As each new year begins, I enjoy looking back at the posts that resonated most strongly with readers in the year that ended. Some things never change: actions by the Republican-controlled state legislature and Governor Kim Reynolds—especially attacks on public education—inspired many of Bleeding Heartland’s most-viewed posts from 2024. That’s been true every year since the GOP trifecta began in 2017. U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley, who featured prominently in two of last year’s most popular posts, makes another appearance below.

I’ve learned there is no way to predict which pieces will take off. Some of the posts linked below required intensive research and days of writing, while others took only a few hours from start to finish. One was among the longest I wrote last year (more than 5,000 words), while another was among the shortest (fewer than 300 words).

Some authors whose work gained a large following in past years made the list again. But three authors featured below were contributing to Bleeding Heartland for the first time.

This list draws from Fathom Analytics data about total views for 561 posts published from January 1 through December 31, 2024. I wrote 145 of those articles and commentaries; other authors wrote 416. I left out the site’s front page and the “about” page, where many people landed following online searches.

A half-dozen posts barely missed the top 24, by a few hundred views or less:

Bleeding Heartland set yet another record for guest contributions in 2024, with 416 posts involving 146 authors. (The previous record was 358 posts that more than 125 people wrote for this site in 2023.) I don’t know of any state-based political website that provides more quality coverage and commentary by guest contributors.

This year’s guest authors covered a wide range of topics, from public schools to local government, major employers, CO2 pipelines, notable events in Iowa history, and of course wildflowers.

They wrote about President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, Governor Kim Reynolds and her administration, Attorney General Brenna Bird, and of course former and future President Donald Trump.

During the legislative session, guest authors highlighted flaws in the governor’s plan to overhaul Area Education Agencies and the report that sought to justify it. They shared their own personal or professional experiences with AEAs. They covered other education proposals and explained why the state’s official school voucher numbers were misleading. They also covered bills that received less attention but could change many Iowans’ lives for better or worse.

During the 2024 campaign and its aftermath, guest authors wrote about presidential polling in Iowa and nationally, profiled candidates, and analyzed the election results from several angles.

Guest authors sounded the alarm about Iowa’s near-total abortion ban, unlawful drug testing at hospitals, and climate change impacts. They suggested ways to protect water and air quality, and flagged transparency problems in state and local government. They reviewed books that would interest many Bleeding Heartland readers.

They reflected on the lives of those who passed away this year, including Iowans Marcia Nichols, Bobby Washington, and Jim Leach, as well as Tim Kraft, who played an important role on some Iowa campaigns.

While many guest authors criticized Republican policies and politicians, some offered advice or constructive criticism to Democrats following the Iowa caucuses and another disappointing general election.

As noted below, some contributions by guest authors were among the most-viewed Bleeding Heartland posts of the year.

President-elect Donald Trump followed through this week with his threat to sue pollster Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register over the final pre-election Iowa Poll, which showed Vice President Kamala Harris leading Trump by 47 percent to 44 percent.

Many others have pointed out that Trump’s lawsuit is part of his broader “revenge tour” and “war on journalism.” In Greg Sargent’s words, the case is “putting people in the media and polling on notice that they will face real legal harassment if they anger or criticize Trump.” The president-elect admitted during a December 16 press conference that he will use lawsuits to influence news coverage: “I think you have to do it, because they’re very dishonest. We need a great media, we need a fair media.”

This post will focus on the legal, factual, and logical problems with the court filing.

“They don’t make them like Jim Leach anymore,” posted the elections analysts at The Downballot after learning Leach had passed away on December 11. They were commenting on his extraordinary warning to the Republican National Committee chairman that he would not caucus with Republicans in the next Congress if the Iowa GOP continued to fund direct mail attacking his 2006 Democratic challenger.

Among Iowans who have served in Congress, Leach was unique in many ways.

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird will again ask the Iowa legislature to increase state penalties for assaulting law enforcement officers, she told reporters on December 12. But she did not condemn the idea of pardoning those who assaulted police during the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Bleeding Heartland asked Bird whether people who assaulted law enforcement or damaged federal government property on January 6 should be pardoned. She replied, “Well, that’s up to President Trump to decide once he’s in office.”

Would she support Trump if he issues those pardons? “As someone who has worked on pardons at the state level” with former Governor Terry Branstad, Bird said, “I think those decisions are best made on an individualized basis.”

Bird served as Branstad’s legal counsel from his return to the governor’s office in 2011 until early 2015. Elected attorney general in 2022, she was the highest-ranking state official to endorse Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign before the Iowa caucuses.

MAGA activists are increasingly unhappy with U.S. Senator Joni Ernst and looking for someone to run against her in Iowa’s 2026 Senate primary.

If conservatives aren’t able to stop Ernst from winning the nomination, they may have a place to park their protest votes in the general election. Libertarian Thomas Laehn again confirmed to Bleeding Heartland he’s seriously considering a Senate bid.

Iowans will decide this November whether to allow one Iowa Supreme Court justice, four Iowa Court of Appeals judges, and 64 Iowa District Court judges to remain on the bench. Since our state adopted the current judicial selection system in 1962, each judge must periodically go on the ballot—every eight years for Iowa Supreme Court justices, every six years for those serving on other courts.

Iowa voters have retained almost all judges over the past six decades. But any jurist who receives more “no” than “yes” votes in November—as happened with three Iowa Supreme Court justices in 2010—will be out of a job. Governor Kim Reynolds would fill any vacancies in early 2025, after receiving a list of finalists from the State Judicial Nominating Commission or its district-level counterpart.

While some people routinely approve or reject every judge up for retention as a matter of principle, voters who want to make informed choices often find it difficult to learn anything about the judges listed on the back of the ballot.

This post highlights the appeals and district court judges who received the highest and lowest ratings in the 2024 Judicial Performance Review, the main public source of information about Iowa’s judges. I will also explain why I plan to vote against retaining a member of the Iowa Court of Appeals and a district associate judge in Polk County.

A forthcoming Bleeding Heartland article will analyze how Iowa Supreme Court Justice David May has decided high-profile cases since Reynolds appointed him in July 2022.

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

The state of Iowa, where nursing homes have compiled one of the nation’s worst records for staffing-level violations, has joined nineteen other states in suing the Biden administration to block the implementation of new staffing requirements.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa, seeks to overturn the nursing home staffing requirements approved earlier this year by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

In their petition, the 20 states and more than a dozen industry associations argue that the new staffing requirements pose “an existential threat to the nursing home industry as many nursing homes that are already struggling will have no choice but to go out of business. And the main victims will be the patients who will have nowhere else to go.”

State Auditor Rob Sand intends to decide which office he’s running for in 2026 well before the end of next year, he confirmed during a September 30 appearance on Julie Gammack’s Iowa Potluck Zoom podcast. Sand talked mostly about his work as auditor during the interview. When Gammack opened the floor to questions, I asked about his future plans.

The only remaining Democratic statewide official in Iowa, Sand is widely perceived as a potential candidate for governor in 2026. If he runs, he could clear the Democratic field.

I raised the question of timing because Sand also considered running for higher office in 2021. He ruled out a U.S. Senate bid in May of that year but did not announce he would seek a second term as auditor until early December. Does he plan to leave other prospective candidates for governor hanging for most of 2025, or let Iowans know sooner, perhaps in the summer or early fall?

“So, I’m a human being,” Sand began. He hadn’t gone through that “complicated” and “difficult” process before the last election cycle. “And let me tell you, there’s no one who wishes I would have decided faster more than me. Maybe my wife,” he laughed.

“But it’s hard to figure it out,” Sand went on. There are personal factors to consider as well as “really important decisions” for the state and the public. Weighing his options in 2021 “was really difficult. I have now been through this once before. I think it will be easier, and I don’t think it will take as long this time.”

Anna Ryon is a Des Moines attorney who practices in the field of utility consumer advocacy. Her experience includes nearly nine years of service at the Iowa Office of Consumer Advocate.

When Brenna Bird was elected attorney general, she took an oath to faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of her office, as state law requires. The official website of the Iowa Department of Justice describes the attorney general as “the state’s chief legal officer.” In that capacity, it is reasonable for Bird to know what duties she is required by law to discharge.

However, Bird’s record suggests she either does not understand all the duties the law requires her to discharge or has simply chosen not to fulfill some of those duties. Her failure to discharge the duties required by law has left Iowa landowners subject to unconstitutional eminent domain and their neighbors subject to the dangers of hazardous carbon dioxide pipelines without the legal representation they deserve.

The morning after Vice President Kamala Harris selected Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate, the Cedar Rapids Gazette published a lengthy article about an explosive claim. Republican Party of Iowa state chair Jeff Kaufmann asserted that it was “blatantly antisemitic” for Harris to pass over Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro.

Thanks to the Gazette’s content-sharing arrangement with the Lee Newspaper group, the story inspired by a GOP event in Cedar Rapids reached thousands more readers through the Quad-City Times, Sioux City Journal, Waterloo/Cedar Falls Courier, and Mason City Globe Gazette.

The piece was an editorial failure on several levels.

U.S. women have had phenomenal success at the Olympic Games in Paris. Simone Biles has won more Olympic medals than any other American gymnast. Katie Ledecky has won more Olympic medals than any other American woman in any sport. Lee Keifer became a three-time gold medalist in fencing and competed against Lauren Scruggs in “the first All-American final in the individual foil in Olympic history.” U.S. women also won their “first-ever team fencing gold in women’s foil” and their first medal in rugby.

At this writing, more than two dozen women competing for the U.S. have won medals in events ranging from cycling to diving, shooting, and canoeing. Laura Kraut became “the oldest American woman to win an Olympic medal since 1904” as part of a team equestrian event. More medals are likely coming in swimming and gymnastics, and the track and field events are just getting started.

Instead of celebrating the successes of American women in France, Iowa Republicans joined the stampede of conservatives who used a boxing match between an Algerian and an Italian to push their anti-trans agenda.

What should have been an ordinary presidential campaign rally in Butler County, Pennsylvania turned into a horrifying scene on July 13. A man shot at Donald Trump from a nearby rooftop, killing one person and wounding several others, including the former president.

Iowa political leaders reacted quickly to the assassination attempt, and their comments reflected several distinct themes.

Sami Scheetz represents Iowa House district 78, covering part of Cedar Rapids.

In a few short weeks, my wife and I will welcome a baby girl into our family. It’s the best feeling in the world. It’s also terrifying: as a father, I’m faced with the prospect that I’ll raise a daughter in a state where she has less freedom than her grandmother enjoyed.

Yet that’s exactly what an extreme, partisan majority on Iowa’s Supreme Court decided last week. Four unelected judges substituted their will for the will of the people of Iowa to let Governor Kim Reynolds’ and the Republican legislature’s near-total abortion ban take effect.

Like so many Iowans, I’m heartbroken, upset, and angry over the June 28 decision. I’ve heard from constituents who are wondering whether Iowa is the best place to raise their families—especially in light of Attorney General Brenna Bird’s recent appearance with extremists who vow to ban IVF treatments and contraception next, and her promise that “there is work left to be done” on this issue.

“Nothing promotes life like a forced hysterectomy preventing a woman from ever becoming pregnant again because she could not terminate a doomed pregnancy under the medical emergency exception,” wrote Iowa Supreme Court Chief Justice Susan Christensen near the end of her dissenting opinion in Planned Parenthood v Reynolds VI.

In that case, four Iowa Supreme Court justices ruled on June 28 that the state can enforce a near-total abortion ban (House File 732) while litigation proceeds in lower court. Reversing a Polk County District Court ruling, the majority determined the plaintiffs were not likely to succeed in showing the ban violates pregnant Iowans’ due process rights. The majority also declared that abortion restrictions are subject to “rational basis” review, which will make it far easier for the government to defend the law against the plaintiffs’ other constitutional claims.

Writing in dissent, the chief justice illuminated the suffering that will follow from this “giant step backward” for Iowa women. An equally remarkable opinion by Justice Edward Mansfield—the author of the 2022 decision that overturned Iowa’s abortion rights precedent—warned that the majority’s new approach to abortion cases “disserves the people of Iowa and their constitution.”

John Kearney is a retired philosophy professor who taught at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He has lived in Waterloo, Iowa for the past six years.

U. S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the conservative majority in the landmark 2022 Dobbs case (which overturned the Roe v. Wade precedent), concluded his opinion by saying:

“In my judgment, on the issue of abortion, the Constitution is nether pro-life nor pro-choice. The Constitution is neutral, and this Court must be scrupulously neutral. The Court today properly heeds the constitutional principle of judicial neutrality and returns the issue of abortion to the people and their elected representatives in the democratic process.”

The legal controversy over Iowa’s near-total abortion ban (House File 732) focuses on whether a “rational basis” or an “undue burden” review of abortion regulations should hold sway. (The Iowa Supreme Court will soon rule on the state’s appeal of a lower court injunction that has blocked the law’s enforcement.)

The president of the Congressional Leadership Fund (the main super-PAC aligned with U.S. House Republicans) congratulated U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks on her “resounding victory” in the June 4 primary to represent Iowa’s first district.

U.S. Representative Randy Feenstra hailed the “clear message” from fourth district voters, saying he was “humbled by the strong support for our campaign.”

They can spin, but they can’t hide.

Pulling 55 to 60 percent of the vote against an underfunded, first-time candidate is anything but a “resounding” or “strong” performance for a member of Congress.

Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council and can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. 

Most people go through life never stepping foot inside a courtroom. Most people, that is, except for attorneys, judges, journalists, the few of us chosen to be jurors, and an even more select group, those who are accused of crimes.

If I were talking now with my dear parents, may they rest in peace, I would quickly assure them that my many days spent in courtrooms have been in a professional capacity, not as a defendant trying to avoid the slammer.

As a reporter and later as the boss of reporters, I have had an up-close vantage point to watch our court system as it works. I claim no special expertise. But 50 years in a ringside seat on the judiciary have given me perspective worth sharing.

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.

Attorney General Brenna Bird continues to ignore her critics, doubling down on actions that have drawn criticism. Unfortunately for Iowans, she’s picked a bad model to imitate.

This shoot-yourself-in-the-foot strategy had worked so well for Donald Trump that Bird seems to figure, “Why not give it a try?”

And she’ll likely continue that style, despite the unanimous verdict(s) against Trump in the one trial he has not managed to delay.

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

Where does your primary loyalty lie: as a citizen of America, or as a citizen of Iowa?

Probably seems like a meaningless question. But around the nation, more and more states these days are enacting laws in opposition to those of the federal government, placing the loyalty question front and center. And a growing number of U.S. residents are declaring a preference to honor their state laws above those of the United States.

ORIGINS OF THE SUPREMACY CLAUSE

In terms of settled law, there’s no real dispute: federal law outranks state law. The U.S. Constitution leaves no doubt. Article VI, Clause 2 (the “Supremacy Clause”), reads as follows:

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  

Starting in 2016, Netflix streamed Stranger Things, a horror, science fiction series set in a small Indiana town with tweens and teens as main characters. In its four seasons, the audience travels to the “Upside Down,” an alternate universe where bizarre replaces normal.

It’s fun fiction.

But in real life, we have veered into the “Political Upside Down.”

“What I saw in that courtroom today is a travesty,” Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird told reporters in New York City on May 13. She was speaking outside the courthouse where former President Donald Trump is being tried for allegedly “falsifying business records to conceal hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.”

The Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) organized the trip and paid for Bird’s travel to Manhattan, a spokesperson for Bird’s campaign told reporters after the attorney general declined to answer that question directly.

Ed Tibbetts highlighted Bird’s disrespect for the legal system when she declared the case “a scam and a sham.” Dave Busiek ridiculed Bird’s hypocrisy after she denounced the prosecution’s witness Michael Cohen (“a perjurer, disbarred, convicted of lying”) “without any apparent sense of irony that she’s appearing on behalf of Donald Trump, who lies as easily and frequently as the rest of us breathe.”

It’s also worth noting that Trump loyalists like Bird and RAGA have no room to point fingers about political prosecutions or “election interference.”

Robin Opsahl covers the state legislature and politics for Iowa Capital Dispatch, where this article first appeared.

In their final days of the 2024 legislative session, Iowa lawmakers approved $8.9 billion in state spending for the upcoming year, financing the state government and public services. Most of those decisions now await a thumbs up or down from the governor.

Appropriations bills included funding for topics discussed often this session, like increasing pay for Iowa judges, as well as spending cuts to Area Education Agencies (AEAs), the provider of special education and other school support services in Iowa.

Budget bills can also include policy components. This year, language restricting on diversity, equity and inclusion programs at the state’s public universities was passed as part of the education spending bill.

For the sixth time in the past decade, an abortion-related case is pending before the Iowa Supreme Court.

The only certainty is that the court will issue some majority opinion in the latest iteration of Planned Parenthood of the Heartland v Reynolds. All seven justices participated in the April 11 oral arguments.

The law at issue, adopted during a special legislative session last July, is almost identical to the near-total abortion ban at the center of last year’s case. But after Justice Dana Oxley recused herself from the 2023 litigation, the other justices split 3-3, leaving a permanent injunction on the 2018 abortion ban in place.

In all likelihood, the Iowa Supreme Court will decide before the end of June whether to lift the temporary injunction on the new abortion ban. Normally, it’s not advisable to guess how any justice will rule following oral arguments. We can draw more inferences here, because all seven justices have written or joined opinions that are relevant to the current case.

This post is designed to help readers understand the legal context and key arguments for each side.

State Auditor Rob Sand speaks at a public town hall in Onawa (Monona County) on May 22, 2023. Photo provided by State Auditor’s office.

Rob Sand is Iowa’s state auditor.

Lots of topics get swept under the rug because they’re not comfortable for us to confront. Sometimes we’d rather pretend the problems don’t exist or couldn’t happen in a place like Iowa. But they do, and it can happen anywhere—even in our great state. It is our obligation to confront them in order to solve them.

I’ve always spoken out on behalf of victims of sexual violence. From my time as a prosecutor putting or keeping rapists and pedophiles behind bars, to voting against taxpayer-funded settlements that bail out perpetrators of egregious sexual harassment in my role as a member of the State Appeal Board now that I’m state auditor.

What’s the opposite of “loud and proud”?

Iowa House Democrats unanimously voted for the chamber’s latest attempt to address the concerns of landowners along the path of Summit Carbon Solutions’ proposed CO2 pipeline. But not a single Democrat spoke during the March 28 floor debate.

The unusual tactic allowed the bill’s Republican advocates to take full credit for defending property rights against powerful corporate interests—an extremely popular position.

It was a missed opportunity to share a Democratic vision for fair land use policies and acknowledge the progressive constituencies that oppose the pipeline for various reasons.

State Senator Dan Dawson presents Senate File 2349, regarding defense subpoenas, during floor debate on February 27. Screenshot from official video.

Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council and can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. 

What were they thinking? That is a question I ask myself a lot lately.

Those were the first words out of my mouth when the Manhattan district attorney had to postpone Donald Trump’s New York criminal trial on the alleged hush-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels — the delay necessitated because government lawyers had dropped the ball.

I muttered those words during several days of court hearings in Georgia into Atlanta prosecutor Fani Willis’ affair with a subordinate prosecutor — the one she chose to lead the criminal case against Trump and a dozen other defendants for trying to undo that state’s 2020 presidential election results.

And those words come to mind about bills the Iowa legislature is considering that would affect criminal cases like those brought against state university athletes for their online wagers on sporting events.

Scott Syroka is a former Johnston city council member.

It’s unclear whether Koch Industries would avoid paying utility replacement taxes worth millions of dollars every year if it acquires OCI Global’s Iowa Fertilizer Company plant in Wever (Lee County).

According to Chuck Vandenberg’s February reporting for the Pen City Current, the Iowa Fertilizer Company plant’s current owner, OCI Global, paid between $2 to 3 million in utility replacement taxes in 2023 alone.

To understand why it’s unknown whether Koch Industries would be required to pay these taxes if it acquires the plant, we must look back in the history books.

After deregulation spread across the country in the 1980s, including in the electric and natural gas industries, the Iowa legislature responded in 1998 by passing Senate File 2146, the Property Tax Replacement and Statewide Property Tax Act.

Screenshot from Alliance Defending Freedom video opposing medication abortion

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

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird is leading a multi-state effort in demanding that YouTube remove specific abortion-related information from its site.

Bird and fifteen other Republican attorneys general wrote to YouTube this week and demanded that it remove or revise what Bird calls a “dangerous and misleading” label attached to a video that pertains to chemical abortion pills.

The label, Bird says, is “targeting pro-life messages” and contains inaccurate information that jeopardizes women’s health.

Some Iowa news headlines misrepresented an Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals decision on February 27, which resolved a long-running lawsuit over Iowa’s 2021 law banning schools from requiring masks.

“Federal appeals court upholds Iowa law banning school mask mandates,” read the headline on a Cedar Rapids Gazette story, also published in some of the Lee Newspapers.

KCRG-TV’s version (carried by other television stations with the same owner) was titled “Federal appeals court upholds Iowa ban on mask mandates.”

“Appeals court upholds law banning mask mandates in schools,” read the headline on Iowa Capital Dispatch, a website that allows Iowa newspapers to republish its reporting at no charge.

The framing closely tracked written statements from Governor Kim Reynolds and Attorney General Brenna Bird, who hailed the Eighth Circuit decision.

There was just one problem: the appeals court did not “uphold” the law.

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird receives an award from the Iowa State Sheriffs’ and Deputies’ Association in December 2023. Photo first published on the Attorney General’s official Facebook page.

Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council and can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. 

Voters have busy lives—families to care for, jobs demanding their attention, bills to worry about. 

So, they can be forgiven if they do not closely track their government leaders’ statements and actions. Sometimes voters may find discrepancies between what politicians say and what they do.

Here is one example:

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird was in the news last week asking Congress to replenish a federal program, the Victims of Crime Act, which assists crime victims in a variety of ways.

From left: Carolyn Jenison, Angelo Thorne, and Tanya Keith attend a Republican precinct caucus in Des Moines on January 15 after changing their party registrations. Photo by Tanya Keith published with permission.

The Iowa Democratic Party will soon send “presidential preference cards” to registered Democrats who would like to vote by mail for Joe Biden, Dean Phillips, Marianne Williamson, or “uncommitted.” Voters will have until February 19 to request the cards, and will need to return them by March 5 (or with a March 5 postmark).

One group of Iowa Democrats should not attempt to vote by mail, however: those who switched parties in order to attend a Republican precinct caucus on January 15.

Continental Resources executive chairman Harold Hamm, center right, is surrounded by Summit representatives during a December 21, 2023 hearing of the North Dakota Public Service Commission. From left to right are Summit Carbon’s general counsel Jess Vilsack; Summit Carbon CEO Lee Blank; Summit Carbon COO James “Jimmy” Powell (seated in the row behind the others); North Dakota Petroleum Council president Ron Ness; Hamm; and Summit Agricultural Group CEO Justin Kirchhoff. (Photo by Kyle Martin, published with permission)

Nancy Dugan lives in Altoona, Iowa and has worked as an online editor for the past 12 years.

While billionaire wildcatter and Summit Carbon Solutions investor Harold Hamm appears to be hedging his bets, Bruce Rastetter, founder of Summit Agricultural Group, which launched the CO2 pipeline project, announced his support for Donald Trump during a Bloomberg News roundtable on January 13 in Des Moines. A Summit Agricultural Group news release also announced the endorsement, which came just two days before Trump’s decisive caucus victory in Iowa.

Meanwhile, Trump lambasted former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, a vocal opponent of using eminent domain to build the Summit Carbon pipeline, in a January 13 post on his Truth Social platform. Trump declared Ramaswamy “not MAGA” and accused him of using “deceitful campaign tricks.” It was the first time the front-runner publicly criticized Ramaswamy, who ended his campaign and endorsed Trump immediately following the Iowa caucuses on January 15.

Before Iowa politics kicks into high gear with a new legislative session and the caucuses, I want to highlight the investigative reporting, in-depth analysis, and accountability journalism published first or exclusively on this site last year.

Some newspapers, websites, and newsletters put their best original work behind a paywall for subscribers, or limit access to a set number of free articles a month. I’m committed to keeping all Bleeding Heartland content available to everyone, regardless of ability to pay. That includes nearly 500 articles and commentaries from 2023 alone, and thousands more posts in archives going back to 2007.

To receive links to everything recently published here via email, subscribe to the free Evening Heartland newsletter. I also have a free Substack, which is part of the Iowa Writers Collaborative. Subscribers receive occasional cross-posts from Bleeding Heartland, as well as audio files and recaps for every episode of KHOI Radio’s “Capitol Week,” a 30-minute show about Iowa politics co-hosted by Dennis Hart and me.

I’m grateful to all readers, but especially to tipsters. Please reach out with story ideas that may be worth pursuing in 2024.

UPDATE: Attorney General Brenna Bird filed notice of appeal to the Eighth Circuit on January 12. Original post follows.

The state of Iowa cannot enforce key parts of a new law that sought to ban books depicting sex acts from schools and prohibit instruction “relating to gender identity and sexual orientation” from kindergarten through sixth grade.

U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Locher issued a preliminary injunction on December 29, putting what he called “staggeringly broad” provisions on hold while two federal lawsuits challenging Senate File 496 proceed. The judge found the book bans “unlikely to satisfy the First Amendment under any standard of scrutiny,” and the teaching restrictions “void for vagueness under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

However, the state may continue to enforce a provision requiring school administrators to inform parents or guardians if a student seeks an “accommodation that is intended to affirm the student’s gender identity.” Judge Locher found the LGBTQ students who are plaintiffs in one case lack standing to challenge that provision, since “they are all already ‘out’ to their families and therefore not affected in a concrete way” by it.

Governor Kim Reynolds and Attorney General Brenna Bird quickly criticized the court’s decision. But neither engaged with the legal issues at hand.

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.

If you’re looking for something to quench your thirst for a measure of hope in our democracy, don’t turn to Iowa caucus news for a figurative drink. That well is polluted—to put it mildly—perhaps poisoned, to take a more worrisome view. Given the nature of the campaigns, it looks like the January 15 Iowa Republican caucuses will only make things worse. We may have to hope for redemption of democracy in the November 2024 election.

What’s at stake: the earth’s mightiest nation may have a major-party presidential nominee facing 91 federal or state criminal charges across five indictments. For Donald Trump’s supporters, that rap sheet is not only not disqualifying—it generates more sympathy for the candidate and boos for media coverage of his baggage.

Kim Taylor could face years in prison after a federal jury convicted her on November 21 of 52 counts of voter fraud, voter registration fraud, or giving false information in registering or voting. Over the course of a six-day trial, prosecutors presented evidence Taylor forged signatures on voter registration forms, absentee ballot request forms, and absentee ballots in order to secure votes for her husband in the 2020 election. Prosecutors identified Jeremy Taylor, a Republican who previously served in the Iowa House and is now a Woodbury County supervisor, as an unindicted co-conspirator in the case.

The jury found Kim Taylor helped cast dozens of fraudulent ballots—a large number, but small in comparison to the 45,700 ballots cast in Woodbury County in 2020, not to mention the 1.7 million ballots cast across Iowa.

Which raises an obvious question for all Republicans who have expressly or tacitly endorsed Donald Trump’s sweeping claims that the 2020 election was “rigged” or stolen from him.

Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council and can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. 

The rationale behind Iowa’s professional licensing laws is simple: People in certain professions and skilled occupations are required to hold state licenses to work in Iowa. The purpose is to ensure they meet the minimum standard of training and skill necessary to serve consumers safely and effectively.

But a state policy change leads me to wonder whether government officials have lost sight of their obligation to act in the best interests of the public. If officials follow through with the new policy in the coming months, then state legislators should step in next year and correct this ill-conceived decision—and concerned citizens should encourage their lawmakers stick up for the public.

Nancy Dugan lives in Altoona, Iowa and has worked as an online editor for the past 12 years. 

Last week, North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley denied a request from three counties in the state to investigate Summit Carbon Solutions’ investors. A new statute in North Dakota, which went into effect on August 1, tightens restrictions on foreign ownership of land in that state, among other measures.

But Summit Carbon Solutions, LLC as it exists today was formed in Delaware in 2021, according to the Iowa Secretary of State’s database of business entities. (That database shows the Summit Carbon Solutions, LLC created in Iowa in 2020 as “inactive.”) Wrigley explained in a recent letter to county commissioners that the effective date of the new legislation means “this office is unable to conduct a civil review of the company.”

Wrigley’s argument underscores one of the more disturbing aspects of the Summit Carbon matter, which is the false premise that state and local governments are powerless to regulate a Delaware LLC whose ownership structure remains largely a mystery, and whose own legal arguments identify the pipeline it proposes to build as a security threat.

Mitch Henry chairs the Iowa Unity Coalition.

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird is appealing a judge’s decision that cleared the way for election officials to offer non-English voting materials to the public.

Under Polk County District Court Judge Scott Rosenberg’s June 28 ruling, Iowa counties are allowed, at their discretion, to provide citizens with voting materials (including ballots, voter-registration forms, and absentee ballot request forms) in languages other than English. The decision dissolved a 15-year-old injunction that had blocked Iowa counties from printing the forms in other languages. Former U.S. Representative Steve King was among the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against then Iowa Secretary of State Michael Mauro, which led to the injunction in 2008.

The court’s recent ruling stemmed from a lawsuit the League of United Latin American Citizens of Iowa filed in 2021 to challenge the state’s application of the English Language Reaffirmation Act to election materials.