The Iowa Supreme Court has ruled that a lower court should further consider whether the State Auditor’s office improperly withheld or unreasonably delayed providing records to a conservative public interest law firm.

The April 26 decision in Kirkwood v Sand is the third recent case indicating that Iowa’s high court is serious about ensuring government bodies comply with Iowa Code Chapter 22, the state’s open records law. Like the April 2023 ruling in Belin v Reynolds, the decision was unanimous.

The state of Iowa’s chronic lateness in producing financial reports threatened to disrupt the flow of federal funds to Iowa’s universities this year, documents obtained by Bleeding Heartland show.

For the third year in a row, the state will be more than six months late to publish its Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR), which the Iowa Department of Administrative Services compiles. As of June 26, only six states had not published their comprehensive financial reports for fiscal year 2022 (see appendix 2 below).

The delay has pushed back the publication of Iowa’s statewide Single Audit, a mandatory annual report for non-federal entities that spend a certain amount of federal dollars.

To address concerns raised by the U.S. Department of Education, state auditors worked out an arrangement to produce individual FY2022 Single Audit reports for Iowa’s three state universities by the end of June. The State Auditor’s office released the first of those reports, covering the University of Iowa, on June 27.

Going forward, state auditors will prepare separate Single Audit reports for each Iowa university by March 31, the federal deadline for providing such documentation.

A notice posted in January on the EMMA website, the leading source for data and documents related to municipal bonds, did not clarify why Iowa’s ACFR would be late again. Tami Wiencek, public information officer for the Department of Administrative Services, has not replied to inquiries about the reason for the extended delay. Records indicate that staff turnover at the agency has derailed what was for many years a smooth process.

A special investigation by the State Auditor’s office asserted on June 3 that Governor Kim Reynolds violated Iowa law by using $152,585 in federal COVID-19 relief funds to purchase “online and televised ads containing the Governor’s voice, image, and name.”

Less than 30 minutes after the auditor’s report was published, Reynolds responded in a news release that the law “clearly allows” such use of public money in the context of a public health disaster emergency.

A few hours later, State Auditor Rob Sand defended his conclusions in a new written statement.

My non-lawyer’s reading of the relevant statutes aligns with the governor’s interpretation. But while legal points could be argued, one indisputable fact is that all parties involved should have discussed these findings prior to the report’s publication, instead of duking it out in news releases today.

The first Democrat to serve as Iowa’s state auditor in more than 50 years has hired a “tri-partisan leadership team” to help run the office.

Both major parties held district conventions on April 28. One encouraging sign from the Iowa Democratic Party’s proceedings: activists are much more energized this year than usual. Every delegate slot was filled in all four Congressional districts. Quite a few alternates (including myself) did not receive credentials. According to former State Senator Jack Hatch, it was only the second time in 40 years that an IA-03 district convention “packed a full slate of delegates.” State party chair Troy Price observed in a Facebook post, “Typically, in a non-Presidential year it is a struggle to reach quorum, and this year we had more people than spots available.”

All of the district convention delegates elected at county conventions in March are automatically delegates for the state conventions in June. So the main order of business yesterday was choosing members of each party’s State Central Committee.

Both Democrats and Republicans will have lots of new faces on their governing bodies. But Democrats mostly missed an opportunity to elect leaders who reflect the diversity of the party’s base.

John McCormally joins the conversation on how Iowa Democrats can recover. Currently an attorney and member of the party’s State Central Committee, McCormally is a former staffer for the party and for various Democratic campaigns. -promoted by desmoinesdem

When it comes to rebuilding the Iowa Democratic Party, better messaging and party building are at the top of everyone’s list. Everyone agrees on the problems. Solutions are more elusive. Claire Celsi’s extraordinary article offers a great insight as to what the priorities of the next chair should be. While the next chair’s vision is important, rebuilding the party will take more than the vision of one person. As someone who has been on the IDP State Central Committee for six years, and will be for 18 more months, I am familiar with the potential and the limitations of the organization. In that spirit, I offer ten specific programs the IDP can implement to rebuild:

For many election cycles, either Senator Tom Harkin or the Democratic governor of Iowa would choose the Iowa Democratic Party chair, and the State Central Committee would rubber-stamp that decision. But in January 2015, the state party had its first competitive leadership election since I’ve been following Iowa politics. Andy McGuire edged out Kurt Meyer on the third ballot, largely because of strong support from establishment figures.

Iowa Democrats were trounced up and down the ballot on Tuesday. In my lifetime, we’ve never been beaten so badly in a presidential year. When President Ronald Reagan beat Walter Mondale by nearly 100,000 votes here in 1984, Democrats held on to their majorities in both legislative chambers, and Harkin beat incumbent U.S. Senator Roger Jepsen. This week, the party lost six Senate seats, mostly by large margins, and lost ground in the state House.

State Central Committee members will choose a new party leader in December January. At least seven people are either running or seriously thinking about seeking the position. UPDATE: Added a few more names below.