The city of Cedar Rapids finds itself in the debate over a bill in the Legislature banning citizen police review boards. It would undo months of hard work put in by local police, city leaders and Advocates for Social Justice to form a Cedar Rapids review board in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in 2020.
House File 2652 was originally a $3 million grant program to purchase emergency radios for schools, but gun-loving legislators amended the bill to focus on firearms training, paying for the gun permitting process, stipends for employees agreeing to be armed, and for purchase of the weapons.
Guest columnist Norman Sherman reflects on poem written not long after Donald Trump was sworn in as president.
From Gazette columnist Althea Cole: Leading trans health authority trades science for politics while ignoring severity of potential complications from treatment.
Amber Gustafson regrets not having stood up and walked out of her church 10 years ago. She tearfully recounted how the pastor and elders got up in front of the entire congregation to shun a former member.
It’s essential to view jury duty through the lens of the principles which define us.
Bill that prohibits cities and counties from approving ordinances requiring builders to replace topsoil on finished construction sites failed to pass. GOP lawmakers may move to undo that.
Eglantyne Jebb made rescuing children her life mission and drafted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child in 1924.
The Credit Card Competition Act is anything but competitive and would pose a significant threat to American consumers’ financial security and will hurt Iowa’s credit unions and small banks.
Partisan politicians have no business writing school curriculum. We have education professionals setting curriculum standards, and they don’t need to be managed by politicians seeking to score political points.
A bill approved this week by the Iowa Senate making changes to local civil service investigations would also eliminate citizen police review boards.
Democracy cannot function without civic engagement. In fact, democracy dies when the voices of citizens go silent. So why is the state of Iowa adopting a curriculum that clearly states its intention to suspend the teaching of civic engagement?
Pints & Politics
A periodic, lighthearted look at Iowa political news from The Gazette's opinion desk.
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