Like the country as a whole, Iowa has a Republican chief executive and a Republican-controlled legislature that creates problems where they need not exist, problems that look like the effects of incompetence so long as it is assumed that the interests of the state are a priority. It can surprise no one that, the party being what it is these days, Republican domination has produced the kind of lawmaking that brands itself as populist and foregrounds supposedly populist reforms: Fireworks now available everywhere! Guns! Guns! Guns! Needless to say, these populists have acted to prohibit cities and counties from…