2019
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Maternal Mortality Issue Draws More Attention In 2020 Race
Maternal mortality is an issue that isn’t often widely acknowledged, but that’s changing with the 2020 race for president. Several candidates have staked out positions on how to address the issue, and many of the senators have already sponsored or co-sponsored bills in the Senate. According to the CDC, about 700 women die every year…
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5 Character-Defining Moments From AARP Candidate Forums
Watching eight hours of forums is a lot to process. Unless you’re going to sit down and watch all of them, like I did, it’s hard to get a feel for how the candidates truly feel about some of these issues. Even then, it can all get sort of jumbled into one big discussion. If…
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Joni Ernst: Border Crisis Like A Packed Thanksgiving Dinner
Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst returned Monday from a trip to the U.S-Mexico border with a message for her constituents: “The humanitarian crisis at our southern border is absolutely real.” Ernst, in the midst of her first re-election campaign, discussed the trip on the Simon Conway Show, a conservative radio program hosted in Des Moines. The…
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Here’s Who Contributed To Democrats Running Against Joni Ernst
To run a successful statewide campaign, candidates need time, a deep network of contacts, and these days, a lot of money. Incumbents often are at a financial advantage when running for re-election — Republican Joni Ernst raised more than $1.1 million in the second fundraising quarter of this year — but that doesn’t mean her…
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County GOP Party In Iowa Calls Dem Congresswomen “Terrorists”
The Washington County Republican Party in Iowa took the lead of President Donald Trump’s racist smears on four Democratic congresswomen and ran with it last week, going a little further than their party leader. A Starting Line reader directed our attention to the post made on July 15. “It certainly is time somebody called out…
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I Watched 8 Hours Of 2020 AARP Forums. Here’s What I Learned.
Last week, coincidentally timed with AARP/Des Moines Register candidate forums, nearly all of the Democratic presidential candidates rolled out long-term health care plans, as well as plans to strengthen social security and combat rising health care costs. While rising costs have been a major topic of discussion in Iowa during the summer, most of the…
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Why Some Iowa Lawyers Avoid Federal Court And The 8th Circuit
While most politically-engaged Iowans are well-aware of the ideological leanings of the U.S. Supreme Court and the Iowa Supreme Court, they may not realize how skewed to the right the federal appeals court that covers the state has become. The Eight Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Missouri…
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Pharmaceutical PACs Pour $28k Into Joni Ernst’s Re-Election Race
Sen. Joni Ernst brought in a number of high-dollar donations in the second quarter of fundraising for her re-election campaign, including about $28,000 from pharmaceutical companies. Ernst, nearing the end of her first six-year term in the Senate, officially launched her re-election campaign last month. And between April 1 and June 30, she collected about…
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Access To Legal Abortions Keeps Getting Trickier In SE Iowa
For 13,100 women living in Burlington, Iowa, it keeps getting trickier to access affordable reproductive health care. The town’s Planned Parenthood provider closed in 2017. It forced residents to travel about 80 miles away to Iowa City just for routine checkups and to get birth control. Dr. Michael McCoy, chief medical officer for Great River…
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Sanders’ Greatest Hits: A Breakdown Of The 30-Minute Stump Speech
When a presidential candidate known for a stump speech that often exceeds an hour only has 30 minutes to convey his vision for America, what would he say? Sunday afternoon, more than 150 people in Fort Madison heard a condensed version of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ vision that became part of the national conversation in 2015.…
