MADISON, Wis. — For the 14 abortion-rights opponents and supporters recently recruited to find consensus solutions on abortion and family well-being, their first major agreement was that Wisconsin has some of the best cheese in the nation. Their second was that even where abortion is outlawed (currently in Wisconsin that’s after 20 weeks gestation), life-saving treatment for The post Can a group of strangers find common ground on one of the most divisive issues in America? appeared first on Iowa Capital Dispatch.

NEVADA, Iowa — Harold Beach, a northeast Missouri farmer who runs a row-crop operation and raises hogs and cattle, traveled to central Iowa last weekend to urge one of the nation’s top regulators to stop a multibillion-dollar takeover of a Lee County fertilizer plant he and other rural advocates say will further erode competition in The post Farmers fear higher prices, consolidation from Koch fertilizer plant purchase appeared first on Iowa Capital Dispatch.

This month, Wisconsin joined 27 other states, including Iowa, that have banned or restricted local governments’ use of private donations to run cash-strapped election offices, buy voting equipment or hire poll workers for Election Day. All of the state laws came in the past four years, pushed by conservative lawmakers and activists who claim that The post Cash-strapped election offices have fewer resources after bans on private grants appeared first on Iowa Capital Dispatch.

Environmental groups recently asked the federal government to intervene in northeast Iowa, where ag pollution is believed to have contaminated scads of private wells with unhealthy concentrations of nitrate. Their petition mirrors one that sought the same help last year for southeast Minnesota, which has the same porous topography that makes its groundwater more prone The post Minnesota’s actions foreshadow potential farm regulations for Iowa appeared first on Iowa Capital Dispatch.

Less than a week after the Republican National Committee unveiled a “historic” new program to monitor the polls for fraud, a top lawyer with the committee was among those indicted for an alleged scheme to use false fraud claims to overturn the results of Arizona’s presidential election. Indeed, the lawyer, RNC senior counsel for election The post Top GOP ‘election integrity’ lawyer charged in Arizona fake elector scheme appeared first on Iowa Capital Dispatch.