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Iowa House Democrats put up a long but unsuccessful fight last week over Republican efforts to establish public funding for privately-run charter schools—a years-long attempt that Democrats have been working hard this session to stop. Democrats spent over five hours into early Thursday morning last week opposing a bill that would make public charter schools…

Since early January, when Iowa’s 2021 legislative session gaveled in, Waterloo State Rep. Ras Smith has been traveling the state to see what Iowans are looking for from their leaders during difficult times. In visits to towns from Decorah to Perry, he heard a recurring theme: the most pressing issues on Iowans’ minds were far…

Friday’s close of the Iowa Legislature’s second “funnel” deadline left much of Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds’ agenda for the 2021 session in play. The end of last week’s cutoff meant all policy had to pass the Iowa House or Senate and through a full committee in the other chamber in order to advance this session.…

Despite sweeping public resistance, Iowa is set to move forward as one of the almost three dozen states where Republicans are pushing to restrict voting access after November’s general election. A total of 964 Iowans signed up on Monday night to speak against a GOP-introduced House bill that shortens voting periods and clears out voting…

An Iowa Republican likened an abortion “pandemic” to COVID-19 as a bill that would create an abortion state information dashboard passed on Thursday through a legislative subcommittee. “COVID-19 has had a huge impact on a lot of Iowans, and unfortunately we’ve lost a lot of Iowans due to COVID-19. If you go to the state’s…

News broke this week that a number of central Iowa private schools on Friday were vaccinating their staff, and for some public educators fed up with school privatization and in-person learning efforts from the Legislature, it was the last straw. West Des Moines private school Dowling Catholic on Monday announced—when the Iowa Department of Public…

Frustrated Iowa residents are crowdsourcing locations and availability for COVID-19 vacccine doses on social media and through personal networks in lieu of state assistance. With state preparation for distributing the vaccine lacking, the lucky Iowans who have gotten a vaccine typically have done so after significant searching. It’s on Facebook groups, Reddit posts and Twitter…

It’s been about six weeks since state Rep. Amy Nielsen tested positive for COVID-19, which she thinks she contracted at the Capitol, and she is still experiencing lingering symptoms. The North Liberty Democrat on January 30 became the first lawmaker to contract the virus this year (or at least the first to publicly report it),…

In what’s been described as a “disastrous week in education” by public school advocates, the Iowa Senate last Thursday pushed forward a sweeping school privatization bill, followed by Gov. Kim Reynolds signing on Friday a requirement that schools now offer a 100% in-person learning option. Now Democrats question the timing of what they call an…

As Iowa continues to fall behind national rates of COVID-19 vaccines administration, Republicans on Tuesday advanced a bill through a Senate subcommittee that would further protect non-vaccinated residents and prohibit vaccine mandates set by employers or health care systems. Over 80 people joined an hours-long virtual meeting before the bill passed 2-1 with Republican Sens.…