Stories

Before Tom Harkin launched a statewide re-election tour last weekend, he made it official: the four-term U.S. senator filed his re-election papers.  Harkin, a Democrat, joined two incumbent Democrats, Rep. Bruce Braley and Rep. Dave Loebsack, and an incumbent Republican, Rep. Tom Latham, with official spots on the June 3 primary ballot.  Also filing in [...]

The law, under most circumstances, treats animals as property.  But a bill moving forward in the Iowa Legislature would give pets a new level of protection in domestic abuse cases.

Senate File 2095, sponsored by Sen, Joe Bolkcom, D-Iowa City, passed the Senate Judiciary Committee last week.

“Many (domestic abuse) victims report that they put off leaving [...]

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Steve Rathje is the first, and so far only, candidate to file for Tom Harkin’s Senate seat.  While the Senator, and Iowa’s five U.S. representatives, have all signaled their plans to seek re-election, none of the state’s D.C. delegation filed at the Secretary of State’s office through the close of last [...]

A bill that would count Iowa’s absentee ballots by precinct, rather than across whole counties, has been amended and reintroduced in the Iowa House.

The new version of the bill, House File 2367, specifies that it would apply only to partisan primary and general elections, and would exclude precincts with fewer than ten absentee voters in [...]

The process of getting an absentee ballot may get slightly less bureaucratic this fall, if a bill that passed the Senate overwhelmingly Monday makes its way past the House and Governor Culver.

Senate File 2089 by Sen. Herman Quirmbach, D-Ames, would roll back a 2004 change that required auditors to accept absentee requests only if they [...]

Sens. Becky Schmitz, D-Fairfield, and Bob Dvorsky, D-Coralville

“They’re probably being targeted at meetings like this,” state Sen. Joe Bolkcom, D-Iowa City, said of “seven or eight rural members” who’d prefer a local control bill to the statewide smoking ban passed in the House last week. Bolkcom was being grilled by anti-smoking activist Beth Ritter-Rubeck as [...]

The second-biggest statistical secret in Iowa politics could be out in the open if a Linn County Republican’s bill passes the Legislature.

The biggest secret, of course, is the raw vote total from the Democratic caucuses.  That’s still hush-hush.  But the second-biggest mystery is how the absentee votes break out by precinct.  Current Iowa law, drafted [...]

Bar and restaurant owners in the rural Western Iowa town of Carroll are frustrated by legislation  passed by the Iowa House late Tuesday that would ban smoking in public places statewide.  They said the bill’s exemption for casinos and private clubs puts their businesses at a major disadvantage.

What’s more, Kerp’s Tavern co-owner Mardy Badding and [...]

The vote count is close on the question of gay marriage in the Iowa Legislature, but the personal feelings are overwhelming, according to a Des Moines Register survey published Sunday. Only six legislators — three senators and three representatives, all Democrats from urban districts — answered no when asked "Do you believe marriage should be [...]

“Everyone’s got caucus hangover right now,” state Rep. Ray Zirkelbach said of the pre-recorded calls still echoing in the ears of Iowans.  The Monticello Democrat is trying to put a stop to auto-dialed “robocalls” by making the tactic illegal in Iowa.  But critics of the bill have free speech concerns, and Zirkelbach’s own frank assessment [...]