There have been three nights of violence in Des Moines over the police murder of George Floyd of Minneapolis. Today, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds today said she was working with the NAACP to change the criminal justice system to reduce racism and violence to African Americans. At a news conference this afternoon, Gov. Reynolds said she wanted to work with advocates for social justice to prevent more tragic deaths. Betty Andrews is president of Iowa-Nebraska Branch of the NAACP.
"There are some things that we can put inplace right now. The focus group that the governor has put in place and that I am a proud member of, has put in place many changes. And we are glad to see that, and just know that now is the time to take another look.”
Reynolds also supported the decision to set a curfew of 9:00 p.m. for Polk County tonight and applauded the actions of the Des Moines Police Department, Polk County Sheriff's Office and Iowa State Patrol to help control the protests.
Congressman Steve King says today he has introduced legislation today that seeks “to provide Federal relief to hog producers who have been forced to euthanize hogs due to the COVID-19 pandemic. King says the funds for the bill will come out of the 16 billion dollar commodity credit program. He says the indemnity bill will bail out farmers who need to euthanize their hogs on a sliding scale.
Thousands of Iowans must get their absentee ballot mailed today or vote in person tomorrow. Today is the postmark deadline for absentee ballots in tomorrow’s Primary Election.
Due to the pandemic, Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate sent an absentee ballot request form to every voter — and early voting in the Democratic and Republican Party primaries will set a record. Pate says more than 486,000 absentee ballots were requested for tomorrow’s primary. By Friday, 69 percent of those ballots had been received in a county auditor’s office.
