“This is the best budget I've seen since I entered the Legislature,” said state Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills). Darling, the co-chair of the powerful budget-writing Joint Finance Committee (JFC), made that statement while signing off on an $800 million cut to K-12...

Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) was first elected to the state Assembly in May 1990 to replace Betty Jo Nelsen, who was appointed to a position in President George H.W. Bush’s administration. Darling was elected as the moderate candidate in a three-way Republican primary and faced no Democratic candidate in the general...