Bleeding Heartland - sd-26

Weekend open thread: Woulda, coulda, shoulda edition

desmoinesdem — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 16:50:10 GMT

Now that we've all had a few days to take in the election results, candidates and political activists in both parties can reflect on how our time and money could have been better spent during the campaign. After the jump I've posted links about Republican and Democratic regrets.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.
Republican strategists wish Mitt Romney's campaign or outside groups had spent more resources building an effective GOTV operation. The Republican National Committee talked a good game on November 5: "we are poised to blow the Obama campaign out on Election Day thanks to a superior GOTV program and a historical GOP Election Day advantage." But in fact, the Obama campaign had registered 1.8 million new voters in battleground states and put together a surprisingly effective turnout operation. They had a better plan than the competition and executed their plan more effectively.

Meanwhile, Romney's campaign relied on opinion polls showing greater enthusiasm among Republican voters. They didn't invest nearly as much in GOTV, and their new "app" for election-day volunteers was a disaster.

Outside conservative groups didn't put much money behind voter registration or GOTV either.

Conservative super-PAC money spent on the presidential and Congressional races produced a lot of stupid television commercials but a pitiful return on investment. "Bush's brain" Karl Rove is now taking heat, although in his alternate reality, Obama won re-election "by suppressing the vote."

Some Republican strategists wish they'd had better polling on the presidential and Congressional races.

Across the party's campaigns, committees and super PACs, internal polling gave an overly optimistic read on the electorate. [...]
Sources familiar with Romney's polling say that it underestimated the Democrats' 6-point voter identification edge, nationally, and put far too much stock in what one Republican operative called "false signs of Republican enthusiasm." Multiple Republican pollsters also acknowledged that they misjudged how many young people and minorities would show up to vote.

The 2008 and 2012 elections may be anomalies because of Obama's appeal to young and minority voters. Still, I bet a lot of pollsters will re-evaluate their turnout models for 2016.

Here in Iowa, Republican State Senator Merlin Bartz lost his re-election bid to Senator Mary Jo Wilhelm by about 120 votes. If he could do it over again, would he pay for his own fence and not cart around a cardboard cut-out of his opponent?

Democrats in Iowa and across the country have fewer regrets about the election result, but clearly, we left the Iowa House majority on the table. I understand why the Iowa Democratic Party poured most resources into defending the Iowa Senate majority, but think about what could have happened if some of the major donors to Leonard Boswell's or Christie Vilsack's Congressional campaigns had supported Democratic candidates for the Iowa House. Or, imagine if House Democrats had spent less on television and radio commercials for incumbent Mark Smith (who ended up winning by 2,400 votes) and more money on a few other candidates. What looks likely to be a 53-47 Republican majority could easily have gone the other way.

Susan Judkins trails by 22 votes in Iowa House district 43 (though there's a small chance a recount could change that result).

State Representative John Wittneben (the only Democratic incumbent in the legislature to lose on Tuesday) lost House district 7 by about 57 votes.

Joe Judge lost House district 80 by 113 votes.

Bill Heckroth lost House district 63 by 152 votes.

Kristin Keast lost House district 95 by 210 votes.

Nathan Wrage lost House district 72 by 226 votes.

Donovan Olson lost House district 47 by about 420 votes.

The time to take back the Iowa House was 2012--a presidential year electorate and the first general election after redistricting. In 2014, the midterm electorate will be much less favorable to Democratic candidates. In 2016, Republican incumbents will be much better known among their constituents.

On a personal level, I regret not doing more volunteer work for Judkins in House district 43. A few dozen more phone calls, door-knocks, or postcards could have swung that race.

Share your own election-year regrets in this thread.

UPDATE: Given how California Republicans were decimated in this election, up and down the ticket, there must be quite a few who regret pushing so hard for Prop 187 during the 1994 Republican wave.

Karl Rove's plotting to be more involved in Republican primaries during the next election cycle.

Where things stand in the Iowa Senate races

desmoinesdem — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 16:51:34 GMT

Democrats are assured of maintaining their majority in the Iowa Senate, with one race headed for a recount and another to be decided in a December 11 special election.
Here's how the Democrats maintained their majority. Of the 24 Senate incumbents not up for re-election this year, thirteen are Democrats:

Daryl Beall
Dennis Black
Joe Bolkcom
Tod Bowman
Bill Dotzler
Bob Dvorsky
Jack Hatch
Rob Hogg
Wally Horn
Matt McCoy
Herman Quirmbach
Amanda Ragan
Joe Seng

Nine Democratic incumbents were re-elected last night:

Tom Courtney (district 44)
Jeff Danielson (district 30)
Dick Dearden (district 16)
Mike Gronstal (district 8)
Pam Jochum (district 50)
Liz Mathis (district 34)
Brian Schoenjahn (district 32)
Steve Sodders (district 36)
Mary Jo Wilhelm (district 26)

Three Democratic candidates won open seats:

Janet Petersen (district 18)
Rich Taylor (district 42)
Rita Hart (district 49)

One Democratic candidate defeated a Republican incumbent:

Chris Brase (district 46)

Total: 26

John Beard has not conceded the open-seat race in Senate district 28. The Iowa Secretary of State's website shows Mike Breitbach ahead by 43 votes, while the Des Moines Register's site shows Breitbach ahead by 37 votes.

I don't know yet whether any provisional ballots remain to be counted. Late-arriving absentee ballots will count as long as they were postmarked by November 5. There will be a recount in Senate district 28.

Recounts did not change the outcome in the two closest Iowa Senate races in 2010.

The results in Senate district 22 do not count because of Senator Pat Ward's untimely death last month. Republicans meet on November 8 to select a nominee to face Democrat Desmund Adams in the December 11 special election. Ward's widower, John Ward, is seeking the nomination, but other candidates are expected to step forward. Republicans have a sizable voter registration advantage in Senate district 22.

Any comments about the Iowa Senate elections are welcome in this thread.

UPDATE: I should have mentioned that Merlin Bartz wasn't ready to concede Senate district 26 to Wilhelm last night. I don't see how he can make up a 120-vote margin with late-arriving absentee ballots.

SECOND UPDATE: Bartz conceded on Wednesday but tried to cast a shadow over the outcome.

"I congratulate Sen. Wilhelm on her victory," he said in a news release.
"She ran a stellar campaign and I wish her the best in her service next January."
Bartz said he and his family wanted to thank all his volunteers and supporters.
"We have analyzed the 120 vote margin in conjunction with additional provisional and absentee ballots that are being and may be received and do not believe they would change the outcome and have chosen to not seek a recount," said Bartz.
"I continue to be troubled by the ongoing criminal investigation into voter fraud in Floyd County but do not believe that prolonging the election until the prosecution is finished is in the best interest of the citizens of this district or of this state."

Democratic and Republican party spending in the Iowa Senate races

desmoinesdem — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 01:16:09 GMT

Candidates for the Iowa legislature were required to submit campaign finance disclosure reports on October 19 and November 2. The Schedule E forms on "In-Kind Contributions" contained the most interesting numbers, because they showed how Democratic and Republican party leaders are allocating resources across the battleground districts.

After the jump I've enclosed in-kind contribution figures for the Senate districts expected to be in play tomorrow. Candidates running in other Senate races did not report large in-kind contributions from their respective parties.
Republican candidates for the Iowa Senate received the bulk of their in-kind contributions from the "Republican Party of Iowa and its Eisenhower Club." For brevity, I'm calling that the Iowa GOP below. Senate Minority Leader Jerry Behn reported giving $60,000 to the state party on his October 19 filing and more than $185,000 to the party on his November 2 filing. Senate Minority Whip Brad Zaun gave just $5,000 to the Polk County Republican Party and $11,500 to his party's Senate majority fund--a heck of a lot less than I'd expect for an ambitious politician. Keep in mind that Zaun represents wealthy precincts in Urbandale and doesn't have a general election opponent this year. I thought he would follow the example of his Senate colleague Bill Dix, who spread his campaign cash around to several GOP Senate challengers in the fall of 2010.

Democratic candidates for the Iowa Senate received the bulk of their in-kind contributions from the Iowa Senate Majority Fund or from the Iowa Democratic Party. Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal donated more than $900,000 from his Senate campaign account to the state party.

All of the numbers given below reflect in-kind contributions.

Senate district 6

Mary Bruner reported $106,526.72 from the Iowa Senate Majority Fund (October 19 disclosure) and did not file a November 2 disclosure.

Mark Segebart reported $3,467.10 from the Iowa GOP (October 19 disclosure) and $31,306.68 from the Iowa GOP (November 2 disclosure).

Senate district 8

Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal reported $135,072.44 from the Iowa Democratic Party (October 19 disclosure) and $57,597.02 from the Iowa Democratic Party (November 2 disclosure).

Al Ringgenberg reported $73,281.10 from the Iowa GOP (October 19 disclosure) and $74,943.06 from the Iowa GOP (November 2 disclosure).

Senate district 26

Mary Jo Wilhelm reported $224,922.92 from the Iowa Senate Majority Fund (October 19 disclosure) and $157,288 from the Iowa Senate Majority Fund (November 2 disclosure).

Merlin Bartz reported $35,605.84 from the Iowa GOP (October 19 disclosure) and $65,462.05 from the Iowa GOP plus $7,545.47 from the Team Iowa PAC (November 2 disclosure). Nick Ryan runs the Team Iowa PAC; he is better known to Bleeding Heartland readers as the leader of the 501(c)4 group American Future Fund.

Senate district 28

John Beard reported $144,752.56 from the Iowa Senate Majority Fund (October 19 disclosure) and $138,284.72 from the Iowa Senate Majority Fund (November 2 disclosure).

Mike Breitbach reported $39,149.27 from the Iowa GOP (October 19 disclosure) and $43,721.41 from the Iowa GOP (November 2 disclosure).

Senate district 30

Senator Jeff Danielson reported $27,000 from the Iowa Senate Majority Fund (October 19 disclosure) and $118,913.00 from the Iowa Senate Majority Fund (November 2 disclosure).

Matt Reisetter reported $48,433.80 from the Iowa GOP (October 19 disclosure) and $105,153.70 from the Iowa GOP (November 2 disclosure).

Senate district 32

Senator Brian Schoenjahn reported $60,527.56 from the Iowa Democratic Party (October 19 disclosure) and $49,179.36 from the Iowa Democratic Party (November 2 disclosure).

Elliott Henderson reported $36,977.91 from the Iowa GOP (October 19 disclosure) and $44,442.59 from the Iowa GOP (November 2 disclosure)

Senate district 34

Senator Liz Mathis reported $40,455.24 from the Iowa Democratic Party (October 19 disclosure) and $20,670 from the Iowa Democratic Party (November 2 disclosure).

Republican challenger Ryan Flood did not report in-kind contributions from the Iowa GOP.

Senate district 36

Senator Steve Sodders reported $134,281.10 from the Iowa Senate Majority Fund (October 19 disclosure) and $224,972.93 from the Iowa Senate Majority Fund (November 2 disclosure).

Jane Jech reported $32,041.26 from the Iowa GOP (October 19 disclosure) and $14,636.04 from the Iowa GOP (November 2 disclosure).

Senate district 42

Rich Taylor reported $144,531.64 from the Iowa Senate Majority Fund (October 19 disclosure) and $106,309.12 from the Iowa Senate Majority Fund (November 2 disclosure).

Larry Kruse reported $26,315.33 from the Iowa GOP (October 19 disclosure) and $12,128.17 from the Iowa GOP (November 2 disclosure).

Senate district 46

Chris Brase reported $166,469.54 from the Iowa Democratic Party (October 19 disclosure) and $157,452.28 from the Iowa Democratic Party (November 2 disclosure).

Senator Shawn Hamerlinck reported $30,318.61 from the Iowa GOP (October 19 disclosure) and did not file a November 2 disclosure report.

Senate district 48

Nate Willems reported $236,773.38 from the Iowa Senate Majority Fund (October 19 disclosure) and $41,000 from the Iowa Senate Majority Fund (November 2 disclosure).

Dan Zumbach reported $22,952.00 from the Iowa GOP (October 19 disclosure) and $54,148.16 from the Iowa GOP (November 2 disclosure).

Senate district 49

Rita Hart reported $186,598.07 from the Iowa Senate Majority Fund (October 19 disclosure) and $103,322.80 from the Iowa Senate Majority Fund (November 2 disclosure).

Andrew Naeve reported $24,323.82 from the Iowa GOP (October 19 disclosure) and $10,155.66 from the Iowa GOP (November 2 disclosure).

Four strategies for interest group Iowa legislative endorsements

desmoinesdem — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 13:47:54 GMT

Many candidates for the Iowa House and Senate tout endorsements by outside groups in their campaign communications. Some of those groups pay for direct mail, phone calls, or even advertising supporting their endorsed candidates.

Iowa's influential political action committees and advocacy groups have very different ways of getting involved in the state legislative campaign. Follow me after the jump for examples of four distinct strategies.
Bipartisan, focused on protecting incumbents

For many corporate or industry-aligned PACs, giving money to elected officials in both parties is an insurance policy. We see the same phenomenon in Iowa as some organizations endorse numerous state representatives and senators from both parties for re-election. Two good examples come to mind: the Iowa Corn Growers Association PAC and the Iowa Credit Unions League.

The Corn Growers PAC endorsed 67 incumbents for re-election but no challengers or candidates in open House and Senate districts.

For Iowa Senate (13):
Merlin Bartz (R), Jerry Behn (R), Thomas Courtney (D), Jeff Danielson (D), Dick Dearden (D), Joni Ernst (R), Randy Feenstra (R), Mike Gronstal (D), Shawn Hamerlinck (R), Tim Kapucian (R), Brian Schoenjahn (D), Steve Sodders (D), and Mary Jo Wilhelm (D).
For Iowa House of Representatives (54):
Dwayne Alons (R), Chip Baltimore (R), Clel Baudler (R), Josh Byrnes (R), Dennis Cohoon (D), Peter Cownie (R), Dave Deyoe (R), Cecil Dolecheck (R), Jack Drake (R), Greg Forristall (R), Joel Fry (R), Julian Garrett (R), Pat Grassley (R), Bob Hager (R), Chris Hall (D), Curt Hanson (D), Mary Ann Hanusa (R), David Heaton (R), Bill Heckroth (D), Lisa Heddens (D), Lee Hein (R), Dan Huseman (R), Ron Jorgensen (R), Anesa Kajtazovic (D), Jerry Kearns (D), Dan Kelley (D), Jarad Klein (R), Kevin Koester (R), Bob Kressig (D), Jim Lykam (D), Mary Mascher (D), Kevin McCarthy (D), Helen Miller (D), Brian Moore (R), Dan Muhlbauer (D), Patrick Murphy (D), Steve Olson (R), Kraig Paulsen (R), Ross Paustian (R), Brian Quirk (D), Henry Rayhons (R), Walt Rogers (R), Kirsten Running-Marquardt (D), Thomas Sands (R), Renee Schulte (R), Jason Schultz (R), Jeff Smith (R), Mark Smith (D), Chuck Soderberg (R), Roger Thomas (D), Linda Upmeyer (R), Matt Windschitl (R), John Wittneben (D) and Gary Worthan (R).

Some of those incumbents are unopposed, while others are fighting for their political lives. Many have been members of agriculture and/or appropriations committees in the Iowa House or Senate during the past two years.

The Iowa Credit Union League endorsed 58 Iowa House candidates, including many from each party. Most are incumbents or candidates in open-seat races. The only challenger on the list is Tom Schueller, and he's a former incumbent who lost his Iowa House seat in 2010.

The credit unions group is also backing 25 senators or Senate candidates. A few will not be up for re-election until 2014. The others are a mixture of incumbents and candidates in open-seat races.

Support is not determined by party affiliation or on political ideology, but rather on where candidates stand on the import issues facing credit unions and their members. In the case of incumbents, it's based on their voting record on important credit union issues as well as responses to our candidate questionnaire. In the case of challengers and open seat candidates, it's based on the questionnaire and, many times, in-person conversations with credit union and ICUL staff. The analysis is thorough and substantive.
As a result of this non-political analysis, credit unions are supporting Republicans and Democrats at almost equal levels in 2012. The amount of CUPAC contributions that have been provided to state legislative candidates is very close to 50/50. In short, support is based on policy, not politics.

The Iowa Credit Union PAC has sent direct mail on behalf of three incumbent senators in tough races: Democrat Jeff Danielson (Senate district 30) and Republicans Merlin Bartz (Senate district 26) and Shawn Hamerlinck (Senate district 46). The eye-catching mail pieces advocating for Bartz, Hamerlinck, and Danielson have a similar look and feel. No matter which party gains control of the Iowa Senate, someone in the majority caucus will be particularly grateful to the credit unions.

Bipartisan, but willing to take on unfriendly incumbents

Some interest groups are willing to support any incumbent who supports their agenda, regardless of party. At the same time, they don't hesitate to endorse challengers to lawmakers who vote against their agenda. The National Rifle Association is a good example. You can view their 2012 endorsements for Iowa here, along with grades for all of the sitting legislators up for re-election. Although the NRA backs a lot more Republicans than Democrats, two Democratic senators (Tom Courtney and Dick Dearden) did receive the group's seal of approval. Dearden championed the return of dove-hunting to Iowa and has led the charge against restricting dove hunters' use of lead ammunition.

The NRA isn't supporting any Iowa House Democrats this year, because the whole House Democratic caucus opposed "stand your ground" legislation during the 2012 session. Many Republican challengers have the NRA's backing.

But during the 2010 campaign, the NRA endorsed lots of Democratic lawmakers as well as Governor Chet Culver. That year, a Democratic-controlled Iowa House and Senate passed legislation making it easier to obtain a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

Partisan, but mostly leaving incumbents alone

The Iowa Industry PAC, affiliated with the Iowa Association of Business and Industry, is a good example of an interest group with a mostly partisan approach to elections. The Iowa Industry PAC describes itself as "non-partisan," supporting candidates from both parties. In reality, this group backs only a handful of token Democrats during each election cycle. In 2010, the PAC endorsed only three Democratic senators (two at no risk of losing) and a few House Democrats who had helped block pro-labor legislation.

~~This year, Brian Quirk and Dave Jacoby are the only Iowa House Democrats to receive the Iowa Industry PAC's endorsement.~~ Neither has a general election opponent on the ballot (pdf). CORRECTION: The Iowa Industry PAC endorsed seven Democratic Iowa House candidates. Three have no opponent on the ballot (Quirk, Jacoby, and Nancy Dunkel). Two are in districts Democrats should win easily (Helen Miller and Sally Stutsman). The other two are in heavily contested seats (Dan Muhlbauer and Joe Riding).

Meanwhile, only two sitting Senate Democrats received the Iowa Industry PAC's 2012 endorsement, Liz Mathis and Steve Sodders. A few months ago, political insiders expected both to win re-election, although the Sodders race in Senate district 36 is up in the air.

Whereas the truly bipartisan Iowa Credit Union PAC endorsed many Democrats and Republicans running for open seats, the Iowa Industry PAC endorsed ~~solely~~ mostly Republicans in House and Senate districts lacking an incumbent. (Correction: Riding, Stutsman, and Dunkel are running in open seats.) Clearly this PAC wants Republicans to hold their Iowa House majority and take control of the Iowa Senate.

That said, the Iowa Industry PAC appears less willing to make waves than the NRA. Only two GOP challengers have the PAC's official endorsement: Matt Reisetter (Danielson's opponent in Senate district 30) and Allen Burt (running against Mark Smith in House district 71).

Majority-making ideological: partisan and actively opposing unfriendly incumbents

For some interest groups, one political party is clearly more in line with the legislative agenda. Those groups can only hope to exercise real influence when that party is in the majority. So, labor unions endorse many Democratic incumbents and some (but not all) challengers to sitting Republicans. That's not to say a labor union wouldn't endorse a pro-labor Republican if one existed, but Iowans aren't likely to see that kind of candidate in my lifetime.

On the other side of the spectrum, social conservative groups like Iowa Right to Life and the FAMiLY Leader (formerly the Iowa Family Policy Center) endorse a wide range of Republican incumbents, challengers, and candidates for open seats. Bleeding Heartland covered the FAMiLY Leader's spending in 2012 legislative races here.

There are no longer any pro-choice Republicans in the Iowa House or Senate. In the old days, a handful used to receive support from Planned Parenthood's PAC. Now Planned Parenthood Voters of Iowa endorses only certain Democratic candidates.

The Iowans for Tax Relief PAC endorsed 13 state legislative candidates this year, all Republicans: incumbents Jerry Behn, Chip Baltimore, and Guy Vander Linden; challengers Matt Reisetter, Jim Kenyon, Jane Jech, Mark Nelson, and Mike Klimesh; and open-seat candidates John Landon, Dan Zumbach, Greg Heartsill, Andrew Naeve, and Amy Sinclair. Usually this group endorses more Republicans, but during the past year a bunch of GOP legislators and candidates have expressed support for raising the gasoline tax.

I would put the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation's PAC in this category too, because they are heavily skewed toward the Republican side, despite endorsing a few token Democrats like the Iowa Industry PAC does. The Farm Bureau survey for legislative candidates includes a few questions that have little apparent relevance for farmers but come straight out of GOP talking points:

3. Do you believe that one-time money, such as the state's ending fund balance, should be spent on one-time expenditures or on-going expenses? [...]
11. Do you support expanding the scope of negotiation under Iowa 's collective bargaining law? [...]
14. Do you support voters registering and voting on the same day?

This year the Farm Bureau refused to release their full list of Iowa legislative endorsements, but Republican press releases posted here show that mostly GOP candidates got the "Friend of Agriculture" nod, including incumbents Jerry Behn and Pat Ward, challenger Jane Jech, and open-seat candidates Amy Sinclair, Andrew Naeve, Michael Breitbach, Larry Kruse, and Mark Segebart. I am not aware of any sitting Democrats endorsed as "Friends of Agriculture" other than Senator Brian Schoenjahn.

Notably, three Republicans were endorsed by both the Farm Bureau Federation and Iowans for Tax relief: Behn, Jech, and Naeve. All three of their races are important for the GOP's quest for a Senate majority. Supporting the gas tax hike is a good thing from the Farm Bureau's perspective but anathema to Iowans for Tax Relief, which explains some of the Republican names missing from each group's endorsement list.

Vander Plaats group on radio in two races, conspicuously absent in one

desmoinesdem — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 21:15:00 GMT

Three-time candidate for Iowa governor Bob Vander Plaats has made news this fall primarily on the "No Wiggins" campaign trail. However, the social conservative group he runs is supporting some Republican Iowa Senate candidates as well.

Last week the FAMiLY Leader launched radio advertising campaigns in two competitive Senate races--but notably, not in the district where Vander Plaats' longtime right-hand man Matt Reisetter is running.
The FAMiLY Leader's political action committee has raised and spent little money this year, according to reports on the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board website. The PAC has made only a few relatively small donations to Senate candidates Jane Jech and Jeff Mullen.

Instead, the FAMiLY Leader has flexed its muscles through independent expenditures in many Senate races. You can view the reports here. Vander Plaats' group has paid for postcard campaigns supporting the following GOP candidates:

- incumbent Senators Merlin Bartz (Senate district 26), Jerry Behn (Senate district 24), Shawn Hamerlinck (Senate district 46), and Tim Kapucian (Senate district 38);

- open-seat candidates Mark Segebart (Senate district 6), Amy Sinclair (Senate district 14), Mike Breitbach (Senate district 28), Ken Rozenboom (Senate district 40), Dan Zumbach (Senate district 48), and Andrew Naeve (Senate district 49);

- challengers Jane Jech (Senate district 36), Al Ringgenberg (Senate district 8) and Matt Reisetter (Senate district 30).

You'd expect the FAMiLY Leader to take a special interest in Reisetter's race. Not only is Democratic Senator Jeff Danielson a top Republican target in a district where the GOP has a slight voter registration edge, Reisetter worked closely with Vander Plaats for years as an employee of the Iowa Family Policy Center (the 501(c)3 organization that is now under the FAMiLY Leader's umbrella). Reisetter described his work as "mostly in the political realm with pro-traditional family candidates and campaigns." In 2007, he worked on Mike Huckabee's presidential campaign in Iowa, for which Vander Plaats was the state chair. Reisetter was also active in Vander Plaats' run for governor in 2010, and later in the campaign to oust three Iowa Supreme Court justices.

When the Iowa Family Policy Center became part of the new FAMiLY Leader organization, a 501(c)4 organization created shortly after the 2010 general election, Reisetter was named FAMiLY Leader development director. He then joined Vander Plaats on a 99-county tour to build on momentum from the 2010 victories.

Side note: Andy Kopsa raised important questions here about whether the Iowa Family Policy Center violated the Hatch Act while employing Reisetter. A federal grant supported Reisetter's salary as head of the center's marriage-promotion efforts in northeast Iowa while Reisetter worked on Huckabee's presidential election campaign.

Getting back to the point of this post: no Republican candidate for the Iowa Senate is more closely connected to the FAMiLY Leader than Reisetter. Yet other than spending $2,834.37 on postcards to identified conservatives, Vander Plaats' group has steered clear of Senate district 30. They are obviously aware that the group's issues are not tickets to victory in a district where many voters are connected to the University of Northern Iowa.

Reisetter knows it too, because he has not talked about marriage or abortion in his television advertising.

Disclosure reports show the FAMiLY Leader spent $8,671.58 on Mason City-area radio to support Bartz against Democratic incumbent Senator Mary Jo Wilhelm, and spent $9,896.58 on Council Bluffs radio to support Ringgenberg against Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal.

The FAMiLY Leader did not respond to my request for a script of these radio ads, but a listener in the Council Bluffs area indicated that the commercials refer to Senate Democrats blocking property tax relief, a constitutional amendment on marriage, and a late-term abortion ban. That is consistent with language from the FAMiLY Leader's October 30 press releases announcing the advertising campaign (excerpts):

The FAMiLY LEADER President & CEO Bob Vander Plaats urged supporters and voters in Senate District 26 to cast their ballots for State Senator Merlin Bartz, who is in a tight race with Democrat State Senator Mary Jo Wilhelm.
With much of this election focused on Senate Republicans claiming the majority, Vander Plaats said this race is significant to how Iowa moves forward on important issues regarding the family.
To help inform Iowans in Senate District 26, The FAMiLY LEADER produced a radio ad for Senator Bartz that will air this week on KLGO in Mason City.
"Mary Jo Wilhelm has spent time representing the left-wing extremists rather than the people of her district," Vander Plaats said. "Last session, Mary Jo and Senate Democrats blocked property tax reform, the right to vote on marriage, and a late-term abortion ban. Mary Jo even spent tax-dollars to fund abortionists, like Planned Parenthood."
The FAMiLY LEADER Political Director Greg Baker said Bartz will defend one-man, one-woman marriage, the sanctity of human life, and religious freedom.

The FAMiLY LEADER President & CEO Bob Vander Plaats urged supporters and voters in Senate District 8 to cast their ballots for Colonel Al Ringgenberg who is in a tight race with Democrat State Senator Mike Gronstal.
With much of this election focused on Senate Republicans claiming the majority, Vander Plaats said this race is significant to how Iowa moves forward on important issues regarding the family.
To help inform Iowans in Senate District 8, The FAMiLY LEADER produced a radio ad for Ringgenberg that will air this week on KFAB in Omaha, NE.
"Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal has spent time representing the left-wing extremists rather than the people of his district," Vander Plaats said. "Last session, Gronstal and Senate Democrats blocked property tax reform, the right to vote on marriage, and a late-term abortion ban. Gronstal even spent tax-dollars to fund abortionists, like Planned Parenthood."
The FAMiLY LEADER Political Director Greg Baker said Ringgenberg will defend one-man, one-woman marriage, the sanctity of human life, and religious freedom.

Any relevant comments are welcome in this thread.

UPDATE: I should have mentioned that the FAMiLY Leader crowd owes a special debt to Bartz for helping the Iowa Family Policy Center build a list for future direct-mail and fundraising campaigns shortly after the Iowa Supreme Court announced the Varnum v Brien decision in April 2009. Bartz used his official page on the Iowa Senate Republicans website to promote a petition being circulated by the Iowa Family Policy Center, urging county recorders not to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Iowa Senate ad watch: Water bottles (really)

desmoinesdem — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 19:10:00 GMT

In a surprising turn of events, Republican challengers are putting an obscure vote on water bottles at the center of their attacks on Iowa Senate Democrats. Follow me after the jump for background on this year's equivalent to the non-existent "heated sidewalks" of 2010.
Some version of the water bottles attack has appeared in radio and/or television commercials against Democratic Senators Mary Jo Wilhelm (SD-26) and Tom Courtney (SD-44), print advertising against Jeff Danielson (SD-30), and direct mail targeting Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal (SD-08), Brian Schoenjahn (SD-32), and Steve Sodders (SD-36).

Here's the gist of the Republican message: store owners across Iowa report that some people are abusing food assistance benefits, buying large bottles of water, dumping out the water in the parking lot, and walking right back inside to collect the $7.50 bottle refund. The worst part is that this behavior is completely legal. [Insert Republican Senate candidate's name] would vote for a law to stop this abuse. But [insert Democratic state senator's name] failed to vote against letting people on food stamps take water bottles and return them right away to collect the deposit.

The first wave of ads featuring this attack left some people scratching their heads. What are they talking about?

As with the bogus heated sidewalk claim, this charge stems from a Republican amendment that would have had no real impact, even if Democrats had approved it.

Bottle deposit returns came up in May 2011, when the Iowa Senate debated the health and human services appropriations bill for fiscal year 2012 (House File 649). Republican Senators Merlin Bartz and Brad Zaun proposed the following amendment (excerpt):

The department [of Human Services] shall submit a request to the United States department of agriculture for authorization for a waiver, pilot project, or other approach for restricting the use of food assistance benefits, as administered by the state under the federal supplemental nutrition assistance program, for both of the following: food items that are taxable and the deposit portion of the cost of food items sold in a container that is subject to a deposit.

The Senate rejected the Bartz/Zaun amendment S-3337 on a party line vote (pdf). Later the same day, the Senate approved the health and human services budget bill on a party-line vote.

Senate Democratic caucus research staff provided the following background information to Bleeding Heartland. In 2008, the Iowa Department of Human Services had requested a waiver to stop the use of food assistance benefits to purchase bottle deposits. The federal Food and Nutrition Service denied that request, saying the government was focused on implementing "stricter penalties for people proven guilty of abusing the bottle deposit policy." At the end of this post I've enclosed a letter from the Iowa Department of Human Services confirming those events.

Iowa has not pursued a similar waiver since 2008 because there is "no indication [federal officials] will be changing their opinion on this issue." So, even if the Senate had approved the Bartz/Zaun amendment, Iowans receiving federal food assistance would still be able to buy big bottles of water.

In recent years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has stepped up its enforcement of rules against the improper use of the supplemental nutrition assistance program. Iowa store owners or anyone else who knows about the abuse of food assistance benefits can call this toll-free fraud hotline: 1-800-831-1394.

I have no idea whether this line of attack will turn a significant number of voters against Senate incumbents. Ever since Ronald Reagan successfully demonized "welfare queens," Republicans have tried to exploit anger toward people who abuse public assistance programs. A GOP-controlled Senate wouldn't be able to change federal policy on buying bottle deposits, but why let reality get in the way of a campaign talking point?

Hello Dolly! The War on Women, Iowa Edition

2laneIA — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 13:41:14 GMT

Merlin Bartz is an Iowa State Senator who carries around an unusual picture of his opponent, State Senator Mary Jo Wilhelm. The photo is a life-size legless paper doll. At public events he sets his creepy companion in a chair next to him. If Senator Wilhelm arrives at the event, she has to move it so she can sit down.

What message do you think this sends to Iowans? To women? To Senator Wilhelm?

There is more below the fold.

I have been in a room with Merlin Bartz and his creepy paper doll, and it made me angry. This is the most profoundly disrespectful thing that I have ever seen a politician do to a female opponent. I think the message to Mary Jo Wilhelm is this:

I have no respect for you or for women generally. To me, you are a two-dimensional cartoon, and deserve ridicule for your efforts to get reelected against the awesomeness that is Moi.

My message to Iowa women voters in Iowa Senate District 26 is that if you vote for Bartz, you should not expect him to respect you, your dignity, your privacy, your autonomy, or your constitutional right to reproductive choice. It isn't just his poor taste in campaign stunts. His voting record backs this up. He has supported every reactionary piece of wedge social issue legislation that the Iowa House concocted in the last session. He is also no friend to teachers, who are mostly women.

Merlin Bartz represents a point of view about women that is shared by too many in his party. During this election, the hits just keep coming. There are the outrageous statements that have fallen, like snakes and toads in the fairy tale, from the lips of Rick Santorum, Todd Akin, Foster Friess, Rush Limbaugh and so many others. There are all the bills to deny access to abortion, including women raped by their fellow soldiers, and Republicans in the Iowa legislature have tried to pass all sorts of bad ideas on that front. There are the efforts by Governor Ultrasound and others to force women to submit to humiliating and painful probing. There is the Violence Against Women Act being held hostage, and opposition to the Lily Ledbetter law. There is the notion that the religious beliefs of Catholic bishops trump women's access to reproductive health care, including contraception--something even most Catholic women do not support. There is the Republican jihad against Planned Parenthood. These things portray a view that women are to be controlled, treated as less than full citizens, disrespected.

Politicians who engage in or tolerate the kind of disrespect evident in the photos in this diary need to be named and shamed.

Desmoinesdem has a good background diary on this race, which pits two senators against each other because of redistricting. She includes the tale of Bartz suing his neighbors to pay for a fence that Bartz wanted to put up, then bleating about it at stupefying length on WHO radio.

In addition, Bartz serves on the Administrative Rules Review Committee, made up of Iowa House and Senate members. He's a typical example of why I refer to the ARRC as the place "where good rules go to die." This year Bartz was in the majority when the ARRC delayed a proposed ban on lead shot for dove hunting. Last year Bartz spearheaded an unsuccessful effort to ditch the most important Iowa water quality rules adopted in the last decade.

During the spring of 2009, Bartz was one of the Iowa Senate's most outspoken critics of the Iowa Supreme Court's marriage ruling in Varnum v Brien. He used his official Iowa Senate website to promote a petition drive urging county recorders not to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Bartz even tried to amend Iowa law to protect county recorders who refused to issue a particular marriage license "as a matter of conscience."

The persuasion campaign failed to win over any Iowa county recorders, but Bartz has remained "vigilant" (his word) against any state agency rule that extends new benefits to same-sex couples. In May 2010, that meant taking a stand against letting gay couples pitch more than one tent at a campsite.

Whereas Wilhelm rarely grabs the spotlight, Bartz comes across as one of Iowa's more publicity-hungry legislators. Lately his legal dispute with two neighbors has been making news in northern Iowa. His failure to resolve this matter quietly is baffling.

Mary Jo's record is one of strong support for education, veterans, the elderly and the vulnerable. She brought twelve years of experience on the Howard County Board of Supervisors to the Iowa Senate, which is the kind of gritty work with local government that helps you understand what the real problems are in the small towns and rural areas that make up her district. She is a kind and lovely person, and works very hard at the legislature while keeping her real estate appraisal business afloat. Here is what she has to put up with.

Floyd County Farm Bureau, before Senator Wilhelm arrived:
(Photo courtesy of Charles City Press) They're all smiles, including Brian Quirk, in the orange shirt, who was until recently a member of ALEC, and the only Democrat in the Iowa legislature to have that dubious distinction. He needs a primary, but that's a 2014 diary. The other candidate is Some Dude named David Kraft who is running against Quirk on a petition.
Oh look! Something is in her chair. Hilarious. To add insult to injury, she has to move it herself.

No one is smiling now. Fun's over boys.
(Photo courtesy of Charles City Press)

Another forum, Osage, Iowa. (Does the Senator get dressed in the dark? Hardly anyone ever writes about male sartorial disasters, but this photo is such a target-rich environment.) (Photo courtesy of Charles City Press.)

Lake Mills, Iowa, which is not even in the new district:

There were five other candidates on that stage, plus a moderator, and no one spoke up to say that maybe Senator Bartz was behaving in a way that reflected badly on all of them. Do they have wives, sisters, daughters? What were they thinking? Hello. This is not OK, even in rural Iowa. They are: Josh Byrnes (R)(incumbent) House District 51; Tedd Gassman (R) and John Wittneben (D)(incumbent) House District 7; Bob Jennings (D) and Dennis Guth (R), Senate District 7, open seat.

On the night of the Lake Mills forum, Bartz implied that Wilhelm was not there because she is too chicken to debate. In fact she has debated him, most recently in Osage before a packed community auditorium lobby, where he struggled to suppress his contempt for her as she spoke from the heart about wanting to help people solve problems. (His from-the-heart moment was devoted to cutting commercial property taxes, but I digress.) When you are less than a month from an election, there are too many places to be, and not enough time to go to all of them, in a district that is more than a two-hour drive from east to west.

So where was Senator Wilhelm on that night? She was participating in a 5K run to support a domestic violence resource center in Postville. Mary Jo Wilhelm cares about women. She will never make war on them. Women can count on her to speak up for their concerns in the Iowa Senate. Women can count on Merlin Bartz to speak up for the corporate interests that finance his campaigns, and against their autonomy in the doctor's office, the classroom, and the workplace.

Iowa is one state senate seat away from being Wisconsin, in that we have a Republican governor, and a Republican House, and the Senate Democrats have one seat securing their majority. I do not want Iowa to go through what the Badgers have been subjected to in the last two years, which is why I have been door-knocking for Mary Jo Wilhelm.

I have also been talking to women about Christie Vilsack, who is trying to unseat the execrable Steve King. The word I hear most often about King from women is "scary." But Bartz is scary too, although less well-known. Women who are familiar with him tend to roll their eyes when his name is mentioned.

While all eyes are on the Presidential race, and Congress has been unable to pass much legislation, it is in the state legislatures that some of the most vicious battles have been going on, to protect women, consumers, ratepayers, teachers, public employees, and vulnerable citizens of all ages. That is why an obscure Senate race in northeast Iowa is important, not just to women, but to everyone who lives in the state.

Guys like Merlin Bartz are the GOP farm team, and the party is pulling out the stops for their candidates. I get at least one call a day from Crossroads GPS or some other right-wing group, attacking Mary Jo and other Democrats. The ads are a blur on TV and radio here. His website is sponsored by a PAC that appears to be funded by the CEO of a New York hedge fund, or at least has the same name. The Republicans in this state are seemingly awash in money. If they regain the state senate, there will be no impediments to their radical agenda of corporate welfare, deregulation, and cuts for everything else. And Merlin Bartz, a seemingly ambitious man, will be a step closer to running for Congress or governor.

Wilhelm for Senate. Facebook. You can drop a few bucks in the hat on ActBlue if you want to help.

Cross-posted at http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/15/1142986/-Hello-Dolly-The-War-on-Women-Iowa-Edition

Weekend open thread: Iowa state legislative race edition

desmoinesdem — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 12:00:00 GMT

What's on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? A bunch of posts on Iowa House and Senate races are in the works for the next couple of weeks. Several Democratic candidates for the Iowa House have been targeted by push-polls similar to the one I received attacking Susan Judkins in House district 43. Direct mail pieces are resurrecting some of the dishonest Republican talking points of the 2010 campaign, including non-existent "heated sidewalks" allegedly funded with state money, fancy flowerpots and "bus service for lobbyists."

Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee strategists included three Iowa Senate races in the new list of 50 essential state legislative races around the country. Those are Senate district 26, where Democratic incumbent Mary Jo Wilhelm faces Republican incumbent Merlin "build my fence" Bartz, Senate district 46, pitting Republican incumbent Shawn "Go Home" Hamerlinck against challenger Chris Brase, and Senate district 49, an open seat pitting almost-elected 2010 GOP candidate Andrew Naeve against longtime teacher and planning and zoning commissioner Rita Hart on the Democratic side.

Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, who is working hard to preserve his 26-24 edge in the chamber, has chaired the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee since 2007. Republicans failed to recruit a strong candidate against Gronstal in the new Senate district 8, covering Council Bluffs and Carter Lake.

This is an open thread. If you've noticed any interesting direct mail, phone calls, radio or television commercials supporting or attacking Iowa House and Senate candidates, please post a comment here, put up your own diary, or send a message to desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com. Most of the candidates are not uploading their campaign advertising to YouTube. Remember not to hang up the phone when you get calls targeting your local state legislative candidates. Instead, take detailed notes if you can, and don't be afraid to ask the caller to repeat the questions.

UPDATE: Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybak and Democratic Representative Dave Loebsack will be at today's Reichert Oktoberfest in Muscatine supporting state Senate Candidates Brase and Tom Courtney and state House Candidates John Dabeet and Sara Sedlacek.

First look at the Obama and Romney ground games in Iowa

desmoinesdem — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 11:45:00 GMT

At this time four years ago, Barack Obama's campaign had about 30 field offices up and running in Iowa, compared to six offices for Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

Obama's campaign has had eight Iowa field offices open this summer and is rolling out another 26 offices around Iowa this weekend. So far, Mitt Romney's campaign has ten Iowa field offices, in addition to the unified Republican headquarters in Urbandale.

After the jump, I compare the field office locations for each presidential campaign, grouped by Iowa Congressional district. Where relevant, I've also noted competitive Iowa House and Senate districts near the Obama and Romney field offices, although I doubt either presidential campaign will do much for down-ticket Democratic or Republican candidates.
IA-01

The first Congressional district race is a rematch between Democratic incumbent Bruce Braley and Republican challenger Ben Lange, who lost narrowly in 2010. Braley has lived in Waterloo (Black Hawk County) for most of his adult life, while Lange is based in Independence (Buchanan County).

Both the Obama and Romney campaigns have field offices in Dubuque (Dubuque County) and Cedar Rapids (Linn County). Democratic incumbents are unlikely to have trouble in the Dubuque-area Iowa House and Senate races. In Linn County, Senate district 34 should be an easy hold for Democrat Liz Mathis, and there are several potentially competitive Iowa House races, including House district 66 and House district 68. The district 66 race is a rematch between Republican Renee Schulte and the Democrat she defeated in 2008, Art Staed. In district 68 Republican Nick Wagner faces Daniel Lundby. Two of the new Obama field offices are in the Cedar Rapids area: one on the west side of Cedar Rapids (near House district 66), and one in the suburb of Marion (which is part of House district 68).

For some time, the Obama campaign has had a field office in Waterloo. Several competitive statehouse races are in the Waterloo/Cedar Falls metro area: Senate district 30, where Democratic incumbent Jeff Danielson faces Matt Reisetter, a close ally of Bob Vander Plaats; House district 59, where Democrat Bob Kressig faces James Kenyon; and House district 60, where Republican Walt Rogers faces Bob Greenwood.

A new Obama field office is opening in Grinnell (Poweshiek County). During the last decade, this relatively liberal college town helped elect former Democratic State Representative Eric Palmer and retiring Democratic State Senator Tom Rielly. Now Poweshiek County is part of Iowa Senate district 38, where Republican incumbent Tim Kapucian faces Shelley Parbs, and the open House district 76, where Democrat Rachel Bly faces Republican David Maxwell. Representative Braley grew up in the small town of Brooklyn and may have a strong GOTV push for his Congressional campaign in this county.

A new Obama field office is opening in Independence (Buchanan County), where Republican Congressional challenger Lange lives and practices law. Lange's campaign is headquartered in Cedar Rapids, however.

A new Obama field office is opening in Cresco (Howard County), in the northeast part of the state. This county is part of Iowa Senate district 26, expected to be one of the marquee statehouse races. The clash of two incumbents features Democrat Mary Jo Wilhelm and Republican Merlin "Build My Fence" Bartz.

A new Obama field office is opening in Maquoketa (Jackson County). Former Democratic State Representative Tom Schueller is favored to win his Iowa House seat back from GOP incumbent Brian Moore in House district 58, which includes all of Jackson County.

UPDATE: There is also a Marshall County Democratic Party office in Marshalltown, which is handling GOTV for candidates up and down the ticket. Marshall County is part of Iowa Senate district 36, where Democratic incumbent Steve Sodders faces Jane Jech.

IA-02

The second Congressional district race pits Democratic incumbent Dave Loebsack against Republican John Archer. Loebsack relocated to Iowa City (Johnson County) last year after redistricting put his Linn County home in IA-01. Archer lives in the Quad Cities area (Scott County). Loebsack has not represented that county before.

Both the Obama and Romney campaigns have field offices in Iowa City, Davenport (Scott County), and Burlington (Des Moines County). The state House and Senate seats in the Burlington and Iowa City areas should be safe for Democrats, but part of Johnson County is in the open House district 73, where there is no clear favorite between Republican Bobby Kaufmann (son of retiring GOP House Speaker Pro-Tem Jeff Kaufmann) and Democrat Dick Schwab.

Several competitive statehouse races are the Quad Cities area, including Senate district 46, where Republican incumbent Shawn Hamerlinck faces Chris Brase, House district 93, where Democratic incumbent Phyllis Thede faces Mark Nelson, and House district 92, where Republican incumbent Ross Paustian faces former State Senator Frank Wood.

Six of the new Obama field offices opening this weekend are in IA-02, including one in Coralville, a rapidly-growing suburb of Iowa City (Johnson County). Democratic Iowa House incumbent Dave Jacoby is unopposed here.

An Obama field office is opening in Washington (Washington County). There aren't competitive statehouse races here. Republican Sandy Greiner represents this area in the Iowa Senate but is not up for re-election this year. Republican House incumbent Jarad Klein is unopposed in the new district 78.

An Obama field office is opening in Newton (Jasper County). For the last decade, this county was part of IA-03. The Iowa Senate seat that includes most of Jasper County is not on the ballot in 2012. The Newton area is part of House district 15, where Democratic incumbent Dan Kelley has a rematch against his 2010 opponent Gabe Swersie.

An Obama field office is opening in Fort Madison (Lee County). Senate district 42 is open but should be a Democratic hold for Rich Taylor; this part of the state has a Democratic voter registration advantage and a strong organized labor presence.

An Obama field office is opening in Fairfield (Jefferson County). The Iowa Senate seat that covers this area is not on the ballot in 2012. Fairfield is part of House district 82, where Democratic incumbent Curt Hanson faces James Johnson, who nearly defeated a different Democratic State Representative in 2010.

An Obama field office is opening in Oskaloosa (Mahaska County). Republicans are favored to win the local House and Senate races.

It's worth nothing that the Obama campaign does not have an office in Ottumwa (Wapello County). For decades, unionized workers and their relatives produced a lot of votes for Iowa Democrats in the Ottumwa area. Democratic turnout was poor here in 2010, which partly explains why State Senator Keith Kreiman lost by a dozen votes in what had been considered a safe seat. Both Fairfield and Oskaloosa are about a 30-minute drive from Ottumwa. UPDATE: The Iowa Democratic Party's website lists a coordinated GOTV headquarters in Ottumwa.

There is also a Clinton County Democratic Party office in Clinton, which is running GOTV for candidates up and down the ticket. Clinton county is part of the open Senate district 49, where Republican Andrew Naeve faces Democrat Rita Hart.

The Muscatine County Democratic Party has a similar campaign headquarters open in Muscatine. Part of that county is in Senate district 46 and House district 91, where Republican incumbent Mark Lofgren faces John Dabeet. The rest of the county is in House district 88, where Republican Ways and Means Committee Chair Tom Sands faces Sara Sedlacek.

IA-03

In the third Congressional district, Representative Leonard Boswell needs strong Democratic turnout, especially in Polk County, to have a chance against Republican incumbent Tom Latham. Boswell moved his official residence to Des Moines a decade ago because of redistricting. Latham moved from Ames in IA-04 to the Polk County suburbs last year because of redistricting.

Obama's statewide headquarters are on the east side of Des Moines, and four of the 26 new offices opening this weekend are in the Des Moines metro area: in the capital city on Merle Hay Road, in the northern suburb of Ankeny, in the eastern suburb of Altoona, and in the western suburb of Waukee.

The unified Republican victory office is in Urbandale, a suburb of on the west side of Des Moines, and Romney has another office in Waukee.

Polk County doesn't typically have a lot of competitive statehouse races, but redistricting has created more than usual this year. Altoona is part of the open House district 30, where Democrat Joe Riding faces Republican Jim Carley. Waukee is part of Iowa Senate district 22, where incumbent Republican Pat Ward faces Desmund Adams. The eastern half of Senate district 22 is House district 43, where Republican incumbent Chris Hagenow faces Susan Judkins Josten. Urbandale is part of House district 40, an open-seat race pitting Democrat John Forbes against Republican Mike Brown. Part of Ankeny is in House district 38, where incumbent Republican Kevin Koester faces John Phoenix. Johnston and Grimes are in the open House district 39, featuring two 20-something candidates: Democrat Kelsey Clark and Republican Jake Highfill.

Both Romney and Obama have field offices in Council Bluffs (Pottawattamie County). Although Republicans failed to field a strong challenger against Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, a lot of outside money will flow into Senate district 8 because Gronstal has done so much to block the GOP policy agenda. Democrats are looking for a potential pickup in House district 15, where Republican incumbent Mark Brandenburg faces George Yaple. Both the Latham and Boswell campaigns are likely to have a strong GOTV push in Council Bluffs, the largest city in IA-03 outside Polk County.

Four more new Obama field offices are in this Congressional district: Creston (Union County), Perry (Dallas County), Winterset (Madison County), and Indianola (Warren County). Republican statehouse incumbents are favored in most of those areas. There will be a competitive race in the open House district 26 between Democrat Scott Ourth and Republican Steve McCoy. The district covers Indianola and most of Warren County. John Deeth notes that Ourth had a 100 to 1 cash-on-hand advantage according to the latest campaign finance reports. But social conservative activists in Warren County turned out a heck of a lot of votes for Bob Vander Plaats in the 2010 GOP gubernatorial primary and delivered victory in the local Iowa House and Senate districts the same year.

IA-04

The fourth Congressional district spans 39 counties, many of which are new to Republican incumbent Steve King of Kiron (Sac County). Democratic challenger Christie Vilsack grew up in southeast Iowa and lived in the Des Moines area for more than a decade but relocated to Ames (Story County) because of this campaign.

Both the Obama and Romney campaigns have field offices in Sioux City (Woodbury County). Two competitive Iowa House races are in this county. House district 13 is a battle of two first-term House incumbents: Democrat Chris Hall and Republican Jeremy Taylor. In the open House district 14, 2010 Democratic candidate David Dawson faces Republican Greg Grupp.

Romney has a field office in Mason City (Cerro Gordo County). I am surprised that the Obama campaign doesn't have a presence here, but Mason City is not on the list of office openings this weekend. UPDATE: Vilsack's campaign has staff in Mason City, and the Cerro Gordo Democrats have a coordinated campaign office there.

Romney has a field office in Ames. I don't know why the site of Iowa State University isn't on the Obama campaign's list, because college towns were strong vote-producing areas for the president in 2008. UPDATE: Vilsack's campaign is headquartered in Ames, and the Story County Democrats office there is running GOTV for all candidates.

Five of the new Obama field offices are in IA-04: Algona (Kossuth County), Spencer (Clay County), Denison (Crawford County), Iowa Falls (Hardin County), and Boone (Boone County). Competitive statehouse races are thin on the ground in IA-04, but House district 47, containing most of Boone County, will be a hard-fought rematch between Republican State Representative Chip Baltimore and the Democrat he beat by a couple dozen votes in 2010, Donovan Olson.

UPDATE: The Webster County Democrats have a field office in Fort Dodge that is running GOTV in the area.

Weekend open thread: Candidate filing deadline edition

desmoinesdem — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 01:26:59 GMT

I'm posting the weekend thread early, because the filing period for primary election candidates in Iowa closed this afternoon. The Secretary of State's Office posted the full list of candidates here (pdf). John Deeth has been covering the filing on a daily basis all month at his blog. Some highlights from races I'm watching are after the jump.

This is an open thread; all topics welcome.

UPDATE: Gotta agree with Senator Chuck Grassley: the History Channel is useless.
Congressional races

I was dead wrong yesterday. Democratic State Senator Joe Seng managed to collect enough signatures to qualify for the ballot in Iowa's second Congressional district. That means three-term incumbent Dave Loebsack will have to deal with a competitive primary. So the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's robo-poll in IA-02 wasn't a waste of money. UPDATE: Kevin Hall of The Iowa Republican blog says Seng's nominating petitions wound up "at a few GOP county conventions" on March 10. Hall also comments, "I doubt Joe Seng can win, but he can beat up liberal Loebsack in the primary and force him to spend important time and treasure. Or Seng could pull off the upset. Either way, Iowans win."

In 2008, many Democrats in the Iowa legislature savaged former State Representative Ed Fallon for running against Leonard Boswell in the IA-03 primary. Look for Seng to get a pass, because Democrats need him to get 26 votes for any bill in the Iowa Senate.

There weren't any other surprises in the Congressional candidate filings, but I didn't expect Steve King to challenge Christie Vilsack to six debates in the fourth district. The last few cycles, King has refused all invitations to debate his challengers.

In IA-01, Bruce Braley has two Republican challengers: I see on Facebook that Rod Blum is still taking shots at Ben Lange for not having an issues page on his website. Lange hasn't directly criticized Blum, preferring to highlight his campaign organization instead.

In IA-02, only two of the three Republicans who declared a few months ago filed for the ballot: Dan Dolan and John Archer. Both have been campaigning frequently around the district. Archer was the first to go up on radio district-wide. He's also taken a leave of absence from his job to run for Congress full-time.

Iowa Senate races

Democrats have candidates in 21 of the 26 Senate districts that will be on the ballot this November. Republicans have candidates in all 26 races, no matter how hopeless some of those districts look. I give them credit for not leaving any Senate Democrat unchallenged.

I am surprised that Council Bluffs Republicans didn't recruit a stronger candidate to jump in against Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal at the last minute. Surely they could have done better than Al Ringgenberg in the new Senate district 8. I had heard that Governor Terry Branstad was helping make calls to recruit someone else for this race, but if that's true, whoever was courted didn't take the bait. Fortunately for the GOP, they have a lot of other paths to 26 Senate seats.

There will be quite a few contested primaries on the Senate side. In the open district 4, Republicans James Black and Dennis Guth will compete to face Democrat Bob Jennings.

In the open district 6, Republicans Matthew Biede, Adam Schweers, and Mark Segebart will compete to face Democrat Mary Bruner.

In the open district 10, there is no Democratic candidate, so the winner of the GOP primary between Jake Chapman and Matthew Mardesen has a lock on the seat.

The open district 14, now held by retiring former Senate Minority Leader Paul McKinley, will be quite a free-for-all. Three Republicans (Steve Everly, Stephanie Jones, and Amy Sinclair) and two Democrats (Dick Schrad and Jason Demichelis) are running.

I'm looking forward to watching the primary race between State Senator Pat Ward and Jeff Mullen in my home district, Senate 22. The winner will face Desmund Adams, who has been working hard despite the long odds for a Democrat in this suburban seat.

Democrats did find a candidate against Senate Minority Leader Jerry Behn in the new district 24. Shelly Stotts filed yesterday.

Lots of districts are up for grabs in northwest Iowa. Senate district 26 will feature the clash of two incumbents, Republican Merlin Bartz and Democrat Mary Jo Wilhelm.

As expected, Democrat John Beard and Republican Mike Breitbach will contest the open Senate district 28.

Republican Matt Reisetter is challenging Democrat Jeff Danielson in the new Senate district 30. Danielson squeaked by in 2008 by fewer than two dozen votes.

For ages I didn't hear anything about a Republican challenger to Democrat Brian Schoenjahn in district 32, but Elliott Henderson filed for that seat today.

Randi Shannon is the only Republican challenger to Liz Mathis in district 34. Mathis won last November's special election in the old Senate district 18.

As expected, two Republicans, Larry McKibben and Jane Jech, will compete to face Steve Sodders in the new district 36.

Three Democrats are running in the new district 38: LaForest Sherman, Shelley Parbs, and Nick Volk. Republican Tim Kapucian now holds that seat.

In the open district 42, two Republicans are running, Lee Harder and Larry Kruse. The general-election favorite will be the winner of the Democratic primary between Donna Amandus, Bob Morawitz, and Rich Taylor.

Republican Senators Shawn Hamerlinck and Jim Hahn will face off in the district 46 primary; the winner will run against Democrat Chris Brase.

Two Republicans filed in the open district 48: Brian Cook and Dan Zumbach. Cindy Golding, who lost to Liz Mathis in last November's special Senate election, had considered running here but didn't file. State Representative Nate Willems will be the Democratic nominee.

As expected, Democrats Rita Hart and Dorothy O'Brien are running in the new district 49, where Republicans have a strong candidate in Andrew Naeve.

Iowa House races

There will be competitive Republican primaries in 25 House districts. In 11 of those districts someone is challenging a sitting House Republican. Some of those seats are locks for the GOP in the general, others are long-shots. On balance I think it's healthy for a party to have a lot of competitive primaries, but I can't remember seeing so many challenges to incumbents. The bad news for House Speaker Kraig Paulsen is that lots of incumbents in safe Republican seats will spend campaign cash defending themselves in the primary. That means less money for leadership to direct to incumbents or challengers in swing districts.

The most interesting match-up by far will be the battle of House incumbents Annette Sweeney and Pat Grassley in the new district 50. That's widely considered a proxy war between Bruce Rastetter, a childhood friend of Sweeney's, and Senator Chuck Grassley, Pat's grandfather.

Democrats have only five competitive House primaries lined up; that number could shrink if any of the candidates drop out in the near future.

Republican House incumbents who did not file for re-election: House Speaker Pro Tem Jeff Kaufmann, Kim Pearson, Glen Massie, and Dan Rasmussen. I wondered whether Rasmussen might bow out when I saw he had raised almost nothing in 2011 beyond the PAC donations that come automatically to every GOP state representative. Jim Givant will run in district 64, where Rasmussen lives. Kaufmann's son Bobby is the GOP candidate in the new district 73. There will be competitive primaries to replace Pearson in district 30 and Massie in district 26.

I didn't notice any surprise retirements on the Democratic side.

In the new House district 47, former Democratic State Representative Donovan Olson is seeking a rematch with Republican Chip Baltimore, who beat him by a couple dozen votes in 2010. The other rematch will be in the new district 58, where Democrat Tom Schueller is running against surprise 2010 Republican winner Brian Moore.

I didn't notice any obvious recruiting failures for House Republicans. Democrats didn't manage to line up challengers against some GOP incumbents in what should be swing districts. For now Lee Hein is unchallenged in in the new district 96, and so is Steve Olson in the new district 97.

Earlier today, Democrat Becky Perkovich filed in the new House district 48; I wondered whether Republican Rob Bacon would get a free pass there after Rich Olive bowed out of that race.

UPDATE: One of the GOP incumbents being primaried is House Majority Whip Erik Helland, no stranger to scandal and controversy. His challenger Jake Highfill claims Helland offered him a job to get him out of the race. I'm 90 percent sure the Iowa House Ethics Committee will punt, as usual--possibly on the grounds that they have no jurisdiction here. Highfill can still tell his story during the primary campaign, and his version doesn't make Helland look good.

On Dec. 29, Highfill's complaint alleges, he received a phone call and voice message from Helland asking Highfill to call him back. Highfill returned the call about five minutes later, and the two spoke for 28 minutes, according to phone records he provided the Register.
"Mr. Helland made a series of attempts to persuade me not to challenge him in the Republican Primary," Highfill's complaint alleges. "He talked about the money advantage he has, his seniority in the Iowa House, as well as his performance in the previous 2008 primary he was involved in against Al Lorenzen. Included in his attempts to persuade me not to challenge him were promising me multiple jobs, including, being a clerk in the Iowa House and working for a candidate or the Republican Party in the summer and fall. He repeatedly told me that I don't want to challenge him and that I should abandon my campaign and gain experience by working for him and the Republican Party."
Highfill said he did not respond to Helland's offer immediately but sent Helland a text message several hours later reading, "I thank you for the offer but I am going to respectful (sic) decline. If you want me to call you I could later or tomorrow."
Helland, a two-term incumbent who serves as whip for the House's GOP caucus, immediately replied via text, "I have time now."
In the phone conversation that followed, Highfill told the Register, Helland became "forceful," "angry" and "confrontational."
"Mr. Helland was noticeably unhappy with my decision not to accept his offer of employment in exchange of me not challenging him in the primary," Highfill states.
In the complaint, Highfill interprets the offer as a bribe and an attempt to intimidate: Helland was "effectively attempting to appease me through bribery and threatening overtones of his superior position in Iowa Legislature," he writes.
The complaint does not, however, specify exactly what law or ethics rule Highfill believes Helland violated.
Megan Tooker, executive director of the Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board, said she passed the complaint on to the House because its allegations did not violate the sections of Iowa law concerning campaign finance and lobbying, over which the board has jurisdiction.

Bartz confirms re-election bid in Iowa Senate district 26

desmoinesdem — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 19:04:32 GMT

Republican State Senator Merlin Bartz confirmed this week that he will run for re-election in the new Iowa Senate district 26. His race against Democratic incumbent Mary Jo Wilhelm is probably a must-win for Senate Democrats in order to preserve their majority. After the jump I've posted a district map. Bleeding Heartland previewed the Bartz/Wilhelm matchup here.

Bartz has given Iowa progressives plenty of reasons to want him gone, from encouraging county recorders to ignore a Supreme Court ruling to trying to block the most significant water quality regulations of the last decade. Bartz's record is so bad that even learning he "has performed for over 35 years in north and northeast Iowa with various dance bands" didn't give me any sympathy for the guy. Democrats who live within striking distance of Worth, Mitchell, Floyd, Howard, Chickasaw, Cerro Gordo, or Winneshiek counties have a golden volunteer opportunity here.

P.S. to the Des Moines Register's editorial staff: that last link was to William Petroski's blog post. I liked the dance band detail. When you read something interesting on a blog, it won't kill you to link to it. I mention this because your January 15 comment on Bartz's crusade against "obsolete" laws reads a lot like Bleeding Heartland's post from January 10.
The new Senate District 26 includes all of Worth, Mitchell, Floyd, Howard and Chickasaw counties, part of Cerro Gordo County (but not Mason City or Clear Lake) and part of Winneshiek County (but not Decorah).

Merlin "Build my fence" Bartz taking on obsolete laws

desmoinesdem — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 12:35:00 GMT

Republican State Senator Merlin Bartz set the bar high for irony on the opening day of the 2012 legislative session. Bartz sought publicity for a bill he has introduced to remove "frivolous, obsolete, and redundant mandates" from the Iowa Code.

On the one hand, that's a worthwhile effort for the ranking member of the Iowa Senate Local Government Committee. On the other hand, a guy who's using a 19th-century law to force neighbors to pay for half of his new fence might not be the best standard-bearer for this cause.
From a January 9 press release:

Senator Merlin Bartz (R-Grafton) introduced legislation today aimed at cutting through burdensome red tape and creating efficiencies in county and local government.
"The intent of this legislation is to examine all frivolous, obsolete, and redundant mandates in all levels of government and take all necessary action to restructure or eliminate those mandates to make government more efficient," said Bartz, Ranking Member of the Senate Local Government Committee.
The Restructure or Eliminate Frivolous, Obsolete, and Redundant Mandates in Governments Acts or REFORM bill was written after Senator Bartz spearheaded his own, independent effort to identify inefficiencies in local government.

Bartz credited the Iowa State Association of Counties and the Iowa League of Cities with helping draft proposals to "streamline government." The press release contains approving comments from both organizations' executive directors. A recent report by the Iowa State Association of Counties (pdf) listed 1,300 county mandates in the Iowa Code, grouped into 37 categories.

Bartz's bill cites 17 local government mandates to be eliminated. Some of the changes sound logical, such as relieving county attorneys of the obligation to help enforce Iowa's "oleomargarine" food labeling law. (Side note: I don't think I've heard anyone in Iowa refer to "oleo" for at least 20 years.)

Some of the changes sound questionable, such as altering notice requirements for drainage district improvements or National Pollution Discharge Elimination permits. I am seeking further information about the implications of those parts of the bill.

All of the proposals sound ironic in light of Bartz's stubborn demand that his Worth County neighbors pay half the cost of upgrading a fence along the property line. He needs the improvements in order to graze cattle on a certain pasture. His neighbors have appealed the ruling of the local fence viewers. Bleeding Heartland discussed the controversy in detail here. Bartz's neighbors argue that the relevant portion of Iowa Code, adopted more than 150 years ago, is obsolete now that many rural residents do not raise livestock, and livestock farmers often keep their animals in confinement buildings.

Bartz is facing a competitive re-election campaign against Democratic State Senator Mary Jo Wilhelm this year. I'm sure he would love to tell voters that he helped reduce burdensome regulations on cities and counties throughout his district. That would sound more impressive than trying to pressure county recorders not to implement an Iowa Supreme Court ruling, or seeking to block rules that would allow same-sex couples to pitch more than one tent at state-run campsites. Come to think of it, that was one of the most "frivolous" crusades I've seen an Iowa legislator undertake.

UPDATE: If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I guess I should be flattered. From the Sunday Des Moines Register's editorial section on January 15:

A rose to State Sen. Merlin Bartz for proposing to weed out some superfluous and obsolete provisions of the Iowa Code. One example: rules for proper labeling of oleomargarine. The Iowa Code, which has grown to 10,481 pages in six volumes, up from 4,355 pages in three volumes in 1987, could stand to go on a diet. Still, what might strike one legislator as obsolete may be carved in stone to another. For example, it's interesting that Bartz did not propose striking a provision that's been in the code since the 19th century that requires abutting land owners to share the cost of fences. Could it be that's because Bartz used that law to force his neighbors to help pay for a fence he wants to build on the property line?

Iowa Workforce Development offices as a 2012 campaign issue

desmoinesdem — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:00:49 GMT

The state agency Iowa Workforce Development has replaced 36 field offices with hundreds of new "enhanced access" computer terminals this year.

Although the shuttered offices are unlikely ever to reopen, they may live on as talking points in many competitive Iowa House and Senate races next fall.
Iowa Workforce Development officials announced the restructuring plans in February as a way to save money while improving access for unemployed Iowans. Some 500 computer terminals in public libraries, Iowa State University extension offices and other locations will eventually be equipped to allow people to seek help from Iowa Workforce Development staff.

The agency will continue to operate 16 "regional integrated one-stop offices" in Burlington, Carroll, Cedar Rapids, Council Bluffs, Creston, Davenport, Decorah, Des Moines, Dubuque, Fort Dodge, Marshalltown, Mason City, Ottumwa, Sioux City, Spencer and Waterloo. Additionally, Iowa Workforce Development will keep satellite office locations open in Fort Madison, Iowa City and Webster City.

Many state legislators favored keeping all 55 Iowa Workforce Development field offices open. It was one of the highest priorities for Senate Democrats during lengthy negotiations over the state budget. In fact, Teresa Wahlert barely won Senate confirmation as Iowa Workforce Development director because of this controversy. Iowa House Republicans supported funding to keep the field offices open for another year, but Branstad used his line-item veto power to reject that portion of the economic development appropriations bill for fiscal year 2012.

Senate Democrats called for a special legislative session to override Branstad's veto, but House and Senate Republicans rejected that path. During the summer, Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal vowed to try to override the veto during the 2012 legislative session. Republicans are certain to ignore that call.

Several Democratic legislators are co-plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging Branstad's use of his item veto power with respect to Iowa Workforce Development funding. But as the governor pointed out during a recent press conference, it will be a long time before that case works its way through the court system.

Branstad seems unconcerned about any lingering political controversy over his administration's actions. In his view, the restructuring has been a "significant success":

"Our tracking data indicates that services are equal to or greater than what they were available at this time last year. I see this as a significant success and commend Director (Teresa) Wahlert and Iowa Workforce Development for their good work," Branstad said. [...]
In place of the unemployment offices, the state is installing hundreds of kiosk-like computer stations in places like libraries and homeless shelters where Iowans can access online training, assistance in preparing for interviews and other job application services.
Critics contend that what's essentially a self-help computer program is a far cry from personal, one-on-one assistance previously provided to thousands of unemployed workers.
But advocates say the move will prove to be more beneficial to Iowans, saving $6.5 million a year and also enhancing job searches through computer software. [...]
There are now 373 virtual access points with at least one kiosk-like center in each county. Iowans have access to phone or online interaction with state unemployment officials at the sites, which has led to an extension of the number of hours of service, state officials said today.

Wahlert has touted other aspects of the new system:

"We continue to add new things. This is a very evolving technology. One of the things we added just today...is a fifth option for people and it's called, 'I am a student,'" Wahlert says. "And in this fifth option we have things like 'How to find a job', what the requirements are for GED. We are working on a partnership with ACT to add practice testing."
Those practice tests for the ACT and for GEDs will be available in December.
Workforce Development staff are now available from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday and on Saturdays from 10 a.m. 'til 2 p.m. to answer questions from people who go online and seek help with their job search. Wahlert says in the past, Workforce Development offices weren't open past 4:30 p.m. and not every county in the state had an office. Today, there are 370 on-line access points for the Workforce Development computer program.

If 500 computer terminals across the state serve unemployed people well, the Iowa Workforce Development restructuring may be a non-issue next year. Still, I expect to see some Democratic statehouse candidates pointing to vacant storefronts where field offices used to be. The "enhanced access points" could become a symbol of failed Republican governance if they don't function as advertised in numerous locations.

Here's a list of the 36 cities and towns that lost Iowa Workforce Development field offices this year, along with background on the 2012 Iowa House and Senate races in those areas. Scroll to the end of this post for a shorter list of potentially competitive statehouse campaigns in communities that no longer have an Iowa Workforce Development field office.

Algona (Kossuth County)

For the past decade, Algona has been in the old House district 8, where Republican Tom Shaw won an open-seat race in 2010. Iowa's new map of political boundaries put Algona in the new House district 7 (map), represented by first-term Democrat John Wittneben. He won his open-seat race in 2010 by less than three dozen votes. House district 7 has a small Democratic voter registration advantage, but I expect Republicans to mount a strong challenge for this seat. Algona is also part of the new Senate district 4 (map), which has a comfortable Republican voter registration advantage. No Democratic candidate has declared for that race. Former State Senator Jim Black is likely to be the Republican nominee.

Ames (Story County)

Both Iowa House districts in Ames are fairly strong seats for Democrats Beth Wessel-Kroeschell and Lisa Heddens, who decided to move after the redistricting plan put her home outside the north Ames-based district 46 (map). Wessel-Kroeschell lives in the new House district 45 (map). Democratic State Senator Herman Quirmbach is the incumbent in the new Senate district 23 (map), and he won't be on the ballot again until 2014.

Atlantic (Cass County)

Atlantic will be part of the new House district 21 (map) and Senate district 11 (map). Both districts have huge Republican voter registration advantages, and Democrats are unlikely to mount serious challenges to GOP State Representative Jack Drake or State Senator Hubert Houser, assuming both seek re-election.

Boone (Boone County)

Both the House and the Senate race here have potential to be competitive in 2012. First-term Republican Chip Baltimore represents the current House district 48, where he defeated Democratic incumbent Donovan Olson by only a couple dozen votes in 2010. Boone is part of the new House district 47 (map), which has a tiny Democratic registration advantage but a plurality of no-party voters. Olson has not disclosed whether he plans to seek a rematch with Baltimore. No other Democrat has declared for the seat yet. Boone is in the new Senate district 24 (map), represented by Republican Jerry Behn. His new district has only a small voter GOP registration advantage, with a plurality of no-party voters. No Democrat has stepped up to challenge Behn, whose long incumbency and recent election as Iowa Senate Republican leader make him the clear favorite in my opinion.

Centerville (Appanoose County)

Retiring Democrat Kurt Swaim currently represents this area, but the new map of political boundaries puts Appanoose County in House district 80 (map). No incumbent currently lives in the district. Democrat Joe Judge announced his candidacy in May, shortly after the redistricting plan was approved. It's among the most balanced House districts, with roughly equal numbers of registered Democrats, Republicans and no-party voters. To my knowledge, no Republican has entered the race. On the Senate side, Centerville is in the new district 40 (map). Two-term Democratic incumbent Tom Rielly faces a big uphill climb here, and he hasn't represented Appanoose County before.

Charles City (Floyd County)

Charles City is current represented by Republican State Representative Josh Byrnes, who won an open-seat race in 2010. However, in 2012 it will be in the new Iowa House district 52 (map), where six-term Democratic State Representative Brian Quirk is the incumbent. The district leans Democratic in terms of voter registration. When Democrats controlled the Iowa House from 2007 through 2010, Quirk was known as a member of the conservative "six-pack" that opposed organized labor's legislative priorities. Since Republicans won back the Iowa House majority, Quirk has voted with most GOP lawmakers on legislation serving the interests of big ag multiple times. He also voted for a controversial bill to promote nuclear power in Iowa. The more interesting race here is likely to be on the Senate side, because the new Senate district 26 (map) pits two incumbents against each other: Democrat Mary Jo Wilhelm and Republican Merlin Bartz. Both parties are certain to target this race, which Bleeding Heartland previewed here. The district has a Democratic voter registration advantage of about 1,300, and Bartz has drawn some unflattering local press over a fence dispute with neighbors. On the other hand, Bartz has had a much longer career in the Iowa legislature than Wilhelm.

Cherokee (Cherokee County)

Both Iowa House district 3 (map) and Iowa Senate district 2 (map) lean heavily Republican. It will take a lot more than Iowa Workforce Development closing an office to make this part of northwest Iowa politically competitive. State Senator Randy Feenstra should be safe for 2012. Two current Iowa House Republicans, Royd Chambers and Dan Huseman, live in this district; it's not clear whether they will face off in a GOP primary or whether one will retire.

Clarinda (Page County)

Similar story here: the new Iowa House district 24 (map) and Senate district 12 (map) cover parts of southwest Iowa that are safe for Republicans. State Senator Joni Ernst should have no trouble winning re-election. On the House side, the eventual nominee (Cecil Dolecheck or Rich Anderson) should have no problem winning the general election, with or without an Iowa Workforce Development office.

Clinton (Clinton County)

First-term Iowa House Democrat Mary Wolfe represents the Clinton area, which is in the new House district 98 (map). It's a Democratic-leaning district already. Voter registration numbers favor Democrats in Senate district 49 as well (map), but Republicans have a strong announced candidate in Andrew Naeve. No Democrat has declared for that open Senate race. It will be on the ballot despite its odd number, because State Senator Tod Bowman opted to stay in the new Senate district 29 instead.

Denison (Crawford County)

Restructuring of state services for the unemployed is sure to become an issue here, because the Democratic candidate in the new Iowa House district 18 (map) is Kasey Friedrichsen, a former Iowa Workforce Development employee in the Denison office. Her opponent will be two-term Republican State Representative Jason Schultz. He's not my cup of tea, but he has a fairly substantial GOP voter registration edge on his side. Senate district 9 (map) also leans heavily Republican. It may not be on the ballot in 2012, unless current GOP incumbent Senators Nancy Boettger and Jim Seymour decide to face off in a primary. JANUARY 2012 UPDATE: Seymour is retiring, so there will be no election this year in Senate district 9.

Emmetsburg (Palo Alto County)

To my knowledge, there is no Democratic candidate yet in the new Iowa House district 2 (map). The Republican nomination is up for grabs, as no current incumbent lives in this district. There won't be a 2012 campaign in the new Senate district 1 (map), which includes Palo Alto County. Democrat Jack Kibbie's retirement means Republican Senator David Johnson will hold over until 2014.

Estherville (Emmet County)

Like Algona, which I covered above, Estherville is located in the new House district 7, represented by Democrat John Wittneben, and the new Senate district 4, which has no incumbent. Estherville is Wittneben's home base, and he'll need to run up the score here to win in this swing district. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Iowa Workforce Development office closure become a campaign issue for him.

Fairfield (Jefferson County)

Fairfield is located in the new House district 82 (map). Democrat Curt Hanson is the incumbent. Republicans will contest the new district 82 in 2012, because they have a slight voter registration advantage here. However, Hanson has strong local support, having won a 2009 special election and re-election in 2010 in the old House district 90. First-term Republican State Senator Mark Chelgren holds over until 2014 in the new Senate district 41 (map), which includes the Fairfield area. That's lucky for him, because Democrats should win this district back next time it's on the ballot. Chelgren defeated Democratic incumbent Keith Kreiman by only a dozen votes in 2010.

Glenwood (Mills County)

Glenwood is located in the new House district 23 (map), which has no incumbent but should be safe for Republicans, considering their commanding voter registration advantage in the area. The same goes for the new Senate district 12 (map), where Republican Joni Ernst, a 2011 special election winner, should easily be elected to a full term in 2012.

Harlan (Shelby County)

Like Denison, which I discussed above, Harlan is located in the new House district 18 (map). This campaign will pit Republican State Representative Jason Schultz, case law hater and Ron Paul endorser, against Democrat Kasey Friedrichsen, a former Iowa Workforce Development employee in the Denison office. Senate district 9 (map) contains two GOP incumbents, Nancy Boettger and Jim Seymour. If one of them retires, the other holds over until 2014. JANUARY 2012 UPDATE: Seymour announced his retirement; there will be no Senate district 9 election in 2012.

Humboldt (Humboldt County)

A contested Republican primary is likely in the new House district 10 (map). Neither first-term State Representative Tom Shaw nor five-term incumbent Dave Tjepkes lives in Humboldt County. Social issues may dominate the primary campaign. Shaw is more conservative, having been among a handful of House Republicans to back impeaching Iowa Supreme Court justices who concurred in the Varnum v Brien decision. Shaw also has supported bringing "personhood" legislation to the House floor and voted against a late-term abortion ban because it didn't go far enough to restrict abortions in his view. To my knowledge, no Democrat has announced plans to run in the new House district 10, which has a large GOP voter registration advantage. Democratic State Senator Daryl Beall holds over until 2014 in the new Senate district 5 (map), which includes Humboldt County. By then I doubt the Iowa Workforce Development restructuring will be a salient issue.

Iowa Falls (Hardin County)

About half of Hardin County, including Iowa Falls, is in the new House district 50 (map). This will be the site of the premier GOP primary battle of 2012, pitting House Agriculture Committee Chair Annette Sweeney against Economic Growth Committee Chair Pat Grassley, grandson of U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley. My guess is there won't be a Democratic candidate in House district 50, which leans heavily Republican. There also won't be a 2012 election in Iowa Senate district 25 (map), where Iowa Falls is located. First-term Republican Bill Dix didn't get his wish to be Senate minority leader, but he does get to hold over until 2014 thanks to Rob Bacon's decision to run for the Iowa House instead.

Keokuk (Lee County)

Lee County has one of the highest unemployment rates in the state and used to contain two Iowa Workforce Development field offices. The agency decided to keep the other Lee County office open in Fort Madison. Both Keokuk and Fort Madison are located in the new Iowa House district 83 (map). Democratic State Representative Jerry Kearns should have no problem winning re-election in this heavily Democratic area, judging from his comfortable 2010 victory. Senate district 42 (map) lacks an incumbent with the retirement of Democrat Gene Fraise. To my knowledge, no Democrat has announced plans to run for this seat. Republicans have a candidate, Lee County Supervisor Larry Kruse, but the district has what should be a solid Democratic voter registration advantage.

Manchester (Delaware County)

So far Republican State Representative Lee Hein is the only announced candidate in the new House district 96, which includes all of Delaware County (map). The district doesn't have an overwhelming GOP voter registration advantage, but it's not clear whether Democrats can recruit a strong candidate here. The campaign in Senate district 48 (map) should be one of the most competitive statehouse races in 2012. State Representative Nate Willems will be the Democratic nominee and will probably face one of three Republicans running or considering this race: Dan Zumbach, Brian Cook, and Cindy Golding.

Maquoketa (Jackson County)

Democrat Tom Schueller, a Maquoketa native, is trying to return to the Iowa House in the new district 58 (map). He shouldn't need an Iowa Workforce Development office controversy to seal the deal against Republican Brian Moore, who may be the most endangered Iowa House incumbent in 2012. There won't be an Iowa Senate election in the new district 29 (map) next year. Democrat Tod Bowman holds over until 2014, thanks to Senator Tom Hancock's decision to retire.

Mount Pleasant (Henry County)

Republican Dave Heaton has represented the Mount Pleasant area in the Iowa House since the 1994 election. The new map puts Henry County in Iowa House district 84 (map). To my knowledge, no Democrat has announced plans to challenge Heaton, who will be heavily favored even if there is lingering resentment over the demise of the Iowa Workforce Development office. Henry County is part of the new Senate district 42 (map), which I discussed above in the context of Keokuk.

Muscatine (Muscatine County)

Democrats do not yet have a candidate in the new House district 91, which covers the Muscatine area (map). Republican State Representative Mark Lofgren defeated three-term Democratic incumbent Nathan Reichert in the old House district 80 in 2010. FEBRUARY 2012 UPDATE: John Dabeet will be the Democratic candidate in House district 91. The city of Muscatine and nearby areas of Muscatine county also like in the new Senate district 46 (map). That should become one of the most competitive state Senate races of 2012. Democrat Chris Brase will face one of two Republican incumbents: Shawn Hamerlinck or Jim Hahn.

New Hampton (Chickasaw County)

Like the Charles City area, discussed above, New Hampton and the rest of Chickasaw County are in the new House district 52 (map), represented by six-term Democrat Brian Quirk. To my knowledge, no Republican has announced plans to challenge Quirk, who benefits from a Democratic voter registration advantage. Chickasaw County lies in the new Senate district 26 (map), which I discussed above in the context of Charles City. Democratic State Senator Mary Jo Wilhelm has a decent shot here against Republican Senator Merlin Bartz.

Newton (Jasper County)

The optics of closing the Iowa Workforce Development branch in Newton are lousy: unemployment is relatively high in the city that hasn't fully recovered from the Maytag plant closing. On the other hand, Newton isn't far from Marshalltown or Des Moines, which both will retain staffed Iowa Workforce Development offices. Newton lies in the new House district 29 (map), represented by Democrat Dan Kelley. It's a strong Democratic district where no Republican has entered the race, as far as I know. There will be no election next year in the new Senate district 15 (map), which includes Newton and most of Jasper County. Democrat Dennis Black holds over until 2014.

Oelwein (Fayette County)

The Oelwein area lies in the new House district 64 (map), represented by Republican Dan Rasmussen. He narrowly defeated Democratic State Representative Gene Ficken in 2010 in the old House district 23, and the new district 64 leans Democratic in terms of voter registration. I am not aware of any Democrat actively campaigning here yet, but I wouldn't be surprised to see the Iowa Workforce Development controversy pop up during the 2012 campaign. The part of Fayette county that includes Oelwein is in the new Senate district 32 (map). It's almost evenly divided in terms of voter registration, and Democratic incumbent Brian Schoenjahn could face a tough battle in 2012. Schoenjahn is from Arlington, a smaller town in Fayette County. He has no GOP challenger yet, to my knowledge.

Orange City (Sioux County)

Iowa Senate district 2 (map) and Iowa House district 4 (map) are located in one of the most Republican-voting counties in the United States. No amount of fallout over Iowa Workforce Development Offices will threaten State Representative Dwayne Alons or State Senator Randy Feenstra.

Osceola (Clarke County)

Osceola is the largest town in the new House district 27 (map). First-term Republican State Representative Joel Fry lives in Osceola, and his new district has only a slight GOP voter registration advantage. I haven't heard of any Democrat running for this seat yet. Clarke County is part of the new Senate district 14 (map). Neither party has an announced candidate here, as far as I know. Former Republican Senate Minority Leader Paul McKinley decided against running for re-election in 2012.

Oskaloosa (Mahaska County)

Oskaloosa lies in the new House district 79 (map). Republican State Representative Guy Vander Linden lives in Oskaloosa. I doubt any resentment over an Iowa Workforce Development office will create a problem for him, given the large GOP voter registration advantage in this district. Meanwhile, two-term Democrat Tom Rielly is arguably the most endangered Iowa Senate incumbent in 2012, despite having previously served as mayor of Oskaloosa. Registered Republicans outnumber Democrats by nearly 5,000 voters in the new Senate district 40 (map), which includes Oskaloosa.

Pella (Marion County)

Pella has a reputation as one of Iowa's most conservative towns, and it lies in the new House district 79 (map) along with Oskaloosa. Should be smooth sailing here for GOP State Representative Vander Linden and a rough ride for Democrat Rielly in he new Senate district 40 (map)

Perry (Dallas County)

The northwest portion of Dallas County, including Perry, lies in the new House district 20 (map). Republican State Representative Clel Baudler, a national board member of the National Rifle Association, is the incumbent here. He voted against the redistricting plan in the Iowa House but is in a fairly Republican district. I am not aware of any announced Democratic challenger to Baudler. Perry is in the new Senate district 10 (map). No incumbent lives here, but the open-seat race won't be attractive for Democrats given the voter registration numbers.

Pocahontas (Pocahontas County)

Like Humboldt, which I discussed above, Pocahontas is in the new House district 10 (map). Republican incumbents Tom Shaw and Dave Tjepkes appear likely to face off in a primary, and there is no announced Democratic candidate to my knowledge. Democratic State Senator Daryl Beall holds over until 2014 in the new Senate district 5 (map).

Red Oak (Montgomery County)

The northern two-thirds of Montgomery County, including Red Oak, are in the new House district 23 (map). Although the seat is open, it won't be an inviting target for House Democrats given the enormous GOP voter registration advantage. The Republican primary will in effect determine the winner of House district 23 in 2012. All of Montgomery County is the new Senate district 12 (map), where Red Oak resident Joni Ernst won't have any trouble being re-elected in 2012.

Shenandoah (Page County)

Like Clarinda, which I discussed above, Shenandoah is in the overwhelmingly Republican House district 24 (map) and Senate district 12 (map).

Storm Lake (Buena Vista County)

Buena Vista County is part of the new House district 11 (map). Incumbent Republican Gary Worthan lives in Storm Lake and will be able to run for re-election in a district with a strong GOP voter registration advantage. Worthan defeated Democrat Danuta Hutchins by nearly a 3:1 margin in 2010, and he shouldn't have much trouble winning a fourth term in 2012. The new Senate district 6 (map) is open, because current Senate Republican whip Steve Kettering has decided to retire in 2012. The winner of the GOP primary will be heavily favored in the general election, and it's possible that Democrats won't even field a candidate here.

Washington (Washington County)

Most of Washington County, including county seat Washington, is part of the new House district 78 (map). The new map paired two Republican incumbents: first-termer Jarad Klein and long-timer Betty DeBoef. She decided to retire, so Klein doesn't have to deal with a competitive primary. Democrats don't have a candidate yet in House district 78, which has a Republican voter registration advantage. There will not be a 2012 election in the new Senate district 39 (map), which covers the Washington area. Republican Sandy Greiner holds over until 2014, by which time the Iowa Workforce Development restructuring will be a long time past.

Waverly (Bremer County)

Waverly is the largest town the new House district 63 (map). Republican Pat Grassley currently represents Bremer County in the Iowa House, but no incumbent lives in the new district. Longtime Waverly resident Bill Heckroth, a former Democratic state senator, is running for this House seat and has at least one Republican opponent, Sandy Salmon. It should be a hard-fought race; Republicans have a voter registration edge, but the Democrat has a stronger base in the Waverly area. Bremer County is part of the new Senate district 32 (map), which I discussed above in the context of Oelwein. Democrat Brian Schoenjahn is the incumbent.

To sum up, the following potentially competitive Iowa House and Senate districts contain towns where Iowa Workforce Development offices have closed in 2011.

Democratic-held seats

House district 7 (Algona)

House district 52 (Charles City, New Hampton)

House district 80 (Centerville) *no incumbent

House district 82 (Fairfield)

Senate district 26 (Charles City, New Hampton) *Democratic vs Republican incumbent

Senate district 32 (Waverly, Oelwein)

Senate district 49 (Clinton) *no incumbent

Republican-held seats

House district 27 (Osceola)

House district 47 (Boone)

House district 63 (Waverly) *no incumbent

House district 64 (Oelwein)

House district 78 (Washington)

House district 91 (Muscatine)

House district 96 (Manchester)

Senate district 14 *no incumbent

Senate district 26 (Charles City, New Hampton) *Democratic vs Republican incumbent

Senate district 46 (Muscatine)

Senate district 48 (Manchester) *no incumbent

In all of the above districts, I would not be surprised to see Democratic incumbents or challengers criticize the Iowa Workforce Development restructuring, especially if Iowa's unemployment rate doesn't drop significantly during the next year. It's too early to say whether that would be a successful political strategy. It's possible that voters will share Governor Branstad's preference for hundreds of computer terminals instead of a few dozen field offices with part-time hours.

Any comments about the 2012 legislative races are welcome in this thread.

Iowa Senate district 26 preview: Mary Jo Wilhelm vs Merlin Bartz

desmoinesdem — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 13:03:34 GMT

Only one Iowa Senate race in 2012 will pit Republican and Democratic incumbents against each other. First-term Democrat Mary Jo Wilhelm confirmed this week that she will seek re-election in the new Senate district 26. Her likely opponent is four-term Republican Senator Merlin Bartz. Follow me after the jump for a district map and first take on this matchup.

As a bonus, this post also covers the strangest failure to do basic damage control I've seen from a political veteran.
The new Senate District 26 includes all of Worth, Mitchell, Floyd, Howard and Chickasaw counties, part of Cerro Gordo County (but not Mason City or Clear Lake) and part of Winneshiek County (but not Decorah).

That's a lot of ground for candidates to cover. More of it lies in Wilhelm's current district than in Bartz's.

The new Senate district 26 leans slightly Democratic, with 12,775 registered Democrats, 11,468 Republicans, and 16,544 no-party voters as of April 2011. According to the Iowa Secretary of State's Office, no-party voters are a plurality of the electorate in all of the counties that make up the new Senate district 26. Democrats outnumber Republicans in all of those counties except for Mitchell. Wilhelm's path to re-election involves holding her own with no-party voters plus solid Democratic GOTV in a presidential election year, especially in her home county (Howard). Bartz will need to do well with independents and run up the score in Mitchell and his home base of Worth.

Democratic candidates higher up on the ticket may be working hard in the Senate district 26 counties. Christie Vilsack can't beat Republican Representative Steve King in Iowa's new fourth Congressional district without doing extremely well in the counties that lean Democratic and aren't part of King's current district. That list includes Chickasaw, Floyd and Cerro Gordo counties.

Representative Bruce Braley's new Congressional district includes Worth, Mitchell, Howard and Winneshiek Counties, none of which he has represented before. He would be wise to do extensive voter outreach in those portions of the new Senate district 26.

Wilhelm officially announced her re-election bid in this November 15 press release, using similar talking points to Democratic candidates all over the state:

"I am running for re-election to the Senate so that I can continue to create more job opportunities for the people in North Iowa," Wilhelm said. "I will continue to work hard to promote policies that create more high-wage jobs in our local communities, improve public safety, and create more opportunities for family farmers."
State Senator Amanda Ragan of Mason City praised Wilhelm's efforts on behalf of North Iowa families.
"Mary Jo Wilhelm listens to her constituents and works hard at the Capitol to get results and improve the quality of life for middle class families," Ragan said.
Wilhelm pointed to several recent accomplishments by the Legislature, including:
· Providing incentives to boost production of renewable energy, which results in creating jobs in Iowa that won't be exported to another state or country.
· Balancing the state's budget without raising taxes.
· Maintaining basic funding for local public schools and teachers.
· Preserving Iowa's successful voluntary preschool program so tens of thousands of Iowa children can continue to get a jumpstart on their education.
· Holding down tuition costs at our community colleges so workers can get the training they need for 21st century jobs.
Wilhelm is Chair of the Local Government Committee and a serves on the Commerce, Economic Growth/Rebuild Iowa, Education, and Human Resources committees and the Agriculture and Natural Resources Appropriations Subcommittee.
Mary Jo and her husband, Michael, have been married for 28 years. Michael works at the Donaldson Co. factory in Cresco. They have two sons: Ben lives in Iowa City and Alex lives in Cedar Rapids. Mike also has a son, Christopher, who lives in Decorah.
Mary Jo previously served 12 years on the Howard County Board of Supervisors, and she owns and operates a real estate appraisal business. [...]

Bartz hasn't confirmed his plans, but observers in both parties expect him to seek a fifth term in the Iowa Senate. Last week he was re-elected as an assistant Senate minority leader. In contrast, Steve Kettering didn't seek to stay on the Senate GOP leadership team, because he is retiring in 2012.

Bartz is a farmer in Worth County and former chair of the Worth County Republicans. Beginning in 1990, he served for two years in the Iowa House and ten years in the Iowa Senate. Bartz held various positions in the U.S. Department of Agriculture during George W. Bush's administration. He returned to the Iowa Senate in 2008, when a fellow Republican retired from the current Senate district 6.

Bartz is the ranking member on the Senate Local Government Committee, which Wilhelm chairs. He also serves on the Senate Appropriations, Ways and Means and Rules and Administration Committees.

In addition, Bartz serves on the Administrative Rules Review Committee, made up of Iowa House and Senate members. He's a typical example of why I refer to the ARRC as the place "where good rules go to die." This year Bartz was in the majority when the ARRC delayed a proposed ban on lead shot for dove hunting. Last year Bartz spearheaded an unsuccessful effort to ditch the most important Iowa water quality rules adopted in the last decade.

During the spring of 2009, Bartz was one of the Iowa Senate's most outspoken critics of the Iowa Supreme Court's marriage ruling in Varnum v Brien. He used his official Iowa Senate website to promote a petition drive urging county recorders not to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Bartz even tried to amend Iowa law to protect county recorders who refused to issue a particular marriage license "as a matter of conscience."

The persuasion campaign failed to win over any Iowa county recorders, but Bartz has remained "vigilant" (his word) against any state agency rule that extends new benefits to same-sex couples. In May 2010, that meant taking a stand against letting gay couples pitch more than one tent at a campsite.

Whereas Wilhelm rarely grabs the spotlight, Bartz comes across as one of Iowa's more publicity-hungry legislators. Lately his legal dispute with two neighbors has been making news in northern Iowa. His failure to resolve this matter quietly is baffling.

Background: Bartz needs to improve a stretch of fence in order to put livestock on a bit of pasture he owns. According to an Iowa law adopted more than 150 years ago, the owner of the adjacent property is required to pay half the cost of the fence, or erect a fence along half the property border. Bartz's neighbors, Julie and Brent Kuntz, don't want to pay for his improvements. They see no benefit to upgrading the fence, since they are corn and soybean farmers who don't raise livestock. As a matter of principle, they view the law as archaic.

You learn something new every day, and this week I learned that Iowa townships have trustees who act as "fence viewers" in disputes such as this one. The local fence viewers sided with Bartz in early October:

The trustees ruled Bartz and Kuntz each build 350 feet of the 700-foot fence, that the Kuntz portion would have a value of $1,000 and that each party pay $110.50 in costs.
Brent and Julie Kuntz must build the fence within 60 days. They have the right to appeal the ruling to district court within 20 days.

I spoke with Julie Kuntz by telephone on November 16. She confirmed that she and her husband appealed the ruling of the fence viewers and are taking the case to civil court. No judge has been assigned to their case yet. They plan to request a jury trial. Kuntz acknowledged that their chances of winning the case are "slim to none," but they want to make a statement against what she described as an "obsolete" law. I also doubt a court will uphold the Kuntz appeal, but perhaps the publicity associated with this case will prompt efforts to amend the fencing statute.

Kuntz told me that she is a registered Republican and emphasized that she is "not a political person" and not pursuing legal action against Bartz "for political reasons." She added that her family and the Bartz family belong to the same church and have gotten along in the past.

Now we're coming to the damage control failure I mentioned near the top of this post. To my mind, Bartz never should have let this problem become fodder for news stories. Once he learned that the Kuntzes were determined not to pay for half the fence, he should have dropped the matter. His official statement of economic interests (pdf) indicates that he receives income from various sources in addition to his salary as a state senator. Clearly he has the means to upgrade his own fence.

But no, Bartz insisted on making his neighbors pay what he considers their share. He took his case to the fence viewers, generating a round of local media coverage.

Shortly after the trustees weighed in, Julie Kuntz discussed the dispute on Jan Mickelson's popular WHO radio morning program. (I wasn't able to find that podcast on the station's website, because a guest host was filling in for Mickelson that day.) In response, Bartz was a guest on Mickelson's show the following week.

This October 19 podcast has to be heard to be believed. Mickelson had Bartz on for approximately half an hour, and they spent the whole time discussing this fence dispute.

Every time Mickelson went to a break, I would think, now Bartz will change the subject to something more important. He had an opportunity to raise his profile with Mickelson's large, conservative-leaning audience. It would cost a lot of money to buy that much air time on a WHO morning show.

But no, every time they came back from the break, Bartz kept explaining why he was in the right: the fencing law says such and such; good border fences benefit both property owners, not just livestock farmers; the Kuntzes declined our written request to meet; we offered to do this and that, but the Kuntzes refused; we had the laborers scheduled to be on site for such and such a date; the fence viewers agreed with us based on a valid interpretation of Iowa law; on and on.

Apparently Bartz thinks rehashing the details reflects well on him. I suspect that many people will react to the story the same way as the last caller during Mickelson's segment with Bartz (my transcript):

Caller Will: Good morning, Jan. Good morning, senator. I would love to pass on the business expenses of my business along to my neighbors, but [Mickelson cuts off caller, then asks Bartz to respond quickly]
Bartz: Well, the difference between that and this is that this is a property line, and it's not about livestock or a business expense, it's about defining the boundary.

With that, Mickelson thanked Bartz and moved on to the next guest. I wonder how many listeners were thinking what I was thinking: someone should sit this man down and tell him to pay for his own fence. The property line is already marked. Bartz wants a better fence in order to graze livestock nearby.

A novice like Herman Cain isn't supposed to know how to deal with a damaging news story, but Bartz has been around the block a few times. I am stunned that an experienced politician would rather keep talking about this controversy than move on.

Only two possible explanations make sense to me. Perhaps Bartz isn't used to worrying about unflattering media coverage. He was easily re-elected in 1996 and 2000, and he returned to the Iowa Senate in a safe Republican district for the 2008 election.

Alternatively, Bartz may believe this issue plays well in his district. He's a member of several agriculture groups that support current fencing law, such as the cattle producers and the Iowa Farm Bureau. In fact, one caller to Mickelson's show reacted favorably to Bartz's position. That caller told his own tale of woe about rural folk who don't always understand how Iowa fencing law works.

The fence problem may or may not receive another wave of local news coverage next year, depending on when the district court considers the case. Bartz told Mickelson that the Worth County attorney estimates a three-year delay if the Kuntzes insist on a jury trial.

To my knowledge, Wilhelm hasn't commented on Bartz's legal conflict. I wouldn't advise her to do so. She's better off sticking to her own message and making as many direct voter contacts as possible.

Any thoughts about the Senate district 26 race are welcome in this thread.

UPDATE: For those wondering why Iowa Senate Republican leaders didn't tell Bartz to get this story out of the news last month, then Senate Minority Leader Paul McKinley was vacationing out of the country during the first half of October. The other senior GOP senators may have been distracted by Bill Dix's failed leadership challenge and the special election campaign in Iowa Senate district 18.

IA-01: Rod Blum joins Republican field against Braley

desmoinesdem — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 12:25:15 GMT

Dubuque businessman Rod Blum will formally announce today that he is seeking the Republican nomination in the first Congressional district. Blum considered running against Democrat Bruce Braley during the last election cycle, and I suspect he would have had a much better chance of winning the primary and general elections in 2010.
Blum is chairman and CEO of the Digital Canal company, which sells software primarily to contractors, homebuilders, remodelers, and structural engineers. He was raised and educated in Dubuque and has worked for different companies in the area for his entire career. Blum chaired the Dubuque County Republican Party in the mid-1990s and has written occasional opinion columns for the Dubuque Telegraph Herald since 2002.

I sought comment on whether the Telegraph Herald would continue to publish regular commentaries by Blum now that he is a candidate for Congress. Executive Editor Brian Cooper responded that "we won't run his portion of the monthly Double Take feature during his campaign." Blum's final column as the conservative "Double Take" voice will run on Sunday, November 6.

In a video posted on the Telegraph Herald's website on October 21, Blum said he was running for Congress because he believes "we have lost our way as a country" and forgotten principles like "hard work, personal responsibility, accountability, fiscal sanity, things like that." He claimed that polls show 80 percent of Americans do not believe their children will live better than they do. Blum also used a standard conservative talking point about how most Iowans don't spend more from their family budget than they bring in, a message that "for some reason is falling on deaf ears" in Washington. Blum has used the same analogy in his opinion columns.

The truth is that many individuals and families take on substantial long-term debt in the form of a mortgage, car loan, or student loan. Blum also ignores the fact that the federal government's budget plays a different role in the economy than a family's budget. And if you believe as Blum does that government should be run like a business, you need to acknowledge Dean Baker's point that businesses borrow money all the time, and "a corporate board would think a CEO was out of his mind if he came to them and announced that while the company lost money, it had paid off its debt."

But those are arguments for another day. For now I want to focus on Blum's prospects as a candidate. They aren't as bright as they would have been if he had taken the plunge in 2010.

Repeating verbatim his take on Blum from two years ago, Craig Robinson argues today at The Iowa Republican that Blum's conservative columns for the Dubuque newspaper

will be helpful for a couple of reasons. First, having a regular column in the local newspaper helps build credibility and name ID. Secondly, writing a political column means that he has well thought out positions on many of the issues facing our country today, something many first time candidates lack.

Those advantages are less significant than they may appear. First of all, IA-01 now spans 20 counties rather than 12 counties under Iowa's old Congressional map. I don't know how many Republicans in northeast Iowa read the Dubuque Telegraph Herald, but the daily's circulation doesn't reach a majority of district residents or even as large a proportion of IA-01 voters as it did two years ago.

Blum's name recognition in the Dubuque area would have been much more helpful for the 2010 primary campaign. Few Iowans had heard of Ben Lange or the three other candidates who sought the GOP nomination that year. But after Lange nearly defeated Braley in 2010, some Republicans are recruiting him to run again. Even though the new IA-01 contains eleven counties that Lange didn't campaign in two years ago, I would wager that Lange's race against Braley gave him higher name recognition among Republicans district-wide than Blum has from his Dubuque newspaper column.

The other declared Republican candidate in IA-01 is Steve Rathje. He is a business owner in Linn County, the largest by population in the new IA-01. Rathje has run for Congress twice before, so like Lange, he has plenty of experience discussing national policies in media interviews and at public forums. While writing a newspaper column is bound to sharpen a person's communication skills, I think Blum will struggle to convince Republicans that he has a better grasp of the issues than his competitors.

Blum's business connections might have given him a fundraising advantage in the 2010 GOP primary, but now Lange is well-known to Iowa Republican donors. Rathje's campaign had just under $80,000 cash on hand as of September 30. That dwarfs what Lange was able to raise before the June 2010 primary. Two of Lange's primary rivals didn't raise enough money to file Federal Election Commission disclosure reports, and the third, Jim Budde, raised less than $5,000 total.

That's not to say that Blum can't raise the funds to run a strong district-wide primary campaign. But if he does, he won't be the only Republican able to advertise or pay for direct mail.

Blum, Lange and Rathje appear to share many conservative views, so I don't expect a lot of issue contrasts in the primary. I am curious to see whether one opinion column will come back to haunt Blum, though. He recently argued in favor of plans to close many small U.S. post offices:

Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe wants to close unprofitable post offices and move some of their operations into convenience stores and supermarkets; he's targeting 3,500 of the more than 31,000 post offices. Donahoe has said some communities that lose retail locations might get what USPS is calling a Village Post Office -- smaller automated stations or a local vendor that sells stamps and flat-rate boxes.
Local small business owners have expressed interest in performing some postal services in towns that lose their post office. Donahoe proposes eliminating Saturday delivery and reducing headcount by 20 percent over five years through attrition, since the union contract prohibits layoffs. Donahoe is taking prudent actions that occur every day in the private sector when a business is in trouble.
Past reform efforts have been stymied by political pressure to preserve the status quo. U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley has said he will fight the "bad decision" to close any postal facilities in his district. Business as usual is what got us into this mess. Kicking the can down the street is not a solution. The world has changed and the USPS must change with it.
The U.S. Postal Service can survive IF it is allowed to operate like a private-sector business.

I give Blum credit for showing more ideological consistency on this issue than, say, Governor Terry Branstad or Representative Steve King. But regardless of party identification, most people don't like to see post offices closing in their area.

Whoever wins the GOP nomination will probably have a more difficult road in IA-01 during a presidential election year. Voter turnout in Iowa skewed toward the GOP in 2010 (pdf), but more Democrats can be expected to vote in 2012. The new first district contained 169,769 registered Democrats, 135,836 registered Republicans and 190,798 no-party voters as of July 2011. Like Braley's current district, the new IA-01 has a partisan voting index of D+5, meaning that in the last two presidential elections, residents of the district voted about 5 points more Democratic than the country as a whole.

Blum told the Telegraph Herald that any Republican candidate needs to perform well among independents in order to win this district. That's especially true in a presidential year, when many more independents participate. (Just 36.5 percent of registered no-party Iowa voters cast ballots in 2010.) Lange carried first district independents in 2010, so it's not hard to imagine the GOP nominee doing the same next year. But Braley still has to be considered the favorite unless the Iowa Democratic Party's field operation is a total failure.

As Bleeding Heartland discussed here, quite a few Iowa Senate districts that are likely to be competitive in 2012 are located in the new IA-01. Since Democratic control of the Iowa Senate is the main check on Governor Terry Branstad's agenda, Democrats will invest heavily in GOTV across northeast Iowa next fall. Competitive districts that are entirely or partly within the first Congressional district include Senate districts 26, 28, 30, 34, 36 and 48 (view the new Iowa Senate map here).

Share any thoughts about the first Congressional district race in this thread.

UPDATE: James Q. Lynch reported from Blum's press conference today:

The top three issues in the Iowa's 1st District congressional race next year will be "jobs, jobs and jobs," according to Dubuque businessman Rod Blum. [...]
"We're at ground zero," he said Oct. 24 after formally announcing in Dubuque that he will seek the Republican nomination to face three-term Democratic Rep. Bruce Braley of Waterloo. His company's employment has fallen from 45 to less than one-third of that as a result of the housing slump. [...]
If he gets the nomination, Blum said, he will be "running against Bruce Braley and Barack Obama and their policies."
Since President Obama took office, "he and Bruce Braley have racked up $4 trillion in deficits," Blum said in his announcement at a Dubuque hotel. The national debt has grown to $15 trillion - the same as the Gross Domestic Product.
"If we don't start living within our means, Greece's future will be our future," Blum warned.
"When I begged my parents for something, most of the time the answer was 'We can't afford it,'" he said. "I didn't like to hear that answer but my parents knew they couldn't spend more than they made. If my parents, with their 10th grade educations could figure that out, why can't Washington politicians?" [...]
"The older I get the less attention I pay to what people say and more attention to what they actually do," he said. "Quite frankly, people are sick and tired of hearing one thing from politicians on the campaign trail and seeing a different thing once they're in office. And Republicans are just as guilty as Democrats of forgetting whose money they're spending and who they're supposed to be representing."

IA-01: Ben Lange exploring rematch against Braley (updated)

desmoinesdem — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 12:09:00 GMT

Republican Ben Lange will formally announce today that he is exploring a second campaign against three-term incumbent Bruce Braley in Iowa's first Congressional district.
Few people in northeast Iowa had heard of Lange, an attorney and former Congressional staffer, when he announced his 2010 campaign. At the time, IA-01 didn't appear likely to be competitive. Braley outperformed Barack Obama in his district in 2008, winning with more than 64 percent of the vote. Another candidate thought about but decided against challenging Braley in 2010.

I thought Lange was the luckiest challenger in the country when the 501(c)4 group American Future Fund decided to commit big money to taking Braley down. The group's leader Nick Ryan is from northeast Iowa and had run campaigns for Braley's predecessor, Representative Jim Nussle. Between August 2010 and election day, the American Future Fund spent approximately $1.4 million bashing Braley with direct mail, robocalls, television and radio commercials. The outside money left Lange free to run positive advertising with a generic, upbeat message. Lange fell just short.

A map of Iowa's new Congressional districts is at the bottom of his post. The new IA-01 has roughly the same Democratic lean as Braley's current district. Both have a partisan voting index of D+5, meaning that in the last two presidential elections the district voted about 5 points more Democratic than the country as a whole.

There are two big differences. The new district is much larger, containing 20 rather than 12 counties. In addition, the most-populous county from Braley's old district (Scott, including the Quad Cities area) is now in IA-02. Linn County (Cedar Rapids area) is now the largest county in IA-01. That's a great trade for the incumbent; Lange beat Braley in Scott in 2010, whereas Representative Dave Loebsack easily beat Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks in Linn. Heck, Linn gave the edge to Governor Chet Culver even as Terry Branstad carried the state by 10 points.

Speaking to James Q. Lynch yesterday, Lange said

the encouragement from Linn County Republicans has "probably been most instrumental" in taking this step.
Redistricting split off Linn County from the current 2nd District. As a result, Lange said, Linn County Republicans feel "unshackled from Johnson County," a Democratic stronghold.
"They're telling me 'folks believed in you last time when you came from nowhere, no money, no organization, no name ID and you lost by only 2 points. Just imagine what you could do this time around,'" he said.

That's a slap in the face to Linn County business owner Steve Rathje, who's already announced a challenge to Braley. Rathje lost the 2008 GOP primary for U.S. Senate and the 2010 GOP primary for IA-02. Lange will be favored to win next year's IA-01 primary if he goes forward with a 2012 campaign. On the other hand, recruiters for the National Republican Congressional Committee have reportedly spoken with former Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate as well. Pate has a strong base of support in Linn County, and older Republican voters across the district may remember him too. He served one term as secretary of state before running for governor in 1998, losing the GOP nomination.

Assuming Lange is the GOP nominee in IA-01, he will face an uphill battle against Braley. As of July 2011, the new first district contained 169,769 registered Democrats, 135,836 registered Republicans and 190,798 no-party voters. Although Braley has to compete in some unfamiliar counties, his new territory includes Poweshiek, where he grew up. Unless something very unusual happens, Democratic turnout across the district should be higher in a presidential election year than it was in 2010, when voters almost sent Braley packing.

Both parties will be doing heavy GOTV work for down-ticket candidates in IA-01 next year. Click here to view the new Iowa Senate map. IA-01 contains all or part of many districts that are likely to be competitive, such as Senate districts 26, 28, 30, 34, 36 and 48. There are bound to be many close Iowa House races in these areas too, but the battle for control of the Iowa Senate will be the top priority for Democrats and Republicans in 2012.

I take issue with this passage in Lynch's report:

A first-time candidate in 2010, Lange gained national attention when he nearly knocked off Braley. The two-term Democrat outspent Lange by a five-to-one margin to eke out a 48.47 percent to 46.52 percent win. A pair of conservative third-party candidates captured nearly 6,200 votes - more than the 1.95 percent margin that separated Braley and Lange.

True, IA-01 was one of the few races in Iowa where third-party candidates received more votes than the margin between the two main competitors. But it's misleading to say that Braley outspent Lange without mentioning the huge money dropped by the American Future Fund. Braley had some outside support from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and labor-backed groups, but not nearly as much as Ryan's group spent against Braley. I doubt that the pro-Braley spending exceeded the anti-Braley spending in the district.

I expect the American Future Fund to become involved in the IA-01 race again, especially if Lange is the GOP nominee. In July, Lange endorsed presidential candidate Rick Santorum, for whom Nick Ryan is working as a paid consultant.

Any relevant thoughts are welcome in this thread.

UPDATE: Braley was asked about Lange's announcement on Wednesday:

"I have no input into the Republican nominating process that will decide who my opponent will be in 2012," Braley said. "I'm focusing right now on doing my job and getting ready for this important field hearing in Waterloo next week, which is what the voters in the 1st District of Iowa elected me to do."
The field hearing of the U.S. House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity is scheduled for Monday, Oct. 17, beginning at 10 a.m. at the Waterloo Community Schools Education Service Center. The focus will be Veterans Job Creation and Braley intends to hear testimony from both local employers and veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Here's the full text of Lange's campaign announcement:

Over the past several months, I have been humbled by the encouragement from Iowans all across the political spectrum. A question I have been frequently asked is: "Ben, will you consider running for Congress again?"
Today I am answering this question in the affirmative by establishing a 2012 congressional exploratory committee in Iowa's new 1st congressional district. The purpose of this committee is to determine, among other things, whether sufficient numbers of Iowans are willing to invest their time, energy, and resources to finish the job we started last cycle.
My initial decision to run for congress was influenced by the trajectory of our country towards higher unemployment, a shriveling economy, dramatically more federal control over our lives, and the impact this would have on my two (now three) little girls.
I was concerned that the policies advocated by President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Bruce Braley would do little to stem the financial problems we are facing and would instead cause sustained harm to our economic future and our way of life. Mounting evidence suggests my original concerns were well-founded and nothing has changed my belief that Iowans deserve better.
My decision to establish an exploratory committee should indicate to Iowans of all stripes that my family and I are again willing to make the sacrifices in our personal and professional lives to finish the job we started last cycle, but I am going to need your help.
Removing entrenched politicians is never easy. And over the next several weeks, I will be making a determination of whether the people of Iowa are serious about the 1st congressional district and whether they are willing to invest sufficient resources to win in 2012.
To demonstrate your commitment to this race, please visit www.langeforcongress.com and make a contribution of $20.12 to show your support. We have unfinished business in Iowa's 1st congressional district and, together, I believe we could send Bruce Braley home for good.