Category: Issues

Guest post from Adam Kenworthy, chair of Iowa Voting Rights Project KCCI reported on an important story last week regarding a man who was told he could not vote because he was classified as a felon. However, what the reporting revealed was that in fact the man was not a felon and that the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office had classified him as one incorrectly [update: the Secretary of State’s office clarifies that is was the federal courts that erroneously classified the man as a felon; the Secretary of State’s office fixed it within an hour of hearing about it]. […]

A white supremacist group appears to be running robocalls in Iowa over the Mollie Tibbetts murder. A Starting Line reader in the Des Moines area sent in a recording of a robocall that they received Tuesday evening around 8:00 PM. In the recording, a group called The Road To Power claims responsibility for the message that calls Tibbetts’ alleged murderer (an undocumented immigrant from Mexico) an “Aztec hybrid” that is part of a culture of “low-IQ, bottom-feeding savages.” It suggests that were Tibbetts still alive, she would support killing all Mexican immigrants. The group calls for deporting all immigrants. The […]

Don’t believe the news and political analysis that Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court is a done deal, a panel of national pro-choice leaders and activists told Iowans this week. While Iowa’s own Senator Chuck Grassley has been trying to push forward hearings for President Donald Trump’s choice to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy before all of Kavanaugh’s past documents are released, this past week’s developments in the Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort cases have created new problems. Several Democratic senators are now arguing that a president implicated in a crime that undermines the legitimacy of his presidency should […]

Some Republican candidates and conservative organizations may continue their efforts to politicize Mollie Tibbetts’ death to advance their immigration views, but not without significant pushback. Some of it is even coming from fellow conservatives. The local University of Iowa chapter of Turning Point USA announced this morning that they had rejected an idea from the conservative organization’s field director to hold an immigration event on the campus in response to Tibbetts’ death. The executive board also said they were stepping down from their leadership positions in the local chapter and ending their association with Turning Point USA. [Update: several hours […]

Guest piece from Caleb Gates, a refugee case manager and advocacy specialist in Cedar Rapids. He read this as a speech at a recent Families Belong Together Rally. We, the people of the United States, immigrants and descendants of immigrants, denounce the separation and detention of immigrant families by our government. President Trump’s policies separate families through ICE workplace raids, the deportation of longtime US residents with citizen children, and the termination of programs such as Temporary Protected Status and DACA. Simple misdemeanors like public intoxication, trespassing, loitering, or possession of marijuana detain and separate immigrants from their families. President […]

A guest post from Zack Davis, the state director for Jason Kander’s Let America Vote organization in Iowa. Photo of a Let America Vote intern knocking doors for a state legislative candidate in West Des Moines. On May 5th, 2017, our state — long seen as a leader in voter participation and election integrity — took a big step backward with the passage of House File 516. Instead of lowering barriers and increasing access to the ballot for Iowans, the legislation championed by Secretary of State Paul Pate injected partisan politics into the voting process, instituting an unnecessary and confusing […]