The township where I live was established before Iowa Statehood. There were oak, walnut, hickory, ash, elm, and cottonwood thriving here among numerous pure springs. The first sawmill and grist mill was built in 1839 by Anthony Sells on Mill Creek. Put the big groves of trees together with the sawmill and you have us. The forests were long gone when we bought our lot here. What dominates the landscape is culture we and others brought with us to an area where all trees indigenous to this part of Iowa once existed in abundance yet no longer do. Part of that culture was roads.
HF2667 and SF2394 have been introduced in the Iowa Legislature. They essentially let industry interests, meaning real estate developers, the Master Builders, the Home Builders, and the Concrete and Asphalt Associations, mandate what cities and counties are allowed to do with regard to design standards for roads in new developments. On March 4, HF2667 passed in the House 61-36, so this week’s action is in the Iowa Senate.
The industry wants freedom to set very low road design standards. They want those standards to be uniform for all new development in the state. They want standards to ignore differing local conditions such as soil types and terrain. If local governments wanted better local standards, taxpayers would have to foot the bill, not developers. These bills are wrong for Iowa.
Iowa road design standards are currently developed by experts at the ISU Institute for Transportation. A proposed law would shift control of the program to the Iowa Department of Transportation. The bill would require statewide compliance and impose financial penalties for non-compliance, even when local governments make changes based on site-specific conditions. The fiscal note estimates the change would remove $450,000 in revenue from Iowa State University and require the DOT to hire two employees costing $231,000. Another concern is which private-industry representatives might serve on the new board overseeing the program.
If the new bills became law, that could enable developers to build subpar roads in new developments and prevent local governments from having control. It is part of the Republican agenda of making Iowa a nanny state.
Developers must address roads while planning a subdivision, at the same time accountants put a pencil to it and determine potential profit. Saving money on roads is part of extracting every last dime out of a project. When low-quality roads break down, the cost is paid by taxpayers and homeowners, not developers.
When our developer turned his farm into a housing subdivision, he didn’t know what he was doing. There was a lawsuit regarding wastewater treatment. He spent the least possible amount on our two miles of roads, using chip and seal pavement. Evidence of his lack of financial expertise can be found in his declaration of bankruptcy.
The building trades behind the new bills do know what they are doing: extracting every possible penny from the project for investors. If the bill passes, it would play right into their hands.
Jan. 18, 2016 – Photo Credit – Des Moines Register
On Monday I sent emails to U.S. Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst as well as to U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks on the subject of the U.S. aggression against Iran.
My message was simple: “I urge you to support the Kaine-Paul Senate resolution, S.J. Res. 104, the bipartisan war powers resolution that would prohibit strikes against Iran. Thank you for reading my message.” The email to Miller-Meeks referenced the House companion, the Massie-Khanna House resolution, H. Con. Res. 38.
The referenced resolutions are also simple: “Directing the President pursuant to section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution to remove United States Armed Forces from unauthorized hostilities in the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
The vote was scheduled for Wednesday in the Senate and the votes to get a simple majority were not there. Now what?
Senator Grassley responded on March 6, 2026. Read his letter here.
I reject the Iowa Republican position exemplified by gubernatorial candidate Brad Sherman, who wrote in part, “I support President Trump’s action against Iran. These actions are not an initiation of war, they are a response to a war already declared by Iran. This is the inevitable response to an evil regime that has openly and continually stated its goal is to destroy America and has actively sought the means to do so.” Was Iran attacking the United States? No. Is Iran an imminent threat to the United States? No. This position abandons the caution about foreign wars that once defined Iowa Republicans.
The president failed to address with the American people the reasons for attacking a sovereign country. On Monday, he said 49 top Iranian leaders had been killed, according to CBS News. The joint operation with Israel did kill key Iranian leaders. Anyone familiar with Iran’s political system knows new leadership can be approved quickly. No one I know gave the aging Ayatollahs high marks. They were easy targets for Israeli ordnance. The younger Iranian replacements will be formidable and could be worse. There has been insufficient public discussion of this.
Is the motivation to address the risk of a nuclear armed Iran with delivery systems? Give me a break. While Republican opponents of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, commonly called the Iran Deal, felt it was insufficient, the agreement placed verifiable limits on Iran’s nuclear program. When the president tore up that deal, he lost standing to claim this action was about nuclear weapons.
Is the president part of God’s plan, being anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth? The Military Religious Freedom Foundation reports receiving complaints from non-commissioned officers who say their commanders told them the Iran war is part of God’s plan and that Donald J. Trump was ‘anointed by Jesus’ to trigger Armageddon.” Read more about this here. They logged similar complaints across more than 40 different units located in at least 30 military installations. One NCO said their commander’s remarks “destroy morale and unit cohesion and are in violation of the oaths we swore to support the Constitution.” The Pentagon has not responded publicly to these allegations. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth should consider John Prine’s message, “Now Jesus don’t like killin’, no matter what the reason’s for. And your flag decal won’t get you into heaven any more.”
Is the Iran aggression solely to take attention away from the Epstein files? More than a few people are saying so, yet I don’t know that this war will accomplish that for the president. Maybe people in the administration can’t walk and chew gum at the same time but the American people can.
When the president admonished the people of Iran, “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be, probably, your only chance for generations,” he washed his hands of the consequences of this conflict. That is typical for Donald J. Trump.
The conflict in Iran has intensified efforts to undermine U.S. elections. Brennan Center experts break down the legal stakes and what must be done to keep elections free and fair on The Briefing with Michael Waldman. What state and local officials need to do and are doing. What voters need to know.
“All of the things the administration plans to do are against the law. The law is on the voters’ side. Don’t despair. Prepare.”
What do state and local officials need to do?
“They need to and are preparing. They’re gaming out scenarios. They are planning their legal options. They also need to prepare to make sure if something does happen they need to make sure that voting continues and that it continues in an orderly way. They need plans and backup plans.
Voters. They need to educate voters as to all of their options for voting so that voters can prepare and know they can vote early, they can vote by mail, and if there is a disruption at the polling place whether the polling place has been extended or whether they can go somewhere else to vote.
Every single eventuality needs to be planned out by election officials and in collaboration with law enforcement and others to make sure that things go without a glitch as much as possible.”
“The industry has been built for the last 30-40 years on having that wide open unregulated window. As that changes along with public sentiment likely with the issues we’re dealing with in Iowa – with the nitrates, the load on the treatment plants, the cancer rates, the beach closures – as we become a smaller and smaller voting block I just don’t see how it’s realistic to think that we can keep doing the same thing, producing awful results for other people and expecting that voting block is not going to say, “hold on a second here.”
It is my impression that there are a number of politicos out there who don’t want us to bring up the topic of election security because they are afraid it will cause people to not vote because the thinking is, they will believe the election would already be lost if they heard Trump may try to rig it. I’m sympathetic, but it needs to be talked about anyway.
I really doubt it will suppress voters to discuss real issues in a realistic manner. No one is saying don’t bother to vote. It’s simply about being realistic about what Donald Trump’s limits are, which we haven’t seen any yet.
And people are concerned. At our caucus this year the topic of what are we doing to keep our elections secure came up. In response to those expressed concerns, a statement was made, “it’s not that easy to rig elections because the states are in charge.. we’ll be ready with lots of poll watchers” or words to that effect.
True, states are in charge of elections according to the Constitution but Donald (aka The felon in the White House) has a plan for that! And we all have seen how much TFIWH and his Republican enablers adhere to the Constitution when it doesn’t suit their purposes. Not to mention, Iowa has a Republican trifecta that simply can’t be trusted, to put it bluntly.
Also, one can only assume it wasn’t that easy to, for example, get people to storm the capitol on January 6, 2020 and a host of other terrible, horrible blows that have been visited upon democracy under the Trump regime – but they tried. And when they fail they try again and again. So let’s not freak out about it but neither should we be in denial about what they are capable of trying, and realize how close they came to getting away with supremely crazy stuff like the fake elector scheme, one of my personal favorites.
Mark Elias – whose law firm has won over sixty court cases fighting the Trump administration on election law – makes his case to the public in this video below that there is one fear driving Trump’s behavior, and we need to be very concerned about what he is up to, because we will need to be ready to fight back. I think it goes without saying, Marc Elias knows what he’s talking about and he says this about Donald Trump:
“What he really fears is that in November we are going to vote Republicans in congress out of power.” – Marc Elias
“If you want to understand American politics in 2026 you can never forget that almost every event is explainable at least in part by Donald Trump’s insatiable appetite for power. He wants to be an authoritarian. He wants to be a dictator. And that the greatest threat to that, the greatest threat to his power is you and me. That’s right, the voter.
What he really fears is that in a few months, this November, we’re going to vote Republicans out of power in congress. Because whatever you may think about the Democrats or any particular elected official we know one thing. The Republican congress are just his enablers. The Republican congress are just his doormat. They will do whatever Donald Trump tells them to do.
What really motivates him is election denialism and the twin manifestations of it, voter suppression and election subversion – that’s what drives decision making in this White House.
And once you start looking for signs of it, you see it everywhere.
At 2:30 am on Saturday morning, Donald Trump did a video on Truth Social to announce the bombing of Iran. As crazy as that was that he announced a war on Truth Social in the middle of the night, it’s even crazier that two hours later he wrote, “Iran tried to interfere in the 2020 and 2024 elections to stop [Trump] and now faces renewed war with the United States.” That’s right. The very next social media post, back to back.
The one announcing the war was him tying a connection between this alleged interference in 2020 and 2024 and the war that he had just launched.
These two posts tell you everything you need to know about where Donald Trump is going for the next eight months.”
“The 2026 midterms are the greatest threat to Trump’s power — and he knows it. Marc Elias exposes Trump’s three-pronged plot to protect his majority: False claims of foreign government election interference, a DOJ push to obtain your voter data, and a leaked executive order that would let Trump dictate voting rules to every state. This is the most dangerous threat to your vote in modern American history.”
Support Democracy Docket’s mission: https://newsletters.democracydocket.c… 00:00 The 2026 Election Power Grab 01:09 Trump’s Election Strategy and Fear of Voters 04:41 Iran, Foreign Interference Claims, and National Security 09:05 Executive Orders and Control Over Voting 11:24 DOJ’s Push for Sensitive Voter Data 16:38 Media Silence and Institutional Failure 18:06 AI, Surveillance, and the Anthropic Clash 21:54 Connecting the Dots to 2026 26:12 What You Can Do to Fight Back
As February comes to a close, we celebrate Black history and its deep roots in rural communities, from farming and land stewardship to labor organizing, mutual aid, faith leadership, and civic engagement. These often-overlooked stories show how Black people have shaped rural life and democracy for generations and remind us of the power of organized communities, power we will carry into our work together in 2026.
First Red and Rural Caucus Call of 2026
Join the Rural Caucus!
Our next Red and Rural Caucus call will be a little different. We’re meeting on Saturday, March 7 at 1:00 PM CT, a change from our usual schedule to avoid conflicting with all the No Kings 3 trainings happening during the week.
The session will be facilitated by our Campaigns Director, Gracey, a fresh face to guide our conversation on the plan for 2026, and Tim, our Mobilization Director, who will explore how members can plug into No Kings while building power in red and rural communities.
Register below to receive reminders. We have many exciting plans for 2026 and can’t wait to see you there!
We’re gearing up for the next round of No Kings protests, and we’d love to hear from you. Let us know whether you’re planning to host a No Kings event in your community, and what kind of support you’d need to make it a success. Whether you’re just starting to think about it or already organizing, we’re here to support you.
Republicans are once again pushing for a series of voter suppression bills—all variations of their infamous “SAVE Act”, which would create unnecessary obstacles for millions of eligible Americans trying to register to vote.
Congress is negotiating new funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) at a moment when ICE and CBP are inflicting real harm on communities. This resource breaks down what we’re demanding and how you can take action.
When I began writing for Blog for Iowa in 2009, I covered individual political events like the state hall of fame ceremonies and the special election of Curt Hanson. In reading those old posts, I remembered I also wrote advocacy for nuclear weapons abolition and for improvement in the environment. Those kinds of posts remain viable and while I’m covering for Dave Bradley the next couple of months, I will revisit them from time to time.
At the same time there is a new politics around Iowans. So much of what we get from Republicans is vindictive. We feel that particularly well in Johnson County where I live. I mean, we need a law to force counties to follow the governor’s orders about flying the United States flag at half staff? HSB 634 does that and it cleared the first legislative funnel. The bill was in reaction to Johnson County Supervisor Jon Green defying the governor’s order to lower flags to half staff after the death of a conservative podcaster. Defending against Republican vindictiveness is a slippery slope. I, for one, decline to go there. Why slide down into the mud with them?
What is worth writing about? For me it is the several conversations I have each day with actual people about actual issues, regardless of our politics. Things like the ungodly amount of money our county spends transporting prisoners because there has not been public support enough to build a new jail. The presence of blue-green algae in the state park lake near where I live. The odor of concentrated animal feeding operations wafting over our homes on warm summer evenings. The covert work of fossil fuel money to kill one of the shining examples of what is good in Iowa: our support for electricity generated from wind turbines and solar arrays. These are things I hear from actual people and they will carry weight in how I pick my topics.
In a time of instant access to public media, the national news plays a role here. I wish it were buffered by distance, yet it clearly is not. We have a president and national media geared to dominating what we hear and see in public media. It would be dishonest to ignore all of those stories. So I will pick some.
I hope readers will stick with me. I hope to provide reasons why you should.
Governor Kim Keynolds: (515) 281-5211 U.S. Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121 Iowa Members of Congress - Rep. Randy Feenstra (R) - Rep. Ashley Hinson (R) - Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R) - Rep. Zach Nunn (R) Iowa US Senators - Senator Joni Ernst (R) - Senator Charles Grassley (R)
Adam Peters is a Democrat running for Iowa House to represent HD 97 covering parts of Scott County including much of east and central Davenport. 
Brennan Center
Brad Magg is a Democrat running for Iowa House to represent HD 38 covering mostly Jasper county. 
Blog For Iowa 