Voters in Iowa’s large school districts overwhelmingly picked progressive candidates over conservatives on November 7. In many urban and suburban districts, candidates backed by local Democrats, the Iowa State Education Association (ISEA), and/or the LGBTQ advocacy group One Iowa Action ran the table, while candidates backed by activists on the religious right fell short.

The results are a rebuke to Governor Kim Reynolds and Iowa’s Republican-controlled legislature, which enacted new laws in 2023 that undermined public schools and LGBTQ students, and restricted school library books and inclusive curriculum materials.

They also show the enduring strength of the state’s largest teachers union. For many years, Iowans elected school boards in September and city councils and mayors in November. The GOP trifecta changed state law so that beginning in 2019, school board and city elections would occur on the same day. The idea was to increase local election turnout and thereby diminish the ISEA’s influence over school boards. Nevertheless, candidates backed by public educators prevailed in many of this year’s most competitive races.

One city election also underscored how unpopular book banning is with Iowans. In the notoriously conservative town of Pella, voters rejected by 2,041 votes to 1,954 (51.1 percent to 48.9 percent) a ballot measure that would have empowered the city council to overrule the public library board.

Nancy Dugan lives in Altoona, Iowa and has worked as an online editor for the past twelve years.

Summit Agricultural Group operates at least seventeen wells in Kossuth County alone that have not applied for water use permits through the Iowa Department of Natural Resources’ (DNR) Water Allocation Compliance and Online (WACOP) permitting system, Bleeding Heartland has learned.

The DNR confirmed the lack of permit applications in response to questions prompted by landowner Alan Laubenthal’s October 5 testimony at the Iowa Utilities Board’s evidentiary hearing in Fort Dodge on Summit Carbon Solutions’ proposed CO2 pipeline.

“The department has not received permit applications for these facilities,” DNR outreach and marketing bureau chief Tammie Krausman confirmed in a November 3 email. “It is the applicant’s responsibility to know if they need a permit and apply according to the requirements. The requirement is 25,000 gallons in a 24-hour period. While facilities are capable of pumping more than 25,000 gallons per day, the permit requirement is based on the actual usage of water.”

UPDATE: The “no” campaign won in Pella by 2,041 votes to 1,954 (51.1 percent to 48.9 percent). Original post follows.

AJ Jones is a writer. She is a creator of art and expresses herself across different mediums. She embraces her neurodivergence as a unique way to view the world and create a better future.

“No more apologies for a bleeding heart when the opposite is no heart at all. Danger of losing our humanity must be met with more humanity.” -Toni Morrison

It isn’t by mistake that I begin with a quote from an author whose books have been banned in more than a dozen Iowa school districts. Nor do I think it is a mistake that five women in Pella have been fighting a clean fight for democracy and have conducted themselves in a way that is neatly depicted in the second sentence of the quote.

It’s a textbook example of spending to influence an election.

A brand-new organization, “Citizens For Des Moines,” was registered with the Iowa Secretary of State on October 20. Its president, Doug Gross, is a prominent Republican attorney and major donor to city council member Connie Boesen’s mayoral campaign. The group paid to print and send at least two mass mailings attacking Boesen’s main rival in the mayoral race, which reached numerous Des Moines voters less than a week before the November 7 election.

Iowa law requires disclosure of independent expenditures that support or oppose a candidate for office, and requires political action committees to periodically report on their fundraising and spending. But Citizens For Des Moines exploited gaps in the law, so voters will be unable to find out who donated to the group or how much was spent on mail targeting city council member Josh Mandelbaum.

Five of the eight Iowa counties with the largest Black populations “had trial juries that were fully representative of their jury-eligible Black population” during 2022 and the first half of 2023, according to data analyzed by the Iowa-Nebraska NAACP. However, trial juries in Polk County and Scott County failed to hit that benchmark, and Dubuque County was “particularly problematic,” with zero Black members of any trial jury during the eighteen-month period reviewed.

The same review indicated that trial juries in Linn and Woodbury counties were close to being representative of the area’s jury-eligible Latino population, while Latinos were underrepresented on juries in Johnson, Marshall, Scott, and Polk counties, and particularly in Muscatine County.

Russell Lovell and David Walker, retired Drake Law School professors who co-chair the Iowa-Nebraska NAACP Legal Redress Committee, examined juror data provided by the Iowa Judicial Branch and presented their findings at the 11th Annual Iowa Summit on Justice and Disparities in Ankeny on November 3.

Nancy Dugan lives in Altoona, Iowa and has worked as an online editor for the past 12 years.

Internal Iowa Utilities Board documents provide little insight into the board’s decision to hire Carolina Dispute Settlement Services and North Carolina attorney Frank Laney to conduct mediation sessions on Summit Carbon Solutions’ CO2 pipeline project.

The records the board provided in response to Bleeding Heartland’s request do reveal, however, that the board hoped for a stronger response to mediation from landowners along Summit Carbon’s proposed path.

According to Iowa Utilities Board general counsel Jon Tack, the board did not enter into a written contract with Carolina Dispute Settlement Services or Laney. “The Iowa Utilities Board does not have a contract with Frank Laney or Carolina Dispute Settlement Services and will ensure any payments do not exceed State of Iowa procurement limitations,” Tack told Bleeding Heartland via email on October 30.

AJ Jones is a writer. She is a creator of art and expresses herself across different mediums. She embraces her neurodivergence as a unique way to view the world and create a better future.

Domestic Violence Awareness Month is always difficult and one of remembrance. I remember the last conversation I had with Linda, a friend from work. She told me how her husband had tied her up and locked her in the downstairs bathroom of the house for several hours. How he had threatened her with a knife and how he had previously threatened her with a gun. 

You can imagine how that conversation went. I often wonder if my advice was sound.  

Cheryl Tevis writes Unfinished Business, a weekly Substack newsletter for the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative, where this column first appeared. She is an editor emeritus with Successful Farming at DotDash Meredith, and a contributor to the Iowa History Journal. Cheryl is president of Iowa Women in Agriculture.

My stint on a rural Boone County school board from 1996 to 2005 was no picnic. It was punctuated by controversies over one-way vs. two-way sharing agreements, reorganization votes, and open enrollment petitions. Our board and our new administrator struggled to dig the school out of a financial hole created by a predatory sharing agreement and made worse by the erosion of farm families during the 1980s farm crisis. We worked hard to prevail against a relentless pounding from adverse rural demographic trends.

I’m certain some of the district’s constituents were sorry they ever had voted for me. And as my term ended, personal relationships within our board were strained, and cratering.

Arnold Garson is a semi-retired journalist and executive who worked for 46 years in the newspaper industry, including almost 20 years at The Des Moines Register. He writes the Substack newsletter Second Thoughts, where this article first appeared.

The pair of buildings rising at local taxpayer expense in a field northeast of Sioux City grew out of an idea that would have cost $1.2 million when it was offered ten years ago. Over time, the idea transformed into something entirely different, a new jail facility with what would become an eye-popping price tag. 

The situation has caught the attention of many in Sioux City and may be a cautionary tale for other communities planning major civic improvements.

Iowa Republicans have seen more advertising against former President Donald Trump this year than GOP voters anywhere else in the country.

The Win It Back PAC, a super-PAC with “close ties” to the conservative advocacy group Club for Growth, spent more than $4 million over the summer to run six different television commercials in the Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, and Sioux City markets. The Republican Accountability PAC kicked in $1.5 million on its own series of tv ads in Iowa. AFP Action, an arm of the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity network, has sent numerous mailings with anti-Trump messages to Iowa households and paid for dozens of Facebook ads seeking to convince Iowans the former president is unelectable. New groups have popped up to fund direct mail in Iowa attacking Trump on issues ranging from LGBTQ rights to COVID-19 policies to crime.

Nevertheless, Trump is as well positioned for the 2024 caucuses as ever, according to the latest Iowa Poll by Selzer & Co for the Des Moines Register, NBC News, and Mediacom. Among those likely to attend the GOP caucuses in January, 43 percent support Trump, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley are tied for second place at 16 percent. No other candidate was in double digits.

Selzer’s findings are consistent with other recent polls of Iowa Republican caucus-goers, showing Trump ahead of DeSantis by at least 20 points and in most cases by more than 30 points.

One could argue the barrage of anti-Trump messages dented the front-runner’s appeal. His numbers in Iowa are lower than his support nationally, where he’s been hovering at or above 55 percent lately in presidential GOP primary polls.

But any early success from the television, direct mail, and digital ad blitz seems to have dissipated. Selzer’s polling suggests Trump’s level of support held steady among likely Iowa GOP caucus-goers: 42 percent in August, 43 percent in October. His lead over the second-place candidate grew from 23 points in August to 27 points this month. Trump’s supporters are also more enthusiastic and “locked in” than those leaning toward other presidential candidates.

The latest Iowa Poll validates the conclusions of research Win It Back PAC conducted this summer: most ads seeking to drive Republicans away from Trump either have no effect or increase his support among the target audience.

Mitch Henry chairs the Iowa Unity Coalition.

The Iowa Unity Coalition believes Chelsea Lepley has a proven track record of working side by side with the citizens of Des Moines Ward 2. She is a third generation east-sider who was raised by a single dad who had a good union job. Chelsea is a homeowner in Capitol Park and a graduate of Iowa State University.

Chelsea has served as a neighborhood leader and president of her own neighborhood association. She has served on the Des Moines Park & Recreation Board, the Polk County Trust Funds Board and many other local boards and commissions with the City of Des Moines.

Chelsea is a highly effective and down-to-earth leader. She has experience working with local small business owners, nonprofits and her fellow neighborhood leaders. Chelsea is invested in strengthening her community.

Vote Chelsea Lepley, a new generation leader on November 7.

Top photo of Chelsea Lepley provided by the author and published with permission.

Editor’s note from Laura Belin: Bleeding Heartland welcomes guest posts advocating for progressive or Democratic candidates in the upcoming city or school board elections.

The Des Moines Register’s editorial board has also endorsed Chelsea Lepley for Ward 2, saying she “has the better conception of the innovation and oversight people need from the council,” and has done “practical work that gives her perspective on the sometimes subtle dynamics that determine whether policies succeed or fail.”

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. 

In a hearing, I always knew when the lawyer on the other side didn’t have a good case. Instead of focusing on facts, they shouted and pounded the table more in hopes the arbitrator might forget and get distracted by a loud passionate argument. 

That’s what Governor Kim Reynolds tried during her October 25 press conference, when asked about book banning in public schools.

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.

Senator John F. Kennedy rose to a lectern at the Rice Hotel in Houston on September 12, 1960 to face the toughest audience of his presidential campaign; a roomful of Southern Baptist ministers who reflected the longstanding antipathy of the evangelicals toward Kennedy’s Roman Catholic religion.

JFK was just the second Roman Catholic nominee of a major political party, and older Americans remembered the fate of the first. New York Governor Al Smith lost to the lackluster Herbert Hoover in 1928, amidst charges that Smith’s Catholicism would put him—and the nation—under the control of the Pope in Rome.

If Kennedy didn’t win over the skeptical Texans, his sixteen-minute address at least neutralized their hostility by avowing his support for the longstanding doctrine of separation of church and state.

Drs. Jan and Cornelia Flora are rural sociologists and Professors Emeriti at Iowa State University. The Floras visited Israel and the West Bank in 2015, relying on friends and acquaintances in both places as guides and sources for contacts; this was not a group tour. During their two-week visit, they spent about equal amounts of time in Israel and Palestine but did not visit Gaza. Later, they took an intensive week-long course with a Cornell University professor on U.S. policy toward Israel. Jan Flora relies mainly on newspapers, such as Ha’aretz (online English language newspaper from Israel) and the New York Times, for contemporary news on Israel and Palestine.

President Joe Biden gave a heartfelt speech on October 10 in support of Israel and against Hamas’ terrorism. He recalled his memorable first meeting with Prime Minister Golda Meir, when he was a first-term U.S. senator. She told him, “We (Israelis) have a secret weapon:  We have nowhere else to go.” 

But, President Biden, isn’t the fundamental issue that there are two peoples—Jewish Israelis and Palestinians—in the same territory with “nowhere else to go”? In 2007, former President Jimmy Carter called the control that Israel exercises over Palestinians an apartheid system.

The policies of Biden and Donald Trump fail to consider that simple truth.

Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter is a freelance journalist from the American Midwest. She covers social justice stories, especially pertaining to disability. Her work has appeared in Parents, Mother Untitled, The Omaha World Herald, The Insider and elsewhere. You can follow her on X/Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Iowa is known for being nice. Old-fashioned values seem rooted in the ground, tracing back to 1846. An idyllic landscape, simple and plain, yet beautiful, as depicted in American Gothic. Stop in this fly-over state for a pork tenderloin sandwich, or a Maid Rite, and don’t forget, its state fair is the greatest state fair.

Set against this backdrop of American dreams is a Republican party introducing bill after bill that have altered Iowa in both subtle and blatant ways. The GOP-controlled legislature approved many controversial bills during the 2023 session. One with potentially great consequences for blind Iowans was Senate File 514, the state government realignment sought by Governor Kim Reynolds.

STREAMLINING, OR A “POWER GRAB”?

The state paid nearly one million dollars for Virginia-based Guidehouse to help develop a plan to streamline state government. Although the final Guidehouse report did not make any recommendations related to the Iowa Department for the Blind (IDB), the bill the governor proposed to state lawmakers included one important change.

Bleeding Heartland authors have featured about 250 plant species since I launched “Iowa wildflower Wednesday” in 2012. You can find most of those posts in this archive, alphabetized by common name from alumroot to zigzag goldenrod.

But not every post in the wildflower series focuses on one or two kinds of native plants. Many chronicle the author’s visit to a park, prairie, natural area, or wooded trail, where they may have photographed a dozen or more species. When I’ve updated the archive, I haven’t linked to every post that includes one picture of, say, spring beauty or Culver’s root or rattlesnake master.

For this piece, I compiled links to all of the Bleeding Heartland posts that survey a range of plants in a given area, arranged by season. I hope these links will help readers who are wondering which flowers may be blooming at different times of the year, or are trying to identify a plant they saw on their own nature walk. By the way, Lora Conrad reviewed many guides to Iowa wildflowers, shrubs, and trees.

Words can’t convey how grateful I am to guest authors who have showcased corners of Iowa that are unfamiliar to me, from Shimek State Forest (southeast) to Motor Mill (northeast) to the Loess Hills (southwest) and the Little Sioux River valley (northwest).

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

The rationale behind Iowa’s professional licensing laws is simple: People in certain professions and skilled occupations are required to hold state licenses to work in Iowa. The purpose is to ensure they meet the minimum standard of training and skill necessary to serve consumers safely and effectively.

But a state policy change leads me to wonder whether government officials have lost sight of their obligation to act in the best interests of the public. If officials follow through with the new policy in the coming months, then state legislators should step in next year and correct this ill-conceived decision—and concerned citizens should encourage their lawmakers stick up for the public.

Joe Bolkcom represented Iowa City in the Iowa Senate from 1999 through 2022.

Iowans will soon elect city council and school board members. Hundreds of candidates have put themselves forward as they campaign on ideas to address unique local challenges and needs. 

These local elected officials are the backbone of making our small government democracy work. They make decisions for all of us about how our public schools operate, what roads get built and repaired, how public safety, water, sewer and library services are provided, and how to pay for it all.  

In a healthy democracy that’s how things are supposed to work. Unfortunately, we do not live in healthy democracy.

Nancy Dugan lives in Altoona, Iowa and has worked as an online editor for the past 12 years.

Three Iowa women who rely on the Devonian aquifer for their water have filed suit in Polk County seeking to vacate a water use permit granted earlier this year, in connection with a CO2 pipeline project.

Kimberly Junker, Candice Brandau Larson, and Kathy Carter are suing the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR), which on May 29 issued a water use permit to Lawler SCS Capture, LLC. The permit allows the LLC to withdraw up to 55.9 million gallons of water per year from the Devonian aquifer, at a maximum rate of 100 gallons per minute.

Formed in 2022, Lawler SCS Capture is one of myriad Delaware-based businesses affiliated with Summit Carbon Solutions, LLC. The well and associated carbon capture facility would be located on land owned by Homeland Energy Solutions, an ethanol plant and Summit Carbon partner in Chickasaw County. Bleeding Heartland was first to report last month that the DNR issued the Lawler permit.

Attorney Wally Taylor is representing the plaintiffs in his personal capacity. (He is also the legal chair of the Sierra Club Iowa chapter, which opposes Summit Carbon’s efforts to build a CO2 pipeline, but Sierra Club is not a party in this lawsuit.) Here’s the full text of the petition filed in Polk County District Court on October 18.

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. 

It’s school board candidate forum season heading toward the November 7 elections. Watching these events, I’ve noticed most candidates, except those with their own political agenda, understand our state is facing a profound teacher shortage. 

Recently, I’ve heard candidates say, “We need to attract and retain teachers.” But how can school boards do that? What must happen in Iowa to make it possible?