It’s time for another review of Bleeding Heartland’s most widely-read posts from the year that just ended. I always struggle a bit with this task, because the work I’m most proud of doesn’t always overlap with what resonated most with readers. Also, I’m wary of watching traffic numbers too closely, because I try not to let potential clicks drive my editorial decisions.

However, I always gain some insight from this review, so here goes.

This list draws from Google Analytics data about total views for 598 posts this website published during 2021: 362 written by me and 236 by other authors. I left out the site’s front page and the “about” page, where many people landed following online searches.

A Polk County District Court has rejected the state’s motion to dismiss part of Polly Carver-Kimm’s wrongful termination lawsuit against the state of Iowa, Governor Kim Reynolds, her former communications director Pat Garrett, and several senior Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH) officials.

Carver-Kimm handled press contacts and public records requests for the IDPH for thirteen years before being forced to resign in July 2020. She asserts that she was “stripped of her duties and later terminated after she made repeated efforts to comply with Iowa’s Open Records law (Chapter 22) by producing documents to local and national media regarding the State of Iowa’s response to the ongoing pandemic.”

District Court Judge Lawrence McLellan’s December 22 ruling (enclosed in full below) affirmed the importance of the open records law and rejected the state’s effort to remove Reynolds as a defendant in this case.

The ACLU of Iowa filed suit on December 16 on behalf of three reporters and three media organizations over Governor Kim Reynolds’ long-standing failure to comply with Iowa’s open records law. The lawsuit cites five unfulfilled requests submitted by me, two submitted by Clark Kauffman of Iowa Capital Dispatch, and one submitted by Randy Evans of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council.

I’ve been seeking some of those records for more than a year. My oldest outstanding request, for video messages the governor may have recorded for meatpacking plant employees during the early weeks of the pandemic, dates to April 2020. Although Reynolds told members of the Iowa Capitol Press Association in January 2021 that she would commit to having her staff respond to open records requests “in a timely manner,” her office continues to stonewall.

Governor Kim Reynolds’ office was able to spend nearly 40 percent more than its $2.3 million budget appropriation during the last fiscal year, mostly by shifting personnel costs onto other state agencies.

Documents Bleeding Heartland obtained through public records requests show that eight state agencies covered $812,420.83 in salaries and benefits for nine employees in the governor’s office from July 1, 2020 through June 30, 2021. In addition, the Office for State-Federal Relations in Washington, DC remained understaffed, as it has been throughout Reynolds’ tenure. The vacant position should allow roughly $85,000 in unspent funds to be used to balance the rest of the governor’s office budget, as happened last year.

The governor’s communications director Pat Garrett did not respond to four inquiries over the past two weeks related to the office budget. But records indicate that unlike in 2020, federal COVID-19 relief funds will not be tapped to cover salaries for Reynolds’ permanent staffers in fiscal year 2021.

Republican leaders in the Iowa House and Senate declined this year to require face coverings, social distancing, or other COVID-19 mitigation practices in the state capitol. Governor Kim Reynolds and her staff have been spreading misinformation and casting doubt about whether masks reduce coronavirus transmission in schools.

But one branch of state government is following the recommendations of top scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

Iowa Supreme Court Chief Justice Susan Christensen signed an order on August 27 stating that “All people entering court-controlled areas must wear a face covering,” even if they have been fully vaccinated for COVID-19.

Governor Kim Reynolds’ senior legal counsel Michael Boal has belatedly provided a copy of former Iowa Veterans Home Commandant Timon Oujiri’s termination letter. On May 10, Bleeding Heartland asked the governor’s office and the Iowa Veterans Home for records showing the “documented reasons and rationale” for Oujiri’s dismissal, which Reynolds’ staff had recently confirmed.

Boal, who is the records custodian for the governor’s office, did not acknowledge receipt of the request at that time. He also ignored follow-up emails on June 30 and July 23, as did the governor’s chief of staff Sara Craig Gongol and spokesperson Pat Garrett, whom I copied on that correspondence. Staff at the veterans home likewise did not provide any responsive records.