A technicality of all technicalities

With the coronavirus sweeping the nation in 2020, the Iowa legislature passed the Coronavirus Act, which empowered the state board of health to regulate attire for its residents and visitors. Intended mainly for mask regulations, by the end of the year anti-maskers had occupied the majority of seats on the board but felt that its powers granted by the Act could be useful for other purposes.

All of the board members were male, but that did not stop them from taking concerns on women's health. Inspired by his daughter's plight with a yeast infection, Greg Grassley (no relation to Chuck) proposed that women at risk for contracting it be barred from wearing pants or panties. Defining who was "at risk" seemed problematic, so it was narrowed down to women between 20 and 40. Medical professionals insisted that they were perfectly capable of dealing with OBGYN problems on their own, at least in more rural counties, so the targeted demographic was narrowed down to the urban counties of Polk (with Des Moines) and Dubuque (with, well, Dubuque).

It took a while for the cities to respond, but they did and said that their own urban hospitals were more than capable of retaining capacity for checkups; the board heard testimony to that from every area of the two counties except for Beaver Township in Polk. So, the proposed ban was amended to only affect women 20 to 40 living in Beaver Township. Since a yeast infection was still seen by the conservatives as indicative of loose morals, it was decided to limit the ban to women who had been in "bad behavior"; since outright prostitution is illegal, this was ultimately construed to mean any woman who had received so much as a traffic violation. Tim Reynolds (no relation to Kim), whose sister was dealing with breast cancer, felt that tight clothing would increase the risk of cancer, so amended the ban to include all tight clothing; during the committee work it would later be extended to all clothing.

In the great sausage-making of the ban, it ultimately banned all women aged between 20 and 40 in Beaver Township, Polk County, from wearing clothing if they had received a traffic citation or something higher; lest it be an ex post facto law, this penalty only applied to women who were caught breaking rules after the ban was in place. Only ten women of that age lived in Beaver Township, one of whom was the lovely Candace. Candace, ever the good girl, has a clean record ... for now ...