Opinion
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OPINION: Republican Congress members from Iowan have abandoned their constituents
Despite overwhelming public outcry, Republicans in Congress passed their Big, Ugly Bill, which includes the largest cuts to health care in history. After years of expanding health care coverage and working to eliminate barriers to coverage, GOP Sen. Joni Ernst, and every other Republican Iowa member of Congress, decided that tax breaks to billionaires were…
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OPINION: Iowans need to stand up to agricultural monopolies for the sake of our water
After years of consolidation in the agriculture industry, just a handful of companies control how our water is treated. When political leaders and regulators were focused on ensuring a distributed economy that supported diversified farming operations, small farmers, and thriving rural towns, there were less nitrates in the water. Unfortunately, when Iowa officials decided to…
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Opinion: Zach Nunn is my congressman. I had to travel to DC just to talk to him.
I recently traveled to Washington, D.C. with a group of Iowans to talk with my representative: Congressman Zach Nunn. We weren’t sightseeing. We were there because it’s clear to us our economy is rigged for the ultra-wealthy, and the people who represent us in Congress aren’t listening to us back here at home. We went…
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Op-ed: Iowa School Chaplain Bill is a Christian Nationalist Knock Off
The School Chaplain bill is currently rushing through the Iowa legislature – it’s now heading to the Iowa Senate floor as H.F. 884, having passed the House and gone through the Senate Education committee. Despite the fact it seems to clearly violate most interpretations of the establishment clause – letting public school districts hire chaplains…
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Op-ed: Facing The Climate Crisis
Before his appointment as U.S. Energy Secretary, Chris Wright was the CEO of Liberty Energy, North America’s second largest fracking company. Wright recently asserted: “I am a climate realist. The Trump administration will treat climate change for what it is, a global physical phenomenon that is a side effect of building the modern world…The only…
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Op-ed: On Governor’s Voucher Law, Some Claims About Accountability Don’t Add Up
Recently, an argument has been going around that goes like this: private schools are accredited to teach students, therefore they’re accountable to taxpayers. The problem with this argument is that it ignores that accreditation as an academic institution has nothing to do with how an entity spends money. Accredited private schools taking vouchers still have…
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Op-ed: State Forced Districting Seeks To Further Divide Iowans
Over the past two weeks, Senate File 75, a bill exclusively and explicitly targeting counties with regent universities (Black Hawk, Johnson and Story), requires county supervisors to serve districts instead of our community at-large, has been passed on a party-line vote by both chambers of the Iowa Legislature. This bill is not only misguided; it’s…
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Iowa Starting Line: 10 years of doing things differently. What you can learn.
We’ve built up an important community that has stood up for Iowans. What a world. Amidst all the stupidity and suffering so far in 2025, our team has had one small reason to celebrate: Iowa Starting Line turned 10 years old earlier this year. It’s a minor miracle that Starting Line has survived this long—launching…
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Guest post: If we want to fix education, fully fund public schools
Let’s get back to funding and supporting it at a level that reflects how important it is for all of us.
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Guest post: Elon Musk’s chainsaw comes for the farm
I am incredibly concerned about what has been going on at President Donald Trump’s USDA in the last few weeks—in particular Elon Musk’s chainsaw approach to government agencies.
