By O. Kay Henderson (Radio Iowa)

The Democratic National Committee has voted to eliminate Iowa from the list of states that will start the party’s 2024 presidential campaign.

South Carolina is replacing Iowa as the lead-off state, followed by New Hampshire and Nevada, then Georgia and finally Michigan. it’s a sequence President Biden recommended in December. Democratic National Committee chairman Jaime Harrison of South Carolina said these changes are long overdue.

“It expands the number of voices in the early window and it elevates diverse communities that are at the core of the Democratic Party,” Harrison said.

Michigan Congresswoman Debbie Dingell drew cheers as she addressed national party leaders this weekend. “Here’s the reality: no one state should have the lock on going first,” Dingel said.

The delay in announcing the results of the 2020 Iowa Caucuses due to a faulty smart phone app intensified criticism of the caucuses, after decades of being first in the nation. Leah Daughtry of New York, the former chief of staff of the Democratic Party, said Iowa law requiring the Caucuses be first doesn’t give Iowa Democrats the divine right to defy party rules.

“We decided we wanted a calendar that will reflect who our party is now and not who our party was back then,” said Leah Daughtry of New York, the former chief of staff of the Democratic Party.

Scott Brennan, a former Iowa Democratic Party chairman, is also member of the Democratic National Committee. He warned the committee that two of the states selected to be in the early group cannot hold their primaries on the dates national party leaders have set.

“We are creating a situation of continued uncertainty that will drag on throughout 2023,” Brennan said. “…We can approve this calendar, but we will leave here with absolutely nothing settled.”

Iowa Democratic Party chairwoman Rita Hart has indicated the party will move ahead with its new vote-by-mail plan for the 2024 Iowa Caucuses.

“Iowa has been put in a position that makes it impossible to comply with both DNC rules and our own state law,” Hart said during remarks before the DNC vote, “which has exactly zero chance of being changed by the Republican legislature.”

Hart emphasized that Iowa Republicans will host Caucuses in 2024 that will kick off the GOP’s presidential campaign. “They feed the narrative that Democrats have turned their backs on Iowa and on rural America,” Hart said Saturday. “In the coming weeks, our state will be flooded with Republican hopefuls, spreading this damaging message to every corner of our state.”

This weekend, prominent Iowa Republicans began blasting that message via Twitter. Senator Joni Ernst said President Biden and Democrats were “giving middle America the middle finger.” Governor Kim Reynolds said President Biden was “too afraid” to face Iowa voters.

By O. Kay Henderson (Radio Iowa)

Republicans in the state legislature say they will soon send the governor a bill to increase general state spending on Iowa’s public schools by about $106 million.

“A very solid number to be able to show support for our public school systems and try to get that done within the timeline,” House Speaker Pat Grassley told reporters today.

He said the House will approve that level of spending early next week — giving school boards about eight weeks to finalize budget plans for the next academic year.

Democrats say school districts need more to offer competitive teacher salaries and cover rising costs of fuel to heat buildings and run buses. Senator Herman Quirmbach of Ames said the state would have more to spend if Republicans hadn’t approved state-funded savings accounts for private school parents.

“We’re proposing to support public education for the many and not private school education for the privileged few,” Quirmbach said.

Due to declining enrollment and the distribution formula for general state spending on public schools, Senator Sarah Trone Garriott of West Des Moines said dozens of school districts will get less money for the next academic year.

“Seventy-one community school districts will absolutely have to cut their budgets, cut teachers, cut programs, increased class sizes,” Trone Garriott said. “Three percent will move more rural schools towards consolidation and closure.”

The 34 Republicans in the Senate approved the 3% increase in general state school aid this afternoon.

“I’ll start with the word conservative, with no apology,” Senator Ken Rozenboom, a Republican from Oskaloosa, said. “We have conservative budgeting practices and Iowans, in increasing numbers, sent us back to the House and Senate so yes, this reflects our fiscal policies and our conservatism.”

The bill also includes $900,000 more dollars in state support for geographically large school districts that spend far more on bus routes.

By Pat Powers (Radio Iowa)

January is usually the coldest and driest month of the year, but State Climatologist, Justin Glisan says the numbers went against the averages this year.

“Little over 24 degrees is the average temperature for the state and that’s about five degrees above average so top 30 warmest Januarys on record,” he says. January also saw more rain and snow than normal.

“We’re about an inch above average — we came in at just under two inches of precipitation snowfall in any rainfall that fell — and preliminarily in the top 10 wettest Januarys on record,” according to Glisan. He says half the state saw more snowfall than normal.

“As January is the driest month it doesn’t take a lot to be above average, but definitely above average snowpack across the northern half of the state anywhere from five to 10 inches above average. You look at southern Iowa in a snow drought so below average snowfall for that portion of the state,” Glisan says.

The severe weather in January was not limited to snow and blizzards, as two tornadoes touched down in eastern Iowa.
“Very weak tornadoes, EF-0, E-F-1, on the ground for 10 minutes five mile track. Some damage along that path, but nothing catastrophic,” he says. The tornadoes were rare and record-breaking.

“The earliest calendar day tornado for the state of Iowa. So we broke a record there. And it was these were the first tornadoes that we’ve seen across the state since January 24 1967, when we saw 13 tornadoes in eastern Iowa, which was a part of a larger tornado outbreak across Missouri, Illinois and Iowa,” Glisan says.

Glisan says the early short-term outlook for February is slightly warmer and wetter.