February 2017

In the waning hours of Iowa’s collective bargaining debate, neighboring states are warning (or perhaps trolling) the inevitable outcome for Iowa workers. A Minnesota superintendent whose district is near the Iowa border sent around a letter to media to inform people of his plan to start luring Iowa teachers north. Joseph Brown, Sr., who served as…

The debate over the collective bargaining bill will end at noon today in the Iowa House and 2:00 PM in the Iowa Senate, after Republicans passed on a party line vote a “time certain” measure to finish then. House Democrats offered amendments to extend debate until next week, which failed, and then to extend it simply to…

The past weekend’s immigration raids across the country by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) have immigrant communities living in fear and confusion. Trump’s indiscriminate raids appear to set the stage for a larger mass deportation of the 11 million people in the United States without legal status. David Leopold, a leading immigration lawyer…

The Iowa House and Senate are set tonight to ram through the Republican bill that thoroughly dismantles Iowa’s collective bargaining law. Speaker Linda Upmeyer and Senate Leader Bill Dix have been steadfast in their support for the legislation, saying it modernizes public worker employment laws and benefits taxpayers. Governor Terry Branstad dismissed concerns of those…

Iowans might assume the Iowa Republican controlled Legislature’s anti-labor collective bargaining bill resulted from a massive demand from their Iowa constituents. That assumption would be wrong and a bit naïve. The author of this shameful anti-labor bill and various other Republican Legislators have been asked to identify the sponsors and supporters of this bill. They…

In the highly contentious battle to extinguish public worker rights, Iowa Republicans have attempted a divide-and-conquer approach to pit unions against each other. Their legislation splits public workers into two groups, one that’s “public safety workers,” and one that isn’t. The idea was to strip away nearly all collective bargaining rights from most public employees, but keep most…

I won’t beat around the bush. I’m dismayed by President Donald Trump’s decision to keep people from entering the United States if they are citizens of one of seven nations where a majority of people are Muslims. I am worried about the message his order sends to our friends around the world, to our allies…

Dallas County residents were outraged this week when they found out their vote may well have not been counted in the 2016 election. There has been at least some local consequences for the Dallas County elections office’s failure to report 5,842 ballots, or 13% of their total vote. Demotions and reprimands will be doled out to several elections…

Ankeny residents have had enough. A boisterous crowd of well over 400 packed the room at a legislative forum hosted by the local chamber of commerce at a community education building in Ankeny. Many spilled out into the hallway as they watched the panel of Senator Jack Whitver, Representatives John Landon and Kevin Koester and County…

Angry crowds of Iowans packed legislative forums and listening sessions across the state once again this Saturday. Opponents to Republicans’ far-reaching and fast-tracked agenda easily outnumbered supporters at close to a dozen events around Iowa. Emotions ran high as many attendees related their very personal stories of how the Republican legislation would affect them and…