This hit the news right around when I published my Iowa COVID update yesterday afternoon, so I missed including it, but it also seems like big enough news to warrant it’s own diary, IMO, because it highlights the dysfunction of Gov. Kim Reynolds Reaper’s maladministration.
The Des Moines Register reports that the Iowa State Board of Health is so lacking in members that it’s unable to even achieve a quorum to meet. The board is officially 11-members strong, but currently sits at just 4 members — insufficient to even call a meeting to order. The board is supposed to be made up “a mix of medical and public health professionals, substance-abuse treatment experts and members of the general public” to advise Iowa’s governor and lawmakers on public health issues.
Terms are 3 years, and the governor is supposed to appoint replacements as terms end or resignations occur. But when terms expired at the end of June, Gov. Reynolds apparently couldn’t be bothered to bestir herself to have actual appointees ready to go for this 100% predictable and planned occurrence, and instead has let the board languish.
And so it occurred on July 14th that the State Board of Health was supposed to hold an official meeting, only to discover that it did not have even enough members on its roster to even call a quorum, let alone conduct any official business. That’s a good look as we’re looking at the rise in COVID cases here in the state, where our rate of new COVID cases has more than doubled in the past 2 weeks, and tripled from this time a month ago.
So...why is the Kim Reaper doing this? I mean, other than the fact that she’s proven to be an incompetent psychopathic Trump-humper?
Iowa law requires that the board be bipartisan, and on such panels no political party can have a more than “plus one” majority of membership. The current makeup of the board? 3 Republicans and 1 Independent and exactly zero Democrats.
So, if I had guess, the reason behind this is because 1) Kimmie doesn’t want a board to meet that might tell her things that go against her existing COVID strategy, which is pretty much doing nothing at all, or 2) She can’t stomach actually appointing Democrats to a critical state panel, even when state law mandates the political makeup of said panel, or 3) Kim is delaying while she scours the state for anti-vax, anti-mask Democrats she can put on the board. Or, I guess there’s a fourth possibility, that’s she’s just plain incompetent at her job, but I guess that doesn’t preclude the other options also being true.
Meanwhile, the Iowa Department of Public Health has been lacking a Director since the last one retired A YEAR AGO in July 2020. In the interim, the state’s Department of Human Services Director has been doing double duty, serving both in her existing position while ALSO serving as interim Director for the Iowa Department of Public Health. Again, gosh, that sounds like a brilliant idea during a global pandemic — let’s make overseeing the department tasked with the health of Iowans a part-time job!
Just in case you’re wondering, Kim Reynolds is up for reelection in 2022.