An Iowa teenager who was abused and sex trafficked will be forced to pay $150,000 in restitution to the estate of her alleged rapist, under a decision issued on September 13.

Polk County District Court Judge David Porter did not order Pieper Lewis to serve time in an adult prison when he sentenced her for voluntary manslaughter and willful injury in the June 2020 death of Zachary Brooks. Instead, he accepted the prosecutors’ recommendation for five years of probation while Lewis lives at the Fresh Start Women’s Center in Des Moines. The judge also agreed to the defense attorneys’ request for deferred judgment, which means Lewis may be able to have the crimes expunged from her record if she abides by the terms of her probation.

But Iowa law requires restitution payments of at least $150,000 to the victim’s estate in “all criminal cases in which the offender is convicted of a felony in which the act or acts committed by the offender caused the death of another person.” Lewis’ attorneys had argued the law should not apply to their client, who was 15 years old and homeless when she was exploited by multiple men, and repeatedly raped by Brooks. But Porter rejected the defense arguments.

Sandy Peterson is a Democrat from Grimes.

Education

Iowans know our kids need a strong education to succeed in the future. But Governor Kim Reynolds wants to send more of our tax dollars to private schools, excluding certain children from opportunities by denying their public schools the resources they need.

Democrats want to invest $300 million in Iowa schools, but Corporate Kim Reynolds wants to give it to her wealthy donors and divert public education funds to private schools. We need a leader who will choose kids over corporations and support public schools so that every kid gets the education they deserve.

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

Televisions are getting larger, but that does not make it easier to decipher the political ads that are as common these days as gnats at a picnic.

There is one thing we should understand about these ads: Their purpose is not to educate voters or inform them about the finer points of a candidate’s views. Instead, their purpose is to scare us, or mislead us, or just confuse us.

One such example tells Iowa viewers that U.S. Representative Cindy Axne, a Democrat from Iowa’s third district, refuses to sign a pledge to support term limits for members of Congress. (Term Limits Action is spending $157,203 to run the ads.)

U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks spent more than $63,000 from her office budget to pay for radio advertising highlighting top campaign issues for House Republicans. The expenditures, using the “franking privilege” available to all members of Congress, were legal during the five weeks Miller-Weeks bought the ads, taking advantage of a little-noticed provision allowing such taxpayer-funded media promotions.  

Bleeding Heartland’s review of Iowa radio station political files, archived on the Federal Communications Commission’s website, showed Miller-Meeks used franking funds to place 60-second commercials on at least eight Iowa radio stations in August or September.

Staff for Miller-Meeks did not reply to inquiries about the advertising campaign, which marked a departure from how the Republican allocated her office budget during her first year and a half in Congress.

Every Iowa candidate seeking a statewide or federal office has agreed to at least one televised debate, with one exception: U.S. Representative Randy Feenstra. The Republican running for a second term in Iowa’s fourth Congressional district rejected an invitation from Iowa PBS without explanation. As a result, “Iowa Press” will interview Feenstra’s Democratic challenger Ryan Melton during the September 23 program, which had been set aside for the IA-04 debate.

Feenstra already backed out of a joint forum planned for the Clay County fair. According to Melton, the only joint appearance the incumbent agreed to was an event the Iowa Corn Growers Association hosted last week, which was not a debate and not open to the public.

In 2020, Feenstra debated his GOP primary opponents and Democrat J.D. Scholten during the general election campaign. What’s he worried about now?

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

I may have misled regular readers to suppose Muscatine’s early editors and lawmakers were a pretty progressive bunch.

Those anti-slavery and equal-rights figures are indeed appealing historical characters, and I confess I tell less about their opponents, mainly because I’ve learned less.

Alexander Clark’s publicist—my description for editor John Mahin—allied this paper with the Republican party when it emerged in the 1850s. There was almost always a Democratic paper in town, so he faced a procession of partisan competitors over his half-century career.

Jason Clayworth had the scoop for Axios Des Moines: the Polk County Democrats have hired Orchestrate Management to cater the 2022 Steak Fry. The grocery chain Hy-Vee “had catered the event since at least 1992,” according to Polk County Democrats chair Sean Bagniewski.

Some Democratic activists have wanted to cut ties with Hy-Vee since Gwen Hope reported for Bleeding Heartland three years ago that the grocery chain’s PAC has favored GOP candidates and committees. In particular, the Hy-Vee PAC gave the Republican Party of Iowa $25,000—the PAC’s biggest donation in a decade—shortly before President Donald Trump headlined an Iowa GOP fundraiser at Hy-Vee’s facility in West Des Moines during the summer of 2019.

The U.S. Department of Interior announced on September 8 that its Board on Geographic Names voted to approve new names “for nearly 650 geographic features” formerly containing the word “squaw,” including six creek segments in Iowa.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to serve in that role, created a Derogatory Geographic Names Task Force last year. Its first project was to find replacement names for geographic features on federal lands bearing the term squaw, which “has historically been used as an offensive ethnic, racial, and sexist slur, particularly for Indigenous women.”

The task force identified seven features in Iowa among a nationwide list of more than 660, and proposed alternate names for consideration in February. After working through thousands of public comments, the task force finalized the replacement names, which are listed here.

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

Allium canadense is known by many common names: wild garlic, meadow garlic, wild onion, Canadian onion.

Whatever name you use, this wild Allium is the one you are most likely to find in Iowa. It is not a ramp and not a nodding onion. Several other wild Alliums are native to Iowa (including Allium stellatum, which is also called wild onion), but those are not very common.

This map from the Biota of North America Program (BONAP) shows the native range of Allium canadense in Iowa.

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.

It’s well known that on September 17, 1796, America’s first president warned citizens about the negative impact political parties could have on the country. In his farewell address, George Washington predicted that politicians and their party of preference could become “unprincipled.”

The divisiveness our political parties and their operative sons and daughters have purposely brought upon America is disheartening and shameful.

With the 2022 midterm elections only two months away, the negative partisanship ads have already begun. It’s a sad state of affairs we have to endure disinformation, misinformation, and political shenanigans every two years.

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

These days, I stand in front of audiences and engage in what is politely called “public speaking” more often than even Mr. Gentry ever imagined when I showed up at his office door 55 years ago with a bug-eyed expression of concern.

Mr. Gentry was the guidance counselor at Davis County High School. He was in charge of class scheduling. What brought me to his doorstep was noticing I would be taking “Speech” class that semester.

Before I could say anything, however, he presciently said, “You probably are wondering about the Speech class. You will thank me someday.” That “someday” has arrived. You were correct, Mr. Gentry.

Paul Deaton is a lifelong Democrat living in Johnson County whose first political work was for Lyndon Johnson’s presidential campaign.

Thom Hartmann’s latest in the Hidden History Series, The Hidden History of Neoliberalism: How Reaganism Gutted America and How to Restore Its Greatness, is scheduled for release on September 13. Well-written and timely, it takes a deep dive into neoliberalism with direct application to life in Iowa.

Dan Guild is a lawyer and project manager who lives in New Hampshire. In addition to writing for Bleeding Heartland, he has written for CNN and Sabato’s Crystal Ball. He also contributed to the Washington Post’s 2020 primary simulations. Follow him on Twitter @dcg1114.

The U.S. Supreme Court released its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health on June 24. Overturning Roe v Wade caused a political earthquake.

I created this table to show the magnitude of the change in the generic ballot (which asks voters whether they plan to support a Democrat or a Republican for Congress). My averages differ from sites like FiveThirtyEight and RealClearPolitics, because I compare results across time from each pollster, rather than averaging all polls at a point in time. (I will explain why this matters at the end of this article.)

Chris Schwartz is state director for Americans for Democratic Action and a Black Hawk County supervisor.

As we celebrate workers this Labor Day, it’s important to acknowledge it’s been a rough couple of years for American workers. Working families were battered by a pandemic that caused massive unemployment, loss of health coverage and financial hardship for tens of millions of working people.

But thanks to swift bipartisan action in 2020, Congress passed historic relief packages that helped workers, extended health coverage and protected the majority of Americans from COVID-19’s worst harms.

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

Theodore “T.S.” Parvin came to Iowa in 1838 with Robert Lucas, the first territorial governor, and soon settled at Bloomington—future Muscatine—to serve as district prosecutor.

His uncle, John “J.A.” Parvin, arrived less than a year later. Together they started one of the first schools in the territory. Both would achieve life-long reputations as champions of education.

“Strong Island Hawk” is an Iowa Democrat and political researcher based in Des Moines. Prior to moving to Iowa, he lived in Washington, DC where he worked for one of the nation’s top public interest groups. In Iowa, has worked and volunteered on U.S. Representative Cindy Axne’s 2018 campaign and Senator Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 caucus team. 

With President Joe Biden’s decision to forgive student loan debt for up to $10,000 per borrower ($20,000 for Pell Grant recipients), the public sphere has been flooded with opinions from across the spectrum. Liberals and progressives have celebrated it as a necessary economic maneuver, while Republicans have decried it as an unfair handout or vote-buying. Student loan relief is an issue that splits across class, party, generational and even urban-rural lines. It’s a great time to examine this tricky topic.

This post will not delve into every detail of Biden’s plan. Instead, I will make the general case for student loan forgiveness and thoroughly explain the liberal (or at least, my philosophy) on it.

I will also address the conservative case against the plan, which is weak given the facts. Finally, I will offer some middle-of-the-road solutions I think we can all agree on.

Bruce Lear: Support staff personnel are often ignored or treated as disposable instead of essential. But they are the glue holding schools together.

After a long career as a carpenter, my dad took a job as the night custodian for the small school I graduated from. He worked 3:00 to 11:00. The people in the building loved him because he’d go out of his way to help. He loved the work, and he was good at it. 

One time I was on a break from college and my dad had the flu and couldn’t go to work. It was rare, but he called the school and then went to bed.

A few minutes after 3:00, I answered the phone. It was the school superintendent. 

Dave Leshtz is a member of AFT Local 716 and editor of The Prairie Progressive.

As a crowd gathered for a rally by Lucita’s Diner in Cedar Rapids on a hot September 1, two people in Union Yes! t-shirts shaded their eyes while looking up at the top of the Ingredion plant across the street.

“See that dust coming off the roof?” said one. “Yeah,” said the other, “that’s what happens when you have people inside who don’t know what they’re doing.”

The “people inside” are management personnel replacing the 120 workers on strike at one of the oldest and biggest factories in this city of 140,000 on the banks of the Cedar River. 

In another end run around the Iowa Senate confirmation process, Governor Kim Reynolds has named Cheryl Arnold to serve on Iowa’s Public Relations Board (PERB), which adjudicates labor disputes within state and local government or school districts.

The governor’s office has not publicly announced the nomination, and at this writing, the board’s website lists only one member (Erik Helland) on what Iowa law designates as a three-person board. Reynolds informed Secretary of the Iowa Senate Charlie Smithson about Arnold’s appointment in a letter dated August 15, which Smithson provided to Bleeding Heartland.

Arnold previously served as chair of the PERB for a little more than a year. She left the position after Iowa Senate Democrats voted against her nomination near the end of the 2020 legislative session. Appointments subject to Senate confirmation need a two-thirds vote for approval, giving Democrats the power to block nominations while in the minority.

As of August 30, Iowans can submit absentee ballot request forms to their county auditors for the November 8 election.

I’m a strong advocate for voting before election day, and Iowa Democrats need to bank early votes in midterms, to counteract the GOP’s longstanding turnout advantage.

But Republicans have substantially changed Iowa’s voting laws since the last general election. So even if you’ve voted by mail before, I would encourage you to make different plans to cast your ballot this year.