How far right can Iowa go?

Hang on snowflakes: If you think Iowa went crazy right the past few years, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Republicans widened their gaping majorities in the Iowa House and Senate. They have shaved their heads and waxed their beards and are ready to rumble.

They have banned books, shamed gays and set fear into the hearts of immigrants. Look for more of the same coming up, plus tax cuts.

Not just any tax cuts. Gov. Kim Reynolds and cohorts are committed to eliminating the progressive income tax. They already cut out the progressive part. Their goal will be to trash the entire income tax by 2026.

That will be the main point of the next legislature. Get rid of the income tax. Shift the costs to the working class through hiking the sales tax and whack school spending. Legislators are already forming a subcommittee on higher education. They say they want to excise excess, and make sure public and private colleges are toeing the party line. It will be patently stupid. A lot of noise will be made. At some point, donors to private colleges who also fund the Republican Party will have to explain again why hassling colleges is bad for business. Not only will it be stupid, it will be ugly.

Someone should lay out a map for the Education Committee and show them where the colleges, which deserve so much suspicion, are located: Sioux Center, Orange City, Storm Lake, Forest City, Grinnell, Decorah, Waverly, Sioux City, Dubuque, Fayette, Oskaloosa, Lamoni. All Republican. They are trash talking their own base.

You could hope that Sen. Lynn Evans of Aurelia, as assistant majority leader, could do something about it. Your hopes look to be in vain. He went to Westmar and Drake. He was a school superintendent. With folks like that in charge, how does this silliness get a foothold? Evans is not in charge. The Heritage Foundation is.

Lots more gay bashing is in store. It worked for Trump, stomping all over a small minority. Trans issues will get even more yammering, lock the ladies’ restroom doors. We must Make Our Restrooms Great Again. It will be irresistible.

There will be more talk of the border. Of securing our communities. Just enough to keep people nervous and not too uppity.

Lots of other bad ideas will be called out with full throat.

The minority party can only watch and wonder how long it might last. A long time, probably.

It is easier to imagine me wealthy or handsome than it is to conceive of Republicans losing power in Des Moines. The public appears willing to go along with whatever agenda is set. Democrats thought abortion would be a compelling issue. It was not.

We have heard from unknowing sources that Gov. Reynolds might not run for re-election in 2026. She is not especially popular but the Democrats are in disarray. She could really go for broke. State Auditor Rob Sand is the standard-bearer as the only Democrat elected to statewide office. Nobody cared when the legislature emasculated his authority last session. His alarm was disregarded. There is no check on power with the auditor defanged.

No telling how radical it can get. I never thought I would say that Iowa bans books, but here we are. Or that Buena Vista University needs oversight from a subcommittee that cannot conjugate a verb but might like to conjugate with Matt Gaetz. Please. Don Bosco, patron of teachers and editors, pray for us.

It will be two years of corn-pone hijinks aimed at setting Iowa back to the good old days when Mexicans kept on the move and gays stayed in the closet. There are no limits, no guardrails, and perhaps no recovery. With such power, anything is possible. The more outrageous the better with 2026 on the near horizon. You just don’t sense that moderation has much of a chance these days. The zealots are feeling their Iowa oats.

Art Cullen is the editor of the Storm Lake Times Pilot in Northwest Iowa, where this column appeared. For more columns and editorials, please consider a subscription to the Times Pilot. Or, if you wish, you can make a tax-deductible gift to the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation to support independent community journalism in rural Iowa. Thanks.

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