Prairie Dog

From the Spring 2024 edition of The Prairie Progressive, Iowa’s oldest progressive newsletter. The PP is  funded entirely by reader subscription, available in hard copy for $15/yr.  Send check to PP, Box 1945, Iowa City 52244. Click here for archived issues

We’ve all heard of “Iowa nice.” Agree with it or not, it describes a state where folks are— well, folks. Amiable, helpful, willing to visit and ready to lend a hand as need arises. People have long been proud of this little phrase, but the state may soon have to retire it. Iowa nice has morphed into Iowa nutty. And Iowa’s elected version of nutty exhibits both a lack of reason and a very mean edge.

Between the GOP-controlled legislature and our increasingly fervid, pen-wielding  governor, the state is considering, passing, and even signing into law bills that serve to increase our children’s chances of getting killed, decrease their odds of eating three squares a day, and potentially insure they grow up without both parents. And that’s only the bills pertaining to arming teachers, the governor’s rejection of $29 million in federal food funding for kids and replacing it with around $900,000 in state funds with strings attached, and the attacks on abortion that seem to wait around the corner in red states.

The bill to arm teachers and other school staff, HF2586, would give those who shoot and kill someone more than the guns to do it: they would also enjoy qualified immunity. To be armed, they’d have to pass a one-time training on the legal issues surrounding qualified immunity plus emergency medical treatment; then quarterly firearms training; and an annual ‘live scenario’ drill. Well, that should make us all feel better about Mr. Fury, the recently divorced shop teacher having weapons at work. The bill passed the House and passed the Senate but was amended there, so is back in the House. The Governor will sign it in a heartbeat. Perhaps a child’s last heartbeat.

Aside from the above, the Area Education Agencies bill and the so-called “illegal re-entry”  bill are now laws. The first decimates—or, to use the trendy word for interfering right-wing havoc, “disrupts”—a perfectly solid statewide system providing educational assistance to children with special needs. AEAs are respected and relied upon by everyone from farmers to remote tech workers, parents, and children in all 99 counties.

The bill faced massive opposition from voters. They filled committee meetings and flooded legislators with emails and letters stating their outrage, anxiety, and dread over what the bill might do to children’s well-being and educational opportunities. The majority party was not having any of it. They voted for the bill and the Governor signed it. The bill takes a system working well and alters its funding model. It gives percentages of various funding streams to school districts, and the rest to the AEAs— who may or may not be chosen by the school districts to provide the services in a specific funding area. It creates uncertainty. It rolls the dice in an area where the students have great vulnerability and an even greater
need for stability and predictability. It meets Gov. Reynolds’ model for reaching into a bureaucracy and rearranging it for no good reason, with potential for great harm, simply to say she “fixed” something. Does this remind you of another (former) chief executive?

The illegal re-entry bill, SF2340, is a complete farce, a tour de force of right-wing showmanship signifying nothing. It applies to a tiny group of people. The Des Moines Register described this well in its April 10 outline of the newly signed bill: “The law creates a new crime of illegal reentry into the state, which applies to anyone who has previously been deported, removed, or denied admission to the United States.”

Iowa is not a border state. We are assuredly not a revolving door state. The most likely harborers of anyone meeting the law’s description are mega-farms that desperately need migrant work to continue raking in profits. Ironically, most of these are owned by GOP cheerleaders who write checks to support this nonsense with one hand, knowing they will be left alone by law enforcement in their counties to sign the paychecks for “illegal” immigrants with the other. It’s ironic. It’s galling. It’s performative yet dehumanizing. It’s Iowa!

Our state is in terrible straits. It appears most Iowans approve of at least some of what our governor is doing (for example, the bill to arm teachers polled at a 60% approval rating, also cited in the Register). But lowest common- denominator fears and knee-jerk solutions erode a state’s livability factor over time. And it doesn’t take long. Time’s a wasting for us to maintain our “Iowa nice” vibe. Meanwhile, our governor seems almost dreamily enamored of the Field of Dreams storyline. If you build it, they will come. She (and all those elected under the banner of her party) need to start asking, If you tear it all down, what will you have left?

—Kim Painter is the Johnson County Recorder.