“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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

Republican State Senator Adrian Dickey was arrested on July 24 and charged with interference with official acts after he refused to move along a Sac County road during the Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI).

According to a complaint signed by Sgt. Jonathan Meyer of the Sac County Sheriff’s office, Dickey was among a large group of bicycle riders who “had stopped in the middle of the road” on Quincy Avenue. The complaint said after the group had been there for about an hour and a half, Meyer “advised a subject to move on as we needed to open the road.”

The individual refused to move and “advised me to arrest him,” Meyer wrote. The sergeant, who has specialized in traffic enforcement, then “advised him that the road way down the road was open and then could go that way.” But the subject (identified as Adrian Dickey) “kept arguing with me about what he was going to do.” The sergeant eventually arrested Dickey and took him to the Sac County jail, where he was charged with interference with official acts.

Sac County court records indicate that Dickey was released after posting a cash bond of $300.

Dickey could not immediately be reached for comment. This post will be updated if he responds to phone or email messages.

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.

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.

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.

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.