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Iowa Republicans failed to deliver on eminent domain

Kim Reynolds vetoed a bipartisan eminent domain bill in 2025 after a private company tried to use eminent domain to take over private land in Iowa, leaving Republicans unable to agree on how to protect Iowa landowners from private corporations that stand to profit from the taking of private land. Republicans at the statehouse spent the 2026 legislative session divided on the issue. Despite the imminent threat and Republicans’ promise to deliver some protection to landowners, no bills were moved this year. Let me be clear: Eminent domain for private gain hurts farmers and ...

Court makes clear: Donor intent cannot be casually discarded

Here we go again. If the University of Iowa and Iowa attorney general’s office get their way, a legacy gift from a grateful and accomplished graduate will no longer help students like him. The graduate, Ezra L. Totton, was an esteemed chemist during the latter half of the 20th century. One chapter in his great American success story was written in the chemistry building at the University of Iowa in the 1940s. Totton’s story deserves retelling because he was at the center of an Iowa Supreme Court decision last week. The court rebuffed the university’s attempt, at least for ...

Loneliness: People do need people

Ashley, North Dakota, is a small farming town where the local diet leans hard on sausage, deep-fried chicken and strudel. It has something of a medical center, but the nearest trauma hospital able to handle the most serious injuries is almost four hours away in Fargo. Yet the elders in McIntosh County, with Ashley as its county seat, frequently live into their 90s, and sometimes beyond. It had the highest proportion of people 85 and older in the country. Doesn’t make sense until you see why it does. Stress levels are low. The farmers pursue a lifetime of physical exercise. When ...

Wages haven’t kept up — and working families are paying the price

For years, Congress and elected officials across the country have sidestepped one of the clearest economic problems facing working families: the minimum wage no longer keeps pace with the real cost of living. Today, even full-time work at the federal minimum wage doesn’t pay enough to rent ...

The invisible forces that keep the doors open

We’re not southern enough to be yes, ma’am or no, sir, but I try to nudge manners into my kids’ daily interactions with strangers. Today, I nudged him when I saw two women cross the parking lot and asked him to open the restaurant door. One of the women was older and one much younger, maybe a grandmother and granddaughter. The younger one smiled at him and said thank you as she walked through. The older one didn’t acknowledge him at all. At the table, my mom called it entitlement, but that didn’t feel right. It’s more that some people grow accustomed to moving through the ...

Planting seeds of prosperity for the future

I came across a salient quote attributed to Nelson Henderson during a recent YMCA conference I attended. It read: “The true meaning of life is to plant trees under whose shade you do not expect to sit.” How are we planting those metaphoric trees to positively affect generations to come? ...