Tony Leys is Rural Editor/Correspondent for KFF Health News, where this story was first published.

Collection agents for the state of Iowa have sent letters seeking millions of dollars from the estates of at least two people with disabilities who died after spending most of their lives in a state institution.

The amounts represent what Medicaid spent covering the residents’ care when they lived at the Glenwood Resource Center, a state-run facility that closed last summer.

The bills are extraordinary examples of a practice called Medicaid estate recovery. Federal law requires states to try to collect money after some types of Medicaid recipients die. The point is to encourage people to use their own resources before relying on the public program. But some states, including Iowa, are particularly aggressive about the collections, national reports show.

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird enjoyed suing the Biden administration. She filed or joined more than a dozen multi-state lawsuits against the federal government during her first year in office alone. At least a dozen more lawsuits followed in 2024.

Bird has often welcomed media coverage of her legal battles against Biden administration policies. Her office issued many press releases to announce new litigation or joint letters challenging the federal government.

But Bird’s office kept quiet about one case, which Iowa and sixteen other Republican-controlled states filed in the Northern District of Texas last September. Texas v. Becerra could prove catastrophic for Americans with disabilities. Not only are the plaintiffs seeking to vacate a federal rule prohibiting discrimination against disabled people in health care settings, they are also asking the court to declare a 1973 law known as Section 504 unconstitutional and unenforceable.

After reporters began asking questions about that lawsuit last week, Bird and her staff lied repeatedly about the scope of the case and the plaintiffs’ goals.

Legislative clerk Blaine Watkins will be the Republican candidate for the March 11 special election in Iowa House district 100, covering most of Lee County. Three other Republicans also competed for the nomination at a February 13 special convention. Watkins easily won with more than 70 percent of the delegates’ weighted votes on the first ballot.

Chuck Vandenberg reported for the Pen City Current that Watkins “told the convention that he had three issues he wanted to tackle right away, if elected”: property taxes, school choice and parental rights, and economic growth and jobs.

According to his LinkedIn page, Watkins graduated from Grand View University in December 2024, having majored in political science with a minor in business. He has clerked in the Iowa Senate for the past five years—first for former State Senator Craig Williams in 2021 and 2022, then for State Senator Jeff Reichman (who represents this part of southeast Iowa) since the 2023 session.

Watkins continues a trend of Republican legislative candidates who previously worked as clerks for Iowa GOP lawmakers. The most recent example was David Blom, the successful 2024 GOP challenger in House district 52, covering the Marshalltown area. Candidates with clerking experience are already steeped in the culture of the Golden Dome and will likely be reliable votes for leadership.

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

A divided Iowa Supreme Court has reversed a lower court decision and ruled that the public should have access to county-supervisor applications maintained by Scott County.

The case involves the Scott County Board of Supervisors, which experienced a midterm vacancy in December 2022 when one member resigned. A committee of elected county officials—Auditor Kerri Tompkins, Recorder Rita Vargas and Treasurer Tony Knobbe—then set about the process of filling the vacancy through an appointment. The three opted to keep confidential the applications for the post throughout the appointment process.

To further ensure confidentiality, they referred to the applicants by numbers during a public meeting dealing with the appointment and they later revealed only the name of the applicant who was appointed.

I wouldn’t have guessed President Donald Trump’s lawsuit over the pre-election Iowa Poll could assert claims any more outlandish than the original court filing in December.

Enter U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks and former State Senator Brad Zaun.

The Des Moines Register’s William Morris was first to report on February 4 that Miller-Meeks and Zaun signed on as plaintiffs in Trump’s case against J. Ann Selzer, her polling company, the Des Moines Register, and its parent company Gannett. The suit alleges that the inaccurate poll (which suggested Democratic nominee Kamala Harris was leading Trump in Iowa) was an “unfair act or practice” under Iowa’s consumer fraud statute. It further claims defendants “engaged in this misconduct to improperly influence the outcome of the 2024 Presidential Election.”

Adding plaintiffs who are Iowa residents will help Trump get the case moved back to state court, where he originally filed. Attorneys for Gannett used a legal maneuver in December to remove the case to federal court.

For Miller-Meeks, there’s political upside as well: demonstrating her allegiance to Trump may help her fend off a second primary challenge from MAGA Republican David Pautsch.

But let’s be clear: Miller-Meeks and Zaun have even less basis to claim the Iowa Poll harmed them than Trump does.

Nannette Griffin announced on February 10 that she will seek the Democratic nomination for the coming special election in Iowa House district 100. A lifelong resident of southeast Iowa, Griffin is the founder and owner of Griffin Muffler & Brake Center, a longstanding auto repair business in Fort Madison. She has been active in numerous civic organizations and received an award for women entrepreneurs from the Small Business Development Centers of Iowa.

Griffin was the 2024 Democratic challenger in Iowa Senate district 50, which includes this area as well as House district 99, covering the city of Burlington and its surroundings.

In a news release, Griffin said, “I decided to run for the Iowa House because I know that Lee County families and workers need a real voice in the state legislature.” She added,

“The grassroots of America love making America great again,” David Pautsch told me during a February 5 telephone interview. “It’s the political establishment people, including and especially the Republican establishment, that is the biggest albatross around our neck.”

Pautsch is counting on the MAGA grassroots as he prepares for a rematch against U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks in the 2026 GOP primary for Iowa’s first Congressional district.

A minister and founder of the Quad Cities Prayer Breakfast, Pautsch received just under 44 percent of the vote in the 2024 primary after running against the incumbent from the right.

I reached out to Pautsch after seeing he had booked the state capitol rotunda on February 27 for a “Congressional candidacy announcement.” Although he hasn’t officially launched his campaign, he agreed to speak on the record about his plans and prospects.

Governor Kim Reynolds announced on February 7 that she has scheduled a special election in Iowa House district 100 for Tuesday, March 11. The seat became vacant due to the recent passing of State Representative Martin Graber.

The district covers most of Lee County, including the population centers of Keokuk and Fort Madison. Like several other counties containing mid-sized cities, this part of Iowa was a longtime Democratic stronghold.

But Lee County was among the “pivot counties” that voted twice for Barack Obama, then for Donald Trump in three straight presidential elections.

More recently, voters in this area have favored Republican candidates for down-ballot offices as well. GOP candidates picked up the Iowa House and Senate seats covering this territory by defeating Democratic incumbents in 2020. In the 2024 general election, a Republican challenger won the race for Lee County sheriff, a position held by Democrats for many years. Some county office-holders who used to be Democrats (such as the Lee County attorney, recorder, and former auditor) have changed their party affiliation to Republican in recent years as well.

Dan Piller was a business reporter for more than four decades, working for the Des Moines Register and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He covered the oil and gas industry while in Texas and was the Register’s agriculture reporter before his retirement in 2013. He lives in Ankeny.

President Donald Trump renewed his eight-year tariff war last weekend by declaring tariffs of 25 percent on most goods from Mexico and Canada (10 percent on Canadian oil) and 10 percent on China. No sooner had the war been declared than we had a 30-day truce as Mexico and Canada promised various reinforcements of their border that supposedly will stanch the flow of fentanyl into the U.S.—policies both countries had announced weeks earlier.

Trump famously told us eight years ago that trade wars are “easy to win.” But if they’re so easy, why are we still fighting them eight years later? U.S. armed forces needed just half that time to subdue Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in World War II.

Trump and his MAGAtoids can claim short-term victories with the Mexican and Canadian truces. But bigger hills remain to be seized. China might not be so easy to bully. Neither will be the European Union. To those of us of advanced ages, the 30-day truce was reminiscent of the occasional truces during the Vietnam War, when hopes were raised around the world only to be shattered by the resumption of bombings and guerilla ambushes.

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

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird again tried to put herself in the national spotlight last week as leader of a group of Republican attorneys general who fixed their sights on Costco over the warehouse retailer’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies.

The state attorneys sent a stern warning letter telling the company, “We … urge Costco to end all unlawful discrimination imposed by the company through diversity, equity and inclusion (“DEI”) policies. … Costco should treat every person equally and based on their merit, rather than based on divisive and discriminatory DEI practices.”

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

A new state report on staffing in Iowa nursing homes indicates employee turnover rates are continuing to climb 15 years after state lawmakers approved, but failed to fund, a program to address the issue.

The 2024 Nursing Facility Turnover Report from the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services indicates that between 2022 and 2023, the average rate of turnover among registered nurses working in nursing homes increased from 52 percent to 66 percent. Among licensed practical nurses, turnover increased from 53 percent to 68 percent.

Among certified nurse aides, who provide much of the hands-on care in Iowa nursing homes, the average turnover rate increased from 72 percent to 77 percent.

Iowa House members were shocked and saddened on January 31 as news spread that their colleague, Republican State Representative Martin Graber, had died of a heart attack. Graber had been at the capitol the previous day, voting for the first three bills debated on the House floor during the 2025 legislative session.

A financial adviser in Fort Madison and former brigadier general in the Iowa National Guard (now retired), Graber was first elected to the Iowa House in 2020, defeating a Democratic incumbent. He just won a third term by more than a two-to-one margin in November.

Graber chaired the new Federal and Other Funds Appropriations subcommittee (established before the 2025 legislative session) and also served on the Local Government and Economic Growth and Technology committees. He previously chaired the Economic Development Appropriations subcommittee and served on the Commerce and Veterans Affairs panels.

They say anything can happen in a low-turnout special election. And on January 28, voters in Iowa Senate district 35 elected Democrat Mike Zimmer to represent them through the end of 2026. Zimmer defeated Republican nominee Katie Whittington by 4,812 votes to 4,473 (51.7 percent to 48.1 percent), according to unofficial results.

Most Iowa political observers expected Republicans to hold the seat easily. Former State Senator Chris Cournoyer was re-elected in this district with about 61 percent of the vote in 2022. (She resigned from the legislature to become Iowa’s lieutenant governor last month.) In the most recent general election, voters living in Senate district 35 preferred Donald Trump to Kamala Harris by a 21-point margin, and preferred GOP incumbent Mariannette Miller-Meeks over Democratic challenger Christina Bohannan by a 9-point margin. The GOP has a voter registration advantage too.

Yet Zimmer performed well in every part of Senate district 35. He carried Clinton County, where most of his constituents live, by 3,411 votes to 3,169 (51.7 percent to 48.0 percent). Trump won that formerly blue county in November with 58.5 percent of the vote to 39.7 percent for Harris.

The Democrat carried the Jackson County precincts by 555 votes to 446 for Whittington (55.4 percent to 44.6 percent). Voters in the same area favored Trump by 60.3 percent to 38.2 percent in November, according to Bleeding Heartland’s analysis of the precinct-level results.

Also impressive: Zimmer nearly matched his opponent in the Scott County portion of the district, gaining 846 votes to 858 for Whittington (49.6 percent to 50.3 percent). Trump’s advantage over Harris in the same precincts: 64.2 percent to 34.1 percent.

How did the Democrat pull it off?

The U.S. Supreme Court declined last week to hear former U.S. Representative Steve King’s appeal in a case stemming from his Congressional campaign’s unauthorized use of the popular “Success Kid” meme in 2020.

SHORT-LIVED POST LED TO LONG LEGAL BATTLE

Laney Griner took the photo of her son Sam on a beach in 2007 and registered the copyright for the “Success Kid” meme in 2012. While numerous people have used the image to create memes without compensating the Griners, various corporations have paid to license the photo for use in advertising.

A January 2020 post on the King for Congress Facebook page put Sam’s defiant image in front of the U.S. Capitol with the message “FUND OUR MEMES!!!” The post linked to a fundraising page.

King’s campaign took the “Success Kid” Facebook post down within hours after receiving a warning from Griner’s attorney. Griner told the New York Times at the time, “Steve King is just the worst of the worst,” and “bigotry is just the antithesis of what we want to be the association with this meme.”

Governor Kim Reynolds hasn’t faced an opponent in a Republican primary since 2008, when she ran for state Senate. But if she seeks a third term in 2026, she will likely compete against a challenger from the right: former State Representative Brad Sherman.

The Iowa Standard reported last month that Sherman intends to run for governor. Speaking to Bleeding Heartland at the state capitol on January 23, Sherman declined to discuss specifics but indicated he has a campaign kickoff planned for February.

His campaign Facebook page was recently updated after a stretch of 21 months with no new posts. His refreshed campaign website is recruiting volunteers to “spread the word about the upcoming primary.” His latest campaign financial disclosure shows no fundraising for the first eleven months of 2024—when Sherman wasn’t seeking re-election to the state House—followed by ten donations totaling $4,030 in December. That month, the campaign committee paid $6,000 to a Republican consulting firm.

To put it mildly, Sherman would face long odds against Reynolds. The governor’s campaign raised $1.8 million last year and started 2025 with more than $3 million cash on hand. Reynolds would have massive establishment support—not only in state, but from the Republican Governors Association, where her former chief of staff serves as executive director. In addition, Iowans are famous for re-electing incumbents.

On the other hand, a sizeable number of Iowa Republicans are open to anti-establishment candidates. Then State Senator Jim Carlin ran for U.S. Senate on a shoestring budget but received 26.5 percent of the 2022 primary vote against Senator Chuck Grassley. Last year, Kevin Virgil received nearly 40 percent of the vote against U.S. Representative Randy Feenstra, and David Pautsch managed just under 44 percent against U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks, even though both members of Congress massively outspent their GOP challengers.

Four groups would be particularly important for Sherman if he seeks the nomination for governor next year.

John Morrissey is a freelance writer in Des Moines.

State Senator Michael Bousselot’s proposal that Iowa purchase the lower tier of counties in Minnesota sounds comical, at first blush. But President Donald Trump’s rumblings about purchasing Greenland and taking back the Panama Canal, along with observations about the artificiality of sovereign boundaries, may indicate a serious purpose.

Is there some partisan political mischief behind this proposal? And what sort of political goods are on offer that might make this worth pursuing?

Randy Richardson is a former educator and retired associate executive director of the Iowa State Education Association.

At long last the Iowa Department of Education released school enrollment numbers for the current school year on January 17. Public school enrollment took another dip this year as a total of 480,665 students attended Iowa schools. That’s a decrease of 3033.3 students from the previous year. Private schools, however, continued their growth with a total of 39,356 students. That’s an increase of 3,144 students or 8.7 percent from the previous year.

For years, private school enrollment decreased statewide. Since “Education Savings Accounts” (more commonly known as vouchers) have become widely available, that trend had reversed. Not only has enrollment increased, but more private schools have been opening statewide. This year saw an additional 21 accredited private schools open, bringing the total number of private schools to 211. Almost 80 percent of all private schools in the state saw enrollment gains. Compare that to public schools where only 36 percent saw an increase in enrollment.

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

Governor Terry Branstad was frustrated eight years ago with what he believed was the inability of officials to tell the public why a government employee was fired or resigned under pressure.

In 2017, the first year of the Republican trifecta, Branstad shepherded through the legislature a bill overhauling public sector collective bargaining, which also included important new language in the public records law. It brought needed transparency and accountability to state and local government. No longer would “no comment” be an acceptable response when a journalist or interested citizen asked why the school superintendent, or a local police officer, or some other government employee was pushed out.

But a case now pending before the Iowa Public Information Board has the potential to reinforce Branstad’s and the legislature’s wisdom — or to weaken this important tool.

At least ten Iowans are among some 1,500 people President Donald Trump pardoned on his first day back in the White House. The sweeping proclamation affects everyone convicted of offenses related to the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Most of them will receive a “full, complete and unconditional pardon.” Fourteen named individuals, who were leaders of the extremist groups Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, will have their sentences commuted to time served.

Speaking from the Oval Office, Trump characterized those charged with January 6 offenses as “hostages,” a term he periodically used on the campaign trail last year.

Ten Iowans have been charged in connection with the January 6 events, William Morris and Brian Smith reported for the Des Moines Register earlier this month. Two have been serving years-long prison terms but will soon be released, in accordance with Trump’s pardons:

What had been obvious for weeks became official on January 14. Hours after Pete Hegseth’s confirmation hearing in the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Joni Ernst announced in an interview with WHO Radio’s Simon Conway and later in a news release that she would vote to confirm President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of defense.

It never seemed likely Ernst would stand in Hegseth’s way. However, she had suggested in early December that he needed a “thorough vetting,” and she wasn’t ready to commit. Facing a barrage of attacks from conservative influencers and threats of a 2026 GOP primary challenge, the senator quickly changed her tune, saying in a statement, “As I support Pete through this process, I look forward to a fair hearing based on truth, not anonymous sources.”

In the end, Ernst conducted a selective search for the truth about Hegseth. She discounted facts that raised doubts about his fitness while playing up a testimonial from someone with a stake in the outcome.

Her approach was quite different in 2019, when she considered a controversial Trump nominee for another military role—in the absence of any coordinated effort to influence her decision.

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson caused some angst in the House Republican caucus this week when he removed Representative Mike Turner as chair of the Intelligence Committee, supposedly due to “concerns from Mar-a-Lago,” among other considerations. But there were no unpleasant surprises for Iowa’s delegation as committee assignments were finalized for the 119th Congress.

The Iowans rank low in seniority among House Republicans, with Representative Zach Nunn (IA-03) beginning his second term, and Representatives Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-01), Ashley Hinson (IA-02), and Randy Feenstra (IA-04) each starting their third terms. Nevertheless, all will continue to serve on influential panels.

Senator Chuck Grassley is the longest-serving U.S. senator in Iowa history and among the ten longest-serving members of Congress from any state. He returned this month to two prominent roles as chair of the Judiciary Committee and Senate President pro tempore—the third in line for the presidency after the vice president and U.S. House speaker. Meanwhile, Senator Joni Ernst now chairs a committee for the first time.

One of the biggest spenders on behalf of U.S. House Democrats launched digital advertising this week targeting U.S. Representatives Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn in Iowa’s first and third Congressional districts. The ads, enclosed in full below, claim the GOP incumbents “could cost you more,” because they support President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for health and human services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

The House Majority PAC’s 501(c)4 affiliate, House Majority Forward, is funding the 30-second spots, part of a $10 million campaign targeting nine potentially vulnerable House Republicans.

The Cedar Rapids Gazette and Dubuque Telegraph-Herald will switch next month to printing the paper only three days a week.

A January 14 email to subscribers from president Kelly Homewood and executive editor Zack Kucharski said that effective February 17, the Gazette will print editions on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays, rather than the current seven days a week. Telegraph-Herald publisher Mike Fortman wrote in a January 12 column that beginning February 15, the newspaper will move from its current six-day print schedule to printing on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays.

Leaders of both newspapers pointed to economic realities as they explained the decision.

Wally Taylor is the Legal Chair of the Sierra Club Iowa chapter.

For the first time, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has overruled the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) on the state’s impaired waters list.

Pam Mackey Taylor, director of the Iowa Chapter of Sierra Club, explained in a Bleeding Heartland post from November that last year, the EPA objected to the impaired waters list the DNR submitted. The EPA added seven segments in the Cedar, Des Moines, Iowa, Raccoon, and South Skunk Rivers to the list, because DNR staff had not used all existing and readily available water quality data. The DNR had refused to add these seven segments during the preparation of the list, even after the EPA told them the omission of those segments would not be approved.

Before Sierra Club and two other ad hoc groups filed a lawsuit in 2000, Iowa had never prepared an impaired waters list, even though the federal Clean Water Act required the state to do so. As a result of that lawsuit, EPA created Iowa’s first impaired waters list. But the federal agency had not overruled the DNR’s submission of the state’s impaired waters list until last year.

Thirteenth in a series interpreting the results of Iowa’s 2024 state and federal elections.

When the Iowa legislature reconvenes in Des Moines on January 13, fifteen state House members and six state senators will be sworn in for the first time. But one of them is marking more than a personal milestone.

Aime Wichtendahl will make history as Iowa’s first transgender state lawmaker. She starts her new job as a Democrat outnumbered by the largest GOP majority in the Iowa House since 1970. Not only that: House Republicans have recently approved or considered numerous bills that would discriminate against LGBTQ people broadly and transgender Iowans in particular. Wichtendahl has spoken against those bills in subcommittee meetings and at rallies.

Iowa’s first trans legislator spoke to Bleeding Heartland in November and December about her campaign, takeaways from the 2024 elections, and plans for legislative work.

A year-end review from U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley’s office boasted that the senator’s oversight “touched on 97% of all taxpayer-funded agencies” during 2024. “Nearly every corner of government received Grassley’s thorough inspection – it’s all part of Grassley’s constant efforts to ensure the government is a service to the American people,” the report added.

One area that escaped Grassley’s “thorough inspection” was the collapse of bribery allegations against President Joe Biden and Hunter Biden. For months in 2023, Grassley publicized an FBI informant’s explosive claims about the Bidens.

But he’s had nothing to say since Alexander Smirnov, the original source of those allegations, pleaded guilty in December to making up the whole story.

Cami Koons covers agriculture and the environment for Iowa Capital Dispatch, where this article first appeared.

Iowa counties can have their own review on proposed animal feeding operation permits if they adopt a construction evaluation resolution and submit it to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources by the end of January each year. 

But not all counties are taking this step, giving up the ability to have a say in the permitting process.

The resolutions allow counties to submit formal recommendations to DNR, send county officials to the DNR inspections of a site, appeal a DNR decision on a construction permit, and implement more stringent construction requirements through the state master matrix.

The nonprofit Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) announced on January 7 that it will defend longtime Iowa Poll director J. Ann Selzer at no charge in the lawsuit Donald Trump filed last month. Trump sued Selzer, her polling company, the Des Moines Register, and its parent company Gannett over the final pre-election Iowa Poll, which showed Vice President Kamala Harris leading Trump by 3 points. The Republican later carried Iowa by a 13-point margin.

FIRE’s chief counsel Bob Corn-Revere said in a news release, “Punishing someone for their political prediction is about as unconstitutional as it gets,” adding, “This is America. No one should be afraid to predict the outcome of an election. Whether it’s from a pollster, or you, or me, such political expression is fully and unequivocally protected by the First Amendment.”

One of President-elect Donald Trump’s top advisers on judicial and legal matters stepped away from a University of Iowa alumni advisory board late last year. Mike Davis has long been an aggressive Trump ally, known for his “combative presence on right-wing media.” Some of his posts on the X/Twitter platform prompted calls in November for the university to remove him from the political science department’s alumni advisory board. But in a statement provided last month, Davis said, “With President Trump’s victory on November 5th, I will not have the necessary bandwidth to serve on this important volunteer board, so I decided on my own to step down.”

The Article III Project, which Davis leads as founding president, told Bleeding Heartland that no one from the university asked Davis to resign from the advisory board or take down any of his social media posts.

Communications staff for the University of Iowa declined to comment on the situation. Professor Brian Lai, the interim department chair listed as the point of contact for the alumni advisory board, did not respond to inquiries.

UPDATE: Zimmer won the special election. You can read about how he did it here. Original post follows.

Both major parties have selected their nominees for the January 28 special election to in Iowa Senate district 35. Central DeWitt school board president Mike Zimmer was unopposed at the Democratic Party’s special nominating convention on December 30. Clinton County activist Katie Whittington prevailed in a three-way competition at the GOP special convention on January 4.

Iowa House Republican Tom Determann, who has represented House district 69 (the Clinton area) since 2023, and Clinton County farmer Dennis Campbell also competed for the GOP nomination.

Whittington has never held elective office but has volunteered for various causes locally, including Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. She describes herself as a “health freedom advocate” and has been active with the anti-vaccine organizations Children’s Health Defense and Health Freedom Iowa, for which she has served as vice president.

“You suck, Joni! That’s just the nicest way I can summarize how we’re all feeling about your reign so far,” says Joshua Smith in the first digital ad promoting his Republican campaign for Iowa’s U.S. Senate seat.

The video previews what will be an aggressive campaign by Senator Joni Ernst’s 2026 primary challenger from the right.

State Auditor Rob Sand has urged members of the Iowa Democratic Party’s governing body to give Rita Hart another term as state chair. In a January 1 message to State Central Committee members (enclosed in full below), Sand credited Hart with getting the party out of debt and raising enough money to fund full-time communications, finance, and data staff.

He also asserted that Iowa was “more GOP than the rest of the country in 2022, then more Dem than the rest of the country in 2024.” I believe he meant to say that the swing toward Donald Trump in Iowa was (slightly) less than the national swing toward Trump this year. Iowa’s voting patterns are clearly not “more Dem” than the U.S. as a whole; the president-elect won the popular vote by about 1.5 points nationally but by 13.2 points in Iowa.

Sand pushed back against what he called “inaccurate info about the party’s performance” and Hart. In particular, he defended the party’s decision to send fewer absentee ballot request forms to voters this year than in past election cycles, saying Republican-backed changes to Iowa law made it more risky to push voting by mail and wiser to invest in other programs.

He appeared to be referring to a recent Substack post by Robert Leonard, which faulted the Iowa Democratic Party for “lost opportunities” during the 2024 election cycle. Leonard wrote, “One Democratic legislator tells me that normally Iowa Democrats send out approximately 250,000 absentee ballot request forms and this year only 40,000 were sent.” It’s important to remember that the state party was not the only entity pushing early GOTV. For example, the Polk County Democrats distributed an estimated 190,000 absentee ballot request forms to around 95,000 households in late August and early September.

Sand asked members of the governing body to unite behind Hart and her “Forward Victory: 2026” plan, saying it would be “positive change for the IDP” to keep a chair for more than one term. Since Michael Kiernan stepped down for health reasons in 2010, nine people have led the party: Sue Dvorsky, Tyler Olson, Scott Brennan, Andy McGuire, Derek Eadon, Troy Price, Mark Smith, Ross Wilburn, and Hart.

The Iowa Democratic Party’s State Central Committee will meet on January 4 to elect a new chair. Three candidates are expected to be nominated: Hart, Tim Winter, and Alexandra Nickolas-Dermody. Dexter Merschbrock announced in December that he was seeking the position but endorsed Nickolas-Dermody this week.

UPDATE: Hart won the election by 38 votes to ten for Winter and one for Nickolas-Dermody. Kim Callahan was also nominated during the January 4 meeting but did not win any votes.

A new nonprofit organization, Mid-Iowa Community News, will soon launch the Ames Voice, a digital newsroom “dedicated to being the primary source of news and information for the Ames area.” Douglas Burns, one of the organizers of the effort, announced in a December 30 post on The Iowa Mercury newsletter that Ames Voice has “been in the works for a year.” Its mission: “local, local, local coverage. Just the facts. Full coverage of life in Story County, home to Ames and Iowa State University.”

Ames is Iowa’s ninth-largest city, with more than 65,000 residents, and home to the Iowa Department of Transportation as well as Iowa’s second-largest state university. Story County is the ninth-largest of the 99 counties, with more than 98,000 residents.

Although the area has long had a newspaper, The Ames Tribune (part of the Gannett group) has eliminated most of its newsroom staff in recent years. The paper now publishes far more content from the Des Moines Register than original reporting.

A years-long effort to expand the federal judiciary faltered this week when President Joe Biden vetoed the Judicial Understaffing Delays Getting Emergencies Solved Act of 2024. The JUDGES Act would have increased the federal district court bench by about 10 percent over the next twelve years, adding 63 new permanent federal judgeships in thirteen states, along with three temporary judgeships in Oklahoma. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa was slated to receive one of the first eleven positions to be created in 2025.

The veto leaves Iowa’s Northern District with two District Court judges (Chief Judge C.J. Williams and Judge Leonard T. Strand), along with Senior Judge Linda R. Reade and two magistrate judges. That number hasn’t changed since 1990, when the last major expansion of the federal bench allocated a third judgeship to Iowa’s Southern District. The 1990 law also assigned a judge who had previously divided his time between the state’s two districts to the Northern District on a permanent basis.

Biden may not have the last word on this subject, given the Republican Party’s commitment to putting more conservatives on the bench.

UPDATE: Zimmer won the special election. You can read about how he did it here. Original post follows.

Central DeWitt School Board president Mike Zimmer announced on December 23 that he will seek the Democratic nomination in Iowa Senate district 35, where voters will choose a successor to Lieutenant Governor Chris Cournoyer on January 28. In a statement enclosed in full below, Zimmer promised to “champion Eastern Iowa’s public schools, working families, and our middle class” by fighting for “stronger public schools, better wages, and opportunities that foster real financial stability.”

According to a guide from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office, candidates have until 5:00 PM on January 14 to file nominating papers with the secretary of state. Before then, Democrats and Republicans will hold nominating conventions, where delegates from the 36 precincts across the Senate district will choose a nominee. Third-party or independent candidates need to collect at least 100 signatures from eligible voters residing in the district, and submit those petitions with their nominating papers.

While others could compete for the Democratic nomination at the special convention, Zimmer’s proven electoral track record would give him an advantage.

Chris Gloninger is a meteorologist and climate communicator with 18 years of broadcast experience, AMS dual certifications, and a master’s in Emergency Management, specializing in making complex climate topics accessible. He first published this essay on his newsletter, Weathering Climate Change.

As 2024 comes to a close, it’s clear something extraordinary—and unsettling—has been happening in Des Moines. With just five days to go, the city is tied for the second warmest year on record. Highs in the 40s and lows in the 20s ensured the year would cement its place in the top three warmest years since record keeping began in 1879. But this isn’t just a story of numbers; it’s a narrative about change—rapid, undeniable, and deeply concerning.

Weather records in Des Moines stretch back nearly 150 years, offering a rich tapestry of data that helps to understand long-term climate trends. In a stable climate, one might expect the warmest years to be evenly distributed across time—half occurring before 1951 and half after. But that’s not what’s happening. Of the top ten warmest years in Des Moines, seven have occurred since 1951. Even more telling, six of those years have happened since 2010. That’s not just a trend—it’s a flashing red warning light.

Charles Gaba is a health care policy wonk, advocate, and blogger who mixes data analysis with snark at ACASignups.net, where this article first appeared. You can follow him on Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, Spoutible, or X/Twitter.

In early 2021, Democrats in Congress passed and President Joe Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), which among other things dramatically expanded and enhanced the original premium subsidy formula of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The changes brought the financial aid sliding income scale up to the level it should have been in the first place more than a decade earlier.

In addition to beefing up the subsidies along the entire 100 percent to 400 percent of Federal Poverty Level income scale, the ARPA also eliminated the much-maligned “Subsidy Cliff” at 400 percent of the Federal Poverty Level. Before 2021, a household earning even $1 more than that amount had all premium subsidies cut off immediately, requiring middle-class families to pay full price for individual market health insurance policies.

COMPARING THE ORIGINAL ACA SUBSIDIES WITH ENHANCED SUBSIDIES

Here’s what the original ACA premium subsidy formula looked like compared to the current, enhanced subsidy formula:

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

When it comes to freedom of religion and the rights enshrined in the 45 words of the First Amendment, the devil is in the details in Iowa.

Governor Kim Reynolds’ administration recently revoked permission for the Satanic Temple of Iowa to place a display in the state capitol and host a holiday celebration around it. The Department of Administrative Services and governor’s office claimed the event would harm minors.

A year ago, the governor took the opposite stance on the Satanic Temple’s holiday display. Although she said it was “absolutely objectionable,” she explained in 2023 why the display was allowed: “In a free society, the best response to objectionable speech is more speech, and I encourage all those of faith to join me in praying over the Capitol and recognizing the nativity scene that will be on display.”

They were so close.

After weeks of negotiations, U.S. House and Senate leaders had agreed on a year-end spending bill that would fund the federal government through March 14, extend the 2018 Farm Bill through next September, and provide more than $100 billion in disaster aid. The legislation included numerous other policies, including at least two that had been priorities for Iowa’s members of Congress. The bill would have legalized year-round sales of higher ethanol blends known as E-15 in all states. It also contained new regulations for pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), which could have saved consumers billions while helping small pharmacies.

All of the Iowans in Congress have talked up E-15 as a path to U.S. energy independence. (In reality, only about 3,400 of some 198,000 gas stations across the country dispense higher ethanol blends.) Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-01) and Senator Chuck Grassley have been among the most vocal proponents of PBM reform, calling for action on prescription drug middlemen in draft bills, press releases, news conferences, House and Senate hearings, floor speeches, and taxpayer-funded radio ads.

Little did they know that President-elect Donald Trump and his billionaire buddy Elon Musk were about to blow up the deal.

Iowa’s all-Republican delegation voted the same way on almost every bill that came before both chambers during the 118th Congress, which wrapped up its work in the early hours of December 21. But one of the last bills sent to President Joe Biden, the Social Security Fairness Act, revealed an unusual disagreement among the Iowans serving in the U.S. House and Senate.

When the House approved the bill by 327 votes to 75 in November, U.S. Representatives Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-01), Ashley Hinson (IA-02), Zach Nunn (IA-03), and Randy Feenstra (IA-04) were part of the bipartisan majority.

When the Senate passed the bill by 76 votes to 20 shortly after midnight on December 21, Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst were among the 20 Republicans who voted no.

The Iowans’ comments on the Social Security Fairness Act illustrate how differently politicians with similar ideologies can view a complex public policy fix.