So, those of you here in the state have probably already heard but, Kim Reynolds signed a bill into law last night that makes it illegal for local governments or school districts to enact mask mandates.
She did this after midnight last night in an early-morning signing ceremony. It went into effect today, leaving districts and jurisdictions scrambling this morning to respond to the new law. Because nothing on Earth is apparently more urgent than making sure Lil’ Johnny can get himself a case of the COVID without some egghead school superintendent telling him he’s gotta mask up for the last (looks at calendar) two weeks (or less) of the school year.
Did I mention this doesn’t effect businesses at all? Yep, Lowe’s, Walmart, the local stripper bar, whatever, can still mandate customers and staff wear masks if they want to. But the local elementary school, where none of the students are even eligible to be vaccinated at this point? Tough noogies, Principal Poindexter.
To make this even more...uh...something… the Republican-led legislature made sure to tack on a completely unrelated “Pledge of Allegiance” rider that requires all grade 1-12 classrooms to recite the Pledge of Allegiance daily and have a U.S. flag in the room. The legislature did have the sense to include wording that students cannot be required to participate in reciting the Pledge, but I’ll give you three guesses how well that’ll probably play out in some districts. The original “Pledge Bill” was proposed back in February, but apparently tacking it onto a completely unrelated “Let’s be assholes about masks” bill was just a little too irresistible for our cadre of concrete-skulled GOPers in our state legislature, and of course the Kim Reaper is right on board with it (if I had to guess, I’d say that Lil Kim had a teacher that picked on her as a little girl or something, because I certainly can’t explain her apparent hatred of the public education system — which her own daughter works as a certified teacher in — otherwise).
But wait, there’s more!!!
Not content with a mere 6,000 dead Iowans, COVID Kim not only banned mask mandates, but also banned so-called “vaccine passports” here in Iowa (she’s been pushing the state leg. to pass something like this for a couple of months). The new law bans government entities, private businesses, and venues open to the public from requiring Iowans to present "vaccine passports" as proof they've received the COVID-19 vaccine. The law also bars any government entity or business that requires such proof from receiving any grants and contracts funded by state revenue. It does NOT ban employers from requiring their employees from getting vaccinated, so...I guess there’s that. For now.
I love my native state. We have a lot of good history here, a lot of progressive history here, and a lot of good people here. But somehow MAGA mania took hold here with a vengeance five years ago, we’ve been paying dearly for it ever since, and I sure as hell hope that we can find a way to reverse that and bring Iowa back to it’s more traditional purple position it’s had on the political spectrum in the past.