Iowa angles on Kirk assassination; Steak Fry highlights; DOGE recommendations

Sept. 15 edition of "KHOI's Capitol Week"

Democrats hang out in the shade on a very hot afternoon in Water Works Park (photo courtesy of the Polk County Democrats)

Welcome to new subscribers! On Tuesdays, I share my weekly radio show and podcast in this space. The audio file from the September 15 edition is at the top of this post. You can also listen to “KHOI’s Capitol Week” through any podcast platform or smart speaker, and find all of our shows from the past three years here (KHOI Community Radio’s website is currently under construction).

Here’s the written recap, for those who would rather read than listen. If your email provider truncates this post, you can read it without interruption at this link.

For once

Spencer Dirks

and I didn’t have any new candidates to cover, so during the last ten minutes or so, we were able to catch up on some stories we didn’t report over the summer.

Iowa angles on Charlie Kirk’s assassination

We had to start with the tragedy that has dominated the news across the country since last Wednesday. The assassination of conservative movement leader Charlie Kirk is reverberating in Iowa. Contrary to what some Republicans have claimed, I have not seen any candidate, elected official or politician in Iowa celebrate the fatal shooting or justify killing someone over their political views. Across the board, Democrats as well as Republicans have condemned political violence. It was a recurring theme at the Polk County Democrats’ Steak Fry on Saturday.

In Iowa, as in many other states, Republicans are calling for some teachers or public university employees to be fired over social media posts that many found offensive after Kirk’s assassination. School boards in Oskaloosa, Creston, and Charles City will decide the fate of suspended employees soon. Iowa House Speaker Pat Grassley and State Representative Austin Harris are among the Republican lawmakers who have warned of “serious consequences” for school districts that continue to employ such people. U.S. Representative Ashley Hinson’s current pinned post on X demands that Iowa State University “immediately” fire an employee over an alleged social media post about Kirk.

State Representative Charley Thomson, who chairs the Iowa House Government Oversight Committee, wrote on Facebook,

I would like to assure the public, particularly those with children in Iowa's public schools, that the House Government Oversight Committee will be closely monitoring the disposition of each of these cases. I am a staunch advocate for free speech. Nevertheless, speech by state employees that crosses into advocating or appearing to condone political violence — including political assassinations — raises profound concerns about judgment, safety, and fitness to serve in a classroom.

Thomson also wants Iowans to contact him “if they become aware of social media posts by state employees that merit the attention of the House Government Oversight Committee.”

Some people have asked me whether it’s constitutional to fire people over posts on personal social media feeds, published outside the workplace. It’s a tricky question, because a lot of comments may violate an employer’s social media policy, even if it would be protected speech under the First Amendment.

Speaking to reporters on Monday morning, Iowa Senate Minority Leader Janice Weiner emphasized that while political violence is never acceptable, everyone is entitled to their opinions: “teachers who walk into schools don’t check their First Amendment rights at the door.” She said it’s important to “take a step back” and is incumbent on all leaders to turn down the temperature and engage in dialogue.

School boards can fire staff, but the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners may also discipline teachers. I’ve seen some Republicans call for Iowans to file complaints with that state board.

Johnson County supervisor defies governor’s order to lower flags in Kirk’s honor

This story has drawn some national attention: Johnson County Supervisor Jon Green defied the governor’s order to keep flags at half staff through Sunday. Flags were lowered in the county on September 11, to commemorate the 9/11 attacks. Green explained in a message posted to social media, “I condemn Kirk’s killing, regardless of who pulled the trigger or why. But I will not grant Johnson County honors to a man who made it his life’s mission to denigrate so many of the constituents I have sworn an oath to protect, and who did so much to harm not only the marginalized, but also to degrade the fabric of our body politic.”

Green added, “I will accept any consequence, whether legal or electoral, for my decision. It is mine alone.” He had previously ordered flags to be lowered in Johnson County in June, after former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman was assassinated along with her husband.

It used to be that flags were lowered only for military casualties or former elected officials. I asked the governor’s office why Reynolds ordered flags to be lowered for Kirk but not for Hortman. The governor’s spokesperson told me, “The flags were ordered to be lowered to half-staff until the evening of September 14^th in accordance with President Trump's signed proclamation.”

In social media posts, Reynolds and Attorney General Brenna Bird called Green’s decision “disgraceful.” But they didn’t threaten legal action, which suggests that Green is correct about having the authority to make this call.

I didn’t have time during the show to point out that Hinson falsely claimed Green had celebrated the assassination. That’s wrong: he wrote clearly, “I condemn Kirk’s killing.” Hinson shouldn’t be spreading lies about someone who is facing numerous death threats.

In Johnson County, views were split on Green’s decision. I’ve seen many social media posts on both sides. Two fellow supervisors, Mandi Remington and V Fixmer-Oraiz told the Des Moines Register they agreed with the decision. Supervisor Rod Sullivan said Green hadn’t consulted with other board members, and said “he believes lowering the flags should be reserved for certain military personnel and elected officials.”

State Senator Zach Wahls, who is running for the U.S. Senate, said he didn’t agree with the decision; he feels county leaders should comply with the governor’s order.

Miller-Meeks wants to name university center after Kirk

Adventures in pandering: U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks, whose district includes Johnson County, called on the University of Iowa to name its new Center for Intellectual Freedom after Charlie Kirk. She said that would be a “lasting tribute that would inspire generations of Iowans to stand boldly for liberty and the truth.”

The Iowa Board of Regents may well go down this road, but I think there would be tremendous pushback from the University of Iowa community. One can only imagine how conservatives would react if a Democratic-controlled legislature required universities to honor someone who had made disparaging remarks about white men or Christianity, comparable to some of Kirk’s comments about Black women or Islam or LGBTQ people.

I didn’t have time to mention during the show that State Representative Taylor Collins, who chairs the Iowa House Higher Education Committee, plans to introduce a bill to “require the introduction of the ‘Charlie Kirk Lecture and Debate Series’ at each of Iowa’s public universities.”

Catelin Drey sworn in

On Monday morning I went down to the capitol to watch Catelin Drey be sworn in as the seventeenth Democratic senator, breaking the Republican supermajority in the 50-member chamber.

Drey and Weiner spoke to reporters afterwards; you can watch the video here or read my write-up at Bleeding Heartland. Drey is optimistic about prospects for working across the aisle—“perhaps unjustly optimistic,” in her own words.

If you missed my coverage of the special election in Iowa Senate district 1, here are links to my preview of the race, the interview

Zachary Oren Smith

and I did with Drey and Weiner after the election, and my analysis of lessons Democrats can learn and apply to other campaigns.

How election forecasters see Iowa’s 2026 races

Since the candidate announcements are slowing down, Spencer and I took a minute to look at how election forecasters around the country see Iowa’s races.

Although our state has become quite red, we still have more competitive federal elections than many other states that are gerrymandered.

I’m looking at the three best-known forecasters: the Cook Political Report, Inside Elections with Nathan Gonzales, and Sabato’s Crystal Ball. Starting with federal races, which are always at the top of the ballot:

• All three forecasters rate Iowa’s U.S. Senate race as a “likely Republican” hold

• All agree that the first Congressional district is a toss-up

• All agree that the second Congressional district is likely Republican

• Inside elections and Cook Political consider the third district a “lean Republican” race, while Sabato’s Crystal Ball sees it as a toss-up

• All agree that the fourth district is not competitive

• Governor’s race: Inside Elections rates the governor’s race as likely Republican, while Cook Political and Sabato are calling it lean Republican.

Highlights from the Polk County Democrats Steak Fry

On Saturday, hundreds of Democrats gathered at Water Works Park in Des Moines for the Polk County Democratic Steak Fry. It had been a few years since I attended that event. Although it was extremely hot, and the event was smaller than in years when presidential candidates used to attend, the crowd seemed pretty upbeat.

Lots of candidates were there, including people running for school board and city offices as well as the state legislature and federal offices.

Rob Sand and Julie Stauch were unable to attend for personal reasons, but all three candidates in IA-03 spoke (Jennifer Konfrst, Sarah Trone Garriott, Xavier Carrigan). Four U.S. Senate candidates had speaking time as well: Nathan Sage, Josh Turek, Zach Wahls, and Jackie Norris. (Bob Krause switched to the Senate race too late to be added to the program, and according to Polk County Democrats chair Bill Brauch, Krause didn’t ask for a speaking slot.)

Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland gave the keynote address. Over the weekend, I wrote about his critique of his own party, as well as his harsh comments about President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress. I read a few of those quotes, but you can read more here. His call for Democrats to fight for core values was well received.

All of the Democrats running for Senate have had to pivot from running against Joni Ernst to running against Ashley Hinson. When they spoke to reporters at the steak fry, they all said (in somewhat different ways) the switch hadn’t changed their message because Hinson’s and Ernst’s voting records are the same. If you want to watch those Q&A sessions, which covered several other topics, here are the links, in the order they came to the media tent:

• Sage video

• Turek video

• Wahls video

• Norris video

Wahls used part of his speaking time to tell a story about Hinson helping to bury a bipartisan bill in 2019, when she was serving in the Iowa House. You can watch that video here. The gist: as a new state senator, Wahls was working on a bill to protect mobile home owners from steep rent hikes, a problem affecting some of his own constituents. The Iowa Senate approved the bill by 48 votes to zero, but when the legislation moved over to the House, Hinson killed it. Wahls noted that in 2018, the Iowa Manufactured Housing Association (the lobby group for mobile home park owners) gave Hinson a $1,500 campaign contribution. He said, “That is political corruption, plain and simple.”

I asked all of the Democrats running for Senate how the party should approach the coming showdown over funding the federal government, and whether they should agree to keep the government funded beyond September 30 in exchange for a short-term extension of the Affordable Care Act premium subsidies. You can watch their whole answers on those videos, linked above. To summarize briefly:

Sage said it was an interesting deal and said Democrats should start utilizing Republican Senator Mitch McConnell’s tactics to slow things down.

Turek said he’s not a fan of shutdown politics because “I believe in government working for people,” and shutdowns tend to affect the most vulnerable. But health care is perhaps his most important issue, and so reversing the cuts may be something worth fighting for.

Wahls said Democrats need to have “clear lines in the sand” and stick to their guns over the most important issues. During the last showdown over funding the government in March, there was no clear Democratic strategy or message until it was way too late.

Similarly, Norris said Democrats need to weigh the trade-offs. If they want to fight for this issue and it will help Iowans, then it’s probably something worth looking at.

I thought Senator Van Hollen answered my question well: “I’m not going to vote to fund Donald Trump’s ongoing lawbreaking, right? Because right now, any agreement is not worth the paper it’s written on, because Donald Trump is withholding funds illegally as we speak, including funding for cancer patients” at the National Institutes of Health.

More endorsements in Iowa’s federal races

We wanted to flag a few endorsements of note. Wahls landed his third labor union endorsement on Monday, from the International Association Fire Fighters (IAFF) Local 610 in Johnson County. He is banking on support from organized labor to help him win the Senate primary.

The group EMILY’s List, which backs women Democratic candidates who support abortion rights, has weighed in on the first Congressional district primary in support of Christina Bohannan.

She’s been a featured EMILY’s List candidate before; this is a classic example of a primary where they get involved. She’s the only woman in the Democratic field; the other candidate in IA-01 are Taylor Wettach and Travis Terrell. This endorsement isn’t particularly salient for Iowa voters but should help Bohannan’s fundraising, because EMILY’s List has a large national network of donors.

The group has not endorsed a candidate in Iowa’s other U.S. House districts, which all have multiple Democratic women running.

State Representative Lindsay James, one of four Democrats seeking the nomination in IA-02, rolled out a long list of endorsers last week. You can read the whole list here. They include former members of Congress Abby Finkenauer and Dave Loebsack, former Congressional candidate Kevin Techau, former State Senator Liz Mathis (who was the Democratic challenger to Hinson in 2022), and more than a dozen current or former state legislators from all of the large counties in the district and some smaller counties.

Finally, State Representative J.D. Scholten, a two-time Congressional candidate in IA-04, has endorsed Dave Dawson, one of three Democrats seeking the nomination there. He said Dawson (who used to represent the same part of Sioux City in the Iowa House) “has the experience, values, and commitment to represent western Iowa effectively.”

Final DOGE task force meeting

On Monday afternoon I listened in on the last meeting of Iowa’s DOGE task force, which will submit final recommendations to the governor by September 29. Although we don’t have all the details in writing, it’s clear the task force is backing off on the most explosive ideas floated earlier this year. For instance, there will no suggestion to consolidate Iowa’s 99 counties. Rather, the task force will recommend more sharing of services across city and county governments.

In August, DOGE task force member Terry Lutz (the former mayor of Fort Dodge) touched the third rail of Iowa politics when he suggested converting the state’s main public pension program (IPERS) from a defined benefit program to a define contribution program, more like a 401(k), for new public employees. Educators pushed back against his merit pay proposal as well.

On Monday, Lutz asserted that his ideas have been “totally misrepresented and misunderstood.” He said no one ever suggested taking IPERS away from or reducing benefits for current public employees. It sounded like the task force will recommend a recurring study of the total benefit package for public employees, and a way to give IPERS members a choice: they could keep their current pension, or more to a 401(k) model.

On teacher pay, Lutz denied the policy would cut any teacher salaries. Rather, he said, it would involve bonuses to reward good teachers that are raising student outcomes. (That’s harder to measure than you might guess.)

Other DOGE recommendations will likely be less controversial: combining and streamlining some workforce development and apprenticeship programs, or consolidating technology platforms across the public sector.

Most of the people Reynolds appointed to the DOGE task force came from the business world, and the chairperson Emily Schmitt repeatedly emphasized during Monday’s meeting that the goal is making government operate more like a business.

New policy limits nonprofit work at naturalization ceremonies

The Trump administration may make it harder for brand-new citizens to register to vote. Under the new policy, which the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced last month: “only state and local election officials will be permitted to offer voter registration services at the end of administrative naturalization ceremonies."

I learned about this from the League of Women Voters chapter in Sioux City. For decades, they’ve had volunteers attend naturalization ceremonies to help the new citizens fill out oter registration forms. The national leadership of the League of Women Voters said in a statement that the Trump administration’s new policy “is an attempt to keep new citizens from accessing their full rights.”

I sought comment from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office to find out how often they have staff present to help people register to vote after becoming citizens. It took me a while to get an answer, but a spokesperson told me on September 10,

We are working with USCIS to provide packets of information to new citizens at the various naturalization ceremonies across the state. These packets will include voter registration forms and information on submitting those forms to the correct agency, as well as our New American Voter Guide, which can be accessed at the bottom of this page on our website.

I doubt a packet with information will be as usefuld as volunteers helping people with the forms.

EPA withdraws pollution rule for packing plants

We’ve been meaning to cover some water quality stories lately, and I was determined to catch up with some of them on Monday.

Iowa Capital Dispatch reported last week, “The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has withdrawn a January 2024 proposed rule that would have reduced the discharge of nutrients and pollutants from meat packing plants and slaughterhouses.” Such facilities are major “point sources” of water pollution.

Trump’s EPA is rolling back environmental regulations in many areas. The agency justified this move by saying more regulation of this industry was inconsistent with protecting the food supply and mitigating inflationary prices. The agency also claimed the Biden administration rule would have increased air pollution and solid waste.

The Iowa Environmental Council’s general counsel Michael Schmidt criticized the decision, telling Iowa Capital Dispatch, “Rolling back EPA regulations to outdated standards from decades ago is the wrong move,” Schmidt said. “It benefits the near-monopoly international corporations controlling the meat industry, not everyday people. It will not make our water cleaner or Iowans healthier.”

Feds remove Iowa waterways from impaired list

During the Biden administration, the EPA placed seven major Iowa river segments on the “impaired waters” list, over the objections of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. But the Des Moines Register reported that in July, the Trump administration reversed that decision: “Even as Des Moines, Cedar Rapids and other Iowa cities and towns struggled with high nitrate levels in rivers that supply their drinking water, the Trump administration pulled the rivers from a list of waterways targeted for work to cut pollution.”

The Des Moines Water Works publicly opposed the EPA’s decision. CEO and General Manager Amy Kahler said in a statement last month, “The impairment of the Raccoon and Des Moines rivers threatens our mission and ability to safely provide drinking water” to 600,000 central Iowans. She added, “It is becoming increasingly difficult to treat source water with the high concentrations of nitrate we are seeing.”

The Des Moines Water Works has the world’s largest nitrate removal system, and had to run that system for at least 112 days this summer.

Why does it matter whether a river or part of a river is on the impaired waters list? Chris Jones, a former environmental scientist and research engineer at the University of Iowa, had a good post about this in his newsletter, The Swine Republic. Excerpt:

What’s being missed in the latest media stories (in my opinion) is that the de-listing, or un-impairing or whatever you want to call it, opens up these rivers to new and expanded point source discharges of nitrate. No TMDL, then no pollution cap, at least for nitrogen and nitrate. There’s no doubt in my mind that Republicans in general and Kim Reynolds specifically have seen these pollution ‘caps’ as an obstacle to economic development, and when Iowa’s economy is 51st-best in the country, that’s seen as a problem, especially for new or expanded meat packing operations.

State announces pilot project for buffer strips

Last month Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig allocated $3 million to “a pilot project that will pay farmers to implement buffer strips along streams that feed the municipal water supplies of Des Moines and Cedar Rapids.”

That might sound like a lot of money, but we’re talking about $300,000 a year for ten years. Experts agree that buffer strips are useful, but this funding will cover very little of the waterways.

Chris Jones estimated that the funding allocated for this project could pay for buffers along about 1 percent of the stream length in the targeted area. Although buffers can reduce runoff into streams, Jones described $3 million for buffers in these watersheds as “a fart in a hurricane, at best.”

He also noted that in Minnesota, farmers are required to maintain buffers. Jones argued, “The public is being played for fools on this, that Naig’s and Big Ag’s taxpayer funded voluntary approach will more effectively clean up our water than transformative public policy that compels farmers to do what is right.”

Polk County zeroed out budget for water quality project

We didn’t have much time to discuss this, but I wanted listeners to be aware of an article by Carey Gillam for The New Lede: Polk County officials “zeroed out” funding that was intended to promote the findings of a major study on water quality.

We’ve talked about this Polk County study, which involved lots of scientists and pointed to agriculture as the main source of pollution of the county’s waterways. From Gillam’s story:

When the report was finalized earlier this year, there was a little more than $400,000 left in the $1 million budget, with some of that money earmarked for communications and “public awareness” work, travel and other costs associated with promoting the findings of the report, records show.

Jennifer Terry, the project lead on the water report, had planned in-person meetings with scientists and community groups to focus on recommendations made in the report.

But those funds were recently “zeroed out” with no explanation, according to email communications.

Funding for the water report and related public outreach came from Polk County, Iowa’s most populous county and home to the state capital city of Des Moines. But the report was commissioned two years ago under different leadership.

Catching up on some Iowa Supreme Court rulings

The Iowa Supreme Court issued some politically salient decisions this year that we didn’t have time to cover, because they dropped either near the end of the Iowa legislature’s session, or during a week when we had a slew of candidate announcements.

Last week, the Iowa Supreme Court heard its first oral arguments of the new term, so we took a few minutes to catch up on some of those earlier high court rulings.

Police don’t need a warrant to search your trash

In June, the court reversed itself in a case about police searching garbage without a warrant. In 2021, four Iowa Supreme Court justices held that it’s unconstitutional for police to search your garbage without a warrant. Republican lawmakers responded in 2022 by passing a law saying Iowans have “no reasonable expectation of privacy in garbage placed outside of the person’s residence for waste collection in a publicly accessible area.

I thought that law was likely unconstitutional. And as we reported on “KHOI’s Capitol Week” in 2023, a Polk County District Court held that the legislature “overstepped,” and that the law authorizing warrantless garbage searches was unconstitutional.

But six Iowa Supreme Court justices disagreed in the case decided in June. The majority held held that the legislature had declared trash left on the curb to be “abandoned” property.

Justice Matthew McDermott dissented alone. I didn’t have time to read from his dissent during the show, but I thought it was very well-reasoned.

More broadly, he said, the majority's view would allow lawmakers to gut whatever constitutional provisions they oppose simply by defining terms in ways that suit them, such as passing a bill stating that a piece of property needed for a road project is no longer "private," or that rifles are not "arms" to exclude them from the constitutional right to bear arms. […]

He also rejected the reasoning that trash on the curb can be deemed "abandoned," arguing that residents have essentially no choice but to use municipal trash collection and that, far from leaving the trash with no owner, the residents are simply conveying it to the garbage collector as required by the city.

Most Iowa Supreme Court rulings are unanimous. But William Morris reported for the Des Moines Register last year, Justice McDermott “dissented more than any other justice” during the 2023/2024 term. He’s the only justice currently serving on the high court who did a significant amount of criminal defense work before being appointed to the bench.

Court again voids “Right of First Refusal” law

In May, the Iowa Supreme Court issued another unanimous ruling related to a controversial state law on electric transmission lines.

The “Right of First Refusal” language was added in the middle of the night to an omnibus budget bill on the last day of the 2020 legislative session. It gives Iowa’s incumbent investor-owned utilities the right of first refusal on new electric transmission projects, instead of going through a competitive bidding process.

When the court enjoined this law in 2023, saying it was passed through unconstitutional “logrolling,” some Republican legislators lost their minds. They briefly stopped answering questions during floor debate, to protest how the Supreme Court justices had cited transcripts from the 2020 legislative proceedings. But the Iowa House and Senate didn’t follow up that year or in 2024 by passing the Right of First Refusal as a stand-alone bill.

This year, Governor Reynolds included Right of First Refusal language in her wide-ranging energy bill. But that legislation didn’t reach the floor in either chamber—in part because the Trump administration’s Justice Department weighed in against the policy.

Governments can’t be sued for defamation over public comments at open meetings

Another unanimous ruling from May related to a lawsuit filed by a former girls’ tennis coach from Iowa City. The Iowa City school district had posted video from a school board meeting where two students criticized the former coach; she claimed the video was defamatory.

The Iowa Supreme Court held that it’s not defamation for local governments or school districts to allow members of the public to comment at open meetings, and to make recordings of those meetings available.

It was important that the school district hadn’t edited the video: “The fair-report privilege protects the publication of defamatory matter concerning another in a report of an official action or proceeding or of a meeting open to the public that deals with a matter of public concern … if the report is accurate and complete or a fair abridgement of the occurrence reported.”

Randy Evans explained the importance of this ruling in a column from May: “The court decision takes away any rational basis for a governmental body to claim it should not archive recordings of meetings for later public viewing.”

Thanks so much for reading or listening! We’ll be back next week.