one of the more disturbing aspects of the Summit Carbon matter, which is the false premise that state and local governments are powerless to regulate a Delaware LLC whose ownership structure remains largely a mystery, and whose own legal arguments identify the pipeline it proposes to build as a security threat.

The Iowa Public Information Board will consider options for government bodies to deal with individuals who file “excessive and abusive” public records requests. During a September 15 telephonic meeting of the board’s legislative committee, members E.J. Giovannetti and Barry Lindahl tabled proposed legislation that would allow governments to have some people declared “vexatious requesters.”

But they agreed to put the topic on the agenda for the full board, which could adopt an advisory opinion for dealing with burdensome records requests, or could ask the state legislature to address the issue.

Prior to the meeting, the Iowa Freedom of Information Council warned Iowa Public Information Board members that the proposed changes to Iowa Code would “seriously erode” the state’s open records law and would violate the constitution while trying to solve a “nonexistent problem.”

Education is shaping up to be a defining issue in an open-seat race for a strongly Republican Iowa House district.

State Representative Stan Gustafson, who currently represents House district 22, is planning to retire at the end of his current term. Samantha Fett, a former Carlisle school board member and chapter leader of Moms for Liberty, announced last month that she will seek the Republican nomination. Fett has spoken at several Iowa House or Senate meetings during the past two years, urging lawmakers to approve various education-related or anti-LGBTQ bills.

Garrett Gobble announced his candidacy for the same district in a September 8 Facebook post. He previously represented part of Ankeny in the Iowa House for one term. A recent guest commentary for the Des Moines Register indicated that Gobble hopes Governor Kim Reynolds and groups focused on school policies will stay out of his upcoming race.

Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council and can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. Joaquin Sapien reported for ProPublica on September 7 about the Navy’s spending on littoral combat ships, which “broke down across the globe” and are being decommissioned.

Iowa is about as far removed from an ocean as you can get. But this state figures in recent news reports about the U.S. Navy—and not in a puff-up-our-chest-with-pride way.

One of the reports was a New York Times examination of the Navy’s largest ship-building budget in history, $32 billion this year alone, and the tug-of-war that pot of money has created inside the seagoing service. 

Nancy Dugan lives in Altoona, Iowa and has worked as an online editor for the past 12 years. 

While testifying before the Iowa Utilities Board on September 5, Summit Carbon Solutions chief operating officer James “Jimmy” Powell outlined the company’s need for large amounts of water at each of the sites identified as pipeline “partners” throughout the five-state route proposed for a CO2 pipeline. “We’ll need the water supply at every plant, so we’re working with individual plants,” he said. According to the Summit Carbon website, the pipeline would connect to thirteen ethanol plants in Iowa.

Online records from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office show that twelve Summit-affiliated LLCs filed Certificates of Authority as foreign limited liability companies on the afternoon of August 31. A thirteenth LLC, Saint Ansgar SCS Capture, LLC, filed an application for a Certificate of Authority on July 3, which was approved on the same day.

All are identified as member-managed firms formed in Delaware, and all share an address with Summit Carbon Solutions in Ames. SCS Carbon Removal, LLC is identified as the member or manager firm on all of the applications. Jess Vilsack, general counsel for Summit Carbon Solutions, signed for each of the LLCs.

“It was a great day to hear from Iowans,” Department of Management Director Kraig Paulsen told reporters on September 6. He was speaking in his role as chair of Iowa’s temporary Boards and Commissions Review Committee, after nearly 70 people had testified about proposed changes to more than 100 state boards and commissions.

The two-plus hour public hearing created the impression that affected Iowans had ample opportunities to provide feedback in person. The committee is also accepting comments submitted via email (BCRCcomments@iowa.gov) through September 17.

Although some testimony or written comments may prompt the committee to tweak its plans for certain boards, the reality is that in many ways, Paulsen and other committee members prevented Iowans from offering meaningful input on the proposed changes.

Governor Kim Reynolds’ office told a state regulator no public funds were used for the twelve “Fair-side chats” Reynolds held with Republican presidential candidates during the Iowa State Fair last month.

Reynolds conducted friendly interviews with the candidates in the courtyard of JR’s SouthPork Ranch, a restaurant on the state fair grounds. A sign produced for the events featured a logo and the words “Gov. Kim Reynolds’ Fair-side chats.”

I sought to clarify who paid for the sign and other expenses associated with the chats, because Iowa Code Chapter 68A.405A prohibits statewide elected officials from spending public funds on “any paid advertisement or promotion” bearing the official’s “written name, likeness, or voice” in a range of settings, including “A paid exhibit display at the Iowa state fair […].” Reynolds signed that statute (commonly known as the the “self-promotion law”) in 2018.

Democratic State Senator Herman Quirmbach submitted the following written comments to members of the Boards and Commissions Review Committee. They are an extended version of remarks he delivered during the September 6 public hearing at the state capitol. You can view the committee’s draft recommendations here.

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Boards & Commissions Review Committee:

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you on September 6. What follows is a review and extension of my remarks.

I offer the following observations as a member of the Tobacco Use Prevention and Control Commission (Tobacco Commission) and of the College Student Aid Commission (CSAC). I have served on both these commissions for approximately twenty years as an ex-officio non-voting member. Both commissions oversee the implementation and administration of critical state programs to protect the public health (Tobacco) and enhance educational opportunities and workforce development (CSAC). Beyond the functioning of existing programs, members of the commissions provide exceptionally valuable expertise to help guide the development of public policy for the future.

Nancy Dugan lives in Altoona, Iowa and has worked as an online editor for the past 12 years. 

If there was any lingering doubt that the fix was in on the Iowa Utilities Board’s hearing on Summit Carbon Solutions’ proposed CO2 pipeline, it was quickly extinguished on the morning of September 5, when attorney Brian Jorde filed a Motion for Temporary Stay of Evidentiary Proceedings.

Jorde represents Iowans who own land along the pipeline’s path. He and other attorneys representing parties that oppose the pipeline have been subjected to a stealth Iowa Utilities Board hearing schedule that grows increasingly erratic by the day. This approach has rendered the hearing in Fort Dodge a solid contender for Dante’s tenth circle of hell, with the ninth circle, treachery, playing a pivotal role in the descent of the proceedings.

Pam Mackey Taylor is the Director of the Iowa Chapter of the Sierra Club.

This summer a new committee, mostly controlled by Governor Kim Reynolds, embarked on a project to review Iowa’s boards and commissions. The six members of the Boards and Commissions Review Committee worked mostly in secrecy, using two-member subcommittees to avoid open meetings law requirements. Members announced their draft recommendations on August 29.

Some of those recommendations would have far-reaching impacts on everyday Iowans and how state government is able to respond to the problems and issues we face, such as clean water, healthy air, and government regulations that work for all of us.

The recommendations appear to reduce and restrict public access and input in the decision-making process, as well as public oversight of state government agencies. These recommendations appear to consolidate power within the governor’s office, where decisions are made behind closed doors with as little public input as possible, and where the only people who have input are the lobbyists and friends of the governor.

City leaders in Essex, a town of about 722 people, ignored warnings about the First Amendment when they prevented local LGBTQ residents from participating in the town’s Labor Day parade on September 4.

Shenandoah Pride represents LGBTQ people in several towns in southwest Iowa’s Page County. The group had signed up months ago to participate in the Essex Labor Day parade, a longstanding community event. Local drag performer Cherry Peaks was going to ride in a convertible and wave. But Essex Mayor Calvin Kinney emailed Peaks on August 31 to say,

Out of concern for the safety of the public and that of Essex Labor Day parade participants, the City of Essex has determined not to allow parade participants geared toward the promotion of, or opposition to, the politically charged topic of gender and/or sexual identification/orientation.

This parade will not be used for and will not allow sexual identification or sexual orientation agendas for, or against, to be promoted.

The Essex City Council held a special meeting on September 1 to discuss the matter but did not reverse the decision. Jack Dura of the Associated Press reported that the city council didn’t vote on the mayor’s action: “Council Member Heather Thornton, who disagreed with the move, said ‘it was the mayor himself,’ and added she was told he had the authority and didn’t need a council vote.”

“I DON’T EXPECT A CITY COUNCIL TO MAKE THAT DECISION ON MY BEHALF”

Jessa Bears, a member of Shenandoah Pride, challenged the pretext for the city’s action in a September 2 Facebook post. She noted that the mayor repeatedly invoked “safety” at the meeting, but “no one on the Shenandoah pride team has seen or heard about the threats” from what he described as an opposition group. Bears wondered why the alleged safety threats weren’t “being addressed appropriately,” and why leaders were “protecting the identities of the people or group” said to be making the threats.

She also noted,

I think any queer person in southwest Iowa understands the risk they run when they choose to be openly queer in this community. We know there’s a danger, safety has been a part of every discussion in Shen Pride before we go out in public. I believe I’m responsible for making decisions about my own personal safety, I don’t expect a city council to make that decision on my behalf just because I’m gay.

Bears told reporter Jessica Perez of KETV in Omaha that the goal of being part of the parade was “visibility,” showing others that LGBTQ people live, work, and go to school in the community. Peaks told KETV, “It feels like they’re trying to shove us back in the closet,” adding that while it’s a common “misconception” to think gay people are only in big cities, members of Shenandoah Pride live less than ten miles from Essex.

It’s cowardly for people with power to prevent a marginalized group from joining a community event, especially while claiming to do it for their own protection. But in this case, the city’s action wasn’t merely spineless—it was unconstitutional.

A “CLEAR VIOLATION OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT”

Sharon Wegner, an attorney for the ACLU of Iowa, wrote to the Essex mayor and city attorney Mahlon Sorensen on September 2, urging them to respect the constitution by changing course. The letter (enclosed in full below) indicated that when the organization contacted Sorensen to warn him about “the impending infringement on the rights of Shenandoah Pride,”

You confirmed for us that there was no credible security threat of which you were aware, let alone one justifying the prohibition made by Mayor Kinney, but, nevertheless, told us that the City would not change its position and would prohibit Shenandoah Pride from participating in the parade.

Wegner explained that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Article I, Section 7 of Iowa’s constitution “protect and secure the right of organizations like Shenandoah Pride to express their views in public forums such as the Labor Day Parade.” Government bodies and officials can’t infringe on that right based on the content of a message or the viewpoints expressed.

It is obvious from Mayor Kinney’s email that the City1 is prohibiting Shenandoah Pride from participating in the Labor Day Parade because it disagrees with its position on the rights of LGBTQ+ persons. That the policy purports to apply equally to groups in “opposition to . . . gender and/or sexual identification/orientation” does not render it neutral, particularly, though not only, because there is no such opposition group that has requested to participate in the Parade.

The ACLU warned that failing to allow Shenandoah Pride to join the Essex Labor Day parade would “violate the rights of its citizens, potentially expose it to substantial liability, and be an injustice to the constitutional rights of every person and every group to participate in its public events.”

Mayor Kinney did not respond to Bleeding Heartland’s email over the weekend, or to messages KETV’s Perez sent on multiple platforms.

ACLU of Iowa executive director Mark Stringer said in a September 2 news release, “City leaders cannot ban participants from a government-sponsored parade just because they don’t like their viewpoint. It is a clear violation of the First Amendment and each person’s right to free speech and free expression in a public space. This action also sadly fails to acknowledge the many contributions of LGBTQ community members in our Iowa communities, large and small.”

Bears told Perez she wants the city of Essex to apologize to Shenandoah Pride, which she described as “a ragtag group of gay people that just wanted to walk in the damn parade.”

Disclosure: The ACLU of Iowa represented Laura Belin and other plaintiffs in an open records lawsuit against the governor’s office, which was settled in June 2023. That litigation is unrelated to the topic of this article.

Appendix: Full text of September 2 letter from the ACLU of Iowa to Essex leaders

Top photo of a protester holding a sign outside the Iowa state capitol on March 5, 2023 is by Michael F. Hiatt and available via Shutterstock.

Nancy Dugan lives in Altoona, Iowa and has worked as an online editor for the past 12 years. 

When examining the intricate web of businesses that have sprung up around Summit Carbon Solutions, one cannot help but wonder how many private, largely unregulated LLCs are associated with the proposed CO2 pipeline.

Lawler SCS Capture, LLC is among the more recently unearthed businesses formed by Summit. On May 29, 2023, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources issued a water use permit to Lawler SCS, which shares an address with Summit Carbon Solutions in Ames. The permit expires on May 28, 2033. Lawler SCS submitted its application to the department on April 17.

The permit authorizes Lawler SCS to:

John Morrissey is a freelance writer in Des Moines.

Sharp-eyed readers may have noticed this summer that the University of Iowa’s Henry B. Tippie College of Business has signed on as a sponsor of the 6 pm newscasts on KCCI-TV 8 and WHO-TV 13. Those viewers may also be mystified about why the ads are running

The business school has placed 15-second sponsorship ads during the Des Moines television newscasts along with radio, print, billboard, and digital ads in order to reintroduce the Tippie College of Business to central Iowans, College Dean Amy Kristof-Brown told Bleeding Heartland.

A massive organizing effort paid off for Kimberly Sheets, as the Democrat won the August 29 special election for Warren County auditor by a two-to-one margin. Unofficial results first reported by Iowa Starting Line show Sheets received 5,051 votes (66.56 percent) to 2,538 votes for Republican David Whipple (33.44 percent). Turnout was more than three times higher than the previous record for a Warren County special election (a school bond issue in 2022).

Republicans haven’t lost many races lately in this county, but they pushed their luck by nominating Whipple. Not only was he lacking experience in election administration—one of the duties of Iowa county auditors—he had shared Facebook posts espousing conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election and other QAnon obsessions.

The county’s previous auditor, Democrat Traci VanderLinden, retired in May and wanted Sheets (the deputy in her office) to succeed her. Whipple’s appointment by an all-Republican county board of supervisors generated lots of statewide and some national media attention, because of his now-deleted social media posts. Local Democrats collected about 3,500 signatures over a two-week period demanding a special election.

County GOP activists could have picked a less controversial nominee for the auditor’s race, but they stuck with Whipple. The move backfired spectacularly.

UPDATE: Jay Brown announced in late December 2023 that he was withdrawing from the race and endorsing Melton. Original post follows.

A two-way Democratic primary is shaping up in Iowa’s fourth Congressional district. Ryan Melton, the 2022 Democratic challenger to U.S. Representative Randy Feenstra, announced on July 4 that he plans to seek the office again. And last week, first-time candidate Dr. Jay Brown launched his campaign.

Disclosure: Brown grew up in the house next door to mine in Windsor Heights, and our families have been close friends for decades. Bleeding Heartland will not endorse in this race. As with any competitive Democratic primary, I will welcome guest commentaries by the candidates or by any of their supporters.

Nancy Dugan lives in Altoona, Iowa and has worked as an online editor for the past 12 years. 

During the August 15 Director’s Cut webcast, Dr. Lynn Helms, Director of North Dakota’s Department of Mineral Resources, was asked about the Public Service Commission’s August 4 decision to deny Summit Carbon Solutions’ North Dakota pipeline permit.

Helms first explained that the state’s current CO2 production only meets 3 to 10 percent of the need for shale oil recovery in North Dakota. “So carbon dioxide has got to come to North Dakota from somewhere if we’re going to stabilize and sustain Bakken oil production,” he added.

Officials in Sac County, Iowa are refusing to provide footage from law enforcement body cameras and dashboard cameras related to State Senator Adrian Dickey’s arrest last month during RAGBRAI.

Dickey was charged with interference with official acts (a simple misdemeanor) after allegedly refusing to comply with a deputy sheriff’s request to move along a rural road a “big party” of bicyclists were blocking.

The Republican senator has pleaded not guilty and asked for a jury trial. His attorney has characterized the dispute that led to the arrest as a “misunderstanding.”

The day after learning about Dickey’s arrest, I requested relevant records from the Sac County Sheriff’s Office, including copies of body camera and squad car dash camera video from all deputy sheriffs who were present during the incident, as well as audio and video recordings from the jail where the senator was booked. I noted the high public interest in this case, because the defendant is a member of the Iowa legislature.

Responding on behalf of Sheriff Ken McClure, Sac County Attorney Ben Smith said he could not provide the information. He cited Iowa Code Section 22.7(5), a provision in the open records law that declares peace officer’s investigative reports are confidential.

Pat O’Donnell is a resident of Sioux Center and spent 37 years serving in Iowa public schools as a teacher, principal and superintendent. He may be reached at patnancy@zoho.com.

On August 18, the Iowa PBS program “Iowa Press” hosted Josh Bowar, Sioux Center Christian School Head of School, and Jennifer Raes, principal of St. Anthony School, a Catholic institution in Des Moines. The topic for discussion: Iowa’s Students First Act, the new program directing state tax dollars to support private school tuition for every kindergarten through 12^th-grade student in the state.

The bill establishes a framework and financing for education savings accounts (ESAs), also known as vouchers, which eligible families may use to cover tuition, fees, and other qualified education expenses at Iowa’s accredited private schools.

Let’s start by stating the obvious: it’s very unlikely any of the eight candidates on stage for the August 23 debate in Milwaukee will become next year’s Republican presidential nominee. All nationwide and early-state polls point to the same conclusion: most GOP voters aren’t looking for an alternative to Donald Trump. They don’t find his baggage disqualifying. He’ll be the nominee unless he is physically incapacitated between now and next summer.

With that assumption in mind, we should think about “winners” from the first Republican National Committee debate in a different way. The question isn’t who improved their chances of winning this race, but rather, who made sure they will remain relevant, both in this election cycle and in the future, when Trump won’t be on the ballot?

From that perspective, no one had a better night than former South Carolina Governor and United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley. Here’s why:

Dan Guild is a lawyer and project manager who lives in New Hampshire. In addition to writing for Bleeding Heartland, he has written for CNN and Sabato’s Crystal Ball, most recently here. He also contributed to the Washington Post’s 2020 primary simulations. Follow him on Twitter @dcg1114.

The gold standard Iowa pollster, Selzer & Co—their caucus record is nothing short of amazing—is out with a new poll showing former President Donald Trump with a significant lead among likely Republican caucus-goers. He has 42 percent support, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has 19 percent, and Senator Tim Scott has 9 percent. Former Vice President Mike Pence and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley were tied at 6 percent, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie registered 5 percent, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy 4 percent, and all others at 2 percent or less.  

I have written about the Iowa caucuses and their history many times. A few reminders:

Nancy Dugan lives in Altoona, Iowa and has worked as an online editor for the past 12 years. 

Late in the afternoon on Friday, August 18, attorney Anna Ryon filed a Motion to Stay Proceedings on behalf of Kerry Mulvania Hirth with the Iowa Utilities Board (Summit Carbon Solutions, LLC, IUB docket number HLP-2021-0001).

In the motion, Ryon asserts that Board staff “improperly coerced Ms. Hirth into relinquishing her right to participate in this proceeding that was granted by the Board on July 19, 2023.” Items 12 to 15 of the motion are reproduced in full below:

UPDATE: Zaun told the Des Moines Register on October 6 that he will seek re-election in 2024. Original post follows.

A parade of presidential candidates visiting the Iowa State Fair overshadowed some important election news this week. Urbandale City Council member Matt Blake announced on August 17 that he’s running to represent Senate district 22, giving Democrats a strong contender in what will be a top-tier Iowa legislative race.

In a news release, Blake said “Iowa is not heading in the right direction,” and characterized the Republican-controlled legislature’s actions as “out of step with what Iowans want and deserve.” 

Republican State Senator Brad Zaun has represented the Urbandale area in the legislature since 2005. He has not publicly announced whether he intends to seek a sixth term in the Iowa Senate and did not respond to Bleeding Heartland’s phone or email messages seeking to clarify his plans.

Whether Blake ends up competing against Zaun or in an open seat, Senate district 22 is clearly Iowa Democrats’ best opportunity to gain ground in the upper chamber. The party currently holds only sixteen of 50 districts, its smallest Iowa Senate contingent in about 50 years.

Nancy Dugan lives in Altoona, Iowa and has worked as an online editor for the past 12 years. 

A small plane with the tail number N215TS has been making routine flights in Alaska in recent months. Its owner is Eagle Wings, LLC, and its Federal Aviation Administration registration shares an address with Summit Agricultural Group in Alden, Iowa.

When looking at Alaska’s carbon initiatives, one may wonder: Is the Summit project part of a larger plan? Might its pipeline one day transport oil or natural gas?

Eagle Wings’ near daily flights are a tenuous, unsubstantiated link, a pipe dream if you will. But even if these flights are unrelated, other evidence suggests that the Summit Carbon project and Alaska’s aggressive push to advance carbon management and sequestration legislation may not be a mere coincidence.

State Senator Adrian Dickey is seeking monetary damages from his daughter and others who filed a civil lawsuit in July accusing him of fraud in connection with a car lien and title.

Korynn Dickey, her mother Shawna Husted, and adoptive father Allen Husted alleged in court filings that after buying Korynn a car in 2020, “no strings attached,” Adrian Dickey signed his daughter’s name to car lien and car title application forms, without her knowledge or consent. The senator asserted in a response filed with the Jefferson County District Court that Korynn “acquiesced or consented/gave her permission” for her father to sign her name.

I wondered whether Dickey might seek to settle this litigation to avoid the expense and publicity of a trial. Instead, he escalated the conflict on August 16, when his attorney Paul Miller submitted an amended answer to the lawsuit. A new section lays out a counterclaim against all plaintiffs, accusing them of making false “written and spoken statements” that “are injurious to the Defendant’s reputation.” Dickey is asking the court to award $120,000 in damages.

Photo of Vivek Ramaswamy at the Iowa State Fair by Greg Hauenstein, whose other Iowa political photography can be found here.

“Good things are going to happen in this country, and it just might take a different generation to help lead us there,” Vivek Ramaswamy said a few minutes into his “fair-side chat” with Governor Kim Reynolds on August 12. The youngest candidate in the GOP presidential field (he turned 38 last week) regularly reminds audiences that he is the first millennial to run for president as a Republican.

Speaking to reporters after the chat, Ramaswamy asserted, “it takes a person of a different generation to reach the next generation.” He expressed doubt that “an octogenarian can reinspire and reignite pride in the next generation,” and said his “fresh legs” can reach young voters by “leading us to something” instead of “running from something.”

But the candidate’s talking points—especially the “ten commandments” that typically cap his stump speech—are a better fit for an older demographic than for the young voters Republicans have been alienating for the past 20 years.

Sondra Feldstein is a farmer and business owner in Polk County and a plaintiff in the litigation discussed here. She took the photo above, showing the Geisler farm (the buildings in the distance) in the middle of farmland in eastern Polk County.

When the Iowa legislature debated the so-called “back the blue” law in 2021, a key component was the section adding qualified immunity to state code. At the time, public discussion focused on the impact this would have on law enforcement by providing protection from suits involving monetary damages. News stories, commentators, legislators, and Governor Kim Reynolds (when she signed the bill) all claimed qualified immunity would—depending on your point of view—either protect police officers no matter how egregious their conduct, or make it easier for officers to do their jobs without worrying about getting sued for a split-second decision.

Polk County District Court Judge Jeanie Vaudt recently applied the qualified immunity language to dismiss, with prejudice, a lawsuit plaintiffs (myself included) brought against the Polk County Supervisors over a zoning dispute. When a case is dismissed “with prejudice,” the only recourse is to appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court, rather than allowing the plaintiffs to amend their suit to address any issues of law or procedure the lower court may have found (which frequently happens).

If allowed to stand, this decision could be cited in denying any lawsuit brought against any Iowa governmental body, including the state itself. Goodbye efforts to hold governments accountable for their decisions, or for that matter, any effort to force Iowa governments to follow the law.

Tom Walton chairs the Dallas County Democrats, was a Democratic primary candidate for Iowa House district 28 in 2022, and is an attorney.

In the 2022 election for Iowa House district 28, Republican David Young showed up again in Iowa politics, after losing Congressional races in 2018 and 2020. Young won the Iowa House seat covering parts of Dallas County by only 907 votes, after the Iowa Democratic Party spent only about a quarter as much on supporting its nominee as the Republican Party of Iowa spent on behalf of Young.

Each of those winning votes cost his campaign about $331 based on campaign finance data. All told, Young and the Republican Party spent nearly half a million dollars on his race. As this article demonstrates, his election cost everyone too much—in money spent and loss of freedoms.

Dan Piller was a business reporter for more than four decades, working for the Des Moines Register and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He covered the oil and gas industry while in Texas and was the Register’s agriculture reporter before his retirement in 2013. He lives in Ankeny.

These are unhappy days for U.S. Representative Randy Feenstra (IA-04) and his fellow Republican Congresspeople from Iowa (there are no other kind).

Feenstra & co. have essentially one job: to get a Farm Bill passed every five years. The Farm Bill isn’t a radically new thing; Congress has passed them since 1933. The current Farm Bill expires on September 30. On that very day, by a cruel confluence, so do current federal appropriations, which sets up another one of those wearing government shutdown crises.

Governor Kim Reynolds announced on August 2 that 109 Iowa National Guard soldiers were en route to Texas, where they will be deployed through September 1 “in support of Operation Lone Star to help secure the U.S. Southern Border following the end of Title 42.” In addition, the Department of Public Safety will send Iowa State Patrol officers to Texas from August 31 through October 2, to assist Texas state troopers with various law enforcement activities.

The governor’s news release confirmed that “federal funding allocated to Iowa from the American Rescue Plan” will cover “all costs” associated with these deployments. The statement went on to assert, “States are given flexibility in how this funding can be used provided it supports the provision of government services.”

Not so fast.

While the American Rescue Plan did give states more leeway than previous federal COVID-19 relief packages, ARP funds are still subject to detailed federal rules. A plain reading of those regulations suggests deploying Iowa National Guard and law enforcement to the U.S. border with Mexico does not fall under any eligible category.

Reynolds’ public statements about Operation Lone Star also confirm the mission is not related to the pandemic.

The Jefferson County attorney opted not to pursue any criminal charges against Republican State Senator Adrian Dickey after his daughter alleged he forged her signature on a car lien application and related documents.

Korynn Dickey filed a civil suit last month, asserting that her father had purchased a car for her in 2020, “no strings attached,” and later signed her name to a lien application, title application, and damage disclosure statement, all without her knowledge or consent. The lawsuit claims Adrian Dickey “made numerous false representations” when obtaining the lien on the vehicle, which constituted fraud, and characterized his actions as “forgery.”

Jefferson County Treasurer Mark Myers, a Democrat, is also a named defendant, since his office accepted the lien application even though plaintiffs claim he “knew or should have known that Adrian was not authorized to sign the documents on Korynn’s behalf and that the signatures were therefore forged.”

Jefferson County Attorney Chauncey Moulding, a Democrat, told Bleeding Heartland in an August 4 email that Myers initially brought the matter to his attention. After receiving additional information from Korynn’s attorney, “I reached out to criminal investigators with the Iowa Dept of Transportation, and this matter was jointly investigated by their office and mine.”

Nick Covington is an Iowa parent who taught high school social studies for ten years. He is also the co-founder of the Human Restoration Project, an Iowa educational non-profit promoting systems-based thinking and grassroots organizing in education.

On August 1, I got an email from my kids’ school district announcing a new required form I needed to fill out in response to Senate File 496, part of the slate of so-called Parents’ Rights provisions that Governor Kim Reynolds signed in May. The letter read in part:

Recently passed legislation, Senate File 496, requires that school districts receive written permission from parents and/or guardians regarding any request by a student to accommodate a gender identity, name or pronoun that is different from what was assigned to the student during the school registration process. This requirement also applies to all nicknames. (i.e. Sam instead of Samuel; Addy instead of Addison, etc.)

Iowa City Council Member Shawn Harmsen represents Iowa City District B, which includes the east side of Iowa City and the recently closed DOT office.

In a move that will unevenly harm Black and other communities in the Iowa City area through lack of service and voting disenfranchisement, a major department of Governor Kim Reynolds’ administration executed a surprise move from an easily accessible location near several neighborhoods to a remote edge of another city.

The Iowa Department of Transportation sent out a press release on July 21 telling the public that after three more days in the Iowa City location it has inhabited for decades, that office would no longer be there. It was a classic Friday afternoon news dump before the start of RAGBRAI.

The press release claims the new location, out by Theisen’s and Costco on the very edge of Coralville, “was chosen after an extensive search for a space that could better accommodate the volume of customers in the area.”  Unsurprisingly, these claims of “needing more space” and providing better customer service don’t stand up under any kind of scrutiny. In fact, as I will explain, the relocation looks less like an inept move than attempt to conduct racial and partisan voter suppression.

Less than six months before the 2024 Iowa caucuses, former President Donald Trump’s grip on the GOP seems as solid as ever. Despite multiple criminal indictments and well-funded direct mail and tv ad campaigns targeting him, Trump has a large lead over the crowded presidential field in nationwide and Iowa polls of Republican voters.

Meanwhile, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has failed to gain ground with rank-and-file Iowa Republicans, despite massive support from this state’s political establishment and Governor Kim Reynolds’ thinly-disguised efforts to boost his prospects.

The Republican Party of Iowa’s Lincoln Dinner on July 28 was the first event featuring both candidates, along with eleven others. State party leaders strictly enforced the ten-minute time limit, which forced the contenders to present a concise case to the audience of around 1,000.

I’ve posted my take on each candidates below, in the order they appeared on Friday night. I added some thoughts at the end about former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, the only declared GOP candidate to skip the event (and all other Iowa “cattle calls” this year).

Gerald Ott of Ankeny was a high school English teacher and for 30 years a school improvement consultant for the Iowa State Education Association.

Before critical race theory (CRT) was named and studied in universities and used to frame legal arguments (and fell into disrepute among Republicans), I learned enough to qualify me as WOKE, at least on a scale with Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds—a low bar, I admit. 

It’s a bold claim, one based mainly on the fortuitous experiences of my youth, all before Iowa’s governor was born. 

As we know, Reynolds was born and reared in Iowa. She graduated from I-35 High School in 1977, and entered a typical middle-class life of occasional college classes, marriage, children, parenthood, jobs, and local politics beginning in the Clarke County treasurer’s office during the 1990s. She was elected to the Iowa Senate in 2008.

“Strong Island Hawk” is an Iowa Democrat and political researcher based in Des Moines. Prior to moving to Iowa, he lived in Washington, DC where he worked for one of the nation’s top public interest groups. In Iowa, he has worked and volunteered on U.S. Representative Cindy Axne’s 2018 campaign and Senator Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 caucus team. 

During the tenure of arguably the most corrupt president in our nation’s history, U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley, an avowed champion of oversight and “patron saint of whistleblowers” was curiously quiet and not particularly busy. He showed little interest in literally dozens of Trump administration scandals for which there was plenty of evidence.

But in his eighth term, at the age of 89, Senator Grassley has fashioned himself as not just an oversight advocate but an ethics crusader. His target? President Joe Biden. 

It’s somewhat embarrassing that Grassley, an old-school pol from a moderate state, is engaging in this type of raw politics. It’s also embarrassing that the oldest and most experienced Republican in all of Congress is acting as foolishly as hotheaded neophytes Marjorie Taylor Greene or Lauren Boebert.

Diane Rosenberg is executive director of Jefferson County Farmers & Neighbors, where this commentary first appeared.

Rules and regulations need to be clear, orderly, and in one place so they can be completely understood and followed. This is especially true of those focused on concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) as they impact the public health of 3.19 million Iowans and water quality of 70,297 miles of rivers and streams.

However, Chapter 65, the Iowa administrative code that regulates CAFOs, is becoming weaker, confusing, and more difficult to use under the dictates of Governor Kim Reynolds’ Executive Order Number Ten. Rather than have all pertinent information in one place, the executive order will fragment Chapter 65’s essential information and scatter it in several locations online and in offices around the state.

Executive Order Ten, dubbed “The Red Tape Review”, directs all agencies to reduce the number of words throughout the state’s entire code, eliminating language deemed unnecessary, redundant, or even too restrictive. Users will now have to search for specific Iowa statutes to completely understand and comply with CAFO rules and regulations. In the case of Chapter 65, some of the missing information will now be housed on the DNR’s website or obtained from a field office. Both environmental organizations and industry groups oppose this change.

The order requires agencies to develop a cost-benefit analysis for all the rules and regulations. We have serious concerns about how the CAFO industry’s financial interests may dominate public health and the environmental protections. The order also stipulates no new rules can be made more stringent than what is already in the code. Most CAFO regulations are anything but stringent and should be strengthened.

Cato is an attorney who spent most of his career fighting for civil liberties and other public policy matters in Iowa. He is a lifelong Iowan. His legal interests include constitutional law (separation of powers), federalism, legislative procedures and public policy, and the laws of war. Editor’s note: Bleeding Heartland allows guest authors to publish under pseudonyms at Laura Belin’s discretion.

INTRODUCTION

The Iowa General Assembly changed some practices in light of the Iowa Supreme Court’s ruling in LS Power Midcontinent v. Iowa, which struck down the Right of First Refusal (ROFR) portion of the 2020 Budget Omnibus Bill (House File 2643) as violating Article III, Section 29 of the Iowa Constitution. Justice Thomas Waterman wrote the decision, joined by Chief Justice Susan Christensen and Justices Edward Mansfield and Christopher McDonald. Justices Dana Oxley, Matthew McDermott, and David May recused from the case.

In the weeks following the court ruling, Republicans in both the state House and Senate refused to answer questions during floor debate regarding ambiguities in legislation and other questions relating to how certain language will play out in the real world lives of Iowans. Iowa media covered those developments in April:

• Todd Dorman, Cedar Rapids Gazette, Iowa Senate GOP has no answers
• Zach Sommers, We Are Iowa, Iowa Republicans refuse to answer questions during debate, citing recent Iowa Supreme Court Case
• Stephen Gruber-Miller, Des Moines Register, Iowa Senate Republicans’ new strategy is to stop answering questions during bill debate
• Laura Belin, Bleeding Heartland, Republicans shatter another Iowa Senate norm
• Erin Murphy, Cedar Rapids Gazette,  Iowa Republicans self-censor debate, citing Supreme Court ruling

Senate and House Republicans seem to have stopped answering questions because the Iowa Supreme Court’s LS Power ruling extensively quoted comments Senator Michael Breitbach made while floor managing HF 2643. They apparently believe the Court used these floor comments as justification for striking down the ROFR provision at issue in that case. 

Attorneys for the state and for intervenors filed applications on April 7, asking the Court to reconsider its conclusions and holdings in the ruling. LS Power filed its response on April 19. The Supreme Court denied the request for a rehearing on April 26 without much explanation. An amended opinion released on May 30 corrected some (but not all) factual inaccuracies in the initial ruling. 

The General Assembly adjourned its legislative session on May 4 without any action in response to the court denying the requests for a rehearing. Only time will tell how this constitutional impasse between the legislative and judicial branches gets resolved. Paths available to both branches could restore the balance of power without escalating the dispute. 

Regardless of how long it takes or how the dispute gets resolved, Iowans must never forget that your constitution exists for the sole purpose of protecting and guaranteeing your individual rights and liberties as free and independent People. Iowa Const. Art. 1, Sec. 2 (“All political power is inherent in the people. Government is instituted for the protection, security, and benefit of the people, and they have the right, at all times, to alter or reform the same, whenever the public good may require it.”). 

This article hopes to explain why the Iowa Supreme Court and Republicans in the Iowa House and Senate are both guilty of violating the Iowa Constitution, while also seeking to provide a framework to resolve the impasse between the legislative and judicial branches. Similarly, this article hopes to persuade a future litigant to nudge the court in the right direction in a future case, and to persuade the people to nudge the General Assembly in the right direction consistent with this constitutional framework. 

To that end, here is the analysis of Article III, Section 29 of the Iowa Constitution from the perspective of the Iowa People. 

Anne Schechinger is Senior Analyst of Economics for the Environmental Working Group. This report first appeared on the EWG’s website. 

Overview

• Crop insurance companies and agents received almost $33.3 billion from taxpayers and farmers over the last 10 years. 
• Ten of these companies are owned by publicly traded corporations with enormous net worths and massive executive salaries.
• Lowering program delivery payments to companies and agents and other subsidies could save over $1 billion a year, while maintaining a safety net for farmers.

The federal Crop Insurance Program is known for paying billions of dollars every year to farmers when they experience reductions in crop yield or revenue. But the Department of Agriculture program also sends billions of dollars annually – much of it taxpayer-funded – to a small number of crop insurance companies that service the policies. Many of these companies are owned by extremely wealthy, publicly traded global corporations. The program also gives billions of dollars annually to crop insurance agents – a cost that has soared in recent years.

Scott Syroka is a former Johnston city council member.

Democrats have a major opportunity to increase their appeal in rural America, thanks to the policy framework crafted by President Biden, which he laid out in his June 28 address on Bidenomics in Chicago, Illinois.

While Democrats have successfully embraced Bidenomics to pass legislation like the American Rescue Plan, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, CHIPS Act, Inflation Reduction Act, and beyond, they haven’t done enough to champion Bidenomics through a rural-specific lens.

By using this framework to present a vision for an inclusive rural economy, rather than the trickle-down status quo of exploitation, Democrats can draw a clear contrast with their Republican opponents.

If they choose to seize this opportunity, Democrats can begin to stop the electoral bloodbath in rural areas, shrink the margins, and maybe even start to win again.

The forgotten history of America’s family farm movement and its fight for parity shows us how.

Abortion became legal again in Iowa on July 17, after a Polk County District Court blocked the state from enforcing a near-total ban Governor Kim Reynolds had signed into law three days earlier.

Reynolds immediately vowed to “fight this all the way to the Iowa Supreme Court where we expect a decision that will finally provide justice for the unborn.”

It was the latest example of Reynolds striking a defiant tone toward the jurists who will eventually decide whether the Iowa Constitution allows the government to make abortion almost impossible to obtain.

Sam Stockard and Anita Wadhwani report for the Tennessee Lookout, which is is part of the States Newsroom network. This article first appeared at Iowa Capital Dispatch.

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird is among a coalition warning the nation’s largest companies—many of which have diversity and equity programs—they could face legal action for using race-based policies.

A July 13 letter from Bird and twelve other attorneys general put Fortune 100 companies on notice they could be hit with legal action for violating the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, which put an end to using race as a basis for admitting students to college. The attorneys general are targeting hiring and contracting too.

July seems early for Iowa caucus dirty tricks, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

As most polls show former President Donald Trump with a comfortable lead among Republicans in Iowa and nationwide, a mailing sent to some Iowa households this weekend purports to thank Trump “for standing up for LGBTQ+ rights!”

An Iowa reader provided the following images.

Randy Richardson is a former educator and retired associate executive director of the Iowa State Education Association.

Governor Kim Reynolds and the Republican-controlled legislature agreed to a budget that allocated $107 million in fiscal year 2024 to pay for private school vouchers for an estimated 14,068 students. But the number of Iowans who applied for “education savings accounts” vastly exceeded that number: 29,025 applications by the June 30 deadline.

The good folks at the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency, who usually do an excellent job of forecasting costs, calculated the original estimate. However, when the actual number is more than double your forecast, something is off somewhere.

In a textbook case of “too little, too late,” the Iowa Board of Medicine appeared to move on July 3 to stop a physician who was recently charged with sexual abuse of a child.

The board did not disclose the name of the physician at the center of “an agreement not to practice,” approved by unanimous vote after an hour-long, closed-session discussion. But the meeting was widely believed to pertain to Dr. Lynn Lindaman.

The Department of Public Safety announced Lindaman’s arrest on June 28. Charging documents accuse him of touching the “privates” of a child born in 2015, first over the child’s clothing and the next day through “skin to skin contact.”

Late last week, the Board of Medicine revealed plans to discuss an agreement with an unnamed physician at a virtual meeting set for 5:30 pm on July 3. The pre-holiday dump is a well-known government tactic for keeping bad or embarrassing news from reaching a wide audience.

It’s not the first time Lindaman has been charged with this kind of crime. A jury determined in 1976 that he had committed “lascivious acts” with a 13-year-old child. Sherri Moler, the victim in that case, had “pleaded and begged” many times for the Iowa Board of Medicine to stop Lindaman and other abusers from practicing. Board members didn’t listen. Neither Governor Kim Reynolds nor the Republican-controlled legislature demanded action.

Governor Kim Reynolds has appointed Emily Wharton to remain in charge at the Iowa Department for the Blind, effective July 1. Wharton has worked for the agency since 2013 and has served as its director since 2016.

NEW POWER FOR THE GOVERNOR

For generations, the Iowa Commission for the Blind (a three-member body appointed by the governor) had the authority to hire and fire the agency director. But Reynolds’ plan to restructure state government, which Republican lawmakers approved in March, gave that power to the governor.

The change was consistent with language giving Reynolds direct control over several other agency leaders not already serving “at the pleasure of the governor.” But that idea didn’t come from the outside consultant’s report on realigning Iowa government, commissioned by the Reynolds administration at a cost of $994,000. Blind Iowans turned out in large numbeers for state House and Senate subcommittee hearings on the bill and uniformly spoke against the proposal.

UPDATE: The bill text was published on the legislature’s website on July 7. It closely matches the 2018 law, which would ban most abortions after fetal cardiac activity can be detected. Original post follows.

Governor Kim Reynolds has called a special session of the Iowa legislature for July 11, “with the sole purpose of enacting” new abortion restrictions. The move suggests Republicans will approve something comparable to the 2018 law that would ban almost all abortions after about six weeks, with very limited exceptions, rather than a total ban preferred by some GOP lawmakers.

The Iowa Senate approved the 2018 abortion ban along party lines. Of the six Iowa House Republicans who voted against that legislation, only one (State Representative Jane Bloomingdale) still serves in the legislature. Most of the 64 current House Republicans had not yet been elected to the body during the 2018 session. However, I expect nearly all of them will support a six-week ban, as will their Senate GOP colleagues.

The state of Iowa’s chronic lateness in producing financial reports threatened to disrupt the flow of federal funds to Iowa’s universities this year, documents obtained by Bleeding Heartland show.

For the third year in a row, the state will be more than six months late to publish its Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR), which the Iowa Department of Administrative Services compiles. As of June 26, only six states had not published their comprehensive financial reports for fiscal year 2022 (see appendix 2 below).

The delay has pushed back the publication of Iowa’s statewide Single Audit, a mandatory annual report for non-federal entities that spend a certain amount of federal dollars.

To address concerns raised by the U.S. Department of Education, state auditors worked out an arrangement to produce individual FY2022 Single Audit reports for Iowa’s three state universities by the end of June. The State Auditor’s office released the first of those reports, covering the University of Iowa, on June 27.

Going forward, state auditors will prepare separate Single Audit reports for each Iowa university by March 31, the federal deadline for providing such documentation.

A notice posted in January on the EMMA website, the leading source for data and documents related to municipal bonds, did not clarify why Iowa’s ACFR would be late again. Tami Wiencek, public information officer for the Department of Administrative Services, has not replied to inquiries about the reason for the extended delay. Records indicate that staff turnover at the agency has derailed what was for many years a smooth process.

Iowans who handle public records requests for government bodies gained more protection from possible retaliation on June 23, when the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that former Iowa Department of Public Health communications director Polly Carver-Kimm can proceed with both of her wrongful termination claims against the state.

Four justices affirmed a Polk County District Court decision, which allowed Carver-Kimm to allege under Iowa’s whistleblower statute that she was wrongly forced to resign in July 2020, and that Iowa’s open records law protected her activities when fulfilling records requests for the public health agency.

The Iowa Supreme Court did reverse one part of the lower court’s ruling. All seven justices determined that Governor Kim Reynolds and her former spokesperson Pat Garrett should be dismissed as individual defendants, because they lacked the “power to authorize or compel” Carver-Kimm’s termination.

But the impact of the majority decision in Carver-Kimm v. Reynolds extends far beyond the named defendants in one lawsuit.

Iowa’s Republican leaders have few checks remaining on their power. But one law approved during the 2023 legislative session appears unlikely ever to go into effect.

Federal judges in four states have blocked the government from enforcing bans on gender-affirming care for minors.

U.S. District Court Judge James Moody issued the most comprehensive ruling on the matter on June 20, when he permanently enjoined an Arkansas law enacted in 2021. Moody found the law violated the Fourteenth and First Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. Three other judges, including two appointed by President Donald Trump, have issued preliminary injunctions on similar laws in Indiana, Alabama, and Florida while litigation proceeds.

Although Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders has said she will appeal the ruling in Brandt v Rutledge, Judge Moody’s extensive findings of fact could influence the outcome on the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, where a challenge to Iowa’s ban on gender-affirming care may eventually be heard.

Chuck Holden was born and raised in Iowa and is a history professor at St. Mary’s College of Maryland.

As readers of Bleeding Heartland know all too well, there are no signs that the hard-right GOP governing the state will stop its drastic reshaping of law and culture. Iowa, it appears, is competing with states like Texas and Florida for the title of most reactionary. But due to their size and much more diverse populations, Texas and Florida do not serve as good comparisons for a state like Iowa. Rather, Ireland in the mid-1900s, nearly all white and all conservative Christian, does.

The vision of Iowa that the state’s Republican leadership seems to have in mind is remarkably similar to that of the long-time Irish leader Éamon de Valera’s from the 1930s through the 1980s: lands of sturdy farms and humble, god-fearing families where “traditional” is worn as a badge of pride. But underneath the wholesome image one finds punitive regimes ever-alert to threats real or imagined of an encroaching modern world.

Jay Waagmeester is an intern at Iowa Capital Dispatch, where this article first appeared.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa says city ordinances that restrict performances by “male or female impersonators” are unconstitutional.

The ACLU of Iowa is encouraging multiple cities in the state to change zoning ordinances restricting such shows—including drag performances—at businesses. Some cities have taken action, while others remain in violation of the Constitution, according to the ACLU.

Laws in several Iowa cities require businesses featuring “male or female impersonators” to be zoned as an adult entertainment or an adult cabaret business. 

Three cities in Iowa—Dyersville, Pella, and Waukee—have received notice from the ACLU advising them to alter their municipal ordinances so they avoid placing zoning restriction on businesses that feature female and male impersonators. 

The most closely watched Iowa Supreme Court case of 2023 ended in a stalemate on June 16. Nearly a year to the day after the court’s majority severely undermined reproductive rights by reversing a 2018 precedent, the justices split 3-3 on Governor Kim Reynolds’ effort to lift an injunction on a 2018 law that would ban an estimated 98 percent of abortions.

The split decision in what will be known as Planned Parenthood of the Heartland v Reynolds V affirmed last year’s Polk County District Court ruling “by operation of law.” In other words, the 2018 abortion ban will be permanently enjoined. For the foreseeable future, abortion will remain legal up to 20 weeks in Iowa—in contrast to many other Republican-controlled states.

But top Iowa Republicans have vowed to enact new abortion restrictions, which will prompt new litigation. Although the opinions published on June 16 have no force of law, they provide many clues about how the Iowa Supreme Court may approach its next major abortion case.

Top Iowa Republicans reacted quickly on June 16 after the Iowa Supreme Court’s split decision kept abortion legal in Iowa up to 20 weeks.

In a joint news release, Governor Kim Reynolds, Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver, and House Speaker Pat Grassley promised to work together on what they called “pro-life policies to protect the unborn.” But they did not indicate whether a new law might differ from the near-total abortion ban passed in 2018, which remains permanently enjoined after the Supreme Court deadlock.

The statements also did not clarify whether Republicans plan to convene a special legislative session before lawmakers are scheduled to return to Des Moines next January. Communications staff working for the governor and House and Senate leaders did not respond to Bleeding Heartland’s questions.

Any new abortion ban would be challenged immediately, and two years might pass before the Iowa Supreme Court rules on whether that law violates the state constitution. So anti-abortion advocates will want the legislature and governor to start the process sooner rather than later.

But even with the large House and Senate majorities Iowa Republicans now enjoy, it may not be easy to draft a bill that can get through both chambers.

Governor Kim Reynolds got just about everything she wanted from the Iowa legislature during the 2023 session. But she signaled this week that she isn’t ready to let bygones be bygones when it comes to Republicans who have stood in her way.

The governor’s office announced three District Court judicial appointments on June 16, including Michael Carpenter for District 8A, covering ten counties in southeast Iowa. The other person nominated for that judgeship was former State Representative Dustin Hite.