Iowa Republican Playbook Includes Continuing Attacks on Institutions of Democracy

Stonewalling the Press is a Strategy, Not a Series of Isolated Incidents.

This week’s column started out to be an examination of the recent spate of big bank failures. My plan was to review what Iowa’s congressional delegation has had to say about the bank failures and to get their thoughts on what we need to do to protect bank depositors and the economy.

Specifically, I wanted to know if Iowa’s congressional delegation thinks we need to revisit the banking regulations that were significantly weakened in 2018. Many say that loosening contributed significantly to these failures by allowing serious red flags to go undetected that would have been caught had the stronger regulations still been in effect.

I wanted to hear from them all - Iowa’s four House members and two Senators, all Republicans - but I was particularly interested in what U.S. Rep Zach Nunn (R-3rd IA) had to say. He put out a gushy press release when he was named to the House Financial Services Committee, extolling his own expertise in matters that would come before the committee, which has jurisdiction over the banking industry.

Turns out they don’t have much to say about the second biggest bank collapse in the nation’s history. None of them. Granted, it was severe enough to rattle the financial markets, cause the stock market to tumble, and drive the President of the United States to make a 9:00 AM statement assuring the people of America that their bank deposits are safe. But not important enough for Iowa’s congressional delegation to say anything about it or what kind of response it might require.

Oh, their taxpayer funded congressional websites have plenty of press releases full of self-serving, often partisan huffing and puffing on other topics, and Biden bashing, of course. But nothing on the bank crisis.

Not even the self-proclaimed expert, Mr. Nunn, the member of the committee that oversees the banking industry.

Crickets, in fact, from all six.

Phone inquiries to their congressional offices in Washington, DC proved useless, as well, in discovering what they think about this.

A phone call to the office of Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-1st IA) wound up in voice mail limbo. A request left for a call back to actually talk to some one was never returned.

Same with a call to the office of the self-proclaimed “expert” Rep. Zach Nunn (R-3rd IA), as well as Rep. Randy Feenstra (4th IA). Straight to voice mail. Requests for call backs left. Calls never returned.

A human actually answered the telephone at the office of Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-2nd IA), but the conversation that took place there was down right bizarre.

My call would not be connected to the press office. I was instructed to send an email to the Communications Director. “I can give you the email for the Communications Director.”

“I could have emailed your Communications Director without calling you,” I replied. “I’m calling because I want to talk with someone in your press office.”

“I can give you the email address of our Communications Director.”

Our “conversation” went around in circles like that for a good 5-10 minutes or so. Everything I said produced the same, obviously scripted reply: “I can give you the email address of our Communications Director.”

It was like talking to an automated phone system that never understands what you are actually saying but keeps coughing up the same unresponsive replies. Except this was a human who heard and understood everything I said but kept repeating the script.

Finally I asked, “Does your press office ever takes phone calls?” I got the offer of the email address again.

“Look, I think you’ve fairly well established that point. I don’t need to hear it, and you don’t need to repeat it, another 15 times. I need to know for future reference, does your press office - as a matter of policy, ever talk to people who call them on the phone.” Another offer of the email address.

“Let me ask you this,” I said. “Is anyone in your press office? Is anybody there? Is that the problem? Or do they just not want to take a call?” A heavy sigh followed. The staffer left the phone to “check.” She returned with another offer to provide the email address, or she could pass on a message.

“OK. Pass on a message. Here’s my message: Please return my call.”

I never heard from them again.

An actual person answered the phone at Senator Ernst’s office, but I got the same email diversion there. I pressed, but finally just took the email address, and sent a polite inquiry. Never heard back.

Senator Grassley’s office, which lists six taxpayer paid press aides on his website, answered the phone, and finally connected me to his Assistant Communications Director, who confirmed that Grassley has issued no formal press statement on the bank failures.

“Do you know what his view is on this?” I asked.

“He’s talked with reporters around here who’ve asked him about it. I’ll scroll through some stuff and see if I can find anything.”

I emphasized that I wasn’t looking for a a 12 point formal plan or anything. “Just does he think we need to revisit the 2018 loosening of regulations and maybe put them back in place? That’s an easy question.”

“Yes. I should be able to find that,” he said.

“Will you be able to do this today?” I asked.

“Yes, I should.”

I never heard from him again.

The stonewall that I encountered from Iowa’s congressional delegation is similar to what I’m hearing from statehouse reporters in Des Moines who report that Iowa’s Republican Governor hardly ever holds press conferences any more and rarely responds to press inquiries.

We can now add a “press questions free zone” to the “fact free zone” in which Republicans increasingly operate. They communicate with the press these days mostly through often self serving, self laudatory press releases. If a reporter is lucky enough to guess where they will be at a given point in time, they may be able to toss a question out there, but there is no guarantee it will be answered.

Reporters don’t like to write about a lack of meaningful access to public officials, because readers and editors expect them to have it. Some think it sounds like whining when it’s publicly discussed.

My view is that when that lack of meaningful access is deliberate, a matter of policy, and aimed at avoiding public accountability - which is what appears to be going on with Iowa’s Republicans - it must be publicly discussed.

This is much bigger than simply unreturned, unresponsive phone calls or not holding press conferences.

It’s an attack on democracy.

Public officials are paid with public dollars. They make and implement public policy and laws the public must obey. They spend public money. If Republican office holders don’t want to be questioned about any that, too bad. Find another line of work. The news media has a right to ask, and the public - which elects and pays them - has a right to know the answers.

I worked as a Communications Director in the U.S. House and Senate for decades. I know the difference between a busy day when press inquiries might get backed up, and a press strategy. Blocking the press from doing its job is a strategy aimed at avoiding public scrutiny - which directly harms the ability of democracy to operate - and Iowa Republicans have a bad case of it.

That strategy is no accident, either.

The Republican Party, increasingly, is moving away from democracy and ever closer to fascism. That is hardly even a debatable assertion these days.

Attacking and eventually destroying the institutions democracies depend on to function is one of the ways to destroy a democracy. That is something every would-be fascist knows. It ranks high on their early “to do” list. The press is one of those institutions and it is clearly under Republican attack.

I don’t know if Iowa’s Republicans are intentionally working with the would be fascists in their ranks. But they are doing just what the fascist wannabe playbook prescribes. Hobble and undermine the news media, avoid public scrutiny and rely on self-serving, self generated public relations - also known as propaganda in the absence of a functioning press. Their goal is to avoid accountability and control the narrative by speaking primarily through their own press releases and - if they must, in this age of new technology - through on line or telephone “press conferences” with handpicked reporters they select.

I intend to keep writing about this. As I said. It’s a problem that is much bigger than unreturned or unresponsive telephone calls. It’s about a functioning democracy where the folks who pay the bills - taxpayers - have a right to know what their elected officials are doing, and the press has a right to ask questions.

I will continue commenting on the work of public officials, whether or not they want to contribute directly to my understanding of their views when offered the opportunity to do so. If they refuse to comment; refer me instead to an endless series of canned statements; don’t accept or return phone calls; or insist on script writing and script reading, rather than answering direct questions, I will tell you. I won’t pretend it’s a “one-off” busy day thing, either, when it is clearly implementation of an anti-democracy strategy.

Taxpayers: You pay the salaries for these folks. You deserve to know what you are getting for your tax dollars.

Barry Piatt on Politics: Behind the Curtains” is part of the Iowa Writers Collaborative, which links some of Iowa’s best and most thoughtful writers directly with readers. The effort and the columns are reader supported. Here’s a list of the writers publishing as part of the Iowa Writers Collaborative. Check them out and subscribe for delivery right to your email inbox.

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