Iowa doesn’t need other states’ legislation

The Republican culture wars blew into Iowa like a derecho. Iowa lawmakers introduced more than 30 anti-education, anti-history, anti-diversity, anti-books, anti-LGBTQ+, and anti-drag bills in this legislative session alone. Not all bills cleared the session deadline, but they will likely return.

But why all the “anti-woke” legislation? Where did it come from? Why now? Didn’t the factors these bills seek to address exist five years ago? Of course, they did! So, what changed?

The origins of these bills are not the Iowa Statehouse nor the Iowa Governor’s Office. Iowa lawmakers aren’t creative enough to come up with these ideas on their own. They imported the bills from other Republican-majority states like Florida and Texas. These bills are a mass copy-and-paste of text from other states. Our elected officials dutifully jumped on the anti-woke bandwagon. Iowans’ opinions be damned!

Two laws targeting transgender youth were passed. More will follow. These laws hurt people. They make Iowa unwelcoming. They make teachers’ jobs needlessly more difficult. These foreign ideas are not the Iowa values I learned.

We must stand against harmful outside legislation. Write your state representatives. Vote for candidates who oppose these foreign ideas. Let’s put the “Nice” back in “Iowa Nice.”

Gordie Felger

Hiawatha