Iowa private college officials say a key lawmaker is threatening funding to a state tuition grant program over their opposition to allowing community colleges to offer four-year degrees. Gary Steinke, president of the Iowa Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, said lobbyists for the association received a call last week from Rep. Taylor Collins, chair […]
Iowa Legislature
Posted inCommunity/News
Iowa House passes tuition freeze, penalties for private schools with DEI programs, continuing education limits
Iowa House lawmakers passed legislation Tuesday to freeze tuition and restrict some nonresident enrollment at public universities; penalize private colleges with diversity, equity and inclusion offices; and make changes to continuing education and career and technical education. Career, continuing education courses HF 2547 would expand career and technical education (CTE) credit transfers and establish a […]
Posted inLetters
Letter to the editor: Library outreach is neither radical nor reckless. All Iowans have a right to read.
By Cathy Zimmerman and Sam Helmick We write in firm and solemn opposition to HF 2324, now before the Iowa General Assembly. This measure forbids school districts, charter schools and innovation zone schools from entering into partnership with their public libraries, denies students the use of their school-issued identification to obtain books and learning materials, […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Iowa Senate committee approves bill forcing medical training programs to accommodate unvaccinated students
On Wednesday, Republicans on the Iowa Senate Education Committee approved a bill that would require public and private colleges and universities that offer “a medical, nursing, or other health care-related degree” to permit unvaccinated students to complete courses requiring clinical rotations that would bring them into contact with medically vulnerable patients. SF 2095 requires a […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Iowa House bill would impose new restrictions on minors at public libraries, create criminal penalties for librarians
Despite some librarians and advocates’ warnings that a bill passed by a House subcommittee Thursday would endanger the continued existence of public libraries across the state, supporters said the measure is needed to prevent minors from accessing “harmful” materials. HF 2309 prohibits public libraries from disseminating “material harmful to minors,” unless the library has gained […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Bill making it near impossible to designate Iowa waterways as impaired due to fecal bacteria contamination advances
A bill that advanced in a House subcommittee and committee Tuesday would prohibit a water segment from being designated as impaired unless the Iowa Department of Natural Resources identified the percentage of fecal bacteria coming from each animal species that contributed to its impairment. Every two years, the DNR must submit a list to the […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Iowa House Republicans advance bills to eliminate local civil rights protections, allow parents to force LGBTQ kids into ‘conversion therapy’
Republican members of two Iowa House Judiciary subcommittees advanced two bills on Monday that continue the anti-LGBTQ agenda Gov. Kim Reynolds and legislative Republicans have enshrined in state law since 2022. As the hearings were underway, supporters of transgender rights and advocates for LGBTQ Iowans protested in the rotunda and halls of the State Capitol. […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Iowa House passes bill to restrict use of eminent domain for Summit’s CO2 pipeline
Companies would no longer be able to use eminent domain to appropriate privately owned land for carbon pipeline projects under a bill approved by the Iowa House on Wednesday. HF 2104 passed with bipartisan support, 64-28. Ten of the House’s 33 Democrats joined 54 of the chamber’s 67 Republicans in voting for the bill. “I […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Iowa Senate Republicans advance bill to eliminate possibility of reopening Iowa City State Historical Society research center
A Senate subcommittee advanced a measure Tuesday to remove the state requirement to maintain a State Historical Society of Iowa research center in Iowa City — a point of litigation as the state has already moved to close the facility. SSB 3033 strikes the state requirement for the Iowa Department of Administrative Services to maintain […]
Posted inElection Coverage
A candid guide to the candidates running in Iowa this year
The 2026 election will be unlike any in decades. In addition to an open seat for governor and an open seat for U.S. Senate — a combination that hasn’t happened since 1968 — there are also open seats in two of Iowa’s four congressional districts and no incumbent running for State Auditor. In a state […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Debates over property taxes, eminent domain and cancer rates expected during 2026 legislative session
Iowa lawmakers are heading into the 2026 legislative session with several new leaders — but many of the issues expected to take top priority are subjects left unresolved in 2025, namely eminent domain and property taxes. Lawmakers presented legislation on both of these issues during the 2025 legislative session, but neither became state law. Republican […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Many stores stopped redeeming empties after Republicans gutted Iowa’s ‘bottle bill.’ Three years later, the Sierra Club is calling for a review.
It’s been three years since Gov. Kim Reynolds signed into law a bill gutting an important recycling law that had been in place for four decades. SF 2378 changed “the bottle bill” that another Republican governor, Robert Ray, signed in 1978, creating a 5 cent deposit on bottles and cans of soda, beer and wine […]
