Redistricting
The Iowa legislature as the result of a special session of the Iowa Senate determined that an initial non-partisan redistricting plan should be scrapped at least in order to examine an alternative plan’s appropriateness. That the legislature would not accede to the first iteration is anticipated in the process and not unusual.
Iowa Senate Rejects First Redistricting Map.
GOP lawmakers vote down Iowa’s 1st redistricting plan.
Iowa Republicans reject first redistricting maps.
The State Senate’s action made moot the State House taking up the matter. They would have also dealt with the plan had the Senate moved it forward. The second iteration of a redistricting plan now becomes due in less than a month. The links above suggest many of the issues that came to the fore and resulted in the Senate turning the first plan down.
We found the critiques of the initial plan compelling both as to federal and state legislative impacts, the number of legislators thrown together who will be forced into primaries, forced to move or retire and questionable adherence to other criteria set for state and federal redistricting. The congressional redistricting was personally irksome as it put us in an even more bluish-purple congressional district. The proposed district could be won by Republicans but three of the six counties in the state that Trump lost were in the iteration. We are also not convinced of the good government logic of some of the criteria for redistricting and believe such formulaic approaches can have serious problems.
“Jab or no job”
Whether or not a finalized redistricting plan was in the cards for the first special session we believe the legislature had a profound obligation to deal with prospects of employer vaccine mandates. Legislative leadership refused to schedule the topic for a proper resolution.
Republican are in charge and had and have the power to expand a special session for compelling purposes. LEADERSHIP FAILED TO LEAD. After dispatching their obligations as regards redistricting they should remain in session to deal with ominous implications of employers in the state initiating arbitrary and capricious “no COVID jab no work” policies.
Mandates regarding COVID mRNA injections ought to be codified as contrary to Iowa health and employment protections. The limited danger of the target disease (98% plus survival rate) and rushed mass injections of mRNA which has produced high unjustifiable risk /reward complication rates for much of the populace. The absence of long term studies, the injection’s questionable efficacy, the implications of such intrusions on bodily integrity conspire to establish such mandates as a “cure” worse than the disease.
The limited if not outright denial of tort relief regarding the manufacture, use and imposition of these experimental inoculations is unconscionable. Universal “COVID related mandates by employers or businesses are wanting of a sound scientific or logic basis, fail to allow for alternative health options, and most fail to provide religious, risk assessment, bodily integrity and health exemptions. This is an emergency situation and the legislature needs to deal with it definitively.
