A "Capitol Week" milestone, and monthly Zoom this Friday

Dec. 26 show is online

Dennis Hart and I did our 100th show together on Monday night! It’s hard to believe we’ve been at this for nearly two years. I’m grateful to Dennis for being such a pro and to KHOI Radio for giving us this platform.

Before I get to tonight’s recap, I want to mention that the Iowa Writers Collaborative is holding its third monthly Zoom call for paying subscribers this Friday, December 30, from noon to 1 pm.

I’ll be sending out the link in a separate email later this week. But you don’t have to be a paid subscriber to my Substack to join the Zoom. You just need to support any one of the following newsletters.

Laura Belin: Iowa Politics with Laura Belin, Windsor Heights

Doug Burns: The Iowa Mercury, Carroll

Dave Busiek: Dave Busiek on Media, Des Moines

Art Cullen: Art Cullen’s Notebook, Storm Lake

Suzanna de Baca: Dispatches from the Heartland, Huxley

Debra Engle: A Whole New World, Madison County

Julie Gammack: Julie Gammack’s Iowa Potluck, Des Moines and Okoboji

Jody Gifford: Benign Inspiration, West Des Moines

Beth Hoffman: In the Dirt, Lovilla

Dana James: New Black Iowa, Des Moines

Pat Kinney: View from Cedar Valley, Waterloo

Fern Kupfer and Joe Geha: Fern and Joe, Ames

Robert Leonard: Deep Midwest: Politics and Culture, Bussey

Tar Macias: Hola Iowa, Iowa

Kurt Meyer: Showing Up, St. Ansgar

John Naughton: My Life, in Color, Des Moines

Chuck Offenburger: Iowa Boy Chuck Offenburger, Jefferson and Des Moines

Barry Piatt: Behind the Curtain, Washington, D.C.

Mary Swander: Mary Swander’s Buggy Land, Kalona

Mary Swander: Mary Swander’s Emerging Voices

Cheryl Tevis: Unfinished Business, Boone County

Ed Tibbetts: Along the Mississippi, Davenport

Teresa Zilk: Talking Good, Des Moines

If you are a paid subscriber to someone else’s column and that author doesn’t send you a link for Friday’s Zoom, email Julie Gammack: julieokobojiwriters@gmail.com.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming! Here’s the audio file for the December 26 edition of “Capitol Week.” (You can find all of our shows from 2021 and 2022 here.)

Here are the topics we covered:

• Iowa’s Congressional delegation had little to say about the criminal referrals the House Select Committee on January 6 sent to the Justice Department last week (none of the offices replied to my inquiry, but the Cedar Rapids Gazette’s Erin Murphy reported comments received from staff for Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst and Representative Ashley Hinson);

• Both senators from Iowa voted against the omnibus budget bill that will fund the federal government through next September, but Grassley voted for one procedural motion that allowed debate to proceed on the bill (I covered the Senate votes on various amendments at Bleeding Heartland);

• My reaction to the public comments from Grassley and Ernst about why they voted against the budget bill (both had voted for the previous massive budget bill in March);

• Representative Randy Feenstra declined to request any earmarks for projects in his district in the omnibus budget bill (I published a deep dive on this at Bleeding Heartland today, with details on projects that will be funded in other parts of Iowa);

• Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks is seeking a seat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, one of the most coveted committee assignments (Politico’s Joshua Siegel was first to report this last week);

• The Iowa Democratic Party looking into a problematic donation of $250,000 received in June from an executive for the cryptocurrency exchange FTX (Brianne Pfannenstiel covered this for the Des Moines Register);

• COVID-19 hospitalizations continue to rise in Iowa (I expect another surge in cases following family gatherings for Christmas);

• Since this is our last show for the year, Dennis and I went over highlights from the Iowa legislature’s work in 2022, such as tax cuts, reductions in unemployment benefits, and a ban on transgender girls playing school sports;

• Prospects for next year’s legislative session: will Governor Kim Reynolds finally get her school voucher plan through the Iowa House?

• The status of abortion restrictions in Iowa, and prospects for further legislative action on that front;

• Results from the most important 2022 elections for federal and state offices, and the make-up of the incoming Iowa House and Senate;

• How the Iowans voted on the most important measures that passed during the 117th Congress (2021 and 2022), such as Trump’s impeachment, the American Rescue Plan and Inflation Reduction Act, bipartisan infrastructure bill, and the Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization;

• More about how the Iowans have approached earmarks;

• Proxy voting in the U.S. House, which Miller-Meeks and Axne used from time to time, but Hinson and Feenstra never used.