Aside from must-do tasks like adopting a budget for the coming fiscal year, Republican leaders of the Iowa House and Senate hope to secure agreement on a few policy bills before adjournment. The outstanding issues include proposed cuts to unemployment benefits, a plan to divert public education funds to private schools, and changes to Iowa’s can and bottle recycling program.

Another priority for legislative leaders is a bill to shield trucking companies from some kinds of lawsuits and cap damages for other legal claims related to commercial vehicle crashes. The proposal lacked enough support among Iowa House Republicans to advance during the 2021 session, and a revised version produced a rare defeat for House leaders in a floor vote last month.

James Bergert lost his wife Joanna Rizzo and was injured himself in a horrific collision on Interstate 35 last August. He and his wife’s estate filed suit March 18 against the tow truck driver who allegedly caused the crash, as well against the trucking company that driver owns. Bergert and his attorney Erik Luthens spoke to Bleeding Heartland recently about the case and how pending “tort reform” proposals would affect future victims of similar tragedies.

During a suspenseful meeting on March 29, the State Objection Panel allowed just enough signatures to stand for U.S. Senate candidate Abby Finkenauer, Attorney General Tom Miller, and State Representative Jeff Shipley to stay on the ballot.

Finkenauer needed at least 100 valid signatures from at least nineteen counties and hit nineteen exactly, with 100 in one county and 101 in two others. The Republicans who challenged her candidacy are seeking to reverse the outcome in court.

Miller needed at least 77 signatures from at least eighteen counties, and barely made it with 78 signatures in the eighteenth county.

Shipley needed at least 50 signatures from the Iowa House district where he is seeking re-election and was left with 52.

Many Iowa politics watchers have been wondering how these experienced candidates ended up hanging by a thread.

Bleeding Heartland asked all three campaigns why they didn’t give themselves more of a cushion by collecting far beyond the minimum number of signatures. Only one candidate answered the questions.

Charles Bruner: Taxes, inflation, and essential services … there’s an obvious solution for Democrats.

President Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress have done much to support essential workers and provide economic help to working and retired Americans during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Several of those actions were designed to become permanent: improvements to the child tax credit, investments in child care, and expansion of home and community based services and the direct care workforce.

Established in the American Rescue Plan Act through a process known as reconciliation (which requires only a simple majority vote and therefore could be enacted without Republican support), these policies have proved both popular and effective.

Kurt Meyer writes a weekly column for the Nora Springs – Rockford Register, 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.

If you’re confused about myriad rankings that evaluate public education in Iowa, join the club. I note that Iowa did not fare well in a recent U.S. News & World Report ranking of best high schools—number 48 of 51. But it’s always possible, due partially to the proliferation of rating approaches, to find results where Iowa fares somewhat better.

Wow, 48^th! We somehow managed to edge out Nebraska and Oklahoma (Maine, too, since apparently they didn’t grant permission to use Advanced Placement data in their evaluation). Now, we shouldn’t get blown too far off course by one poor ranking, although it’s worth noting, U.S. News & World Report now markets themselves as “the global authority in education rankings.”

Art Hackett is a Texas born and raised retired TV reporter. He worked in Dubuque in the late 1970s and spent 30 years as a magazine segment producer with Wisconsin Public Television. He moved back to Cedar Rapids in retirement to be close to grandchildren.

Let’s discuss another day the apparent manipulation of the State Objection Panel’s review process. The Republicans on the panel were rejecting signatures due to the lack of dorm room numbers on address lines, even though the Iowa Code doesn’t require them. (I live in a single family home but perhaps they will want to know if I’m sleeping in the first or second floor bedroom.)

What concerns me right now is a flock of candidates who seemed to be shooting for the bare minimum number of signatures.

Two Republican voters filed suit on March 31 challenging the State Objection Panel’s decision to allow U.S. Senate candidate Abby Finkenauer to remain on the Democratic primary ballot.

Attorney Alan Ostergren, who has represented Republican candidates and committees in several high-profile election cases, filed the lawsuit on behalf of Kim Schmett and Leanne Pellett. They charge that the panel, comprised of Secretary of State Paul Pate, Attorney General Tom Miller, and State Auditor Rob Sand, should have disallowed signatures on Finkenauer’s nominating petitions where voters did not provide the correct date. Doing so would have brought the Democratic front-runner’s campaign below the threshold of 100 signatures in at least nineteen counties.

Sand and Miller voted to allow those signatures to stand; Pate would have sustained the objection to them.

The lawsuit also charges that Sand and Miller should have recused themselves from considering the objection to Finkenauer’s petitions. If the auditor and attorney general had recused, as Ostergren had requested during the panel’s March 29 meeting, Republican statewide officials would have replaced them on the panel, and would surely have ruled against letting Finkenauer compete for the Democratic nomination.

However, the plaintiffs did not raise another argument that Ostergren had argued at length when asking the panel to invalidate signatures on Finkenauer’s petitions, and those filed by two other candidates.

Bruce Lear: Iowa Democratic candidates at all levels need to put public schools at the center of their campaigns.

Whenever my dad saw someone doing things the hard way, he’d say, “That guy’s working with a short-handled shovel.” I know I did my share of short-handled shovel work.

My dad wasn’t being mean. He was just observing there was a better way to do the work. His long-ago quip now applies to Democrats as they try to win over voters for the midterm elections.

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

“Frontier Iowa’s most prominent black citizen.” That’s the first mention of Alexander Clark in the book I recommend to any adult serious about studying his life and times. Bright Radical Star: Black Freedom and White Supremacy on the Hawkeye Frontier, by Robert Dykstra (Harvard University Press 1993).

Iowa a “bright radical star”? Wow. Who said that?

General Ulysses Grant, presidential candidate, November 1868. If you don’t know the reference, I invite you to learn. I will look closer at the Iowa of 1868 in a future column. 

Linda Nelson is a retired school teacher of 37 years, a past president of the Iowa State Education Association, and a former member of the Iowa House.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. This familiar adage – like all of the good ones – rings true far too often in everyday life. We’ve all had experiences that make us shake our heads and think, “I should have known better.” 

Luckily, in Pottawattamie County, we do know better. In fact, if we act now, we have an opportunity to learn our lesson and stop the County Board of Supervisors from fooling us twice.

As you read this column, decisions about how to spend $9 million in second round American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds may very well be happening. If they aren’t, they’ll be happening soon. And it’s up to county residents to demand a say in how these funds are spent.

Attorney General Tom Miller can remain on the Democratic primary ballot, the State Objection Panel affirmed on March 29, after determining his campaign had collected at least 77 valid signatures in eighteen counties, as required by Iowa law.

If he had been knocked off the ballot, Miller could have been nominated at the Iowa Democratic Party’s statewide convention in June. However, failing to qualify would have been an embarrassing misstep for a longtime office-holder.

Almost all of the legal arguments Miller’s representative advanced failed to convince a majority of the three panel members: Secretary of State Paul Pate, Lieutenant Governor Adam Gregg, and State Auditor Rob Sand. But one neat trick forced the two Republicans to accept enough Story County signatures for the campaign to cross the threshold.

The panel that considers objections to candidates who filed for Iowa’s primary election ballot met for hours on March 29, but it took them only a few minutes to reject three challenges based on candidates’ residency.

U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks has a clear shot at the Republican nomination in Iowa’s new first Congressional district, after her only GOP opponent was knocked off the ballot on March 29.

The State Objection Panel, consisting of Secretary of State Paul Pate, Attorney General Tom Miller, and State Auditor Rob Sand, unanimously sustained an objection to Kyle Kuehl’s candidacy.

Approximately 290,000 Iowans living in some 141,000 households will receive less food assistance beginning in April, due to Governor Kim Reynolds’ decision to declare the COVID-19 state of emergency over.

Leaders of area food pantries are expecting a surge in demand, as Iowans’ Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits will drop by at least $95 per household, and in some cases by more than 90 percent.

According to the Iowa Hunger Coalition, “The average SNAP benefit for individuals will drop from $2.65 per meal to an estimated $1.52 per meal. Total SNAP benefits issued in the state of Iowa will decrease by an estimated $29.5 million,” a 42.6 percent reduction.

Tom Walton is a Democratic candidate in Iowa House district 28.

One of the reasons I am running for the Iowa House is to raise awareness of our state’s serious nursing shortage and the current administration’s failure to address it. When so much depends on good nurses for Iowa, why do we spend valuable time on issues that don’t touch our lives? How many last memories these past years have been the face, touch and simple kindness of a loving nurse?

The COVID-19 pandemic has been hard on all of us, but especially for front-line care givers like nurses. A 2020 study conducted before the pandemic by the Iowa Board of Nursing found 58 percent of respondents agreed that there is shortage of nurses in the state. 78 percent of long-term care facility respondents agreed. 

That was before the pandemic. Then it got worse.

One of the most experienced Iowa House Republicans failed to qualify for the 2022 primary ballot after collecting some signatures from voters who no longer live in his Council Bluffs district.

Assistant Majority Leader Brent Siegrist served eighteen years in the Iowa House, rising to the positions of majority leader and speaker, before retiring in 2002 to run for Congress. He worked as a lobbyist for many years, then ran for the state House again in 2020 and was elected to represent a district covering part of Council Bluffs.

Iowa’s new political map placed Siegrist in House district 19, also covering about half of that city. He submitted his nominating papers on March 16 and initially appeared on the primary candidate list. But that list no longer has any Republican candidate for House district 19 after Siegrist withdrew his papers.

How on earth did this happen?

Ira Lacher‘s open letter to Lucas Grundmeier, opinion editor or The Des Moines Register.

Dear Mr. Grundmeier,

Ordinarily, I would submit this to you as a guest opinion essay. But you’ve announced that the Register, once counted among America’s great newspapers, will no longer consider unsolicited opinion pieces. CORRECTION: The newspaper will continue to consider unsolicited guest columns but will “accept far fewer” of them in the print edition.

So I share my views on this blog, which now exists as apparently the sole outlet for members of the Des Moines community wishing to make their opinions known, civilly and responsibly.

In the print edition dated March 13, 2022, you commented about the addition of a new columnist, saying: “I believe this demonstrates the Register’s continued commitment to providing forums for robust discussion of community topics.” My response, to you and the other top executives of the “media company,” which you now call yourself: No. It doesn’t. More about that later.

Karen Heidman is a retired educator and a member of Siouxland Progressive Women.

In the musical sensation of the last decade, a young Alexander Hamilton declared, “I’m not throwin’ away my shot!” That memorable line echoes the sentiments of a group of concerned citizens after the appearance at Western Iowa Tech Community College of right-wing populist activist KrisAnne Hall on March 12.

Ms. Hall, who claims the title of constitutional attorney, appeared at the invitation of Woodbury County Sheriff Chad Sheehan, ostensibly to educate his staff and the public on citizens’ rights. She is a frequent guest speaker for the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, which claims the proper interpretation of the U.S. Constitution is that only county sheriffs—not the state or federal government—can determine if a law is constitutional. The Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled the organization a hate group.

Herb Strentz: Trump’s lies may be troubling, but the failure of our elected GOP leaders to speak up against them should be even more troubling.

The aphorism “If a man bites a dog, that’s news,” has been attributed to a few newspaper characters. One was John Bogart (1848-1921), city editor of the New York Sun, one of that city’s liveliest newspapers in the late 19th century.

That’s why some 100 years later, I named our Sheltie puppy “Bogie.” That was much easier than making something out of Alfred Harmsworth — a British newspaper guy also credited with the line.

“Man bites dog!” defined news as something out of the expected or quite contrary to our daily experiences. You know, like Donald Trump telling the “truth.”

Iowa Department of Natural Resources Director Kayla Lyon has a message for Iowans after being cited on March 21 for fishing without a license in Jackson County.

Reached by email on March 25, Lyon confirmed a record in Iowa Courts Online referred to her citation, explaining,

I had my combination hunting and fishing license set to auto renew but my bank issued me a new card and I forgot to update the system. I was paddlefishing on the Mississippi last Friday [March 18]. When I was informed that I didn’t have a valid license, I asked our law enforcement chief to issue me a citation as soon as we could connect on Monday morning. It was an honest mistake but the laws apply to me just like anyone else. I have since gone online and renewed my combination license.

I’m told this situation is not uncommon. I would encourage anyone with an Iowa license to routinely check their accounts to ensure this doesn’t happen to them.

I would guess that most people who use credit cards have forgotten to update their information on some recurring charge after getting a new card. So this case presents a useful warning to Iowa’s “hook and bullet crowd”: next time you go fishing or hunting, check beforehand to make sure your licenses are up to date.

Lyon set a good example by acknowledging her mistake, knowing the citation would be listed in publicly available databases.

Editor’s note: This column contains discussion of sexual abuse.

Kurt Meyer writes a weekly column for the Nora Springs – Rockford Register, 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.

Two decades ago, I became dimly aware of the poet Richard Eberhart. Not because of anything he had written or done recently to breach my knowledge gap. Rather, because he was from Austin (Minnesota), as was Dad’s family. Despite his minimal interest in poetry, it was Dad who first brought Eberhart to my attention, logical in light of their shared Austin background.

My curiosity piqued, I began investigating. “Who’s this famous poet… from AUSTIN?”