Voters in Iowa’s large school districts overwhelmingly picked progressive candidates over conservatives on November 7. In many urban and suburban districts, candidates backed by local Democrats, the Iowa State Education Association (ISEA), and/or the LGBTQ advocacy group One Iowa Action ran the table, while candidates backed by activists on the religious right fell short.

The results are a rebuke to Governor Kim Reynolds and Iowa’s Republican-controlled legislature, which enacted new laws in 2023 that undermined public schools and LGBTQ students, and restricted school library books and inclusive curriculum materials.

They also show the enduring strength of the state’s largest teachers union. For many years, Iowans elected school boards in September and city councils and mayors in November. The GOP trifecta changed state law so that beginning in 2019, school board and city elections would occur on the same day. The idea was to increase local election turnout and thereby diminish the ISEA’s influence over school boards. Nevertheless, candidates backed by public educators prevailed in many of this year’s most competitive races.

One city election also underscored how unpopular book banning is with Iowans. In the notoriously conservative town of Pella, voters rejected by 2,041 votes to 1,954 (51.1 percent to 48.9 percent) a ballot measure that would have empowered the city council to overrule the public library board.

Nick Covington taught social studies at Ankeny High School from 2012 to 2022 and became the full-time Creative Director of the Human Restoration Project when his teaching contract ended on June 1. You can follow Nick on Twitter @CovingtonEDU. This article was originally published on May 15 on Medium.

On Feb 25, 2022, I resigned as a social studies teacher at Ankeny High School, a position I have held since 2012, effective at the end of the school year. I will not be returning to the classroom this fall.

I have not told all of this story in one place, but I want readers to understand the full context of my decision to leave in its relation to our nation’s destructive and divisive cultural forever war.

Republican-aligned candidates had mixed results in this month’s city and school board elections across Iowa, but they swept the board in the Des Moines suburb of Ankeny. Not only did mayoral candidate Mark Holm win by 20 points, both Republican candidates for city council (Kelly Whiting and Joe Ruddy) were elected, as were all three school board candidates campaigning against mask mandates (Joy Burk, Trent Murphy, and Sarah Barthole).

In contrast, anti-mask candidates for school board were shut out in many other large Iowa school districts, including Cedar Rapids, Davenport, West Des Moines, Ames, and Waukee. Candidates taking the same stance won only one out of three available seats on the Urbandale and Linn-Mar school boards.

Although no single factor fully explains the GOP’s success in Ankeny, conservative candidates benefited from an unusual level of partisan spending on what are nominally nonpartisan races in Iowa. The likely result will be more spending by political parties to promote future candidates for city and school offices.

Iowa progressives and conservatives both had reasons to celebrate following this year’s city and school board elections. These races are nonpartisan, but Democratic and Republican organizations have been increasingly involved in getting out the vote for school board or city council candidates.

Two weeks before voters will elect a new state legislator to represent parts of Ankeny and northern Polk County, Democrats living in Iowa House district 37 had requested more than five times as many absentee ballots as Republicans.

Polk County Elections Office staff told Bleeding Heartland that 2,818 residents of House district 37 had requested an early ballot by 4:00 pm on August 31. Of those, 2,261 were Democrats, 398 were Republicans, and 159 were affiliated with neither party.

The vast majority of absentee ballots sent to voters have not yet been returned. As of August 31, the Polk County auditor’s office had received 375 completed ballots from registered Democrats and 36 from Republicans.

Four caveats:

“I believe that parental control is local control,” Governor Kim Reynolds told WHO-TV’s Dave Price earlier this month. “I think you’re going to see some interesting school board races this year also,” she added with a smirk.

This past weekend, Reynolds recounted how she “strategized” with Ankeny parent Sarah Barthole last year to force Iowa schools to abandon hybrid models, which allowed for social distancing in classrooms.

Voters in Ankeny will soon choose a successor to State Representative John Landon, who passed away last month. Governor Kim Reynolds scheduled the Iowa House district 37 special election for Tuesday, September 14.

I’ll have more to say about this race once the field is set. Democrats nominated Andrea Phillips at a special district convention on August 7; Republicans have not yet selected a candidate.

For now, I want to touch on the opportunities and challenges this short campaign presents.

Iowa’s seven largest cities are spending more on policing per capita and a greater portion of their municipal budgets on law enforcement compared to the 1990s, according to a new report by the Iowa Policy Project. Over the same time period, spending on social services per capita and as a share of the municipal budget has declined in six of those cities.

Colin Gordon and Peter Fisher authored “Policing, public safety and community priorities,” published on July 22 (also available in pdf format). They examined budgets for the 24 Iowa cities with populations of at least 20,000, because “it is in our larger urban settings in Iowa that the problems with policing — including a well-documented pattern of disproportionate minority contact — are most acute.”

Seven of the cities studied are “metropolitan”: Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Davenport, Sioux City, Waterloo, Council Bluffs, and Dubuque. Seven are suburbs in large metro areas: West Des Moines, Ankeny, Urbandale, Bettendorf, Marion, Coralville, and Johnston. Three are college towns: Iowa City, Ames, and Cedar Falls. Seven are micropolitan cities: Mason City, Marshalltown, Clinton, Muscatine, Burlington, Fort Dodge, and Ottumwa.

Iowa city and school board elections are nonpartisan, but in some races, the candidates’ party affiliations are clear. Democrats or candidates backed by organized labor won quite a few mayoral, city council, and school board races on November 5.

Business Insider put three central Iowa suburbs on its new list of 50 “best suburbs in America.” Business Insider cited schools, short commutes, and low costs of living among the reasons Waukee ranked 37th, Ankeny 36th, and Johnston 25th. On all of those counts, and more, I favor Windsor Heights, Iowa’s only “inner ring suburb.”

1. Windsor Heights residences feed into either the Des Moines or West Des Moines school districts. Both contain good high schools and a more diverse student body than the growing-too-fast Waukee, Ankeny, or Johnston schools.

2. Homes in Windsor Heights have more character than the cookie-cutter housing developments in “taupetown.” Moreover, a lot of these older brick homes were built to last, in contrast to the cheap construction that’s gone up lately in outlying suburbs.

3. Commutes are even shorter in Windsor Heights, only 10-15 minute drive from most places in the Des Moines metro area (more like 20 minutes to the airport or State Fairgrounds).

4. Windsor Heights is better-served for bike trails than the suburbs mentioned by Business Insider.

5. Most lots in Windsor Heights have mature trees.

Incidentally, I reject the premise that suburbs always offer a higher quality of life. My dozen or so favorite Des Moines neighborhoods are in my book nicer places to live than Ankeny, Waukee, or Johnston as well. Not even close.

It’s been a week since the Iowa Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Varnum v Brien. You can view the video of the proceedings here (scroll down the page). For three different analyses of the legal issues in this case, see the legal primers that jpmassar and Osorio wrote before the Supreme Court hearing, or this piece Chase Martyn published today.

Grant Schulte of the Des Moines Register summarized the key points raised by each side in this article. Assistant Polk County Attorney Roger Kuhle argued that:

*the district court judge erroneously threw out expert testimony;

*the Polk County recorder being sued had no choice but to follow the Defense of Marriage Act;

*allowing same-sex marriage could lead to polygamy becoming legal;

*allowing same-sex marriage could hurt children being raised by heterosexual parents;

*allowing same-sex marriage could hurt the institution of marriage, because future generations would know marriage is no longer about procreation;

*the Iowa legislature (not courts) should decide this matter.

Dennis Johnson, the attorney for the six couples seeking marriage rights, argued that:

*Iowa’s Defense of Marriage Act violates the equal protection and due process provisions of Iowa’s Constitution;

*arguments about potential damage to the institution of marriage are “highly speculative”;

*the district court judge was right to reject the expert testimony concerning the benefits of having a mother and a father;

*marriage is not about procreation, because Iowa issues marriage licenses to many people who cannot have children or who would be bad parents (e.g. sex offenders);

*Iowa already permits same-sex couples to be foster parents and adopt children;

*gay marriage would not lead to legalizing marriages between more than two people.

Drake University Law Professor Sally Frank wrote a brief play-by-play of the arguments, which she observed from the courtroom. (Side note: Iowans may not be aware that Frank is well-known for filing the lawsuit that ended gender discrimination at Princeton University’s eating clubs.) I agree with Frank’s comments about the weakest point for plaintiffs’ attorney Johnson:

The lawyer for the Plaintiffs’ (six couples seeking marriage) […] had a little trouble distinguishing his argument that marriage was a fundamental right that could not be limited to heterosexuals from the question of polygamists also having a fundamental right to marry. At one point though, he pointed out that no other Iowa laws that deal with marriage in any way would need to be changed if same sex couples were allowed to marry. This would not be the case with polygamy.

When questioned about whether Iowa would be forced to permit polygamy if the court allowed gay marriage, Johnson’s first response was to say that marriage had always been about two individuals–not strong turf when the rest of your case holds that the tradition of marriage being between a man and a woman is not sufficient grounds to deny same-sex couples those rights. He was correct to point out shortly thereafter that certain laws (e.g. related to custody or inheritance) would have to be changed if Iowa allowed polygamy.

Several people I’ve spoken with felt that Kuhle, who is an excellent attorney, was not at the top of his game last Tuesday while being questioned by the judges. They speculated that either he did not prepare enough or did not believe all of the arguments he was making.

The Iowa City Press-Citizen editorial board said watching the arguments made them

even more confused as to what compelling interest the state has in denying otherwise qualifying same-sex partners from applying for and receiving a state marriage license.

The Des Moines Register editorial board also felt many of Kuhle’s arguments were weak:

If the Iowa Supreme Court ultimately upholds Iowa’s law limiting marriage to a man and a woman, it will have to have a better reason than the one offered by defenders of the law at Tuesday’s oral argument.

Legal experts quoted in this article by Jason Hancock said they could not tell how the court will rule on this case from observing the oral arguments.

As a non-lawyer, I found it difficult to follow some of the discussion during the hearing. At Iowa Independent, Lynda Waddington wrote a good piece explaining the significance of all that talk over whether the court should apply a “rational basis” or a “strict scrutiny” standard in this case. She interviewed former Iowa Supreme Court judge Mark McCormick:

“The Court has decided quite a number of equal protection clause cases,” said McCormick. “A good deal of what the court does in [those] cases depends on what the test or standard is.”

When a case involves a routine economic issue, the court typically applies a rational basis test, he said. That means the judges seek to decide if the Legislature could have had any reasonable basis for making the classification that it did. If the judges conclude that the state had a rational reason for the law, the court won’t interfere with it, but will defer to the Legislature.

“Strict scrutiny” is a more demanding standard, he said.

“Where you are dealing with an issue like race or citizenship or something that is considered a fundamental constitutional right, the burden is on the government to prove a compelling need for the classification,” he explained.

Some prominent social conservatives in Iowa expect the court to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act, clearing a path to same-sex marriage in this state.

University of Iowa law professor Angela Onwuachi-Willig told the Iowa City Press-Citizen that she also expects the state law to be overturned. The same article noted that while the legal arguments made in this case resemble those made in other states, the attorneys for the plaintiffs also relied on legal precedents specific to Iowa:

Camilla Taylor, a senior staff attorney with Lambda Legal and lead counsel for the plaintiffs, foresees several possible outcomes of the hearing.

She said there could be an outright win or loss, the case could be remanded back to trial court to hear from more witnesses, or the court could duplicate rulings on similar cases in New Jersey and Vermont.

In those states, the courts granted civil unions but did not rule on the issue of gay marriage. Taylor said she expected the Legislatures in Vermont and New Jersey to draft legislation supporting same-sex marriage, thus taking it out of the court’s hands.

Taylor said she doubted the Iowa Supreme Court would use the last two options.

“Most likely it will be an outright win because of constitutional precedent. The cases we are relying on are very strong,” she said. “I don’t want to sound presumptuous, but I am optimistic because of the Iowa cases we are relying on.”

Meanwhile, Kate and Trish Varnum, whose name has become famous because of this case, just want to get married.

Whatever the state Supreme Court decides, gay marriage is not going away as a political issue anytime soon in Iowa.

Yesterday the Sioux City Council tabled a resolution that would have defined marriage as being between a man and a woman:

Instead, the council will seek an attorney general’s opinion about whether a city council can legally pass such a resolution and whether doing so would open the city up to litigation.

The Iowa branch of the American Civil Liberties Union has already come out against the Sioux City proposal, so the idea of litigation against the city is not far-fetched.

Arguments about gay parenting and whether homosexuality should be “normalized” in public schools will likely be prominent in next year’s school board elections. By a 6-1 vote on Monday, the Ankeny school board

denied a request by parents who said “And Tango Makes Three,” a children’s book about two male penguins that raise a chick together, should be off-limits to elementary school students.

Looking beyond Iowa, I imagine that Newsweek’s mailroom is having a busy week after the magazine published a cover story on gay marriage by religion editor Lisa Miller. The opening passage is sure to anger many:

Let’s try for a minute to take the religious conservatives at their word and define marriage as the Bible does. Shall we look to Abraham, the great patriarch, who slept with his servant when he discovered his beloved wife Sarah was infertile? Or to Jacob, who fathered children with four different women (two sisters and their servants)? Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon and the kings of Judah and Israel-all these fathers and heroes were polygamists. The New Testament model of marriage is hardly better. Jesus himself was single and preached an indifference to earthly attachments-especially family. The apostle Paul (also single) regarded marriage as an act of last resort for those unable to contain their animal lust. “It is better to marry than to burn with passion,” says the apostle, in one of the most lukewarm endorsements of a treasured institution ever uttered. Would any contemporary heterosexual married couple-who likely woke up on their wedding day harboring some optimistic and newfangled ideas about gender equality and romantic love-turn to the Bible as a how-to script?

Of course not, yet the religious opponents of gay marriage would have it be so.

This is an open thread for any comments about the politics or the legal issues surrounding the marriage equality debate.

John Wenck, an outreach coordinator for the Department of Natural Resources, had a good guest opinion column in Monday’s Des Moines Register about why building a new road through the Des Moines River Greenbelt is a bad idea.

This road project used to be called the “MLK extension,” because it would extend Martin Luther King Drive north through the river greenbelt. A group of environmental advocates and interested citizens helped defeat that proposal years ago.

Now it has been revived as the “Northwest 26th Street extension,” which is the Ankeny street that would be extended south through the greenbelt to connect with MLK on the Des Moines side.

A new name does nothing to lessen the impact of this road. A Sierra Club “sprawl report” from the fall of 2000 had this to say:

Tearing down urban highways has brought new life to neighborhoods long hemmed-in by the roads. Unfortunately, Des Moines seems to be heading in the opposite direction with the proposed extension of Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway. This project will put a highway in what is now an urban green space and flood-control zone.

The Des Moines River Valley is a unique urban green space that provides a variety of habitats for wildlife, plants and people. It is an important wintering ground for the bald eagle and ideal habitat for many species of migratory birds. This area also serves as a buffer between existing neighborhoods and the current interstate. Two bicycle trails run along the river and improve the transportation choices for Des Moines residents.

Building a highway through this area will clearly harm its value to wildlife, reduce the value of the land as a floodplain and make areas downstream more prone to flooding. The proposed extension will also encourage sprawl outside the city and add to the traffic and air pollution problems of the region. Middle- and low-income neighborhoods near the proposed route will suffer from more noise and air pollution.

Given that new highways draw more drivers onto the road, the parkway extension would do little to ease traffic. Rather than building a major new highway and destroying this open space, a smarter plan would enhance this urban green space and use public transportation to ease the area’s traffic congestion.

The last paragraph is crucial: this road project would do little to ease traffic. I am old enough to remember the debate over extending 100th St. in Clive over the Clive Greenbelt during the 1980s. That was supposed to solve a lot of traffic problems in the western suburbs, but it didn’t do the job. Instead, there has been more sprawling development and more traffic in the area.

The Des Moines River Greenbelt contains outstanding habitat for birds that are very sensitive to noise that would accompany a major road. We don’t have an abundance of riparian forests in central Iowa anymore and should preserve the ones that remain.

If you care about wildlife habitat and/or sound transportation policy, I encourage you to get involved with one or more of the organizations that are fighting the NW 26th St extension. They include the Iowa chapter of the Sierra Club, 1000 Friends of Iowa, and Iowa Rivers Revival.

Knocking over 2,000 doors(democrats, independents, and republicans).  Having a growing number of volunteers putting in 100+ hours of volunteer time a week at our campaign office.  Raising over $2,000 more than our goal for this time of the campaign.  Passing out nearly 3,000 bottles of water with the campaign logo on it at our only Ankeny parade with a crowd that had some Bleeding Heartland bloggers in it.  Having the love and support of countless friends and family is how to win in Ankeny.

 Please help us continue our momentum and contribute at my website which is www.mattpfaltzgraf.com.  The finance disclosure deadline is 11:59 PM on Monday and every dollar helps get the attention of PACs, the Democratic Party leaders, and key activist. 

 Thank you for your support!

Matt

I have my own ideas, but would like to hear from others out there.  I'm looking for constructive criticism and more importantly fresh ideas.

Thanks! 

This is my first entry and will keep it pretty short.  I am the Democratic candidate in Ankeny running for the seat previously held by Carmine Boal.  I have a long hard road of raising money and knocking doors, but I have been working hard introducing myself to as many people as I can.  I am finishing up school at the University of Iowa and have a long history of working on issues important to Iowans here in the state that I will go into at another time.  I'm happy to share some of my thoughts and views here and hope that anyone that has any questions will get in contact with me.  Thanks and have a great day. 

You couldn’t miss this front-page story in the Des Moines Register on Monday:

Plan to reshape Ankeny tackles troubled spots

City officials and developer DRA Properties are transforming a 1,031-acre World War II munitions plant site into a live-work-play development called Prairie Trail. They expect 10,000 people to move there by 2020.

To realize their new urbanist dream, however, the developer and others are working to eliminate concerns about the land, some of which has been designated as a Superfund site by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It’s a designation the EPA gives to uncontrolled hazardous waste sites identified as risks to human health.

[…]

There are two primary environmental concerns within the development, said Iowa DNR and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials.

The most critical is the 38-acre parcel to be converted into a city park. The land was used as a landfill and industrial lagoon decades ago by the Army, John Deere and the city. The area is where production waste of mainly metal particles and oils was disposed. Spots within the site, including toxic sludge left in the old industrial lagoons, contain unsafe levels of metals such as lead, chromium, copper, arsenic, manganese and antimony, according to the EPA.

EPA officials said the metals will have to be put out of human contact. Under a proposed plan, that would be done by a combination of removing soil and sealing the ground with a thick plastic barrier and clay cap.

Today, one in 10,000 people has a chance of getting cancer from a lifetime’s worth of exposure at the site, EPA toxicologist Jeremy Johnson said. After the cleanup, he said, those odds will be one in 1 million. “Those cancer risks won’t be there,” he said.

The landfill and lagoon area is a Superfund site. It is not on the Superfund national priority list, which identifies the country’s worst hazards.

However, it is not known whether the site would qualify for the national priority list, said Gene Gunn, a branch chief in the EPA Superfund program. It is not being considered for the list, which is largely a designation for projects to receive federal money, because the parties responsible for the contamination have voluntarily agreed to pay for the cleanup.

“I wouldn’t be very concerned with it,” Gunn said of the site as it would be after the cleanup. “The action that’s going to take place there will leave it in a protective state.”

Under a draft proposal, a covenant on the land would prevent houses from being built on the lagoon and landfill site, and the groundwater near there would be monitored for 30 years.

The Prairie Trail development is a great concept: a mix of residential, retail and public space in the center of town, easily navigated by foot or bicycle for those who choose not to drive.

However, community activists were raising concerns two years ago about the potential for schools, parks and houses to be placed on contaminated ground. I wish the Register had given the story prominent coverage at that time.

I hope they do a good job cleaning up this site, but frankly, I would hesitate to buy a home anywhere near that lagoon or landfill.