Chuck Grassley

Iowa Democrats make unsupported claims, hide their platform

Chuck Grassley should retire so Kim Reynolds can name a replacement

Senate should loosen SNAP penalties

Vote for yourself, not for a team

Iowa Democrats make unsupported claims, hide their platform

Trust Iowa Democrats? Their constitution and state law require Democrats adopt a platform at their state convention. Six weeks after their convention, the Democratic platform is still not published online, while the Republican platform has been up for weeks.

The Democrats’ 2024 platform opposed border walls and closed borders, mandated drivers licenses, legal representation, schools as sanctuaries for immigrants and abolishing quotas and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But then last May, party chair Rita Hart called for a “secure border” and wrote allowing everyone to enter would be a “detriment to Iowa and to the country.” Can we trust her? What does the party’s 2026 platform say? Why won’t they show us?

Can you trust Democrats describing Republican gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn as a “Kansan”? Does anyone believe that if you leave Iowa, return, buy and live at your ancestral Iowa family farm, but also own a house in Kansas and dare to visit your children there, that you are a “Kansan”? Are Democrats telling our children and grandchildren that, if they leave Iowa, they must never return? Should they return, must they be labeled as citizens of another state, if they fly there to visit their children? Don’t Democrats want Iowans who are divorced or separated to visit their children?

And why does iowademocrats.org state “Lahn spends more time in Kansas than Iowa” when the linked Register story shows the opposite is true?

Trust Democratic congressional candidate Sarah Trone Garriott? The Register’s interview missed her biggest contradiction: a Christian pastor supporting abortion rights as a Planned Parenthood “champion.”

Donald W. Bohlken, Indianola

Chuck Grassley should retire so Kim Reynolds can name a replacement

When anyone surveils the Iowa political landscape in 2026, the biggest issue is not taxes or the price of corn, it is which party will control the governor's office for the next four years while Sen. Chuck Grassley ages from 92 to 96 years old in Washington.

If the Democrats win the governor's office, it is assured they will name a Democrat to replace the then deceased Senator Grassley, our blessed senator and Christian brother for so many years. Iowa loves Grassley. But his replacement is the top issue in the gubernatorial election in 2026.

We wish Senator Grassley would live forever, and he will in heaven. But in 2026 it is time for the good senator whom we know and love to step aside in order for Gov. Kim Reynolds to name his replacement. For the sake of Iowa and the entire nation, it is time for an act of selflessness that only a person of Grassley's character will do. He has served Iowa and the nation brilliantly and honorably all his life and he understands totally the political calculus. Let him finish whatever is on his big plate in DC and honor him with appreciation for all he has done. Without the leadership of Grassley, the Supreme Court might not have three Donald Trump appointees today.

Grassley's seat in the U.S. Senate is far too important to Iowa and the nation to live it in doubt. Do it now before God calls Grassley home. With the loss of Sen. Lindsay Graham at age 71, the retirement of Grassley should become more imperative.

Randyl Taber, Van Meter

Senate should loosen SNAP penalties

I was raised to believe being a good neighbor means caring about people even when their struggles aren't our own. Growing up, my family struggled to put food on the table and relied on food banks. I learned that none of us gets to choose when we need help, but all of us can choose how we respond when our neighbors do.

The Senate Agriculture Committee, as it weighs a new farm bill proposal, can reconsider the policy requiring some states to pay a share of SNAP food benefits based on payment error rates.

Payment error rates aren’t fraud. They increased after the pandemic as states struggled with staffing shortages and overwhelming workloads, not widespread abuse of SNAP.

Iowa's payment error rate is low, and we should be proud. But being a good neighbor means caring about families beyond our state lines, too. States shouldn't be punished for administrative challenges by shifting the cost of feeding struggling families.

Sens. Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley have an opportunity to reject the SNAP cost-shift provisions in the Senate’s farm bill. I hope they'll show the same values I was raised with: When a neighbor is struggling, you lend a hand; you don't hand them a bigger bill.

Lakeisha McVey, Des Moines

Vote for yourself, not for a team

Let’s stop treating elections like a sporting event where we pick a team and vote for them to win. Instead, vote for yourself. Vote so you win. Vote for policies that will help you.

Ask yourself: Do you want things like a strong economy, clean water, a good education system, and accessible healthcare?

Or do you want things like tax incentives for the wealthy, insider stock trading, water that causes cancer, the largest manure pit in America, and to pay for a governor to commute from his home in Kansas on his private jet?

Decide what you want, what you want your tax dollars to be used for, and what will help you and your future.

Decide what will help you win and vote for that.

Our elected officials should represent us not insult us and mock our values.

Deb Gadlin, Cumming