Iowa’s Republican legislators, Governor Kim Reynolds, and Senator Chuck Grassley inspired the majority of Bleeding Heartland’s most-read posts during the year that just ended. But putting this list together was trickier than my previous efforts to highlight the site’s articles or commentaries that resonated most with readers.

For fifteen years, I primarily used Google Analytics to track site traffic. Google changed some things this year, prompting me to switch to Fathom Analytics (an “alternative that doesn’t compromise visitor privacy for data”) in July. As far as I could tell during the few days when those services overlapped, they reached similar counts for user visits, page views, and other metrics. But the numbers didn’t completely line up, which means the Google Analytics data I have for posts published during the first half of the year may not be the same numbers Fathom would have produced.

Further complicating this enterprise, I cross-post some of my original reporting and commentary on a free email newsletter, launched on Substack in the summer of 2022 as part of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. Some of those posts generated thousands of views that would not be tabulated as visits to Bleeding Heartland. I didn’t include Substack statistics while writing this piece; if I had, it would have changed the order of some posts listed below.

UPDATE: Attorney General Brenna Bird filed notice of appeal to the Eighth Circuit on January 12. Original post follows.

The state of Iowa cannot enforce key parts of a new law that sought to ban books depicting sex acts from schools and prohibit instruction “relating to gender identity and sexual orientation” from kindergarten through sixth grade.

U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Locher issued a preliminary injunction on December 29, putting what he called “staggeringly broad” provisions on hold while two federal lawsuits challenging Senate File 496 proceed. The judge found the book bans “unlikely to satisfy the First Amendment under any standard of scrutiny,” and the teaching restrictions “void for vagueness under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

However, the state may continue to enforce a provision requiring school administrators to inform parents or guardians if a student seeks an “accommodation that is intended to affirm the student’s gender identity.” Judge Locher found the LGBTQ students who are plaintiffs in one case lack standing to challenge that provision, since “they are all already ‘out’ to their families and therefore not affected in a concrete way” by it.

Governor Kim Reynolds and Attorney General Brenna Bird quickly criticized the court’s decision. But neither engaged with the legal issues at hand.

Bleeding Heartland set another record for guest contributions in 2023, with more than 125 individual authors contributing a total of 358 posts. For many years after I became this website’s primary author in 2008, I wrote most of the material published here, but that’s no longer the case.

Guest authors covered a remarkably wide range of topics, and as noted below, some of their contributions were among the most-viewed posts on the site this year.

Writers provided exclusive reporting and in-depth analysis of topics ranging from the water usage associated with CO2 pipelines to federal farm subsidies to major constitutional questions to Iowa Supreme Court rulings to proposed new charter schools.

They covered important events in Iowa history, flagged pending business deals that warrant scrutiny, and showcased wildflowers from diverse habitats. They offered insights about polling errors, ticket-splitting in Iowa’s 2022 elections, ways to address the teacher shortage, and policies to improve maternal health.

They shared personal experiences relevant to political debates over abortion, the COVID-19 pandemic, pollution caused by conventional agriculture, and bullying directed at teenagers who challenge gender stereotypes.

They recalled good times at the Hamburg Inn in Iowa City and memorable encounters with Governor Harold Hughes and Attorney General Lawrence Scalise.

Sony Sports Walkman radio cassette player from the 1980s. Photo by Nicola_K_photos, available via Shutterstock.

Writing under the handle “Bronxiniowa,” Ira Lacher, who actually hails from the Bronx, New York, is a longtime journalism, marketing, and public relations professional.

Just about everything I learned about life I learned from baseball or Star Trek. Baseball is in its off-season, so I offer you this life lesson from the other source.

In the third movie with the show’s original cast, the principal characters time-travel to the late 20th century to bring back to the future a pair of humpback whales whose songs they expect will pacify a space probe destroying the earth. In one scene, Kirk and Spock are riding on a crowded bus across the San Francisco Bay Bridge to observe their anticipated cetacean passengers when a boorish lad turns his boombox, playing a hard-on-the-ears punk-rock number, at maximum volume.

Photo of basketball court in Hillsboro, Oregon is by M.O. Stevens, available via Wikimedia Commons

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 

No Apple phones, No Madden 24 NFL, and there was not a Tik or a Tok to be found. It was just a fenced concrete slab and two slightly bent backboards with chain nets. There wasn’t free throw line or half court markings. It was strictly BYOB, bring your own basketball. 

The ball sometimes flew over the fence and landed in Bear Crick. We took turns wading in or finding a big enough stick to retrieve the errant ball. Sometimes the lights blazed long after we’d been called to supper, but since we lived a block away, I’d be sent down to switch them off.

Governor Kim Reynolds with her predecessor Terry Branstad in photo originally published on Reynolds’ official Facebook page in September 2020

Scott Syroka is a former Johnston city council member.

Antitrust regulators should block the proposed sale of OCI Global’s Iowa Fertilizer Co. plant in Wever (Lee County) to Koch Industries. The deal would be outrageous, but we must look back to fully understand why.

HOW IOWA TAXPAYERS HELPED FUND OCI’S FERTILIZER PLANT IN WEVER

Then-governor Terry Branstad and Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds offered nearly $550 million in tax giveaways to OCI’s predecessor, Orascom, to build the plant prior to its 2017 ribbon cutting.

That included $133 million in local giveaways such as Lee County property tax abatement over twenty years. Another $112 million in state giveaways like corporate tax credits and forgivable loans. And an estimated $300 million in federal tax giveaways from the get-go thanks to the Iowa Finance Authority approving Orascom for $1.2 billion in Midwestern Disaster Area bonds created by Congress after the 2008 floods.

The carriage step in front of the Couch-Carskaddan house in Muscatine’s West Hill Historic District

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal on May 10, 2023.

May is Preservation Month, when we celebrate historic places and ponder the importance of remembering.

I lived in Muscatine almost 20 years before I paid attention to our historic homes—beyond admiration, I mean.

“Lumber barons built these mansions. Aren’t they grand?”

In 2001, I reported the startup of the city’s first Historic Preservation Commission. At the commission I heard of historic stuff that could have been saved if people had known or cared before it was too late—before neglected structures got derided as eyesores or obstacles to progress. Not every old building can be saved or should be saved, they said. Documenting what we have is the first step toward mobilizing resources to be able to save any of them.

Photo by Kara Brady of Lesser yellow lady’s slipper (Cypripedium caleolus), found in Jones County

Guest authors carried the load for most the twelfth year of Bleeding Heartland’s wildflowers series. Although I have been getting around pretty well (despite a catastrophic ankle fracture in early 2022), the pace of Iowa political news was relentless in 2023. In part for that reason, I spent less time on trails and prairies than I would have liked. Turning that around is on my list of New Year’s resolutions.

I can’t express how grateful I am for the outstanding contributions of guest authors and photographers. In alphabetical order: Katie Byerly, Lora Conrad, Kara Grady, Beth Lynch, Bruce Morrison, Diane Porter, Leland Searles, and Kenny Slocum. Thanks also to the friends who allowed me to publish some of their images in my own wildflower posts, and to Bleeding Heartland user PrairieFan for highlighting the devastating impact of chemical trespass on many native plants.

This series will return sometime during April or May of 2024. Please reach out if you have photographs to share, especially of native plants I haven’t featured yet. The full archive of posts featuring at least 250 wildflower species is available here. I have also compiled links to several dozen posts that covered many plants found in one area, rather than focusing on a single kind of wildflower.

For those looking for wildflower pictures year round, or seeking help with plant ID, check out the Facebook groups Flora of Iowa or Iowa wildflower enthusiasts. If you’d like a book to take with you on nature outings, Lora Conrad reviewed some of the best wildflower guides last year. A book featuring plants native to our part of the country is probably more reliable than the plant ID app on your phone.

New design of Minnesota state flag

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

We Iowans apparently have been kidding ourselves.

Somehow, as we focus on taxes, water quality and allegations of big-government overreach, as we wrestle with immigration, inflation, drug abuse, school choice and women’s reproductive freedom, and as we contemplate transgender issues, academic freedom, religious rights and free speech on college campuses, Iowa has missed another issue—one that appears to be gaining momentum, and controversy, in some states.

The surprising topic of debate? State flags.

Gail Wortmann works with a student as she works on a Rube Goldberg machine (a complicated gadget that performs a simple task) in physical science class. Photo published with permission from the Bloomfield Democrat.

Karen Spurgeon is publisher of the Bloomfield Democrat, a Davis County newspaper where this article first appeared.

Gail Wortmann has had an exceptional career as a science teacher, but when she agreed to finish out the semester for a Davis County science teacher who left the school system on short notice, she found herself spending more time on disciplining and less on teaching than ever before in her career.

Kurt Meyer writes a weekly column for the Nora Springs – Rockford Register and the Substack newsletter Showing Up, where this essay first appeared. He serves as chair of the executive committee (the equivalent of board chair) of Americans for Democratic Action, America’s most experienced liberal organization.

Local news coverage is going through significant birth pangs. I’ve intended to write about this topic for some time now, but every time I start, I come across something newsworthy that merits incorporation into my thinking—and into my column. So, this ramble comes with a disclaimer: “This emerging story will be updated as information becomes available.”

The term “birth pangs” indicates my view—more than just a hope—that something new indeed is being born, although from my perch, it’s not yet clear what the “new-new thing” will be. A dozen or more examples are likely to be birthed, multiple workable models. It’s also fair to note that a birth-pangs approach is vastly preferable to a death-throes approach, a term that may well apply to more moribund local news providers.

Image of frequently banned books by On The Run Photo is available via Shutterstock. All books shown here have been removed from multiple Iowa school districts, according to the Des Moines Register’s database.

A federal judge will soon decide whether to block enforcement of all or part of an Iowa law that imposed many new regulations on public school libraries and educators.

Two groups of plaintiffs filed suit last month challenging Senate File 496 as unconstitutional under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Among other things, the law prohibits school libraries and classrooms from offering “any material with descriptions or visual depictions of a sex act.” It also forbids schools from providing “any program, curriculum, test, survey, questionnaire, promotion, or instruction relating to gender identity or sexual orientation to students in kindergarten through grade six.”

U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Locher of the Southern District of Iowa did not consolidate the cases, which contain some overlapping arguments. But he did consolidate the hearings on the plaintiffs’ requests for a temporary injunction, which would prevent the state from enforcing certain provisions of SF 496 while litigation proceeds.

Near the end of that December 22 hearing in Des Moines, the judge said he will rule on whether to issue an injunction by January 1, when provisions allowing the state to investigate or discipline educators or school districts for certain violations will take effect.

Attorneys for the state advanced several misleading or contradictory legal arguments at the hearing and in briefs filed last week.

Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer concept is by Adam Yee, available via Shutterstock

Jerry Foxhoven is an attorney, child advocate, former law professor, and former director of the Iowa Department of Human Services.

It’s time I admit it publicly: I’m “woke.”

One of my favorite contemporary writers is pastor and author John Pavlovitz. He reminds us often that “Jesus was woke.” He observes that Republicans/Evangelicals like to refer to the Bible a lot but rarely bring up Jesus. Here is what Pavlovitz says about that:

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

A labyrinth of limited liability companies own numerous animal feeding operations in Clarke County that continue to rely on the city of Osceola’s depleted water supply, even as city residents face restrictions since the Osceola Water Works Board of Trustees declared a water emergency on October 5.

A search of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources’ (DNR) animal feeding operation website identifies 27 animal feeding operations in Clarke County. The chart below identifies these facilities, the majority of which appear to house hogs in enclosed structures commonly known as confined animal feeding operations, or CAFOs.

Donald Trump speaks in Coralville, Iowa on December 13; screenshot from C-SPAN video

Steve Corbin is emeritus professor of marketing at the University of Northern Iowa and a freelance writer who receives no remuneration, funding, or endorsement from any for-profit business, nonprofit organization, political action committee, or political party. 

Former President Donald Trump has recently been crying wolf by depicting America’s legal system as a “witch hunt” against him. Trump claims the New York, Georgia, Florida, and District of Columbia criminal cases—with 91 felony charges—are politically motivated to restrict his ability to run for president in 2024.

Anyone would realize the hypocrisy of Trump’s ploy if they knew he never declared “witch hunt” in the 62 lawsuits he filed and lost while contesting the 2020 election. Note: Trump-appointed judges were among the 80-plus magistrates who dismissed his election fraud lawsuits.

UPDATE: The Iowa State Board of Education approved all of the applications described below on January 11. Original post follows.

Randy Richardson is a former educator and retired associate executive director of the Iowa State Education Association.

The Iowa Department of Education recently announced that five groups have applied to open eight new charter schools in Des Moines and Cedar Rapids for the 2024/2025 school year. Only one of those five groups is based in Iowa.

The full applications for each proposed charter school are available on this page of the Department of Education’s website. Be aware that some of these applications stretch to nearly 400 pages, so if you want to review them, plan to spend some time on the task.

Doris J. Kelley is a former member of the Iowa House and former Iowa Board of Parole Chair, Vice-Chair and Executive Director.

After being re-elected to the Iowa House of Representatives, I met newly elected State Senator Kim Reynolds in 2009 at an event where a bipartisan group of “veteran” legislators were giving advice to newly elected ones. My next interaction with Reynolds was when she was lieutenant governor, and Governor Terry Branstad appointed me to serve as Vice-Chair of the Iowa Board of Parole. After I was promoted to chair that board, I met frequently with Branstad and Reynolds, apprising them of the progressive measures the board was undertaking.

Two recent surveys by Morning Consult, released in late October and late November, identified Reynolds as the country’s governor with the highest disapproval rating. A summary of the October poll noted, “her unpopularity increased partly because of a surge in negative sentiment among independent and Republican voters during a year in which she signed a strict anti-abortion law and took a lashing from former President Donald Trump …”

What has happened to Iowa since Reynolds assumed the office of governor on May 24, 2017?

Muscatine Journal article from February 28, 1953 about the planned demolition of historic Tremont Hall

This column by Daniel G. Clark about Alexander Clark (1826-1891) first appeared in the Muscatine Journal on April 19, 2023.

May is Preservation Month, the nationwide celebration of historic places and reminder of the importance of preservation.

Early in 2022 I set out to relate pieces of our shared story framed as local Black History. This is Column 56, with pieces yet to be found.

Last time I told that Frederick Douglass spoke here in 1866, as “Tremont Hall, one of the largest in the State, was packed to its utmost capacity….” Apparently, from various reports, a full house numbered well above 300.

Satanic Temple display in the Iowa state capitol, photographed by Laura Belin

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

I really should not be surprised by some comments that represent what passes for civic dialogue in Iowa these days. 

The latest example leaves me shaking my head, not just at the events themselves but at the reactions. Mrs. Gentry, my history and government teacher in high school, would be dismayed by intelligent people misunderstanding one of the foundations upon which the United States was established — that foundation being the desire of people for intellectual freedom.

Governor Kim Reynolds gave four of her top staffers raises ranging from 13 percent to 17 percent several months after Republican lawmakers approved a major boost to the governor’s office budget.

The large pay increases took effect in early September, according to salary records Bleeding Heartland obtained through a public records request. All staff in the governor’s office had already received a 3 percent raise at the beginning of fiscal year 2024 in July.

Public employees often receive a small bump in compensation at the start of a new fiscal year, but few are able to obtain raises of 10 percent or more without a promotion or a significant change to their job duties.

A spokesperson for Reynolds described the salary hikes as an “important investment” and asserted that “offering salaries commensurate with experience and job responsibilities is critical to ensuring optimal performance and continuity of state government.”

However, data the governor’s office provided to Bleeding Heartland did not support the claim that many of Reynolds’ staffers were previously underpaid compared to counterparts in similar states.