Iowa and national conservative leaders discussed wins and future goals for issues like abortion and education policy Friday at the Family Leadership Summit, with one of the group’s officials calling for further abortion restrictions in Iowa. The Family Leader, an influential conservative Christian organization, brought speakers to the gathering of an estimated 1,000 at the […]
Betsy Devos
Trump administration may change the definition of gender to eliminate protection for transgender people
On Sunday, the New York Times reported the Trump administration is considering erasing the rights of transgender gender under federal law by “narrowly defining gender as a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth.”
Federal student loan ombudsman quits over Trump administration refusal to protect borrowers
The top federal official in charge of protecting student borrowers from predatory lenders, announced his resignation on Monday. In a letter to Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Mick Mulvaney, Seth Frotman said the bureau’s current leadership is allowing student loan companies to “drive millions of Americans to financial ruin with impunity.”
Iowa Attorney General joins protest against the Trump administration’s new student loan policy (Updated)
Two months after the Republican majority in the Iowa legislature cut Attorney General Tom Miller’s budget by $600,000 to punish the attorney general for his opposition to policies of the Trump administration, Miller is pushing back against a policy change by the U.S. Department of Education
Democracy in Crisis: A historic day behind the scenes with Jeff Sessions
Senators shuffle by the desk on Tuesday to cast their votes on the confirmation of Betsy DeVos as secretary of education, chattering like kids returning from summer break to find that everything has changed. Somehow even the victors seem confused. None of them really expected the world to look like this. Except, maybe, Sen. Jeff […]
Iowa senators supported DeVos in historic confirmation tie-breaker
Iowa’s two Republican senators cast their votes Tuesday supporting Betsy DeVos as the nation’s education secretary in a confirmation decision that turned into an historic tie, requiring Vice President Mike Pence to cast the tie-breaking vote. Both Iowa senators released statements Tuesday explaining their votes. The statements avoided direct comment on questions of DeVos’ qualifications […]

