January 1, 2021 | Letter No. 17
Around April of this year, it felt like a slow drip of syrup was filling up the reaches of my mental space. By July, I felt close to bursting. Now with still more quarantine ahead, my nerves are shot.
It’s been a nightmare year. And still, I’ve had these interactions with readers who say it must be a good year to be in the news business. “The curse of living in interesting times,” one said. And maybe he was right.
Subscriptions—both digital and print—are up. Engagement is up. Hell, Iowa’s non-management of the coronavirus pandemic earned us a spot on the front page of the New York Times.
I am still processing the implications for an “interesting” year where more than 3,500 Iowans died of COVID-19. It would be like if all the people in nearby Tiffin just disappeared: the teachers pulling into the parking lot at Clear Creek Amana High School. The old-timers drinking coffee at the Kum & Go. The commuters and the posts they fill across Johnson and Linn counties.
Imagine, for a second, the empty driveways, abandoned fuel pumps, and vacant grocery stores.
Excitement for the vaccine, for the return, makes the next year feel lighter already. But it’s not here and it won’t be for some time.
Your friendly neighborhood reporter,
Zachary Oren Smith
Miller-Meeks to be seated in IA-02
The U.S. House goes into session on January 3, but Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District is still a mess. The state-certified the Republican candidate, but just last month, the Democrat dropped her petition claiming legally cast ballots weren’t counted.
The Question: Will the Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives seat the state-certified winner of the election? Or will they wait for the investigation?
This is a rare occurrence for a federal race. The most recent precedent is for them to wait.
In 1985, the Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives refused to seat anyone in Indiana’s “bloody” 8th District seat pending the results of an investigation that had the Republican candidate up by 418 votes. Following the investigation, the Democrat was seated with a winning margin of just four votes.
But in 2021, the answer will likely be to seat Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House intends to “provisionally” seat Miller-Meeks pending a potential House investigation into her race which came down to just six votes.
Pat Rynard, the founder and managing editor of left-of-center political blog Iowa Starting Line, called the move a “surrender” of the seat tweeting “You seat someone, even provisionally you’re not unseating them. It’s a way to sound reasonable.”
Pelosi’s Democratic majority waned following the 2020 election. And given outgoing President Donald Trump’s repeated baseless challenges to the election, it may not be surprising to find leadership leery of taking on a touchy political issue.
On December 22, 2020, Democrat Rita Hart dropped her petition featuring 22 ballots cast that year that weren’t counted in her race; 22 ballots that just happen to put her ahead. Miller-Meeks has until January 22, 2021 to respond to Hart’s petition. Once that response is in hand, the House Committee on Administration will decide whether to investigate the election.
Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack, the Democrat leaving Iowa’s 2nd seat, will retire on January 2, 2021. He first joined the House in 2007.
[Below: A westerly view of snow piled along Market Street. George’s Buffet sits gracefully in repose.]
Take Five
❄️ A White (and hellish) New Year – Weather gets dismissed as small talk, but snowfall this week was something else. At 12:44 p.m. Wednesday, a snowfall report had Iowa City snowfall at 10 inches. And there’s more on the way. Friday morning through night, the National Weather Service of the Quad Cities forecasts another round of ice and snow. So Happy New Year’s.
📖 There’s a place for fiction in a newspaper – A tradition at the paper has been for the Dec. 25 centerpiece to be a short story from a local writer. This year, Tom Gingerich penned a wistful Christmas story with a beautiful illustration from Hani Elkadi:
The temperature outside was in the teens and there was a chill in the room. He had turned down the thermostat as was their custom to save on the heating bill. They’d always had each other to keep warm through the dark and cold of long winter nights. He burrowed deep under the blankets and, as he had done every night since Jen had passed, reached over and ran his hand across the place where she had always been.
An hour later, sleep took him to the place where dreams are born, into a dream like none that he had ever dreamed before. Jen was there.
You’re not going to find this any other publication in the state. While I’d like to see more traditions than Christianity represented here, I think this is a really special something this newspaper does. If you’re a fiction writer or would just like to see this tradition grow, drop me an email or DM me on Twitter.
✊ To the worker – Suffering is a vector for analyzing policy. Looking at the pandemic, it’s obvious that the potential for suffering was not evenly distributed. It was shouldered disproportionately by employees who needed money for rent and groceries. Our nation and state failed to offer predictable paycheck protections and small business loans. They failed to offer a safety net capable of keeping people home. They failed further to organize a distribution system that valued those lives in danger over our material comfort. Press-Citizen’s new education reporter Cleo Krejci collected some gratitude and observations on the workers, our People of the Year.
🏛️ One of the central voices in 2020’s Iowa policing reforms was Iowa District 62 Rep. RasTafari “Ras” Smith, D-Waterloo. Smith joined the State House in January 2017 and has made a name for himself even from his party’s minority seats. The Register’s statehouse reporter Stephen Gruber-Miller profiled Smith for the paper’s People to Watch series. As a Press-Citizen subscriber, you can read it too.
🥂 The Press-Citizen’s arts and entertainment reporter Isaac Hamlet has had a tough year. So much of the shows, the events, the releases that make up our social sphere have been on hold for some time. In an end-of-year roundup, Hamlet walks through the things that got him through the year. (And he features my favorite illustrator Lauren Haldeman!)
Sunday Preview
Just because the Press-Citizen won’t say what 2020’s top 10 performing posts were doesn’t mean I won’t. Let’s just say, I’m feeling pretty good about how I did last year. Though my colleagues were giving me a run for my money.
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(^^back at it again)
Zachary Oren Smith writes about government, growth and development for the Iowa City Press-Citizen. Reach him at zsmith@press-citizen.com, at 319 -339-7354 or on Twitter via @Zacharyos.