Luuk Clark is a Prairie Steward and Pinnated Grouse advocate. He thanks Laura Walters of the Tallgrass Prairie Center and John Pearson of the Iowa DNR for helping him find a nearby location to photograph Silky prairie clover for this post.

Silky prairie clover (Dalea villosa) is a bit of a nomadic species relying on sandy, sparsely vegetated places. In Iowa it may be mainly associated with ancient post-glaciated delta systems and watersheds surrounding the Cedar River. 

My first time seeing it in Iowa was on a sandy “blowout” further east than the current range indicates. This does not surprise me as the changing of the natural landscape in Iowa has extirpated a plethora of our native species, and thus, our knowledge of where things historically could be found are lost with the upturned soil and disappearance of the prairie that gives Iowa its rich heritage. Its historic presence in Iowa was always considered “infrequent” even in earliest records, such as Wesley Greene’s 1907 book Plants of Iowa: A Preliminary List of the Native and Introduced Plants of the State, Not under Cultivation.

Douglas Burns is a fourth-generation Iowa journalist. He is the co-founder of the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation and a member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative, where this article first appeared on The Iowa Mercury newsletter. His family operated the Carroll Times Herald for 93 years in Carroll, Iowa where Burns resides.

Council Bluffs Mayor Matt Walsh, a Republican, joined others in his party and independents to support Democratic State Representative Josh Turek, a gold medal-winning Paralympian in wheelchair basketball, at a September 26 event in this southwest Iowa city. Former U.S. Senator Tom Harkin, an Iowa icon, headlined the fundraiser for Turek, who captured his state House district by just six votes in 2022 and faces a challenging re-election bid in the November election.

Walsh said he crossed party lines for the event—and a public endorsement of a Democrat—for one reason: Turek is a respected and effective voice at the statehouse.

“While I am a registered Republican, I strongly believe the best candidate should win,” Walsh said in an interview at the Hoff Family Arts and Cultural Center. “Without a doubt in my mind that’s Josh Turek. He cares about Iowa, he cares about people with disabilities, and he cares about Council Bluffs. You can talk to Josh. Josh listens. Josh understands. Josh is responsive. He’s everything you look for in a candidate. Josh is that guy.”

James Larew is an attorney in Iowa City who served as general counsel and chief of staff for former Governor Chet Culver. Chris Jones is retired from the University of Iowa where he worked as a Research Engineer at IIHR-Hydroscience & Engineering. Prior to that he worked at the Des Moines Water Works and the Iowa Soybean Association. He is author of the book The Swine Republic, Struggles with the Truth about Agriculture and Water Quality. He lives in Iowa City. 

Iowa law should recognize access to clean water and clean air as a fundamental right.

The Iowa Constitution should be amended to assure that right is protected, and to guarantee that governmental actions conflicting with this right are subjected to strict judicial scrutiny.

A further constitutionally-imposed duty should be placed on state government: to affirmatively protect our precious natural resources for us, and for all future generations.

We often hear that Iowans like to re-elect their incumbents. But when it comes to members of the U.S. House, Iowa’s office-holders have less job security than many of their peers.

Across the country, voters have re-elected more than 90 percent of U.S. House incumbents in most elections over the past five decades. Here in Iowa, where our four districts are not gerrymandered, challengers defeated two sitting members of Congress in 2018, two in 2020 (one in the primary, one in the general election), and one in 2022.

Incumbents still enjoy inherent advantages in a Congressional campaign: higher name recognition, larger contributions from political action committees, more opportunities to generate news coverage, and an official budget that can fund outreach to constituents. But not all House members use the available tools the same way.

This post, the first in a series, will explore how Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks has used her office to boost her re-election chances in Iowa’s first Congressional district.

Notably, Miller-Meeks has spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on messages to constituents, with much of the spending going through her top campaign vendor. She has also built up goodwill by being one of the chamber’s most frequent floor speakers, and has used the earmark process to help fund projects in her district.

Members of Congress averted a federal government shutdown this week, approving a continuing resolution to keep funds flowing after the current fiscal year ends. Large bipartisan majorities in both chambers (341 to 82 in the House, and 78 to 18 in the Senate) voted on September 25 to fund the federal government at current levels through December 20. The bill also contains an extra $231 million in funds for the U.S. Secret Service to step up protection of presidential candidates.

All but one member of Iowa’s Congressional delegation supported the spending measure. Representative Randy Feenstra (IA-04) has not publicly explained why he was among the 82 House Republicans who voted against the last opportunity to prevent a shutdown.

Clark Kauffman is deputy editor at Iowa Capital Dispatch, where this article first appeared.

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is suing the federal government over its alleged lax oversight of a major Iowa puppy-mill operator.

The ASPCA filed the lawsuit on September 19 in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, naming as defendants the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Michael Watson, who heads the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Also named as a defendant is Tom Vilsack, the secretary of agriculture and former governor of Iowa.

The lawsuit alleges that the USDA has violated the federal Animal Welfare Act by repeatedly renewing the license of Steve Kruse, an Iowa-based breeder who operates a large-scale kennel in West Point and has a long history of animal welfare violations.

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 becoming clear the closer we get to the November 5 presidential election, voters need to seriously check out the radical government reformation policies contained within Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. Here’s why.

The right-wing think tank Heritage Foundation has written not one, not two, but nine “Mandate for Leadership” documents for Republican presidential candidates, with their first playbook published in 1981. The Heritage Foundation spent $22 million—serious money—to create Project 2025 for Donald Trump to implement.

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   

I’m old enough to remember when Fonzie jumped the shark on the show “Happy Days.” That episode spawned a new idiom, referring to when something “has reached its peak and starts to decline in quality.”

But the 1977 “shark jumping” didn’t just happen. It occurred as the sitcom writers neglected script quality and instead relied on outrageous, attention-grabbing gimmicks.

That’s what’s happening in Iowa. But it’s not a sitcom that’s past its prime—it’s Iowa’s beloved public education system. Public schools have suffered from long-term neglect and three attention-grabbing attacks, which remind me of how Fonzie jumped the shark.

Kenny Slocum is the naturalist and natural resource manager for the Clayton County Conservation Board.

The first time I had an opportunity to write for Bleeding Heartland, I wrote about one of my favorite places. Bloody Run County Park, outside of Marquette, sparked my interest in plants years ago when I began to find a litany of unique native plants, stuff that I’d mostly consider “meat-and-potatoes” kind of species now.

Yet every year, it seems, I get the pleasure of adding a new species to my digital herbarium. Some of them, the butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) and round-headed bush clover (Lespedeza capitata) and rough blazing star (Liatris aspera), in and of themselves, might not make the typical prairie-stomper excited, but it’s a thrill for me to see them in context.

Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes openness and transparency in Iowa’s state and local governments. He can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. 

Thirty-three years ago on a snowy Friday in November, the nightmare of mass school shootings shocked Iowa like it has never been shocked before.

It was 3:40 p.m. A former University of Iowa graduate student with a brilliant scientific mind, and a .38-caliber revolver, walked into a conference room in Van Allen Hall, the home of the university’s renowned Department of Physics and Astronomy.

Brooklyn Draisey is a Report for America corps member covering higher education for Iowa Capital Dispatch, where this article first appeared.

The Iowa Board of Regents is working with board staff and state universities to analyze diversity, equity and inclusion programs and positions and ensure their compliance under a state law set to take effect next summer.

President Sherry Bates said during the September 19 board meeting that she, along with Regents Greta Rouse, David Barker, and JC Risewick started this summer ensuring compliance with both DEI directives put in place by the board and Senate File 2435 at the University of Iowa, Iowa State University, and University of Northern Iowa.

While running for state treasurer, Republican State Senator Roby Smith touted his attendance record, noting in digital and television advertising that he “never missed a vote” during his twelve years in the legislature.

But since being sworn in as state treasurer in January 2023, it’s not clear whether Smith has regularly worked at the state capitol.

Staff in the State Treasurer’s office and the Iowa Department of Administrative Services refused Bleeding Heartland’s requests for records that would show how often Smith comes to work in Des Moines. After months of delay, both entities declined to provide keycard data that would indicate when the treasurer entered his capitol office. Smith’s chief of staff, Molly Widen, also said there are no calendar entries showing which days her boss has worked in the main office.

Iowa’s open records law stipulates that “free and open examination of public records is generally in the public interest even though such examination may cause inconvenience or embarrassment to public officials.”

Ed Tibbetts, a longtime reporter and editor in the Quad-Cities, is the publisher of the Along the Mississippi newsletter, where this article first appeared. Find more of his work at edtibbetts.substack.com. He and Laura Belin are also among the contributors to the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative podcast, Iowa Down Ballot. On the latest episode, they discussed the first and third Congressional district campaigns, a state audit on nursing home inspections, and more.

For much of this week, I’ve been waiting for U.S. Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa to complain about former President Donald Trump’s latest campaign promise, which would pile hundreds of billions of dollars onto the already bulging national debt.

I searched news reports and her X/Twitter account. But so far: Zip.

You’d think she’d say something, right? I mean, Ernst is famous for caring about budget discipline. Isn’t she?

While hundreds of prominent Republicans around the country have endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president, no well-known GOP activists in Iowa had joined their ranks—until today.

Dawn Roberts, who was one of three co-chairs for Nikki Haley’s Iowa caucus campaign, announced her support for Harris in a letter first published September 20 in Julie Gammack’s Iowa Potluck column on Substack, and a few hours later by the Des Moines Register.

A lifelong Republican, Roberts was Polk County co-chair for then Governor Robert Ray’s campaigns and served as state co-chair for Gerald Ford’s 1976 presidential campaign. She became the first woman to lead the Polk County Republicans and was the GOP nominee for Iowa secretary of state in 1986.

Roberts wrote in her endorsement letter that she was impressed by how Harris “showed a willingness to listen to a wider range of views to solve problems.” The vice president allowed people with different political perspectives, including some Republicans, to speak at the Democratic National Convention.

Dave Leshtz is the editor of The Prairie Progressive.

The mind is its own place, and in itself

Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.

–John Milton, Paradise Lost

It was a beautiful day for a drive, with big clouds billowing in a vast Iowa sky.  My destination was the town of Toledo, where an “Iowa 99 County Bible Reading Marathon” was taking place on September 16.

Iowa’s past two governors have signed annual proclamations encouraging Iowans to read the entire Bible at the state capitol building and at all of Iowa’s county courthouses.

When I arrived at the Tama County Courthouse, a balding man in overalls and a white t-shirt stood at a podium in the center of a large concrete platform about five feet off the ground. He was reading from a bible: “God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved.”

But the man in overalls was not the only one reading.

Stephen G. Bloom is a professor of journalism at the University of Iowa. He is the author of seven nonfiction books, the latest of which is The Brazil Chronicles, due out in November.

For anyone who grew up in Iowa during the 1940s or ’50s, or was a student at the University of Iowa in the 1960s, the name Bobby Washington will ring a bell. While nowhere near as agile and skilled an athlete as Caitlin Clark, Washington was a talented and wildly popular basketball player. Just like Caitlin, if you mentioned just the name Bobby, everyone knew who you were talking about.

Bobby was a starter on the Iowa basketball team that three years earlier had lost in the NCAA Final Four to University of San Francisco and Bill Russell, who scored 26 points and grabbed 27 rebounds in a single game, a record that stands today.

Herb Strentz was dean of the Drake School of Journalism from 1975 to 1988 and professor there until retirement in 2004. He was executive secretary of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council from its founding in 1976 to 2000.

The anguish and angst visited upon us this election year is faithful to the old saying “Politics makes strange bedfellows.’” That take is adapted from a line in Shakespeare’s The Tempest—”Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.”

Inspired by this season of anguish and angst, this post offers dots connecting George Orwell, Bob Feller, Donald Trump, U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley, and Joseph Welch. You’re familiar with most of our cast. And you may recall that Welch is the attorney who grew up in Primghar, Iowa and attended Grinnell College. He gained national fame as the U.S. Army’s attorney 70 years ago, when he got fed up and asked Senator Joseph McCarthy on live television, “Have you left no sense of decency?”

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

The American Hog Peanut is also called American Wild Peanut. Amphicarpaea bracteata is a vining annual plant in the Pea family (Fabaceae). It can also be a short lived perennial. It is somewhat unusual for a legume in that it thrives in shady areas.

Amphicarpaea is reported to mean either “two kinds of flowers” or “two kinds of fruit,” both of which it has. Bracteata means “with bracts” at the base of the flower, which show clearly in the flower photos. It is the only Amphicarpaea sp. native to eastern North America and to the west, throughout Iowa. This BONAP map shows its Iowa and nearby distribution.

Rick Morain is the former publisher and owner of the Jefferson Herald, for which he writes a regular column.

I’ve been muddling through some thoughts about national politics after the November 5 election. I will no doubt have more, but this week I have one for each party.

Nick Covington is an Iowa parent who taught high school social studies for ten years. He is also the co-founder of the Human Restoration Project, an Iowa educational non-profit promoting systems-based thinking and grassroots organizing in education.

In 2022, following a long culture war fight in my own suburban Iowa school district, I resigned from a job I had held for a decade as a high school social studies teacher. When I eventually wrote about these experiences publicly, the feedback I got from students and parents was overwhelmingly positive and supportive, but the most frequent response I got was, “I had no idea all of this was happening.”

Two years ago, we were just beginning to understand what was unfolding in Iowa schools and repeated across the country. It was happening quietly and in isolated pockets, which gave plausible deniability to the idea that this wasn’t an organized, systematic effort to dismantle public education and punish those who refused to go along with it.