(Radio Iowa) – Two state senators are proposing an amendment to Iowa’s Constitution that would ban Iowa corporations from making donations to political candidates or political action committees. Senator Zach Wahls, a Democrat from Coralville who is running for the U.S. Senate, says it’s similar to a Montana initiative that sought to prohibit corporations from directly or indirectly contributing to candidates.

“Iowa’s democracy should belong to Iowans,” Wahls said, “not to corporate dark money and not to anonymous political spenders.” Senator David Sires, a Republican from Cedar Falls, says a PAC — allowed to conceal the names of its donors — spent tens of thousands of dollars trying to defeat him during his 2024 campaign for the state senate. “When donors are hidden, citizens can’t evaluate who’s trying to influence them,” Sires said. “Anonymous influence allows powerful influence to shape outcomes without public accountability.”

Earlier this month, Montana’s Supreme Court ruled the concept was unconstitutional and it’s unlikely to be considered in the Republican-led Iowa Legislature. In 2010, the U-S Supreme Court ruled corporate spending to support causes or candidates amounted to political speech that’s protected by the First Amendment of the U-S Constitution.

(Atlantic, IA) – The Atlantic City Council met in a regular session on Wednesday, Jan. 21st. Their first order of business was to act on passing a resolution “Authorizing and Approving a Certain Loan Agreement, Providing for the Issuance of General Obligation Corporate Purpose and Refunding Bonds, Series 2026A and Providing for the Levy of Taxes to Pay the Same.”

They subsequently passed a resolution “Authorizing and Approving a Certain Loan Agreement, Providing for the Issuance of Taxable General Obligation Corporate Purpose Bonds, Series 2026B and Providing for the Levy of taxes to pay the same.” City Administrator John Lund…

In other business, the Atlantic City Council passed a resolution to appoint Rich Tupper as Acting City Clerk. The action was necessary with the resignation of former City Clerk Laura McLean.

Tupper had served as the Deputy City Clerk prior to his appointment by the Council to the open position. The positions of City Clerk and Mayor are the only two positions that are required by the Code of Iowa in order for a city to exist, according to City Administrator John Lund.

On a related note to Tupper’s appointment as Acting City Clerk, the Council moved to update the authorized signatories for city checks and payables. They also passed a resolution approving a new Professional Services Agreement with (former City Clerk) Barb Barrick to Temporarily Provide City Clerk Consulting Services for the City of Atlantic. Councilman Jeremy Butler…

During the Council’s meeting one March 19, 2025, they agreed to enter into a consulting agreement with Barrick to assist the new City Clerk with orientation and duties specific to serving as a City Clerk in the State of Iowa. That agreement included bank reconciliation services for FY 2025 and was completed successfully within the required time-frame.

Key components of the new agreement include:

• $1,000 per fiscal month reconciled
• $1,000 for entry of the FY 2027 Budget into gWorks and the State of Iowa online budget forms
• $125 per hour for City Clerk mentoring services (same rate as the original contract)
• Continuation of the contract if both parties agree that additional assistance is necessary, eliminating the need for amendments or extensions

The Council also passed a resolution assessing unpaid fees and costs to property taxes, with regard to the clean-up by city crews of nuisance properties and related costs. For property owners facing an assessment for their unpaid fees, the City will mail them a notice, including a copy of the resolution, and the specific assessment amount. Affected property owners will have the right to object, or request a hearing within 10-days from the date of notice.

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa House has passed a bill that would prevent Summit Carbon from using eminent domain authority to seize land along its proposed pipeline route. Republican Representative Steven Holt of Denison says people who don’t want the pipeline on their property should have the right to say no.

“It affects their business. It affects their lives,” Holt said, “and they were there first.” The bill is similar to a law in South Dakota and it passed the Iowa House on a 64-to-28 vote. Republican Representative Chad Ingels, a farmer from Randalia, says the bill would block construction of the carbon pipeline, a project he says would be a public good because it would boost the bottom line for farmers who sell their corn to make ethanol.

“Having better markets for our products is not only in my family’s best interest, it’s my neighbor’s best interest, it’s in a farmer in southwest Iowa’s best interest,” Ingels said. “…It’s in the best interest of our state to have young people willing to come back and farm.” Republican Representative Brian Lohse of Bondurant says the Iowa and U-S Constitutions require that laws apply equally to all those impacted and that’s why he can’t support the bill.

“What this bill does is create two separate regulatory schemes depending on what’s going through the pipeline if you say to one pipeline company…and their gas pipelines, ‘You can use the eminent domain,’ but then tell another pipeline that’s running a different kind of gas, ‘You can’t.'” Holt says the carbon pipeline may be beneficial to some, but it doesn’t serve a public purpose. “I think we all want economic development, but not at the expense of the constitutionally protected rights of our fellow citizens,” Holt said.

“…The precedent we will set if we allow private property to be seized for a private economic development project will reverberate for decades to come and could render property rights safeguards in our constitution meaningless for our children and our children’s children.”  This bill now goes to the Senate and is among a handful of pipeline-related proposals the House has passed over the past five years.

House debate on Wednesday afternoon lasted only half an hour for a bill that was just two pages long. The Republican leader in the Iowa Senate has proposed an alternative that would let the pipeline corridor so Summit could go around landowners who’ve refused to grant the company an easement on their property.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Congressman Randy Feenstra, a Republican from Hull, has introduced a bill he says would keep American welfare benefits from being sent out of the country. “To codify what Trump did to ban welfare recipients from sending money abroad. I mean, think about what happened over the last several months, nine billion dollars of fraud in Minnesota. You know, this is our taxpayer dollars,” he says. Feenstra says his “No American Benefits Abroad Act” is being considered by a House committee. He says Democrats in Minnesota are to blame for allowing the fraud.

“And to me it’s different from night and day. I mean, you have liberal progressive running that state in Minnesota and you got true conservatives here in Iowa. I mean, it’s just apples and oranges. And that’s what happens when you have liberal progressives running your state,” Feenstra says. Feenstra is a member of the House Ways and Means Committee and has joined chair Jason Smith and Republican members of the committee in sending a letter to the acting I-R-S commissioner Scott Bessent to urge stronger oversight and accountability of the nation’s nonprofit sector.

“If someone has money to send to a foreign country, they should not be on welfare in the first place, and they surely should not be sending in abroad. And that’s what we’re trying to stop,” Feenstra says. Feenstra says he was disturbed along with many Iowans by the headlines of the rampant taxpayer fraud in Minnesota.

The Ways and Means Committee has referred 11 nonprofit to the I-R-S through its investigations of fraud, terrorism ties and foreign influences, which found that stolen funds may have been wired to regions of Somalia with links to an Islamic terrorist group. Feenstra is running for the republican nomination to be governor.

(Radio Iowa) – House Republicans have released a property tax plan that includes the main element of the plan Governor Reynolds proposed a week ago — a two percent limit on property tax revenue growth. House Speaker Pat Grassley says that will provide certainty for the taxpayers. “If you set that number so high, you’re basically just continuing status quo,” Grassley said. “By putting a true two percent cap, (that’s) certainty for Iowans, also I think it will make our local governments become more efficient.” There would be limited exceptions for public school projects and new home construction — the same exceptions Reynolds included in her plan. UNLIKE the proposals from the governor and Senate Republicans, the plan from House Republicans does not target major property tax relief to older Iowans. Instead, it would give every homeowner a 25-thousand dollar exemption on their property.

Representative Carter Nordman, a Republican from Dallas Center, is chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and helped guide the bill’s development. “This plan gives relief to everybody,” Nordman said. “It gives relief to seniors. It gives relief to the working families. It gives relief to young couples who are buying a new home.” Governor Reynolds has called for freezing property taxes for Iowa homes below 350-thousand dollars in value that are owned by Iowans above the age of 64. The Senate’s plan calls for erasing property taxes for Iowans above the age of 60 who’ve paid off their mortgage and own their home. Senate Republicans would raise the homestead credit to half of a home’s value and let local governments raise the local option sales tax by half a percent and raises the gas tax, providing more money to cities and counties for road projects.

The plan from House Republicans contains none of that. Grassley says it does NOT include the governor’s 10 million dollars in grants for city and county efficiency projects either. “The Senate, the governor are going to have different ideas that we obviously have to consider,” Grassley says. “We wanted to stick to what I’ve been saying for the last month, which is certainty, simplicity and get it out early in session and that’s why we landed on this position.” Grassley says there’s nothing included in any of the plans that he’d immediately declare unacceptable. “From my perspective, if any of us come into this setting out a certain line of things that are deal breakers, I don’t think that’s the right way we should start the conversation,” Grassley says. “Once we get down the road of everybody looking at each other’s bills, having the committees working on them and get to those points, we may get there, but I don’t think that’s how we should start this process if we’re serious about getting something done.”

The House G-O-P bill requires changes in the mailer sent to every property taxpayer. Grassley says the changes will make it easier for taxpayers to understand where property tax dollars are being spent.

(Glenwood, IA) – A woman from Nebraska was arrested Tuesday night on drug charges, in Glenwood. According to the Glenwood Police Department, 33-year-old Chelcee Marie Hotz, of Omaha, was arrested at around 11:53-p.m. in the vicinity of Hilman Road/Highway 34 East in Glenwood. She was charged with Possession of a Controlled Substance – 2nd offense, and Possession of drug paraphernalia. Hotz was being held in the Mills County Jail on a $2,300 bond.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa hit an air quality goal in December that had been in the works for more than ten years. The D-N-R’s Don Tormey says the E-P-A determined that the Muscatine area reached the federal mandated level for sulfur dioxide emissions. “With that action by E-P-A, the entire state of Iowa is now in full attainment with all the federal national ambient air quality standards, the entire state,” he says. “that was the one part of Iowa, and that was the one criteria pollutant that was not attainment.” Tormey leads the D-N-R’s Environmental Services Division and says the E-P-A tests air quality for particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, and carbon monoxide, along with sulfur dioxide.

He says it has been a long time since the entire state met the E-P-A goals.  “We have not been in that status since December 30th, 2011, or 14 years ago. We are now the 17th state in the Union to be in full attainment with all those standards,” Tormey says. Tormey says there is a big difference in the air quality in Muscatine now compared to back then. “So actual sulfur dioxide annual emissions in the Muscatine area are down 13-thousand tons compared to 2011,” Tormey says. “And the measured ambient monitoring data values are currently at 17 parts per billion for this part of Iowa, which is well below the standard of 75 parts per billion. And back in 2011, it was 217 parts per billion.” Tormey says it took a lot of work and cooperation to bring the numbers down in Muscatine.

“Of course, this just didn’t happen overnight. We’ve been working with the Muscatine area businesses for the last ten years to make this happen, because they obviously needed to reduce emissions in the area for this to happen. And so it’s been a really good partnership between those businesses and our air quality staff, “Tormey says. Tormey says everyone is very proud of achieving this air quality standard. He made his comments during the Environmental Protection Commission meeting.

(Radio Iowa) – A bill that would give state and local law enforcement officers who stop a vehicle going over 100 miles an hour authority to immediately take the driver’s license away from the driver. Senator Mark Lofgren says state troopers, police and county sheriff’s departments ticketed about two-thousand drivers last year who were caught driving at triple digit speed. “There’s no reason to go over 100 miles an hour,” Lofgren says. “I mean that’s just ridiculous.” A spokesman for the Iowa State Patrol says troopers have recorded vehicles going 142, 151 and even 164 miles an hour. Lofgren says the data about excessive driving is alarming.

“I remember in high school some kids drove fast, but boy when I looked at those numbers, nobody would think this is reasonable,” Lofgren said. Under Lofgren’s bill, the officer would take the driver’s license, give the motorist a temporary 10 day license and send driver’s license to the D-O-T. The Iowa D-O-T would be required to revoke that person’s driver’s license for 30 days, once the paperwork is processed. There would be an appeals process for the driver.

Lofgren, a Republican from Muscatine, notes that for the past seven and a half years he backed a bill to make it illegal for motorists to have a cell phone in their hand while driving. “After we got that done, I do think excessive speeding is really big concern,” Lofgren says.

Lofgren’s bill also would classify going 20 miles or more over the posted limit as reckless driving and make the crime a simple misdemeanor.