Reynolds' decision not to run again offers Iowa a desperately needed new start - if we don't blow it again

Governor has thumbed her nose at openness, voting rights, women's rights, diversity, separation of church and state, history, books & more

In May 2017, a few days before Kim Reynolds became governor, with Terry Branstad’s appointment as China’s ambassador, I made an open appeal to her in my Des Moines Register column on behalf of many Iowans of all political persuasions. Headlined “Congratulations, Gov. Reynolds. We’re in your hands now. Please handle us with care,” the piece congratulated the then-lieutenant governor for her historic achievement on becoming Iowa’s first female leader in 171 years. It beseeched her for more open, inspired and inclusive leadership than we’d had. And it called on her to better balance the interests of big businesses – especially polluters – with those of local communities.

That would, the letter observed, necessitate greater government transparency, and a halt to privatizing government functions without a careful balancing of costs. “I hope you won't fall for the trap some party faithful have of demonizing an ethnic, religious or racial group to curry favor with a political base,” the letter said. “And I hope you'll go farther to call out and distance yourself from those who do, whether they're the president or a member of Congress.”

Reynolds announced this week that she won’t run for re-election next year. In her seven years in office so far, I don’t think she could have gone further in the opposite direction from what the piece asked of her.

Her destruction of Iowa’s reproductive rights has contributed to the critical shortage of physicians in Iowa. Her tactics included calling a special session of the Legislature to pass, in one day, a 6-week abortion ban she then signed into law. By the time it got to Iowa’s Supreme Court to rule on, she had handpicked enough justices to ensure it got the green light. Today Iowa ranks 44^th in our patient-to-physician ratio, and has maternal healthcare deserts.

Yet ironically, the governor claims she’s made Iowa more attractive for doctors by capping damages for medical malpractice.

In her first year in office, Reynolds accepted induction into the Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame for being the state’s first female governor. But she went on to get rid of the long-standing state Division on the Status of Women which bestowed that annual honor on women. She also ended a gender-balance requirement for state boards and commissions, in which Iowa had led the nation. Many of her actions have attempted to erase women, their needs and contributions.

She closed the state divisions looking out for the status of African-Americans, Latinos, Asian and Pacific Islanders, Native Americans and people with disabilities and the 67 state commissions that helped set policies for them. And with the Republican-controlled state Legislature, she went on to ban public universities’ offices and staff for diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Reynolds’ policies are also driving out some LGBTQ Iowans who can’t take the legalized bias against them, some of which has been expressed in statewide book bans, others in her crusade against transgender Iowans. In 2022 she worked privately to undermine the Linn-Marr school district, which had voted to accommodate students’ gender pronouns and bathroom preferences. Soon she was using her transgender biases as an excuse to promote state-funded vouchers for families to move their kids to private, chiefly religious, schools. She even provided Terrace Hill for a fundraising dinner for Des Moines Christian School – again on the down-low.

The upshot? By 2023-2024, Iowa was giving $128 million of taxpayer money to parents to pay private school tuition for 16,757 children. That number is supposed to rise to $345 million. Reynolds’ war on public education has extended to barring mask mandates and forcing risky, in-person school attendance during the COVID 19 pandemic.

One of the most disheartening aspects of all this has been the hypocrisy between her words and actions in office

A glaring example involves the issue of sexual misconduct. In 2018, she suggested Democratic state Sen. Nate Boulton resign because of accusations (including two dating back to his law school years) of sexual misconduct. Yet last year she was out campaigning for Donald Trump after a jury found him liable for felony sex abuse and defamation of E. Jean Carroll, ordering him to pay her $5 million. So much for Reynolds’ earlier claim that sexual harassment was “unacceptable, period.”

And for all her talk about supporting children and families, last year she ended Iowa’s participation in a mostly federally-funded summer school nutrition program that offered $40 per month per child of low-income.

Reynolds and the Iowa Legislature have undermined the rights of many Iowans to vote by reducing early voting days, polling-place hours, and mail-in ballot procedures under the guise of election integrity. That’s though Iowa saw a grand total of 12 election misconduct cases out of more than 2 million votes cast In 2019 and 2020.

These actions and so many others have felt like a stunning rebuke of what is right from the woman whose “ethical standards” I paid tribute to when she took office. Early on, Reynolds presented an appearance of open-mindedness, engagement and eagerness to learn from different constituencies. I took encouragement from her frank acknowledgment of her DUIs and apparent concerns for women’s safety.

Maybe that’s who she used to be before political power fueled by private money, and bolstered by opportunistic evangelical GOP bases came to control her. Or maybe it was all a show. Either way, Reynolds’ upcoming departure offers a chance for Iowa voters to pick a leader who respects individual rights, the separation of church and state and the government’s critical oversight of business and the environment, among other things. One who lets universities do their jobs without state interference. One who speaks the truth.

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A version of this column appears in print and online in The Des Moines Register.

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