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

Kathy Davis passed away on March 24, 2020, having fallen ill shortly after an overseas vacation with her husband. The Iowa Department of Public Health later determined that the retired community college counselor from Dubuque was the first Iowan to die of the novel coronavirus.

One year later, the state’s official website shows that 5,689 Iowans have died of COVID-19. The real death toll is somewhat higher, since the process of confirming and reporting coronavirus deaths usually involves weeks of delay. In addition, some Iowans who died in the early weeks of the pandemic may not have had a positive test during their illness.

This post attempts to put Iowa’s coronavirus fatality numbers into context. But since statistics don’t convey the loss that thousands of families have experienced, I hope readers will take time to reflect on those who have passed. The Dubuque Telegraph-Herald’s Bennet Goldstein wrote about Kathy Davis and her widower Chuck’s journey of bereavement. The Carroll Times Herald’s Jared Strong covered the aftermath of a card game among friends in Crawford County. Newspaper reporters from around the state have profiled hundreds of the dead as part of the Iowa Mourns series, available on the Des Moines Register’s website. One of those featured was Jay Daniels, a longtime family friend whose funeral we couldn’t attend, due to COVID safety protocols.

Bereavement on this scale is hard to fathom, especially in a culture some might call “grief-illiterate,” where death is often “unseen and denied.” Even so, it’s worth looking at the numbers.

Jim Chrisinger: Government employees are just as smart, creative, and hard working as their private sector counterparts; they just have to work in a system with lousy organizational DNA. -promoted by Laura Belin

When we moved back to Iowa three years ago, our state was up and coming, a place that attracted young families, entrepreneurs, and the tech industry, as well as retirees like us. But now Iowa’s elected leaders seem intent on taking Iowa backwards: suppressing the vote, waging culture wars, and threatening public education.  

Imagine what Iowa’s elected leaders could do if they put their energies into governing to move us forward again.  

U.S. Senator Joni Ernst has voted against confirming twelve of President Joe Biden’s cabinet appointees, a majority of the 23 cabinet officials who are subject to Senate confirmation. Senators have confirmed 21 cabinet members; Eric Lander is awaiting a vote as director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the president has yet to announce a replacement for Neera Tanden, who withdrew her nomination to lead the Office of Management and Budget.

Only ten of the 50 Republican senators have voted against more of Biden’s appointees than Ernst: Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, Rick Scott, Tom Cotton, Tommy Tuberville, Bill Hagerty, Rand Paul, Richard Shelby, Marsha Blackburn, and Tim Scott.

Iowa’s senior Senator Chuck Grassley has voted against five of the 21 cabinet members confirmed so far.

Michael Schmidt, staff attorney for the Iowa Environmental Council, wrote this post, which first appeared on that organization’s blog. -promoted by Laura Belin

This legislative session has kept the Iowa Environmental Council busy, in part because of a bill that would protect gas company profits at the expense of Iowa customers. House File 555 and its companion, Senate File 455, would hurt Iowans by stopping cities and counties from protecting their local residents from dangerous gas infrastructure, high energy bills, and polluting fossil fuels.

Ira Lacher: If you want to kennel any watchdog proposal in America, no matter how beneficial, just scream “freedom!” -promoted by Laura Belin

“COVID passports” may be well on their way to fruition. The idea of having to produce documentation before you can do what we used to take for granted — like go to a ballgame or board a plane — is gaining traction overseas, where proof of an ultrarecent negative COVID-19 test or vaccination is required to travel freely among European Union countries. Many airlines flying domestically or internationally require similar proof, and you can’t enter the United States from abroad without it.

The next step, proponents argue, is to import the idea. Such proof would be required for interstate travel, and perhaps for more mundane access such as attending a concert or sporting event. Advocates say this would allow more than a small percentage of stadium or arena seats to be filled, permit restaurants to operate at full capacity, and eliminate quarantine requirements for out-of-state visitors.

When the Republican-controlled Iowa House and Senate approved large tax cuts in 2018, not a single Democrat voted for the legislation. Critics pointed out that the bill hailed by Governor Kim Reynolds was skewed to provide most of the benefit to wealthy people, with little savings for middle class Iowans.

Much of that bill went into effect immediately, but lawmakers put some portions on hold until 2023, provided that state revenue hit certain targets. In her annual address to legislators in January, Reynolds called for eliminating “the unnecessary triggers that were put in place in 2018,” so all of the tax cuts would go into effect.

Republicans embraced that idea in Senate File 576, which would take out the triggers and phase out Iowa’s inheritance tax by 2024. Democrats didn’t support the bill when the Senate’s tax-writing committee voted on it this month. But a surprise to many observers, including the GOP floor manager Dan Dawson, every senator from both parties voted for Senate File 576 on March 17.

Why did Democrats come around to supporting a bill that is estimated to reduce state revenues by more than $100 million annually, beginning in fiscal year 2023?

Governor Kim Reynolds promised early this year that she would have her staff respond “in a timely manner” to requests for public records.

Two and a half months later, the governor’s office continues to delay action on numerous requests for documents subject to Iowa’s open records law.

As fundraising emails go, the message State Auditor Rob Sand’s campaign sent around 10:00 am on March 20 was nothing special. It began this way:

Even though it’s an off-year for us, it is still important to show our campaign is viably powered and the supported choice to move Iowa forward.

While re-election is still many months away, our campaign is already hard at work building the critical infrastructure needed to ensure re-election.

A “corrected” version arrived about an hour and 20 minutes later.

With Steve King no longer serving in Congress, I rarely find an Iowan’s name on a short list of U.S. House Republicans doing something outrageous–like the twelve who voted this week against awarding Congressional Gold Medals to the Capitol Police, the D.C. police, and the Smithsonian Institution for their work on January 6.

But Representative Randy Feenstra, who defeated King in last year’s fourth district GOP primary, has quietly signed on to a Republican project that is just as offensive to democracy.

UPDATE: Weeks after publication, state officials said this payment had been “inaccurately coded to the federal CARES program,” which was “anticipated” to cover this expense but did not. They said the database would be corrected to reflect the coding error. More details are at the end of this post. Original text follows.

Iowa’s Office of Chief Information Officer spent $39,512 in federal COVID-19 relief funds on a project to migrate computers in Governor Kim Reynolds’ office from Google suite to Microsoft Office 365.

Public databases showing expenditures from Iowa’s Coronavirus Relief Fund do not indicate the governor’s office was the beneficiary of that November payment from OCIO to the vendor Insight Public Sector for unspecified “IT Outside Services.” Documents obtained through public records requests show the money covered the cost of the Google to Office 365 migration.

The governor’s office reimbursed OCIO for that expense in mid-December, days after the Reynolds administration was forced to backpedal on other COVID-19 funds spent on computer technology. Earlier the same month, Bleeding Heartland had sought records related to goods and services OCIO purchased on behalf of the governor’s office using money from the Coronavirus Relief Fund. 

The governor’s spokesperson Pat Garrett has not replied to inquiries about who authorized the initial spending on switching from Google to Office 365 or what funding source eventually covered the cost.

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

Governor Kim Reynolds’ approval rating is lower than ever before, as measured by the Iowa poll by Selzer & Co for the Des Moines Register and Mediacom.

The numbers will encourage any Democrats considering a gubernatorial bid in 2022. But Reynolds will still carry many advantages into the campaign.

Rosanne Cook, Sarah Prineas, Emily Silliman, and Janice Weiner co-authored this post. -promoted by Laura Belin

November 3, 2020 was a kick in the teeth for Iowa Democrats. We lost in Iowa and we lost badly. What should we do about it, other than feel disheartened?

The Potluck Insurgency is a grassroots activist group based in Johnson County. After the 2020 election, four members of Potluck’s steering committee undertook a project to debrief candidates from urban, suburban and rural districts; former officials of the Iowa Democratic Party; and activists from other grassroots organizations.  Seeking to identify reasons for our losses in 2020 and to formulate recommendations for a path forward in Iowa, we interviewed 34 people over the course of three months, in hour-long interviews, working from questions prepared in advance.   

After these interviews, we drew some conclusions about next steps. The following advice is directed at everyone from Iowa Democratic Party leaders, to activist groups like ours, to candidates. These are concrete actions that all of these groups can take to improve our chances in 2022.

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

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

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

Ira Lacher: Many of us remain even more pessimistic — and not just about the pandemic. -promoted by Laura Belin

It’s hard not to feel optimistic when there’s less snow and ice on the ground each morning, shorts and sandals feel comfortable outdoors, and the gas grill fires up with ease.

Remember how this time felt a year ago? Now, we can dare hope again. Optimism is awakening.

A new Iowa poll by Selzer & Co for the Des Moines Register and Mediacom contained shocking numbers: 55 percent of respondents, including 35 percent of Republicans surveyed, hope U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley does not run again in 2022. Just 28 percent of respondents (50 percent of Republicans) hope he will run for an eighth Senate term.

The same poll measured Grassley’s job approval at 48 percent, the lowest in this survey since 1982. Selzer polls routinely found Grassley’s approval to be above 70 percent during the 2000s and above 60 percent during the first half of the 2010s, a graph published in the Des Moines Register shows.

Although Grassley would be a prohibitive favorite to win again, the new numbers indicate widespread unease about the senator’s capacity to serve another six-year term.

Iowa Republican legislators want to avoid leaving redistricting in the hands of the Iowa Supreme Court, Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver indicated during a March 12 legislative forum in Ankeny. In fact, GOP leaders may follow the state of Ohio’s lead in suing the U.S. Census Bureau to obtain the 2020 population data sooner.

The bureau has said it will send states the numbers they need to conduct redistricting by September 30, more than seven months later than usual. Under Iowa law, the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency (LSA) is to submit plans for new legislative and Congressional districts by April 1. The state constitution calls for the legislature to adopt a map of Iowa House and Senate districts by September 1. If the map hasn’t become law by September 15, authority over redistricting moves to the Iowa Supreme Court, which is to have a new legislative map drawn by December 31.

Whitver told the Ankeny audience he didn’t know how Republicans would approach the problem, adding, “We’re looking at all options, and everything from suing the Census Bureau to make sure that we get that data to any other options on the table.”

During their six years serving together in Congress, Iowa’s two Republican U.S. senators have rarely differed on matters that came to the Senate floor. But seven weeks into Joe Biden’s presidency, a pattern is emerging: Senator Joni Ernst is more inclined to reject the new president’s nominees than is her senior colleague Chuck Grassley.

In most cases, Ernst has not released any statement explaining her confirmation votes. Her staff have not responded to Bleeding Heartland’s inquiries about why she opposed specific nominees or her general approach to evaluating prospective cabinet members.

Athena Gilbraith is a racial justice activist in eastern Iowa. -promoted by Laura Belin

This week Republican legislators on the Iowa House Government Oversight Committee took on school officials in Ames to contest cultural competency. To challenge a celebration of Black America and Black Iowans, these lawmakers chose to center dehumanization.

Representative Bobby Kaufmann described Black History Month teaching materials as “garbage,” while Representative Steven Holt amplified whataboutism, a dog whistle in shepherding white supremacy. (Editor’s note: You can watch the committee hearing here or listen to the audio here.)

Between the extreme new voter suppression law, the bill to codify “qualified immunity” for law enforcement, and limiting diversity training at Iowa universities, the goal appears to be to reproduce racial inequality in our state.