This week, we started floor debate. There is a lot of work that goes into getting a bill to the floor. It must be read in, assigned a committee, assigned a subcommittee, pass out of subcommittee, pass out of committee, placed on the calendar and then it can be taken up for floor debate...

The Iowa Legislature opened the 2020 session on Jan. 13. With both houses, and the governor, controlled by the Republican Party, legislators were unanimous in opening statements that focused on the economy, building the Iowa workforce, maintaining fiscal control and cutting taxes. Education continues to be a focus for the Democrats in Des Moines...

How would the economy have performed if Hillary Clinton would have been elected president? Assuming that she would have governed like she said during the campaign I think that it was very likely that we would be recovering from another recession about now. ...

Passover was instituted by God 3,500 years ago and is the oldest festival known to man. Most people know very little about Passover, let alone celebrate it and even question what it has to do with modern Christianity. I marvel at the lack of knowledge even among Christians about one of the two most Holy days that God constituted for his people to observe. Hopefully this will give light on Passover...

This is the sixth column in an eight-week series debunking eight myths around foster care. Children are placed in foster care through no fault of their own. Most children enter foster care when their birth parents are not able to care for them appropriately, which could be due to abuse, neglect, substance use, or mental health concerns...

No matter the season, size of your garden or climate, you can inject homegrown flavor into your meals. Just clear a shelf, countertop or windowsill and get busy planting herbs, greens and even tomatoes to enjoy year-round. For quick results, grow microgreens. ...

Every winter, right in that sour spot when Christmas cheer is over, snow is no longer a photogenic novelty and the lack of sun is beginning to have its way with my mood; and before the “only X days until spring” countdowns have begun to feel attainable, I get a respite...

First of all, President Donald Trump's impeachment hearing came to an end with a predictable outcome — acquittal. An impeachment charge which passed along party lines in the House was rejected by party lines (almost) in the Senate. I'm not at all shocked. ...

Bills must make certain progress through subcommittees and committees during the legislative session or they become ineligible for debate. Subsequently, this week was comprised of a lot of committee work. Ensuring that Iowa's children receive a world-class education is a top priority...

Chances are I walked through the doors of at least one more caucus than most folks this week — as an observer in both cases of course, rather than a participant. With a news staff our size and three caucus locations to cover in Dickinson County, I pulled a little bit of double duty and took photos at both the local Republican caucus at Arrowwood Resort and the Democratic caucus at the Expo Building. ...

• This is the fifth column in an eight-week series debunking eight myths around foster care. If you haven’t been exposed to foster care, you might think that the best thing for children is for them to be “rescued” from their bad environment and removed from their parents and their home permanently. But that’s not true...

Nothing says Happy Valentine’s Day like a fresh bouquet of flowers. Make sure your gift provides many days of enjoyment by selecting the freshest flowers and providing the best possible care. Take some time to evaluate the quality of the cut flowers you plan to purchase. Select fresh flowers with upright and perky flowers and lots of firm buds that are just starting to open. Avoid flowers sitting in foul smelling water with drooping leaves and discolored slimy stems...

A few weeks ago, and a few times in the past, we’ve had readers on our Spencer Daily Reporter Facebook page complain about the paywall which blocks them from reading complete stories at no charge. For some folks, the constitutional right to free speech has been interpreted as “I shouldn’t have to pay for reading the results of the work of trained journalists.”...

As I sit here awaiting the opening kickoff of Super Bowl 54, munching on some goodies and talking football, I marvel at what a phenomenon the NFL has become. I just watched an amazing introduction involving a collection of kids representing every team in the league running the game ball among the legends of the game across the country in a prerecorded lead up. Then the young man and his counterparts show up live in Miami running the ball out to the official at midfield...

This week, we announced a K-12 funding package for the 2020-21 school year. This package takes into account many of the challenges that teachers, school boards and administrators have brought to lawmakers, and targets additional dollars to address these problems...

Will there be any advertisements after the caucuses? Will we have anything in our mailbox? In the spring how many candidate flyers will be uncovered as the snow melts from around our front entry? Ah yes, life after the caucuses ... It’s hard to imagine. It may be a relief to get back to ads for corn hybrids and hemorrhoid treatments. Attend the caucus of your choice. Celebrate...

Climate change, CO2 man-made influence is no longer a debate. The consensus of evidence has become overwhelming. The Pentagon, NOAA, NASA, insurance companies, corporations, investors and even the WSJ have all moved beyond debating whether man-made climate change is a threat to human existence to how to modify our climate by altering practices so as to reduce the negative human influence on the climate. ...

• This is the fourth column in an eight-part series debunking eight myths around foster care. When families decide to become licensed foster parents, many choose to open their homes solely to younger children. And while these families are providing critical care to hundreds of the most vulnerable children in Iowa, this also makes it more difficult to find loving homes for a population often overlooked: teenagers...

I hadn't been keeping track, but I had by chance been reading up on the subject in a way. Monday, Jan. 27, marked the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. It's been three-quarters of a century since Soviet forces opened the gates and beheld the horrors inside. The Aushwitz-Birkenau State Museum expects upwards of 200 Holocaust survivors will attend the memorial...

It starts with one plant on a sunny windowsill then morphs into an impenetrable jungle. You may feel you need a machete to reach each individual plant to water and tend. Clear the way to improved growing conditions and convenient care while showcasing every plant with style...

I had a 45-minute drive up and back to Laurens to cover Andrew Yang’s town hall the other day, and often when I’m driving I kind of get in the zone and to me, it often feels like time just kind of blurs, and I’ve never really known why that is. Maybe focusing on the road makes me focus less on time passing, but it’s a feeling I’ve started to notice in other areas of life recently...

My 83-year-young father, along with my mother, raised seven children — put us through college, ensured we had everything we needed, and as much of what we wanted as was possible. They sacrificed to ensure our future success. Needless to say, that focus didn’t prioritize retirement savings or leave time to ponder investment strategies...

Just before coming into the office Sunday afternoon, I learned about the passing of one of my basketball favorites, Kobe Bryant, alongside his teen daughter, and several other passengers involved in a tragic helicopter crash. I admit it, it hit hard. ...

With the start of every legislative session, I receive a lot of questions about how the process works and what it is like being a legislator. For this week's newsletter, I thought I would share some of the most commonly asked questions. I try to leave for Des Moines around 6 a.m. ...

Climate change deniers in the U.S. probably should keep an eye on what is happening in Australia politically as a result of the historic wildfires that are ravaging the country. Australia had to mobilize military reserves to handle the relocation of people resulting from an area twice the size of Switzerland (25 million acres) or two West Virginias being on fire. ...

Grace and peace be with you today. Whom shall we fear? That is a question brought up in Psalm 27:1. I know that many of you just made a list in your head of things or people we should fear. What does it mean for you to be afraid? We take our eyes off of our goals and only see what could be and we don’t see what can be. We look around instead of focusing our eyes on the one who calls to us and see only despair and heartache...

It's official, the United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement has been passed by both houses of Congress. This has been a long time coming, and a lot of farmers in Iowa have been watching what's going on, as the deal is expected to add pressure to the Chinese trade war that's dehydrated some of their crop prices. ...

This is the third column in an eight-part series debunking eight myths around foster care. There are plenty of reasons you might talk yourself out of considering foster care. “I don’t own a home.” “I already have kids or pets.” “I’m too busy.”...

Improve your indoor and outdoor container gardening success with a quality potting mix. This can be more difficult than it sounds since you can’t see or feel the product you are about to buy. Ask your gardening friends for recommendations and once at the garden center, check the package, and compare label information before making a purchase...

With just two weeks to go until the Iowa caucuses, Iowans would be excused if they are suffering from a serious case of political overload. The television is packed with candidate ads, and you can hardly go to a coffee shop, town hall or microbrewery in the state that hasn't been visited by at least one presidential candidate over the past year and a half...

I am continually amazed at the grace of God. Around 14 years ago, I had no idea what that word meant. I was on the streets and addicted to drugs. I was a self-proclaimed atheist after losing my father to suicide and having discovered his lifeless body on a dark morning only a few years earlier. ...

We get an up close and personal view of the Democratic presidential candidates because of our Iowa caucuses. There are frankly not a lot of rural Democrats where I live in the state and unless something dramatic happens Iowa will not be in play for the general election. ...

This is the second column in an eight-part series debunking eight myths around foster care. When children are placed in foster care, their whole world is turned upside down. They are forced to say goodbye to their family, their friends and their school. The tangible, known pieces of their lives are ripped away from them — their childhood bedroom, their favorite toy or blanket, their pet...

As garden catalogs are piling up and online versions fill your inbox, your thoughts may turn to the growing season ahead. With so many choices of beautiful flowers and scrumptious vegetables it can be overwhelming and hard to resist buying more seeds and plants than you have space to grow and time to tend...

Back around the turn of the century, I was drawn, as were so many others, to a television show featuring an idealistic, decidedly-liberal White House staff, supporting its wicked-smart, charismatic leader. The show was “The West Wing,” and for seven years it was “must-see” TV in my house...

About a month ago I released some home-grown video content onto the SDR YouTube page, also doing some housekeeping on the page in the process. The video I made was a sports montage, but really it was more of a proof of concept as something we could make in the future if I ever found some free time...

When the "bottle bill" was enacted in 1979, there were no recycling programs in the state or around the country. We have come a long way in recycling thanks to to the bottle bill. That said, I still hear a lot about how we can do better. Ten years after the Iowa enacted the bottle bill, the state legislature enacted waste diversion laws to...

If the headline drew you in, this week's column is not about some diabolical espionage effort and some secret spy who lost their life gathering deep classified intel. No, it's exactly what the title suggests, a column about the news you read and the price you pay. Sorry if you were expecting something a bit more sinister...

"Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them — to the Israelites. I will give you every place where you set foot, as I promised Moses ... as I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and courageous, ..." (Joshua 1:2-3, 5-6)...

2019 was not what I would call a year that I want to remember or have fond memories over at the end, given my crops were planted on time yet still generated crop insurance claims. It doesn't matter what date they are planted on if the hail storm is intense enough. A high APH and RAMP crop insurance helped save the bottom line. So, let's shift and look back at the last decade of the 2010s as something being less painful to reminisce over while we try to forget 2019...

First, let me tell you the kids at Harris-Lake Park are pretty special. I say this because it was my job to pick up some holiday-inspired writing assignments from the H-LP elementary earlier this month, so the Dickinson County News could publish some of the New Year's wishes from some of our youngest people. It was just a couple of small stacks held together by a couple of paper clips, but I've got to say I was pretty impressed by some of the sentiments expressed by the young Wolves at H-LP...

This is the first column in an eight-part series debunking eight myths around foster care. Every foster parent will tell you that there are tough days. That one of the hardest parts is saying goodbye to a child who has been in your care. When some families wonder if they could become foster parents, they may think, “I can’t foster children. I would get too attached.”...

Once your holiday celebrations have passed and the decorations go back into storage, it is time to deal with your real Christmas tree. Don’t drag it to the curb to be hauled away by the trash collectors. Give it a second, even third life, in your landscape. No live Christmas tree? Don’t worry! I’m sure your friends and neighbors will share theirs...

When I was young, the most anticipated mail of the year was the Sears Roebuck Christmas "Wish Book." We youngsters fought for our chance to peruse the thick volume, filed with all the must-have toys and games that millions of children would be dreaming about finding under the tree on Christmas morning. By Christmas Day, that poor catalog was dog-eared and ragged, with circles around favorites and corners helpfully turned down so Santa could find our dream Barbie quickly...

At the start of 2019, I became only the second U.S. senator from Iowa to be sworn in as Senate president pro tempore, one of only two constitutional officers in Congress. As the most senior lawmaker in the Senate Majority, it’s an honor to serve in this leadership position on behalf of Iowans...

I’ve been spending the past few days trying to wrap my mind around the limited but present outrage over the U.S. action to take out Qassem Soleimani. I understand the mourners and marchers in the streets of Iran and even to some degree in Iraq where Iran has slowly been gaining influence in some political sectors, but to see Americans holding up posters with this man’s face as though he was some kind of hero makes me sick...

I come from a livestock family and married into one as well. When I grew up, we had dairy, layers, hogs and cattle on feed. I, myself, raised hogs and cattle. We adapted over time. The dairy went out first with the requirement for bulk milk handling the year that I graduated from high school. ...

Many years ago while in high school I attended the Illinois summer youth theater program offered at the University of Illinois in Champagne/Urbana. There I was introduced to a number of trust exercises meant to enhance my own ability to trust others and to be deepen my own understanding of how to be more trustworthy. ...