Des Moines – The Iowa Finance Authority (IFA) Board of Directors, Wednesday, awarded $100,000 in State Housing Trust Fund grants to Habitat for Humanity affiliates to support the construction of homes in Boone and Knoxville. The funding is made available through the State Housing Trust Fund’s Project-Based Housing Program. IFA Director Debi Durham said “The awards will help provide two families with quality, affordable housing while further strengthening the Boone and Knoxville communities.”

Heart of Iowa Habitat for Humanity, Boone – $50,000

The Heart of Iowa Habitat for Humanity will use a $50,000 State Housing Trust Fund grant to assist in the construction of a 1,280-sq.-ft. home on an infill lot in Boone. This project will feature grant awards from John Deere and US Bank as well as donated labor from the local Carpenter’s Club. The group of about 10 retired carpenters from the community volunteer every year on home builds with the Habitat affiliate and will assist in constructing the home.

Habitat for Humanity of Marion County, Knoxville – $50,000

Habitat for Humanity of Marion County will use a $50,000 State Housing Trust Fund grant to assist in the construction of a 1,200-sq.-ft. single-family home on a vacant infill lot in Knoxville. The project is a partnership between Habitat for Humanity of Marion County, the Weiler Foundation and the Knoxville Community School District. Students in Knoxville High School’s Building Trades class will work on the construction of the new home. This collaboration helps reduce costs while also providing skills and experiences to students who are interested in the construction industry.

Both Habitat for Humanity homes will be sold to income-qualified homebuyers who will receive financial, home repair, homeownership and foreclosure prevention education and must also complete the required sweat equity hours prior to closing on the homes.

The State Housing Trust Fund has awarded more than $136.4 million in funding and has assisted more than 41,500 affordable housing units since the program’s inception in 2003. These awards have leveraged an additional $187.5 million or $1.37 in other resources for every dollar of State Housing Trust Fund funding.

(Des Moines, Iowa/Iowa Capital Dispatch) – Iowa law enforcement officials could be subject to a Class D felony charge if they defy state law on immigration enforcement under a bill approved by a House subcommittee Wednesday. House Study Bill 285 states that law enforcement officers, including elected sheriffs, who “knowingly and intentionally” fail to comply with the state’s laws regarding federal immigration law enforcement, would face a Class D felony charge. The charge is punishable by up to five years in jail and fines of between $1,025 and $10,245.

The discussion on comes in the wake of comments made on social media by Winneshiek County Sheriff Dan Marx in February. Marx wrote that he would not comply with immigration detainer requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or some other federal agencies outside of “valid” judicial warrants and court orders. Gov. Kim Reynolds filed a complaint against Winneshiek County with the Iowa Attorney General’s office in early February following the post, and sent a letter to the county board of supervisors and Marx stating that the sheriff’s policy was at odds with Iowa Code on enforcement of immigration laws.

Iowa Capital Building

Rep. Steven Holt, R-Denison, told reporters the legislation was introduced as a way to ensure immigration law enforcement is followed in Iowa Code by creating penalties for individual actors without jeopardizing funding for an entire local jurisdiction. However, Tony Phillips with the Iowa State Sheriffs’ & Deputies’ Association said the bill would impose “significant consequences” for law enforcement officers who fail to comply with this section of Iowa Code, which encompasses more than just ICE detainer requests. Phillips said under the proposal, law enforcement officers could be subject to a Class D felony for failing to provide “reasonable or necessary” enforcement assistance to federal immigration officers, which he said could be the source of disagreements or litigation.

Rep. Lindsay James, D-Dubuque, said “we all can agree that we need meaningful immigration reform,” but did not support the legislation. Rep. Skyler Wheeler, R-Hull, supported the measure moving forward, saying he wished the bill did not have to come up but that it came forward because “one individual wanted of his five minutes of fame.” Holt said he plans to discuss with his caucus if the penalty in the bill would be adjusted to a serious misdemeanor charge instead of a Class D felony, but said he supports the bill as a way to ensure that Iowa law enforcement complies with state law on immigration enforcement. He invoked the deaths of Laken Riley and Jocelyn Nungaray, two U.S. citizens who were murdered by undocumented immigrants, as reason for the need to support immigration law enforcement.

(Des Moines, Iowa/Iowa Capital Dispatch) – The Senate Natural Resources Committee, Wednesday, advanced a bill that would bar the Iowa Department of Natural Resources from purchasing land at auction.  Senate Study Bill 1198 would prohibit DNR from acquiring land in Iowa unless it is from a willing donor or seller.  The bill would also stop DNR from purchasing land above the appraised value from a nonprofit corporation that had purchased the land from auction.  In his opening remarks on the bill, Republican Senator Tom Shipley from Nodaway, said “We’ve been down this path before.” The bill, he said, resembles bills from past legislative sessions.

Shipley said there are a number of people in his district, in southwestern Iowa, who are “very unhappy” with the state and federal government’s “overstep” of land ownership and control.  “I have yet to get more than one email from my district that’s … opposed to us doing this,” Shipley said.  Sen. Mike Zimmer, D-DeWitt, said his inbox has been “jammed” with comments from constituents opposed to the bill. Zimmer said some of these emails said the bill intruded on individual property rights. “If an owner wants to sell their property to whomever they want to do, they should have that right to do that,” Zimmer said. “On the rare occasion that the DNR might be able to put together a financial package to actually show up to an auction and bid on a piece of ground, they should be able to do that.”

A trail at Jester Park near Saylorville Lake on Nov. 6, 2024. (Photo by Cami Koons/Iowa Capital Dispatch)

Shipley clarified the bill does not restrict a seller from willingly selling to the DNR, and also said the DNR has not bought land at auction for 20 years. Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott, D-West Des Moines, opposed the bill and it would take “a lot of years” and “a lot of money” for the DNR to become a “real threat” in terms of land ownership.

According to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, the State of Iowa owns around 400,000 acres of land, which equates to roughly 1% of Iowa’s nearly 36 million acres of land.

Trone Garriott, Zimmer and committee ranking Democrat Sen. Art Staed voted no on the bill, which passed with an amendment striking a section that provided an exemption to auction purchases if it advanced a conservation or recreation plan and was approved by the Natural Resources Commission.

(Des Moines, Iowa/Iowa Capital Dispatch) – An Iowa House subcommittee advanced a bill Wednesday that would prohibit vaccines from being distributed and administered in Iowa unless the vaccine manufacturer waives legal immunities. Medical students, practitioners and advocates said the measure could prevent some vaccines from being available in Iowa, and could contribute to a rise in the spread of diseases like measles that can be prevented through vaccinations.

House File 712 would require vaccine manufacturers to affirmatively waive any immunity from suits over injuries arising from “a design defect of the vaccine,” including immunity granted by the federal National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act. The 1986 law established the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) as a way to provide no-fault compensation to individuals and families who were injured by childhood vaccines.

Supporters of the bill said the federal vaccine injury compensation program did not grant compensation to victims often and took years to make decisions. The CDC reported that from 2006 to 2022, there were 12,593 petitions adjudicated in court regarding the VICP for over 5 billion doses of covered vaccines distributed in the U.S., and that of those, 9,124 petitions received compensation. This means for every 1 million doses of vaccination distributed, approximately one individual received compensation through the program, according to the February VICP monthly statistics report.

Jack Ohringer, a medical student at the University of Iowa, said the legislation would “open the floodgates for unfounded vaccination injury claims,” leading vaccine manufacturers to either raise the cost of vaccines or stop distributing vaccines in Iowa. He said this issue is why the national vaccine injury compensation program was created in the 1980s, as a way to ensure that victims in these cases would be compensated without significantly hindering the access to vaccines by the larger public. Tom Cope with the Iowa Society of Anesthesiologists also expressed concerns that the bill would restrict access to vaccines in the state and limit Iowans’ ability to choose the best health care options for themselves. He also said problems with VICP should be addressed federally, not through state legislation.

The House legislation is one of multiple vaccine-related bills to be discussed this week. A Senate subcommittee approved a bill Monday that would prohibit gene-based vaccines from being administered in Iowa, with health care providers being subject to a misdemeanor charge and fine of $500 for each violation of the measure. The Senate Health and Human Services Committee approved several bills Wednesday addressing concerns about vaccines, including:

Senate File 6 would require K-12 and post-secondary schools — private and public – and child care facilities to include information about exemptions to vaccine requirements in all communications about immunizations to a parent or guardian, as well as publishing the information on school websites and in registration information. Democrats on the committee said schools already do this and the legislation was unnecessary. But the bill manager, Sen. Dennis Guth, R-Klemme, said some Iowans had told him parents were being misinformed about vaccine exemptions.

Senate File 128 would require vaccine information on medical examiner’s reports on the deaths of all children age 3 or younger. The date of the last immunization or immunizations received by the child would have to be included on the report, under the bill. Democrats said the bill was redundant, as child deaths are already investigated, and that such legislation contributes to vaccine hesitancy. Guth said the bill would provide more transparency “in an area where so many are so quick to deny correlation or causation.”

(Radio Iowa) – The leader of an Iowa L-G-B-T-Q rights nonprofit is encouraging Iowans who want to change the sex on their Iowa birth certificate to do it as soon as possible. The new state law removing civil rights protections for gender identity also requires new birth certificates to reflect a person’s sex at birth. Max Mowitz, executive director of OneIowa, says transgender Iowans should prepare now, even though the law doesn’t take effect until July 1st. “We are recommending that folks get connected with an affirming lawyer,” Mowitz says, “but we know that for right now, people should still be able to change their sex designation.” That process typically takes several weeks. Currently, a notarized affidavit from a physician is required to change the sex on an Iowa-issued birth certificate. It must state the person has gone through treatment to change their sex.

After July 1st, changes to the sex designation on Iowa birth certificates will not be allowed. The wide-ranging new law also bans transgender women from women’s bathrooms, shelters and prisons. Mowitz says some L-G-B-T-Q people and families, especially ones with transgender members, will probably move out of Iowa because of this legislation. “If you are a person leaving the state, just know that there are a lot of folks fighting behind you to try to make the state better,” Mowitz says, “but for folks that cannot leave the state, we’re going to be right here alongside you, and we’re not going to give up on Iowa.” Mowitz says anyone impacted by this legislation should contact OneIowa for resources.

The new law removing gender identity from the Iowa Civil Rights Act leaves few protections for transgender Iowans, according to a Drake University law professor. The act prevents discrimination in housing, employment, public accommodations and more. Some federal laws protect transgender people, but Professor Mark Kende says the Trump administration may render those laws ineffective. “There were some federal protections. They didn’t cover everything in the first place, so state law filled in the gaps,” Kende says. “Secondly, I’m not sure those protections exist anymore because of the executive orders, and I suspect more orders that will be coming from the Trump administration.”

President Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office stating there are only two biological sexes. Kende was a guest on the Iowa Public Radio program River to River.

(Radio Iowa) – State Climatologist Justin Glisan says the back and forth shifts from cold to warm are typical of the weather as we enter spring. He says the signs right now show a temporary move back to warmer temperatures. “So at least in the short term outlook getting into the middle of March, we do see a stronger signal for warmer than average temperatures. And then as we move into the third week of March, we are seeing an elevated signal for wetter conditions,” he says. Glisan says the weather is shifting out of a weak La Nina pattern and that will impact the rest of the spring.

“If you look at analog years, going back to 2000 of that transition from weak La Nina to neutral conditions in March, April, May, generally cooler temperatures, but also new normal to slightly wetter conditions west to east across the state,” Glisan says. Glisten says if the cooler trend happens it could mean we see less severe storms. “As you move through March, April, May, severe weather does ramp up, or the chances of severe weather does ramp up, but that cooler signal could suggest less instability in the atmosphere, temperature, moisture work hand in hand on instability and energy in the atmosphere to produce thunderstorms,” he says. Glisan says that would be a good thing if it holds true.

“It’s hard to tell what the severe weather season is going to look like, but at least on the temperature side, we’re not seeing a strong signal for warm temperatures right now, which could mitigate some severe weather,” he says. Wetter conditions would help with the dry conditions the state has experienced.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – A woman from Red Oak was arrested Wednesday evening for Violating a No Contact Order. Red Oak Police say 27-year-old Betty Marie Gonzales was taken into custody at around 5:50-p.m., in the 400 block of E. Market Street. Gonzales was being held without bond in the Montgomery County Jail.

(Shelby County, Iowa) – Officials with the Portsmouth Fire and Rescue Department, Wednesday, posted on social media that at 5-a.m. that day, their crews, along with personnel with the Harlan and Shelby Fire Departments, were paged out to a residential structure fire, with persons possibly trapped inside.

Officials say information was coming in as firefighters were responding to the station…some personnel tried, but got stuck in the snow and drifts. Fortunately, while enroute to the scene of the fire, it was confirmed that no one was inside the home.

With 50 mph winds whipping the flames, the structure was a total loss by the time crews arrived on the scene. Harlan and Shelby fire was on scene for roughly 30 minutes, with Portsmouth crews remaining on scene for close to an hour before returning back to their station.

The cause of the fire was not officially determined, but it’s believed a space heater may have ghad something to do with it.

(Radio Iowa) – A new analysis indicates Iowa has had a population spurt in 2024. The Pew Charitable Trusts report found 42 states saw population growth in 2024 that was the highest its been in 15 years. Iowa’s population increased (0.72%) nearly three-quarters of a percent in 2024 — putting Iowa among seven states that had their strongest annual population growth since the turn of the century. The analysis suggests Iowa’s population will grow during the rest of this decade.

(Radio Iowa) – Jack Kibbie, a farmer from Emmetsburg who served as president of the Iowa Senate earlier this century, has died at the age of 95. Former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack served alongside Kibbie in the state senate in the late 1980s. “He was an individual who really appreciated his roots, understood the importance of being a farmer,” Vilsack said. “He was a powerful voice in the Iowa Legislature. Jack was the kind of senator who didn’t speak often, but when he did the entire senate paused and listened because usually he had something significant and important to say.”

Patty Judge, who served as state ag secretary before being elected lieutenant governor in 2006, is also a former member of the Iowa Senate. “He was a real leader. I appreciated him. I appreciated his background and his understanding of rural Iowa, the way he stood up for rural Iowa,” Kibbie says. Kibbie was a tank commander during the Korean War and he spoke about his experience during an appearance on Iowa P-B-S.

Senator Jack Kibbie (D-Emmetsburg) (official photo as Senate President)

“We were within a thousand feet of the enemy and they were watching us constantly and we were watching them,” Kibbie said. “…Right across from us was Manchurians…It was stressful.” Kibbie was elected chairman of his county’s Democratic Party shortly after he returned home. Kibbie served in the Iowa Senate in the 1960s and, in 1965, he led debate of the bill that created Iowa’s community college system. Decades later, in 1988, Kibbie was reelected to the state senate. He spoke with Radio Iowa in 2012 after his decision not to seek reelection.

“This process, you’ve got to love it,” Kibbie said. Kibbie won all nine of his races for a seat in the state legislature. “When I first came here in the ’60s, there were a lot of 80-year-olds here and I told (Senate Majority Leader) Mike Gronstal back probably 10 years ago, you know, that when people get 80 years old, it’s time for them to get out of here. That’s long before I was 80. Now that I’m 80, maybe I ought to stay,” Kibbie said, laughing.

During the Iraq War, Kibbie was instrumental in creating Veterans Committees in the Iowa Senate and House and ensuring the Iowa National Guard’s Adjutant General delivers an annual address to the state legislature. Kibbie’s wife, Kay, died in 2022.