DES MOINES — The free speech rights of protesters on college campuses will be honored in Iowa, but “hate speech” and “destruction” will not be allowed, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said Wednesday.

Reynolds said if protests in Iowa cross those lines, “We will be ready. We’re not going to let it go.”

During a news conference Wednesday at the Iowa Capitol, Reynolds addressed a question about protests that are taking place on college campuses across the nation and how she and state law enforcement officials might react to similar protests in Iowa.

As a war between Israel and the terrorist organization Hamas continues, U.S. college students have been protesting in support of Palestine and in opposition to Israel’s military strategy. In some cases, protesters have occupied buildings and spaces on campuses, and restricted students’ ability to move through those spaces.

Reynolds said Wednesday that protesters have First Amendment rights, but also indicated the state will be prepared to respond if protesters break laws — including one passed after some civil rights protests in 2020 in the wake of the George Floyd murder turned destructive. She decried the actions of protesters at other colleges, including Columbia University in New York.

“Of course we want to protect the First Amendment rights to protest. But they’re going to do it peacefully,” Reynolds said Wednesday. “We’re not going to allow hate speech. We’re not going to allow destruction. We’re not going to allow what we see happening in some of the universities across this country.

“So we’re going to just get in front of it. We’re going to be respectful, and as long as (protesters) abide by the laws and do it peacefully, then great,” Reynolds said. “But if it crosses that line, we will be ready. We’re not going to let it go.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=/VJhoz0OKyKo

Three-day University of Iowa protest planned

A few hundred pro-Palestine protesters demonstrated in University Heights this past weekend while U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson was in Iowa to fundraise for Iowa Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks. And a pro-Palestine protest is scheduled to take place at the Pentacrest on the University of Iowa campus from 12-7 p.m. on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, according to a flyer for the event.

Hayley Bruce, the University of Iowa’s campus safety chief of staff, said in an emailed response to The Gazette that the university is aware of the protests taking place across the country and “has protocols in place.” Bruce said the primary goal of law enforcement during demonstrations is “to protect free speech while ensuring the safety of both demonstrators and the community.”

Bruce said campus safety personnel welcome an opportunity to work with protest organizers to “support a safe environment” and share information about campus demonstration guidelines.

“Community members are permitted to exercise their First Amendment rights in outdoor areas of campus if it complies with reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions, and as long as the conduct is lawful, and does not impede access to a facility or use of walkways, interfere with vehicle traffic, or disrupt the functioning of the institution,” Bruce wrote.

Bruce said encampments — which have cropped up as part of protests on some campuses — are not permitted under University of Iowa policies.

The flyer for the protest, distributed by Iowa City Students for Justice in Palestine, reads, “Stand in solidarity with student encampments and show the University of Iowa we won’t back down!”

A social media post promoting the protest notes that it is not an encampment. “Our intended goal is to reiterate our demands for divestment to the University,” the post reads.

More Iowa Republicans weigh in

Iowa Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley said pro-Palestine protesters who have set up encampments and occupied buildings on college and university campuses around the country “are acting like children.”

Grassley, speaking to Iowa reporters Wednesday, also criticized university presidents for being “too slow” to enforce deadlines they set for demonstrators to leave their encampments or face consequences.

“Now, we all know that under our Constitution free speech is encouraged. And hateful speech, even though it may be constitutional, should be discouraged,” Grassley said. “But, you shouldn’t be able to attack people, threaten people, things of that nature.”

Asked how University of Iowa officials should respond to protests this weekend, Grassley said “any students that want to demonstrate peacefully ought to be allowed to, but it seems to me they shouldn’t be allowed to encamp.”

He also took issue with students demanding schools divest from investments that support weapons manufacturing and Israel amid the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war, in which more than 34,000 people have been killed in Gaza.

“And can you imagine that these students that are there, they think they’re in a position to tell a university how they can invest their funds?” Grassley told reporters. “After all, those funds are helping provide their education. … What right being a student do you have to tell the university how to invest? If you want to do that, you ought to be on the board of trustees.”

State Rep. Carter Nordman, a Republican from Panora, posted on social media that University of Iowa officials have assured him university policies and the law “will be fully enforced and done so without hesitation.”

“I am confident this will be the case,” Nordman posted on X, formerly called Twitter. “In Iowa, if you break the law or violate university policy, you should be expelled, banned, and/or prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. These unlawful pro-Hamas acts occurring around the country are unacceptable and should be met with immediate consequences.”

Today, I spoke with @uiowa officials regarding a potential “encampment” planned for this weekend. They have assured me that their policies and the law will be fully enforced and done so without hesitation. I am confident this will be the case.

In Iowa, if you break the law or… pic.twitter.com/K6JRPVWiKA

— Rep. Carter Nordman (@CarterNordman) May 1, 2024

Comments: (515) 355-1300, erin.murphy@thegazette.com

Iowans will pay a 3.8% flat income tax rate starting next year after Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a law Wednesday lowering the state’s rate and speeding up a series of cuts.

The law builds on a 2022 tax cut that was already set to take Iowa to a 3.9% flat income tax rate in 2026.

Iowa’s top income tax rate this year is 5.7%. Under the new law, all Iowans will pay a 3.8% income tax rate next year.

Reynolds, a Republican, signed Senate File 2442 Wednesday afternoon in the governor’s formal office in the Iowa State Capitol.

It’s the latest in a series of tax cuts Reynolds and Republican majorities in the Iowa Legislature have passed since 2018. Those cuts have brought Iowa from a top individual income tax rate of 8.98% to next year’s 3.8% flat rate, which will apply to Iowans across the board.

“Simply put, we’ve comprehensively transformed our tax code and dramatically increased our competitiveness within a few short years,” Reynolds said. “At the same time, conservative budgeting practices have kept us living within our means and allowed us to continue making historic investments in key priorities of Iowans.”

The latest changes to Iowa’s tax code are expected to reduce state revenues by more than $1 billion over the first three years, and more than $1.3 billion through fiscal year 2030.

Reynolds said when added together all the tax cuts she has signed into law as governor will save Iowa taxpayers $24 billion over a decade.

More: Iowa’s income tax rate is dropping to 3.8%. See how that stacks up against other states

Individual income taxes made up 46.8% of Iowa’s revenues in fiscal year 2023, the most recent year for which complete data is available.

The new law will give Iowa the sixth-lowest income tax rate in the country among states that impose an income tax. Nine states have no income tax for individuals.

Democrats have criticized the flat tax, saying most of the benefits go to the wealthiest Iowans.

There are also around half a million Iowans who do not receive any benefit because their income is low enough that they do not pay income taxes.

Instead, House Democrats this year proposed cutting the state’s sales tax by 1 cent, which they say would disproportionately benefit lower-income Iowans.

“As opposed to the legislation we’re considering, which will be a tax cut for about two-thirds of Iowans, this will be a tax cut for 100% of Iowans,” Rep. Sami Scheetz, D-Cedar Rapids, said April 19 during debate in the Iowa House. “And as so many people in this state know, the sales tax is the most regressive form of taxation. It hits the people in the state who need help the most, the hardest.”

More: What’s in Iowa’s $8.9 billion state budget for the coming year? We break it down:

Law taps Taxpayer Relief Fund to make up shortfall if state revenues fall below spending

If state revenues drop below state spending during a fiscal year, the law says 50% of the costs will be covered using the Taxpayer Relief Fund. The other half would come from the state’s ending balance.

That part of the law will be repealed on July 1, 2029.

The LSA analysis of the legislation says state revenues are not estimated to fall below the state’s spending levels through fiscal year 2029, meaning the relief fund would not need to be tapped.

The state ended the previous fiscal year with $2.74 billion in the Taxpayer Relief Fund. The amount is expected to rise to about $3.6 billion in July, when the fiscal year ends.

More: All-night marathon caps Iowa Legislature’s 2024 session. What’s changing: AEAs, your taxes

What else does the tax law do?

The law also allows county boards of supervisors to eliminate their county compensation boards, which review salaries for elected officials and recommend increases.

And it makes changes to a property tax law last year that limits how much city and property tax revenue can grow. The new law tweaks how much a community’s assessed property value can grow before the government must use a portion of its excess revenue to lower property taxes.

The legislation also repeals an 1848 law requiring Lee County, the only county in Iowa with two courthouses, to maintain courthouses in both Fort Madison and Keokuk.

Reynolds signs law authorizing tax credits for large projects

Reynolds on Wednesday also signed Senate File 574, which creates a new tax credit program for large manufacturing and research projects that cost at least $1 billion.

The new program, called the Major Economic Growth Attraction Program, applies to businesses “primarily engaged in advanced manufacturing, biosciences or research and development.” Data centers and retail businesses are not eligible for the tax credit.

Companies seeking the tax credit must demonstrate that their project will create jobs that pay benefits and meet a certain wage threshold.

The program allows the Iowa Economic Development Authority to authorize a tax credit for up to 5% of the cost of the businesses’ investment in the project. Companies cannot claim the credit until the project is in service and at least half of the jobs specified in the company’s contract have been created.

The tax credit can offset taxes paid by the company, and will be spread out over five years.

More: Kim Reynolds signs Iowa farmland law regulating foreign ownership. Here’s what it does:

The law also authorizes businesses to claim a withholding tax credit of up to 3% of gross wages paid to employees on the qualifying project.

And businesses can qualify for a sales tax refund on taxes paid on electricity, water, gas and sewer utilities, property or services performed by subcontractors. The Department of Revenue will pay the refund to the business over five years.

Reynolds signed a law in April strengthening disclosure requirements for foreign ownerships of Iowa farmland and stepping up penalties for owners that fail to comply.

Senate File 574 allows the tax credits to go to a foreign business as long as the business qualifies for the program and can establish that it is not associated with a foreign adversary and is not actively engaged in farming.

Stephen Gruber-Miller covers the Iowa Statehouse and politics for the Register. He can be reached by email at sgrubermil@registermedia.com or by phone at 515-284-8169. Follow him on Twitter at @sgrubermiller.

In these days of digital newspapers, I find The Budget delivers a comforting, hefty thump when it lands in my rural mailbox. The Budget, published since 1890 out of Sugarcreek, Ohio, brings 50 to 60 paper pages of news from every Anabaptist community in the world, including Amish, Mennonites, and Brethren.

It boasts “50,000 Readers each week in Plain Communities across the Americas.”  The “scribe” of every community reports the weather, the comings and goings, the births and deaths, and the illnesses and recoveries of their group — plus any other anecdotes that might resonate with these far-flung readers.

With the news comes inserts advertising everything from harmonicas to wellness centers where “brain scanning, rife scanning, and microscope blood analysis” is offered. Individual ads hawk the necessities of Amish life: horseshoes, hoop house covers, trampoline parts, and pain-relief supplements. And yet another section includes feature stories and national news — the opening of an Amish quilt show at the Smithsonian Institute, volunteer work drilling wells in Haiti, and lectures on the odyssey of some Mennonites who fled Prussia, where they were forbidden to own land, to settle in Russia, then eventually in Mexico.

The Anabaptist diaspora kicked off in 18^th century Europe and spread all over the world, but the majority of the communities settled in the United States. A quick glance at The Budget finds columns from Pennsylvania where the Amish first fled from persecution, to Alabama, to Kentucky, to Montana. Predominantly, the Amish, a sub-group of the larger Mennonite umbrella, left the Swiss/Alsace region of Europe to find the religious freedom to practice their beliefs that rejected infant baptism, military killing, and swearing oaths of allegiance to the state.

This week’s Budget column from Fredericksburg, Ohio began with a description of the eclipse:

Screech owl hooted. In the Speelman Bottom 18 deer came out to feed. The eclipse goggles were great. But our youngest one was worried the birds will become blind since they don’t have the convenience of these glasses. Our oldest Hershberger in church wondered if the hens will lay twice since it was expected they’ll go roost.

Then at the end of this column, another animal became a main character in a story about a benefit auction:

The auction seemed well-attended with some high-priced items, which is good. One of my uncles deemed it wise to check on buying a tall night-stand, there at the auction for his wife’s side of the bed, giving her a convenient spot to park her glasses and dentures, instead of on the floor. Recently, one morning they searched high and low around the bed for those teeth of hers. Bed cover shaken, nothing. In the living room underneath the recliner they were found then, all honor to the house pup … Teeth got thoroughly scrubbed!

But it was the wind that carried the theme of the rest of this week’s paper. A scribe in Albia, Iowa, thanked the previous owners of their farm for the plantings that block the fierce spring winds:

Andy and Millie, I don’t know if you read these or not, but we’ve often been thankful for the plants and trees you planted, now for our benefit. Also, the evergreen wind block on the north–that is a real blessing in good old IA! Smile.

In contrast, in Nashville, Arkansas, the scribe didn’t have such a good experience with the wind:

Later Mon. evening a thunderstorm from the south brought several gusts of wind. A neighbor was burning brush behind Grace Point Mennonite Church and the wind caused it to spread and put the building in danger. Our fire department responded to the call and soon had it under control.

Then wedged into the right-hand corner of the next page of The Budget: a story of a visit to the Schlabach’s former family home near the village of Jessberg in Hesse, Germany. The family had once occupied a house that now stored bagged fertilizer and garden supplies. Two hundred years before, the Schlabachs had left everything behind to set sail for the United States:

The Schlabach family had boarded the ship “James von Bremen” at the port city of Bremen on the Weser River on April 19, 1820. Due to “adverse winds and storm,” which prolonged the ocean crossing to three and a half months, it was not until the 15^th of August that the ship first touched shore at the harbor in New York.

In the end, it’s the columns of the scribes in international locations that most interest me. I followed the Waterford, Ireland community throughout the pandemic, intrigued by the lockdowns there, the quarantines, and the romance between a member of the community with a man in the U.S. I traced the travels of the prospective groom. He had to bring proof of vaccination from the United States, then isolate once he had arrived in Waterford before he could be married to his beloved.

I saw the war in Ukraine through the eyes of communities in Suceava, Romania who ran medical supplies through Moldova into their ravaged neighboring country. The Mennonites drove trucks toward Odesa, risking their lives, bombs and missiles dropping around them. A Feb. 14, 2024 entry again reported on this Mobile Medical Team:

And finally, the Christian Aid Ministries scribe in Jerusalem dramatized the tremendous fear that lives in the hearts of those in Gaza and Israel. On January 31, 2024, she wrote:

. . . Fifty miles from here, the conditions in Gaza continue to worsen. I hear it by the news and from bits and pieces of information from Palestinian friends who have family in Gaza. Daily, and especially at night, I hear the low rumble of fighter jets overhead. The sound is not terrifying, but it is a reminder that one more bomb will explode in Gaza.

On Feb. 21, 2024, the Jerusalem scribe wrote :

Then this week, the Jerusalem scribe continued: