# News



Iowa senators help block January 6 commission

U.S. Senators Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley were among the 35 Republicans who voted on May 28 to block debate on a bill to form a bipartisan commission to investigate the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Since Senate rules require 60 votes for most motions, the 48 Democrats and six Republicans who supported the measure were unable to proceed to debate–even though they made up 61 percent of those present and voting.

Technically, today’s action was the first filibuster Republicans have executed since Democrats took control of the Senate following the January runoff elections in Georgia. However, GOP senators have prevented many other bills from coming to the floor by making clear they would filibuster.

In a written statement enclosed in full below, Grassley said the January 6 events are already being investigated, while Congress has ignored the “broader picture” of riots occurring elsewhere in the U.S. over the past year. (Protests that occurred in various cities last summer are hardly equivalent to an assault instigated by the president with the goal of disrupting the peaceful transfer of power.)

Earlier this week, Grassley told a Bloomberg News reporter he would support a January 6 commission more like the 9/11 commission “because that was a bipartisan commission chaired by people outside the Congress”–which is what the House-approved bill would create.

Ernst has not released a statement on today’s vote, but I will update this post as needed. She told Capitol Hill reporters on May 19 that the commission would not be balanced (despite equal representation for both parties), because of disparities in staffing and salaries. Ernst added, “Here we are five months later. What is the point? It’s turning into a political exercise.”

Continue Reading...

IA-Sen: Rob Sand is out. Is Abby Finkenauer in?

State Auditor Rob Sand told Douglas Burns of the Carroll Times Herald on May 27 that he won’t run for a federal office in 2022.

“I don’t want to be in D.C.; I don’t want to go to D.C.,” Sand told the Times Herald. “Maybe I would be more interested if my kids were out of the house, but they are 4 and 7. But even if my kids were out of the house, that would be a lot less time to hunt and fish. […]”

Continue Reading...

Iowa board approves formal probe of Heritage Action lobbying

The Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board voted on May 26 to authorize a formal staff investigation of possible undisclosed lobbying of Governor Kim Reynolds’ office by the conservative group Heritage Action for America.

The board’s executive director and legal counsel Mike Marshall had been informally investigating the matter after Mother Jones published video of Heritage Action’s executive director bragging about helping to write voter suppression laws in Iowa and other states. Jessica Anderson told donors at a private meeting in April that her group had “worked quietly” with Iowa lawmakers to help draft and support a new election bill, getting it passed with “little fanfare.” But the Washington, DC based organization, which is affiliated with the Heritage Foundation, hadn’t registered a position on the bill or filed reports required of those who lobby state government.

Continue Reading...

Anti-mask, anti-vaccine activist falls short in Johnston council race

Bryan Burkhardt and Adam Haar were the top two vote-getters in a May 25 primary election for a Johnston City Council seat, according to unofficial results posted on the Polk County auditor’s website. Burkhardt and Haar will compete in a June 22 election to serve out the remainder of Scott Syroka’s term. Elected to the council in 2019, Syroka resigned early this year to serve as deputy director of communications in the Biden-Harris administration’s Office of Personnel Management.

Burkhardt, a professor at Des Moines Area Community College, received 682 votes (39.1 percent). Haar, a consultant for Wells Fargo, received 402 votes (23.0 percent). DuPont Pioneer’s associate general counsel Jim Gorsche finished third in the primary with 350 votes (20.1 percent), while Brei Johnson received 311 votes (17.8 percent).

City elections are nonpartisan in Iowa, but Burkhardt and Haar had support from many Democrats in the community. City council member Rhonda Martin endorsed Haar, while former State Representative Karin Derry was engaged in GOTV, urging residents to support either Burkhardt or Haar.

Continue Reading...

Republicans continue to attack Iowa public schools

Randy Richardson reviews the education bills Iowa lawmakers passed during the 2021 session. -promoted by Laura Belin

According to the Republican Party of Iowa’s website, Republicans believe “individuals, not the government, make the best decisions; all people are entitled to equal rights; and decisions are best made close to home.”

While the party may espouse those beliefs, their actions on public education hardly exemplify those statements.

Continue Reading...

Late budget amendment sought funds for no-bid Homeland Security contract

One day before Iowa lawmakers adjourned for the year, the Iowa Senate amended a spending bill to allocate $4.5 million over two years to the Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management for a sole source contract.

The funding to install a mobile panic button system in Iowa’s K-12 schools could only have been used by Rave Mobile Safety, which recently signed a contract with the Homeland Security department to replace Iowa’s emergency mass notification system.

The Iowa House altered the bill to leave the funding in place without an earmark for a specific product. But the last-minute effort raises questions about whether outgoing Homeland Security Director Paul Trombino III sought the funding to benefit a company represented by one of Iowa’s most influential lobbyists.

Continue Reading...

Five terrible bills Iowa Republicans didn't pass in 2021

The Iowa House and Senate adjourned late in the evening on May 19 after finishing most of their work for this year. (Lawmakers will almost certainly come back for a special session to consider new maps of Iowa’s legislative and Congressional districts.)

In the coming days, Bleeding Heartland will closely examine several bills that passed in the late session rush. For now, I want to review the legislation that by some minor miracle didn’t make it to Governor Kim Reynolds’ desk, in spite of support from powerful interests.

All of these bills are likely to return in some form during the 2022 session, so don’t celebrate too soon. House Republicans were unable to pass a “water quality” bill backed by agricultural groups in 2017. But the Iowa Farm Bureau and its allies spent the interim chipping away at the GOP holdouts. The bill sailed through the House early in the 2018 session. The same scenario could play out with any of the proposals discussed below.

Continue Reading...

Hinson was for January 6 commission before she was against it

U.S. Representative Ashley Hinson (IA-01) supported legislation early this year to create an independent commission to investigate the attack on the U.S. Capitol, but voted against a similar bill this week.

Arthur Delaney reported for the Huffington Post on the “big flip-flop” by sixteen House Republicans. Congressional records show Hinson was an original co-sponsor of the bill GOP Representative Rodney Davis introduced on January 12. Delaney explained,

Continue Reading...

Governor rushes to ban local, school mask mandates

Governor Kim Reynolds has 30 days to consider any bills sent to her during the final days of a legislative session, but she could hardly wait 30 seconds to sign one of the bills approved hours before the Iowa House and Senate adjourned for the year.

The governor’s office announced at 12:36 am that Reynolds had signed House File 847, an education bill amended on May 19 to prohibit school districts and local governments from following best practices for slowing the spread of COVID-19.

Moments earlier, Iowa House Speaker Pat Grassley had brought the bill to the governor’s desk.

Continue Reading...

Iowa Republicans split on January 6 commission, Asian hate resolution

The three Republicans now representing Iowa in the U.S. House rarely land on opposite sides in a floor vote. But Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-02) parted ways with most of her GOP colleagues in March by voting to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act.

That wasn’t an isolated incident. Miller-Meeks joined Democrats in two more closely watched House votes on May 19, while Representatives Ashley Hinson (IA-01) and Randy Feenstra (IA-04) stuck with the majority of the Republican caucus.

Continue Reading...

Miller-Meeks fined for refusing to wear mask at Capitol (updated)

U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks is among three Republicans who will be fined $500 for violating the mask mandate on the House floor, Congressional correspondents reported on May 18. Seven more House Republicans received warnings for breaking the same rule. The mask refusers include some on the far-right wing of the GOP caucus: Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Thomas Massie, Chip Roy, and Louie Gohmert.

Under House rules, $500 will be deducted from members’ salaries for a first violation of the mask requirement. A second offense will bring a $2,500 fine.

Miller-Meeks declared on May 14 that the House should set “an example for the rest of the country,” following updated guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control saying fully vaccinated people could safely forgo face coverings in most situations.

Continue Reading...

The angels standing behind survivors of crime

Luana Nelson-Brown is the founder and executive director of the Iowa Coalition for Collective Change. -promoted by Laura Belin

A network of people across the state of Iowa are dedicated to supporting and assisting survivors of violent crime. The job of these violent crime victim advocates, while fulfilling, isn’t easy. 

Most of us may not know what it’s like to experience crime, but we understand that these unexpected events can carry a high cost, mentally, physically, emotionally, and financially. 

Violent crime has always existed, and the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to an increase in violent crime across the nation, with Iowa being no exception. Victim advocates are working harder than ever to ensure that the harm caused to survivors is as minimal as possible. 

Continue Reading...

Iowa regulator investigating DC group's undisclosed lobbying

The Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board is seeking further information on Heritage Action for America‘s efforts to lobby state government. The Associated Press was first to report on May 14 that the agency’s top staffer Mike Marshall asked Heritage Action’s executive director Jessica Anderson for details on her Iowa government contacts.

The previous day, leaked video showed Anderson bragging to Heritage donors that her group had “worked quietly” with Iowa lawmakers to help draft and support a new election bill, getting it passed with “little fanfare.”

Continue Reading...

Data show no clear trend for Iowa suicides during pandemic

While defending her approach to the COVID-19 pandemic last year, Governor Kim Reynolds repeatedly asserted that Iowa was seeing an “uptick” in suicides, and listed suicides among the mental health problems that were “exponentially increasing.”

Preliminary data on Iowa deaths by suicide in 2020 paint a more complex picture. An estimated 557 Iowans took their own lives last year, the highest number recorded in two decades. However, many of the increased deaths occurred during January and February, before COVID-19 was identified in Iowa and well before any restrictions were imposed to slow the spread of the novel virus.

Continue Reading...

Jim Leach joins new GOP reform effort

Jim Leach is among 27 former Republican members of the U.S. House who spoke out this week for changing the GOP in the face of “rising political extremism.” Four former governors, along with several former ambassadors, cabinet secretaries, or Republican Party leaders are also among the 152 people who signed the “Call for American Renewal” published on May 13.

The document cites “the patriotic duty of citizens to act collectively in defense of liberty and justice” when “forces of conspiracy, division, and despotism arise.” The signers “declare our intent to catalyze an American renewal, and to either reimagine a party dedicated to our founding ideals or else hasten the creation of such an alternative.”

Continue Reading...

Iowa Public Health abandons COVID-19 safety in schools

Governor Kim Reynolds told Iowans this week to “lean further into normal,” since “There’s no reason for us to continue to fear COVID-19 any longer.”

Iowa Department of Public Health Director Kelly Garcia obliged with new guidance urging schools and child care providers to “approach COVID-19 like other child illnesses.”

To justify abandoning precautions like mandatory face coverings and quarantines for children exposed to coronavirus, Garcia misrepresented the latest advice from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

Continue Reading...

Key Iowa GOP lawmaker denies DC group helped write election law

A leading Republican author of Iowa’s new election law has denied that Washington, DC-based Heritage Action for America helped write or pass any part of the bill.

In a leaked video obtained by Documented and published by Mother Jones on May 13, Heritage Action’s executive director Jessica Anderson claimed the group worked “quickly” and “quietly” on the bill Governor Kim Reynolds signed in March, which limits voting in many ways.

State Representative Bobby Kaufmann, who floor managed Senate File 413 in the Iowa House, told Bleeding Heartland in a May 13 telephone interview, “Any insinuation by Heritage that they had anything to do with this bill is a bald-faced lie.”

Continue Reading...

Upside Down week for Iowa Republicans in Congress

In the natural order of things, members of Congress brag about the federal assistance they fought to obtain for their constituents.

The Republicans who represent Iowa in the U.S. House and Senate turned that formula on its head this week. Every one cheered the news that tens of thousands of Iowans will soon lose the federal government support they depend on.

Continue Reading...

Attacks on Iowa public education lurk in House-approved budget bill

Most parents know that a car trip lasting too long makes kids mad and mean. With not much to do, they pick on each other and the picking becomes a full-blown fight. The adult goal is to end the trip and the fight as fast as possible. 

Like the too long car trip, the 2021 session of the Iowa legislature has devolved into mad and mean. It’s time for them to end the ride and go home. 

Continue Reading...

Anti-vaxxers hate Iowa's "vaccine passports" bill

The governor signed this bill on May 20. Original post follows.

“I look forward to signing this important legislation into law!” Governor Kim Reynolds tweeted on May 6, after the Iowa House and Senate approved a bill purportedly banning “vaccine passports.”

House File 889 fits a pattern of Republican bills that are best described as solutions in search of a problem. No state or local government agency intends to issue COVID-19 vaccine passports, nor are Iowa-based businesses rushing to require that customers show proof of coronavirus vaccinations.

A “message” bill can be useful politically, if it pleases a constituency Republicans need in the next election. The odd thing about this last-minute push is that Iowa’s most vocal vaccine skeptics don’t support the bill heading to the governor’s desk. On the contrary, they’re demanding a veto in the name of freedom.

Continue Reading...

IA-Sen: Matt Whitaker bolsters Trumpworld credentials

Although Senator Chuck Grassley is in no hurry to announce his future plans, former acting U.S. Attorney General Matt Whitaker continues to lay the groundwork for a possible U.S. Senate bid in 2022.

He speaks at GOP gatherings around Iowa, most recently the Johnson County Republican fundraiser on May 5. And perhaps more important for his future prospects, Whitaker helped create the America First Legal organization, which will regularly engage the Biden administration in fights sure to please the Republican base.

Continue Reading...

FEC backs ban on fundraising practice used by Trump, Hinson

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) voted unanimously on May 6 “to recommend that Congress ban political campaigns from guiding donors by default into recurring contributions through prechecked boxes,” Shane Goldmacher reported for the New York Times. It was a rare moment of bipartisan agreement for a commission that usually deadlocks on campaign finance regulations and enforcement.

President Donald Trump’s campaign popularized the technique in 2020, Goldmacher revealed in an investigation published last month. Pre-selecting the recurring contribution option led to record online fundraising, followed by a wave of complaints and huge demand for refunds from unwitting Trump donors.

Bleeding Heartland was first to report that the campaigns of Governor Kim Reynolds and and U.S. Representative Ashley Hinson (IA-01) are using the same practice.

Continue Reading...

Mariannette Miller-Meeks refuses interview with masked reporter

U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks has been on the road and on social media encouraging Iowans to get vaccinated for COVID-19, sometimes even administering the shots herself.

In a video released on May 4, Miller-Meeks highlighted her medical background and advocated for vaccines as a way of “getting our lives back to normal,” while acknowledging that getting a shot “is your decision to make.”

She was less tolerant of personal choices when approached the next day by a journalist seeking an interview.

Continue Reading...

Five things that are not "fairness"

Governor Kim Reynolds thrilled conservatives when she announced on Fox News last week that she wants to sign a bill banning transgender youth from competing on sports teams not matching their gender assigned at birth.

Defending the discriminatory policy during a news conference on May 5, Reynolds claimed five times that concerns about “fairness” are driving her commitment to address the issue.

This mean-spirited play to the GOP base has several dimensions. None of them are grounded in fairness.

Continue Reading...

Iowa concealed COVID-19 testing help for well-connected firms

State officials deployed “strike teams” involving the Iowa National Guard to more businesses last year than previously acknowledged.

Records the Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH) released on April 26 show seventeen workplaces received COVID-19 testing assistance through a strike team. The agency had stated in January that only ten workplaces (operated by nine companies) had strike team visits. Several newly-disclosed events benefited businesses linked to Governor Kim Reynolds’ major campaign donors.

Iowa used the strike teams mostly during the spring of 2020, when COVID-19 testing supplies were scarce. However, a strike team was sent to Iowa Select Farms administrative headquarters in mid-July, more than five weeks after the state had stopped providing testing help to other business. That company’s owners are Reynolds’ largest campaign contributors.

The governor asserted at a January news conference that the state had facilitated coronavirus testing for more than 60 companies, saying no firm was denied assistance. The newly-released records show nineteen businesses received testing kits from the state, and another nineteen were directed to a nearby Test Iowa site where their employees could schedule appointments.

The public health department’s spokesperson Sarah Ekstrand has not explained why she provided incomplete information about the strike team program in January. Nor has she clarified what criteria state officials used to determine which companies received which kind of testing assistance.

The governor’s spokesperson Pat Garrett did not respond to any of Bleeding Heartland’s emails on this subject. Reynolds walked away when I tried to ask her about the strike team decisions at a media gaggle on April 28.

Continue Reading...

Regents pick highly qualified leader for University of Iowa

Mercifully, history did not repeat itself on April 30, when the Iowa Board of Regents selected Barbara Wilson to be the next University of Iowa president. Wilson is supremely qualified for the job, having served for the last six years as the second-ranking administrator at the University of Illinois system, and in several leadership roles at the Urbana-Champaign campus. A news release enclosed in full below describes her relevant experience.

All four finalists considered this year were far more qualified than outgoing president Bruce Harreld was when the Regents picked him in 2015, following a search marred by favoritism and secret meetings that appeared to violate Iowa’s open meetings law.

Whereas the Faculty Senate voted no confidence in the Board of Regents after Harreld was hired, and the Daily Iowan newspaper ran the front-page headline “REGENTS’ DECISION CONDEMNED,” reaction to Wilson’s hiring was overwhelmingly positive from students and faculty. The Daily Iowan’s editorial board had endorsed either Wilson or Georgia State University Provost Wendy Hensel as the best choices to take the university forward.

I was pleasantly surprised the Regents tapped Wilson, even though she fired a football coach and an athletics director at Illinois over scandals including alleged mistreatment of student-athletes. During Harreld’s tenure, Iowa’s Athletics Director Gary Barta continued to receive raises and a contract extension even after costing the university millions of dollars in lawsuits over discrimination and a hostile work environment.

Continue Reading...

University of Iowa can't keep utilities deal secrets from auditor

The University of Iowa must comply with a subpoena from State Auditor Rob Sand seeking details on a 50-year deal to lease the university’s utility system to a public-private partnership, the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously determined on April 30.

The Iowa Board of Regents approved the arrangement in December 2019 and closed on the deal in March 2020. But the university withheld many details, including the identity of “Iowa-based investors” who supposedly put up about 21.5 percent of the $1.165 billion lump-sum payment to operate the system for the next five decades.

The State Auditor’s office has been trying to enforce Sand’s subpoena since January 2020. The university and Board of Regents insisted they did not have to provide “confidential” information and disputed the validity of the subpoena.

None of the Supreme Court justices found the university’s stance convincing.

Continue Reading...

Iowa turned down $95 million to test school kids for COVID-19

Governor Kim Reynolds revealed on April 29 that she is sending back $95 million in federal funds designated for testing students for COVID-19.

During a Fox News event featuring Republican governors, Reynolds said of President Joe Biden,

I think he thinks the COVID just started. I just returned 95 million dollars because they sent an additional 95 million dollars to the state of Iowa to get our kids back in the classroom by doing surveillance testing. And I said, “We’ve been in the classroom since August. Here’s your 95 million dollars back.”

Continue Reading...

Terrace Hill fence approved last summer; governor's role unclear

Officials in the Iowa Department of Public Safety and the governor’s office decided during the summer of 2020 to install a permanent fence around the Terrace Hill mansion in Des Moines, records obtained by Bleeding Heartland show.

The documents don’t reveal, nor did state officials clarify, whether Governor Kim Reynolds or her staff pushed for added security around the governor’s official residence. The records also don’t explain the timing of the decision to move forward with a plan that had been floated years earlier, according to the agency responsible for protecting the governor.

Continue Reading...

ISU's Workday problems still delaying state financial report

The state of Iowa’s Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for the 2020 fiscal year may be finalized by the end of June, six months later than the usual publication date.

Staff at the Iowa Department of Administrative Services compile the report using data provided by state government entities, and for many years have completed that work by December 31. However, Iowa State University (ISU) struggled to provide accurate, auditable data for the fiscal year that ran from July 2019 through June 2020. The reporting problems coincided with the year the university switched to the Workday computer system for accounting.

While other state government units sent their year-end financials by the usual deadline of October 1, 2020, ISU completed that process more than six months later, in early April.

Continue Reading...

Housing discrimination bill in limbo amid concerns over federal funding

Nearly six weeks have passed since Republican lawmakers approved a bill prohibiting local governments from banning “source of income” discrimination. Yet Senate File 252 still has not been sent to Governor Kim Reynolds, according to the legislature’s website.

While Iowa’s legislature is in session, the governor has three days to sign or veto any bill that reaches her desk, or it will become law without her signature. The governor’s staff often asks for an extra week or two to review a measure’s contents. But there is no recent precedent for the legislature to sit on a bill for this long.

The governor must eventually act on every bill the legislature passes. The unusual delay has fueled speculation that Reynolds may cast a rare veto of a bill approved by the Republican-controlled House and Senate.

Communications staff for the governor and legislative leaders did not respond to Bleeding Heartland’s inquiries about why Senate File 252 has been held up. But signs point to the bill jeopardizing some federal housing funds.

Continue Reading...

Hope for new Iowa maps before September deadline?

Iowa’s Legislative Services Agency (LSA) may be able to use population data from the 2020 census as early as sometime in August, the agency’s senior legal counsel Ed Cook revealed today. The news increases the chance that a nonpartisan map could be prepared in time for state lawmakers to meet a constitutional deadline for approving new maps of legislative districts.

Continue Reading...

Law blocking health care for trans Iowans facing new court challenge

Two years ago this week, on the day before the Iowa legislature completed its work for 2019, Republicans added two new discriminatory provisions to the state’s health and human services budget. Both code sections quickly spawned litigation. Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit against language designed to exclude the organization from sex education grants is now pending before the Iowa Supreme Court, after a District Court found the prohibition violated the state constitution’s equal protection guarantee.

A case challenging language that authorized discrimination against transgender Iowans on Medicaid never got that far. But on April 22, the ACLU of Iowa and the national ACLU LGBTQ & HIV Project filed a new lawsuit in Polk County District Court.

Continue Reading...

Policing bill would worsen Iowa's justice system disparities

Most of the new crimes and enhanced penalties that would be established under a policing bill approved by the Iowa House would have a disparate impact on Black people, according to analysis from the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency.

Before passing Senate File 342, Iowa House members amended what had been a narrowly-focused bill on officer discipline to include several other so-called “Back the Blue” proposals: giving law enforcement more protection against lawsuits, increasing benefits for officers, and greatly increasing the criminal penalties for some protest-related actions.

For seven of the nine crimes addressed in the “Back the Blue” bill, now pending in the Iowa Senate, the LSA found the “conviction rate for African Americans exceeds the population proportion of the State, which would lead to a racial impact if trends remain constant.”

Continue Reading...

Secretary of State's office wrongly inactivated many Iowa voters

The Iowa Secretary of State’s office moved thousands of Iowans who did not vote in the 2020 general election to “inactive” status this month. But according to Linn County Auditor Joel Miller, a recent “No Activity” mailing from the state went to at least three groups of voters who should not have received it. Consequently, state officials “incorrectly inactivated” hundreds of voters in Linn County alone.

Staff in the Secretary of State’s office did not reply to Bleeding Heartland’s inquiries on April 23, nor did they respond to a “Notice of Technical Infraction and Letter of Instruction Miller sent to Secretary of State Paul Pate the previous day.

Continue Reading...

Hinson, Miller-Meeks campaigns took disgraced GOP donor's money

U.S. Representatives Ashley Hinson (IA-01) and Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-02) were among dozens of House Republicans whose campaigns received $5,800 in March from Stephen Wynn, a former Republican National Committee finance chair who resigned in 2018 after former employees alleged sexual harassment or assault.

$5,800 is the maximum amount individuals can donate to federal campaigns for the 2022 election cycle ($2,900 each for the primary and general elections).

Continue Reading...
Page 1 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 144