2017

Right now we have a reprieve on behalf of Americans who need and deserve health care. But we know this is just the beginning. Over the past few weeks Iowa Citizen Action Network has been reaching out to Iowans – small business owners, farmers, families, the self-employed, seniors and others – and what we are…

Iowa Democrats pulled off an impressive and important victory in a Southeast Iowa special election this evening, boosting the party’s hopes that 2018 could be a bounce-back year. Democratic veterinarian Phil Miller of Fairfield comfortably defeated Republican farmer Travis Harris of Davis County, 4,021 to 3,324 (about 55% to 45%), thanks largely to a massive…

A do-over. All of us, if we are honest, have wished for the opportunity for a fresh start at something at one time or another. Our president isn’t wired that way — at least not in public — to admit that he would like to take a mulligan and try again on something. I’m no…

Iowa Democrats face a very important test this upcoming Tuesday: can they still win local elections in rural parts of Iowa that trended toward Donald Trump last year? If they ever hope to win back the legislature (and probably the governor’s mansion too), the answer to that needs to be yes. So Democratic campaign staff…

A new forecast from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts that the annual dead zone in the northern Gulf of Mexico will reach an area of nearly 8,200 square miles this summer, more than 50 percent larger than its average size. This huge dead zone, the size of New Jersey, is directly linked to…

As Des Moines businesswoman Deidre DeJear plans her run for Iowa Secretary of State in 2018, she’s highlighting the fact that she already has plenty of experience in the role’s two main jobs: encouraging voting and helping small businesses. She ran voter turnout efforts for Barack Obama’s campaign in Iowa in 2012, and operates her…

The use of an inflammatory TV ad in the special election for House District 82 is drawing criticism from LGBTQ advocacy groups in Iowa. As Starting Line reported earlier today, candidate Travis Harris and the Republican Party of Iowa are running ads in the Ottumwa media market that attack Democrat Phil Miller over his votes…

Just a month after a transgender 13-year-old’s suicide in Fairfield, the Republican Party of Iowa and candidate Travis Harris are running attack ads on transgender bathrooms that are reigniting a bitter controversy that divided a community last year. Their target is Phil Miller, the Democratic candidate in the special election for House District 82, who…