Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes openness and transparency in Iowa’s state and local governments. He can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. This essay first appeared on his Substack newsletter, Stray Thoughts. 

Succession planning and public celebration typically accompany executive retirements. They provide for an orderly leadership transition and public acknowledgment of a job well done.

So, two simple questions arise whenever top government employees leave their jobs in hastily announced retirements — and receive more than the customary coffee-and-cookies going-away reception in return for signing customized contracts containing waivers, releases, and promises not to criticize.

What exactly are we paying for? And why?

Larry McBurney is a Democratic member of the Iowa House representing part of Urbandale.

For years, Iowa Republicans have argued that lower taxes will attract people, businesses, and investment to the state. Governor Kim Reynolds made that case in 2022 while promoting her income tax plan, telling people elsewhere, “Come, move to Iowa.”

The results have been less dramatic than the sales pitch. Iowa’s population grew 1.5 percent from 2020 to 2025, compared with 3.1 percent population growth nationally. More notably, Iowa experienced net domestic outmigration during that period: 10,148 more people moved from Iowa to another state than moved here from another state.

At the same time, Iowa is spending more than it takes in through recurring revenue. For fiscal year 2027 (which began on July 1), the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency projects about $8.4 billion in adjusted revenue and $9.645 billion in appropriations, with the difference covered in part by accumulated balances and a $617.8 million transfer from the Taxpayer Relief Fund.

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. He can be reached at BruceLear2419@gmail.com 

Growing up, organized sports consisted of little league, or high school baseball in the spring and summer. Fall and winter meant basketball, since our school was too tiny for football. No adult had yet figured out NBA, and MLB dreams were a sure money maker—so there were no sports academies or traveling leagues.

But we did have the town basketball court. It was a kid sanctuary where kid law prevailed. No adult supervision, no minimum or maximum age, and both genders were welcome. 

The rules were simple and strictly enforced. If you cried, you left. We called our own fouls loosely. If you overshot, and the ball went into the crick, you retrieved it. There were arguments, and fights, but there was urgency to end conflict, because finishing the game was more important than the fight.

Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes openness and transparency in Iowa’s state and local governments. He can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. This essay first appeared on his Substack newsletter, Stray Thoughts. 

In recent weeks, people from Cherokee, Des Moines, and Ottumwa have contacted the Iowa Freedom of Information Council with concerns about the refusal of local officials to share documents distributed to city council and school board members before they meet.

Typically, Iowa government boards and councils send their members document packets before each meeting so they have important background facts to help them make informed decisions. The materials often include staff reports on agenda topics, financial statements and analyses, proposed contracts, correspondence and recommended agreements.

The board packets promote informed governance. Members have time to read and digest relevant materials, study the facts, and prepare any questions in the days leading up to the public meeting.

Citizens deserve no less of an opportunity.

Ed Tibbetts, a longtime reporter and editor in the Quad-Cities, is the publisher of the Along the Mississippi newsletter, where this post first appeared. Find more of his work at edtibbetts.substack.com.

Suddenly, Ashley Hinson is trying to convince us she’s OK with Democrats; that she’s working with them to lower costs.

This is quite a change for Iowa’s wannabe senator. A year ago, she accused Democrats of trying to create a “crazy liberal dystopia.”

She said “radical left lunacy” had ruined states run by Democrats.

She accused Democrats of trying to push the U.S. “past the brink,” and she pledged her unending loyalty to Donald Trump, who regularly calls members of the Democratic Party “radical left dumocrats.”

“I will not let you down,” Hinson adoringly promised the president last year.

But now Hinson is trying to tell us she’s not so much MAGA as moderate; that she’s “working with people in both parties” to lower costs.

Tony Thompson, Ken Runde, and Kevin W. Techau jointly wrote this column. Thompson served as Black Hawk County sheriff and is a veteran of the U.S. Army and Iowa Army National Guard.

Runde served as Dubuque County sheriff and U.S. Marshal for the Northern District of Iowa. He is a Marine Corps veteran.

Techau served as Iowa’s Commissioner of Public Safety and U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa. He is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force and Iowa Air National Guard.

Attorney General Brenna Bird recently traveled with the Quad City Back the Blue Flight to Washington, D.C., where participants visited the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial. Bird rightly noted that law enforcement officers put their lives on the line for us every day and deserve our gratitude. U.S. Representatives Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-01), Ashley Hinson (IA-02), and Zach Nunn (IA-03) have also declared their unwavering devotion to law enforcement, citing “Back the Blue” as a core pillar of their public service and campaign platforms.

We wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment. Consider the case of Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick, whose name is inscribed on that very National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial.

Rick Morain is the former publisher and owner of the Jefferson Herald, for which he writes a regular column. This essay first appeared on Substack.

Last week the United States and its people soberly remembered the stunning terrorist attacks that weaponized jetliners to kill thousands of people in the American homeland on September 11, 2001. Their deaths constitute the most tragic effect of the episode, and they continue as open wounds for family and friends of the victims.

The attacks also generated a number of other consequences for U.S. leaders at the time and in the following months and years, as well as for U.S. government agencies and their practices, American attitudes, and our relations with other nations. It’s hard to overestimate the importance of the 9/11 effects, many of which continue to drive our thinking and actions yet today.

Nick Covington is an Iowa parent who taught high school social studies for ten years.

The culture war battles we fight over our public schools are fundamentally disagreements about American values: what does it mean to be an American, and in whose image do we build our public schools?

“When Americans start fighting over their schools, you can be fairly sure of one thing: it probably isn’t really about school.”

— Jennifer Berkshire & Jack Schneider,

The Education Wars: A Citizen’s Guide and Defense Manual

From working as Assistant Secretary of Education in the George H.W. Bush administration to laying the foundation of the modern conservative education reform movement, Diane Ravitch—a one-time champion of No Child Left Behind—spent most of her life as a Republican with conservative values. The story of her life, as told in her 2025 memoir, is the story of the American Century. As today’s culture war on “wokeness” and “leftist indoctrination” targets diversity, equity, and inclusion in schools, Ravitch’s memoir makes a powerful case study for teaching these core American values.

Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes openness and transparency in Iowa’s state and local governments. He can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. This essay first appeared on his Substack newsletter, Stray Thoughts. 

You would think a school district readily knows its A-B-C’s.

Not the Des Moines Public Schools — at least not when informing the public what its 6,600 employees were paid during the academic year that ended June 30.

Yes, grade school teachers still call roll in alphabetical order. And next spring’s high school graduates will walk across the stage as their names are announced, starting with the A’s and moving through to the Z’s.

But when publishing a list of its employees in July and how much taxpayers paid each one, the Des Moines Public Schools’ alphabet started with Tiara S. Ziegler. Next was Pia Marcell Stites, and the list continued in an anything-but-organized manner.

Jay Brown is a retired physician in Ames.

The enemy of authoritarianism is community. Our country needs more community. Now there’s a simple way to resurrect childhood friendships in the battle against President Donald Trump and his efforts to ruin our beloved country.   

Hallways.vote is a free website that uses public voter and public donation data crossed with high school yearbooks. The result allows the user to effortlessly find former classmates who share their convictions.

Dave Miglin serves as treasurer on the Broadlawns Board of Trustees.

Polk County voters have an important choice to make for Broadlawns Medical Center, our county’s public hospital and one of the region’s most essential community institutions. At a time when health care is changing quickly and public hospitals face increasing pressure, Broadlawns needs steady, experienced, community-minded leadership. That is why voters should vote to return Emily Webb and Emily Westergaard to the Broadlawns Board of Trustees (labeled on the ballot as “County Hospital Trustee”).

Hospital trustees do not make headlines every day, and that is exactly why their work matters so much. They are responsible for asking hard questions, protecting the hospital’s mission, supporting safe and high-quality care, and ensuring that decisions are made with the long-term health of the community in mind. The best trustees bring judgment, preparation, independence, and a deep respect for the people who rely on the hospital in moments of vulnerability.

Julia Rendon is a retired minister in the United Church of Christ. As a member of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, she has shamed businesses into paying their workers back wages, shone a light on predatory lending practices, and pressured the governor to reinstate the summer food program for kids. As a Christian, she believes that every person matters and everybody should have a voice in our life together, which is why she is working for free and fair elections in November. 

As we head into the November election, we can’t take our strong history of free and democratic elections for granted. Not even here in Iowa. 

Take Joey Norris for example. 

Joey volunteered in the 2024 election counting absentee ballots in Montgomery County, a job he took seriously. So, he was surprised to get kicked out of the counting room after voicing concerns over how ballots were being counted. Among other problems, multiple ballots were initially improperly rejected. Joey correctly pointed out they should be counted. He walked away without incident. 

Fast forward to this July. A year and a half after the fact, Joey faces a felony charge for first degree election misconduct. After posting bail, he is awaiting his trial scheduled for October. 

Chip Albright is a lifelong Midwesterner with rural Kansas roots and urban Iowa branches, an independent singer-songwriter, storyteller, and strategist seeking beauty and truth in this wild & wonderful world. Visit chipalbrightmusic.com for music and more.

Since I wrote “If It’s Turek, That’s Terrific!” earlier this year, I have witnessed Josh Turek up close and personal on many occasions. The more I see and hear him in action, the more I believe he is the resilient leader and pragmatic policymaker we so desperately need representing the people of Iowa in Washington, D.C.

My first personal interaction with Josh Turek was when an unknown number with a “712” area code rang my phone back in April. It didn’t say “potential spam,” so I went ahead and answered it. Josh was on the line— he heard the song I wrote about his candidacy and wanted to personally thank me for my efforts and support. He was in the midst of a heated race with Zach Wahls for the Democratic nomination but he made time for me — a single constituent with a simple folk song. We chatted for a spell; the whole experience was quite genuine.

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. He can be reached at BruceLear2419@gmail.com 

It’s 36 counties covering 21,546 square miles across northern and western Iowa. It’s the state’s largest Congressional district, but often overlooked, neglected, and forgotten by politicians and pundits.

Iowa’s fourth district is treated as fly-over country—except by the 801,546 people who call it home. I’m one of those people, and I vote.

Why is this huge area ignored?

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.

A visitor to Iowa’s two largest university campuses might see the expanded football stadiums complete with private luxury suites whose games attract billion-dollar television contracts, gleaming indoor practice facilities and athlete residences, dining halls and training centers that would rival a fine resort. And they might well wonder why anyone would think Congress needs to pass a “Protect College Sports Act.”

It turns out that college sports needs to be saved from itself. The culprit is that old bogey; money.

Why some want Congress involved with college sports

The 69 universities in the so-called “power conferences” that call themselves “big time” apparently don’t have a clue about how to govern themselves, despite their location on campuses that hold what are supposedly our best minds. Where private, for profit professional sports have endured their various crises with strongmen commissioners, college sports long has long been run by parochial, oligarchical interests that have resisted central control.

Former Des Moines Register assistant sports editor Ira Lacher writes about the games and business of sports for various newspapers and magazines.

“Are you not entertained? Are you not entertained? Is this not why you are here?” 

The quote is from the 2000 film Gladiator, which followed a deposed Roman nobleman’s quest to avenge the executions of his wife and children. But it could easily be applied to the modern gladiator sport: American football, which brought in about $14.5 billion in revenue in 2025.

According to recent polling, Americans consider football our most popular sport by almost a 2-to-1 margin over baseball. Regular-season NFL games averaged 18.7 million viewers in 2025. By contrast, the top non-NFL telecast last year, a typical episode of the CBS series Tracker, averaged a mere 11 million.

Those who have examined the sport academically understand that unlike gladiator contests, football is hardly a death dealer: Only one NFL player, Chuck Hughes, of the Detroit Lions, died during a game, in 1971.

But players get hurt. Seriously hurt. 

Charles Bruner is a former Democratic Iowa legislator (1978-1990), was the founding director of Iowa Child and Family Policy Center (1990-2015, now Common Good Iowa), and is national director of the InCK Marks Initiative’s Child Health Equity Leadership Group.

I am pretty certain all of this year’s Iowa Democratic candidates for the U.S. House and Senate would have voted for the Affordable Care Act in 2010, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, and the Build Back Better Infrastructure Act of 2021. I am pretty certain they all would have voted against the Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017 and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025.

I am also sure all Republicans running for Congress in Iowa this year would have done the exact opposite. (Representatives Ashley Hinson, Marianette Miller-Meeks, and Zach Nunn did vote that way on the bills that coincided with their tenure in Congress.)

I am sure of it because all of those votes were on strict party lines. The Tax Cut and Jobs Act and One Big Beautiful Bill Act did not even seek any bipartisan support, as Republicans approved them through the budget reconciliation process.

Rachel Bruns is a maternal health advocate in Iowa.

Earlier this year, I wrote a three-part series for the Des Moines Business Record’s Fearless publication titled “From Personal Experience to Policy Change: Fighting for Improvements in Maternal Health Care in Iowa.” 

With that series, I was excited to highlight, in part 1, promising practices at hospitals across the country that were making positive improvements in maternal health care – improving both patient satisfaction and outcomes. In part 2, I highlighted ongoing policy issues impacting maternal health, and in part 3, I examined the consequences of mistrust in medicine.

While I have had to step back from my engagement on maternal health advocacy, I am still paying attention, and there is a lot to pay attention to.

David Elbert is a former business editor and columnist for the Des Moines Register. He now writes about local history for DSM Magazine. 

The national debt recently passed the $40 trillion mark, which means your share is about $117,000, or roughly half the cost of a typical Iowa home.

The national debt nearly doubled in the past decade, which is more than twice the rate of inflation during those ten years.

The New York Times published an interesting chart recently that tracked the national debt as a percentage of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is a calculation of all goods and services produced annually.

Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes openness and transparency in Iowa’s state and local governments. He can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. This essay first appeared on his Substack newsletter, Stray Thoughts. 

Novelist Charles Dickens poked his quill pen at government bureaucracy 175 years ago with his accounts about a fictionalized department he called the “Circumlocution Office.” 

“Circumlocution” often is used with disdain to describe writing or speaking that is intentionally vague, evasive, or overly wordy.

Sadly, the personnel departments in state and local governments in Iowa these days have become Circumlocution Offices of their own when officials describe why a highly paid public employee was fired.

The recent termination of a Polk County administrator illustrates the problem.

Herb Strentz was dean of the Drake School of Journalism from 1975 to 1988 and professor there until retirement in 2004. He was executive secretary of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council from its founding in 1976 to 2000.

To help get a grip on the turmoil of the day, please repeat after me:

“At long last, sir,” [At long last, sir]
“Have you left no sense of decency?” [Have you left no sense of decency?]

As many readers know, that was the question Joseph Welch asked of Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin at a Senate hearing on June 9, 1954.

His pointed question was overdue. It was Welch—an Iowan born in Primghar, and a graduate of Grinnell College—who finally held a U.S. senator accountable for fomenting fear of Communism into a time of national divisiveness and hatred. McCarthyism fed on the lies and innuendo heaped upon those McCarthy and his supporters deemed un-American.

Jennifer Breon is a Senior Iowa Organizer with Food & Water Action, the political and lobbying sibling organization of the national environmental group Food & Water Watch. She is based in Iowa City.

Matt Hildreth is the Executive Director of Rural Organizing, a national organization working to rebuild a rural America that’s empowered, thriving, and equitable. Originally from eastern South Dakota, Matt is based in rural Washington State.

Industrial agriculture’s public health crisis is on full display in Iowa. 

As residents of the state with the nation’s fastest-rising cancer rates, the most factory farms and highest waterway toxic nitrate concentrations, Iowans are desperate for change. If Iowa Democrats want to regain power this fall, they need to prove to voters that they are serious about solutions.

If they can get it right, new polling from Rural Organizing outlines the opportunity this issue offers Democratic candidates: Iowans are so fed up with high and rising cancer rates that fully 11 percent of Trump’s rural Iowa voters would consider voting for a different party over this issue. Indeed, recent Food & Water Action polling found that few issues are as concerning to Iowa voters as cancer rates and clean water.

Politics is so often a game played in the margins, with opportunities for flipping voters between parties few and far between. Democrats would be wise to seize this rare opening.

When U.S. Representative Ashley Hinson was gearing up to run for Senate last year, her primary objectives appeared to be pleasing the “audience of one” in the White House and clearing the Republican field. Within days of her campaign launch, she had locked down support from President Donald Trump and most of the GOP establishment.

That should have been enough in a state where Democrats haven’t won a U.S. Senate race since 2008, and Republicans enjoy a large voter registration advantage.

Things haven’t gone according to plan.

Whether you consider Iowa’s U.S. Senate race a toss-up (like the Cook Political Report, the Silver Bulletin, and Fox News), tilting Republican (Inside Elections) or still leaning in Hinson’s direction (Sabato’s Crystal Ball), one fact is undeniable: Hinson and her allies are trying to change the dynamic of the campaign.

Their twofold strategy is to tear down the Democratic nominee, State Representative Josh Turek, while shoring up Hinson’s support with conservatives. And they have good reasons to worry.

Deborah Thompson is the Owner of DHT Consulting & Training, LLC and a long-time public health advocate. She is president-elect of the Iowa Public Health Association but is offering her personal opinions here, not speaking on behalf of the association.

Every political season brings a new health priority, slogan, or bill promising to improve the well-being of Iowans. This year, Iowa joined the national “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement with the passage of House File 2676. 

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. joined Governor Kim Reynolds at the May 20 bill signing. The law reflects growing public concern about nutrition, food ingredients, physical activity, and chronic disease. Our candidates for governor and Congress are talking about health, too. Enough to bring RFK back to our humble state this past week to campaign for MAHA candidate Zach Lahn, the GOP nominee for governor.

The attention is welcome, but if Iowa is truly committed to becoming healthier, a more important question remains: What happens after the headlines fade?

Ed Tibbetts, a longtime reporter and editor in the Quad-Cities, is the publisher of the Along the Mississippi newsletter, where this post first appeared. Find more of his work at edtibbetts.substack.com.

Three weeks ago, I wrote that Iowa’s future might look like Missouri’s.

Let’s hope this is the case. At least in one respect: this month, Missouri voters overwhelmingly rejected a plan to eliminate state income taxes and authorize higher sales taxes to replace the lost revenues.

Voters in Missouri clearly disliked the idea. Roughly 83 percent (yes, 83 percent!) rejected the plan, which had been supported by the state’s Republican leadership and well-heeled donors, who spent millions of dollars to try to pass the scheme. The opposition was so broad, the measure lost in every county.

As I noted last month, the Missouri plan, called Amendment 5, has many similarities to the effort now being supported by Republicans and the special interests in Iowa to pass a new constitutional amendment that would eventually lead to a higher sales tax here.

Chuck Isenhart is an investigative reporter, photographer, and recovering Iowa state legislator offering research, analysis, education, and public affairs advocacy at his Substack newsletter Iowa Public Policy Dude, where this essay first appeared.

The century started out with such promise. On July 1, 1999 (technically fiscal year 2000), Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack inaugurated the College of Public Health. The first new academic unit at the University of Iowa in 50 year recognized the growing impact of research being conducted there.

In years that followed Iowa passed the Smokefree Air Act and the Public Health Modernization Act. Major steps forward in infectious disease testing and surveillance were enabled when the State Hygienic Laboratory opened a state-of-the-art facility at the University of Iowa. Stakeholders were engaged to create the Healthy Iowans 2010 plan, setting state benchmarks to increase life expectancy, combat obesity and reduce deaths from chronic conditions like heart disease and cancer.

Today, public health in Iowa is frayed. Tattered threads are held together by a dedicated corps of health professionals who refuse to let the public down.

On her way out the door, Governor Kim Reynolds has put in motion a process that will sideline local public health agencies and eventually privatize public health in Iowa.

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. He can be reached at BruceLear2419@gmail.com 

I was a few weeks from college graduation, on my way to my first teaching job interview. I was driving a jacked-up, dented 1967 Ford. As I reached town, I started to coast feathering the gas pedal only when necessary. I didn’t want a bad muffler announcing my arrival. 

I was wearing a borrowed tie and a too tight sport coat courtesy of the dreaded freshman 15, still lingering after three years. Sweat trickled down my back as I stepped out.

The principal asked questions about classroom management, curriculum and where I saw myself in five years. The questions were challenging, but I thought I handled most of them.

Then came the hardest question.

Rick Morain is the former publisher and owner of the Jefferson Herald, for which he writes a regular column. This essay first appeared on Substack.

One fist of iron, the other of steel
If the right one don’t get you then the left one will
—from “Sixteen Tons” as sung by Tennessee Ernie Ford

——————————

That’s the challenge the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness faces today along the Minnesota-Ontario border. The pristine area, the largest U.S. designated wilderness region east of the Rocky Mountains and north of the Everglades, with two million acres of forest and lakes, is threatened on two fronts, one of them unavoidable and the other entirely manmade.

The unavoidable danger is the forest fires that are currently ravaging western Ontario and northern Minnesota, including wilderness within the Boundary Waters. More than 73,000 acres in the area have burned so far, and as of this past weekend, some of the blazes are still uncontrolled. Other fires continue to devastate many more forest acres in Ontario to the north and west of the Boundary Waters.

Lightning has sparked most of the fires, as hot, dry weather continues across the area. It’s nobody’s fault. We can’t yet control lightning.

But President Donald Trump doesn’t see it that way. He blames the nation of Canada for the thick, choking smoke that blanketed much of America’s Midwest and East.

Anna Pesek is the co-owner of Over the Moon Farm in Delaware County, Iowa. She raises farrow-to-finish hogs and pastured poultry which she sells directly to consumers across Iowa and the lower 48 states. She’s been involved in food systems advocacy for the past decade including with organizations like the Alliance for Fair Food, the National Family Farm Coalition, Farm Aid and more. Presently, Anna is a farmer-leader of the FACE Ag Network (Farmers for Animals Communities and the Environment), the first national network of pasture-based livestock farmers fighting for common sense policy solutions. Additionally, Anna serves on the board of directors of the Iowa Farmers Union. She holds an MBA from the University of Northern Iowa.

This column was first published at the Barn Raiser website.

Iowa is known for its agricultural production, often proudly boasting that it is home to more pigs than people. As a young and beginning independent Iowa farmer trying to make a living raising pigs and poultry on pasture, I am acutely aware of the scale and impact of Iowa’s corporate agriculture industry.

Policies that further entrench industrial agriculture matter so much to farmers like me. So it’s disappointing to see Republican Representative Ashley Hinson (IA-02) once again championing the Save Our Bacon Act, legislation she introduced in 2025.

While the bill was successfully included in the version of the farm bill passed by the U.S. House on April 30, it was not included in the Senate’s draft of the bill, whose latest version was recently released ahead of the Senate Agriculture Committee’s markup on August 6. With another markup planned in September, the fight is far from over.

David Elbert is a former business editor and columnist for the Des Moines Register. He now writes about local history for DSM Magazine. 

Iowa’s long history of low wages is producing a crisis that state officials either can’t see or choose to ignore. The extent of the damage can be seen in a study commissioned last December for the Iowa Department of Education.

The Iowa Capital Dispatch revealed last month that officials who commissioned the report expected it would support their efforts to persuade lawmakers that four-year degrees should be added at Iowa’s two-year community colleges.

Instead, “The study attributes workforce shortages to the business climate, not the higher education system,” wrote Dispatch reporter Brooklyn Draisey.

Ed Tibbetts, a longtime reporter and editor in the Quad-Cities, is the publisher of the Along the Mississippi newsletter, where this post first appeared. Find more of his work at edtibbetts.substack.com.

The campaign to change the rules on how the state of Iowa raises tax revenues kicked off last month, and the message from the special interests is clear: Don’t resist. You can’t win.

Iowans for Tax Relief convened reporters to pitch the plan to amend the state constitution to lock in recent Republican tax policies. In the process, the group touted a new poll that reportedly shows 74 percent of likely voters would approve the amendment.

Don’t believe it. Look at the poll closely. It asks whether people would support requiring a two-thirds supermajority in the legislature for “any tax increase.” But that’s not what the amendment says. Amendment 1, as it’s being called, would require a supermajority to raise just some taxes, specifically the kind that affect the wealthy the most: individual and corporate income tax rates.

Herb Strentz was dean of the Drake School of Journalism from 1975 to 1988 and professor there until retirement in 2004. He was executive secretary of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council from its founding in 1976 to 2000.

Ten years ago in Iowa, Donald Trump spoke the truth — perhaps an occasion warranting a monument or maybe a shrine to him in Sioux Center.

The times may demand it.

Any truthful statement from Trump merits recognition, because the Washington Post calculated that during his first term as president, Trump made “30,573 false or misleading claims.”

Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes openness and transparency in Iowa’s state and local governments. He can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. This essay first appeared on his Substack newsletter, Stray Thoughts. 

When District Court Judge Adria Kester studied at the Drake University Law School, she must have opted out of the “Law of Holes” coursework.

I have written before about the first Law of Holes, in connection with Davenport city officials and their penchant for hiding facts from taxpayers. The Law of Holes is common-sense advice that says when you are in a hole and want to get out, the best thing to do is put down the shovel and stop digging.

Judge Kester found herself in a hole — actually, a Boone County highway ditch — on the night of November 4, 2025. She ended up there in her GMC Canyon Denali after an evening of drinking too much.

Kevin Techau is a former United States Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa. He previously served as Director of the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals, and later as Commissioner of the Iowa Department of Public Safety. Kevin is an attorney-at-law in Cedar Rapids. Dean Lerner is a former Iowa Assistant Attorney General and former Chief Deputy Secretary of State. He, too, served as Director of the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals. Dean is an attorney-at-law in Des Moines.

With the 2026 election approaching, Governor Kim Reynolds and Attorney General Brenna Bird have unveiled a new priority: cracking down on Medicaid fraud. That comes as a big surprise to those of us who know the system and have actually fought Medicaid fraud. 

Why such a surprise? Because our governor and attorney general have long disregarded the most effective tools already at their disposal to fulfill their pronounced objective. 

The real purpose of their newly created “Medicaid Fraud Elimination Task Force,” chaired by Bird, appears to be generating political headlines rather than meaningful results. And with each task force meeting streamed to the public, they have concocted a pretext for sustained Medicaid fraud political theater.

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. He can be reached at BruceLear2419@gmail.com 

Long before Congress passed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) establishing special education in public schools, there were gifted teachers who recognized how to help struggling students learn. 

I was one of those students.

My early elementary teachers believed in oral reading for fluency. I could see the lips of my fellow “slow readers” silently counting the number of paragraphs to find which one they’d be reading out loud. They silently practiced sounding out each word. That didn’t work for me. I was also a slow math student and often miscounted which paragraph was mine.

Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes openness and transparency in Iowa’s state and local governments. He can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. This essay first appeared on his Substack newsletter, Stray Thoughts. 

Whether you work for the federal, state or local government, you best just accept that blame and criticism go with the job and move ahead.

Decatur County Attorney Alan Wilson learned that lesson a few years ago. 

So, too, did Michael Hansen, the Newton mayor at the time.

It is a lesson top officials at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will have to learn for themselves.

Dean Lerner served Iowa as an Assistant Attorney General for sixteen years, Chief Deputy Secretary of State for four years, and about ten years as Deputy Director, then Director of the Department of Inspections & Appeals. He then worked for the CMS Director of the Division of Nursing Homes, and the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa. He is a graduate of Grinnell College and Drake University Law School.

Reflecting upon the extraordinary 250th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence, it seems important to again contemplate and admire the bravery and devotion of our founding fathers to the cause of liberty. The incomparable creation of this everlasting document and its corollary Constitution are nothing short of a miracle penned by extraordinarily gifted men.

Their genius provided us with living parchments establishing lofty ideals and aspirations for a new nation and the construct to preserve it. One principal, unmistakable safeguard to its preservation was the formation of three co-equal branches of government, each responsible for providing checks and balances to excesses of the other.

Today, regrettably, one could reasonably conclude that our executive branch has methodically co-opted these essential safeguards—with assistance from weak and/or cowardly sycophants. How, one should ask, could this happen?

Noah Gratias is a seventh generation Iowan from Waukee. 

In April 1903, on the steps of Iowa’s state capitol building, President Teddy Roosevelt said, “I am glad to say that Iowa can teach rather than learn the lesson of good citizenship.” More than a century later, Iowans are still known for their decency and civic virtue.

Yet many would agree that “Iowa Nice” has been strained by the toxicity of national politics. As the 2026 elections draw closer, Iowans have an opportunity to radiate some of the healing our country desperately needs. 

Al Charlson is a North Central Iowa farm kid, lifelong Iowan, and retired bank trust officer.

We have heard for years that the Social Security and Medicare trust funds are running out of assets. The projected dates when both will be depleted are now clearly visible.

The trustees of the Social Security Trust Fund now project that it will be depleted by late 2032. Republican Senator Bernie Moreno of Ohio and Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts warned in a recent New York Times guest column that if nothing is done, Social Security benefits could then be cut by more than 20 percent. That would be a jolt and a real hardship for many of our older neighbors.

Moreno and Warren are working together on legislation to remove the current $184,500 payroll tax cap, which they estimate would increase revenue by $3 trillion over the next 10 years and extend Social Security solvency for another generation.