I've probably spent too much time this morning looking at reports filed from the Iowa Legislature as lawmakers wrangled through the night on more youth-related and school-related legislation.
Moving through now are Republican proposals to ease restrictions on child labor, in some cases in violation of federal safety rules; and to relax educational standards in Iowa's underfunded public schools.
This will be remembered as the year when GOP lawmakers channeled millions of dollars away from public education funding and into the coffers of private schools.
Also in the works has been a bill to allow guns to be kept in locked vehicles on school grounds and in school parking lots.
Then I glanced at a report from Mason City where "concerned" parents turned up at this week's school board meeting with a list of 200 books they wanted banned --- none actually had read the books, of course. Those lists, generated by far-right out of state groups, also have been a topic of discussion this legislative session.
And so it goes in the interesting times that we live in.
There's little that can be done to deflect legislation imported from cultural battlefields elsewhere, considering Gov. Kim Reynolds and her legislative supermajority. But could we please send these gentlemen and gentleladies home --- soon?
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