On this week's episode we take one last look in the rearview mirror at the 2024 legislative session. We'll talk about traffic cameras in the Quad Cities. Congresswoman Ashley Hinson discusses aid to Ukraine and her recent visit with the Ukrainian president.

Iowa legislation, including hands-free driving bill and distracted driving concerns.

• Lawmakers struggle to reach agreement on new bills, including hands-free driving bill.
• Law enforcement and safety advocates have been pushing for a hands-free driving bill to crack down on distracted driving.
• Despite overwhelming Senate support, the bill was held up in the House due to libertarian concerns about individual rights.
• Opposition to hands-free driving bill largely unheard of, with insurance industry and representatives speaking in support.

Iowa politics, judicial appointments, and legislative relationships.

• Governor Reynolds seeks more control over judicial appointments.
• Erin Murphy expects more of the same in the relationship between the House and Senate Republicans, with big bills still getting passed despite disagreements.
• Some House Republicans praised House Democrats for their working relationship, while criticizing Senate Republicans for their behavior.

Traffic cameras in LeClaire, Iowa, and their revenue impact.

• The challenges of passing bills in the Iowa legislature, including the House and Senate's differing opinions and the public's lack of awareness.
• Sarah Watson reports on the Quad Cities' data collection and reporting efforts for automated traffic enforcement cameras, with a 70% reduction in crashes observed in some intersections.
• Focus on LeClaire, Iowa's traffic camera revenue, which is significant for a town of about 4,000 people. The city issued 62,000 violations and collected 50,000 of those, with a baseline of $50 per violation.

US aid to Ukraine and meeting with Ukrainian officials.

• Congresswoman Ashley Hinson visited Ukraine and met with US military officials, anti-corruption officials, and Agriculture officials to discuss America's interest in arming Ukraine.
• Former President Trump shifts tone on Ukraine aid, agrees with sentiments of US lawmaker.

Truck driver's death, investigation, and updates.

• Sarah Schultz and Jake Rowley hold press conference to provide updates on David Schultz's disappearance.
• Body of David Schultz, a truck driver, found laying face up in a field one and a half miles from where his semi was abandoned.
• Authorities have not yet found any suspected foul play in the death of the unnamed person.
• Authorities are tight-lipped about the case, and it may be some time before they release medical examination results.

All right it's not good to get me riled up right

before we started recording like that. This is gonna be

interesting now.

I don't know sometimes it pays off. Sometimes

we need you fired up.

All right, here we go. I will start unless I see or

hear or see you screaming and wailing in 321

Welcome to the on Iowa politics podcast. On this week's episode

we take one last look in the rearview mirror at the 2024

legislative session. We talked about traffic cameras in the

Quad Cities. Congresswoman Ashley Henson discusses aid to

Ukraine and her recent visit with the Ukrainian president.

Hello, everyone. I'm Erin Murphy, the Des Moines bureau

chief for The Gazette and Cedar Rapids. With me this week we

have the full roster again because that Deputy bureau chief

Tom Barton is here. Hello, Tom.

Howdy

Lee Des Moines bureau chief Caleb McCullough is

with us. Hello, Caleb. Hello, Erin. Coming in from the Quad

City Times is Sarah Watson. Hello, Sara.

Greetings, Erin.

We have Jared McNett, the Sioux City Journal

here. Hello, Jared.

Happy NFL Draft Day, Erin.

That's right. That's right. And all you

Hawkeyes fans, Cooper does John the gene. How do you say that

Gene?

Cooper DeJean,

DeJean is a very trendy pick to go to my Packers in the first

round. So we'll see if that happens.

I wouldn't mind the northwest Iowa native

falling to the Chiefs, Erin

See what we can do for ya. And lastly, Gazette

Columnist Todd Dorman is with us. Hello, Todd.

Hey, you know I dodged a bullet at the end of

the session. They nearly passed a bill to put a five year

moratorium on me writing a column. And it failed to get

through at the end,

Which seemed which lobby was going to bat for you?

Well, I like Bobby Kaufman was definitely behind

that one and got a call from his dad. So who who loves me loves

my work.

Oh, yeah. Doesn't he give you an award every year?

Oh, yeah. It's something like the most file

liberal awful columnist of the year. There's an acronym I think

there somewhere, but.

we take all awards these guys will take it.

All right. So again, we're gonna start out this week taking one

last look back at the legislative session, but in a

looking forward sort of way, specifically through the prism

of the bills that did not pass this session, but that we may

see again next year. So Caleb and Tom, let me bring you guys

in on this one. And full disclosure here, we're all

working on stories on some of these things. So you guys give

us one or two bills to highlight that didn't pass the deer this

year that you think is a safe bet to be back on the

legislative agenda in 2025? Caleb, we'll start with you.

Yeah, one that I think is really interesting is

the spending the money in the opioid settlement fund that was

hold holding the money that was Iowa recovered from opioid

manufacturers and distributors, in settlements with over their

role in the opioid crisis. So the legislature created that fun

back in 2022, in order to hold that money, and it needs to be

appropriated by the legislature, and they for the last two years

haven't spent any of that money. So it's kind of just sitting in

that account. And so they need to agree on some way to use it.

And so the Senate in the house offered different proposals, the

Republicans in both chambers. The Senate wanted to

Have a request for grant applications, review those

applications and then bring them to the legislature, who would

then approve the spending to the approved applications. So there

was a disagreement over that the House wanted to have a little

more oversight over how the money was spent in the Senate

thought the HHS department would, you know, be able to do

it on their own. And by the end of the session, it just never

got done. So the House sent over their version of the Senate, the

Senate on this, this was all on Friday night, Saturday morning,

as the session was ending, the Senate amended it essentially

put they're not quite put their original wording on but put made

it so that it would spend about $11 million from for three

agreed upon projects, rather than kind of a large system for

spending all the money, sent it back to the house and the house

essentially refused to concur with the amendment. And the

Senate. I that may have been after the Senate adjourned

completely, the Senate just never took that back up. So it

was you know, it was one of those things that both chambers

of the same party couldn't really agree on how exactly to

do things. I spoken to Representative Brett Siegrist

about it. And he had a pretty, I guess, quote that was very

compelling. He essentially said, there are people dying from

opioid abuse, and the Senate wanted to go home and they

couldn't be bothered to take up the bill. And so that money sits

there. And so that's kind of a, you know, insight into how these

chambers are thinking about the other's actions, and the Senate

has the Senate, Senate member I spoke to kind of thing. So the

House did the same thing, because they didn't take up

their version. So you know, that's how things go.

Yeah, that one was so interesting. Caleb, I'm glad

you brought it up, because of all the things that they passed.

And all the the bills that they got through that that was one

that they couldn't reach an agreement on was just kind of

interesting to me. I don't know what the exact right adjective

is there, it didn't seem like, you know, if you're gonna make a

list of bills that they were going to have a hard time

reaching agreement on, I don't know that many of us would have

put that one on there. So that was an interesting one.

Although in a similar kind of realm, it was a

little surprising that like, the Boy Scouts thing came down to

the wire, because that's another one of those sorts of things

that you would think would move a lot faster.

Yeah, that's a fair point and have a lot more support

Yeah, that's a fair point and have a lot more support for

getting it just called up and done, especially in the limited

way that they did it. There's

from what we understood, concerns about, you know, the

whole unintended consequences thing, if you open up the

statute of limitations. Law, does that, you know, cause some

things to happen in the courts that you didn't expect? But, but

I did. Even with that, I'm with you, Jared. I was kind of

surprised. Pardon me that that. That struggled, I guess I

shouldn't say struggle, but but didn't move as quickly, as it

did. And, and again, especially given the very specific language

that they put in the bill seemed like they kind of covered their

bases. There. All right, Tom, how about you, you got one for

us here that you think we're going to see again? What's going

to become the new bottle bill?

Ooh, hands free driving is a new battle bill. We

will we will see that bill come up yet again. Next session? You

know, it's been brought up for for several years now, since

they passed the texting while driving ban back in 2017. Does

that sound right? That's what I was gonna say was 17. I'll fact

check ourselves in real time while you keep going on. But I

think that's great. Right. So, you know, law enforcement and

traffic safety advocates across the state have been going to

lawmakers every year asking them to pass the hands free driving

bill, saying that the current ban on texting while driving is

essentially unenforceable, because there are so many what

they termed to be loopholes included in that law. You know,

you can still use your device, have your phone in your hand,

but say that you're making a phone call or using the the

navigation app on your phone, which is all currently allowed

under law. And so they've been asking for this hands free bill

that would, you know, ban anyone from using their smartphone

loaner using their device in their car without using hands

free or voice activated options in order to crack down on

distracted driving, and you know, we saw last year, traffic

fatalities increase in Iowa for I think, first time, and we're

well, I guess I shouldn't say the first time in several years,

but I think, you know, increased

I guess, more significantly than we've seen in previous years.

And you also had families of Iowans killed by distracted

drivers lobbying lawmakers this year, to pass that bill and

specifically, to decouple it from a issue that did advance

finally, this session, which is regulating how cities and

counties and communities can use traffic enforcement cameras, you

know, which has been another kind of perennial issue that

lawmakers have tried to tackle. But I thought it was interesting

that that issue, finally move forward this year. And that

issue that advanced but, you know, kind of left in the wake

and left to the wayside, is this hands free driving bill, which

passed overwhelmingly in the Senate, but got held up in the

house because you have a libertarian wing of House

Republicans who feel that it's a infringement on people's

individual rights. And in fact, earlier today, I spoke to State

Representative John wills, a Republican from Spirit Lake, who

is kind of part of that libertarian wing of the House

Republican caucus, saying that, you know, I fully anticipate

that this is going to be brought up again, next session. I, you

know, I talked to somebody from Iowa State Patrol, who said, you

know, look, Iowa law enforcement is going to go back to lawmakers

next year, we're going to continue, you know, pushing for

this bill and continue trying to educate them for the need for

this legislation to make Iowa roadways safer, to crack down on

distracted driving, you know, we're seeing you saying that

we're seeing more and more drivers that are, you know, on

their phones using their devices. But anyway,

Representative John wills, essentially said that.

Actually, this is a direct quote, he said that the phone is

not the enemy. It's the person holding the phone, in distracted

driving and distracted driving is more than just people on

their phone. It's also people who are, you know, eating fast

food while driving or doing their makeup while driving? And

in

I feel attacked on both of those things. Yeah. And,

and that we need to address distracted driving, I

guess, as a whole and more of an issue in and again, in his

words, not, not make the phone the enemy.

You know, and I, I responded, Well, so how do you respond to

you know, law enforcement who say that, you know, our current

distracted driving laws are not enforceable. And, you know,

they're anyway, in essentially, in that, you know, this piece of

legislation is not all that different from other traffic

safety bills that we've passed, like seatbelt laws. And his

response is, well, I don't like seatbelt laws. I don't think we

should have those on the books either. He said, even though

that it's an individual's own decision. He said the same

it's proven to save people's lives, that it's an individual's

own decision. He said the same principle applies here with a

principle applies here with a hands free driving law. He said,

hands free driving law. He said, Well, you know, he makes the

Well, you know, he makes the decision to wear a seatbelt now,

decision to wear a seatbelt now, again, because of all of the

again, because of all of the proven data that shows that, you

proven data that shows that, you know, seatbelts save lives, that

know, seatbelts save lives, that he's not in favor of the

he's not in favor of the government telling me to wear a

government telling me to wear a seatbelt. And he feels the same

seatbelt. And he feels the same way about a hands free driving

way about a hands free driving bill. You said that the you

bill. You said that the you know, again, this will come up

know, again, this will come up next session, he said that House

next session, he said that House Republicans remain divided. He

Republicans remain divided. He said it's a divided caucus

said it's a divided caucus doesn't know where the issue is

doesn't know where the issue is gonna go. Next session, he says

gonna go. Next session, he says it could depend a little bit on

it could depend a little bit on the outcome of the elections

the outcome of the elections this fall, they've got

Maybe the cost effective solution would be to

this fall, they've got several House Republicans who are

retiring so their seats are kind of up for grabs, and says that,

you know, still still sees that for rural lawmakers, including

himself. They don't believe that this is the role of governments.

this problem. Just ban automatic transmission car hours and make

everything a stick shifts, then you don't have any free hands to

distract yourself.

Oh, I like my old five speed, Chevy Cavalier of

all vehicles, but man, I love driving stick. I sold her

Bartonella.

Maybe

Maybe they could have sold that bill better if

they would have said people are using their phones while they're

driving to access tick tock. Can all the data is going to the

Chinese government? So we got to do something about this. And

everyone? Yeah. Oh, yes. We got to do something about that.

Tom, not to not to put you want to start. But can

you remember? Were there any people like any one lobbying

against that bill? I would be curious what the the lobbying

against the hands free driving bill would be?

I mean, I'm gonna be honest with you. I can't recall

anybody who was was lobbying against that bill, and I don't

think you're gonna find anybody registered, registered, oppose,

you know, to be honest with you, there is a lot of support for

that hands free driving bill, including I believe, and Aaron,

maybe you can fact check me if I'm wrong on this.

Representatives from the insurance industry, I believe

also were lobbyist lobbying in support of that and have spoken

in support of that at subcommittee hearings. You know,

there might be some groups and industries registered,

undecided, but I don't know that you're going to find anybody

opposed to it.

That that's one of those bills where the opposition

lobbying only happens in caucus behind closed doors. Without

public ears and eyes, you know, that? They don't they don't

stand in front of the microphone and oppose that bill. Unless the

microphone makes their way to them. Yeah,

By the way, quick, sorry, real quick, yes, it was 2017 that

that texting while driving ban past, okay, Todd, I'm out of

your way now.

I was just gonna say anything that will affect

lawmakers is usually takes a long time to pass. And I mean, I

remember back when they the federal government put pressure

on states to lower the blood alcohol level for drunk driving

from from point one. Oh, 2.08. And lawmakers were thinking,

hey, we we kind of cruise around all these receptions, you know,

free booze and grub, I'd hate to get stopped on the way back. And

so they they sat on that for two years, until they finally until

they finally threatened to take enough road money that they

could, they couldn't hold it off any longer. But yeah, it's cell

phone stuff. Especially they're driving around and talking to

people. So yeah, they're they don't want to get a ticket.

Yeah.

All right. Todd, how about you, you want to weigh in on this

one? Is there anything that you think you'll be writing columns

about again, next year now that you know that it's still legal

to?

Well, I wasn't gonna say the Gadsden flag

license plate, because I think that's not gonna die. I mean,

people are not going to tolerate that that bill got treaded up

upon, I guess, and thought that I'm gonna be honest. I saw that

one coming. Yeah, it's

it's, uh, you know, and also making kids learn all the verses

of the national anthem, which is cruel and unusual punishment.

But I think the one thing that's coming back around is this

proposal that would give the the governor more power over

appointing the district court, judicial nominating

Commission's, I think she wants that other members she wants to

get, you know, she's proven in the past on the state nominating

commission and others that she doesn't want judges having any

part of this because, you know, they didn't know too much about

the law or something. So she wants more control to put more

of her friends, former Republican lawmakers and others

on to the judicial nominating commission. So they they appoint

the right sort of, of judges for Oregon for the court system that

she's trying to build.

Yeah, that well, and, and at the very least, I

don't believe Senator Julian Garrett is retiring. So as long

as he's back that issue will certain let's see back.

It's weird here to bill a few years ago that if

you're overturning a precedent, you had to have five votes.

That's weird. He kind of dropped that for some reason. I'm, I'm

not really sure why that he decided that the Supreme Court

no longer needed five votes once they once the governor appointed

a bunch of justices. That's That's weird. I mean, it was, I

guess it wasn't on principle. Maybe that's maybe that's the

way it was.

Happy coincidences. But yeah,

I had a question not meant about that

specifically. But I was wondering just kind of carrying

over into the next year for you all. I know we talked about it

some do you all think that we're going to keep seeing this like

heightened contentiousness that we talked about between the two

chambers? Do you think that's going to carry over into the end

of the new year?

Yeah. And I assume you're talking about the leader,

the leadership in the House and Senate, the Republican? Yeah, I

mean, look, I don't think that I think at this point, that

relationship has become the US that god awful phrase, it is

what it is. And there's, I don't know that there's fixing that

or, frankly, a desire to fix it. Look that they still get the

vast vast majority of what they want to get done done in each

session. And, and yeah, it seems like there are some rough

patches from time to time, and they certainly disagree on

certain things from time to time. But it's it is definitely

the exception, and not the rule, and the big bills get moved. So

yeah, I don't I expect it'll be more of the same on that. I

can't imagine that changes Tom or Caleb, do you foresee any?

Yeah.

I mean, one thought that I have is, you

know, some of these big bills, especially like the AEA bill in

the House passed with 51 votes this year. So if the Republicans

in the House lose one or two seats in the election, that can

make things even more difficult to kind of get, you know, the

Senate can get a pretty, you know, controversial even within

their own caucus, they can get a pretty a bill passed with, you

know, 32 votes pretty easily, whereas 32 out of 34, whereas

house usually has a little harder time ranking on

everybody. So that could make a big difference.

I was just going to add that I thought it was

interesting in their closing speeches that House Speaker Pat

Grassley and House Majority Leader Matt Winshuttle, both

talked about how they had better relations with House Democrats

this session than they did with Senate Republicans. There were

there were more. There were more comments talking about, you

know, we appreciate the working relationship with House

Democratic Leader Jennifer Kahn first and her conference and,

you know, praising her for the way that her leadership and the

way that she's led her caucus, while being critical of Senate

Republicans, and I mean, I can't remember who it was. I don't

think it was leadership, but I think maybe it was Brent

Siegrist referring to the Senate as delusional.

Yeah, I think that's right. I'm trying to

remember which build that was on right at the end there that he

Well, I know what I know what it was at the opioid settlement one

year, was it?

I don't think it was the opioid settlement. One, I

think it was about driving permit for Warner Yes. For

reminders, excuse me about the you can if you're, what, 14 and

a half to 16 years old. You can get a workers permit to drive to

work between home work and school. And

yeah, you're right. It was that you're right. Amen.

They amended it and sent it back to the house and

Brent Siegrist said that the Senate was delusional related to

its concerns over the House bill.

Yeah. And the volleys were logged in the other

direction, too. It was not uncommon to hear grumbling from

the Senate about the house. So yeah, it's it's really hard to

imagine that changing in any significant way. But then again,

like I said, this is also something that you know, all of

us here are aware of and see. And a small other percentage of

the population that follows this as, as closely as we all do,

including probably are fine listeners to this political

podcast, but outside of that small sliver of the population,

is anybody even aware? Does anybody even care? And like I

said, at the end of the day, they get the vast majority of

their bills done. It's maybe not 100% of the time amicable, but

they get there. It may it makes for interesting times at the

Capitol. I'll say that much at least. All right. Moving on. One

bill that did pass that we noted earlier, will regulate automated

traffic enforcement cameras. And one provision of that bill will

require communities that wish to deploy these traffic cameras to

justify their usage, in part by collecting and reporting

traffic. crash in Ticket data. So Sarah, you had a story this

week that reports that some of those data collection and

reporting efforts are already underway in the Quad Cities.

Tell us a little bit about that.

Yeah, so at least in Davenport, they already

report the crash numbers to the state where they have their

traffic cameras. Since damper was one of the first communities

to implement traffic cameras. That's at least what the police

chief told me that they already had started giving reports the

Iowa Department of Transportation and just

continued doing that. And, and so they've seen a fairly

significant reduction in crashes. And within a 20 year

period, about 70% reduction in some of the in crashes at some

of the intersections where these cameras were put in place. And

just in the Quad Cities, I think it's really interesting to look

at the the revenue piece of it. So like, look, Claire is I

think, pretty well known for its traffic cameras, and they're

getting $1.7 million in local authority revenue from those

traffic cameras. And the vendor is getting $1.6 million. So so

they're levy Levy, or excuse me, they're collecting a lot and

fines on those cameras on Interstate 80. Really, they're

they're only third behind Davenport and or excuse me, Des

Moines and Cedar Rapids. And so for a town the size of LeClaire

at about or 4000 or so that's, that's pretty significant. And I

looked through some of their most recent agendas, and they

used their traffic camera revenue most recently to

purchase a pickup truck for their public works. department.

So I just I thought that was interesting. I think with the

new bill, the lawmakers really want to see cities put that

money toward public safety. Yep. So and in the legislative

Services Agency report, they did ban of those mobile traffic

cameras, so that will impact LeClaire in Buffalo with a few

$100,000 a year. So, and obviously the lots of apply

again, or they'll they will have to apply for these traffic

cameras. Right. They have so so yeah. So I think it'll be

interesting in the Quad Cities moving forward to see how that

plays out.

That that revenue piece is interesting, Sara, is

that, and I don't know if you saw this information, is that

because of the volume of tickets and fines or is that because of

the price like are they just is each ticket like three times?

Oh? No, the minimum. LeClaire had the lowest

minimum. But they had they had they gave out just a ton of

tickets. And wow. I'd have to look back at the chart, but it

was it. It was quite a few let me let me let one second. Um,

well, that's that's because of the placement of the

cameras, right. Getting getting going going on and coming off of

it. Right. Right.

Right, right. Yeah. heavily trafficked

corridor. So the cameras in LeClaire issued 62,000

violations, and collected 50,000 Of those, their baseline is $50,

which was among the lowest of the cities. Yeah.

Sarah, the traffic camera story that we had posted

on our Facebook page in the comments. There were people on

our side of the state complaining about the traffic

cameras in the Claire.

Yeah, we we got a letter to the editor from

somebody who lives who was like traveling to Colorado and lives

in like a completely different state. writing to us complaining

about like Claire's traffic cameras and if you look on their

like city city webpage, they they have like a one star review

on Google average because it mostly just people complaining

about the traffic cameras. And of course, if you talk to look

Claire city officials I mean, they say that that's a really

dangerous place for their officers to try to give tickets

and and so this they say this is this is an effort to reduce

crashes. So

this but do you know if there's a minimum

speed you have to be going over the speed limit to get ticketed

by that camera? So a lot of places it's like, you know, 12

plus, or something like that. So I don't know if Flickr has some

as a number Caleb wants

to know for personal reasons why to

know but curious you know if that

contributes to you know, there being so many tickets if it's

like giving tickets for people going like five over Reno,

right, right. So in their city code, they do list

fines for like zero to five miles per hour over. But I'm not

sure if they actually issue those tickets because so I

that's something I'd have to double check on. I know

obviously this legislation changes that so that you can

only

just gonna say yep, now we'll have to change anyways

because starting when the bill goes into effect, you can only

issue a ticket for 10 miles an hour over and above. So

there are provisions there city code that

seem to allow them to issue fines for zero to five miles per

hour over, but I don't think that they do.

Do that. Man, you want to ruin someone's day? Give

him a traffic ticket for going three over from an automated

traffic. Oh,

yeah, but that's a good question. I will have to

check into that.

We were talking before we hit the record button

here about some different things that Reagan is doing and its new

Davenport store. It sounds like we need some LeClaire traffic

camera tickets from Reagan. I feel like that's an opportunity

there if Mike is listening here. I look forward to those in the

future. All right. We move on now to the federal government

where Congresswoman Ashley Henson this week fielded

questions from reporters about the federal aid package that

included support for Ukraine and its defense against Russia, and

about her recent trip to Ukraine, which included a visit

with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. Tom, do you

talk to Congresswoman Hansen this week? What did she have to

say? That I

did. She was in Cedar Rapids today touring,

excuse me. Foundation to crisis services that assist Iowans who

are in crisis and seeking mental health. But I asked her about

this. President Biden, on Wednesday, signed into law that

$95 billion dollar foreign aid measure that includes nearly 61

billion in aid to Ukraine, as well as 26 billion for Israel

and 8 billion for the Indo Pacific. And as you mentioned,

earlier this month, in early April, Representative Henson as

well as a Iowa Republican US Senator Joni Ernst, met with

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. In Ukraine's in the

northern part of Ukraine, they were part of a bipartisan

congressional delegation delegation, excuse me that

visited the country. And she said that America's interest in

arming Ukraine became more clear to her following that visit and

following her meeting with with Vladimir Zelensky. So she talked

about how she thought it was important for her and said that

it was important for her constituents to know and have

proper oversight of the funding and military equipment being

sent to Ukraine to ensure that one that that that it reaches

Ukraine and that it reaches the intended recipients in the

country. She talked about meeting with the US Brigadier

General, in charge of the 10,000 US troops stationed in southern

Poland and heard directly from him about exactly where the

equipment is going, heard from him about how the US military is

working directly with Ukrainians, to not only get that

equipment where it needs to go, but to maintain it and to help

essentially sustain that war effort in Ukraine and said how

it was incredibly important to be able to, to see that and to

hear that in person. And to hear directly from US military

officials in the region. She says that she trust that the US

military is you know, executing well on that. And again, glad to

able to have that trip. And again to see that in person. She

also mentioned that the delegation met with anti

corruption officials in Ukraine to discuss increasing

accountability. also met with Agriculture officials in Ukraine

on the importance of maintaining the port in Odessa, Ukraine due

to its strategic importance for the global flute global excuse

me global food supply and send that if if Russia is able to

grab that port, that again that has global implications. And

again, reiterated that, you know that Americans interest in

Ukraine are more clear to her after that visit. And I guess

she said, you know, also not just in Ukraine, but in

neighboring Poland and Moldova. And then I asked her about

former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican

presidential nominee, who has complained that European allies

have not done enough for Ukraine and who, according to some

congressional leaders, you know, kind of stood in the way or at

least made negotiating that foreign aid package difficult.

And you, former President Trump put out a statement last week,

while stopping short of endorsing the funding package

said that Ukraine's survival is important to the United States

kind of a shift in tone again, just days before the Republican

led House of Representatives voted on that that aid package.

And Henson said that she agrees with with Trump's sentiments

that we need to make sure that allies in Europe are stepping up

and said that she thinks that we're we're seeing increased

incidence of that. And but again, reiterated that the US

can't let Russian President Vladimir Putin win and then to

we need to stand with, with with our allies in Europe.

Yeah, yeah, good stuff. I knew that to be

interesting the first time that I think she's been back home or

at least back home and around reporters since since that

interesting vote over the over the weekend. So appreciate that.

All right. One last thing before we go here, and this last topic

has nothing to do with politics, but it's just such an

interesting story that I wanted to chat about it real quick. So

the body of a missing northwest Iowa trucker was found in a sac

county field Wednesday, and I'm now reading right from reporting

from the Sioux City Journal here. The buyer who has

discovered not far from where his semi tractor trailer had,

which was loaded with hogs was discovered abandoned more than

five months ago. As I said, the Sioux City Journal has been

covering this story. And again, we're recording Thursday

afternoon, there was a press conference just this morning. So

Jared, let's bring you in here. What's What's the latest on this

story?

Um, so yeah, David Scholtes. A wall leak. Truck

driver had been missing since late November, just a little bit

before Thanksgiving. And we've had at least two dozen stories

since then covering all updates big and small for the case. This

morning, Thursday morning, one of our reporters, Dolly butts

and photographer Tim pines. They went out to Sac City, which is a

good way to way from Sioux City to cover a press conference that

was held by Sarah Schultz, the wife of David Schultz, and Jake

Rowley, who's with the United Cajun Navy, which is a nonprofit

organization that does search and rescue efforts. And it was a

it was a very emotional press conference, Sarah Schultz said

that she has felt relief and sorrow, since she learned her

husband's body had been discovered by a farmer in his

freshly tilled field. And it was about a mile and a half or so

away from where his truck was discovered. The body is that the

State Medical Examiner's Office now and David Schultz his wife

said that there's still a lot of questions you know, things just

don't make sense. And like I said, the body was found in an

original two mile radius that Mr. Rally from the United Cajun

Navy. He said he had been told that law enforcement had

searched that area. And so his group didn't search that

particular area and there's been some other kind of back and

forth on some other things. Since he went missing between

the United Cajun Navy folks in the sheriff's office and

sheriff's office has gotten a de luz not surprisingly of comments

from amateur sleuth type people since this all kind of started.

In our reporter dolly She even asked Sarah Schultz and Jake

rally if they had any comments about the investigation the

sheriff's office has done and they didn't. There's a whole lot

more in the story, which is available on all the LI Iowa

sites and I know it's on your guys's site too. I wanted to

share the lead story which dolly wrote his daughter who's one of

the best reporters I've worked with and I thought it was a

really good opener. So basically the lead of her story is no

matter the weather or the occasion Wall Lake Iowa trucker

David Shaw always wore cowboy boots, shelters. Brown wrangler

boots with blue on the soles is how the 53 year old body was

identified after it was found laying face up in a field

roughly one and a half miles from where his semi tractor

trailer loaded with hogs was discovered abandoned over five

months ago.

Oh, wow. That's, that's, that's heartbreaking and

so powerful. What a great, what a great lead and such an awful,

awful story. Jared, you mentioned and forgive me, I

haven't seen the update. Yet today is again as in, as I say

today for y'all Listen, that means Thursday afternoon, um,

have have the authorities or to the wife that know anything as

far as suspected foul play or anything along those lines. We

have any sense of that yet?

I'm not yet. And we of course reached out to like

the SEC County Sheriff's Office. And the the DCI who's obviously

taking the lead on this, and they're pretty tight lipped as

of this point. And it'll be interesting to see how long it

takes for them to turn around the results of a medical

examination. Because obviously, there's a lot of interest in

this case. So it'd be interesting to see if they

expedite that as quickly as possible to let people know or

how that kind of plays out.

Yeah, and or when they have a press conference or

some kind of press briefing update on on this. That'll be

interesting, too. Again, for y'all listening, we're talking.

What's live to us is Thursday afternoon, so it'll be

interesting to see. All right, well, man, you're not getting J

that's a that's a heck of a lead pass along our compliments in a

tough spot to dolly and reminder to you all to check out that

story.

All right, that's gonna do it for this episode of On Iowa

Politics. If you're not already, please subscribe to us on your

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work of everyone you heard here today can be found on the pages

and websites of the Quad City Times, Muscatine journal Cedar

Rapids Gazette, Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier Mason City Globe

Gazette, Council Bluffs Daily Nonpareil and The Sioux City

Journal, I don't want that little read to get habitual and

lost on y'all listening. We talked about a lot of really

interesting stories this week, as we always do, please find

your way to those stories online or in print if you can. For Tom

Barton, Caleb McCullough, Sarah Watson, Jared McNett, Todd

Dorman, and our wonderful guest producer this week, Liz Kennedy.

I'm Erin Murphy. Thank you for listening.