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Bird calls and dog whistles: Iowa's attorney general frequently pushes her opinions at public expense

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird again tried to put herself in the national spotlight two weeks ago as leader of a group of Republican attorneys general who fixed their sights on Costco over the warehouse retailer’s DEI policies.

The state attorneys sent a stern warning letter telling the company, “We … urge Costco to end all unlawful discrimination imposed by the company through diversity, equity and inclusion (“DEI”) policies. … Costco should treat every person equally and based on their merit, rather than based on divisive and discriminatory DEI practices.”

The letter came about the same time as 98 percent of Costco’s shareholders voted *against* a proposal to cut the company’s DEI statements. The vote puts Costco executives in a tight spot of serving the wishes of shareholders or acquiescing to Bird and her friends.

Encouraging mercy is not un-American

I was in Eagle Grove last week. Like many travelers in Iowa, I stopped at Casey’s before leaving town.

Eagle Grove is a meatpacking community, and many jobs are held by Hispanic men and women. As I waited with my coffee in the check-out line, I was behind a Hispanic man whose hands showed his labors had taken a rougher toll than my life’s work at a computer has taken on mine.

A convenience store in the middle of America is not a place where one typically pauses to reflect on a church sermon given three days earlier at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

But I can’t be the only person nowadays who wonders whether people are listening to each other amid the chatter that constitutes our supposed national dialogue. Are our ears the most under-used part of our body?

Normally, what a pastor says from the pulpit rarely makes headlines. But at this time and place in our history, Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde of the Washington Diocese of the Episcopal Church was not just another pastor looking out over another flock when she addressed the interfaith prayer service to recognize the inauguration of a new president.

Iowa Democrats say they’ll ‘hold Republicans accountable’ for unpopular policies

Iowa Capital Dispatch
January 9, 2025

Democratic legislative leaders said Thursday they will work during the upcoming session to “hold Republicans accountable” for policies that run counter to most Iowans’ wishes.

“We are ready and willing to work with Republican lawmakers to pass good policy, but we will also hold Republican lawmakers accountable when their efforts are geared towards special interests and the very wealthy instead of focusing on hardworking Iowans,” Senate Minority Leader Janice Weiner, D-Iowa City, said.

The 2025 legislative session will convene Monday with a supermajority of Republicans holding power in both the House and Senate, as well as a Republican governor. That leaves Democrats with too few votes to pass legislation without GOP assistance.

Lawmakers should slap down intimidation lawsuits

A public policy dispute over plans for about 1,000 miles of carbon dioxide pipeline across Iowa took a concerning turn last week. The pipeline company’s latest tactic demonstrates why Iowa should finally pass an anti-SLAPP statute that has been floating around the Legislature for a few years.

Iowa Capital Dispatch and the Des Moines Register reported that Summit Carbon Solutions, an Ames company founded by businessman Bruce Rastetter, sent letters to six opponents of its plans to use eminent domain authority to build the pipeline. With eminent domain, Summit could force landowners along the route to sell easements to the company so it could bury the proposed 2-foot-diameter pipe across their land.

The letters demand the recipients retract what Summit claims are false and defamatory statements the six critics have made and cease making similar comments in the future. The letters warn recipients their statements have “exposed you to significant legal liability.”

The Cedar Rapids Gazette reported the recipients are Steve King, the former congressman from Kiron; Jess Mazour of Des Moines, an official of the Sierra Club of Iowa; Barb Kalbach of Dexter and Tom Mohan of Cedar Rapids, both members of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement; Robert Nazario of Iowa Falls, like King, a member of the Free Soil Foundation, and Trent Loos, a Litchfield, Neb., farmer and podcaster.

The Summit project and the underlying eminent domain controversy are textbook examples of the kind of public policy issues the nation’s founders had in mind when they wrote the First Amendment in 1789. Freedom of speech was added to the Constitution to ensure people had the right in the new nation to offer their observations and opinions on important public policy matters.

More access to government, not secrecy, needed

I was asked to speak last week at the annual conference of the National Freedom of Information Coalition. My remarks boiled down to a simple message: The public needs more information *about* their governments, not more secrecy *from* their governments.

I explained a troubling trend I see worming its way through local governments in Iowa. This trend cuts at the heart of the public meeting law that has served our state and its citizens well for 50 years.

Open meetings of government boards, councils and commissions give the tax-paying public a seat from which they can monitor what government boards are doing — or not doing.

School board learns important lesson on secrecy

Last week, I bumped into an Appanoose County woman I have known for several years. She thanked me and the nonprofit organization I manage for shining the spotlight on the actions of Centerville Community School District leaders.

This mother told me I was responsible for her spending part of a recent evening listening to the recording of a closed meeting of the Centerville school board that had just been made public by order of a judge.

The purpose for the 2023 closed session supposedly was to discuss the job performance of Ryan Hodges, the guidance counselor at Centerville High School. But Hodges submitted his resignation two days before the meeting.

The Appanoose County mother was troubled by what she heard on the recording. It bothered her that school board members and Superintendent Mark Taylor did NOT talk about the actions of Hodges, who has been accused of predatory behavior toward a 17-year-old female student the school was responsible for protecting.

Instead, what the mom heard were board members and superintendent expressing more concern about how the findings by an outside investigator had leaked to the public, rather than Hodges’ sexual “grooming” of the girl. She heard school officials agreeing to make sure their public statements did not imply Hodges was forced to resign. She heard discussion about board members’ concerns about how the resignation would affect Hodges’ own children in elementary school.

We are all diminished by Iowa’s hunt for illegal voters

by Ed Tibbetts, Iowa Capital Dispatch
November 2, 2024

This week, Paul Pate tried to clean up his mess.

Iowa’s top election official insisted at a news conference on Wednesday it is the federal government’s fault that he ordered county auditors in this state — just two weeks before Election Day — to challenge the votes of up to 2,022 potential American citizens. He’s doing this because at one point in time, perhaps years ago, these people once told the Iowa Department of Transportation they were not citizens.

Pate freely admits he doesn’t know how many of the 2,022 people on his list have become citizens since their initial declarations. But they’re being asked to cast a provisional ballot, which will require them to provide additional proof of eligibility. And since the names on the list haven’t been publicly released, affected citizens won’t even know they’re being singled out until they go to vote.

Which means many will have to make a second trip to get their vote counted.

Those pesky TV political ads short on context

It’s a challenge, but not impossible, to find topics on which Republicans and Democrats share the same view these days. Here’s one: Election Day means we can all celebrate the end of those infernal television commercials.

My tolerance for these ads has never been high. One reason is the way their assertions oversimplify the pluses (or the minuses) of one candidate’s or the other’s stand on some issue.

It is not really a surprise, however, because politicians have long claimed they will solve some problem or their opponent is to blame for that problem.

We should all know by now politicians thrive on their claims of having simple solutions to what, in reality, are incredibly complex issues. Inflation and illegal immigration are two that come to mind.

One of those maddening commercials shows U.S. Representative Marionette Miller-Meeks, the Republican from Davenport (or Ottumwa). She is steering a shopping cart through a grocery store checkout lane. She says to the camera, “We gotta bring these prices down.”

Fidelity to Constitution more important than policy differences

A family acquaintance was on Vice President Dick Cheney’s Secret Service detail during George W. Bush’s presidency. His Christmas photo one year was a portrait of him, his wife and Cheney together at a White House reception.

Back then, the agent entertained us with stories of people lining the streets as Cheney’s motorcade passed. Many greeted the vice president with their middle fingers extended.

Back then, those spectators most likely were Democrats who disagreed with Bush administration policies. Today, such roadside salutes for Cheney probably would be extended by Republicans.

Such is the way Iowa and our nation have been turned topsy-turvy in the past dozen years. Dick Cheney is on a growing list of noteworthy Republicans who have publicly said their party’s nominee for president should not be allowed back in the White House.

State auditor’s report on nursing homes should be a call to action for Iowa legislators in 2025 session

by John Hale and Terri Hale, Iowa Capital Dispatch
October 7, 2024

State Auditor Rob Sand recently did what no statewide elected official in Iowa has done in a long time – he brought attention to problems in nursing homes.

A report from his office discussed the lack of timely nursing home inspections by the Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing (DIAL) and the staff shortages that impact the quality of nursing home care.

DIAL and the nursing home industry immediately dismissed the report’s data and conclusions. They want us to believe one of two things: that there are no problems with nursing home inspections or staffing, or if there are, improvements are being made. Could there be a third choice – that Sand’s report hit an exposed nerve?

We believe the third – Sand’s report provided a window into vexing concerns about Iowa nursing homes and the apparent lack of meaningful state government oversight of the money that flows to the industry, the inspection process, and the historic inability to recruit and retain sufficient nursing home staff.

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