The Iowa House has again moved toward amending the state constitution to remove a lifetime ban on voting for most Iowans with felony convictions. In a gesture toward Iowa Senate Republicans, a separate bill the House approved would require payment of restitution to victims before someone’s voting rights could be restored.

The U.S. House voted 244 to 172 on March 17 to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) with some new provisions. All Democrats present, including Representative Cindy Axne (IA-03), were joined by 29 Republicans, including Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-02), to send the bill to the U.S. Senate. Republican Representatives Ashley Hinson (IA-01) and Randy Feenstra (IA-04) opposed the legislation.

For decades, researchers have found that all-white juries are more likely to convict Black defendants than white defendants, and that Black people “are systematically more likely to be excluded from juries in many contexts.” In addition, studies indicate diverse juries “perform their fact-finding tasks more effectively,” and have been shown to “deliberate longer, consider more facts, make fewer incorrect facts, correct themselves more, and have the benefit of a broader pool of life experiences […].”

In a 2017 decision that gave defendants of color another way to challenge unrepresentative jury pools, the Iowa Supreme Court recognized, “Empirical evidence overwhelmingly shows that having just one person of color on an otherwise all-white jury can reduce disparate rates of convictions between black and white defendants.” Yet African Americans have continued to be under-represented in Iowa jury pools and on trial juries.

A recent Iowa Supreme Court order takes a step toward addressing that disparity in the state’s criminal justice system.

Laura Hessburg is the public policy director of the Iowa Coalition Against Domestic Violence. -promoted by Laura Belin

We believe the sweeping election bill rapidly advancing through the Iowa legislature (Senate File 413 or House File 590) is bad for everyone. Iowans with the most to lose are those who rely on early voting: working people, busy people, senior citizens, college students, and survivors of intimate partner violence.

Current Iowa law gives people multiple opportunities and choices to exercise this fundamental right before election day. That is exactly what victims of domestic violence need to vote safely. Iowans can vote early at satellite voting stations conveniently located near them, they can drop a ballot off at a drop box, ask a friend to drop off a ballot for them, or they can vote completely by mail.

By undermining every single one of these choices and limiting the time and opportunities for early voting, this bill makes it harder for Iowans to vote and will disenfranchise victims of domestic violence. That is not what democracy looks like.

Let’s start with the good news. The Iowa House on February 10 approved a bill that acknowledges LGBTQ Iowans don’t deserve to be physically attacked just for existing.

The brief debate and unanimous vote provided a rare moment of goodwill during a state legislative session marred by attacks on LGBTQ equality and dignity.

Shortly after midnight on January 20, the White House announced that President Donald Trump had issued 73 new pardons and 70 commutations.

Two people pardoned with less than twelve hours remaining in Trump’s term have ties to well-known figures in Iowa politics.

Ira Lacher wonders, “Will America bring to bear on white-power domestic terrorists the same tools it hauled out to fight ‘Muslim extremists’ after 9/11?” -promoted by Laura Belin

Donald Trump didn’t start the white supremacy fire; it was always burning since Europeans used the fabricated concept of “race” to justify human slavery.

Of course, no president has used it to justify his election and call for re-election. In his 2016 campaign and four-year reign of terror, Trump emitted enough dog whistles to stage his own Iditarod.

But until an organized, armed phalanx of militant white people pillaged the U.S. Capitol on January 6, threatening the vice president and Congressional leaders, the existence of a longstanding white-power militant movement escaped the myopia of most Americans.

“Strong Island Hawk” reviews President Donald Trump’s recent pardons, which were largely political. -promoted by Laura Belin

Last month President-De-Elect Donald Trump issued executive pardons for dozens of people, including many of his former campaign officials and Republican colleagues. Many of these pardons were entirely political and, what’s worse, they absolved individuals for acts of public corruption. When this happened, a thought crossed my mind: Is the Republican Party now entirely corrupt?

In fact, I think it’s an issue that goes unnoticed by the media and even by some Democrats: today’s Republican Party may be so thoroughly corrupt it’s nearly systemic.
No party holds a monopoly on ethical behavior; Democrats have certainly had their troubles over the years. But the GOP may be experiencing an era of unprecedented party-wide corruption. I want to look at a handful of the most political cases and examine how they demonstrate the GOP’s indifferent approach to government ethics. 

Ira Lacher: “If there were any discussion, Wednesday’s events should eliminate it. Trump needs to be impeached. Again. And criminally charged with inciting sedition.” -promoted by Laura Belin

Wednesday, January 6, America witnessed an armed insurrection. Revolt. Treason. It was fomented by the president of the United States.

The Atlanta Journal and Constitution reported: “Hours before unrest hit the Capitol, President Donald Trump arrived to his rally to embolden supporters to charge the U.S. Capitol Wednesday to show ‘fight’ for his unsubstantiated claims of election fraud ahead of a congressional vote count to affirm Joe Biden’s election victory.”

They weren’t the most heinous pardons President Donald Trump issued this week. Those went to former military contractors who slaughtered civilians in Iraq.

They weren’t the most corrupt pardons Trump issued this week. Those went to campaign associates who participated in Russian interference in the 2016 election and then covered for Trump during special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

Nevertheless, two pardons announced on December 23 had an Iowa connection that may interest Bleeding Heartland readers.

Casey Erixon: Mounting evidence suggests that prisons add little to local economies and may do more harm than good to the rural communities that host them. -promoted by Laura Belin

In the wake of the Democrats’ mixed success in the 2020 elections, many party elites have taken to blaming progressive activists, and Black Lives Matter organizers in particular, for costing the party votes in key rural areas. Most prominently U.S. Representative Abigail Spanberger was characterized as “speaking hard truths” when, on a post-election conference call with House leadership, she claimed that calls by activists to defund the police were used in attack ads against her and other candidates from so-called red districts.

Matt Whitaker’s unfailing loyalty to Donald Trump apparently extended to helping the president quash a criminal investigation of a foreign bank, according to an explosive new story by Eric Lipton and Benjamin Weiser in the New York Times.

While serving (unconstitutionally) as acting U.S. attorney general after the 2018 election, Whitaker blocked a probe of Halkbank, “a state-owned Turkish bank suspected of violating U.S. sanctions law by funneling billions of dollars of gold and cash to Iran.”

Only a small fraction of newly eligible Iowans have registered to vote since Governor Kim Reynolds issued an executive order restoring voting rights to most people who have completed felony sentences.

Justin Surrency was first to report for WHO-TV on October 19 that 2,550 Iowans with felony convictions had registered to vote since the governor’s order. Erin Murphy reported for Lee Newspapers on October 20,

Richard Lindgren: “When I run the numbers, Donald Trump appears to own, to use a phrase a business colleague described him with in the 1990s Atlantic City era, a ‘zero-billion-dollar business.’” -promoted by Laura Belin

Ever since I began my own blog in January of 2018, Donald Trump’s “not-normal” finances have been in my head and have been discussed numerous times. Now that the media frenzy over his Covid diagnosis has abated somewhat, perhaps we can get back to Trump’s financial frauds. In light of the recent excellent reporting from the New York Times and others, this is a look back at what I got right and what I got wrong in some early posts about Trump’s wealth and taxes.

Dan Guild: Donald Trump has positive ratings on handling the economy. But he’s staking his campaign on a “law and order” message. -promoted by Laura Belin

Politics can be as complicated as you like. You can build statistical models to calculate the odds of a candidate winning. Complicated ideological positions can be constructed precisely delineating what is right and wrong.

Most of the time, politics isn’t that complicated.

“Quite simply, when someone serves their sentence and pays the price our justice system has set for their crimes, they should have their right to vote restored automatically, plain and simple,” Governor Kim Reynolds said on August 5, shortly before signing a critically important document.

Executive Order 7 automatically restores voting rights to most Iowans who have completed prison sentences or terms of probation or parole associated with felony convictions. The Iowa-Nebraska NAACP estimated that the order paves the way for more than 40,000 people to vote this year. Going forward, approximately 4,700 Iowans who complete felony sentences each year will regain the same rights.

Reynolds had publicly promised to sign such an order seven weeks ago, after Republican senators declined to advance the state constitutional amendment that was her preferred way of addressing the problem.

Both the substance of the measure and the way the governor announced it revealed aspects of her leadership style.

Rob Johnson, Al Womble, and Eddie Mauro of the New Frontier Fund jointly authored this commentary. The No Justice No Peace PAC is online at www.njnppac.com. -promoted by Laura Belin

History is a curious thing. Our understanding of our past changes with time – moving through phases where our perception shifts, evolves and deepens. This examination of our history is constant, and it happens in the public sphere through discussions via social media, the news, commentary, and politics.

We are in the midst of a significant reorganization and shift in how we see, hear, and experience the history of race in America. It’s colliding with a time when Americans fundamentally re-evaluate how we relate to our institutions of government, our neighbors, and our local communities.

This confrontation is messy. It’s fraught with conflict. And it’s necessary.

This commentary by Patti Brown and Bob Brammer represents the collective view of the Iowans Against the Death Penalty board of directors. -promoted by Laura Belin

Dustin Honken is set to be executed July 17 at the U.S. penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, for two of five murders he committed in Iowa 27 years ago.

This case is of particular interest to Iowans, because while Iowa does not have the death penalty for crimes prosecuted in its state courts, the federal government has retained the death penalty. Honken was sentenced to death in federal court because his crimes involved manufacturing, trafficking, and the distribution of methamphetamine across multiple state jurisdictions.

Independence Day was established to celebrate the July 4, 1776 vote by the Second Continental Congress to adopt Declaration of Independence. But many other noteworthy historical events also happened on this day. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died on July 4, 1826. New York state abolished slavery on this day in 1827.

July 4 has also been a significant date in Iowa history. Two of the events described below happened within the lifetimes of many Bleeding Heartland readers.

Marty Ryan of Des Moines lobbied the Iowa legislature for 27 years and now blogs weekly. -promoted by Laura Belin

The Iowa quarter, printed in the latter part of 2004, is based upon a Grant Wood painting depicting a group of students and their teacher planting a tree outside of a county school. The statement on the coin says, “Foundation In Education.” For many decades, Iowa was noted for its first-in-the-nation education status. Likewise, Iowa has been a consistent leader in civil rights.

In fact, Iowa established some standards of equality long before the federal government or other states.

But racial disparities continue to affect Iowans in many areas of life. A reform the Democratic-controlled legislature enacted more than a decade ago has only slightly mitigated the problem.

Nick Mahlstadt responds to the latest newsletter by Republican State Senator Julian Garrett, which is titled “Black Homicide Victims” and enclosed in full at the bottom of this post. -promoted by Laura Belin

Let’s be clear. This is a racist dog whistle piece written by the state senator representing my district, and I won’t be silent. The so-called black-on-black defense is intellectually dishonest and deflects from the actual issues at hand.

Senator Julian Garrett clearly is not interested in grappling with the reality of police brutality, which disproportionally affects people of color in the state of Iowa and the nation. Not only is his commentary a lazy, GOP talking point copy and paste, it perpetuates thinking that causes physical and mental harm to males who are not white and don’t hold power.

First, let’s address his lazy assessment of black-on-black crime.

Another Friday night has brought another irregular ouster of a federal official whose work should be insulated from politics.

Four days later, U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley, a self-styled warrior for oversight and accountability in Washington, has said nothing. Neither has Senator Joni Ernst, who like Grassley serves on the committee that oversees the justice system.

“Let them vote! Let them vote!” Black Lives Matter protesters chanted a few minutes after Governor Kim Reynolds signed a police reform bill on June 12. Reynolds did not acknowledge hearing them, continuing to pass out pens to advocates of the legislation, which the Iowa House and Senate had unanimously approved the night before.

The protesters want the governor to sign an executive order automatically restoring voting rights to Iowans who have completed felony sentences. Iowa has the country’s strictest felon voting ban, which disproportionately disenfranchises African Americans. Reynolds has resisted calls to issue an executive order, saying she wants the legislature to approve a state constitutional amendment on felon voting instead.

The Iowa legislature adjourned for the year on June 14 without the constitutional amendment clearing the Senate.

For many thousands of Iowans with felony convictions, an order from Reynolds provides the only path to voting before 2024. She should issue one as soon as possible.

Most bills lawmakers introduced this year to address Iowa’s notorious racial disparities didn’t get far before the Iowa House and Senate suspended their work in mid-March, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. By the time the legislature got back to work on June 3, large protests were underway daily in Iowa and across the country, in response to the horrific killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.

Democratic lawmakers unveiled a “More Perfect Union plan” designed to prevent “violent conflicts between law enforcement and Iowa residents” on June 4. A bill incorporating their proposals sailed through both chambers unanimously a week later, with a group of Black Lives Matter protesters watching from the public gallery.

Herb Strentz comments on reactions to George Floyd’s killing, including “a white person’s headline” in the Sunday Des Moines Register. -promoted by Laura Belin

Ten reactions to the killing of George Floyd and protests around the nation, including, of course, in Des Moines:

1. Recall the names of four kids: Addie Mae Collins (14), Cynthia Wesley (14), Carole Robertson (14) and Carol Denise McNair (11). We’ll get back to them later.

For the fourth time in less than two months, President Donald Trump has fired an inspector general who had stirred up trouble for him or his political allies.

Iowa’s senior Senator Chuck Grassley has championed whistleblowers and inspectors general for decades. Yet just like last month, he declined to condemn Trump’s retaliatory move. Grassley didn’t mention State Department Inspector General Steve Linick’s dismissal on his widely-viewed Twitter feed this weekend. Meanwhile, his office released a statement that dinged Linick for not looking into “the State Department’s role in advancing the debunked Russian collusion investigation.”

Iowa House members voted 95 to 0 on March 5 to prohibit criminal defendants from claiming any violent crime was justified because of emotions related to discovering the victim’s “sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity.”

House Judiciary Committee chair Steven Holt introduced the bill later renamed House File 2503. The initial draft applied to those charged with causing the death of another person. An amendment drafted by Republican State Representative Bobby Kaufmann and Democratic State Representative Liz Bennett broadened the scope to cover anyone accused of a violent crime.

U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley used his widely-read Twitter account on February 15 to praise U.S. Attorney General William Barr for intervening on behalf of a Donald Trump ally. He also suggested the Department of Justice has not done enough to prosecute targets of the president’s ire.

U.S. Senator Joni Ernst has brushed off as “moot” a new finding that the Trump administration broke federal law by withholding security assistance to Ukraine during the summer of 2019.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office said in a January 16 report that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) violated the Impoundment Control Act when it withheld funds from the Defense Department. “Faithful execution of the law does not permit the President to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law.”

Ernst has long advocated increasing our country’s military support for Ukraine. But speaking to Iowa media this morning (audio), she suggested the GAO findings were not relevant, since Ukraine eventually received the assistance Congress approved.

Governor Kim Reynolds promised this week that 347 people who have asked her to restore their voting rights will have their applications reviewed in time for the Iowa caucuses on February 3.

“We’re not where we need to be” on processing those applications promptly, Reynolds acknowledged during a January 7 forum for statehouse reporters, organized by the Associated Press.

Five years ago, I started taking stock of my most labor-intensive posts near the end of each year. Not all of these are my favorite projects, though invariably, some of my favorites end up on these compilations.

Before getting to the countdown for 2019, I want to give another shout out to guest authors who poured an extraordinary amount of work into two posts Bleeding Heartland published last year.

On the same day Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear restored voting rights to some 140,000 constituents who previously committed nonviolent crimes, Governor Kim Reynolds rolled out an incremental step to make it easier for Iowans to regain their voting rights after completing a felony sentence.

It was the fourth time the application process has been simplified in nearly nine years since Governor Terry Branstad restored Iowa’s lifetime ban on voting after a felony conviction.

Although the new policy may marginally increase the number of Iowans who can cast a ballot in 2020, it will leave tens of thousands of Iowans unable to vote for years. It’s not clear the governor’s office will be able to process all of the new applications in time for next year’s general election.

Reynolds could mostly solve this problem in a day. She clings to an unconvincing rationale for not doing so.

Ten months after the Des Moines Register revealed that “Iowa’s flawed felon list has been disqualifying legitimate voters for years,” and five months after voting rights advocates warned that “Iowa’s voter list maintenance practices are arbitrary and unlawful,” Secretary of State Paul Pate announced an ambitious plan to clean up the felon database.

“The new steps to ensure the system’s accuracy include a manual review of all 90,000 files,” a November 20 news release announced. The goal is to complete the task before next year’s general election.

Several unanswered questions remain about the plan.

The Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship (IDALS) has not acted on advice to improve its management of financial transactions and databases “to prevent losses from employee error or dishonesty.”

For ten years running, under three different state auditors, reports have warned Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig or his predecessor Bill Northey that the IDALS accounting system does not conform to best practices and does not ensure that some divisions are collecting and depositing fees appropriately.

IDALS leaders have responded to each report with boilerplate excuses and non-sequiturs, instead of changing internal procedures to address the concerns.

Months of work on reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act, which lapsed in February, “came to a screeching halt” this week, U.S. Senator Joni Ernst announced on the Senate floor on November 7.

For 25 years, that federal law has supported “criminal justice and community-based responses to domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking in the United States.” Congress has reauthorized it three times, each time with improvements. By Ernst’s telling, “Democrats are putting politics ahead of people,” rejecting a bipartisan approach to revive the law in favor of “non-starter” legislation the U.S. House approved in April.

Some salient facts were missing from Ernst’s narrative. The House bill to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act was bipartisan: 33 Republicans voted for it.

Ernst also left out a few relevant words: guns, firearms, and National Rifle Association.

Iowa has long had one of the country’s worst racial disparities in the criminal justice system. A 2016 report by Ashley Nellis for The Sentencing Project showed the incarceration rate for African Americans in Iowa was the fourth-highest among the 50 states, with approximately one in seventeen adult black males imprisoned. Iowa ranked third-worst in the nation for racial disparity, with an incarceration rate for African Americans eleven times higher than the rate for white people.

Over the past year, the Iowa Department of Corrections has formally recognized the problem and its responsibility to provide a bias-free environment for incarcerated individuals and those in community-based corrections programs. The department has also taken several concrete steps to improve staff training and identify possible sources of racial disparities.

Fourteen people representing a “diverse group of stakeholders” will recommend policies to reduce recidivism and racial disparities in Iowa’s criminal justice system, Governor Kim Reynolds announced on November 4.

Lieutenant Governor Adam Gregg, a former state public defender, will chair the Governor’s FOCUS Committee on Criminal Justice Reform, which will meet for the first time on November 7. FOCUS stands for “Fueling Ongoing Collaboration and Uncovering Solutions.” The other members are:

Midwestern states continue to have greater “racial disparities in economic opportunity and economic outcomes” than do other regions of the U.S., while “policy interventions designed to close those gaps are meager,” concludes a new report by Colin Gordon of the University of Iowa and the Iowa Policy Project.

Gordon’s findings are consistent with past research showing that African Americans in Iowa face pervasive barriers in many areas of life. By some measures, our state’s racial disparities are among the worst in the Midwest region and the country.

Norene Kelly is State Representative Karin Derry’s volunteer campaign manager. Derry flipped Iowa House district 39 in 2018 and is running for re-election in 2020.

“Be sure about your answer, sir.”

Senator Kamala Harris first got my attention at Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings. She was focused and prosecutorial. Her legal background was an obvious advantage. She can be simultaneously steely and smiling. Pressure doesn’t faze her—it empowers her. Wow, I thought, I hope she runs for president.

Democratic State Representative Scott Ourth has been charged with drunk driving, Stephen Gruber-Miller was first to report for the Des Moines Register on October 10. Police in Cherokee pulled Ourth over on the evening of October 5 for driving his truck with headlights off. He failed a field sobriety test, and breath tests indicated his blood alcohol content was over the legal limit.

Ourth lives in Warren County but was scheduled to appear at a fundraiser for fellow state legislator Chris Hall in Sioux City on October 6.