Rekha Basu is a longtime syndicated columnist, editorial writer, reporter, and author of the book, “Finding Your Voice.” She was a staff opinion writer for 30 years at The Des Moines Register, where her work still appears periodically. This post first appeared on her Substack column, Rekha Shouts and Whispers.

As of July 1, a new law signed by Iowa’s first female governor will make it illegal for Des Moines to intentionally recruit, hire, or retain female police officers.

It’s a sad day when Governor Kim Reynolds, a member of an underrepresented group who has benefited from efforts to broaden the mix in power, shuts the door behind her. The very institution of policing will suffer for it and so, besides the women excluded, will those who depend on it to protect us, fairly and equally.

This happens just a year after the Des Moines City Council voted unanimously to pay nearly $2.4 million to four female Des Moines Police Department employees who had suffered discrimination at work. Settled days before it was to go to trial, their lawsuit claimed men in the department were promoted over better qualified women, female employees were subjected to sexual harassment and retaliation for complaining, and harassment was known, tolerated—and in some instances encouraged—by higher ups.

Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes openness and transparency in Iowa’s state and local governments. He can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. 

People living in central Iowa received a wake-up call last week that should drag water quality back in front of the state’s 3.2 million residents.

Iowa’s largest water supplier, which serves a fifth of the state’s homes and businesses, ordered its 600,000 customers to immediately reduce water demand by ending lawn-watering and cutting use in other ways.

Such orders typically come during persistent drought when water supplies are short. This time, water is plentiful. But Central Iowa Water Works is struggling to remove enough nitrates to make its water safe for human consumption.

This is not just a Des Moines area problem. This is an all-of-Iowa problem. 

Dr. Greg Cohen has practiced medicine in Chariton since 1994 and is president-elect of the American College of Osteopathic Family Physicians. He was named the Rural Health Champion by the Iowa Rural Health Association in 2014 and was awarded the Living Doc Hollywood Award for National Rural Health day in 2015. He was named a Distinguished Fellow by the American College of Osteopathic Family Physicians as well as Physician of the Year by the Iowa Osteopathic Medical Association in 2019.

I was hoping I would never have to write this, but measles has come back to Iowa. Although the last measles case in Iowa was was recorded in 2019, it has been more than a generation since the last significant outbreak. It has been 25 years since the United States was declared measles free—meaning there was no longer year-round spread.

We are now at a 30-year high in cases and still rising. Since the start of this year’s outbreak in Texas, there have now been more than 1,168 cases in at least 35 states, 137 hospitalizations, and three confirmed deaths. 95 percent of those diagnosed with measles this year have been unvaccinated, and all of the deaths have been unvaccinated. The Iowa Department of Health and Human Services announced on June 11 the third confirmed measles case in our state: an unvaccinated child “who was exposed during international travel.”

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

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice focused on manners and goodness, two virtues sometimes forgotten today.

Shortly before the novel was published, our Founding Fathers settled on the free exchange of ideas as one of the fundamental concepts they wanted to guarantee in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

But in 2025, an uncomfortable tug-of-war is occurring over pride and prejudice, expression and oppression.

Rick Morain is the former publisher and owner of the Jefferson Herald, for which he writes a regular column.

Iowa’s DOGE task force, which Governor Kim Reynolds created earlier this year to channel the federal “Department of Government Efficiency,” discussed the possible consolidation of counties at its June 4 meeting.

Various committees, commissions, boards, organizations, individual legislators, and other Iowans take up the idea every so often. Like a steer at the Iowa State Fair, the proposal gets eyeballed, patted down, and evaluated. But unlike a State Fair entry, county consolidation is then written up in a report, and mothballed for a few years until someone else reopens the concept.

Consolidating the 99 counties is the zombie of Iowa think tanks. It doesn’t die, but it never really lives either. And there are good reasons for that.

Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring. He can be reached at BruceLear2419@gmail.com 

When my three-year-old granddaughter and I took walks, she’d suddenly stop and stare at a long narrow stick, an uncoiled hose, or a piece of rope. Her hand would tighten in mine, as she crouched for a better look. After a minute or so she’d solemnly pronounce, “not a snake.”

She wasn’t sure what she was looking at, but after careful study, she knew what it wasn’t. We can learn a lesson from a tiny granddaughter looking at life on a walk. She didn’t try to make the new object fit into her understanding, but she needed assurance about what it wasn’t.

It’s difficult making sense of the political chaos engulfing America. It’s hard to name it. It’s easier to look and say, “not normal.”

Sue Dinsdale is the Executive Director of Iowa Citizen Action Network and the State Lead for Health Care for America NOW.

Apparently, the new official response to Iowa families worried about losing their health care is: “Well, we all are going to die.”

That’s what Senator Joni Ernst told Iowans when asked at a recent town hall meeting about the devastating cuts to Medicaid being proposed in Congress. And while she’s technically correct—we are all going to die—it’s hard to imagine a more callous, out-of-touch response to the very real fear that families like mine carry every day.

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

On June 1, 1950, U.S. Senator Margaret Chase Smith (a Republican from Maine) delivered a speech that she called her “Declaration of Conscience.” She targeted fellow Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin and the fear, hate mongering, and divisiveness that was tearing the nation apart in McCarthy’s anti-Communist crusade to make America great again.

Seventy-five years after Smith showed courage and patriotism, Republican Senator Joni Ernst took the opposite path. She mocked an Iowan who cried out against GOP legislation and MAGA efforts that divide the nation today.

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.

World War II is still The Good War.

The celebration last month of the 80^th anniversary of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany in May, 1945 was the latest rush of World War II nostalgia, joining a similar timed anniversary last year of the D-Day landings in Normandy in June, 1944, and the 85^th anniversary of the British evacuation from the disaster at Dunkirk in early June, 1940.

World War II still draws audiences. On American television, “Band of Brothers” remains a streaming sensation with a companion “Masters of the Air” released this year. Subscribers with enough channel power regularly call up Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” (1998) and Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk” (2017), both of which had enjoyed strong theater runs.

It’s not hard to see why Americans have maintained a nostalgic obsession with the Allied victory in Europe in 1945. The European theater included the ancestral homelands of most Americans. The vanquished Nazis could be loathed without reservation and their end came without an unexpected shock that the atomic bomb provided for the defeat of Japan in the Pacific. Unlike the glorified truce of 1918, the victory over Germany in 1945 was decisive and total, not subjected to the “stab in the back” ruminations that fed later Hitlerian resentment.

AJ Jones is a writer and creator of art, expressing herself across different mediums. She embraces her neurodivergence as a unique way to view the world in hopes of creating a better future. She first published this essay on her Substack newsletter, Blue Dot Thoughts.

On Memorial Day I set out to visit Iowa’s largest “lake.” A staple in the memories of my youth. I was curious to see if people still relaxed and recreated as they once did during the warm weather holidays. So much has changed, environmentally, since I was a kid and not for the better.

It seems I was born in the “sweet spot.” A time before an outrageous number of CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) and manure run-off…a time before Roundup and glyphosate. A time of innocence when family and friends could meet at Iowa lakes to fish, to swim, to enjoy the warmer seasons outdoors.

Looking back we had no idea just how lucky we were.

Josh Mandelbaum represents Ward 3 on the Des Moines City Council.

Housing is one of the most important issues facing our community and our country right now. Nationwide, we have failed to build enough new housing to keep up with demand. In places where this trend is most pronounced, housing has become increasingly unaffordable, and more and more folks are housing burdened (more than 30 percent of their income goes towards housing) or simply priced out of where they want to live.

Compared to the most extreme examples, Des Moines is a relatively affordable community. But if we continue on our current trajectory, we will become less affordable and experience problems that we have seen elsewhere.

In that context, the city is working towards our first housing strategy plan. At our May 12 Council work session, Council heard a presentation on the draft plan. Since then, I have had a chance to read the entire draft plan. The housing strategy draft falls short of a comprehensive housing strategy and instead focuses almost exclusively on how to increase existing property values. The strategy lacks vision and a comprehensive approach to make housing better quality, more accessible, and more affordable for everyone in our community.

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

If an opinionated old guy from southern Iowa delivered the recent commencement address at the United States Military Academy, my message would have contrasted with the one given by another opinionated old guy, one from Queens, New York, by way of the White House.

When I was a newspaper editor, I sometimes told the staff they needed to run a belt sander across an article to remove rough spots before publication. So it was with President Donald Trump’s speech to 1,000 new Army second lieutenants at West Point in May. His staff needed to take the Oval Office belt sander to his message.

Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring. He can be reached at BruceLear2419@gmail.com 

Over time, essential items seem to vanish and are quickly replaced by new technology. Home phones gave way to cell phones now found in most 5^th grader pockets.

Video tapes and CDs died and were resurrected as movie streaming and digital music. Once a badly folded map gave directions. Now, we talk to GPS, and it orders us, “Make a U-turn as soon as possible.”

Politics isn’t immune either. Principled conservatives disappeared and have been replaced by enablers.

Iowa’s 2026 U.S. Senate race had its first viral moment on May 30, when an unscripted comment from Senator Joni Ernst generated massive coverage across Iowa and national news outlets.

The words Ernst blurted out in frustration at that town hall meeting may or may not have staying power in the next Senate campaign.

But we’ll definitely keep hearing what the senator said before and after making that gaffe. Republicans around the country, including Iowa’s U.S. House members, have used the same false claims in defense of the budget reconciliation bill now pending in the Senate.

Those statements were among more than a dozen messages about Medicaid and the federal food assistance program known as SNAP that Republicans tested this spring in telephone polls. I was a respondent for one of the surveys in early May and have transcribed the questionnaire at the end of this post.

I don’t know which GOP-aligned entity paid for the robo-poll I received, but it’s clear the memo on how to spin deep Medicaid and SNAP cuts has gone out to all Republicans in Congress.

John and Terri Hale own The Hale Group, an Ankeny-based advocacy firm focused on older Iowans, Iowans with disabilities and the caregivers who support them. Contact them at terriandjohnhale@gmail.com

Our admiration goes to the Davids of the world: those who stand up, speak out and fight back, refusing to let the Goliaths intimidate or silence them.

A recent example is a story by Clark Kauffman, reporter at the Iowa Capital Dispatch. He detailed the allegations in a lawsuit filed by a former certified nurse aide at a nursing home in Fonda, Iowa. The suit was filed against the Fonda Specialty Care nursing home, its parent company, Care Initiatives, and a licensed practical nurse working at the facility. You can read the April 30 story here.

Geoff Horsfield is policy director and Anne Schechinger is Midwest director at the Environmental Working Group. This post first appeared on the EWG’s website.

Farm subsidies already favor the largest farms. But the budget reconciliation bill the U.S. House approved on May 22 is packed with farm subsidy loopholes that would make the problem worse. 

These provisions could add tens of billions to the federal deficit and further tilt the playing field against small family farmers. 

Here are some of the worst farm subsidy loopholes and giveaways in the bill: 

Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring. He can be reached at BruceLear2419@gmail.com 

They’re finally gone. It’s over. Mom always said, “Nothing good comes after midnight.” I didn’t get it as a teen. I do now. At 6:31 am on May 15 the legislative party under the Golden Dome died, after lingering on life support for nearly two weeks beyond the scheduled adjournment date.

But it’s not majority party legislators suffering from hangover headaches. The real head throbbing belongs to Iowa public schools.

It can’t be cured with sleep or a home remedy. It impacts 480,665 students in 325 school districts. Here are some of those headaches.

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

Last week, the Pentagon accepted the emir of Qatar’s gift of a Boeing 747, a $400 million bauble donated for our president to enjoy by a monarch whose family has ruled the tiny Mideast nation for more than a century.

Our commander in chief said the United States would be stupid to reject the donation—a present he hopes to use as a temporary replacement for Air Force One. The key word there: a temporary replacement.

Controversy clouds this gift for a couple of reasons. And Iowa’s public gift law—which deals with freebies much less ostentatious than the Qatari jet—provides important context on the controversy.

Taylor Kohn is an Iowan advocate and publicist currently residing in Minnesota.

State Auditor Rob Sand, the top elected Democrat in Iowa, announced his run for governor on May 12. With Governor Kim Reynolds not seeking re-election, some see Sand’s candidacy as a chance to win the office away from the GOP. I’m among those who would like to see that happen.

Unfortunately, Rob Sand is not offering a real alternative to the party in power.

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. A version of this essay first appeared on his Substack newsletter, The Odd Man Out.

As an atheist and critic of religion, I didn’t expect to be writing about the goings on in the Catholic Church regarding the new pope. The media is abuzz with coverage of the man the cardinals elected, Robert Prevost of Chicago. Since he has been critical of notable right-wing politicians and policy on social media, and is the first Pope from North America, some have argued his selection signifies a continuation of the “progressive” legacy of the late Pope Francis.

However, the evidence is simply not stacking up behind this claim.

“President Trump was right about everything—build the wall, end catch-and-release, and stand with law enforcement,” wrote Attorney General Brenna Bird in a May 21 post on her campaign Facebook page. She was near the U.S. border with Mexico, at a press conference organized by the Republican Attorneys General Association.

The Iowa Attorney General’s office didn’t release a statement about the trip before or afterwards, and didn’t post about it on Bird’s official Facebook or X/Twitter feeds.

That makes sense, because Bird didn’t go to Arizona to perform any official duties. The trip was the latest sign that she is desperate to secure President Donald Trump’s endorsement as she considers whether to run for governor in 2026.

Bill Bumgarner is a retired former health care executive from northwest Iowa who worked
in hospital management for 41 years, mostly in the state of Iowa.

Prior to retiring at the end of 2023, I worked in hospital leadership for 41 years. For the last 24 years of that time, I served as president at two hospitals in rural Iowa.

I’ll be quick to my point and blunt. When President Donald Trump or any Republican member of the U.S. House or Senate tells you that their Medicaid budget plans are strictly focused on cutting waste, fraud and abuse, they’re lying.

Rick Morain is the former publisher and owner of the Jefferson Herald, for which he writes a regular column.

Have you ever heard someone refer to an “emolument” in a context other than the U.S. Constitution? Probably not. The word is somewhat archaic, and rarely appears other than as a reference to a gift provided to a public official, especially the president. It came into its own during President Donald Trump’s first term, when Democrats accused him of violating the Constitution by accepting gifts from foreign powers, particularly in the form of paying high prices to stay in a Trump hotel.

Now the same president is once again front and center in an emolument discussion. In this case it’s a luxury plane worth hundreds of millions of dollars, which the U.S. Air Force accepted on May 21 as a gift from the Emirate of Qatar.

Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes openness and transparency in Iowa’s state and local governments. He can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com.

The Iowa Supreme Court gave citizen engagement and accessibility to public meetings a much-needed boost on May 16 when ruling on an appeal of a lawsuit against the Iowa City Community School District.

The district’s practice of posting full videos of school board meetings on the internet for on-demand public viewing was at the heart of the case.

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

Within a few hours on May 4, the news media offered two provocative perspectives on President Donald Trump, one from The New York Times the other from NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Subscribers to the New York Times could consider the paper’s 24 pages of text and photos containing critiques of Trump and his cabinet. A bit later, they and the rest of us could view the second perspective on TV.

Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring. He can be reached at BruceLear2419@gmail.com 

In grade school, there’s always one kid who needs to be first. He cuts the line for lunch, with a hard shove. In class, even if he doesn’t have a clue about the answer, his hand shoots up first. At recess, if he’s not picked first, the only game played is All Star wrestling.

He owns the big box of crayons, the one with the sharpener, and he guards it. He doesn’t share. If your green crayon is a nub, and you ask to borrow one of his four, his answer is always, “They’re mine.” His sharpener isn’t communal.

The grown-up version cuts you off with a high-speed veer into another lane avoiding a construction zone. He steals the last parking spot while you’re inches from pulling in. He flashes a smirk.

What happens when the adult version isn’t cutting you off in a construction zone, or stealing a parking place, but elected to lead the most powerful country in the world?

The Rev. Lizzie Gillman is an Episcopal priest in Des Moines serving St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church and the Beloved Community Initiative of the Episcopal Diocese of Iowa. She recently sent versions of this message to Republican members of the Iowa House, after the chamber approved House File 856, banning public entities and institutions from diversity, equity, and inclusion activities.

Dear Iowa House Republicans,

Your brilliant and faithful colleague, Representative Rob Johnson, shared a photo of today’s vote on HF856, and I see that you once again voted against Iowa being a diverse, equitable, and inclusive state. With your “green” vote, you joined those who continue to deny the truth that every Iowan, no matter their race, gender, or background, belongs and deserves dignity.

I am a woman who is able to serve as an ordained Episcopal priest because the Black Church – rooted in resilience, liberation, and justice—affirmed the gifts and calls of women long before many white institutions did. A few faithful white men stood in solidarity, helping to open the doors of pulpits and altars that had long been closed to women. The progress that allowed me to stand at the altar and proclaim God’s Word was born not from exclusion, but from courageous inclusion.

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

Three months ago, Scott County Attorney Kelly Cunningham said she would not file criminal charges in the partial collapse of a six-story apartment building in downtown Davenport in 2023.

The decision came after an inquiry by the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation. In explaining her decision to the Quad-City Times, Cunningham cited the findings of the DCI report.

Now, she wants to keep the report secret.

Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes openness and transparency in Iowa’s state and local governments. He can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com.

You may be experiencing whiplash this spring just trying to track the Iowa legislature’s zigzag movements. It comes from what some might charitably call a lack of consistency on a key theme.

A set of bills from the Republican majority at the capitol illustrates this inconsistency.

Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring. He can be reached at BruceLear2419@gmail.com 

Author’s note: This is the long play version of a speech I gave during the May Day Rally in Sioux City, sponsored by the “Siouxland Good Trouble Makers.” It rained during my speech, so I did an abbreviated version. Here is the full text. An estimated 150 people attended this rally.

This crowd gets my blood pumping! On this May Day, let’s remember the International Worker slogan of 1905: “An injury to one is an injury to all.” It was true then. It’s true now. 

If one person is denied due process, equal justice is on life support. When the richest man in the world waves around a chain saw gutting essential programs, run by essential workers, and when a president imposes reckless tariffs, America bleeds. 

Rallies like this one are the tourniquet that stops the bleeding. Today, our collective voices speak truth to power. This isn’t about political red or blue. It’s about right and wrong. 

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

At least one member of the Iowa House appears to live by the mantra “Do as I say, not as I do” as he demands access to sensitive personal information and commands silence as he trolls for documents.

The audacity of State Representative Charley Thomson’s recent demands to a nonprofit organization should offend all, regardless of where you land on the political spectrum.

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

Despite media reports and some Democratic hand-wringing to the contrary, Iowa Democrats really are united both in the values they hold and how public policy must advance those values. Moreover, these values are aligned with voters’ values and the policies have broad voter support. They stand in sharp distinction to those Republicans are advancing, both nationally and in Iowa.

Simply put, Iowa and national Democrats believe government must play a positive role in ensuring broadly shared and sustainable prosperity for the nation’s residents and their families.

The slide below enumerates the values that underpin this role for government and lead to a set of policy actions.

Rick Morain is the former publisher and owner of the Jefferson Herald, for which he writes a regular column.

It usually takes a while for specific changes by the federal government to work their way down to the local level. But after about 100 days of President Donald Trump’s second term, executive orders have begun to directly tighten the screws in Greene County.

Three examples:

Jesse Parker is a concerned Iowan and military veteran from Dallas County.

After Afghanistan fell to the Taliban in August 2021, nearly 900 Afghan refugees immigrated to Iowa.  Some of them recently received notices from the federal Department of Homeland Security, instructing them to self-deport out of the United States.

According to the director of Afghan Partners in Iowa, these people are experiencing tremendous fear given the wording of these emails:

“It is time for you to leave the United States […] Do not attempt to remain in the United States — The federal government will find you.”

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

Give Governor Kim Reynolds credit for consistency. When it comes to wanting to hide details of possible misstatements or misdeeds, she treats Lutherans and atheists alike.

Soon, Iowans may learn important lessons about “executive privilege” claims by the governor and whether they provide her any cover to keep staff documents in her office secret.

These teachable moments arise from two lawsuits filed within hours of each other on April 25.

Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring. He can be reached at BruceLear2419@gmail.com 

Many of us have experienced planning committees where loud, “big idea” people dominate. They’re the ones who believe all their ideas are gold and they’re not shy about sharing their genius. They have 50 ideas an hour, and 49 of those should be trashed.

I understand the rules for brainstorming. “There are no bad ideas.” But many of those ideas should die a natural death. They should rest peacefully buried in a closet with other bad ideas written on those big sheets of brainstorming paper.

But sometimes that doesn’t work.

Nicholas Cocozzelli is an economic analyst and founder of the Inequality Focus Substack newsletter, where this piece originally appeared.

John Deere, a major employer for Iowans, has faced severe criticism for its recent series of layoffs in the Hawkeye State. The agricultural equipment company announced in February it would be laying off 119 workers at its plant in Ankeny, Iowa. The Ankeny plant employs roughly 1,500 workers total. Over the past year, Deere has made roughly 2,000 job cuts at its plants across the state.

Deere has blamed a struggling farm economy for these cuts, but has been criticized as seeking a cheaper labor market in Mexico. Last year, when the company announced layoffs in Dubuque, Deere confirmed that it was “…shifting some production from its Dubuque Works facility in Iowa to a new facility it is building in Ramos, Mexico.”

According to Industrial Equipment News, production of mid-frame skid steer loaders and compact track loaders will be relocated from the Dubuque facility to Ramos. The Des Moines Register also noted that Deere faced scrutiny for outsourcing some lines of production from other plants across Iowa, specifically in Waterloo and Ottumwa, to Mexico.

Henry Jay Karp is the Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Emanuel in Davenport, Iowa, which he served from 1985 to 2017. He is the co-founder and co-convener of One Human Family QCA, a social justice organization.

As an Iowan, a Jew, and a rabbi who has served the Quad Cities Jewish community for nearly 40 years, I was beside myself when I read Dr. Thomas Lecaque’s guest column in Iowa Starting Line about the school chaplain bill moving through the Iowa legislature. Having made its way through the House and the Senate Education Committee, it is now eligible for floor debate in the Senate.

House File 884 is an offense of the highest degree to every non-Christian faith community in our state. It empowers school districts to hire chaplains “to provide support, services, and programs as assigned by the board of directors of the school district.”

If that sounds innocuous, think again, for the Senate Education Committee has already rejected an amendment that would restrict school chaplains from proselytizing students. So much for religious neutrality in our schools!

Rick Morain is the former publisher and owner of the Jefferson Herald, for which he writes a regular column.

Iowa’s senior U.S. Senator, Republican Chuck Grassley, met with more than 50 of us from the Jefferson area here on April 17. Unlike most Republican members of Congress these days, Grassley has continued to make himself available to his constituents in all 99 Iowa counties.

Some of his meetings are true wide-open town meetings; others are by invitation. The hour-long Jefferson session was billed as a Q and A with local business and development people, but many of those in attendance did not fit that description. Still they asked their questions, and Grassley answered each of them.

Grassley opened the session by noting that he has taken his 99-county tour annually over his 45 years in the Senate. That practice now defies the advice of Republican strategists, who frown on letting people raise their voices face-to-face in disagreement with GOP members of Congress. He is correct in his defiance, and that stance earned him the thanks of some of those at last Thursday’s meeting, even if they strongly disagreed with his positions and his answers to their questions.

Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes openness and transparency in Iowa’s state and local governments. He can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com.

As we approach the second anniversary of a tragedy that shocked the people of Davenport and brought national attention to the issue of building safety, government secrecy continues to cloud public understanding of just what happened and who to hold accountable.

The tragedy occurred a few minutes before 5 p.m. on Sunday, May 28, 2023, when the back wall of a Davenport apartment building gave way, bringing down much of the six-story residence that occupied a quarter block across the street from City Hall.