Some bills die quietly in the Iowa Legislature. HF 2206 did this year. It attracted minimal attention among lawmakers when it was introduced on Jan. 29, even though the bill had 15 House members as sponsors. It drew even less attention outside the Capitol Building, despite the fact it would have done something polling suggests most Iowans want: legalize the recreational use of marijuana.
Joe Bolkcom
Posted inLetters
Letter from Joe Bolkcom: It’s time to clean the statehouse
Iowa Republicans can’t be trusted to manage your money anymore. Their reckless revenue and spending decisions have made a shambles of the state finances. They have created a huge $1.2 billion budget deficit that will soon blow a massive hole in the state budget and undermine essential services we depend on. Since they took over […]
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 […]
Posted inLetters
Letter to the editor: It’s time for Republican politicians to stop ripping off Iowa taxpayers
By Joe Bolkcom, Iowa City For the past eight years Iowa taxpayers have been victims of a massive Ponzi scheme. One where we have paid our hard-earned taxes for things we never received! Instead of investing our money in priorities to make Iowans stronger and more prosperous, Governor Reynolds and our Republican legislature have hoarded […]
Posted inCommunity/News
State senator calls COVID-19 vaccines ineffective before committee approves bill to ban vaccine requirements in schools and daycares
A Republican state senator falsely claimed COVID-19 vaccines are ineffective and called the idea of requiring them the “political belief of authoritarians who want to force their belief in… the hive-mindset,” just before the Iowa Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill that bans COVID-19 vaccine requirements at schools, universities and child care facilities. Sen. Jason […]
Posted inLetters
Letter from Joe Bolkcom: Iowa’s workforce crisis, dangerous prisons and neglected state parks are the result of GOP policy
Iowa’s workforce crisis and rural decline can be traced to irresponsible Republican tax and economic policies year after year. Their actions bring to life the words of their puppet master Grover Norquist who said, “I’m not in favor of abolishing the government. I just want to shrink it down to the size where we can […]
Posted inLetters
Letter from Joe Bolkcom: Are rural Iowa communities better off today than they were five years ago?
By Joe Bolkcom, Iowa Senator, Iowa City Iowa Republicans’ tax and economic policies have hollowed out Iowa’s small communities and rural landscape. Their big business approach to every problem have resulted in everything getting bigger: worker shortages, farms, packing plants, chemical and fertilizer companies, tractors, consolidated schools, convenience store chains, food and childcare deserts, CAFOs, […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Janice Weiner is running for Iowa State Senate
Janice Weiner will run for the Iowa State Senate instead of seeking reelection to the Iowa City Council in 2022. The first-term councilmember will campaign for the Democratic nomination in the newly drawn Senate District 45, whose area largely matches that of the current District 43, currently represented by Sen. Joe Bolkcom. Bolkcom announced earlier […]
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‘It’s time to rotate the crops’: Sen. Joe Bolkcom says he won’t seek reelection
Joe Bolkcom, who has represented Iowa City in the state Senate since 1999, announced on Thursday morning he will not run for reelection next year. “It’s time to rotate the crops,” he said in a video posted online. That was a phrase used by Tom Vilsack during the 1998 election that sent Bolkcom to the […]
Posted inLetters
Letter from Joe Bolkcom: I will not seek reelection to Iowa Senate
By State Sen. Joe Bolkcom, Iowa City I will not seek re-election to the Iowa Senate in 2022. I am deeply grateful for the trust, guidance and strong support I have received from the people of Iowa City and Johnson County. It’s been a privilege to work every day to make life better for everyday […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Gov. Reynolds signs bill requiring all schools to offer 100% in-person instruction regardless of COVID-19 conditions
Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a bill on Friday morning that will require all school districts to provide 100 percent in-person instruction to any student whose parents request it, regardless of its possible impact on the spread of COVID-19 in a school or a community. “It’s time to put local control into the hands of parents, […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Wear a mask, Iowa Public Health Association asks state lawmakers
The Iowa Public Health Association (IPHA) sent an open letter to the state legislature on Thursday, asking lawmakers to “accept your position of critical role models to the people of Iowa” and “lead by example and always wear a mask during your work at the Capitol and ask others to do the same.” As IPHA […]
