Iowa lawmaker: We re looking for a lifetime of justice thegazette.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thegazette.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
DES MOINES Ras Smith watched as the guilty verdict was read. His initial reaction, he said, was a sense of relief that justice had been served for George Floyd, a Black man from Minneapolis who was killed while in police custody.
Smithâs relief turned to a sense of confusion, he said, when on the TV screen he saw live video of people celebrating in the streets of Minneapolis.
âWeâre celebrating justice as if itâs this rare thing that we rarely get to taste,â said Smith, a state legislator and Black man from Waterloo. âWeâre celebrating like weâre feeling vindicated, that our cries to America are finally being acknowledged. (Itâs) kind of like, âI told you so. This is as bad as weâve been telling you.â And thatâs hard for me. â¦
For rent sign photo courtesy photos-public-domain.com
On Monday, the Iowa House of Representatives passed a bill already approved by the Senate, which would overturn ordinances in Iowa City, Marion and Des Moines that prevent landlords from discriminating against people who receive federal housing assistance. In addition to invalidating existing ordinances, SF 252 (formerly SSB 1079) would also prohibit any local government from protecting those who receive federal housing assistance from being automatically rejected by landlords.
A 2019 study by the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that in Iowa approximately 71,000 people in 43,000 households relied a federal rental assistance. Fifty-five percent of those people are in households with children, 21 percent are senior citizens and 26 percent of them have disabilities.
Iowa House votes to end divisive diversity training press-citizen.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from press-citizen.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
By Jason Taylor
Mar 5, 2021
DES MOINES, Iowa - The Iowa Legislative Black Caucus wants Governor Kim Reynolds to veto Back the Blue bills.
The five-member caucus says the bills should not pass because they don t include a ban on racial profiling or any requirement for bias training.
Governor Reynolds asked for a racial profiling ban in her Condition of the State speech, but that proposal was not included in any of the bills.
The Black Caucus says the Republican controlled legislature is moving backwards after it passed a police reform package last June.
The caucus was fronted in a Thursday news conference by Democratic Representative Ras Smith of Waterloo. He was joined by Representatives Ruth Ann Gaines of Des Moines, Phyllis Thede of Bettendorf, Ako Abdul-Samad of Des Moines and Ross Wilburn of Ames.