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One of the photographs of my father that I clearly remember appeared on the pages of the Bloomfield Democrat about 60 years ago.

Pop was standing chest-deep in a hole that had been hastily dug in the street on the Bloomfield city square. His face was grim. There was urgent work to be done, because much of Bloomfield was without water.

An underground main had broken a block from the city’s water tower. Water was gushing into the street and flooding basements of nearby businesses.

There, in that hole with water pooled at his ankles, Pop shoveled muck and mud to expose the leaking pipe so it could be repaired.

In contrast with my dad, I had a soft working life. I spent much of my career in an air-conditioned office. The old photo shows Pop was not so lucky. He was a working stiff for the City of Bloomfield water department, wielding a shovel or hanging onto a jackhammer, before later moving up to operate the city’s water treatment plant.

His work days ranged from freezing, to sweltering, to all manner of conditions in between. He usually could take time for a few gulps of water from a jug during scorchers or for some hot coffee from a Thermos when he needed to thaw out.

But in Texas, not all working stiffs are not as fortunate as Pop was. We have the Texas Legislature and Gov. Greg Abbott to thank for that.

by Iowa Capital Dispatch
July 10, 2023

What Iowa GOP lawmakers and Gov. Kim Reynolds are planning to do in Tuesday’s special session may have started out as the most politically expedient course of action on abortion – but it could backfire in a spectacular way.

Here’s why.

Reynolds and the GOP majority under the golden dome are coming back into session at the cost of tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars to try again to pass a law banning most abortions after roughly six weeks of gestation.

No matter what they pass, this law is going straight back to court, at the cost of potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars for litigation, again at the expense of taxpayers. Its ultimate fate will not be decided before the Legislature’s regular session in January. In fact, it probably won’t be decided before the 2024 elections.

My late friend Paul was a fine Des Moines teacher. I wish the Evans girls had him for history and government.

Judging from his ability to entertain me with descriptions of his interactions with students, parents and administrators, I am confident he could make the Peloponnesian War come alive for his history students and hold their attention.

If I live to be 100, I will never forget him relating anecdotes from parent-teacher conferences. He described one student sitting next to Mom, listening as Paul expressed concern about the kid’s sluggishness many mornings.

These are challenging times for Iowa’s 327 public school districts.

They are being watched closely by state officials and lawmakers, by parents and by others in the community. These eyes are looking for signs schools are treading lightly on topics like racial history and sexual orientation or that schools are being distracted from dealing with unruly kids who disrupt other students’ learning.

With this heightened scrutiny, some districts are doing themselves a disservice when they try to keep the public in the dark.

Here's a real-life example. It illustrates my belief government will never build trust and confidence with its constituents when government leaders engage in secrecy and deception. This also is an example that a state government board dealing exclusively with transparency issues may be too timid.

In 2022, one day after the mass shootings at a school in Uvalde, Texas, the Bettendorf school board met with about 300 parents who were angry about frequent incidents of student misconduct at the middle school.

Iowa Capital Dispatch
June 19, 2023

The Iowa Supreme Court’s surprising deadlock on the state’s “fetal heartbeat” bill sets up a difficult and potentially divisive election-year debate among Republicans in the Iowa Legislature – and not just about abortion. It also is likely to inspire even more Republican zeal to weaken the separation of powers and judicial independence in Iowa.

Gov. Kim Reynolds and GOP lawmakers have put considerable effort into reengineering the courts to their advantage. They revamped the membership of the judicial nominating commission in 2019, to give the governor more power over the people in charge of vetting and recommending applicants for positions on Supreme Court and Court of Appeals.

Iowa Capital Dispatch

It’s been a while since I attended an Iowa caucus cattle call. After spending most of Saturday at Sen. Joni Ernst’s Roast and Ride event at the Iowa State fairgrounds, featuring eight GOP presidential candidates, I was most surprised by how little things change.

In a lot of ways, it could have been the summer of 2015. Just like this year, the rhetoric from Republican candidates running for the 2016 caucuses was heavy on immigration and government overspending, energy costs, crime at home and dangers abroad.

The national media, this year as in 2015, were obsessed with the wonder of retail politics and wrote very little about what candidates actually said. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis brought his kids and a bouncy house, gave away ice cream and managed to have a few conversations with voters that weren’t painfully awkward. Sen. Chuck Grassley wore socks given to him by Sen. Tim Scott. (Is that some kind of new endorsement by footwear?)

Sue and I were in Washington, Iowa, last month. The purpose for our trip was a high school graduation.

It was a special occasion because the people we joined with in honoring young Cameron, the newly minted Washington High School grad, have been our friends for almost 44 years.

It is important to know that while family and friends gathered to celebrate this milestone in the young man’s life, there was one noteworthy person close to the family’s heart who was there in spirit, because he truly made this wonderful day possible.

That person was the late Robert Ray, Iowa’s former governor, who died in 2018. He is a revered figure in the lives of Cameron’s extended family and in the lives of thousands of immigrant families.

When FBI agents led a Dixon, Ill., official out of city hall in handcuffs and the charges against her became public, the most often asked question was “How.”

How did City Comptroller Rita Crundwell manage to embezzle an astounding $54 million from the northwest Illinois community of 15,700 people before she was finally detected?

How did city officials and an outside CPA auditing firm fail to get even a whiff of her brazen scheme for the 22 years she robbed the city treasury?

Crundwell was arrested in 2012. Her case is old news now. But Iowans should have more than idle curiosity in her crime.

Hers is a textbook case of why it is important to have independent outside auditors and investigators with the legal tools and the expertise to dig into potential “paper” crimes or misconduct involving government employees.

In 2017, the Iowa Legislature responded to concerns from Gov. Terry Branstad and amended Iowa law to ensure when government employees are forced out of their jobs the reasons must be made public and not shrouded in secrecy.

The goal was commendable. The governor was right. People deserve to be told “why.” It is called public accountability.

Since then, the transparency promised six years ago has diminished.