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DES MOINES — Far more Iowans are receiving pardons from Gov. Kim Reynolds than her predecessor, but reduced sentences remain rare, a search of state records by The Gazette shows.

Reynolds, a Republican, has granted 55 pardons since taking office in 2017, all of them from 2019 to 2023, according to state records.

Totals for 2024 and 2025 will be published next year.

Those 55 pardons issued by Reynolds are more than double the pardons that previous Gov. Terry Branstad, also a Republican, issued over roughly the same period of time during his second stint in the office. Branstad issued just 26 pardons between taking office in 2011 and April of 2017; a month later he became U.S. ambassador to Ch

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