State Senator Janice Weiner will be the new leader of Iowa Senate Democrats, replacing State Senator Pam Jochum, who did not seek re-election this year.

Weiner “grew up in a politically aware family in Coralville” and was a career Foreign Services officer with the U.S. State Department before moving back to Iowa in 2015. She represents Iowa Senate district 45, the chamber’s bluest district, covering Iowa City and University Heights in Johnson County. She first ran for the legislature in 2018, finishing second to Zach Wahls in the Democratic primary for a Senate district covering Coralville. She won a seat on the Iowa City council in 2019 and ran for the legislature again in 2022, when long-serving State Senator Joe Bolkcom retired.

Weiner is known for the well-researched comments she has often delivered during Iowa Senate committee meetings or floor debate.

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

The 2024 elections could hardly have gone worse for Iowa Democrats. Donald Trump carried the state by more than 13 points—a larger margin than Ronald Reagan managed here in either of his campaigns, and the largest winning margin for any presidential candidate in Iowa since Richard Nixon in 1972. The GOP swept the Congressional races for the second straight cycle and expanded their lopsided majorities in the legislature.

Support for Democrats has eroded in Iowa communities of all sizes—from large metro areas like Scott County (which voted for a Republican presidential candidate for the first time since 1984) to rural counties that were always red, but now routinely deliver more than 70 percent of the vote to GOP candidates.

This post highlights the growing problem for Democrats in Iowa’s mid-sized cities. I focus on eleven counties where Democratic candidates performed well in the recent past, but now trail Republicans in state and federal races.

Changing political trends in mid-sized cities explain why Democrats will have smaller contingents in the Iowa House and Senate than at any time since 1970. Voters in six of these counties also saved U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks from a strong challenge by Democrat Christina Bohannan in the first Congressional district.

Republican lawmakers re-elected their party’s top leaders in the Iowa House and Senate on November 12 after increasing their already large majorities in both chambers.

With recounts likely in a few races, Republicans are on track to hold a 67 to 33 majority in the Iowa House (a net gain of three seats) and a 35 to 15 majority in the Senate (a net gain of one seat). Those are the largest contingents for the majority party in either chamber for more than 50 years.

Jason Benell lives in Des Moines with his wife and two children. He is a combat veteran, former city council candidate, and president of Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers.

The results of the 2024 elections are in and the dust is settling—quite a bit faster than we expected it to—and we as citizens have a lot to consider about what it means to be in the United States of America.

This must be a reckoning of what we are dealing with as a purported democratic people that enjoy equal protections under the law and unprecedented personal liberties. This must be a reckoning of what and who we are as a people.

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

Two years ago, Iowa appeared to be on a different trajectory than much of the country. As Democrats won many of the midterm election races, including in our Midwestern neighboring states, Iowa experienced yet another “red wave.” Six of the last eight general elections in Iowa have been GOP landslides.

On November 5, Donald Trump improved on his 2020 performance almost across the board: in blue states like New York and New Jersey, swing states like Pennsylvania and Georgia, and red states like Texas and Iowa. He gained in rural counties, suburban counties, and urban centers, in states where both presidential candidates campaigned intensely, and in states where there was no “ground game” or barrage of political advertising. He gained among almost every demographic group except for college-educated women. He may become the first Republican presidential candidate to win the popular vote since George W. Bush in 2004, and only the second GOP nominee to win the popular vote since 1988.

The Trump resurgence isn’t unique to Iowa, or even the U.S.—grievance politics has been winning elections all over the world lately.

But that’s no comfort to Democrats here, who probably won’t win back any Congressional districts and suffered more losses among their already small contingents in the Iowa House and Senate.

This post has been updated with the unofficial results from each race. Original post follows.

Democrats go into the November 5 election with the smallest Iowa House contingent they’ve had in five decades. But even though control of the chamber is not in question, this year’s state House races matter.

Despite having a 64 to 36 advantage for the past two years, Republicans struggled to find 51 votes for some of their controversial legislation, such as Governor Kim Reynolds’ plan to overhaul the Area Education Agencies. So chipping away at the GOP majority could help limit further damage to public education or civil rights.

Conversely, a net loss of Democratic-held seats would allow the majority to govern with even fewer constraints.

This post highlights nine Iowa House seats most at risk of flipping, plus seven districts that could be competitive, or where the results could shed light on broader political trends in Iowa. I will update later with unofficial results from all of these races.

This post has been updated with unofficial results from the November 5 election, as well as the final pre-election campaign finance disclosures and absentee ballot totals as of November 2. Original post follows.

Republicans currently hold 34 Iowa Senate seats—the largest GOP contingent in that chamber since 1973. Democrats are not realistically contending to regain the Senate majority in November. So why pay any attention to these legislative races?

Although the most competitive state Senate races won’t determine control of the chamber, they could reveal a lot about each party’s strengths with certain kinds of voters. A good night for Republicans would indicate that the Trump-era realignment has moved further into Iowa’s former blue regions. A good night for Democrats could pull the GOP below the two-thirds threshold, which has allowed Senate Republicans to confirm all of Governor Kim Reynolds’ nominees without any support from the minority party.

This post highlights four state Senate districts at most risk of flipping, and another seven districts where even without a big investment by Democrats or Republicans, the results could shed light on broader political trends in Iowa. A forthcoming article will cover state House races to watch in 2024.

Charles Bruner was a state legislator from 1978 through 1990 and ran his campaigns as an advocate for children and families, turning his Senate district blue after two decades of Republican representation. More resources on the Kamala Harris care agenda for children are available on the Harris for Kids website.

The image above is a refrigerator magnet I created for this election. I served in the Iowa legislature from 1978 to 1990, which were “kinder and gentler” times.

Molly Ivins has said that “if the state legislature didn’t have its share of fools, it wouldn’t be a truly representative body.” Yet she also said that democracy works because there are enough decent people elected who take the time to listen and learn and act diligently to try to do what is in the public interest. Moreover, they earn the respect of their less-diligent peers and influence them. They may not always be right, but they are right-thinking and open enough to prevail.

One of the most heartening things I have heard throughout this election season is Tim Walz’s interview with Jon Stewart on the Daily Show. It’s worth watching in full.

Jason Benell lives in Des Moines with his wife and two children. He is a combat veteran, former city council candidate, and president of Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers.

Christian Nationalism has seen so many victories with the makeup of the highest courts at both the state and federal levels. Time and again right-wing courts seem poised to enact theocracy by privileging religious belief over equality under the law and even basic human and civil rights.

These rulings and opinions are never based on reason or evidence but rather are special pleading for some vague “sincerely held belief” that seems to act as a get-out-of-jail-free card for religious individuals and organizations that circumvent civil rights laws. There are many examples in the not-so-distant history that point to this creeping assault on equal treatment under the law, but also rulings just this year that many people would likely be surprised to hear about.

Douglas Burns is a fourth-generation Iowa journalist. He is the co-founder of the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation and a member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative, where this article first appeared on The Iowa Mercury newsletter. His family operated the Carroll Times Herald for 93 years in Carroll, Iowa where Burns resides.

Council Bluffs Mayor Matt Walsh, a Republican, joined others in his party and independents to support Democratic State Representative Josh Turek, a gold medal-winning Paralympian in wheelchair basketball, at a September 26 event in this southwest Iowa city. Former U.S. Senator Tom Harkin, an Iowa icon, headlined the fundraiser for Turek, who captured his state House district by just six votes in 2022 and faces a challenging re-election bid in the November election.

Walsh said he crossed party lines for the event—and a public endorsement of a Democrat—for one reason: Turek is a respected and effective voice at the statehouse.

“While I am a registered Republican, I strongly believe the best candidate should win,” Walsh said in an interview at the Hoff Family Arts and Cultural Center. “Without a doubt in my mind that’s Josh Turek. He cares about Iowa, he cares about people with disabilities, and he cares about Council Bluffs. You can talk to Josh. Josh listens. Josh understands. Josh is responsive. He’s everything you look for in a candidate. Josh is that guy.”

James Larew is an attorney in Iowa City who served as general counsel and chief of staff for former Governor Chet Culver. Chris Jones is retired from the University of Iowa where he worked as a Research Engineer at IIHR-Hydroscience & Engineering. Prior to that he worked at the Des Moines Water Works and the Iowa Soybean Association. He is author of the book The Swine Republic, Struggles with the Truth about Agriculture and Water Quality. He lives in Iowa City. 

Iowa law should recognize access to clean water and clean air as a fundamental right.

The Iowa Constitution should be amended to assure that right is protected, and to guarantee that governmental actions conflicting with this right are subjected to strict judicial scrutiny.

A further constitutionally-imposed duty should be placed on state government: to affirmatively protect our precious natural resources for us, and for all future generations.

Brooklyn Draisey is a Report for America corps member covering higher education for Iowa Capital Dispatch, where this article first appeared.

The Iowa Board of Regents is working with board staff and state universities to analyze diversity, equity and inclusion programs and positions and ensure their compliance under a state law set to take effect next summer.

President Sherry Bates said during the September 19 board meeting that she, along with Regents Greta Rouse, David Barker, and JC Risewick started this summer ensuring compliance with both DEI directives put in place by the board and Senate File 2435 at the University of Iowa, Iowa State University, and University of Northern Iowa.

What might have been a slow news week in state government took an unexpected turn on September 3. Governor Kim Reynolds announced that Lieutenant Governor Adam Gregg was resigning, effective the same day. Minutes later, the Iowa Bankers Association revealed that Gregg would join the association as president and CEO, beginning on October 1.

There’s a lot to unpack here.

Jack O’Connor is a States Newsroom Fellow for the summer of 2024. He wrote this article for Iowa Capital Dispatch, which was first to publish it.

After past failed efforts in the Iowa legislature, drug activists believe the next session will deliver legalized fentanyl test strips as support for the movement grows and the drug epidemic continues.

Fentanyl test strips are small strips of paper that can test drugs to see if they contain any fentanyl. Activists argue that by legalizing these strips, lawmakers could save lives by preventing accidental overdoses from fentanyl. Under state law, fentanyl test strips are considered drug paraphernalia and therefore illegal.

The previous effort to include the legalization of fentanyl test strips in a 2023 law fell short but gained some bipartisan support, said the amendment’s author, Democratic State Representative Megan Srivinas of Des Moines. Srinivas and activists are prepping to introduce legislation to legalize the strips next session.

Rick Morain is the former publisher and owner of the Jefferson Herald, for which he writes a regular column.

Republicans, who control the Iowa House, the Iowa Senate, and the Iowa governorship, make no secret of their intent to entirely eliminate the state’s income tax. It probably won’t happen this coming year or the next, but the plan is now on a glide path. If the Iowa GOP remains in power for the rest of the present decade, we should probably count on the demise of the Iowa income tax by the end of the 2020s or before.

Even though those rates have already started to drop by dint of Iowa legislative actions in the past few years, the state income tax still makes up a huge chunk of the state’s budget. In fiscal year 2022-23 the figure was 46.8 percent—nearly half of state budget revenues. That percentage is now no doubt somewhat lower due to legislation that has dropped individual state income tax rates to a flat tax figure of 3.8 percent next year, but Iowa still depends on billions of state income tax dollars each year for its budget.

At least ten candidates who identify as part of the LGBTQ community are running for the Iowa legislature this year. The previous high water mark was seven LGBTQ candidates in 2022.

The majority of Iowa’s gay, queer, or transgender candidates are Democrats, as has been the case in previous election cycles. This year’s cohort also includes the state’s first openly gay Republican lawmaker and an independent candidate for a House seat.

The candidates profiled below are mostly not highlighting issues of special concern to LGBTQ Iowans. Like others running for the legislature, they are campaigning on topics such as public education, reproductive rights, mental health services, and economic development.

At the same time, several candidates believe LGBTQ representation at the statehouse is particularly important now, in light of the many bills targeting the community that Republicans enacted or attempted to pass in 2023 and 2024.

All voter registration data mentioned below comes from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office. Figures for the 2020 presidential vote in each legislative district come from maps Josh Hughes created in Dave’s Redistricting App.

Democratic State Senator Liz Bennett is the only out queer member of the Iowa Senate and the second out LGBTQ person ever to serve in the chamber (after Democrat Matt McCoy, who retired from the legislature in 2018). Bennett is not up for re-election this year, having won a four-year term last cycle in Senate district 39, covering part of Cedar Rapids.

Robin Opsahl covers the state legislature and politics for Iowa Capital Dispatch, where this article first appeared.

Iowans using wheelchairs through the state Medicaid program will no longer need a prescription and in-person doctor visit to get their wheelchairs repaired after a policy change by Iowa Department of Health and Human Services.

Democratic State Representative Josh Turek said in an August 13 interview that the measure proves advocacy can make a difference. Previously, Iowa Medicaid members were required to get a prescription and have a meeting with a health care provider in order to repair wheelchairs—a requirement Turek said was unnecessary, as wheelchair users have already been prescribed the equipment when they received it.

“This was just an unnecessary barrier that was causing an enormous amount of harm and suffering to the disabled population, delaying the process weeks or months for people to just be able to get a wheelchair repair,” Turek said.

Ryan Melton is the Democratic nominee in Iowa’s fourth Congressional district. These are his prepared remarks for the Iowa Democratic Party’s Liberty and Justice Celebration in Des Moines on July 27. You can listen to the speech as delivered here.

At the Mills County Fair Democratic party booth in Malvern a couple Saturdays ago, a high school freshman to be asked me what motivates me to keep going despite the odds in our district, so he too could buy in and join the effort.

Here’s what I told him:

“Running as a Democrat in Rural Iowa just got so much more hopeful,” Iowa House candidate Tommy Hexter posted on X/Twitter on July 22, shortly after Vice President Kamala Harris secured enough support from delegates to win the Democratic nomination for president. “I am so grateful to Joe Biden for capping off his service to our Country by passing the torch to someone who can truly energize voters here in the Heartland.”

Many Iowa Democrats shared Hexter’s sense of relief and excitement after Biden announced he would stand down as the party’s candidate.

Iowa’s no longer the swing state it was for every presidential election from 1992 through 2012. Few doubt that Donald Trump will have little trouble winning Iowa’s six electoral votes.

Even so, the Harris campaign could help Democrats competing for other offices.

Republicans currently enjoy large majorities of 64-36 in the Iowa House and 34-16 in the Iowa Senate. But seven Democrats got a boost last week from the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC), which works to elect Democrats to state legislatures around the country.

Iowa House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst joined the DLCC’s board of directors in January—a signal that the group is not giving up on Iowa, despite the losses over the past decade. Although Democrats are not in a position to regain control of the House or Senate this year, making up ground in every cycle matters—especially in the House, where GOP leaders struggled to find 51 votes for some of this year’s controversial bills.

The DLCC’s seven “spotlight” candidates in Iowa include a mix of incumbents and challengers. They are running in different types of communities, from suburbs trending blue to onetime Democratic strongholds that turned red during the Trump era. They share a commitment “to combat Republican extremism” in the legislature. Attention from a national group should help them raise money and recruit volunteers looking to make a difference in a competitive election.

Key facts about the featured candidates and their districts are enclosed below. Bleeding Heartland will profile these races in more depth as the campaigns develop. All voter registration totals come from the Iowa Secretary of State’s website. Voting history for 2020 comes from the maps Josh Hughes created in Dave’s Redistricting App for Iowa’s current state House and Senate districts.

Erin Farquhar is the mother of Abram Miller, who relies on consumable hemp products to control seizures.

This year, the Iowa legislature approved and Governor Kim Reynolds signed House File 2605, placing new regulations on Iowa’s CBD, or consumable hemp, industry. Proponents described the law as an effort to limit the amount of THC in the intoxicating products being sold in our state to protect kids, but that is not what the bill does.  

Unfortunately, HF 2605 was written in a way that has very far-reaching consequences. It does the opposite of what the bill proponents said by banning access to nonintoxicating consumable hemp products used for medical purposes and maintaining access to intoxicating products, like THC infused drinks, used largely recreationally.  

The bill even makes it illegal for me to provide my son the consumable hemp medication he has used for the past nine years to remain seizure-free.   

Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring. He can be reached at BruceLear2419@gmail.com 

It has happened to many of us. While cruising down the highway, a dashboard light flashes on. You may not recognize what the light is telling you. You can ignore it and pray to the car gods your engine doesn’t die, or you can pull over, look for the car manual, and find out what it means.

My dad called these dashboard warnings “idiot lights.” I can still hear him say, “You’re an idiot if don’t stop and check what’s wrong.”

Once that light flashes you’ll feel your wallet thinning as you curse the car, forgetting you’re responsible for preventive maintenance.

Idiot lights are flashing across Iowa, trying to warn us our state’s public schools are beginning to crumble from neglect. It’s time to pull over to discover the problems.

Iowa Restaurant Association President Jessica Dunker is not happy that the U.S. Department of Labor is fining Iowa restaurants for youth employment violations.

The association has warned its members that federal officials “are taking massive punitive action” against restaurants that follow Iowa’s child labor law. Dunker told the Des Moines Register’s Kevin Baskins that the enforcement actions “are literally going to put people out of business” and accused the federal agency of targeting her association’s board members and award winners. Baskins profiled one Subway franchise owner who is “a nervous wreck” potentially facing “huge fines.”

Iowa Restaurant Association leaders should have expected this scenario when they successfully lobbied the legislature to relax youth employment rules in 2023. U.S. labor officials made clear last year that Iowa’s new law (known as Senate File 542) was “inconsistent with federal child labor law in several respects.” They promised the federal agency would “vigorously enforce child labor protections across the nation,” and said employers violating federal law could face “various penalties, including civil money penalties.”

Dunker’s group and the Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals, and Licensing downplayed such risks when educating restaurant owners about the new state rules.

Governor Kim Reynolds signed an economic development bill twice last month after the legislature initially forwarded an incomplete version of the bill to her office.

Secretary of the Senate Charlie Smithson wrote to the governor on May 10 that “due to a clerical error,” part of a late amendment was omitted from the enrolled text of Senate File 574, which the governor had signed on May 1. Smithson enclosed “an accurate version of the bill,” which Reynolds signed the same day.

Former legislative staff who worked in the chambers for decades told Bleeding Heartland they could not recall any similar mix-up happening.

Al Charlson is a North Central Iowa farm kid, lifelong Iowan, and retired bank trust officer. The Bremer County Independent previously published a version of this commentary.

From the time our forefathers broke the prairie sod and began building communities Iowans have been known as hard workers who took pride in a job well done. Stories of my Norwegian immigrant great-grandfather highlight his ability to stack grain bundles perfectly to protect the shock from rain, and to plant corn in rows straight as an arrow.

We recently had windows replaced and our house re-sided by a north central Iowa contractor whose reputation was endorsed by a family member. The contractor has a branch in central Iowa, and a Des Moines area siding team was assigned to our house. The entire team was Hispanic; the only one I could communicate with was the team leader, José. 

UPDATE: Wichtendal won the November 5 election by about 800 votes (52.3 percent to 47.6 percent). Original post follows.

After inching toward greater diversity following each of the last two general elections, the Iowa legislature could take another step forward this year if Hiawatha City Council member Aime Wichtendahl becomes the first transgender person elected as a state lawmaker.

While other trans candidates have run for the legislature—Democrat Elle Wyant and Libertarian Jeni Kadel competed for Iowa House seats in 2022—Wichtendahl is the first trans major-party nominee in a district that leans to her party. She was unopposed in the June 4 Democratic primary for House district 80, covering part of the Cedar Rapids metro. It’s an open seat because longtime Democratic State Representative Art Staed opted to run for the Iowa Senate.

Wichtendahl discussed her campaign and her priorities in a June 6 telephone interview.

All seven Iowa legislators who faced competition for their party’s nominations prevailed in the June 4 elections. The outcome was a reversion to normal following a tumultuous 2022 cycle, in which six Iowa House Republicans lost their primaries. Two years ago, Iowa’s new political map forced three pairs of House members to face off against each other, and Governor Kim Reynolds endorsed challengers against several more GOP lawmakers who had opposed her “school choice” plan.

Crucially, Reynolds did not endorse any 2024 candidates running against incumbents. On the contrary, she backed one of the incumbents in a tough primary.

In addition, property rights proved to be a less potent issue here than in South Dakota, where fourteen Republican lawmakers lost to primary challengers on June 4.

Although Iowa saw no upsets, several of this year’s legislative races revealed that Republicans could be vulnerable to candidates from the right. The two challengers who came closest to knocking off incumbents were both vocal opponents of using eminent domain to build CO2 pipelines.

This post covers the primaries from the narrowest winning margin for the incumbent to the most comfortable victory.

UPDATE: Unofficial results show Bloomingdale won the nomination by 1,729 votes to 1,112 (60.8 percent to 39.1 percent). Original post follows.

Four of the 64 Iowa House Republicans have competition in the June 4 primary, and the most closely-watched of those elections will happen in House district 60. State Representative Jane Bloomingdale held off a primary challenger in 2022, even as several of her GOP colleagues failed to secure their nominations. She now faces John Rosenfeld, who is running to her right on several issues.

In a late twist, Governor Kim Reynolds endorsed Bloomingdale, even though the incumbent voted against one of the governor’s top legislative priorities last year and has consistently opposed GOP efforts to ban abortion in Iowa.

Diane Rosenberg is executive director of Jefferson County Farmers & Neighbors, where this commentary first appeared.

With the passage of Senate File 2370 (a version of legislation introduced by the governor’s office), Governor Kim Reynolds’ Executive Order No. 10, issued in January 2023, is now Iowa law. It will have a substantial impact on the state’s ability to protect waterways and communities from factory farms.

State agencies across Iowa will be prevented from strengthening rules and regulations, but will have the ability to weaken them. It’s now a race to the bottom that will adversely affect factory farming’s impact on water quality and public health.

The Iowa Senate approved SF 2370 by 32 votes to 14, with all Democrats present opposing the bill.

In the House it passed by 91 votes to 3. It was expected that the GOP caucus would fully support this bill, as they have with most of the Reynolds administration’s priorities.

But nearly all House Democrats voted for SF 2370, too.

UPDATE: Unofficial results show Brown won this primary by 2,546 votes to 2,273 (52.8 percent to 47.1 percent). Original post follows.

Two Iowa state senators and six state representatives face competition for their party’s nomination in the June 4 primary. The most intriguing match-up is unfolding in Senate district 30.

Two-term Republican State Senator Waylon Brown has a huge financial advantage and the backing of powerful interest groups. His opponent Doug Campbell, a retired pharmacist and former Mason City school board member, is running a low-budget campaign powered by grassroots outrage over a proposed CO2 pipeline.

The outcome should signal whether the controversy over property rights in rural Iowa is salient enough in GOP circles to overcome the advantages of incumbency. If Campbell prevails, Senate Republicans may feel pressure to consider eminent domain legislation in 2025, after blocking all such bills in the Commerce Committee for the last several years.

Kali White VanBaale is an Iowa-based novelist, creative writing professor, and mental health care advocate. Find more of her work at kwhitevanbaale.substack.com (where this essay first appeared) and www.kaliwhite.com.     

This month, Governor Kim Reynolds signed several critical pieces of mental health care legislation, including House File 626, “an Act relating to continuity of care and non-medical prescription switching by health carriers, health benefit plans, and utilization review organizations.” This legislation has a long, contentious history at the Iowa capitol.

Why was this bill important enough to lobby for it year after year with no success? What exactly is non-medical switching?

Transparency advocates found something to celebrate in Governor Kim Reynolds’ final bill signings on May 17. The governor rejected House File 2539—her only veto of the Iowa legislature’s 2024 session—due to language that would have created an “enormous loophole” in the open meetings law, experts inside and outside state government warned.

Drafting a better bill to strengthen penalties for open meetings violations should be easy, if Iowa lawmakers return to the topic in 2025.

But fixing the process that allowed such a poorly-worded bill to reach the governor’s desk would be a tall order. Because while House File 2539 suffered a unique fate, its journey through the legislature illustrated broader problems with how the GOP-controlled House and Senate do business.

Rick Morain is the former publisher and owner of the Jefferson Herald, for which he writes a regular column.

Where does your primary loyalty lie: as a citizen of America, or as a citizen of Iowa?

Probably seems like a meaningless question. But around the nation, more and more states these days are enacting laws in opposition to those of the federal government, placing the loyalty question front and center. And a growing number of U.S. residents are declaring a preference to honor their state laws above those of the United States.

ORIGINS OF THE SUPREMACY CLAUSE

In terms of settled law, there’s no real dispute: federal law outranks state law. The U.S. Constitution leaves no doubt. Article VI, Clause 2 (the “Supremacy Clause”), reads as follows:

Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council and can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. 

You don’t often hear anyone extol the benefits of the COVID-19 pandemic. But I did a few weeks ago—when I stood before the Storm Lake Kiwanis club and talked about government transparency in Iowa.

I did not wade into the debate over masks, social distancing or vaccinations. It was a polite audience, but I was not silly enough to needlessly venture onto that thin ice.

What I said about the pandemic was this: State and local governments embraced, even if grudgingly, the benefits of live-streaming their board meetings during the pandemic so the public could watch from wherever they were.

Iowa Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver is undergoing radiation therapy for a brain tumor, he announced in a May 17 news release. He said his condition was diagnosed after the Iowa legislature adjourned for the year in April, adding that he is “responding well to the initial treatments.”

Whitver said he will continue to serve in the legislature and as majority leader. Senate GOP staff did not respond to Bleeding Heartland’s questions about where Whitver is receiving medical care, or the expected time frame of the treatment plan.

Many elected officials from both parties—including Governor Kim Reynolds, Attorney General Brenna Bird, State Auditor Rob Sand, U.S. Senator Joni Ernst, Iowa House Speaker Pat Grassley, Iowa Senate Minority Leader Pam Jochum, and House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst—expressed prayers and well wishes for Whitver’s health in statements sent to news organizations or posted on social media.

Henry Jay Karp is the Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Emanuel in Davenport, Iowa, which he served from 1985 to 2017. He is the co-founder and co-convener of One Human Family QCA, a social justice organization.

Governor Kim Reynolds came to Beit Shalom, the home of the Quad Cities Jewish community, on May 15 to sign House File 2545, a bill containing controversial new social studies curriculum requirements.

Why Beit Shalom? Because the bill requires Iowa schools to teach Holocaust education, following the model of Illinois, which has required it for several years.

Though members of the Quad Cities Jewish community are divided about the policies of the governor and the Republican-controlled legislature, we do stand united on the issue of Holocaust education in our schools. According to FBI statistics for the past several years, more than 50 percent of religion-based acts of hate in the U.S. targeted the Jewish community, more than all the other faith groups put together. Since the atrocities of the Hamas attack on Israeli communities on October 7, 2023, the number of antisemitic attacks in the U.S. has more than tripled.

A comprehensive academic study found “causal evidence” that Governor Kim Reynolds’ Education Savings Accounts policy (commonly known as school vouchers) “led Iowa private schools to increase tuition” during its first year.

Princeton University doctoral student Jason Fontana and Princeton sociology Professor Jennifer L. Jennings published their working paper, “The Effect of Taxpayer-Funded Education Savings Accounts on Private School Tuition: Evidence from Iowa,” at Brown University’s Annenberg Institute in April.

Fontana and Jennings collected tuition data from 70 percent of Iowa’s private schools, focusing their analysis on 51 percent of schools (educating 62 percent of Iowa students attending private schools) for which they had multiple years of tuition data as well as grade-level enrollment numbers.

The researchers compared private school tuition in Iowa and Nebraska. Both states enacted taxpayer-funded “school choice” policies in 2023, but Iowa implemented Education Savings Accounts for the 2023/2024 school year, while Nebraska delayed its start date until 2024/2025.

Two bills Governor Kim Reynolds signed on May 1 will make advanced testing for breast cancer and other diseases more accessible to Iowans with health insurance coverage.

House File 2489 requires certain types of private health insurance policies to cover supplemental or diagnostic breast examinations such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), ultrasound, or contrast-enhanced mammography. House File 2668 requires public and private health insurance to cover biomarker testing for some cancers and other diseases or conditions. Both bills take effect on January 1, 2025.

Gerald Ott of Ankeny was a high school English teacher and for 30 years a school improvement consultant for the Iowa State Education Association.

Twenty-three years ago, in the months just before 9/11, the National Issues Forums asked me to work on a “discussion guide” on the topic of immigration. The assignment required me to ask people in Iowa how they felt about immigration and what, if anything, should be done.

My small team and I found the issue was “hot” among Iowans, especially among working-class people—particularly former packing house workers who had lost their jobs and saw their wages cut by a sleight-of-hand when plants changed ownership and de-unionized the workforce. The void, some said, was filled by migrants.

We found some business people welcomed new arrivals as needed for jobs that were unfilled by the local, native population. Descendants of Iowans who originally came to the U.S. to receive a homestead were open to immigration, especially from European countries—much less so of peoples from Latin American or Asian countries. The guide was meant to offer a policy alternative for ordinary Americans to consider in weighing the costs and consequences of the nation’s immigration policies.

Bill Bumgarner is a retired former health care executive from northwest Iowa who worked in hospital management for 41 years, predominantly in the state of Iowa.

The recently concluded legislative session has shown again that the state of Iowa is firmly entrenched in red state antipathy. 

Republican elected officials continued to casually pursue and advance legislation that strips away at Iowa’s once proud history of engagement, moderation, and inclusion.

The last few legislative sessions have produced attacks on public education, threatened a women’s right to make her own health care decisions, eroded the civil rights of certain citizens, advanced book bans and now—recklessly—introduced guns into Iowa schools.