Chris Jones is a fisherman who lives in Iowa City. He writes the Substack newsletter The Swine Republic, where this post first appeared. 

Secretary of Agriculture is one of seven executive offices Iowans see on their off-year voting ballot. The Iowa legislature created both the office and the Department of Agriculture (now IDALS) in 1923.

It may seem curious that we have a statewide election for the administrator of a department that employs less than 2 percent of the state government workforce and represents a private industry that is only Iowa’s third-biggest and one with a declining share of the state’s Gross Domestic Product. All sorts of economic sectors are bigger than agriculture; for example, health care now nearly doubles Ag’s GDP in Iowa.

But we have to remember that in 1923, almost 40 percent of Iowa’s population lived on farms. It’s well below 10 percent in the present day, when only 67,000 people in Iowa list farming as their primary source of income (2 percent of Iowa) and many farmers don’t even live on the farm. GMO has made crop farming so easy that some Iowa farmers also farm in Kansas and the Dakotas and probably other states as well.

A person could wonder why we all don’t vote for a Secretary of Teachers, or a Secretary of Bartenders or Hairdressers or Truck-drivers.

“People are excited, and I think so far what we’re seeing is hunger for something different,” State Auditor Rob Sand told me on the day he announced he’s running for governor in 2026.

“The real theme across my work is I’m a problem solver,” Julie Stauch told me shortly before her campaign launch.

I interviewed both candidates about their top priorities and the case they will make to Iowa voters over the coming year. Toward the end, I discuss the biggest challenge facing each contender at this early stage.

Matt Russell is a farmer, political writer, progressive ag and rural leader. He has published work in the New York Times, TIME, AgInsider, Civil Eats, and many state or local publications. He co-owns Coyote Run Farm with his husband Patrick Standley in rural Lacona, Iowa. This essay first appeared on his Substack newsletter, Growing New Leaders: Perspectives from Coyote Run Farm

Democrats have an organizing problem. They think voters need to be educated and convinced. And they think convincing voters that they need to be saved is the path to victory. I’m hearing talk about the need for those who voted for Donald Trump to feel the pain before Democrats make a move. This doubles down on the strategies of the paid consultant class, who failed to win the election, rather than looking at new ways to organize.

We need to stop trying to convince voters that Democrats will save Americans, and instead invest in Americans to do the work of saving our nation.

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.

Cinematically-minded Iowans of middle age or older recall two films set in Iowa in the 1980s. The best remembered and most beloved was the Kevin Costner’s ode to baseball sentimentality, Field of Dreams.

The other was Country starring Jessica Lange and Sam Shepard, a hard-edged look at the farm crisis that gripped the Midwest during the decade. Country personalized the worst agricultural downturn since the Great Depression, costing Iowa more than one-quarter of its farm ownerships and reducing farm land values by 70 percent.

The opening scenes of the 21^st century version of Country already are running. Corn and soybean prices have fallen almost 40 percent. Iowa farmers are enduring a drop in income of more than 25 percent since 2002. The effect isn’t limited to the countryside; the closing of Tyson Foods processing plant at Perry as well as a sequence of layoffs at Deere & Co., Firestone, and other implement plants have cost almost 2,000 Iowa manufacturing workers their jobs.

Longtime agricultural banker Terry Hotchkiss, chairman of the American Bankers Association agricultural and rural bankers committee, said farm lenders “feel like they are looking over a cliff with regards to the agricultural economy.”

Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council and can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. 

We are in the home stretch of another presidential campaign, and it is important for voters to be alert for the unintended consequences of candidates’ promises.

Office-seekers and their supporters like to portray issues in terms of absolutes—as in, my position is the very best way to address this issue; my opponent’s way is all wrong.

Most of the time, issues are not all black, nor all white. Most of the time, issues involve many shades of gray, meaning there are no simple solutions.

Take illegal immigration, for example.

“It’s been a great pleasure to come back and serve only ten miles from where I grew up,” Dr. Emily Boevers said during an August 22 panel discussion at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. “And it’s my joy to take care of women every day, and women of all ages, and women of many different circumstances.”

But the Waverly-based obstetrician/gynecologist painted a troubling picture of how abortion restrictions harm rural health care access in many ways, putting lives at risk—and not only for those seeking to terminate a pregnancy.

Diane Rosenberg is executive director of Jefferson County Farmers & Neighbors, where this commentary first appeared.

When U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley stopped at Jefferson County Park in June during his 99-county tour, it was the first time in a long while that he invited the general public to a meeting in this county.

Of course, I had to attend to ask him about CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations) and the Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression or EATS Act.

The EATS Act is Big Meat’s next move to gut California Proposition 12, and it’s currently embedded in the House version of the Farm Bill. (Grassley and Senator Joni Ernst were among its original Senate co-sponsors.) California voters approved Prop 12 in 2018 by a 63 percent to 37 percent margin. The measure requires any pork sold in that state to come from sows who were raised in a larger, more humane area where they can more freely move. It prohibits the sale of pork from sows caged in gestation crates or pork from their litters.

Steve King was a teacher in Algona for 23 years and a UniServ Director with the Iowa State Education Association, serving rural school districts, Area Education Agencies, and community colleges in northwest and north central Iowa before retiring in 2012.

I am an Iowan. I was born here. I grew up here. I went to school here. I graduated from Iowa State. I worked here. And I have retired here. Heck, I don’t even like to travel out of state. I love Iowa. Well, maybe not January and February. But most of the rest of the time, count me all in.

But I am not living in the same Iowa. That state has disappeared.

Keith Schneider, a former New York Times national correspondent, is senior editor for Circle of Blue. He has reported on the contest for energy, food, and water in the era of climate change from six continents. This report was first published by The New Lede and is part of an ongoing collaborative project between The New Lede and Circle of Blue that looks carefully at how agricultural policies are affecting human and environmental health.) 

EMMETSBURG, IOWA –Raised in rural Iowa, 71-year-old Maureen Reeves Horsley once considered her tiny hometown in the northwest part of the state to be a blessed space. She recalls a time when the streams here ran clean and the lake water was clear.

The family farm where Horsley grew up was one of more than 1,200 farms in Palo Alto County in 1970. In her memory, the county’s 13,000 residents enjoyed a thriving agricultural-based economy and close-knit neighbors. Cows grazed in verdant pastures. And seemingly endless acres of corn marched to the horizon.

“We had good crops, corn and soybeans,” Horsley said of her family’s farm along the West Fork of the Des Moines River. “You could make it on a small amount of farmland. You felt safe. It was a good life.”

Two generations later, Emmetsburg and Palo Alto County have been radically transformed into a place where many residents worry that the farms that have sustained their livelihoods are also the source of the health problems that have plagued so many families.

Photo of happy farmer by Serg Grbanoff, available via Shutterstock.

Jason Benell lives in Des Moines with his wife and two children. He is a combat veteran, former city council candidate, and president of Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers.

America Needs Farmers.

This statement has become a cultural touchstone. It became popular during the 1980s farm crisis, as a way to raise awareness of the difficulties suffered in the Midwest agricultural industry.

This phrase and branding has seen a bit of a renaissance in the past decade—featured on bumper stickers, commercials, apparel branding, and even partnerships with major universities like the University of Iowa.

America Needs Farmers, or “ANF,” has become less of a slogan for awareness, and more a brand or identity that Midwesterners tout alongside Carhartt or John Deere. The slogan is now almost synonymous with the Iowa Hawkeyes and rural farming, and is controlled by the Iowa Farm Bureau, a 501(c)5 organization representing farmers across Iowa.

Rebecca Wolf is Senior Food Policy Analyst at the national advocacy group Food & Water Watch. Get involved in the fight for a fair Farm Bill at foodandwaterwatch.org.

Amidst the Congressional chaos of the past week, one important deadline passed rather inconspicuously. The Farm Bill expired on September 30, the last day of the federal fiscal year. Passed every five years, the Farm Bill is a suite of policies passed on a bipartisan basis to keep our food and farm system running. The longer our legislators delay, the more we flirt with brinkmanship for critical programs that keep people fed and ensure farmers are paid.

Iowa needs a fair Farm Bill. With more factory farms than any other state, millions of acres in mono-cropped corn and soy, and a mounting clean water crisis, Iowa offers a clear case study of the failures of modern corporate agricultural policy. Iowa’s legislative delegation must seize this opportunity to pass bold reforms that support farmers, rural communities, and clean water — not Big Ag.

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.

Jay Howe wrote the following guest column at the request of the Chicago host committee that recently recognized Jesse L. Jackson on the 35th anniversary year of his historic run for the U.S. presidency.

Yes, those were the days, 1987-88! It all made quite an impact. We deliberately juxtaposed Jesse Jackson from South Chicago into rural, white, farm country Iowa. It worked well to raise his national visibility, eventually helping him win several state Democratic primaries. The first African American to rise as a viable presidential candidate.

National farm leader Dixon Terry of Greenfield, Iowa met Jackson at the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco. The two of them recognized the potential for including family farm agriculture and rural places in Jackson’s political coalition. The 1980s saw many family-scale farms in deep financial trouble because of high borrowing costs and commodity prices below costs of production.

So in January 1987, it all flowed into the Jackson exploratory event on Superbowl Sunday at the United Methodist Church in Greenfield. When Jackson witnessed a packed house of small-town and farm folks show up in southwest Iowa, that was “it”!

Scott Syroka is a former Johnston city council member.

Democrats have a major opportunity to increase their appeal in rural America, thanks to the policy framework crafted by President Biden, which he laid out in his June 28 address on Bidenomics in Chicago, Illinois.

While Democrats have successfully embraced Bidenomics to pass legislation like the American Rescue Plan, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, CHIPS Act, Inflation Reduction Act, and beyond, they haven’t done enough to champion Bidenomics through a rural-specific lens.

By using this framework to present a vision for an inclusive rural economy, rather than the trickle-down status quo of exploitation, Democrats can draw a clear contrast with their Republican opponents.

If they choose to seize this opportunity, Democrats can begin to stop the electoral bloodbath in rural areas, shrink the margins, and maybe even start to win again.

The forgotten history of America’s family farm movement and its fight for parity shows us how.

Patrick Muller is a visual artist living in Hills (Johnson County).

Multiple times a year, teenage athletes from all corners of the state roll into a dedicated tournament venue to showcase their talents and compete for trophies. While forming a sports conclave, these individuals and teams also represent schools and towns. These competitions, then, have the additional potential to be meetings of minds and substrates for community building. When, for instance, Audobon, Bloomfield, Cascade, and Milford contestants meet, why not use that occasion for a pop-up chautauqua, learning commons, or consideration cafe?

While students are heaving a discus or passing the baton, individuals from their schools and towns could get together to share, on a variety of topics, best practices and approaches to opportunities and challenges; learn; network; and even sketch out some multi-community collaborations.

Truly, after nearly a century of championships in some sports, one has to wonder why these affairs are still merely ephemeral, insular, ostensibly single-purposed. 

Macklin Scheldrup was the Iowa Democratic Party’s Data Director in 2022. A native of Cedar Rapids, he had previously worked on the monitoring and evaluation of foreign aid projects in conflict zones including Afghanistan, Pakistan, and South Sudan.

Part 1 of this series tried to ascertain the percentage of Iowa’s 2022 general electorate who could be classified as swing voters by the rate of ticket-splitting. It found evidence that ticket-splitting is comparatively high in Iowa and has not declined over the past few decades, with at least 12.4 percent of 2022 voters splitting their ticket.

So where are these voters located? And what can that tell us about why they are willing to vote for candidates from either major party in the same election?

The ticket-splitting score presented in Part 1 can also be calculated for smaller areas of Iowa.

The biggest stories of the Iowa legislature’s 2023 session are well known. Before adjourning for the year on May 4, historically large Republican majorities in the Iowa House and Senate gave Governor Kim Reynolds almost everything on her wish list. They reshaped K-12 public schools; passed several bills targeting LGBTQ Iowans; enacted new hurdles for Iowans on public assistance; cut property taxes; reorganized state government to increase the power of the governor and “her” attorney general; and undermined the state auditor’s ability to conduct independent audits.

Many other newsworthy stories received little attention during what will be remembered as one of the Iowa legislature’s most influential sessions. This post is the first in a series highlighting lesser-known bills or policies that made it through both chambers in 2023, or failed to reach the governor’s desk.

As the Iowa House and Senate debated one appropriations bill after another last week, Democrats repeatedly objected to plans that imposed status quo budgets or small increases (well below the rate of inflation) on services for disadvantaged Iowans.

Iowans with disabilities or special needs were not a priority in the education and health and human services budgets that top Republican lawmakers negotiated behind closed doors.

Tony Leys is Rural Editor/Correspondent for Kaiser Health News, where this story was first published. Follow him on Twitter @TonyLeys.

KNOXVILLE, Iowa ― Bette Helm was glad to have someone to talk with about her insomnia.

Helm lives in a nursing home in this central Iowa town of about 7,500 people, where mental health services are sparse. On a recent morning, she had an appointment with a psychiatric nurse practitioner about 800 miles away in Austin, Texas. They spoke via video, with Helm using an iPad she held on her lap while sitting in her bed.

Video visits are an increasingly common way for residents of small-town nursing homes to receive mental health care. Patients don’t have to travel to a clinic. They don’t even have to get cleaned up and leave their bedrooms, which can be daunting for people with depression or anxiety. Online care providers face fewer appointment cancellations, and they often can work from home. While use of some other telehealth services may dwindle as the COVID-19 pandemic winds down, providers predict demand for remote mental health services will continue to increase in rural nursing homes.

Julie Russell-Steuart is a printmaker and activist who chairs the Iowa Democratic Party’s Disability Caucus. The Iowa House is expected to debate an eminent domain bill (House File 565) on March 22.

Currently, we have a robust nonpartisan movement of people backing legislation that would restrict the use of eminent domain to construct carbon dioxide pipelines across Iowa.

The latest Iowa Poll by Selzer & Co for the Des Moines Register and Mediacom shows an overwhelming majority of Iowans—82 percent of Democrats, 72 percent of Republicans, and 79 percent of independents—are against letting corporations use eminent domain for a land grab to build pipelines. Most Iowans realize these corporations do not have their best interests in mind. From the devaluing of our century farms to the strong risk of a rupture that would endanger lives and health, Iowans have been speaking up about these risks all over the state.

Don Ray grew up in Fort Madison and has lived in Ringgold County since 1993. 

“Can you imagine rural Iowa or our state in general with reduced ethanol plants and 60% of the demand for corn gone? It would be truly devastating to our schools, hospitals and roads, just from a tax perspective.”

So spoke pipeline lobbyist Jake Ketzner (Summit Carbon Solutions) at a legislative hearing last month. He was arguing that the carbon dioxide pipelines are needed to keep the ethanol industry afloat which would support corn profitability and, in the process, save rural Iowa. 

The ever-increasing production of corn seems to have been Iowa’s foremost agricultural goal for many decades. And how has that worked out?  

The co-authors of this commentary are Tim Urban, president of Urban Development Corporation and a former Des Moines City Council member, and Lawrence Streyffeler, a retired Des Moines Public Schools elementary school principal.

The recent attacks by parents and politicians on our public schools are poisoning public education. Many states have recently empowered private education institutions by supporting charter schools, homeschooling, and state-funded vouchers for students to attend private schools instead of their local public schools.

Proponents argue that the declining quality of student performance in public schools warrants giving parents a choice where to educate their children. They often cite parents who want to enrich their children’s education, but cannot pay for it.

Such student outcomes are self-fulfilling In Iowa when public schools are starved.

Glenn Hurst is a family physician in southwest Iowa and chair of the Iowa Democratic Party’s Rural Caucus. He was a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in 2022.

The Iowa Democratic Party is about to choose its leadership after another round of disappointing losses to Republicans at the ballot box.

Democratic candidates lost every statewide race except for state auditor. Iowa’s U.S. senators both hail from the Grand Old Party. Republicans now represent every U.S. House district in Iowa. Republicans hold large state Senate and House majorities and can run the table. And Iowa courts are stacked with conservative judges. The Democrats have lost…resoundingly.

None of these situations were sudden unexpected blows. Rather, the trend has been building for at least the last three election cycles. The one takeaway all Democrats should agree on: business as usual is not working.

Rachel Bruns is a volunteer advocate for quality maternal health care in Iowa.

The 2022 Iowa legislative session saw the most significant momentum in more than forty years of advocacy for the creation of a licensure of direct-entry midwives in Iowa. With the 2023 legislative session underway, I will review the pivotal moments in the 2022 legislative session and explain why the Iowa legislature and Governor Kim Reynolds should prioritize enacting a midwifery licensure bill.

While I have addressed the need to provide a licensure for Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs) in previous pieces, I will go more in-depth in providing background on why all Iowans should want and support CPMs practicing in our state.

Note: I would not benefit directly in any way if this bill passed, as I am not a birthworker (doula, midwife, physician), and I do not plan on having any more children. Through my volunteer work with the International Cesarean Awareness Network, I have learned a lot about the different types of midwives and believe Iowans have been “dealt a bad hand” by not having knowledge or access to community birth options that are more readily available in other states and other high-income countries. Iowa families deserve to have all options available for safe and quality maternal health care.

As expected, Governor Kim Reynolds devoted a significant share of her Condition of the State speech on January 10 to her plan to divert more public funds to private K-12 schools across Iowa.

Although the central purpose of the plan remains the same—giving state funds to families who choose to send their children to a private school—the latest version is vastly larger in scope, and will be more costly.

Brittany Ruland is a community advocate, politically passionate individual who has been consulting and managing campaigns in all capacities around the country since 2015. She is a mother, grassroots organizer, and Iowan who most recently has worked for Senator Sarah Trone Garriott as well as Senator Bernie Sanders and President Joe Biden’s campaigns in 2020.

2022 was a rough year to be a Democrat in Iowa. Watching the results roll in felt like a collective gut punch. Next came the stinging realization that even with mostly-good results for Democrats nationally, we again lost ground in the middle of the country, even in places many of us were confident were winnable. It felt like salt on the wound.

A silver lining emerged as returns continued to come in, with Democratic State Senator Sarah Trone Garriott taking down one of the most dangerous Iowa Republican legislators, Senate President Jake Chapman. At that moment, I realized that even though we lost seats in the state legislature, this race could be a turning point for our party.

All three U.S. House Republicans from Iowa voted this week against a bill that would provide a federal guarantee of access to contraception.

But if Iowans encounter any mainstream news coverage of the issue, they may come away with the mistaken impression that GOP Representatives Ashley Hinson and Mariannette Miller-Meeks took a stand for contraception access.

The episode illustrates an ongoing problem in the Iowa media landscape: members of Congress have great influence over how their work is covered.

New restrictions on absentee voting prevented hundreds of Iowans from having their ballots counted in the June 7 primary election, Bleeding Heartland’s review of data from county auditors shows.

About 150 ballots that would have been valid under previous Iowa law were not counted due to a bill Republican legislators and Governor Kim Reynolds enacted in 2021, which required all absentee ballots to arrive at county auditors’ offices by 8:00 pm on election day. The majority of Iowans whose ballots arrived too late (despite being mailed before the election) were trying to vote in the Republican primary.

Hundreds more Iowans would have been able to vote by mail prior to the 2021 changes, but missed the new deadline for submitting an absentee ballot request form. More than half of them did not manage to cast a ballot another way in the June 7 election.

The new deadlines will trip up many more Iowans for the November election, when turnout will likely be about three times the level seen in this year’s primary, and more “snowbirds” attempt to vote by mail in Iowa from other states.

Susie Petra is a retired educator and longtime state and community activist.

With the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate coming up on June 7, I’ve asked myself, “Which candidate has shown a commitment to Iowa and its people? Has marched with us, has worked within the their community to better the living conditions, has worked within the party to get others elected, who has chaired organizations giving voice to our concerns?”

Only one person: Dr. Glenn Hurst. He is the candidate who has put in the years and time, speaking and listening to Iowans. He knows what issues affect us here and across the country, and will boldly and skillfully fight for them.

Early voting for Iowa’s June 7 primary began on May 18. Voting before election day has many advantages. You don’t have to worry about illness, work obligations, or a family emergency keeping you from casting a ballot. Once officials have recorded that you voted, you should stop receiving unsolicited phone calls and knocks at the door.

However, I now discourage Iowans from voting by mail unless there is no alternative. Recent changes to state law have greatly increased the risk of a mailed ballot never being counted.

The Hurst for Iowa campaign just received an overwhelming endorsement from Iowa’s leading progressive organization, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement Action Fund. In the announcement, they stated, “We’re endorsing Glenn because he’s with us on the issues and on challenging business-as-usual politics and the status quo. He shares our belief that real change comes from the ground up, and he has a plan to win and can excite a grassroots base to turn out to the polls on June 7.”

Bruce Lear: Iowa Democratic candidates at all levels need to put public schools at the center of their campaigns.

Whenever my dad saw someone doing things the hard way, he’d say, “That guy’s working with a short-handled shovel.” I know I did my share of short-handled shovel work.

My dad wasn’t being mean. He was just observing there was a better way to do the work. His long-ago quip now applies to Democrats as they try to win over voters for the midterm elections.

Julie Gammack reports from the campaign trail. She published a version of this piece on her Substack, Julie Gammack’s Potluck.

I tagged along with retired Vice Admiral Mike Franken last weekend as he campaigned in the northwest Iowa towns of Pocahontas, Storm Lake, Le Mars, and Sioux Center. This part of the state is as red as blood in political jargon. Or barn. It’s so red a dead GOP candidate would likely beat a live Democrat. According to recent filings, D’s aren’t even bothering to field candidates in multiple legislative districts in this corner of the state. 

So I was curious to see if anyone would show up for this scheduled trip. They did. 

President Joe Biden has signed into law a $1.5 trillion omnibus spending bill, which funds the federal government through September 30. The president’s action on March 15 ends a cycle of short-term continuing spending resolutions that kept the government operating on spending levels approved during Donald Trump’s administration.

The enormous package combines twelve appropriations bills covering portions of the federal government, as well as an additional $13.6 billion in aid to Ukraine and several unrelated pieces of legislation. One of those reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act through 2027, a task that had remained unfinished for years. Congress last reauthorized the 1994 legislation addressing violence against women in 2013, and that authorization expired in 2019.

Iowa’s Senator Joni Ernst was a key negotiator of the final deal on the Violence Against Women Act and celebrated its passage this week.

Brian McClain chairs the Iowa Democratic Party’s Progressive Caucus.

For decades now, corporate interests have had their way in Iowa and both parties have been complicit. It is time for the Iowa Democratic Party, the Party of the People, to say “enough is enough.” It is time to ask our elected officials, our candidates, our leaders which side they are on. Are they on the side of the oligarchs and corporations that seek to profit off the backs of all Iowans, or are they on the side of the people?

Emma Schmit is a member of the Iowa Democratic Party State Central Committee representing the fourth district. Emma is also chair of the Calhoun County Democrats and webmaster for the Fourth District Democrats.

I’ve always been a proud rural Democrat. But it has never been an easy road in a largely Republican county. We’ve been booed in parades, yard signs have been lit on fire. Canvassers have faced a litany of threats and intimidation – from a gun being brandished to bumper stickers and spark plugs being stolen from a vehicle. While I was working the polls on Election Day 2020, my dad was busy removing my yard signs and window placards because he was worried for my safety.

Despite everything, I’ve always believed that the party was worth fighting for because the party was fighting for me, for Iowa, and for a better future. 

However, right now, the party’s governing body is failing us.

Brian Bruening chairs the Clayton County Democrats.

The Iowa Democratic Party is passing through dire straits right now. We have a lot of energetic folks stepping up to run (Iowa Senate candidates Austin Frerick, Todd Brady, Sarah Trone Garriott, and Deb VanderGaast, to name but a few), but I’m worried that the stampede of Democratic legislators heading for the exit heralds a self-fulfilling prophecy of November defeat. 

Ras Smith dropping out of the governor’s race after being unable to find serious funding this cycle, and then announcing he’s not seeking re-election to his House seat, should’ve been treated as a more ominous a sign than it was. Indeed it was a bellwether in January when former House Democratic leader Todd Prichard announced he was bowing out of the legislature.

Sondra Feldstein is a farmer and business owner in Polk County.

Governor Kim Reynolds wants to exempt all cash rent income for retired farmers from state income tax. This horrible idea would harm rural Iowa and make it even harder for young people to break into the profession of farming.

Iowa already has a problem with an aging population of farm operators. According to the USDA’s 2021 census of agriculture, the average age of farmers in Iowa is 57.1 years. Four times as many farmers are over the age of 65 than under the age of 35. In other words, we don’t have a new generation of farmers to replace the ones already retired.

Why would we want a tax policy that would worsen the problem?

Randy Richardson: Most of the benefit will go to middle class students in regular education and small districts in heavily Republican areas.

During her recent Condition of the State address, Governor Kim Reynolds announced her intent to create Students First Scholarships. Among educators these “scholarships” are more commonly known as “vouchers.”

Parents could use the scholarships to cover the costs of moving their children from public schools to private ones. Any remaining funds could help cover qualified education expenses such as tutoring, curriculum or material costs, vocational or life skills training, and community college or other higher education expenses.

Each voucher will be equal to $5,359, or 70 percent of a state education funding for each K-12 public school student. The remaining $2,270 or 30 percent will remain with the state to be reallocated to smaller, often rural, school districts.

According to the governor, this will be done because losing funding for just one student can have a significant impact in a small rural school. Of course, this is an election year and those small schools happen to be located in heavily Republican parts of the state.

Senator Joe Bolkcom represents Iowa City and is the ranking Democrat on the Iowa Senate Appropriations Committee.

Iowa’s workforce crisis and rural decline can be traced to irresponsible Republican tax and economic policies year after year.  

Their actions bring to life the words of their puppet master Grover Norquist, who famously said, “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”

As Governor Kim Reynolds and legislative Republicans return to the statehouse, their workforce crisis and abandonment of rural Iowa will only grow worse with more tax cuts for Des Moines millionaires. The Republican strategy is to stay the course by continuing to starve rural Iowa’s struggling public schools, exhausted health care providers, declining state parks, dangerous prisons, and neglected state resource centers. 

Charles Bruner: Democrats need to recognize rural Iowans’ frustration with the political system and start finding common ground.

Broadly generalizing, rural Iowans are good folk. They work hard and play by the rules, care about their neighbors, and seek to leave a future where their children can succeed and prosper. If an African American family moves in next door, they welcome them with fresh-based bread or cookies. They regard a child with Down syndrome reaching the age of majority as a part of the community and look out to see that youth is supported by and included in community life. They are entrepreneurs and tinker to be good stewards in preserving the land and community, in the context of a corporate agricultural economy.

Those qualities may not distinguish them greatly from city folk, but rural Iowans frequently have much more sense of and hands-on involvement in community life.

They also are older, whiter, and less likely to have college degrees than their urban counterparts. In 2008 and 2012, nearly half of Iowans outside large metro areas voted for Barack Obama for president. But a third of those who had voted for Obama switched away from the Democratic candidate for president in 2016. Donald Trump received about two-thirds of the rural Iowa vote in 2020.

Democrats have been wringing their hands over this shift – and the change in the county coffee shop conversations that must have occurred in small-town and rural Iowa.