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

I was excited when I learned Simon Estes would narrate the Iowa public television documentary “Lost in History: Alexander Clark.”

Ahead of the premiere showing at Muscatine Community College in March 2012, the Muscatine Journal highlighted the bass-baritone’s role in “the 27-minute film by award-winning New York producer Marc Rosenwasser that chronicles Clark’s life from his birth in western Pennsylvania in 1826 to his death in 1891.”

Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to public schools for 38 years. He taught for four years in Alden and seven years in Cherokee, then represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association Regional Director for 27 years until retiring.

Anyone who watches television has seen the Progressive Insurance commercial where Dr. Rick helps young homeowners becoming their parents. He gives advice like, “We don’t need a line monitor.” “You don’t need to clap after a movie because no one in the theater made the movie.” “Don’t leave a long message on an answering machine, just text.”

I had three thoughts when I first saw this commercial. First, I was amused. Second, the old guy in me thought, young people would benefit quite a bit from becoming their parents. But the rational guy in me questioned, in a fast-changing world, do we really want young people becoming their parents? The answer was an emphatic no.

My third thought was that Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds might benefit from a little advice on how not to become Donald Trump.

Rachel Bruns is a volunteer advocate for quality maternal health care in Iowa.

In August, I spoke to the Broadlawns Board of Trustees for the third time in the past four years.

You can read my comments from my first time speaking during their citizen comment period in July 2018 when I was five months pregnant and looking for VBAC supportive care for the birth of my second child. Unbeknownst to me at the time, this experience launched my maternal health advocacy.

Republicans seeking Iowa’s federal offices take some important advantages into the November election. Most are incumbents with more money to spend than their challengers. Recent history suggests midterms favor the party out of power in Washington, and President Joe Biden has low approval numbers in Iowa.

One wild card complicates the equation for GOP candidates here, as in many other states. Republicans are on record supporting near-total abortion bans, while a majority of voters favor keeping abortion mostly legal.

Republican campaign messaging has emphasized other topics, such as inflation, taxes, or unpopular Washington politicians. When they can’t avoid talking about abortion, Republicans have claimed their Democratic opponents are the real extremists on the issue.

Several races may hinge on whether moderate voters buy into that distortion of the facts.

Herb Strentz reflects on Republican Jake Chapman’s claim that his Democratic opponent Sarah Trone Garriott is a “radical activist.”

Fear-mongering and baseless campaign attacks against candidates for public office are not restricted to Iowans who dare to seek election while being Black—as is the case for Deidre DeJear, Iowa’s Democratic candidate for governor.

Yes, commentators from Bleeding Heartland to the Des Moines Register’s editors have rightly condemned Governor Kim Reynolds’ ads against DeJear as race-baiting.

And yes, “politics ain’t beanbag.” It’s not for the thin-skinned.

That “beanbag” contrast is as true today as it was in 1895, when Finley Peter Dunne quoted his fictional character, Mr. Dooley, pontificating about rough-house Chicago politics.

Katie Jones lives in Des Moines with her family. She is passionate about gun violence prevention.

Gun safety is on the ballot in Iowa this year. Voters will consider a state constitutional amendment called Public Measure 1, which states, “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The sovereign state of Iowa affirms and recognizes this right to be a fundamental individual right. Any and all restrictions of this right shall be subject to strict scrutiny.”

The last sentence makes this amendment very different from the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment, and more extreme. What is strict scrutiny and how would it change the legal landscape?

Lora Conrad lives on a small farm in Van Buren County.

Coralberry (Symphoricarpos orbiculatus) is a deciduous shrub that is native to the Eastern U.S. and much of the Midwest, including Iowa. Its common name describes its fruit or drupe. Other names used for it include Buckbrush and Indian Currant. It is a member of the Honeysuckle plant family. It is more common in southern Iowa, as shown on this map from the Biota of North America Program (BONAP).

Wayne Ford represented part of Des Moines in the Iowa House and is the founder of the nonprofit organization Urban Dreams.

I am running for one of the open board seats on the Broadlawns Medical Center Board of Trustees. I have been involved with Broadlawns and the neighboring community for the past 50 years and am uniquely qualified to address the challenges that our community is currently facing: an influx of refugees, a rise in violence, limited access to proper healthcare, and lingering concerns from the pandemic. 

These factors compel me to pursue a position on the Broadlawns board so that I can be part of the solution and address these challenges.

Randy Evans can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. 

“Reasonable” is a word that is used often in Iowa’s laws. Reasonable fees. Reasonable rules. Reasonable efforts. Reasonable force.

But events in recent weeks show government officials are not always following what many Iowans would think the term means. And when government officials deviate from “reasonable,” they should not be surprised if their standing or the stature of their agency suffers in the public’s eyes.

Consider the Linn-Mar Community School District.

Governor Kim Reynolds’ re-election campaign continues to air a television commercial that plays on racist tropes in order to boost the governor among the largely white Iowa electorate.

Reynolds’ campaign spokesperson Pat Garrett has not replied to Bleeding Heartland’s inquiries about the commercial. But after Iowa Democratic Party chair Ross Wilburn denounced the ad as “a cheap, racist and dangerous stunt using harmful stereotypes to score political points,” Garrett told some other reporters that the spot “contrasts the failed policies supported by liberal Democrats across the country with the common sense leadership of Gov. Reynolds.”

Visual evidence shows the ad-makers were determined to create negative associations with Black women. The tactic would undermine the governor’s Democratic challenger Deidre DeJear.

Broadlawns Trustees Dave Miglin and Emily Webb co-authored this endorsement.

Elections are about the future: identifying issues that still need to be addressed and deciding who or what is the best path forward. While there are several high-profile issues and races on the ballot this November, one of the most important decisions Polk County voters will have is determining who should fill three open seats on the seven-member Board of Trustees at Broadlawns Medical Center.

Whether you are a patient of Broadlawns, a Polk County taxpayer, or simply an interested voter, the people who sit on the Board of Trustee of Polk County’s only public hospital should matter to you.

That is why we are encouraging you to vote for Kathleen Kacey Davis, Shaimaa Aly, and Marc Ward for Broadlawns Trustee (labeled on the back side of the ballot as County Hospital Trustee).

Charles Bruner served in the Iowa legislature from 1978 to 1990 and was founding director of the Child and Family Policy Center from 1989 through 2016. For the last six years, he headed a Health Equity and Young Children initiative focusing on primary child health care for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He is working with other child policy advocacy leaders and experts in the field to raise these issues in Congressional midterm election campaigns. Find more information about their fund: www.votekids2022.com.

The Iowa Democratic Party’s Progressive Caucus adopted a resolution that calls for Democrats and the state party to “reclaim” the label “pro-family.”

That resolution (enclosed in full below) is in direct response to Governor Kim Reynolds’ rhetoric implying that only the Republican Party believes “parents matter” and that Republicans are leading a “pro-family” agenda.

Janice Weiner is an Iowa City City Council member and the Democratic nominee in Iowa Senate district 45.

Every time we turn around, another article or report describes the child care crisis in Iowa. I’ve followed the statewide debate, participated in multiple local forums, and have been a child care consumer for the past four years.

When Governor Kim Reynolds convened her child care task force, I hoped that we would make progress, since this issue affects every zip code and county. Instead, we have continued to go around in circles, creating grants for centers and pushing “solutions” that fail to get to the heart of the issue.

Child care is an economic issue, a workforce issue, a childhood development issue, a child welfare issue, an equity issue, a women’s issue, an education issue, a state development issue – and more. It’s an “all of the above” issue. And since it’s foundational, it’s worth tackling.

Iowa’s Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) is transferring most of its staff and caseload to the state Department of Inspections and Appeals.

Since the mid-1970s, PERB members and administrative law judges have adjudicated labor disputes within state and local government or school districts. Following the changes, administrative law judges now working for PERB will handle other matters, while other employees at Inspections and Appeals will hear cases that were previously in PERB’s jurisdiction.

State officials have not announced the changes, which are scheduled to take effect on September 30. It’s not clear who initiated or authorized the plan. Staff in the governor’s office and Department of Inspections and Appeals did not respond to any of Bleeding Heartland’s inquiries over the past three weeks. PERB members Erik Helland and Cheryl Arnold likewise did not reply to several emails.

State Senator Nate Boulton, a Democrat with extensive experience as a labor attorney, has asked Attorney General Tom Miller for an official opinion on whether “it is an illegal shift of an essential PERB duty” to assign its responsibilities “to an unrelated state agency.”

Boulton also asked Miller to weigh in on the legality of Governor Kim Reynolds’ recent appointments to PERB. As Bleeding Heartland previously reported, Reynolds has circumvented the Senate confirmation process by keeping one of the three PERB positions unfilled, so she can name her preferred candidates to a vacant slot while the legislature is not in session.

Anne Schechinger is Senior Analyst of Economics for the Environmental Working Group. This report first appeared on the Environmental Working Group’s website.

Farmers received almost $7.4 billion in payments from two of the largest federal agricultural conservation programs between 2017 and 2020, but only a small proportion of these payments went to practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions from farming. 

This finding comes from the Environmental Working Group’s newest update to its Conservation Database, which provides 2017–2020 payment data for five of the largest Agriculture Department farm conservation programs.

Some political text messages are subject to Iowa’s law requiring disclosure of who is responsible for express campaign advocacy, the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board has determined.

Members of the board, which enforces Iowa campaign regulations, unanimously adopted an advisory opinion on political text messages at a September 22 meeting.

Tim Nelson is a Democratic activist based in Polk County.

Broadlawns Medical Center, the public hospital in Polk County, Iowa, doesn’t provide elective abortions. But the hospital’s staff do perform medically necessary, life saving abortions.

As a public hospital, Broadlawns has elected trustees, unlike private hospitals.

This means we choose the members of the Broadlawns Board of Trustees.

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

August 24 was the first full day at SCJH—Susan Clark Junior High—and also the first day of the 2022-23 academic year at Muscatine High School, alma mater of Iowa’s first Black high school graduate.

Iowa’s 1857 constitution mandated public education for “all the youths of the State, without distinction of color,” but it took an Iowa Supreme Court ruling more than a decade later to end racial segregation. The 1868 case was named for that Muscatine student: Clark v. Board of School Directors.

The Republican Party of Iowa has reserved more than $1.1 million in television air time for six candidates seeking Iowa legislative seats in the Des Moines metro area, and will likely spend hundreds of thousands more to promote them on television during the final stretch of the campaign.

Documents filed with the Federal Communications Commission show the GOP plans to spend more than $650,000 on broadcast tv supporting Jake Chapman and Mike Bousselot, who are running in the party’s top two central Iowa Senate targets.

The party also will spend six-figure sums on tv ads for four Iowa House candidates in Polk or Dallas counties, whose commercials began airing last week.

Those numbers do not include any funds the GOP will spend on direct mail, radio, or digital advertising for the same candidates.

This post focuses on early tv spending on legislative races in the Des Moines market. Forthcoming Bleeding Heartland posts will survey other battleground Iowa House or Senate districts.

Nothing happens in a campaign commercial by accident. Strategists plan every word and image, with the candidate’s approval. Directors may film many takes to get the perfect cadence for every line.

So Iowans should understand: the racist tropes in Governor Kim Reynolds’ latest tv ad are deliberate.