Iowa Republicans prefer to lie in private
Iowa House Republicans are behaving like children who have something to hide. Because they do. Last week, the Iowa House Public Safety Committee took up House File 481, the misnamed “sanctuary city” bill. Not only did members choose one of the smallest rooms in the Statehouse for the meeting, but Chairman Clel Baudler, R-Greenfield, reserved nearly all the seats for GOP clerks. As Gazette political reporter James Q. Lynch noted in his article, such staffers do not typically attend committee meetings. Baudler said it was an attempt to maintain order as lawmakers again discussed the possibility of withholding untold swathes of state funding from local governments that do not go above and beyond what federal immigration law requires. Although GOP lawmakers want to frame this bill as a law-and-order measure…