IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — A 23-year-old woman has been accused of stealing from an Iowa City church. Authorities say Markell Leach, who lives in Iowa City, is charged with felony theft and unauthorized use of a credit card. Records say Leach was issued a church credit card while working for First Baptist Church from June 2016 through April this year. She’s accused of making about 1,400 unauthorized and fraudulent personal transactions totaling around $50,000.

A Nebraska man was arrested at around 9-p.m. Monday on drug charges, in Fremont County. Sheriff Kevin Aistrope reports the Fremont County K9 unit stopped a vehicle driven by 18 year old Hunter Bickle, of Nebraska City, NE., for a traffic violation.

Hunter Bickle

During the course of the stop deputies found Bickle allegedly trying to conceal a controlled substance. He was arrested for possession of a controlled substance 2nd offense and transported to the Fremont County Law Enforcement Center. A records check indicated Bickle is currently on probation for the same charge. His bond was set at $1,000.

(Radio Iowa) — The top two Democratic leaders in the state legislature say they’re open to considering changes to when Iowa voters may cast “absentee” ballots, but both say they will resist wholesale changes. Janet Petersen of Des Moines is the Democratic leader in the state senate. “My concern is that the clean-up language doesn’t make it harder for people to have their votes counted,” she says.

The rules for counting absentee ballots are at the center of a disputed northeast Iowa legislative race. Absentee ballots are to be mailed the day BEFORE the election, but the Postal Service no longer guarantees mail gets a postmark showing when it was mailed. Bar codes on a batch of UNCOUNTED ballots show they were mailed by the deadline. Representative Todd Prichard of Charles City is the new leader of House Democrats. “All of these 29 disputed ballots were mailed by the information put on the envelope, so it would be nice, maybe, to clarify, but I think the law is pretty clear,” Prichard says.

Prichard and Petersen made their comments this weekend during an appearance on Iowa Public Television. A state senator has introduced a bill that would allow county auditors to determine when absentee ballots are mailed by “any means of tracking” offered by the U.S. Postal Service. The attorney representing the lawmaker who won the northeast Iowa House race by nine votes argues the 29 uncounted ballots do not have the legally required “intelligent bar code” that can only be tracked through a subscription service — and the Winneshiek County auditor did not pay for that subscription.

(Radio Iowa) — A southeast Iowan is the youngest state legislator to take office in decades. Twenty-one-year-old Joe Mitchell of Wayland took the oath of office a week ago and now represents district 84 in the Iowa House. Mitchell graduated from Drake in December with a degree in business administration. “I graduated a semester early in order to serve up here in the legislature,” he says.

That means Mitchell was a college student when he ran against three other competitors in the June 2018 primary. And Mitchell took his final college exams more than a month AFTER he won the November election. “Having a college experience, but also going out and knocking on doors and going to forums and different events and stuff like that,” Mitchell says, “but it was rewarding and I’m glad I did it.”

Mitchell replaced 77-year-old State Representative Dave Heaton, a Republican from Mount Pleasant who announced last year that he would not seek reelection. Mitchell says his generation of so-called “Centennials” brings “a fresh, new perspective” to politics. “People my age, conservatives, and people on the other side alike think a little bit different about a lot of different issues,” Mitchell says. “…I’m on the Judiciary Committee and so I’m looking forward to working on the criminal justice bill that, hopefully, we’ll be bringing up and maybe helping non-violent drug offenders.”

Mitchell credits his parents with getting him interested in politics. “Instead of watching the newest family sitcom on ABC, we’d watch the news,” Mitchell said. “I kind of just got interested in issues going on in the political scene and started writing papers about that in high school.”

Mitchell spent the last half of his senior year in high school working as a page in the Iowa House and Mitchell chose Drake for college so he could continue working in the state capitol. He worked during two legislative sessions as a clerk for a state senator. He’s been an intern in Governor Reynolds’ office and in Senator Ernst’s office and Mitchell did a brief stint working for a lobbying firm — all of this while going to college. State Representative is now at the top of that resume. “It’s been a great experience and I’m glad I did it,” Mitchell says. “I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

Mitchell, however, is not planning to make politics his full-time career. Mitchell is joining his family’s business in Waylon. The company makes braces for babies born with club feet. “They have about 30 employees there and I plan to go back and work in some kind of management role with my dad,” Mitchell says, “so I’m excited about that, too.”

Mitchell may eventually return to college for an M-B-A. “Right now I’m kind of taking a break from school, since I got the undergrad degree, and kind of glad that I don’t have to take any more tests for a while,” Mitchell says, “but they’ll still be a lot of reading and writing here at the statehouse, obviously.” House Republican Leader Chris Hagenow of Urbandale says Mitchell is part of a group of 22 new House members.  “He’s asking the right questions and hit the ground running,” Hagenow says. “I’ve been very impressed with him so far.”

Representative Matt Windschitl of Missouri Valley was the youngest member of the Iowa House when he was first elected in 2006 at the age of 22. Windschitl turned 23 right before he took office and he’s passed along the advice he got as a rookie lawmaker. “Be a sponge and soak up everything that you can. Take in the information so you can make fully-informed decisions for your constituents back home. You don’t have to go out and try and raise the flag in the first day or the first week or the first the first month on any particular issue. Take your time to get your feet underneath you and learn from everybody around you,” Windschitl says, “whether they be a Republican or a Democrat, a representative or a senator.”

The Iowa Constitution says members of the Iowa House must be at least 21 years old. Twenty-one-year-old Reid Crawford, a Republican from Ames, was elected to the Iowa House in 1972, but he turned 22 in February of 1973, soon after he took office. Mitchell is about 11 weeks younger than that. He will turn 22 on April 23rd.