One must marvel at the incompetence that just gaveled to an untimely close in the capitol. With a stranglehold on all branches of government, Republicans failed to deliver on their priority — property tax reform — even while dragging the session well past its scheduled adjournment.
Sharp increases in property taxes put the issue at the fore. Taxes on our humble office shed increased more than 70% in a year. Republicans have been song-and-dancing about property tax reform since Gov. Terry Branstad’s first term. This session, they had everything in their grasp with a crisis at hand. Then they blew it off until next year.
What a bunch of mopes. They can’t call their own dance number. Property taxes will continue to climb because Storm Lake City Hall cannot contain itself, legislators cannot muster themselves, the courthouse cannot keep track of the property taxes it collects, and the school district operates on a funding scheme from 50 years ago.
A massive shift has occurred. Income tax rates have been slashed and flattened, almost eliminated, over the past three decades. Property taxes and sales taxes pick up the slack. Property taxes stand in the way of the American Dream of owning a home. They are a drain on farm income. Just average folks pay way more of their budget in sales and property taxes than the wealthy elite. This is what Governors Branstad and Reynolds intended.
The shift found its way home to roost on top of us. Legislators heard about it. They simply don’t know what to do about it. They could rob something else to provide property tax relief but the legislature already committed to spend $900 million more next year than it will collect in revenue (deficit spending). Economic emergency savings accounts will be raided.
So they shoved it off until next year, leading up to the 2026 election. Gov. Reynolds will not seek re-election. We suppose the governor could shepherd a meaningful reform as a legacy project. It is more likely that she doesn’t because it is too difficult to do without taxing corporate income. That is a big reason we are spending more than we are taking in: We have largely waived state corporate taxes.
Iowa is on course for a fiscal train wreck. So are Storm Lake and Buena Vista County. Since they are incapable of governing, we should put people in office who can control spending. Local officials have proven that they cannot. That is the surest way to keep property taxes in check. It must be acknowledged that the indiscriminate erosion of the income tax is a singular factor in rising property taxes. It also is true that the Republicans who tried to take care of developers and apartment complex owners changed property valuations to benefit that class and distorted rates for everyone else. They are terrible managers.
Rep. Randy Feenstra, R-Hull, is on a path to running for governor. That opened a lane for Sen. Lynn Evans, R-Aurelia, to run for Congress from Iowa’s Fourth District. Others may compete against Feenstra and Evans in the June primaries. Agriculture Secretary Mike Naig would be the best of the field for governor. Kevin Virgil ran in a congressional primary and did fairly well against Feenstra (Virgil and Evans being of like mind against eminent domain for CO2 pipelines).
It would be an unquestionably good thing to have a member of Congress from Aurelia who is not crazy or malicious. Evans would be an improvement from Feenstra, who complained about the Chinese while taking donations from their client company. Otherwise, Feenstra has done nothing worthwhile that we can remember. Evans has been accessible and forthright as a politician can be. He is well-known and respected in conservative Northwest Iowa, where he was well-regarded as a school superintendent who is devoted to his hometown of Aurelia.
Democrat Ryan Melton of Webster City is running on hopes that the third time could be a charm. We like him. He is right on the issues but short on support in this red swath of western Iowa. Evans is not the sort of candidate Melton needs in an open race. Melton could at least make Evans regret some of his votes, like the ones in support of shaming gays. Melton could justifiably argue that you should not vote for a state senator who was an integral part of Republican mismanagement.
The Republican nominee for District 3 Senate seat that sprawls over Buena Vista, Clay, Cherokee, O’Brien and Osceola counties will no doubt prevail to become senator. It is decidedly conservative. Storm Lake is the most liberal outpost, tucked out of the way at the southeast corner. House members serving these counties are Megan Jones of Sioux Rapids and Zack Dieken of Granville, both Republicans. We expect to learn more over the next month.
Any number of candidates will run for governor alongside Feenstra for the Republican nomination. No matter what, we will get a better congressman. State Auditor Rob Sand won’t have much trouble getting the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, and will have sufficient cash to run a solid campaign. The Republicans’ best bet would have been the amiable Agriculture Secretary Mike Naig, who has solid bona fides with the Farm Bureau but declined this week to run for governor. Primary voters might want someone snarkier, which only would benefit Sand.
Change should be good because our current course is not.
Courts have rendered mixed opinions on the Trump Administration’s deportation proceedings. One day a judge rules that due process must be followed, the next day a court allows the administration to revoke protected status for Venezuelans. The general direction has been that immigrants must receive a hearing, but the executive may deport undocumented people.
There is a lot of hollering but not that much deporting. As of April, authors reported they had deported 140,000 people this year. That is not even half the pace of the first Trump Administration. Obama deported more.
Trump promised mass deportation of at least 10 million undocumented residents. At this clip, it will take more than 30 years to get rid of them all, if you ever can. ICE could be deporting a lot more people right now if we did not depend on them for labor.
No way do you summarily ship out 10 million people, as Trump claimed he would. A lot of people were duped to believe it.
Courts are not slowing anything down. Trump could easily remove more people if he chose to. It’s a big day when eight people are hauled out of South Dakota. Secretary Noem ought to know where the immigrants are, if they actually wanted to pull them off the packinghouse kill floor.
They would rather blame those liberal judges, some of whom were appointed by Trump. One of them, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, was asking just last week about how the government will sort things out once birthright citizenship is discarded. The solicitor general did not have an answer, because none of this is a serious proposition.
We take some relief in a ruling by federal Judge Stephen Locher that many parts of a book ban passed by a homophobic legislature in 2023 are temporarily blocked on First Amendment Grounds. The judge said that the law is so vague as to infringe on student rights. While detailed instruction on gender identity is banned for grades six and under, students may join groups associated with gender identity. “Don’t say gay” is not the law of the land. Plaintiffs Lambda Legal and the ACLU hailed the ruling as a major victory, although narrow and temporary.
The American judicial system is not allowing a wholesale trampling of civil rights. Judges are reining in immigration procedures that ignore due process. They are tempering terrible legislation that would isolate children and deny their reality, and make teachers live in fear of decertification. That is nothing to be pooh-poohed. The courts remain a firewall against the destruction of liberty.
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