Glenn Hurst is a family physician in southwest Iowa and a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate.

Several years ago, a man called my clinic seeking an appointment. He did not have insurance, and in fact had not seen a physician since childhood. But on this day, he was desperate. He had felt a popping sensation in his abdomen and thought he might have a hernia. If that was true, he needed surgery, and we were the gateway to that service. We agreed to see him and to work out a payment plan later.

When I entered the exam room, it was clear something was wrong. Here was a man in his late 50s who did not look well. His skin had a bronze-yellow tint, his cheeks were sunken in, and his belly protruded. He was weak and disheveled. He repeated his story about the popping sensation and told me he could feel something protruding.

It’s time for another review of Bleeding Heartland’s most widely-read posts from the year that just ended. I always struggle a bit with this task, because the work I’m most proud of doesn’t always overlap with what resonated most with readers. Also, I’m wary of watching traffic numbers too closely, because I try not to let potential clicks drive my editorial decisions.

However, I always gain some insight from this review, so here goes.

This list draws from Google Analytics data about total views for 598 posts this website published during 2021: 362 written by me and 236 by other authors. I left out the site’s front page and the “about” page, where many people landed following online searches.

This post first appeared on Julie Gammack’s Potluck Column on Substack.

There’s an Iowa connection to the film “Don’t Look Up,” a satire about society’s blindness to our planet in peril. 

A Des Moines Roosevelt High School graduate, Staci Roberts Steele, co-produces the star-studded film. In addition to her job description, the actress/producer/writer also played the assistant to a tech titan character in the movie. 

During the year that just ended, 114 authors wrote or co-authored 236 guest posts for this website. Those articles and commentaries covered a vast array of topics and employed many different writing styles, from exclusive reporting to in-depth analysis to personal stories to satire. Some were among the most-read of the 598 posts Bleeding Heartland published in 2021.

As in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic was a frequent touchpoint for authors; at least 28 guest posts addressed some aspect of the public health disaster.

Other state government policies inspired 40 posts, covering bills proposed or adopted by the legislature or Governor Kim Reynolds’ actions not directly related to the pandemic.

Nearly two dozen posts related to the January 6 coup attempt, the Big Lie about the 2020 election, or former President Donald Trump’s grip on the Republican Party.

Authors focused on the Iowans in Congress eighteen times, with Senator Chuck Grassley the leading subject.

Seventeen commentaries offered advice for the Iowa Democratic Party or Democrats generally in light of mostly disappointing election results here in 2020.

Candidates for state, federal, or local offices (or their supporters) wrote nineteen posts during the year.

Authors covered many other issues, from reproductive rights to the environment, and occasionally reviewed lesser-known historical events in Iowa or on a national scale.

I’m proud to provide a platform for progressive views and grateful for the hard work that went into creating these pieces, most of them published only at Bleeding Heartland.

Editor’s note: Bleeding Heartland is unlikely to endorse in any Iowa Democratic primaries this year but welcomes guest commentaries by candidates or their supporters. Please read these guidelines and contact Laura Belin if you are interested in writing.

Now that the 2022 election year is here, I’d like to introduce myself. My name is Andrew Dunn and I am an activist, community organizer, and nonprofit leader running to represent Iowa House district 90, serving the northeast and graduate college area of Iowa City.

As many of us consider our New Year’s resolutions for 2022, I have one to suggest for U.S. Representative Cindy Axne: divest from individual stocks in your family’s retirement and savings accounts.

Former U.S. Ambassador Terry Branstad and his former chief of staff in Beijing, Steve Churchill, recently formed a consulting group to provide “strategic insight and solutions to corporate leaders and investors conducting business in China and the United States.”

Countless former diplomats who served presidents of both parties have traveled the same path after leaving government service. Thanks to former President Donald Trump, Branstad was able to start cashing in a year early.

Herb Strentz ponders the threat Donald Trump and his cult pose to our republic.

As the midterm election year approaches, we face another test of what might be called “Franklin’s Challenge,” given our nature and television’s penchant to turn everything into a game show.

That’s the challenge Benjamin Franklin — bless him — reportedly put before his 18th century audience and today’s 21st century citizenry.

At the close of the constitutional convention on September 17, 1787, he was said to be asked if our founding fathers had created a monarchy or a self-governing republic.
Franklin supposedly replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

If you can keep it.

Dan Piller reviews presidential attitudes toward public health and physical fitness.

If you needed a good laugh during the hassle of Christmas weekend, one could be had by watching the sudden fracture of Donald Trump and the nation’s anti-vaccine cult. This surprising development came about during a Trump podcast interview with Candace Owens, for whom no conspiracy theory is too outrageous.

Trump and Owens should have enjoyed a convivial chit-chat, but the former president took issue with Owens’ anti-vaccine sentiments. Trump’s Operation Warp Speed initiative to give us COVID-19 vaccines was arguably the highlight of his otherwise inept presidency. Even President Joe Biden has praised it.

Owens uncharitably attributed Trump’s pro-vaccine sentiment to his being “too old” to find websites that give alternatives to vaccinations, which probably will prove sufficient for her to be turned away for good at the Mar-a-Lago main gate.

C.J. Petersen is a “dirt road Democrat” and rural organizer.

In the 1987 movie Wall Street, Gordon Gekko quipped that “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.” Since that time, the American family farm—defined by farm economist and researcher Alicia Harvie as a farmer “who makes the management decisions, provides the bulk of the labor on the farm, and looks to make all or most of their living from farming,” has been on the decline.

Corporate agriculture revenues have been on the rise, reaching record profits even amidst a once-in-a-century global pandemic. Lax enforcement of antitrust laws in the agricultural sector of the economy has harmed family farms and led to the corporate consolidation of the industry, resulting in increased costs and the hollowing out of rural communities.

State Representative Ras Smith, a candidate for governor, recalls his highs and lows and poses some tough questions for Iowa Democrats.

As we prepare for upcoming holidays and the close of 2021, I am reminded to once again take inventory of the year, and to reflect upon my work. What has it meant? Is it aligned with my mission-driven commitment? What lies ahead?

I continue to find beauty in the struggle.  

Glenn Hurst is a family physician in southwest Iowa and a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate.

This week, Iowans received a wake-up call regarding how important it is that their candidate stands firmly on Democratic principles and at the very least supports President Joe Biden’s agenda. The demise of the Build Back Better bill, due to partisanship on the Republican side and a personal agenda of one Democrat, will leave many Iowans struggling without healthcare, without jobs, and without the ability to improve their own lives.

The nation cannot afford another Joe Manchin in the U.S. Senate.

It is sad to see how far this legislation could have moved the country and to watch it fail. This bill would have moved us in the direction that Iowa Democrats have been clamoring for. A direction that we have wanted to move toward but one that our candidates have been shy about supporting.

Ira Lacher: Europeans seem to take keeping everyone safe from COVID-19 more seriously than we do in America.

When you try to enter a restaurant, movie theater, or shopping mall in Bucharest, Romania, first you must submit the proof-of-vaccine certificate on your phone for digital verification. You can’t get in without one. Once inside, everyone — everyone! — is masked, many with an N95 or more likely a Chinese-made KN95 model, the type that is 94 percent effective against transmitting COVID-19. In the Munich, Germany, airport, you have to wear one of those; cloth masks or paper-type masks aren’t allowed. You can buy the highly effective European Union (EU) equivalent FFP2 masks in the concourse for one euro or so apiece.

The difference between COVID-19 attitudes in Europe and the United States is mind-blowing. On both continents, the omicron variant threatens to inundate intensive care units, sickening hundreds of thousands and killing tens of thousands. Here in Europe, EU and national governments take that mighty seriously.

An earlier version of this commentary appeared in The Prairie Progressive‘s fall 2021 issue.

In a media release earlier this year and a commentary published in some Iowa newspapers, Senator Chuck Grassley asserted, “it appears that the standard of care and quality controls at many state veterans homes falls well short of those required by other government supported nursing homes.” He was referencing the number of COVID-19 deaths and infections in veterans homes across the country.

How many is many? The senator’s letter to U.S. Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis R. McDonough cited a handful of media reports in footnotes. Although some of those articles cited statistics provided by the government, the numbers Grassley used are flawed.

Bruce Lear: In order to protect democracy, it’s important to study the words of the past, the present, and the future.

They say, “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” This child’s rhyme is cute, but wrong.  

Words wound personally, and words were a catalyst for a political lie that morphed into a January 6 storm threatening all future democratic elections.

The ACLU of Iowa filed suit on December 16 on behalf of three reporters and three media organizations over Governor Kim Reynolds’ long-standing failure to comply with Iowa’s open records law. The lawsuit cites five unfulfilled requests submitted by me, two submitted by Clark Kauffman of Iowa Capital Dispatch, and one submitted by Randy Evans of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council.

I’ve been seeking some of those records for more than a year. My oldest outstanding request, for video messages the governor may have recorded for meatpacking plant employees during the early weeks of the pandemic, dates to April 2020. Although Reynolds told members of the Iowa Capitol Press Association in January 2021 that she would commit to having her staff respond to open records requests “in a timely manner,” her office continues to stonewall.

Donald Trump’s MAGA cult reminds Herb Strentz of Stephen Sondheim’s haunting lyrics: “Quick, send in the clowns/ Don’t bothеr, they’re herе.”

Given the political madness of the day and the “book burners” and others set loose upon us, Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics to “Send in the Clowns” are haunting —particularly the last two lines: “Quick, send in the clowns/ Don’t bothеr, they’re herе.”

That assessment leads to other thoughts:

Glenn Hurst is a family physician in southwest Iowa and a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate.

In my very first days of private practice, I met a patient with an aggressive form of breast cancer. She was young, in her 30s. She and her husband had two children under the age of 5 and were doing the same struggling most young middle-class Americans do at that point in life. They worried about bills, insurance, saving for big purchases. They were not likely thinking about retirement, and they had no plans for a medical emergency. Now their family was faced with a medical crisis that no one could have predicted.

I could tell her hands were full as her husband tried to wrangle the kids who were up and down the walls of the exam room as she explained her situation to me.

Julie Stauch became invested and motivated about water issues after the 1993 floods. In 2017, she joined others across the metro area to speak out against the regionalization bill in the Iowa legislature, focusing on West Des Moines. She previously wrote about the West Des Moines Water Works regionalization plan here.

Below is the statement I delivered at the WDM Water Works Board of Trustees meeting on December 6. The next meeting will be a workshop at city hall on Tuesday, December 14, 2021 at 5:30 PM.

All of you have the title of Trustee, because you are entrusted with the governance responsibilities of the West Des Moines water works. It is rooted in trust between the people who use the utility and those who serve on the Board. The goal today is to take steps to focus on how vital trust is in your role for all WDM residents and rate payers.

Larry Anderson is a retired civil engineer and former general manager of the West Des Moines Water Works. He prepared these comments to submit to the West Des Moines Water Works trustees on December 13.

I’m a civil engineering graduate of Iowa State University, was a Registered Professional Civil Engineer in Iowa and the first general manager of West Des Moines Water Works, having been privileged to serve the utility for 27 years, between 1977 and 2004. However, my concern about regionalization of water production isn’t about any of those things.

The proposed change to regional, politicized governance of water production gives away a substantial part of West Des Moines destiny to others. Yes, West Des Moines would receive a voice in the decision-making of wholesale water rates. Whether it is a strong voice or simply a voice in the wilderness, due to the newly added politics, is a definite concern of mine and it should be to all West Des Moines residents. 

More important, the proposal gives an added political body the ability to simply say, “No, we cannot provide additional water right now to West Des Moines. We might be able to do that later, but not now.” So, an economic development proposal offered to West Des Moines will occur elsewhere. That is very concerning to me as a resident of West Des Moines since 1955. 

Ira Lacher: Mike Franken has deliberately avoided labeling himself a “centrist” or “moderate.” But Saturday, there was no doubt where he stood.

On December 11, I attended a meet-and-greet, intending to be introduced to retired Vice Admiral Michael Franken, one of the Democrats running against Senator Chuck Grassley. Instead, I was introduced to Jean-Luc Picard.

It’s not hard to imagine Franken — a 64-year-old rural Sioux County native, who emerged from a working-class family of nine kids in a landlocked state to attain the rank of three-star admiral without attending the Naval Academy — on the bridge of the starship USS Enterprise.

 Richard Lindgren is Emeritus Professor of Business at Graceland University in Lamoni, Iowa, now retired in Gulf Coast Florida. He blogs at godplaysdice.com.

Before a planned international trip for a humanitarian non-governmental organization a few years ago, I received cholera and typhoid vaccinations as part of a set of several jabs administered by Iowa’s Polk County Health Department. Despite some transient ill effects, I survived to tell the tale, one more unsung miracle performed daily without fanfare by the protectors of our public health.

In 1854, Dr. John Snow physically mapped out London’s cholera epidemic of that year and demonstrated that cholera is a water-borne disease, that outbreak mostly tied to a single sewage-contaminated water well. It took a very bad year of sewage stench four years later before the city committed money to begin building the most impressive sewer system in the world for its day in order to protect the common water supply.

The contamination of London’s water supply was a classic example of “the tragedy of the commons.” And in Iowa it still is! Governor Kim Reynolds managed to gloat recently over a long-needed plan to spend $100 million to improve Iowa’s often stinky, fertilizer-and-hog-manure-contaminated public water supplies. The new money, she said in her official press release, comes from some mysterious “ARPA.” Unsaid is that this is the “American Rescue Plan Act of 2021,” enacted over the opposition of every Republican in Congress.

The larger “commons” in 2021 is not London’s drinking water, rather it is our own public health, of which our drinking water is but a part. Our public health, too, has begun to stink.

With a promise to help Iowa families “achieve their dreams, overcome challenges, and secure their future,” three-term Republican State Senator Roby Smith launched his campaign for state treasurer on December 9.

Former Acting U.S. Attorney General Matt Whitaker earned $400,000 last year to advocate for President Donald Trump to issue pardons and commutations, Roger Sollenberger revealed in a December 1 scoop for the Daily Beast. The conservative group FreedomWorks, a 501(c)4 organization that does not disclose its donors, reported the expenditure to the IRS as covering “consulting services” for Whitaker, an independent contractor.

FreedomWorks announced in March 2020 that Whitaker would chair a new project “which aims to recommend deserving individuals” for pardons and commutations. Sollenberger noted,

That role raises a number of ethical questions for Whitaker. He was directly involved in White House clemency negotiations possibly as late as Trump’s last full day in office, but never registered as a lobbyist while advocating for pardons—and FreedomWorks never named clemency issues in any of its 2020 lobbying reports.

Bruce Lear reviews how Republican-backed laws have adversely affected Iowa schools.

There’s some real obscenity in Iowa public schools, but it’s not the kind Iowa Senate President Jake Chapman has been ranting about.

Speaking in November at a packed school district meeting in Johnston, Chapman complained about two books and said he is drafting a bill to create a felony offense for distributing what he considers to be obscene material. Never mind that Iowa already has a number of laws about the distribution of real pornography. Chapman sees a need to single out teachers and librarians for making books he doesn’t like available to high school students. 

Like most wannabe book banners, Chapman probably hasn’t read the supposedly offensive books. He is also using public schools (which should unite communities) to further divide us.  

No, the obscenity is not in these books that Chapman doesn’t like. The real obscenity is what Republican legislators have done to Iowa schools. Here are some examples of the attacks on public schools, which are emptying classrooms of dedicated, teachers. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stewart Potter famously said when deciding a pornography case, “I know it when I see it.” Let’s review the GOP’s record toward public schools and teachers.

The federal government will stay open until at least February 18, after the U.S. House and Senate passed a continuing funding resolution on December 2. Only one House Republican crossed party lines to support the resolution, which mostly maintains spending levels agreed during the Trump administration. Iowa’s Representatives Ashley Hinson (IA-01), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-02), and Randy Feenstra (IA-04) opposed the bill.

In the upper chamber, nineteen GOP senators joined Democrats to send the legislation to President Joe Biden. Notably, Iowa Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst voted against the bill, even though they had supported resolutions setting federal spending at these levels while Donald Trump was president.

U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley on December 2 blocked Senate debate on a bill that would require background checks on all firearms sales. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut requested unanimous consent to proceed with debating the bill, known as the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021, following the latest horrific mass shooting at a school, which ended the lives of four Michigan high school students.

Everytown for Gun Safety explains that current federal law “requires a background check on a prospective gun buyer only when the seller is a licensed gun dealer, leaving all other sales—such as unlicensed gun sales negotiated over the internet—unregulated and with no background check required.” Under this proposal, “unlicensed sellers would meet their buyers at a licensed gun dealer, who would run a background check using exactly the same process already used for sales from their own inventory.”

Ira Lacher ponders the possible fallout from a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that undermines reproductive rights.

When my wife and I consider a major home project, such as a kitchen or bathroom remodel, we apply the principle I call “pawn takes queen.” As in chess, the idea is to consider several moves ahead so as to anticipate the ramifications. If we knock down a wall to open up the kitchen, where do we put the stove? Will we need to add new gas lines? Where? How much time and disruption will that add? And so on.

America may have to apply that principle if, as widely predicted after oral arguments December 1, the U.S. Supreme Court upholds Mississippi House Bill No. 1510M, which bans nearly all abortions after fifteen weeks of pregnancy.

Bruce Lear: Pretend patriots are afraid to let students understand all of American history so they can make informed judgments.

When a girl or boy joins the Scouts, they pledge to be a part of a troop and a part of the community of scouting. When a college student joins a sorority or fraternity, they make a positive pledge to be a part of something. We pledge allegiance to the flag as a community of Americans.    

But not all pledges are positive. Some drive a wedge between us. The 1776 Pledge isn’t about building a community. It’s more like a tool to mold public schools into a political prop instead of a place of learning.

Julie Stauch became invested and motivated about water issues after the 1993 floods. In 2017, she joined others across the metro area to speak out against the regionalization bill in the Iowa legislature, focusing on West Des Moines. She stayed involved attending meetings of a regional group representing communities across the metro area.

On November 30, leaders of West Des Moines Water Works discussed a regionalization plan in public for the first time. You likely did not know this plan was on the agenda for the “joint workshop” of the West Des Moines City Council’s workshop with the WDM Water Works, which had been announced the previous Wednesday (the day before Thanksgiving). The posted agenda included only a vague reference to “Discussion on Future Water Supply Needs for West Des Moines.”

I had intended to publish here the statement I delivered at the workshop. But the nature of the event changed my point of view. Folks, we have a big problem at the WDM Water Works Board of Trustees.

Cedar Rapids residents elected yet another Republican mayor on November 30, as former television news anchor and Women Lead Change CEO Tiffany O’Donnell defeated Amara Andrews by 13,479 votes to 6,358 (67.8 percent to 32.0 percent), according to unofficial results. As is typical for runoff elections, turnout was lower today at 21.4 percent of registered voters than in the November 2 election (28.1 percent turnout).

After receiving about 42 percent of the vote on November 2, O’Donnell appears to have consolidated support from almost all residents who preferred outgoing Mayor Brad Hart. He and Andrews both received about 28 percent of the vote four weeks ago.

O’Donnell is the fifth Republican (including Hart) to be elected mayor of Iowa’s second-largest city since 1996. Only one Democrat (Kay Halloran) has won Cedar Rapids’ highest office during the same period.

While it was logical for Andrews to run as a progressive Democrat in a city that generally favors Democratic candidates, in retrospect it looks like a strategic error for her campaign to focus on her opponent’s Republican ties. For whatever reason—I’d welcome insight from locals—a lot of Democratic-leaning voters in Cedar Rapids are comfortable with Republican mayors.

In the spirit of “Giving Tuesday,” I want to encourage Bleeding Heartland readers to support one or more nonprofits that help make quality journalism available to Iowans at no charge to readers or listeners. The entities listed below are 501(c)3 organizations, so donations are tax-deductible.

If you aren’t in a position to give money to any organization right now, you can help spread the word about solid reporting by sharing links through e-mail networks or social media feeds, or telling friends about sites you enjoy reading.

John Whiston ponders a troubling dynamic: political disagreements are becoming more personal, and “negative partisanship” more prevalent.

A couple of days ago, I saw a Facebook post from a woman I knew in high school out west, one of those manufactured right-wing memes that gets so casually forwarded in some circles. It was a picture of Donald Trump with this caption: “When I look at all the people who hate this man, I like him even more!”

The post stuck in my mind because it resonates so strongly with a new concept I stumbled upon reading the recent best-seller by David Graeber and David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity. That idea gave me my big word of the month: “schismogenesis,” that is, the origin of schism or separation between social groups. An obscure footnote in the anthropological literature since the 1930s, it is described by Garber and Wengrow this way:

Cedar Rapids residents will elect either Amara Andrews or Tiffany O’Donnell to be city’s third woman mayor on November 30. O’Donnell received about 42 percent of the votes cast in the November 2 general election. Andrews advanced to the runoff with about 28 percent of the vote, just 41 votes ahead of outgoing Mayor Brad Hart, who endorsed O’Donnell the following week.

While O’Donnell has to be considered the favorite going into Tuesday, the general election leader has lost Cedar Rapids runoff elections at least two times in the recent past. Anything can happen in a low-turnout race, and voter participation usually drops in runoffs.

Although Iowa’s local elections are nonpartisan, some candidates have revealed their party affiliations as one way of expressing their values. Andrews has been campaigning as a progressive Democrat who will make the city more equitable and fair. In contrast, O’Donnell has downplayed her Republican affiliation and presented herself as a candidate for “all of Cedar Rapids.”

Only a week after United Auto Workers members ratified a new six-year contract with John Deere, the company announced record profits of $5.96 billion during the fiscal year that ended on November 1.

Tyler Jett reported for the Des Moines Register on November 24,

The company announced Wednesday that the new contract with the UAW will cost $250 million to $300 million. J.P. Morgan analyst Ann Duignan wrote in a note that she expects Deere to increase prices by 1.5% to offset its higher pay to workers.

That cost estimate appears to cover the immediate 10 percent raises and $8,500 ratification bonuses for each of Deere’s approximately 10,000 employees represented by UAW. The range of $250 million to $300 million would work out to between 4 percent and 5 percent of the company’s profits for the fiscal year that just ended.

In the spirit of the gift-giving season, Ira Lacher offers a few pointers to see you through our ever-increasing spate of less-than-credible news.

November 22 passed last week, not with a bang but a whimper. It seems no one cares to remember that on that date fifty-eight years ago, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

Fifty-eight years ago, Mark Zuckerberg wasn’t even a zygote, so the rash of conspiracy theories circulating around the shooting in Dallas — “the Mafia did it, with the help of Cuban guerrillas and the CIA!” — had to depend merely on the number of book authors attempting to take advantage of Americans’ chronic abdication of reality.

Today, of course, social media is to conspiracy theorists what steroids were to Barry Bonds. And for good reason. We know the companies who administer those platforms do so with the idea of magnifying shrillness. It’s like substance addiction: The more you ingest, the more your body wants it.

Sometime during the fall of 1621, white European settlers at Plymouth held a harvest feast, attended by some Wampanoag, one of the Indigenous peoples living in the area. Almost everything else you learned about that “first Thanksgiving” was wrong.

The Pilgrims didn’t invite the Wampanoag to share their bounty. Some historians now believe the Native men came because they heard gunshots and assumed the settlement was under attack. (They had formed an alliance with the European settlers in the spring of 1621.) Another theory is that the warriors showed up “as a reminder that they controlled the land the Pilgrims were staying on and they vastly outnumbered their new European neighbors.”

According to Thanksgiving myths, the Pilgrims expressed gratitude for Wampanoag who taught them how to grow or find food in their new surroundings. In reality, “Their role in helping the Pilgrims survive by sharing resources and wisdom went unacknowledged that day, according to accounts of the toasts given by Pilgrim leaders.”

For Aiden Vasquez and Mika Covington, the news was life-changing. Polk County District Court Judge William Kelly ruled on November 19 that Iowa’s law designed to deny Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming surgery “violates the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution.”

He ordered the Iowa Department of Human Services to change a longstanding regulation “excluding coverage for sex reassignment surgery” and said the agency must apply the revised rule to allow “transgender individuals coverage under Iowa Medicaid for medically necessary gender affirming surgery for the treatment of Gender Dysphoria and other relevant diagnoses.”

Vasquez and Covington are transgender Iowans who qualify for Medicaid and have been unable to obtain the health care they need for years. They have been seeking legal redress since soon after Governor Kim Reynolds signed the discriminatory statute in May 2019.

Naturally, not everyone was happy with what the ACLU of Iowa’s legal director Rita Bettis Austen described as a “historic win for civil rights in Iowa.” Soon after the court ruling was published on November 22, Reynolds’ spokesperson Alex Murphy told reporters, “The governor’s office is disappointed in today’s decision and disagrees with the district court’s ruling on Medicaid coverage for transgender reassignment surgeries.”

Reynolds echoed the sentiment when speaking to reporters on November 23: “Of course we were disappointed with the ruling and disagree […] My legal team is looking at it. There will be more to come later on. We’re still looking through it and trying to determine what our options are.”

She should stop fighting this battle.

With the state’s Comprehensive Annual Financial Report and Single Audit for the 2020 fiscal year in the rear view mirror, the State Auditor’s office has been churning out its annual “reports of recommendations” for state government agencies and other entities. The majority of reports issued so far have cited no concerns related to internal control or compliance with statutory requirements.

However, the latest report for the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship (IDALS), published on November 23, pointed to several practices “for which we believe corrective action is necessary.”

A news release noted that State Auditor Rob Sand “recommended the Department strengthen internal controls over receipts in certain Bureaus,” adding, “The finding discussed above is repeated from the prior year.”

That’s an understatement. Sand and the previous two state auditors have been warning IDALS about the same internal control problems for more than ten years.

The public is one step closer to learning who funded a sophisticated messaging and organizational effort to re-elect Senator Joni Ernst in 2020. A federal court on November 19 denied a motion to dismiss a watchdog group’s lawsuit against Iowa Values, which supported Ernst’s re-election in 2020 but did not disclose its fundraising or spending.

The Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit focused on “advancing democracy through law,” sued Iowa Values in February, after the Federal Election Commission did not act on the center’s complaint against the pro-Ernst group for more than a year.

Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia comprehensively rejected legal arguments the pro-Ernst group raised in trying to dismiss the lawsuit and return the case to the FEC, which would likely do nothing.