Great ad for Monica Vernon, Democratic challenger of tea party Republican Rod Blum, District 1. Let’s send this Iowa Democrat to DC. Click on the link to volunteer for the campaign or donate. monicavernonforcongress.com/
At a House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology hearing on rural call quality and dependability, Dave Loebsack (D IA 02) talked about how call completion and call quality is important to many Iowans.
“I am pleased that we’re discussing this very, very important legislation today. It’s interesting that in the 21st century when we’re talking about smart cities, self-driving cars, all kinds of mind blowing technologies that are changing our daily lives, the fact is that many rural Americans are still living with a distinctly 20th century problem… It’s about calls to rural areas sometimes just don’t go through and they’re wondering why we’re not dealing with this… I am hearing time and again about folks who call a parent but the phone never rings on the other end or calls that do go through but the quality is so bad you can’t hear the person that called you… it’s really about seniors missing calls with test results from their doctors…about businesses losing customers…about people not being able to reach first responders in an emergency; and as our technology moves forward we simply can’t afford to erase paths to these folks that still cannot get the most basic communication services…”
Urgent action alert from Ed Fallon and the Bold Iowa team:
THANK YOU to the 18 brave Iowans who were arrested during our Bakken Pipeline Pledge of Resistance action on Saturday — including landowners Cyndy Coppola and Kathy Holdefer.
More than 50 have now been arrested in Iowa during nonviolent civil disobedience actions to stop construction on the Dakota Access “Bakken” pipeline.
If you haven’t see it yet, check out the amazing video shot by one of our arrested Pipeline Fighters from inside the school bus the Iowa State Patrol used to transport everyone arrested during the action to the Boone County jail — all the while singing “This Land Is Your Land”! Thanks also to Bakken Pipeline Resistance who helped organize the encampment by the river, and for all the landowners and locals who cheered and waved from the banks of the river!
Our next action is a #NoDAPL Solidarity Rally on Tuesday (today!) from 12-1 p.m. over the lunch hour at the Simon Estes Amphitheater on the Des Moines River. We’re joining a Nationwide Day of Action on Tuesday with a rally in solidarity with Standing Rock and all the other Tribal Nations and water protectors assembled at the Sacred Stone Camp in North Dakota.
Although President Obama stepped in last week to temporarily halt construction on the pipeline in the vicinity near the Sacred Stone Camp, the fight is not over, and construction continues in Iowa. On Tuesday, join Bold Iowa and Iowa CCI to stand together in Des Moines as others participate in over 100 events across the country to tell Pres. Obama to stop the Dakota Access pipeline.
Bring a homemade sign (#NoDAPL, Water Is Life, Stop Eminent Domain Abuse, etc.) and wear a Pipeline Fighter t-shirt if you have one. We’ll be taking a group photo with the river as a backdrop to underline our message that Water Is Life!
Reprinted withpermission from the Fall 2016 issue of The Prairie Progressive.
by Jesse Case
There’s a guy I know. You probably don’t know him. I don’t know a lot of people you know. I may not even know you. But this guy I know is a Mexican dude who lives in Forest View Trailer Park. When he found out his trailer park had been sold to make room for Iowa City’s newest gateway project, he helped organize a tenants’ association. The tenants’ association started meeting with the developers who had already promised to relocate trailers for free just on the other side of the property to make room for a giant hotel and more. The tenants association came up with some principles that the developers agreed to. Principles like new housing costs shouldn’t be more than previous housing costs and the rights of tenants to organize should be respected.
The tenants told the developers they appreciated their offer to move the trailers but many of the trailers couldn’t be moved and hadn’t been moved in decades. The tenants told the developers they thought it made sense to have small permanent homes they could call their own. Small permanent homes would improve people’s lives. It would improve the value of the neighborhood and gateway project. It would keep the neighborhood together. The developers thought this all sounded good too and everyone agreed to agree. This was maybe the first time this happened ever. Because residents were organized and informed, a new model for preserving affordable housing was being born.
The developers offered to donate the land and start looking for funding revenues to finance the small permanent homes. One idea was having the city finance mortgages for these affordable homes with revenue bonds. This was just one concept. The city would make this money back and then some over the years. The developer put this idea in an email which the tenants turned into a flyer to distribute to their neighbors.
Some people outside the trailer park found out about the concept and were appalled. They were appalled about using taxpayer money to finance low income housing. But they couldn’t say that publicly. That would make them sound like ogres. That would make them sound un-Democratty in a Democratic county. That would make them sound like they were anti-immigrant. They couldn’t say that. So they attacked the content of the flyer and the community organization that helped put it together, suggesting the residents must be “confused” and easily misled by complicated information. It was cute. Some people bought it.
But that’s not what this article is about. This article is about the difference between doing something and talking about something. It’s about showing one’s true colors on an issue that’s been talked about for decades. It’s about the uncomfortable position of having to actually be for or against taking tangible action around a public issue when in the past you could always be for it because there was no tangible action to debate. It’s about “Which side are you on?”
Last year when the new city council was elected, it freaked out some people who were used to controlling most city council decisions. Mostly people who were voted out of office or friends of people who were voted out of office. Now they’re going on the attack to protect the status quo, and part of their strategy is to get cute with the facts while attacking every small step the new council takes to address housing issues. And at a moment when low-income resident voices are being heard and considered by policymakers for the first time in years, this crowd’s strategy is to question and try to marginalize those voices at every turn.
Here are the facts. The current Iowa City council has provided relief to dislocated residents of Rose Oaks, hard working community members who, in spite of their contributions to our community, are among the most housing insecure. The current council has put together focus groups with a cross-section of residents to look at how the city should utilize tax increment financing (TIFs). The current council has passed inclusionary zoning ordinance in the Riverfront Crossing Zone to mandate low income housing as part of the overall development. The current council is targeting affordable housing on future TIFs. The current council is acting on the mandate of the majority of voters who cast their ballots in the last election, and the broad coalition of low-income residents and concerned community members who are continuing to organize for real solutions to Iowa City’s affordable housing crisis.
What a difference a year makes. What a difference local elections make. That’s what this article is about. I’ve lived in Iowa City for almost 20 years and people have been talking about the “affordable housing” crisis ever since I can remember. 2016 is the first time I’ve actually seen anything tangible done about affordable housing. This is the first time I remember a real public debate about how to deal with affordable housing in our community. After decades of everyone agreeing there’s a problem, we’re finally debating the solutions.
–Jesse Case is the state political director for the Teamsters
The Prairie Progressive is Iowa’s oldest progressive newsletter, available only in hard copy for $12/yr.!! Send check to PP, Box 1945, Iowa City 52244.
Sorry I won’t play along with this as being a day of super patriotism. We were attacked on September 11th, 2001 by group of mostly Saudi Arabian radicals. Rather than be a day for beating our breasts in public to show who is the most patriotic, I personally feel that this is a day we should use for education.
One lesson America must learn is that voting for a person to be president because you’d like to drink a beer with them or because of the way they insult their opponent is totally irresponsible. It is time for American voters to grow up and understand that elections have consequences. In the case of the 2000 election, George W. Bush did not win, but came sufficiently close so that the Supreme Court made it their prerogative to step in and select a president. This was essentially a coupe by the Supreme Court, but that has been discussed many times before.
The second lesson is that we pick a person who has prepared themselves for the job and has shown a willingness to work. Bush did little to prepare for the job and then spent much time at the golf course or at his ranch. Despite being well warned by his predecessor, Bill Clinton, that Al Quieda needed to be watched closely. That warning was ignored as was the early August memo stating that “Al Quieda determined to strike in US.”
George Bush was ill prepared and intellectually lazy. His lack of concern hampered our ability to prepare or respond. Despite presiding over the only attack on American soil ever, Republicans nominated a similarly ill prepared and intellectually lazy man as their nominee for this election. On top of that Donald Trump is a narcissist who listens to almost no one. The similarities are chilling.
Finally, be wary of extremists no matter what the motivation for their extremism is. Extremist groups and individuals often cloak themselves in religion and the flag to make their positions acceptable. Some American politicians knock themselves out lumping all Muslims as extremists which we all know is not true. At the same time they all but ignore and some even encourage extremist groups like the white supremacist groups such as White Aryan Resistance or the KKK to name a couple.
When Barry Goldwater uttered the line “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice” he could not have been more wrong.
It has already been fifteen years and based on the Republican nominee for president it looks like America has not even begun to learn its lessons. That is not too surprising when the medium that most Americans depend on to guide them, television, cares not one whit about its obligation to inform and enlighten. TV’s only concern is to make as big of a profit as is possible. To do that it needs as many eyeballs glued to it as possible. To get the eyeballs it needs out of reality characters that people will stare at like they do an ongoing train wreck. Thus we get candidates like Donald Trump.
Maybe next year television journalism will turn a new leaf that will actually help us make sense of what is happening …….. maybe?
Whoopsie, Donald Trump let the cat out of the bag the other day and let us know what the real underlying issue is in the campaign – Hillary Clinton doesn’t look like a president. By golly why couldn’t all the media and all the citizens discern that? Steven Colbert explains Hillary’s big problem in this 8 minute video ( Colbert’s diagnosis starts @ 5 minutes in):
May I offer some suggestions to Hillary? 150 years ago another presidential candidate got some great advice on shoring up his looks when a young admirer suggested to Abe Lincoln that he grow a beard. Worked for Abe, could it work for Hillary? If not a full beard maybe a goatee to give her an intellectual air? Or perhaps just a mustache to give her a more mature look?
Besides not having a penis, another item Colbert forgot was that her breasts are far larger than previous candidates maybe with the exception of William Howard Taft.
Not sure if these suggestions will help, but I offer them in hopes of helping. But there were other candidates who did win who did not have the full presidential look. I offer the aforementioned Abe Lincoln as one example and the rather diminutive James Madison as another. Perhaps Clinton will do just fine with her natural looks. At least her hair doesn’t look nearly as fake as Trummp’s.
Were you paying attention?
1) The big campaign event last week was NBC’s presidential forum. Even NBC News executives agreed that the big loser that night was what moderator?
2) Mexican senator, Armando Piter, proposed a law that would do what if Donald Trump is elected president?
3) 50 years ago last Thursday (Sept. 8th) what TV show premiered that despite low ratings has had a long lasting effect in the US?
4) A few days later (Sept. 11, 1966) another TV show premiered that followed the antics of members of what soon to be major rock band?
5) Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson made a critical area when he responded to a question by asking “What is “ what city?
6) As the press and Republicans fail to pin a scandal on Clinton, it looks like Republicans will have to contend with a bribery scandal involving what 2 Republicans?
7) During the presidential forum Wednesday, Trump expressed admiration for what foreign leader?
8) Republicans in the senate once again tied emergency funding to combat the outbreak of what disease to other poison pill legislation, thus assuring its defeat?
9) The city of Atlantic, Iowa has been receiving complaints about a presidential campaign sign with an offensive message that says what?
10) Tomorrow (by my count) marks how many days of obstruction by Chuck Grassley on the Garland nomination?
11) A decision by Britain’s National Health Service to deny non-life threatening surgery to what two groups of people has been put on hold as discriminatory?
12) “I don’t bother talking about it” Trump told Bill O’Reilly. What doesn’t Trump talk about any more?
13) President Obama cancelled a meeting with Philippine President Duterte after Duterte called Obama a what?
14) What long time Fox host announced she would be leaving Fox when her contract was up?Then on Tuesday she was out the door immediately.
15) Congress is back for a short session and Republicans are talking about impeaching who?
16) Republicans in the House have also threatened to punish what group of fellow legislators?
17) What NFL player’s jersey is now the best seller?
18) Outrage to come! President Obama nominated a person of what religion as a federal judge?
19) What banking giant was caught by federal regulators with having employees open secret bank accounts and apply for credit cards without customer knowledge?
20) Democrats in what state have sued to have Donald Trump removed from the ballot since his campaign has failed to follow laws to get on the ballot?
2) cancel the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848. This ceded areas that are now California, Texas plus parts of nearly every other western state except the very northern tier.
3) Star Trek
4) The Monkees
5) Aleppo
6) Donald Trump and Florida AG Pam Bondi
7) Vladimir Putin. Putin used to be an enemy
8) the zika virus
9) “Trump That Bitch”
10) 180 days or 6 months. That’s our Chuck – he’s a record breaker!
11) ‘fat’ people (BMI over 30) and smokers
12) his birther claims about Obama. Remember when he claimed his investigators had uncovered the truth in Hawaii?
13) son of a bitch or son of a whore. Apparently this is standard for Duterte
14) Greta Van Sustern – that was quick
15) the head of the IRS. Apparently there are no problems to deal with
16) Those who participated in the gun law sit-in last June (Dave Loebsack, stand up proudly!)
17) Colin Kaepernick – here we see a fine demonstration of how to burn a Kaepernick jersey: (2.5 minutes)
18) Muslim really!
19) Wells Fargo. As of now only low level employees have been cited as being violators
The images of September 11, 2001 are etched in the minds of almost everyone over the age of twenty. However, we need to be more concerned with what we have done with 9-11 than with 9-11 itself. Yes, we mourn the loss of so many innocent victims, we laud the heroes of the firefighters and so many others, and we will always be outraged at the inhumanity of the attackers. But I don’t think that the 2,977 victims on 9/11 died to usher in a period of perpetual war.
We must remember that the tragedy of 9/11 was used as an opportunity for war. The Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) was approved just three days after 9/11, with only one dissenting vote in Congress. (The lone dissenter, Congresswoman Barbara Lee, deserves an honored spot in history, along with Vietnam dissenters, Senators Morse & Gruening). We launched war on Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, even though 15 of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. Also, how to initiate war on Iraq, which had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks, was on the lips of our leaders the day after 9/11. We need to add to our minds’ images the 6,888 US armed services personnel who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, the 52,000+ who bear visible wounds, and the 500,000+ who bear the invisible wounds of PTSD AND TBI. And, yes, the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghan dead. We must remember it all if we are to heal.
We must do more than remember. We must honor the victims of 9-11 by proclaiming loudly that the 15-year, $100 million per day war in Afghanistan, the longest in our history, has gone on long enough. Outside of Kabul, the Taliban have more complete control over the country than at any time. The US has spent more in inflation-adjusted dollars to create an alternative to the drug economy in Afghanistan that it spent on the Marshall Plan after WWII. Despite that massive expenditure, poppy production in Afghanistan is booming, providing the resource for 90% of the world’s heroin.
We must honor the victims of 9/11 by ending our military involvement in Iraq, which has spilled over into Syria. The visions of starving civilians trying to escape war, the visions of millions of refugees desperately seeking safety and a new life, and the visions of arms dealers with blood-soaked hands should compel us to demand that the US invest its considerable non-military power in an immense, renewed effort to bring about a cease-fire.
Honor the victims of 9-11 by saying NO to a bloated, unaudited U.S. military budget that is nearly equal to that of all other countries combined. By saying NO to drone assassinations. By saying NO to US Special Forces deployed in 134 countries. By demanding that Congress rescind the 2001 AUMF which has used the infamy of 9/11 to justify our perpetual wars.
In the words of President Eisenhower, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” Or earlier words, “wheresoever your treasure is, there your heart is also.”
Wars are much easier to start than to end. Let us take up the heavy, sweet burden of waging peace.
We thank you for a well done video that shows how close Grassley is to Trump. The lies, the adulation of Putin, the divisive and racist campaign, the mockery of the disabled, the treating of women as second class citizens, the disdain for Hispanics, the outright hate for Muslims, the total lack of any knowledge of foreign affairs. Doesn’t matter to Grassley.
None of this matters to other Republican leaders in Iowa, either. Branstad’s son is the head of the Trump campaign in Iowa. Branstad himself endorses Trump. Trump was the guest of honor for Joni Ernst’s hog roast. Rod Blum endorses Trump. David Young in the 3rd district has endorsed Trump, as has Steve King.
Make no doubt that Donald Trump represents the very worst, the very very worst of America. Not just the worst of American politics, but the worst of America. Born rich, Trump has spent his life thumbing his nose at American morals and exploiting the poor and middle class for his own enrichment. He uses America’s courts as if the system were his toy. He cares not one wit how much he insults anyone. In short he is a spoiled rich kid who is easily bored. His campaign is nothing but a sales job. All hype and no product. Just like his fraudulent “university” Trump University.
It is also sad to see the Iowa Republican Party headed by my former state rep toss away any pretense of caring about people or country in order to endorse Trump. If they endorse him, they endorse his policies. The Iowa Republican Party and its leaders endorse his praise for Putin, his screwing laborers and small business owners out of wages and payments.
Many Iowans wonder if they will continue to endorse Trump as the story of his bribe to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi and current Texas and former Texas attorney general Greg Abbot unfolds. Based on the IRP’s past in matters Trump, we have no reason to think that a bribery scandal would bother them.
Even in his presidential campaign Donald Trump falls back on his old habits of stiffing those who do work for him. Esquire reports that Trump is stiffing his campaign staff:
Donald Trump has been plagued with accusations that he does not always fully compensate construction contractors who work on some of his biggest projects. And now, according to a Reuters report, Trump is putting that strategy to use with some of his top staff.
A review of campaign finance disclosures revealed that the Trump campaign has not paid as many as 10 of the candidate’s top staffers, consultants, and advisers including former campaign manager Paul Manafort.
It would be Karmic that the young Branstad had to go hat in hand to the old man for a short term loan because he got stiffed by Trump. It would also be very Karmic if all those Iowa republicans endorsing Trump were pulled down by the weight of the anchor that Trump is.
Wow – what a display of – what? sexism? Republican registration? media bias? doing the dirty work for Comcast? all of the above? by Matt Lauer Wednesday night in the inappropriately named Commander-in-Chief Forum.
The night begins with a 17 minute attack on the Clinton emails which had nothing, zero, nada to do with the supposed reason for the forum. As if that wasn’t enough, the email controversy was even dismissed by congressional Republicans months ago after wasting tens of millions of dollars and countless hours of valuable congressional time on the matter. If a person didn’t know better they could only guess that Matt Lauer was following orders from the folks who sign his checks at Comcast.
As if Lauer’s disgraceful display with Clinton weren’t enough to give a clue who NBC was rooting for, his bootlicking display with Donald Trump was worse. After interrupting Clinton time after time, Lauer asks Trump open ended questions over and over and then lets Trump wander way off the topic.
If we did not have the internet that is pretty much what we citizens would be left to digest. That plus the cable newser followups that added little to the mix. Since corporations own and control a high percentage of all our media – TV, radio, magazines, newspapers – there is but one major media where Americans can find a true diversity of opinion. That is the internet, but only so long as it remains neutral. The internet is so diverse that anyone with access to the net can even contribute their opinion.
The neutral internet of today is the equivalent of the back room printing presses that kept colonists informed before and during our revolution. With the printing press common people had access to a way to disseminate news and opinion, to get the word out about meetings and to let the populace know of the atrocities of an unaccountable government. This held true throughout following eras such as the abolitionist movement and the fight against Jim Crow.
A neutral internet and its spawn, the social media, is the electronic heir to the printing press in the back room in previous ages. Wednesday night the heir to the printing press once again proved a worthy successor as the shill job done by Lauer was hammered from many corners. Even the wealthy and well connected who are so used to having their way can’t simply shut down their cities on the open internet.
And that is a major sticking point for those who currently have the power and money to shape public opinion. They can’t control a neutral internet. They can’t control if people like you and I state that Matt Lauer stunk Wednesday. Nor can they stop us if we suggest that his performance may be tied to his paycheck. Comments like that won’t make it into their newspapers and TV programs.
If you have forgotten, the model for the internet that is favored by the those who want to control it is the current cable and satellite TV industry. For a price you get a package of pre-selected channels. For more money you get “better” channels. For a bundle that no one can afford you get pretty open access. Think of the internet where major liberal sites could be put behind paywalls where the price is simply too steep for most citizens.
It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see how easily a few internet “gatekeepers” could easily manipulate your choices. Want to get to Dailykos? You have to pick up an opinion package that includes Breitbart, Drudge, Redstates and Worldnetdaily. And then Dailykos may have continuing outages.
Ending net neutrality is one of Comcast’s major goals. They are not the only one by far. AT&T, Verizon, Time-Warner etc. – pretty much anyone who has any corner of the telecommunications industry – is buying congress critters and using our courts to end neutrality.
So what kind of congress critters do they invest in? Taking a little peek on Open secrets.org we see that Comcast and Verizon are Chuck Grassley’s top two contributors. Wasn’t it Donald Trump who said a year ago that he gave money expecting favors:
The US is already well behind the rest of the world in the internet revolution. Vote for Donald Trump and Chuck Grassley and watch access to websites you take for granted disappear behind expensive paywalls as they deliver a huge gift to their “donors.”
We were reminded the other day in articles from dailykos and hullabaloo that the reason that blogs took off and for many have become their first source of news is because the media was doing and continues to do such a crappy job. From Digby on Hullabaloo:
When I first started writing online many moons ago, the issue that drove me to it was the fact that we were dealing with impeachment and a stolen election substantially because the media was putting their thumbs on the scales in our politics in ways that enabled a malevolent right wing force to take advantage. I never thought they were right wing themselves, simply that they found it easier to capitulate to the right’s pressures and were far too willing to chase the narratives the right helpfully provided for them. This helped pave the way for some horrifying disasters — the Iraq war and the financial crash among them. It has certainly prevented real progress and led to cynicism. And they simply don’t seem to be able to see it. (What’s even more depressing is the fact that so many people who are able to see media malpractice when it comes to government malevolence can’t see it when it comes to political coverage.)
So we certainly do not want the internet in the hands of those who want to control the news and dish out crappy little portions to us. Vote for Trump, vote for Grassley and sit back and watch your internet disintegrate.
Labor Day means much more than sales events and holiday excursions. The day honors the men and women who provide the work that fuels our economy.
Reports of falling unemployment, growing wages, and rising consumer confidence in the United States mask harsh economic realities for millions of people. According to a recent Pew public opinion poll, 54 percent of respondents describe the national economy as bad. Workplace issues like downsizing, speedup, outsourcing, privatization, capital flight, and unsafe working conditions amount to direct assaults on workers’ livelihood.
While the earnings of the wealthy pull away from everyone else, the income of the working class and middle class shrink and more people slip into poverty. In their 2015 book, $2 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America, authors Kathryn Edin and H. Luke Shaefer found the appalling figure applied to 1.5 million households.
In Iowa, a recent study by the Iowa Policy Project, found that nearly 20 percent of families earn less than a self-sufficient income despite the presence of one or more full-time wage earners. The study also identified single parents and families in rural regions as most likely to fall short of a basic standard of living.
Wage stagnation is a universal problem, regardless of race, ethnicity, or gender. In addition, two-thirds of low-wage employees, especially those in the food service industry, suffer from some form of wage theft. Traditional full-time employment has also declined even as the total number of lower-paying nontraditional jobs—contingent, subcontracted, temp, on-demand—has increased.
Nationwide, just 12 percent of American workers receive paid family leave through their employer. The gender gap continues with women earning less than men. In certain industries like meat and poultry, the work remains exceptionally dangerous.
An estimated 11 million households spend more than half of their income on rent.
There is not a single state where a full time worker earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour can rent an apartment for 30 percent or less of their income.
Workers’ compensation, one of the oldest social insurance programs in the nation, is under attack. As conservative lawmakers in a growing number of states weaken benefits and erect barriers for receiving compensation, the cost of work-related injuries are being shifted onto the backs of workers and the public.
Trade unions have traditionally given agency to those who own no means of production and distribution. They rely on their labor to meet their basic needs for food, clothing, housing, and transportation.
In 1956, a third of the workforce held union membership, which was slightly higher than the share of national income taken in by top earners. In 2013, the figures were 11.2 percent and 47 percent, respectively. Those in the American labor force without the protection of a union are considered “at will” employees with no workplace rights except the right to quit.
Unions provide a recognized and organized counterweight to rising inequality and management power by giving employees a collective bargaining voice in their wages, hours, and working conditions. And polls indicate broad public support for the right of workers to unionize across a range of occupations from manufacturing to fast-food.
The American worker today faces a series of challenges often imposed by large employers and conservative politicians. Unions offer a labor-centered way to address structural and policy changes that help to advance greater equality, expand economic opportunity, and yield universal benefits. Unionists believe that all workers deserve living wages, decent hours, and humane working conditions.
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)
