2017
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Abby Finkenauer Nabs Important Laborers Endorsement
State Representative Abby Finkenauer added another key group to her list of supporters in Democrats’ 1st District primary this week. The Great Plains Laborers have endorsed Finkenauer, making them the seventh labor union to support her in her bid to take on Republican Congressman Rod Blum. “Having grown up in a union home, Abby knows…
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Equifax, Tell Us About Burdensome Regulations
The biggest under-reported news event from the past two weeks involves a crime of gigantic proportions that directly affects about half of the people living in the United States. Of course, Melania Trump’s choice of footwear for a trip to hurricane-ravaged Texas a few days earlier attracted as much, or more, media coverage. But I…
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Kim Reynolds Backs ACA Repeal Plan That Would Hurt Iowans
Republicans love to brag that they don’t believe in choosing winners and losers. The latest Obamacare repeal bill picks winners and losers and Iowa would be a major loser. The Graham-Cassidy repeal plan will specifically penalize Iowa. Yet, Governor Reynolds endorsed Graham-Cassidy, saying, “[It] can work for the repeal and replacement of Obamacare.” The Senate…
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Republican Legislators’ Union-Busting Election Scheme
The 2017 Republican-controlled legislature’s destruction of the bargaining rights of public union workers should leave no question about the motives of the Iowa Republican Party. Their 2016 Iowa Republican Platform specifically calls for the “elimination of all public sector unions” in Iowa. Republicans’ successful passage of the most devastating union-busting bills in Iowa history in…
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Snubbing Pat Grassley Would Be Dumb Politics
Governor Kim Reynolds has a decision to make: who to appoint as outgoing Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey’s replacement. Northey, after a very long wait, was finally appointed to be the Under Secretary of Farm Production and Conservation in Donald Trump’s USDA. He’ll still have to wait a while more, however, until the Senate acts on…
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Here Comes Another Special Election (For Bill Anderson’s Seat)
Republican State Senator Bill Anderson announced today he will be resigning from the Legislature to take a job as the executive director for the Cherokee Area Economic Development Corporation. He told the Sioux City Journal that he’s working with Governor Kim Reynold’s office on when exactly that resignation would take place so that his replacement would…
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Austin Frerick Proposes Farm Bill Plan To Save Leopold Center
Governor Terry Branstad’s line-item veto earlier this year of a provision that would have eliminated Iowa’s Leopold Center was little comfort to conservation advocates considering Republicans slashed nearly all the program’s funding. The Leopold Center focuses on sustainable agriculture research, and its defunding was seen as part of a continuing Republican effort to undermine clean…
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Apple Chose Iowa. So Why The Handout, Governor?
Why would Governor Reynolds and the Iowa GOP think they need to bribe Apple to come to Iowa? Apple was likely coming to Iowa anyway because of Iowa’s combination of cheap and green energy. Iowa is one of the few states that offers these two essential resources Apple demands. Iowa leads the nation in developing…
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Fear Fails Again In Fairfield
One more chapter came to a close in Fairfield, Iowa’s long-running controversy over transgender bathrooms, this one perhaps the last. A large number of conservative candidates running for the Fairfield School Board in response to the district following state and national policy on transgender bathroom use were routed on Tuesday night. Four candidates who defended…
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Iowa’s Problem With Openness And Public Records Law
When is Iowa going to catch up with the rest of the nation? Every week or two, another case makes headlines around the United States when a police officer acts in a way that many people find troubling. Typically, within a few weeks, police video of the incident is released so the public can evaluate…
