Last week, Republicans in the Iowa Legislature voted to create another protected class, the rural Republican.
It was only a few weeks ago that Iowa became the first state in the nation to remove a class of citizens from its civil rights code: transgender and non-binary Iowans. Now apparently, Republicans in the Legislature are seeing things differently. They’ve decided to create special rights for a different group: rural Republicans.
Technically, they’re not being added to the state’s civil rights code, and not all rural Republicans are included. But make no mistake, Iowa’s official distributors of freedom are intervening to confer special treatment on rural Republicans in Johnson, Black Hawk and Story counties.
They’re doing this by ordering new districts be drawn in these areas so that rural Republicans can elect more of their kind to boards of supervisors in areas where large numbers of college kids have the gall to vote.
It is true that Johnson County is pretty blue. In 2024, 68% of the electorate voted for Kamala Harris. And while that’s not as impressive as the 78% of Wayne County voters—or the 75% in Ringgold County—who went for Donald Trump, it still is undeniable that Republicans just haven’t been able to win in some parts of Iowa.
But now these rural Republicans surrounded by Democrats have found an answer to their dilemma: government intervention.
No longer will this class of rural Iowan be thrown, unprotected, into our state’s electoral process. No longer will they have to function without the comfortable blanket of government assistance on their side. Perhaps, one day, they’ll even be able to elect a real small-government conservative to the Johnson County Board of Supervisors.
I have to say, this will be a change for Iowa.
The state doesn’t have a reputation for gerrymandering. Our non-partisan method of drawing congressional districts is a national model. And at the local level, we have been mostly immune from the kind of chicanery that machine politicians, usually Democrats, conjure up in big cities.
That is, until now.
Republicans in the Legislature say they’re ordering new districts be drawn in these college areas not because they lose elections, but because rural voters feel they’re being ignored.
This is not an uncommon feeling among Americans. When was the last time you saw your member of Congress? Apparently, the rural Republican of Johnson County feels this sense of abandonment even more acutely.
Currently, Iowa law allows all 99 counties to pick their own method of electing supervisors. Many, like Scott County, choose to elect their board members county-wide, also known as at large. So do Johnson, Black Hawk and Story counties. Others will draw up districts and elect supervisors by district.
It’s been like this for years. These counties have been left alone to make their own choice for as long as I can remember.
Now, pending Gov. Kim Reynolds’ signature, the state will use its power to force Johnson, Black Hawk and Story counties to change how they elect supervisors; to create districts, all with the hope that rural Republicans in these places will do what they’ve been unable to do in the unfettered electoral marketplace: Elect some of their own.
Not to worry. This choice will still belong to 96 other Iowa counties, including the smaller counties where outnumbered Democrats don’t even bother to run any more. Just not Johnson, Black Hawk and Story counties. (If only they’d had some quota system, this all might have been avoided.)
Republicans in Des Moines had initially planned to enact their gerrymander in Scott County, too, but they backed off. Somebody apparently informed them that Republicans already hold a 4-1 majority on the 5-member board of supervisors, and gerrymandering a county where Democrat-dominated Davenport makes up a majority of the population would inevitably mean electing more Democrats.
Until the last election the Scott County Board was all Republican. There were—and still are—some rural Democrats who don’t believe they’re being heard by the board. But then, rural Democrats aren’t a protected class in the state of Iowa, so this county won’t be gerrymandered.
Democrats who win seats on the board will just have to do it the old-fashioned way—on merit.
Judging by their rhetoric, you’d think Republicans would appreciate this. Today, Republicans talk all the time about how carving out advantages for special classes of people is discriminatory and un-American. Of course, It doesn’t matter that people who are Black, Hispanic, female, gay and transgender have been the targets of discriminatory practices for years—sometimes written, often unspoken, but still undeniable.
Today, Republicans have declared the days of preferences, or leveling the field, if you will, are over—if not the conditions that led to their creation.
At least those days are over for the wrong people.
In the aftermath of the Legislature’s decision a few weeks ago to revoke civil rights protections for transgender Iowans, the critics warned that women, minorities and gay people could be next. That may be so. But we know there will always be one privileged class of people who will have safe harbor in the Iowa Legislature: The rural Republican.
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Excellent analysis. The only surprising thing is that the hypocrites didn’t somehow name the bill with the word “freedom” in it.
thank you Ed. Without your writing on this, it would have received little attention. At one time, Iowa was a leader in promoting diversity on state commissions and boards In recent years, that has been eroded; gender balance is no longer required--it is a consideration. Geographic diversity, at one time required--I believe-- and followed, has been assimilated, too, with little or no oversight.
Ed's point on gerrymandering demonstrates the hypocrisy (Dave's comments are sarcastic, but may give others an idea to put Freedom on every bill that removes freedoms).
According to words and actions of our Governor, we no longer need to focus on geographical representation on our commissions and boards.
If the Republicans succeed at this, without sufficient pushback from Iowans, Democrats and civil society groups, Reynolds will propose changing our laws on re-districting.