There’s a saying in business: “Where there’s mystery, there’s margin,” meaning complexity, confusion, and a lack of transparency create profit opportunities for those at the top. Sounds a lot like the privatization of Medicaid, and Iowa insiders’ plans to fund it. Medicaid alone ...

The legislature has finished week 11 of the session, we are busy working on bills sent over from the Senate and preparing appropriations bills for the final weeks of the session. Nearly every year during the session we deal with legislation that to one degree or another seeks to end the ...

Public education has stood as a foundational pillar in Iowa for almost 200 years. However, in recent years public schools have received meager increases in yearly state aid which fails to keep up with inflation. This, while the number of private schools in Iowa has grown due to the voucher ...

There are some in the Iowa Legislature who periodically toy with the possibility of eliminating the requirement that local governments print public notices in newspapers. This is the wrong move today, tomorrow and for the future. Government transparency is more important than ever. In truth it ...

Please join our Mid-Iowa Youth Beef Team to observe National Ag Day on Tuesday, March 24, 2026, with the theme of “Together We Grow” as we celebrate 250 years of agriculture progress. Agriculture producers have made great progress in their production since the 1960s. Today, cattlemen ...

As we celebrate Ag Week in Iowa, March 23-30, 2026, and look ahead to America’s 250th anniversary, we are reminded strong communities don’t come from any one person or one farm — they grow when people show up for each other. As a farmer, we see every day how closely agriculture and our ...

‘Meskwaki Nation Does Not Pay Property Tax, and That Isn’t Fair!’ Does this sound familiar? It may not sound familiar if you don’t live near Indian Country. I live in Tama County, Iowa. Tama County is home to the only federally recognized tribe in Iowa. I have heard this statement or ...

One moment can change a child’s life forever. A car crash. A fall. A sports injury. Suddenly, a student who once kept up in class is struggling to remember directions, control emotions, or keep up with schoolwork. When that student walks back into school, the question becomes: Who knows what ...

We have entered “debate season” in the House chamber. Each day this week we caucused on a long list of bills, then debated them on the House floor, sending over 80 of them to the Senate. One significant bill that we passed late last week was House File 2565, creating a Human Trafficking ...

February 20 saw the passage of the first legislative funnel. This is a deadline lawmakers set to winnow down bills eligible for consideration for the remainder of the session. It doesn’t apply to spending bills, but does a good job of narrowing what lawmakers will focus on around the midpoint ...