Our Founders would be cheering

Throughout the history of the United States, people have expressed their support of their government, or their opposition to its decisions and actions, with passion and vigor. It's the American way.

Below is the text of my remarks at the Grassroots Iowa Network workshop on June 21, 2025, in Monticello, Iowa:

It is my pleasure to be with all of you today. I am grateful for the opportunity to spend the day listening to your thoughts, ideas and observations.

You may have a good understanding of what brought everyone together today. But you may not realize our nation’s Founders are cheering you in their knee britches and tri-corner hats from the hallowed spaces these patriots now inhabit.

There is an important reason for their cheering — just as they have been cheering the thousands of people who have gathered in recent weeks outside courthouses, federal buildings and other public spaces from Alaska to Florida and from Maine to Hawaii.

Those crowds turned out to express dissatisfaction with the current occupant of the White House and to let the world know they disagree with the president’s actions toward immigrants and his actions to dismantle government services people support and rely on.

Our Founders would be thrilled you are here today, putting to use the rights the Founders believed were so important they were stitched into our Constitution in the First Amendment — the rights to freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, the right to assemble peaceably, and the right to petition our government for a redress of our grievances.

Throughout our nation’s history people have exercised those rights with passion and vigor. We saw that a week ago when hundreds of people gathered on the grounds of the Iowa Capitol. And we see that here today.

While it may drive up the blood pressure of the man at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., or the woman at Terrace Hill, the people exercising their First Amendment freedoms these days are not Communists or socialists. They are not people who hate the United States. They are not leftists, or radicals, or people hell-bent on destroying our nation.

Just like the patriots 250 years ago, the people who are marching through the streets of America these days are expressing their dissatisfaction with the course the nation is taking. They are displeased people are being harassed or arrested by our government. They are not people who should be targeted by a president wielding unprecedented power. These people should not be reduced to demeaning slurs and crude, derogatory names. Nor should they be thrown to the ground and handcuffed like the U.S. senator from California was.

The people who are marching in America these days are patriots, and they should be celebrated — just as we celebrate the women and men in our military who defend our nation and all it stands for.

Being with you today has energized me — and I hope it has energized you. You have given me hope — hope that better days will come. Hope that Iowans who are Republicans, Democrats, independents, political agnostics, and maybe even a Whig or two, can gather and talk about facts and ideas, policies and problems, solutions and challenges — all without resorting to the name-calling that spews from our president. Words like morons, lunatics, scum, losers, traitors, crooks.

America does not benefit from such name-calling. But Iowa can benefit from your energy. We need your ideas. We need people who will step out of their comfort zone and respectfully disagree with the direction our state and our nation are heading.

Without that energy, without those ideas, without people like you who will stand up and ask “why,” rural landowners would have lost the fight years ago to protect their land from those who want to use eminent domain in ways so many find unacceptable.

Without people with energy, ideas, and a willingness to raise their hand and say “this is unacceptable,” we will continue to see government’s resources going to people of financial means while people who are struggling to make it from one paycheck to the next will see the haves receiving more, while the have-nots are portrayed as undeserving and lazy.

Without people willing to stand up and speak out, we will face the very real likelihood there will be no FEMA the next time a derecho, a tornado or a massive flood tears through our communities. There is a real possibility the National Weather Service will be so diminished we won’t be able to rely on it for alerts about severe storms approaching.

Without people willing to hold their government leaders accountable and say “Enough!”, our federal government will turn its back on the crucial role government has played for generations in medical research — in institutions across our nation, including Iowa City, where doctors and scientists have improved the survival chances and the lives of people who have been told they have breast cancer or colon cancer or whose children have been diagnosed with leukemia.

Whether you lean progressive or conservative, or whether you are more comfortable in the middle of the road, two things are important from my vantage point.

First, each of us needs to honor our Founders’ vision by speaking with courage and conviction and confidence at whatever level we are most comfortable with. Whether you are someone who is ready to answer the call to become a candidate for public office. Whether you are a behind-the-scenes person more comfortable making calls or stuffing envelopes or addressing postcards for a candidate. Whether you are comfortable in a boisterous crowd or more comfortable in a quiet one-on-one conversation — I would say this to you:

Iowa needs you.

Why am I heaping this responsibility onto your shoulders? It’s not as if your lives are filled with lots of free time. The “why” is quite simple, really:

Our Founders who wrote the First Amendment 233 years ago, and the members of the Legislature who wrote Iowa’s government “sunshine laws” 50 years ago, they all knew how important it was for people to be involved in their government and to be free to express their opinions without fear of reprisal from government leaders.

Our Founders knew there would not be true freedom if the people were afraid to voice their opinions about what they want our nation to do on a multitude of issues.

Our Founders knew there would not be true freedom if the people were afraid to tell elected officials and government employees it is wrong for law enforcement officers to wear masks, but no identifiable uniforms or badges or court orders, and force their way into homes and businesses, offices and schools, and grab adults or children and spirit them away to who only knows where.

Our Founders did not use the term “due process,” but our courts do. And if there isn’t “due process” for people who might not look like you and me, then there is a danger there will not be “due process” for us if someone in government dislikes us, or what we have said, if we ever find ourselves in a courtroom awaiting justice.

Some in Washington these days think the only patriots are those who agree with them. But I happen to think the true patriots are those who have the courage and the convictions and are willing to stand up and express their opinions on the issues and values that motivate them.

The second thing I think is important is this, and I may get pushback from some quarters. I think it also is crucial for us to speak and act with civility and respect. We must not give in to the temptation to mirror our president’s horrible descriptions of people with whom he disagrees, regardless of how good it would feel to call the president, or those we disagree with, imbeciles, or worse.

It does not matter who started this war of words. We have to return to the civility that used to be a hallmark of our political discourse.

During my long career, I have had the opportunity to have meaningful conversations with people who have been, or who wanted to be, our leaders. I remember Congressman Neal Smith stopping by the Register newsroom unannounced when he wanted to talk with us about issues bubbling in Washington, or in Iowa, or about a project he was pushing.

I remember Governor Terry Branstad coming in several times a year to meet with the Register’s reporters and editorial page staff to talk about his legislative priorities. The governor knew he would be grilled like a ribeye. He knew there would be tough questions. But Branstad also knew this was part of governing — being willing to meet with a group, listen to what they said, and to answer their questions.

It is not this way now, regrettably. I am old enough to remember when Governor Robert Ray held a press conference every morning and when Governor Branstad met with journalists every week.

But our current governor goes months without holding a formal press conference at which she takes questions on any topic from any reporter. A half-century after I first walked into Governor Ray’s media briefing room, I walked into the courtroom of the Iowa Supreme Court as a plaintiff, with Laura Belin and Iowa Capital Dispatch, in our lawsuit against Governor Reynolds over her refusal to provide public records for up to 18 months during the height of the Covid pandemic.

Nowadays, politicians will scramble like Caitlin Clark with the basketball, except these political leaders are falling all over themselves to AVOID answering reporters’ questions.

A striking example illustrating the change in civility and our political dialogue occurred 53 years ago in a car traveling between Washington, D.C., and Iowa. It was in the summer of 1972. Congressional redistricting after the census had thrown two incumbent members of the U.S. House into the same newly drawn House district.

The two Congressmen were Democrat Neal Smith of Altoona and Republican John Kyl of Bloomfield. These two Washington veterans were campaigning against each other. Their wives wanted to get out of the summer heat in Washington and get back to Iowa. The way they did that is memorable — and a lesson for all of us. Their example of civility gets at the heart of Iowa values and respect for those with whom we may disagree on politics, but with whom we probably agree on lots of other matters.

Think about this: Bea Smith and Arlene Kyl made the trip from Washington back to Iowa by carpooling with each other.

I am not suggesting we have to avoid expressing our differences of opinions. Far from that. But it costs us nothing to treat those with whom we disagree as decent human beings who happen to hold a different opinion on some topics.

We need to do our part to restore civility to our political discourse. That applies to us voters. And it most assuredly applies to those who supposedly lead us.

I am appalled by the crude, coarse, demeaning language our president uses. I worry our children and grandchildren are learning from this lack of human decency and empathy.

And I am troubled when our governor refuses to sit down with people with whom she disagrees and listen to their concerns and their anxieties over actions the governor is contemplating. Think about the trans young people. Think about the librarians and educators. Think about the parents of disabled children who receive services from the Area Education Agencies.

It costs nothing to see these individuals as people, and not as political talking points, and to listen to what is on their minds and in their hearts.

I have spoken to audiences from border to border in Iowa. I always remind them of this very important fact — that their government belongs to them, it does NOT belong to our elected officials or the people governments employ.

I encourage all of you here today to go back to your communities and never hesitate to ask questions, never hesitate to demand answers, and never forget the important role citizens and organizations like the League of Women Voters and the Grassroots Iowa Network play in helping to educate and inform and mobilize voters and would-be voters.

Our Founders would be cheering you today and would be encouraging you to make your voices heard when you get back home. It is the patriotic thing to do.

---