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.

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.

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.

The weekend could hardly have gone better for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Although he has not formally launched his presidential campaign, he landed more Iowa legislative endorsements than any other GOP candidate has had in decades. He drew large crowds in Sioux Center at a fundraiser for U.S. Representative Randy Feenstra and in Cedar Rapids at an event for the Republican Party of Iowa.

Finally, DeSantis made an unscheduled stop in Des Moines, where former President Donald Trump—who had hoped to upstage his leading Republican rival—canceled a rally earlier in the day.

Job number one for DeSantis was to turn the GOP race for the presidency into a two-person contest. At an elite level, he has already accomplished that task, more than six months before the Iowa caucuses.

The Iowa House and Senate finished work this week on several priority bills for Republicans, and leaders are closer to agreement on the next state budget.

The accelerating pace raises the prospect that the Iowa legislature may adjourn for the year close to the session’s scheduled end date of April 28. Stalemates over policies related to education and COVID-19 vaccines pushed the last two legislative sessions well into overtime; the 2021 session ended on May 19, and last year’s work wrapped up on May 24.

This piece highlights where things stand with high-profile bills approved in either the House or Senate this week, and other legislation that will likely be part of late deal-making. Forthcoming Bleeding Heartland posts will focus on many of those bills separately.

Scott Syroka is a former Johnston city council member.

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

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