Growing impatience with legislatures, universities 

I have spent my entire professional career as a faculty member at colleges and universities — for more than 40 years at the University of Iowa — and as a student of legislatures. It has often occurred to me that universities and legislatures are similar in ways that make them widely misunderstood: They are not hierarchically organized. They depend on collaboration among their members, mutual respect for different opinions, and informal rules of behavior. Many other organizations in our society are hierarchies with leaders at the top who exercise command and control. Compared to such organizations, universities and legislatures often seem rudderless, even chaotic and wasteful.

However, the reason these institutions should not be organized hierarchically is that their goals are not predetermined; their members are constantly developing and redeveloping their goals, be it as lawmakers or as teachers or researchers. When we become impatient with our universities and legislatures, we threaten their distinctive value: their capacity to discover truths and to find ways to accommodate differences.

I am worried that our impatience with legislatures and universities is growing, causing voters to look for political leaders from outside politics and university presidents from outside educational institutions, neither of whom are appropriate for the institutions they presume to lead.

Gerhard Loewenberg

Professor Emeritus of political science

Sanders is serious on climate change    

Politicians aren’t listening to the American people on the issue of climate. They just aren’t. And, while that’s a hard reality to accept, it’s even harder to deny.

According to Pew Research polls, nationally, 97 percent of climate scientists accept that climate change is happening and caused by humans. A majority of the public, 61 percent, agree. What’s the number among the new congressional leadership? 32 percent. That’s unacceptable.

If only there were something we could do about that.

Enter Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who appears to be the only real candidate who wants to talk about the environment. The Democratic candidate has long been a known for his firm environmental stance, and he holds the No. 1 spot for climate leadership in the Senate from the organization Climate Hawks Vote.

This ranking isn’t based on nothing. Sanders has a long history of fighting for the Earth, from his securing of more than $3 billion of stimulus funding to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and install solar-energy systems to his introduction of the “Gold Standard” Climate Bill to reduce emissions 80 percent by the year 2050.

And he wants to bring this issue to the campaign. In his Sunday appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Sanders discussed his desire to see a presidential debate devoted to environmental issues, an idea not supported by the DNC.

This isn’t the first time that his dedication to environment has distinguished him from fellow Democrats. Sanders vocally opposed offshore drilling, which Hillary Clinton voted to expand during her time in the Senate. He led the debate against the Keystone XL Pipeline, a project publicly supported by Vice President, and potential candidate, Joe Biden.

If we want our politicians to start acknowledging and, more importantly, solving the problems we’ve created for our environment, there’s only one thing we can do: elect the one person we know is committed to doing so.

Niki Brashers-Krug

Hawkeyes for Bernie

Trump’s unrealistic immigration solution

News about Donald Trump has reached the point where we’re all asking, “What will he say next?” From the moment he began his campaign in June, everything he says has garnered headlines and reactions from other campaigns.

As a fellow Republican, I cannot deny the following he is receiving across Iowa. However, his comments about immigration are very negative and unrealistic. Immigration reform is a complex issue that cannot be solved through press releases or sound bites. While border security is an important part of the solution, most candidates have not really addressed what to do with the undocumented immigrants, more than 11 million, already living in America. Trump has said what he would do; he calls for mass deportations. Not only is this plan logistically impossible, but it will also cost taxpayers a significant amount. In fact, a study from the conservative American Action Forum estimates that rounding up and deporting more than 11 million undocumented immigrants would cost between $400 billion to $600 billion.

Personally, I do not think this is a reasonable, realistic, or conservative solution.

Dennis Chacon