Secretary of State Paul Pate often uses the #BeAVoter hashtag and has repeatedly claimed that he works to make it “easy to vote and hard to cheat” in Iowa.

Since the June 7 primary election, Pate has spun the numbers as if they reflected a trend toward greater participation. In reality, this year’s primary turnout was way down compared to 2020, when Pate genuinely tried to make it easier for Iowans to vote during a pandemic.

People of color and Iowans who identify as part of the LGBTQ community are on track to hold more seats in the state House and Senate next year, based on results from the June 7 primary elections.

The Democratic nominees include candidates who would add to the legislature’s diversity in other ways as well.

The establishment candidate should have focused more on the Iowa Republican primary for state auditor.

Unofficial returns from the June 7 election show Mary Ann Hanusa received 79,875 votes (48.8 percent) to 83,843 votes (51.2 percent) for Todd Halbur. The result shocked me, since Hanusa had the public backing of the governor, most of Iowa’s Congressional delegation, and many state legislators, whereas Halbur was virtually unknown when he filed nominating papers in March.

But Hanusa did little to reach Republicans who turned out in large numbers this week, due to the many competitive legislative primaries around the state.

Retired Admiral Mike Franken decisively won the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate on June 7, taking about 55 percent of the vote to 40 percent for former U.S. Representative Abby Finkenauer and just under 5 percent for Dr. Glenn Hurst.

The nominee will face Senator Chuck Grassley, who defeated GOP challenger Jim Carlin by 73.5 percent to 26.5 percent.

While Franken appeared to have momentum in recent weeks, Iowa politics watchers weren’t expecting this margin of victory in the Senate race. Several factors were working in the winner’s favor and against Finkenauer as the primary approached.

Former President Donald Trump announced on June 5 that four Iowa Republican incumbents who are up for re-election in 2022 have his “Complete and Total Endorsement!”

U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks was missing from the list.

UPDATE: I’ve added unofficial results for each race.

Iowa Democrats have more competitive state legislative primaries in 2022 than in a typical election cycle. That’s partly because quite a few House and Senate members are retiring, and partly because the redistricting plan adopted in 2021 created some legislative districts with no incumbents.

In most of the races discussed below, the winner of the primary is very likely to prevail in November. However, a few of the districts could be targeted by one or both parties in the general election.

All data on past election performance in these districts comes from the Iowa House and Senate maps Josh Hughes created in Dave’s Redistricting App. Fundraising numbers are taken from the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board’s database.

This post is not an exhaustive account of all contested Democratic primaries for state legislative offices. You can find the full primary candidate list here.

Staff for U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley have again denied the senator was recruited to derail the electoral college count on January 6, 2021.

Politico was first to report on the memo released last week by the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 coup attempt. The December 13, 2020 email from Kenneth Chesebro to Rudy Giuliani shows Republicans plotting to keep Donald Trump in power wanted “Chuck Grassley or another senior Republican” to preside over counting the electoral college votes. The plan envisioned that the presiding official would refuse to count votes from Arizona, citing supposed “irregularities” and two slates of electors.

The vice president typically presides over the electoral college count in the Senate. But as Senate president pro tempore, Grassley would have been the default choice to lead the session if Vice President Mike Pence had been absent or recused himself.

Dominica Borg is perpetually enamored with the Midwest’s landscapes, people, and wind driven weather. Their interests are food, farming, conservation, small business, and equal rights.

Supporters of Fairfield’s second annual Pride Month gathered at City Hall an hour before the May 23 city council meeting. By the time Mayor Connie Boyer arrived, a large circle had formed. The mayor greeted the group and stepped in with a smile, confirming she had the proclamation and would read it.

Once City Hall was unlocked, the meeting room filled quickly. All available chairs were brought out until the room was at maximum capacity.

Carl Olsen is the founder of Iowans for Medical Marijuana.

If you have travel plans this summer, you might want to consider a route that avoids Iowa.  Last week, the Iowa Supreme Court denied protection for an out-of-state medical marijuana patient.

William Morris covered the ruling for the Des Moines Register, and Paul Brennan wrote about it at Little Village.

After reading the 4-3 majority opinion in State v. Middlekauff, I felt something seemed amiss. 

Iowa’s health and human services budget for the coming fiscal year includes a $500,000 appropriation for a new “maternal health” initiative modeled on an ineffective, wasteful Texas program.

But the bill, negotiated by House and Senate Republicans and approved on party-line votes in both chambers May 23, does not extend postpartum coverage for Iowans on Medicaid, a documented way to reduce maternal mortality.

After a hectic two days at the capitol, the Iowa House and Senate finished their work for the year shortly after midnight on May 25.

In the coming days, Bleeding Heartland will cover some of the final bills in detail. As usual, there were a few surprises in the “standings” bill, such as a provision expanding open enrollment from public schools. While Democrats opposed many bills sent to Governor Kim Reynolds this week, including a ban on COVID-19 vaccine requirements for schools or child care centers, they welcomed one of the last-minute proposals, which exempts diapers and period products from Iowa’s sales tax.

This piece will focus on bills that didn’t make it through, despite a push from Reynolds or top Republican lawmakers.

I anticipate future legislative battles over most if not all of these proposals. Earlier this year, the governor signed into law two priority items that failed to advance in 2021: a measure banning transgender Iowans from girls’ and women’s sports, and deep cuts to unemployment benefits.

Iowa Republican lawmakers gave anti-vaccine forces a parting gift on what may be the final day of the 2022 legislative session. On a party-line vote of 29 to 16, the Senate approved a ban on COVID-19 vaccination requirements for young children in day care or students at any level of education.

House members approved House File 2298 in February, and the bill made it through the Senate Judiciary Committee in time for the legislature’s second “funnel” deadline. It had languished on the “unfinished business” calendar for two months as House and Senate leaders negotiated behind the scenes on various unresolved issues.

Iowa lawmakers have amended the state’s recycling law for the first time since its passage in 1978. Senate File 2378 changes what is commonly known as the “bottle bill” in ways that will please beverage distributors, retailers, and redemption centers.

In a mostly party-line vote on May 23, the Iowa Senate concurred with the version of the bill House members approved last month. Governor Kim Reynolds has not publicly commented on the proposal but is expected to sign it into law.

Legislators who voted against the bill warned that it would harm consumers and reduce recycling.

The Russian Federation’s Foreign Ministry announced on May 21 that it was expanding the list of U.S. citizens who are permanently banned from entering Russia.

In addition to President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and other Biden administration officials, Russia has sanctioned hundreds of members of Congress. All four Iowans who serve in the U.S. House were on the initial sanctions list, which Russia released last month. The expanded “stop list” also includes U.S. Senator Joni Ernst, who welcomed the news.

Iowa’s senior Senator Chuck Grassley is absent from Russia’s updated list. His communications staff did not respond to Bleeding Heartland’s inquiry about the matter.

Clinton County Auditor Eric Van Lancker has outpaced Linn County Auditor Joel Miller in fundraising ahead of this year’s only competitive Democratic primary for an Iowa statewide office.

The gap has allowed Van Lancker to spend substantially more to raise his name ID ahead of the June 7 election.

Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig will take a big financial advantage into the general election, new campaign disclosures show. Although the GOP incumbent didn’t raise much more than Democratic challenger John Norwood during the latest reporting period, he has about ten times more cash on hand.

State Auditor Rob Sand has far outpaced his two challengers in fundraising, the latest campaign finance disclosures show. The Democrat’s re-election campaign is on track to greatly outspend the GOP nominee, unless some other Republican organization comes to the rescue.

Dr. Brian Campbell is Executive Director of the Iowa Environmental Council and a member of the Des Moines Citizen Task Force on Sustainability.

I joined the Des Moines Citizens Task Force on Sustainability in 2017. Formed in the wake of the Paris Climate Agreement, this small, dedicated group of volunteers have worked with the city on important sustainability initiatives over the years, including the city’s 2021 resolution committing to 24/7 clean energy by 2035.

It’s hard to overstate how important MidAmerican Energy is to achieving this goal, with 50 percent of Des Moines’ greenhouse gas emissions from electricity and another 25 percent from natural gas—all supplied by MidAmerican. Although the utility has made significant investments in wind energy in Iowa, it remains the state’s largest climate polluter by operating five coal plants.

Republican State Senator Tim Kraayenbrink spread a notorious hoax about litter boxes in schools at a public forum on May 7. For days, he declined to apologize for his error or for his false claim that the media cover up the non-existent practice.

Seven superintendents in Kraayenbrink’s district told Bleeding Heartland the senator has never contacted them regarding the rumor.

Iowa’s State Judicial Nominating Commission is accepting applications to replace the longest-serving current Iowa Supreme Court justice.

Justice Brent Appel, who has served on the court since October 2006, will step down on July 13, when he reaches the mandatory retirement age of 72. Since Justice David Wiggins retired in early 2020, Appel has been the only one of the seven justices appointed by a Democratic governor.

A Polk County District Court has rejected Governor Kim Reynolds’ attempt to have an open records lawsuit tossed without being considered on the merits. It was the third time in the past five months that a court denied the state’s motion to dismiss a suit claiming the Reynolds administration violated Iowa’s open records law.

I am among the plaintiffs who sued the governor and some of her staff in December over five unfulfilled requests I had submitted to her office, two requests submitted by Clark Kauffman of Iowa Capital Dispatch, and one request submitted by Randy Evans of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council.

About three weeks after the ACLU of Iowa filed the lawsuit on our behalf, the governor’s office provided most of the records we had requested (in some cases more than a year earlier). The state’s attorneys then sought to have the case dismissed as moot.

Governor Kim Reynolds has depicted her “Student First Scholarship” plan, which would divert some public funds to private schools, as a way to help lower-income Iowans. She told reporters in March that giving parents “the choice in their child’s education” should not “only be available to individuals who have the resources to do it. That is fundamentally wrong.”

But Republican State Senator Brad Zaun acknowledged in his latest newsletter that state funds could pay “almost the full cost” of college for well-off families that stockpile “scholarship” money while paying for their kids’ K-12 private school education.

Iowa Republicans may be able to enact a near-total abortion ban soon, depending on how the U.S. Supreme Court and Iowa Supreme Court resolve pending abortion cases.

But the three Democrats hoping to succeed retiring Polk County Attorney John Sarcone have all ruled out charging people for potential crimes related to having or performing an abortion.

The Planned Parenthood affiliate that includes Iowa is preparing for an influx of patients seeking abortions from states where the procedure may soon be banned.

Since 2018, Iowa has been part of Planned Parenthood North Central States, which also provides reproductive health care services in Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Both of the Dakotas have enacted “trigger” laws, which would immediately ban abortion as soon as the U.S. Supreme Court overturns the Roe v. Wade precedent. An effort to pass a similar law in Nebraska failed last month, but proponents have vowed to try again later this year.

Dr. Sarah Traxler, chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood North Central States, told reporters during a May 3 news conference that the organization’s regional and national leaders have long “been planning for this worst-case scenario.”

She promised, “We’re going to be here for the long haul, and we’re going to fight to make sure that this is accessible to everybody.”

More than four months after the usual publication date of December 31, Iowa’s Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR) for the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2021 is nowhere in sight.

It’s the second straight year that the detailed report on state finances is far behind schedule. The ACFR must be completed before many other annual audits of state government entities can be conducted.

For decades, Iowa routinely published the report within six months of the end of the previous fiscal year. That time frame earned the state a Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting from the leading organization for government finance officers.

CAUSE OF DELAY STILL UNCLEAR

The report for fiscal year 2020 was delayed for about nine months, mostly because of accounting problems at Iowa State University. But the university told Bleeding Heartland in January that ISU “submitted all year-end financials, responded to audit questions and completed recommended changes for the final financial statements by Nov. 12, 2021.” That’s only about six weeks after the deadline for most state government entities to send fiscal year-end data to the Iowa Department of Administrative Services.

Democratic candidates for U.S. House, U.S Senate, and governor were given speaking time at the Iowa Democratic Party’s annual Liberty and Justice Celebration on April 30.

But the party’s three statewide elected officials and candidates for other statewide offices were relegated to pre-recorded videos. Even worse, those videos seemed designed for comic relief, rather than as a way for candidates to connect with hundreds of activists who attended the Des Moines fundraiser.

The missed opportunity was especially regrettable for Joel Miller and Eric Van Lancker, who are competing against each other in the June 7 primary for secretary of state.

Iowa’s human resources agency will not release certain statistics on pending sexual harassment or hostile workplace complaints involving state government employees, Democratic State Senator Janet Petersen revealed this week.

Speaking to fellow senators on April 25, Petersen expressed concern about how many complaints continue to be filed, despite Governor Kim Reynolds’ stated “zero tolerance” policy on harassment.

She said the Department of Administrative Services told her there are 199 pending cases but refused to break down the numbers by type of complaint or class of employee affected. Senators have not even been told whether any of Reynolds’ nominees or appointed agency directors have been the subject of a workplace environment investigation.

Petersen also faulted the DAS for not informing those who initiate cases about the agency’s findings.

The biofuels industry got a big win in the Iowa legislature this week, as the state House and Senate approved a bill requiring most gas stations in the state to dispense a higher ethanol blend known as E15 from at least half of their pumps.

All but a handful of Democratic legislators voted for the bill, and no Democrat spoke against the proposal during Senate or House floor debate.

It was the latest example of how Iowa Democratic politicians have embraced biofuels industry talking points and avoided challenging any policies seen as supporting ethanol.

Iowa House and Senate Republicans have been at an impasse this month, as Senate Republicans refused to advance spending bills in an effort to pressure the House to approve a plan to divert more public education funds to private schools.

But in a sign of progress in backroom negotiations, GOP lawmakers finalized agreements on three bills April 26. The Senate approved the House version of a bill cutting unemployment benefits, while the House passed Senate versions of legislation on child care and an ethanol mandate for gasoline retailers.

Forthcoming Bleeding Heartland posts will cover the child care and ethanol bills.

Republicans in both chambers had agreed on most of the unemployment benefits package in March. The centerpiece of House File 2355 is a proposal Governor Kim Reynolds highlighted during her Condition of the State address in January: reduce the maximum unemployment benefits in one year from 26 weeks to sixteen weeks. The nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency (LSA) estimated the shortened window would reduce payments to jobless Iowans by nearly $69.2 million during fiscal year 2023 and nearly $70.9 million the following year.

Most states provide up to 26 weeks of unemployment benefits, while only a few provide as little as Iowa will after Reynolds signs this bill into law.

President Joe Biden issued three pardons on April 26 and announced commutations for 75 people convicted of nonviolent federal drug offenses.

In a written statement, Biden said he was using his clemency powers during “Second Chance Month” to pardon “three people who have demonstrated their commitment to rehabilitation and are striving every day to give back and contribute to their communities.”

I am also commuting the sentences of 75 people who are serving long sentences for non-violent drug offenses, many of whom have been serving on home confinement during the COVID-pandemic—and many of whom would have received a lower sentence if they were charged with the same offense today, thanks to the bipartisan First Step Act. 

Iowans have “no reasonable expectation of privacy in garbage placed outside of the person’s residence for waste collection in a publicly accessible area,” according to a bill Governor Kim Reynolds signed into law on April 21.

Lawmakers approved Senate File 2296 in response to a June 2021 Iowa Supreme Court ruling, which declared warrantless garbage searches unconstitutional.

Whether the new law can withstand scrutiny is unclear. Attorneys who opposed the bill have pointed out that the legislature and governor cannot override the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the state constitution. But it could be years before a challenge to the law reaches the high court.

Iowa candidates not affiliated with the Republican or Democratic parties will have until August 27 to qualify for the general election ballot, under a recent federal court ruling.

A law enacted in 2019 required third-party and independent candidates to submit nominating papers by the same mid-March filing deadline that applies to Democratic or Republican primary election candidates. But Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Helen Adams ruled the law unconstitutional earlier this month, saying the early deadline “imposes a substantial burden” on the Libertarian Party of Iowa’s rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

Whereas major parties are allowed to nominate candidates after the June primaries, the law forced “non-party political organizations” or independent candidates to collect signatures during the winter months. They also had to recruit all of their candidates “well before the political landscape is fleshed out, before the primary elections in June, before the Political Party candidates are solidified and finalized, before the current election issues are fully developed, and before voters are truly engaged in the election process,” the court determined.

Bleeding Heartland’s review of recent candidate filings indicated that fewer third-party candidates seeking state or federal offices qualified for the ballot after the 2019 law went into effect. No independent candidates filed for statewide or federal offices before this year’s March filing deadline. The Libertarian Party of Iowa fielded a ticket for governor and lieutenant governor, but no candidates for other statewide offices or for U.S. House or Senate.

A brief the state submitted to the federal court this week acknowledged that since the March deadline has been declared unconstitutional, “the filing deadline that existed prior to the 2019 amendments remains in force.” Under that version of the code section, independent or third-party candidates running for state or federal offices must submit nominating papers to the Iowa Secretary of State’s office “not more than ninety-nine days nor later than 5:00 p.m. on the seventy-third day before the date of the general election to be held in November.”

By my calculation, that sets this year’s filing window from August 1 through August 26. (Communications staff for the Secretary of State’s office did not respond to an inquiry.) UPDATE: The Secretary of State’s office later published a document showing the filing period would run through August 27.

Nearly fifteen years after state legislators and Governor Chet Culver added sexual orientation and gender identity to the Iowa Civil Rights Act, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled on the first employment discrimination lawsuit brought by a transgender Iowan.

On April 1 the seven justices unanimously upheld a Polk County jury verdict, which found that the Iowa Department of Corrections unlawfully discriminated against plaintiff Jesse Vroegh. Superiors refused to allow Vroegh to use male restrooms and locker rooms when he worked as a nurse at the Iowa Correctional Institute for Women.

The court also upheld the jury’s finding that the state discriminated against Vroegh by refusing to cover gender-affirming “top” surgery, even though the state’s insurance plan would have covered a double mastectomy for a medical need not related to gender identity.

But breaking with the U.S. Supreme Court, six Iowa Supreme Court justices determined that gender identity discrimination did not also constitute discrimination against Vroegh on the basis of sex.

“Happy #Passover to all those celebrating,” Governor Kim Reynolds tweeted on the evening of April 15, as one of the most important Jewish holidays began.

The attached image was comically ill-suited for that greeting.

U.S. Senate candidate Abby Finkenauer avoided disaster when the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously ruled on April 15 that she should appear on the Democratic primary ballot.

But the five justices who joined the majority opinion signaled they weren’t pleased by how Finkenauer criticized the District Court judge who had reached the opposite conclusion.

The Iowa Supreme Court surprised many in the political and legal worlds on April 15 with a unanimous judgment reinstating U.S. Senate candidate Abby Finkenauer to the Democratic primary ballot.

Five justices resolved an apparent contradiction between two parts of Iowa’s election law by saying an incorrect or missing date is not a valid reason for not counting a signature on a candidate’s petition. They reversed a Polk County District Court, which days earlier reached the opposite conclusion: that an undated signature cannot be counted, and therefore Finkenauer did not qualify for the ballot.

Two justices concurred with the outcome of reversing the lower court but did not explain their reasoning.

The result was a big loss for Republican plaintiffs who challenged the State Objection Panel’s decision to let three disputed signatures on Finkenauer’s petitions stand. It’s also an embarrassment for Republican legislators who moved last year to limit the panel’s discretion.

By deciding this case on narrow grounds, the Iowa Supreme Court left some big legal questions to be adjudicated another election year.

A federal judge has ruled that Iowa’s early filing deadline for third-party candidates “imposes a substantial burden” on the Libertarian Party of Iowa’s rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

Iowa legislators changed the state’s election law in 2019 to require independent candidates or those affiliated with a non-party political organization (like the Libertarian or Green Party) to file nominating papers for state or federal offices by mid-March, the same deadline as for Democrats and Republicans running in primaries.

The Libertarian Party and Jake Porter, the party’s 2018 nominee for governor, filed suit in 2019, saying the change put “heavy burdens” on third parties, and the adverse treatment served no legitimate state interest.

Helen Adams, chief magistrate judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, ruled on April 8 that Iowa’s legal framework places third parties “at a disadvantage” compared to the major parties, and the state’s “articulated interest in effective and equitable administration of election laws” did not justify those burdens.

All four Iowans serving in the U.S. House of Representatives were among 398 members of Congress the Russian Federation sanctioned on April 13. The Russian Foreign Ministry described the move as a reaction to the Biden administration’s sanctions against hundreds of Russian parliamentarians.

U.S. Representatives Ashley Hinson (IA-01), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-02), Cindy Axne (IA-03), and Randy Feenstra (IA-04) have all voted for military assistance to Ukraine in recent weeks. And it’s unlikely any are bothered by the prospect of being denied entry to Russia.

In fact, Hinson tweeted that the sanctions were a “badge of honor,” adding,

A Polk County District Court has handed a big win to Republicans seeking to knock Abby Finkenauer off the Democratic primary ballot for U.S. Senate.

Judge Scott Beattie ruled on April 10 that the State Objection Panel used the wrong legal standard when it counted signatures with missing or incorrect dates. Consequently, the court found, Finkenauer’s campaign “has failed to submit at least 100 signatures from at least 19 counties” as required by Iowa law.

Aside from must-do tasks like adopting a budget for the coming fiscal year, Republican leaders of the Iowa House and Senate hope to secure agreement on a few policy bills before adjournment. The outstanding issues include proposed cuts to unemployment benefits, a plan to divert public education funds to private schools, and changes to Iowa’s can and bottle recycling program.

Another priority for legislative leaders is a bill to shield trucking companies from some kinds of lawsuits and cap damages for other legal claims related to commercial vehicle crashes. The proposal lacked enough support among Iowa House Republicans to advance during the 2021 session, and a revised version produced a rare defeat for House leaders in a floor vote last month.

James Bergert lost his wife Joanna Rizzo and was injured himself in a horrific collision on Interstate 35 last August. He and his wife’s estate filed suit March 18 against the tow truck driver who allegedly caused the crash, as well against the trucking company that driver owns. Bergert and his attorney Erik Luthens spoke to Bleeding Heartland recently about the case and how pending “tort reform” proposals would affect future victims of similar tragedies.