Jim Chrisinger: Republicans’ disrespect for government and democracy makes it easier for them to suppress votes. And harder for Democrats to fight back. -promoted by Laura Belin

Our current political battles are asymmetrical because Democrats essentially respect democracy and government and too many Republicans do not.

At some point — with Newt Gingrich? — the GOP morphed from “too much government is a problem” to “government is the enemy.” In the last couple of decades, Iowa Republicans drove out of the party those following in the footsteps of Bob Ray, Jim Leach, and even an earlier version of Chuck Grassley, all of whom believed in the value of good government, albeit smaller government.

So “polarization” may not best describe our current dilemma.  Polarization implies both sides moving to extremes.  Here, one side steered over the edge.

For today’s anniversary of Václav Havel’s death, Kieran Williams makes the case for why Havel’s prison letters are timely reading in our pandemic. -promoted by Laura Belin

In the course of this year I have read a lot about COVID-19, its effects on the human body, and what we might do to treat or halt it. I don’t yet feel ready to read about its other effects, on the psyches of billions of people who have had to adjust their daily lives. The fact is that until it is over, I won’t even understand how it has affected me, let alone everyone else.

That’s why I’ve wanted to turn instead to a record of another person’s experience of existential shock, one that happened far enough in the past that we can treat it as a completed event: Václav Havel’s letters as a political prisoner 40 years ago in communist Czechoslovakia, published as Letters to Olga.

Ruby Bodeker, the 2020 Democratic nominee in Iowa House district 75, is a prairie voice for working people and rural spaces and a co-host of the podcast We Live Here, Too. -promoted by Laura Belin

In the lead-up to the 2020 general election, many members of the Iowa Democratic Party (IDP) — including party leadership — had high hopes for a reckoning in our state in terms of weakening the Republican trifecta control. Flipping the Iowa House seemed within reach and IDP accordingly sunk millions of dollars into select races — mostly in urban districts.

Instead, the party suffered devastatig losses up and down the ballot and now finds itself down 59 seats to 41 in the Iowa House and 32 to 18 in the state Senate. Governor Kim Reynolds is not up for re-election until 2022.

Iowa’s new Infectious Disease Advisory Council will continue to meet behind closed doors, Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH) interim Director Kelly Garcia confirmed on December 16. Garcia established the council earlier this month, naming 25 “external and internal subject matter experts” to help the agency develop guidelines for allocating limited supplies of COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics.

Iowans are unable to observe council members as they consider how to balance the needs of disparate groups at high risk from the novel coronavirus. Ryan Foley reported for the Associated Press on December 16 that the council “has met twice this month without giving prior notice to the public, publishing an agenda or allowing the public to participate as required by the Iowa Open Meetings Act.”

The IDPH maintains that Iowa Code Chapter 21 does not apply to an advisory council created by a state agency. But not every expert on the law concurs.

Carl Olsen recounts the latest legal steps in his effort to reconcile state and federal drug laws. -promoted by Laura Belin

On November 10, just a week after the election, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) denied our petition for a new federal regulation exempting state medical cannabis programs to be added as 21 C.F.R.

DEA explained that denying the exemption was necessary because it would create an exemption:

Democratic legislators, environmental organizations, and consumer advocates warned in 2018 that a bill backed by Iowa’s major utilities would destroy our state’s decades-long tradition of being a “national leader in energy efficiency.” But Republican members of the Iowa House and Senate didn’t listen, and Governor Kim Reynolds ignored calls to veto Senate File 2311.

That law is the main reason Iowa dropped sharply in a new review of state policies on energy efficiency.

Following another devastating election up and down the ballot, Iowa Democrats have begun to speculate about the next political cycle. Governor Kim Reynolds will be up for re-election, and Iowa’s other U.S. Senate seat will be on the ballot.

State Auditor Rob Sand hasn’t ruled out running for governor, Senate, or re-election in 2022, he told viewers of an “ask me anything” Facebook session on December 10. “Any of those three would be possibilities.”

For the second year running, January will bring big changes to Iowa’s media scene.

Jason Clayworth and Linh Ta will write the Axios Des Moines newsletter, set to launch during the first quarter of 2021. Clayworth is a longtime Des Moines Register reporter who has mostly done investigative work in recent years. Ta covered several beats for the Register before joining the Iowa Capital Dispatch reporting team in early 2020.

At televised news conferences, Governor Kim Reynolds often expresses appreciation for Iowans “doing the right thing” and helping our state get through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Her gratitude apparently doesn’t extend to some 19,000 state employees, many of whom worked longer hours than ever this year, under extraordinary stress. The governor’s offer to nurses, university staff, corrections officers, and others represented by AFSCME Council 61: no raise for the two years beginning on July 1, 2021.

Most of the Republicans who will represent Iowa in Congress next year are on record saying Joe Biden will be president of the United States.

But none have stated publicly that Biden legitimately won every state that cast its electoral votes for him on December 14.

With President Donald Trump and many of his supporters spreading false allegations of election fraud every day, it’s critically important for Republicans to state unambiguously that Biden won both the national popular vote and more votes than Trump in states that account for 306 electoral votes. Few prominent Iowa Republicans are up to that task.

Herb Strentz reflects on Donald Trump’s ongoing influence over the news media and his “cult” of supporters within the Republican Party. -promoted by Laura Belin

As the electoral college has done its work, joy and relief at the outcome of the 2020 election is tempered by recollections of the 2008 and 2016 elections and three recent commentaries in the Des Moines Register and the New York Times.

Ira Lacher highlights key points from the internal review of the 2020 Iowa caucuses, conducted for the Iowa Democratic Party. -promoted by Laura Belin

Iowa political junkies have another reason to be thankful that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be sworn in on January 20.

Since a Democratic nomination fight for the 2024 elections appears unlikely, it means that, like a baseball pitcher undergoing Tommy John surgery to repair a horribly injured shoulder, the Iowa caucuses have more time to rehab from their 2020 kerfuffle, which earned worldwide derision.

When the party on December 12 released its postmortem on the 2020 debacle, news outlets were quick to blame the Democratic National Committee (DNC) for much of the trouble. “Iowa autopsy report: DNC meddling led to caucus debacle,” was the headline from Politico. “Iowa caucus mishap fueled by DNC interference, state missteps: autopsy report” chimed in The Hill. From CNN: “Review largely blames Iowa caucus problems on Democratic National Committee.” USA Today and The New York Times also treated the story similarly.

And they were all wrong. Because that’s not what the 29-page report says.

A reality check courtesy of Jim Chrisinger. -promoted by Laura Belin

There are some true socialists on the left fringes of the Democratic Party, just like there are some true fascists on the right fringes of the Republican Party. It’s offensive, however, that people who should know better accuse Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Nancy Pelosi of being socialists, or even communists.

My wife and I lived in a socialist and communist Czechoslovakia from 1987 to 1990. We saw socialism and communism up close.

Let’s get real.

Seventh in a series interpreting the results of Iowa’s 2020 state and federal elections.

Hawaii became the 50th state to certify its 2020 election results this week. The Cook Political Report’s national popular vote tracker shows Joe Biden received 81,282,376 votes (51.3 percent) to 74,222,576 votes for Donald Trump (46.9 percent).

With the books closed on the popular vote for president, we can fill in some details on a reality that came into focus last month: Iowa no longer has any Democratic-leaning U.S. House districts.

Governor Kim Reynolds would have joined the Texas attorney general’s lawsuit seeking to throw out the presidential election results in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Georgia, she announced on December 10. The same day, Reynolds rejected Attorney General Tom Miller’s request to sign on in support of the defendants in that case.

Reynolds said in a campaign statement, “As I have said all along, President Trump, his campaign, and supporters have every right to pursue lawful, legal action in the courts. The American people deserve a fair and transparent election.”

Meanwhile, Reynolds and other prominent Iowa Republicans continue to denounce Rita Hart for appealing the second Congressional district result to the U.S. House–a step federal law allows.

A guest commentary by Brett W. Copeland, who chairs the Dickinson County Democrats and is a candidate for Iowa Democratic Party state chair. -promoted by Laura Belin

Since our election loss, I’ve sat in on a lot of conversations about what happened. I’ve heard some folks say our tools failed – whether it was the app on caucus night or the fact that we didn’t have useful data when contacting voters. I’ve heard that our tactics failed – that we didn’t knock doors, or that we didn’t have enough accessible events. I’ve heard that our messaging failed – that the way we talked to voters didn’t connect.

While I believe there are grains of truth in all those assessments, I think the bottom line is that there is a failure in trust with the Iowa Democratic Party.

Glenn Hurst: Democrats cannot hope to build their bench if they undervalue down-ballot elected positions and concede those offices to Republicans. -promoted by Laura Belin

The Iowa Democratic Party needs to reconsider its strategy for winning elections in Iowa. Republicans have a stronghold on the governor’s office, the state legislature and the majority of Iowa’s Congressional delegation. They now dominate the Iowa Senate and have long controlled the majority in the House.

Outgoing U.S. Representative Steve King was one of 23 Republican members of Congress who sought unsuccessfully this week to have the U.S. Supreme Court throw out Pennsylvania’s presidential election.

King and fellow House Republicans signed an amicus curiae brief supporting U.S. Representative Mike Kelly’s effort to block certification of Pennsylvania’s 2020 election results. Kelly argued that “the state legislature’s provision of no-excuse absentee voting violated both the Pennsylvania and U.S. Constitutions.”

Iowa has long had no-excuse voting by mail, and to my knowledge, King has never suggested that system is unconstitutional. Neither King nor his Congressional staff responded to Bleeding Heartland’s inquiry about the apparent inconsistency. In the past month, King has amplified false claims of election fraud on his social media feeds.

Author’s Note from Strong Island Hawk: “Outside money” typically refers to super-PACs and dark money groups. “Independent expenditure only committees,” more commonly known as super-PACs, have no limits on contributions from individuals but are prohibited from donating to candidates or “coordinating” with them on strategy or messaging. “Dark money” groups are essentially charities organized under 501(c)(4) of the IRS code and are not required to publicly disclose their donors. These “social welfare” groups can spend certain amounts of their annual budget on political activity. See Issue One’s explainer.

Iowa Democrats are once again trying to figure out what went wrong after another election night full of defeats, including a loss for Senate candidate Theresa Greenfield. Greenfield was a weak candidate: she was yet another wealthy Des Moines real estate developer who was a political novice with no compelling message or agenda. And she was neither an electric speaker nor a sharp debater. But Iowans were never really given a choice.

Governor Kim Reynolds’ office would have had a large shortfall for the fiscal year that ended June 30 without a transfer of federal funds from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, state financial reports show.

Documents Bleeding Heartland obtained through public records requests indicate that in mid-September, the state’s accounting system showed $448,448.86 was needed to balance the fiscal year 2020 appropriation for the governor’s office. Reynolds’ chief of staff Sara Craig Gongol invoiced the Iowa Department of Homeland Security for exactly that amount in CARES Act funds shortly before the books closed on fiscal year 2020.

That invoice and an accompanying document on “COVID-19 Personnel Costs” were revised to incorporate language from U.S. Treasury guidance on allowable Coronavirus Relief Fund expenditures.

For many years, during several administrations, Iowa governors have maintained a larger office than the general fund appropriation would otherwise allow by having separate state agencies support some employees’ salaries. But it has not been typical to use hundreds of thousands of federal dollars to balance the books. Without the CARES Act funding, Reynolds’ office would have been deeply in the red during the last fiscal year, even after four state agencies chipped in a total of $357,652 to cover part of four staffers’ compensation.