Ten years ago, President George W. Bush made the disastrous mistake of taking this country to war against Iraq. I’ve posted some links about the costs and casualties of war after the jump.

Any relevant thoughts are welcome in this thread. I appreciate the work and commitment of those who tried to derail the speeding train toward invasion, and of those who protested the war after it began. I did nothing to stop the war in Iraq–just sat in a rocking chair cradling a new baby, feeling horrified while watching the news on television.

Former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum will be the main speaker at a pro-life lunch event in Des Moines on April 15, WHO-TV’s Dave Price reported today. Price notes that Santorum “is the national spokesman for the John Paul II Medical Research Institute in Iowa City led by Kim Lehman, the former Republican National Committeewoman and Santorum 2012 backer.” Lehman’s group advocates for adult stem cell research only, rather than fetal stem cell research.

In other 2016 presidential contender news, Republican Party of Iowa Chair A.J. Spiker announced today that U.S. Senator Rand Paul will headline the Iowa GOP’s Lincoln Day Dinner in Cedar Rapids on May 10. Paul just won the straw poll at the annual CPAC conference, a major event for conservative activists from around the country.

Supporters of Ron Paul’s presidential campaign are strongly represented on the Iowa GOP’s State Central Committee and in the party’s four district committees. However, attempts by “Paulinistas” to win leadership posts in the Scott County and Polk County Republican Party recently failed.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has agreed to headline the Polk County Republican Party’s spring fundraiser on May 23.

Any comments related to the next presidential campaign are welcome in this thread. I had to laugh when U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell hinted with a joke that Hillary Clinton is too old to run for president. She will celebrate her 68th birthday in 2016. Mitt Romney just turned 66. Senator John McCain was 71 when he became the GOP’s presidential nominee in 2008.

The Republican National Committee released a so-called “autopsy” on the 2012 election results today. You can read the full report on the “Growth and Opportunity Project” here. I’ve posted a few excerpts, links and thoughts after the jump.

Any comments about the GOP’s rebuilding and rebranding effort are welcome in this thread.

Anyone who follows the Iowa legislature has frequent occasion to wonder how someone that ignorant got elected to the Iowa House or Senate. But every once in a while, a spectacularly clueless act grabs our attention. Last week a little-known first-term state representative made himself a contender for the title of Iowa’s most clueless lawmaker.

UPDATE: Not so fast–see today’s news, added at the end of this post.

On Friday the U.S. House approved a bill that would reorganize nearly three dozen federal job training programs into one fund providing job training money to states. Iowa’s four representatives split on party lines.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to Bleeding Heartland readers who celebrate the occasion. This is an open thread; all topics are welcome. For a laugh, enjoy The Onion’s recent write-up of Iowa fashion week: “The big themes this season are ‘roomy,’ ‘loose,’ and ‘comfortable.'”

After the jump I’ve posted a few links about health and happiness, including details from Gallup’s 2012 report on well-being in the United States. Iowa ranked ninth on the “Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index” but was not one of the “elite five states” that have shown consistently high levels of resident well-being over five years.

Yesterday Rob Portman of Ohio became the first sitting Republican U.S. senator to endorse marriage equality. In a guest editorial for the Columbus Post-Dispatch, Portman explained that he reconsidered his opinion on gay marriage after his son came out of the closet.

As a rule, I welcome any public support for marriage equality from Republican ranks. It’s nice to see a current elected official join the long list of campaign professionals and former GOP office-holders who support civil marriage rights. Still, something about Portman’s comments yesterday rubbed me the wrong way.

Iowa Senate Democrats offered Governor Terry Branstad a compromise this week to address his concerns that the federal government will not keep its promises to fund the Medicaid expansion provided under the 2010 health care reform law. Follow me after the jump for details on their latest offer and a cost comparison of Medicaid expansion and Branstad’s “Healthy Iowa Plan.”

March 14 is the International Day of Action for Rivers. These stories about water pollution and the economic potential of healthy rivers are worth a read.

Contrary to what agribusiness industry lobbyists would have you believe, a majority of Iowa farmers “support expanding conservation requirements for soil erosion and the control of nitrogen and phosphorous runoff.”

Iowa’s confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs or factory livestock farms) create more untreated manure annually than the total sewage output of the U.S. population.

Aging sewer systems in urban areas also allow too much sewage to leak into watersheds. The I-JOBS infrastructure bonding initiative (signed into law by Governor Chet Culver) included some money to improve sewer systems in Iowa, but we need to do much more on this front.

Iowa Rivers Revival Executive Director Rosalyn Lehman recently published a call to revive Iowa’s rivers in the Des Moines Register. I’ve posted excerpts from her guest editorial after the jump.

The Metro Waste Authority has created an Adopt a Stream website, with “resources to help you organize a stream cleanup in the Greater Des Moines area.”

Dam removal as part of a river restoration project supports local economic activity as well as the environment.

It’s been a while since I posted about the 2016 Iowa caucus campaign. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker agreed to headline the Polk County Republican Party’s spring fundraiser in May. According to Kevin Hall’s report for The Iowa Republican blog, Governor Terry Branstad helped make arrangements for Walker’s appearance. Like Branstad and unlike eight other GOP governors around the country, Walker opted against taking federal funding to expand Medicaid in his state.

Hall reports that retired insurance executive Cameron Sutton “played a key role in securing Scott Walker’s appearance” as well. Sutton was one of seven Iowa Republican donors from the business community who flew to New Jersey in May 2011 to urge Governor Chris Christie to run for president. (Christie’s star has fallen in Republican circles since he praised President Barack Obama’s handling of Hurricane Sandy and later agreed to expand Medicaid in New Jersey.) Sutton endorsed Newt Gingrich for president before the Iowa caucuses but wasn’t pleased with the way Gingrich bashed Mitt Romney during the GOP primaries.

Any comments about the next presidential campaign are welcome in this thread.

Yesterday the U.S. House approved a bill seeking to prevent the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from allowing states to lift work requirements for federal welfare benefits. Republican arguments for the bill echoed false claims from Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign.  

Iowa’s largest labor union, AFSCME Iowa Council 61, announced its endorsement of Representative Bruce Braley for U.S. Senate yesterday. A press release from the Braley campaign noted that two other labor unions have previously announced their support: Iowa State Council of Machinists and the Great Plains Laborers’ District Council. As a member of Congress, Braley has a strong voting record on labor rights, as does retiring Senator Tom Harkin.

Endorsements this early in the cycle are another sign that Braley will not face real competition for the Democratic nomination next year. During Iowa Democrats’ last hard-fought statewide primary, the larger labor unions endorsed either Mike Blouin or Chet Culver for governor only a few months before the 2006 primary.

UPDATE: The non-profit, non-partisan advocacy group Council for a Livable World endorsed Braley for Senate on March 14. I’ve added their press release and some background after the jump.

SECOND UPDATE: Service Employees International Union Iowa – Local 199 endorsed Braley for Senate on March 15. A press release from the campaign comments, “SEIU Local 199 represents over 5,000 nurses, school employees, childcare workers, and county employees across the state of Iowa.”

White smoke rose from the Vatican today after the cardinals selected Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, Argentina to be the next pope. He will be known as Pope Francis I. CORRECTION: He will be known as Pope Francis. According to John Allen Jr. of the National Catholic Reporter, Bergoglio was the “runner-up” to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger during the last papal conclave in 2005. More excerpts from Allen’s profile of the new pope are after the jump. Bergoglio was not considered a leading contender; one Irish betting site had the odds on his becoming pope at 25/1. On the other hand, he was one of the leading Latino contenders. Pope Francis I will be the first non-European pontiff. Last month Senator Tom Harkin said it would be a “great move in the right direction” for the cardinals to select a Latino pope. UPDATE: Added comments from Iowa bishops and Democratic State Representative Bruce Bearinger’s speech about the new pope on the Iowa House floor today.

SECOND UPDATE: Added Representative Bruce Braley’s comments on the new pope.

President Barack Obama has not announced any new cabinet appointments in the last few days, but Thomas Perez, currently head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, is rumored to be the next secretary of labor. He would face strong opposition from Senate Republicans, including Iowa’s Chuck Grassley.

Susan Rice, who withdrew her nomination for secretary of state late last year, may become the president’s next national security adviser.

Congressional Black Caucus Chair Marcia Fudge wrote to the president this week, expressing concern that none of Obama’s new cabinet appointees are African American.

Attorney General Eric Holder, appointed in Obama’s first term, remains the Obama administration’s only black Cabinet-level appointee. According to a Politics365 analysis released last week, that’s the fewest by any president over the last 38 years.

This is an open thread.

Governor Terry Branstad traveled to Fort Madison yesterday to discuss a fertilizer plant project involving the largest tax incentive package in Iowa history. Previewing a likely theme of his re-election campaign next year, Branstad spun questions over his administration’s handling of the Orascom deal into an attack on Iowa Senate Democrats and the Koch brothers.

U.S. House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan presented his new federal budget blueprint today. As before, he would end Medicare as a single-payer system for all Americans under age 55, slash spending on programs for the poor such as food stamps and Medicaid, and cut taxes for some, though the details there are fuzzy. He would not cut the defense budget or Social Security. Ryan says his budget would be balanced in 10 years, but he relies on some assumptions that won’t happen, such as repeal of the 2010 health care reform law.

I’ve enclosed Iowa political reaction to the Ryan budget below and will update this post as needed.

Expanding Medicaid in Iowa would add nearly $2.2 billion to the state’s economy, create an estimated 2,362 jobs, and save state government about $1.6 billion, according to a new study. For now, Governor Terry Branstad is sticking to his alternative plan for covering some low-income Iowans, but Senator Tom Harkin predicted last week that federal officials will not approve a waiver for Branstad’s approach.

Follow me after the jump for details on those stories and more about Medicaid in Iowa. I’ve also enclosed a moving personal statement State Senator Mary Jo Wilhelm delivered today about Iowans who can’t afford health insurance.

Yesterday the Iowa Senate unanimously confirmed eleven of Governor Terry Branstad’s appointees. You can find the full list of confirmations in the Senate Journal (pdf). The department or agency heads confirmed were:

Chuck Gipp, who has been serving as director of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources since last May, shortly after his predecessor resigned;

Steve Lukan, whom Branstad hired to run the governor’s Office of Drug Control Policy last June;

Nick Gerhart, who replaced Susan Voss as state insurance commissioner at the end of 2012;

Robert von Wolffradt, whom Branstad appointed as Iowa’s chief information officer last May.

Seven of the nominees senators confirmed yesterday will serve on state boards, councils, or commissions, including Joanne Stockdale, a former chair of the Iowa Association of Business and Industry who is one of Branstad’s appointees to the Environmental Protection Commission.

Iowa received a mediocre “C” grade on the Sunlight Foundation‘s new Open Legislative Data Report Card, designed to compare “how state legislatures make their data publicly available.”  

State Senator Brad Zaun announced today that he will not run for the open U.S. Senate seat in 2014 (hat tip to WHO-TV’s Dave Price).

During 2011 and 2012, the Iowa Senate was our state’s firewall against the social conservative agenda. The Republican-controlled Iowa House passed a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, sweeping limits on abortion rights (twice), a “stand your ground” bill and a constitutional amendment that would invalidate virtually all restrictions on guns. All of those bills died in the Democratic-controlled state Senate.

Social issues have never been a priority for Iowa House leaders. They blocked a floor vote on a “personhood” bill in 2011 and steered clear of extremist crusades like impeaching Iowa Supreme Court justices and replacing gun permit laws with “constitutional carry.” Still, I expected House Republicans to cover the usual bases during this year’s legislative session.

Instead, almost every high-profile bill on so-called family values failed to win House committee approval and therefore died in the legislature’s first funnel deadline last Friday. That includes some mainstream conservative efforts as well as freak show bills like ending no-fault divorce or barring county recorders from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Most amazing to me, House Republicans no longer have the votes to pass a constitutional amendment restricting marriage to one man and one woman.  

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? The Bureau of Labor Statistics released a better than expected jobs report on Friday, but not all the numbers were encouraging. States have continued to cut jobs even after the end of the “Great Recession,” and the “sequester” federal budget cuts will lead to more public-sector job losses later this year. Disappearing state government jobs are a drag on the national economy.

Surprise, surprise: the Iowa Chamber Alliance thinks shoveling more taxpayer dollars to large corporations is the best way to create jobs. The Iowa Policy Project disagrees and points out that Iowa is already writing large subsidy checks to some companies that paid no income tax in 2012. UPDATE: Forgot to mention that Iowa just agreed to give the Principal Financial Group $22.5 million in tax credits for its $285 million renovation plan in downtown Des Moines. Why should Iowa taxpayers underwrite office remodeling for a profitable company? That’s part of the cost of doing business.

Conservatives who think high tax rates can’t coexist with economic prosperity should explain why “the average Canadian household is now richer than an average American household for the first time ever.” My guess is the answer is related to Canada’s efficient, single-payer health care system (no medical bankruptcies or huge out of pocket costs because of health problems).

Senator Tom Harkin has introduced a bill to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 over three years before “before indexing it to keep up with the rising cost of living.” Indexing the minimum wage to inflation should have happened a long time ago.

This is an open thread.

Senator Chuck Grassley doesn’t plan to endorse a candidate in the Republican primary for Iowa’s open U.S. Senate seat next year, he told John Stanton of BuzzFeed.com this week. He has a favored candidate in mind, but plans to keep that view to himself:

Despite his role as the elder statesman of the party, Grassley said he’s not getting seriously involved in the primary: though he has spoken to one candidate. “I said to him, ‘You’re the only one I’m going to encourage to run, I’m not going to tell anyone they shouldn’t run.’ Because everyone I’ve heard talked about is a viable candidate … that’s as far as I’m going to go.

Grassley was wise not to discount Representative Steve King’s prospects; respect from elder statesmen like him and Governor Terry Branstad will make it easier for King to bow out of the Senate race without looking chicken.

I would guess that Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey is the person Grassley has encouraged to run for Senate. Northey is thinking about the race, but I suspect that his past support for a gasoline tax would become a problem in a GOP primary.

Any comments about the Senate race are welcome in this thread. UPDATE: Bret Hayworth of the Sioux City Journal has been covering King for some time. He believes that King is more likely than not to run for Senate.

SECOND UPDATE: Iowa GOP Chair A.J. Spiker confirmed that he is thinking about running for Senate. Good luck with that. The Ron Paul machine is well-organized but probably not large enough to deliver victory in a statewide primary.

The U.S. Senate confirmed John Brennan yesterday as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. A cloture motion on Brennan’s nomination passed by 81 votes to 16. Senator Tom Harkin voted yes, as did all the Senate Democrats and most Republicans. Senator Chuck Grassley was one of the 16 Republicans who attempted to block Brennan’s nomination from coming to a vote. Senators then confirmed Brennan by 63 votes to 34. Again, Harkin voted yes, like all but two members of the Senate Democratic caucus. Grassley voted no, as did most of the Senate Republicans. I am disappointed but not surprised that most of the Senate Democrats went along with one of President Barack Obama’s worst cabinet appointments. If a Republican president had nominated someone with Brennan’s record on civil liberties, Democratic senators would have raised more serious questions.

I will update this post if I see any public comments from Harkin or Grassley on the Brennan confirmation vote.

Earlier this week, Grassley and 40 other Republicans successfully filibustered the nomination of Caitlin Joan Halligan to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Senate Republicans previously filibustered her nomination in 2011; President Barack Obama renominated her for the same position. Halligan is highly qualified, having argued many cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, but the National Rifle Association has lobbied Senate Republicans to oppose her. Grassley has not released any comment explaining his vote against cloture (ending debate) on Halligan’s nomination. After the jump I’ve posted a statement from the Iowa Fair Courts Coalition.

MARCH 22 UPDATE: President Obama withdrew Halligan’s nomination, saying she had requested that action. In a written statement, the president commented, “This unjustified filibuster obstructed the majority of Senators from expressing their support. I am confident that with Caitlin’s impressive qualifications and reputation, she would have served with distinction.”

Governor Terry Branstad did not succeed in changing the health insurance benefits available to most of the 20,000 state employees covered by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). However, the governor managed to block across-the-board salary increases for state workers during the next two fiscal years.  

Yesterday the U.S. House approved a bill to fund the federal government through the remainder of the current fiscal year. Dave Loebsack (IA-02) was one of 53 House Democrats to vote for the spending bill, along with most of the Republican caucus. Follow me after the jump for details and the latest sleight of hand by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky delayed Senate business yesterday by launching a filibuster that lasted nearly 13 hours. The ninth-longest filibuster in Senate history and the longest since 1992 focused on the president’s power to order an American citizen killed on U.S. soil. Paul managed to delay a planned confirmation vote on President Barack Obama’s nominee for CIA director, John Brennan. Senators are likely to confirm Brennan today, but Paul’s tactic served two longtime historical purposes of the filibuster: slow down Senate business and call attention to an issue of national importance. To my knowledge, the last lengthy filibuster of this kind happened when Bernie Sanders talked for more than eight hours against the December 2010 deal to extend most Bush tax cuts.

Eight other senators joined Paul’s filibuster yesterday: seven Republicans and Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon. Iowa’s GOP Senator Chuck Grassley did not take part.

In related news, some Senate Democrats are warning that the majority may revisit filibuster reform because Republicans continue to demand a 60-vote majority for almost any kind of Senate business. That was entirely foreseeable. But Democrats missed their best chance to change the rules at the beginning of this year’s Congress. They should have listened to Senator Tom Harkin, who has been trying for years to curtail the abuse of the filibuster.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

Jennifer Jacobs’ latest piece speculating on GOP candidates for Iowa’s U.S. Senate seat includes a classic comment from former Mitt Romney strategist and marriage equality supporter David Kochel: “When I hear names like Steve Deace and Bob Vander Plaats for Senate, it reminds me of the bar scene in ‘Star Wars.'”

Jacobs also mentioned one name I hadn’t heard before in this context: State Senator Mark Chelgren. He is up for re-election in the Democratic-leaning Ottumwa area next year, so he would have to give up his Iowa Senate seat in order to seek the GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate.

This week an anonymous group calling itself “Iowa Republicans for Truth” declared war against The Iowa Republican blog and its publisher, Craig Robinson. More details are after the jump. I enjoyed the Iowa .Gif-t Shop’s take on the kerfuffle.

UPDATE: In the comments, Bleeding Heartland user conservative demo mentioned Ed Tibbetts’ piece for the Quad-City Times on the battle brewing inside the Scott County Republican Party. I’ve added excerpts below.  

State Senator Steve Sodders will “take a serious look” at running for the first Congressional district seat Bruce Braley is vacating. Speaking by telephone yesterday, Sodders said he is in the “very exploratory” phase, talking with different groups and individuals. He currently has no deadline for announcing his plans, but he expects to decide sometime before this summer whether to run in next year’s Democratic primary.

Marshall County Deputy Sheriff Sodders was first elected to the Iowa Senate in 2008. He was just re-elected to a four-year term in Senate district 36, covering Marshall and Tama counties and a small area in Black Hawk County. Consequently, he would not need to give up his Senate seat to run for Congress. In addition to serving as Senate president pro-tem, Sodders chairs the Economic Growth Committee. I’ve posted his official bio after the jump.

So far State Representative Pat Murphy is the only declared Democratic candidate in the first Congressional district, and Cedar Rapids businessman Steve Rathje is the only declared Republican.

I continue to believe that Iowa Democrats should nominate a woman for this very winnable seat–preferably someone other than the woman who just voted herself a 25 percent raise. I wish Senate President Pam Jochum had not taken herself out of the running so early.

Any relevant comments are welcome in this thread. The latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office indicate that the 20 counties in IA-01 contain 165,428 active registered Democrats, 137,943 Republicans, and 193,674 no-party voters.

UPDATE: Sodders posted on Facebook on March 11, “Headed to Wash DC next week to talk to several groups and individuals about District 1.” At the end of this post I’ve added more recent comments from Sodders.

Ever hear that Republicans are more reliable voters in bad weather? The same day a snowstorm closed most schools in the Iowa City area, Republicans appear to have won their first seat on the Johnson County supervisors since 1962. With 57 of 58 precincts reporting, GOP candidate John Etheredge had 3,040 votes, while Democrat Terry Dahms had 2,931 votes. The only precinct left to report had just 82 voters as of 6 pm. UPDATE: With all precincts in, Etheredge leads Dahms by 3,102 votes to 2,974 votes. In a low-turnout election like this one, I doubt there will be enough late-arriving absentee ballots to overcome that margin (narrow as it is).

A Republican won a few Johnson County elections for sheriff in the 1970s and 1980s, but the last GOP supervisor in the “people’s republic” finished his term in 1962. Iowa City-based blogger John Deeth tried to warn local Democrats to vote early in case of a snowstorm. But early voting was low, and total turnout was a pathetic 6.65 percent.

Today’s special election fills the vacancy created when Democrat Sally Stutsman won Iowa House district 77 last November.

UPDATE: Deeth comments on how Johnson County Democrats fell asleep at the switch: “Blame the weather? Maybe. But that doesn’t explain the much lower early vote total. We saw that coming two weeks out. It doesn’t explain Dahms’ narrower early vote margin, which should have been 3 to 1 rather than 60-40.”

Linn County voters have strongly endorsed a plan to build a casino in the middle of Cedar Rapids. With almost all precincts reporting, “yes” leads “no” by 36,076 votes to 22,763 (61 percent to 39 percent). The referendum does not guarantee that the project will move forward. In 2010, the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission rejected applications for new casinos in Fort Dodge, Ottumwa and Tama County despite public support. Commissioners determined that those projects would primarily draw business away from Iowa’s existing casinos. On the other hand, Governor Terry Branstad has close ties to key figures supporting the Cedar Rapids project and has appointed several new members of the Racing and Gaming Commission.

Owners of casinos in Riverside and Waterloo bankrolled the “no” campaign in Linn County. Critics slammed them for profiting from Iowa bettors while paying for warnings about the potential social costs of gambling in Cedar Rapids. Dan Kehl, CEO of the Riverside casino, attempted a hail-Mary pass last Friday, promising to build a family-friendly water park in central Cedar Rapids if voters rejected the casino. In my opinion, Kehl’s hypocrisy and desperation do not invalidate the strong arguments against casinos as economic development projects. But the Linn County voters have spoken.

I don’t cover many science topics here, but this story fascinated me. Scientists have recently confirmed that an “asteroid as big as a city block” created a crater more than three miles wide under what is now Decorah, Iowa. This anomaly would be only the 184th confirmed impact crater on earth, according to an excellent piece by Brian Vastag for the Washington Post.  Bevan French, an adjunct scientist at the National Museum of Natural History, announced the discovery last month. His research built on the work of geologists from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources began several years ago. Aerial surveys conducted this year provided more evidence of the meteor crater, Science Daily reported today.

Scientists estimate that the meteor smashed into what is now northeast Iowa approximately 470 million years ago, during the Ordovician geologic period. That’s way before the age of dinosaurs–in fact, before any amphibians, bony fish, or reptiles appeared on earth. Quite a few meteors hit earth around this time, probably asteroid fragments created by a “massive collision in the asteroid belt beyond Mars.”

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee released its new “Frontline” list of vulnerable U.S. House incumbents going into the 2014 election cycle. Four-term Representative Dave Loebsack is not on the list. The DCCC put Loebsack on the Frontline in early 2012, presumably because of redistricting. Iowa’s new political map removed Linn County from the second Congressional district and added Scott County, among others.

The DCCC did not end up buying television or radio advertising in IA-02 during the 2012 campaign. Despite a significant investment by the National Republican Congressional Committee in the district, Loebsack easily defeated GOP challenger John Archer and even carried Archer’s home base of Scott County.

The Frontline list doesn’t always predict which House races will be competitive. Going into the 2010 election cycle, Representative Leonard Boswell was the only Iowan on the DCCC’s list. That year, the committee ended up spending money to defend both Loebsack in IA-02 and Representative Bruce Braley in IA-01, both of whom were re-elected by narrower margins than Boswell.

The National Republican Congressional Committee has put both Democratic-held districts in Iowa on its long list of targets for 2014. The latest voter registration totals show that there are about 27,500 more registered Democrats than Republicans in IA-01, and nearly 34,000 more Democrats than Republicans in IA-02. No-party voters have a plurality in both Congressional districts.

President Barack Obama announced two new cabinet appointments yesterday: Ernest Moniz as secretary of Energy and Gina McCarthy as Environmental Protection Agency administrator. Bleeding Heartland posted background on Moniz and McCarthy here; I’ve added more information after the jump.

McCarthy has served as the EPA’s top air quality official since 2009. Because she is well-qualified for the position and committed to making the country’s air cleaner, environmentalists are excited about this choice. I hope that Obama is not merely “promoting a climate change champion” to soften the blow when he approves the KeystoneXL pipeline. The State Department’s draft report on KeystoneXL whitewashed the impact that project would have on the environment.  

Also yesterday, Obama formally nominated Sylvia Matthews Burwell to be the new director of the Office of Management and Budget. The White House announcement notes, “She served as Deputy Director of the OMB from 1998 to 2001, as well as Deputy Chief of Staff to the President and Chief of Staff to the Secretary of the Treasury during the Clinton administration.” UPDATE: I should have added that Burwell is a former president of the Gates Foundation’s Global Development Program, and that her most recent job was running the Wal-Mart Foundation.

The president has not yet announced his picks to run the departments of Labor, Transportation, or Commerce.

Democratic State Senator Tom Courtney is recovering from successful heart surgery performed last Thursday, the Des Moines Register’s William Petroski reported today. Courtney chairs the Iowa Senate Budget Subcommittee on Justice Systems and serves on several other committees. I’m sure the whole Bleeding Heartland community joins me in wishing him a speedy recovery.

While Courtney is recuperating, Democrats lack the 26th vote they need to pass controversial legislation in the Iowa Senate. However, Courtney’s absence should not be too disruptive as long as he is able to return by April 5. That is the second “funnel” deadline, by which time most non-appropriations bills need to be approved by one chamber and by a committee in the other chamber in order to stay alive. The first “funnel” approaches this Friday, March 8. Most bills that have not cleared at least one committee in one chamber by that date will be dead for the 2013 legislative session. But bills need not be approved by the full Iowa Senate to make it through the first funnel.

MARCH 11 UPDATE: Courtney told the Des Moines Register that he plans to return to the Iowa Senate this week.

Governor Terry Branstad announced his administration’s alternative to Medicaid expansion this morning at his regular weekly press conference. The “Healthy Iowa Plan” would cover approximately 89,000 Iowans with income below the federal poverty level. In contrast, Medicaid expansion would cover up to 150,000 Iowans with income below 133 percent of the poverty level.

Details on the new plan are after the jump. Early reaction from Senate President Pam Jochum suggests that the Iowa Senate will not be inclined to approve this proposal. I also question whether the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will grant a waiver for Branstad’s plan. Federal officials have already denied requests from Branstad and other governors to allow a smaller Medicaid expansion than what the 2010 health care reform law provides.  

A Terrace Hill mystery: why doesn’t Governor Terry Branstad have more details to share about his proposed alternative to expanding Medicaid in Iowa?

Answer: Outside consultants are still working up a plan for him. CORRECTION: Branstad rolled out his “Healthy Iowa Plan” on March 4.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread.

A couple of items related to religion caught my eye over the past few days. Governor Terry Branstad is promoting a new anti-bullying bill, which includes a religious exemption that some may interpret as a “license to bully.” More details are below.

Also after the jump, I enclosed part of a commentary from an Iowa rabbi who is “dumbfounded” by people who “demonstrate little respect for any other religious tradition than his or her own.” I predict that this rabbi will stop being surprised long before he stops having these interactions.

Memo to politics-watchers: read carefully before speculating. Last week, Ed Fallon announced that he would roll out a new “campaign” on his 55th birthday, March 1. While some people jumped to the conclusion that the former candidate for governor and Congress was planning another bid for public office, others realized that Fallon might have in mind a campaign to raise awareness or money for some cause.

Last night Fallon revealed his plans: “This is a campaign to mobilize 1000 people to march coast-to-coast, demanding action on climate change – action from both the American people and from our public officials. The Great March for Climate Action will set-out from the west coast one year from today and arrive in Washington, DC the weekend before the mid-term election. It will be the largest coast-to-coast march in our nation’s history.”

The full announcement is after the jump. Organizing a march on that scale will be a tall order.

The times they are a-changin’: more than 200 Democrats in the U.S. House and Senate have signed an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) brief arguing that the U.S. Supreme Court should strike down the key provision of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act.  

Governor Terry Branstad announced a long list of appointees to state boards and commissions today. I’ve posted the full press release after the jump, along with background on some of the most newsworthy nominations. The governor tapped several former state lawmakers or candidates for the legislature, as well as his younger son, Marcus Branstad.

Cutting property taxes has long been a policy goal for Governor Terry Branstad, so why is he rejecting a path to save Iowa counties tens of millions of dollars a year on mental health services? As Tony Leys reported yesterday for the Des Moines Register, the Iowa Department of Human Services has estimated that expanding Medicaid as foreseen under the 2010 federal health care reform law would save counties between $27 million and $60 million each year.

Conservative talk radio host Steve Deace told Fox News today that he may run for the U.S. Senate in 2014 if Representative Steve King passes on the race. Deace said King is uniquely qualified to “unite the Rand Paul faction and the Mike Huckabee faction of the grassroots activists.” In his opinion, neither Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds nor “anybody connected to Terry Branstad” can unite Iowa Republicans.

Reynolds confirmed on a conference call with reporters today that she will “take a serious look” at the Senate race. According to Branstad’s communications director Tim Albrecht, Reynolds would not run against King in a GOP primary. UPDATE: The National Journal quotes skeptical Iowa Republican insiders on Reynolds as a Senate candidate.

I am still confident that King will opt out of the Senate race. In that case, a far-right candidate would be well positioned to beat Reynolds in a primary, but I’m not sure that Deace is that person. Spin your own IA-Sen scenarios in this thread.

UPDATE: Bruce Braley’s campaign has started taking shots at King already.

Carroll-based journalist Douglas Burns argues that former State Representative Rod Roberts, now the director of the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals, would be the best candidate Republicans could field against Braley. I don’t think so, although Roberts was a good stalking horse for Branstad in the 2010 gubernatorial primary.

SECOND UPDATE: Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey will “strongly consider” running for Senate, but only if King does not run. His past support for a gasoline tax increase to pay for road work would be a problem for him in a Republican primary. Also, the conservative base may not trust him, since he has no record on most issues not related to agriculture.

I enjoyed the Iowa .Gif-t Shop’s take on Deace as a possible candidate.

Chalk up another blow to the “Hastert rule”. Today the U.S. House approved the Senate’s version of the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization, even though a majority of House Republicans opposed the bill. All 199 Democrats present were part of the 286 to 138 majority supporting the bill, including Iowans Bruce Braley (IA-01) and Dave Loebsack (IA-02). Unburdened by the prospect of a competitive GOP primary for U.S. Senate, Tom Latham (IA-03) was among 87 House Republicans who also voted for the bill. Steve King (IA-04) was one of 138 Republicans to oppose it.

The Violence Against Women Act’s previous reauthorization expired at the end of September 2011, but last year the House and Senate failed to reconcile the bills passed in each chamber. (Iowa’s representatives split on party lines over the House version of the Violence Against Women Act.) The contentious issues centered on protections for LGBT victims of violence, undocumented immigrants, and a provision granting tribal courts “full civil jurisdiction over non-Indians based on actions allegedly taken in Indian Country.” House Republican leaders capitulated on those issues by allowing the Senate’s bill to pass today.

Loebsack’s official comment on today’s vote is after the jump. I’ll update this post with more political reaction as needed.

UPDATE: Added comments from Braley and King below. Note the priceless double-speak from King: he emphasizes voting for the Violence Against Women Act, not clarifying that he voted for the Republican effort to substitute the House version of the bill, which failed. His press release does not acknowledge that on final passage, King voted against the bill President Barack Obama’s going to sign. How many Iowa media will report that King voted for the reauthorization, without realizing that he only voted for the House version? Request to Bleeding Heartland readers who live in IA-04: please let me know if you hear a news story that wrongly implies King voted for the Violence Against Women Act.

This week New Jersey’s Chris Christie became the eighth Republican governor to recognize that only a chump would turn down 100 percent federal funding to provide Medicaid coverage to low-income constituents. But Governor Terry Branstad doubled down on his determination not to allow Medicaid to expand in Iowa.

While some advocates are hoping Republican legislators will help pass a Medicaid expansion bill by a veto-proof majority, that scenario appears extremely unlikely. A prolonged standoff between Branstad and Iowa Senate Democrats seems unavoidable.

The U.S. Senate confirmed Jack Lew as secretary of the Treasury today by 71 votes to 26 (roll call). Senator Chuck Grassley was one of the 25 Republicans who opposed Lew’s nomination, joined by independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who caucuses with Democrats. Twenty Republicans joined the rest of the Democrats present, including Iowa’s Tom Harkin, in voting to confirm Lew. Grassley announced his opposition to the Treasury nominee earlier this week. After the jump I’ve posted the floor statement he read today. While Grassley raised some troubling points, I think Sanders made a stronger case for opposing Lew, so I’ve enclosed his statement below as well. I will update this post if I see any further comment from Harkin.

Four years ago, both Grassley and Harkin voted against confirming Timothy Geithner as Treasury secretary.  

Representative Tom Latham (IA-03) announced in an e-mail to supporters this afternoon that he will not seek the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate in 2014. I’ve posted his message after the jump. When Latham says, “I cannot in good conscience launch a two-year statewide campaign that will detract from the commitment I made to the people who elected me […],” I think he means, I prefer not to give up an easy job.

Governor Terry Branstad had made clear on several occasions, most recently this past weekend, that he would like Latham to run for Senate. Latham’s decision clears a path for many other Republicans who are reportedly considering the race, including former U.S. Attorney Matt Whitaker, State Senator Brad Zaun, Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds, Iowa Senate Minority Leader Bill Dix, and Secretary of State Matt Schultz.

I’m standing by my prediction that Representative Steve King will not leave his safe perch in IA-04 for a statewide campaign he knows he would lose. Some “bold color conservative” is bound to run, though. I suspect Bob Vander Plaats knows that his ship has sailed, but maybe he has one last campaign in him.

Any comments about the IA-Sen race are welcome in this thread. Representative Bruce Braley will surely be relieved to have Latham off the list of potential Republican opponents.

UPDATE: Politico’s James Hohmann tweets, “Iowa Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds is ‘very serious’ about running for Senate, a source tells me.” Imagine what Republicans would say about a Democrat who didn’t finish college running for U.S. Senate. Further updates are after the jump.

A new study of 201 large municipal water systems in the U.S. found traces of a certain family of toxic chemicals in all of them. The highest levels of these chemicals, known as trihalomethanes, were found in Davenport, Iowa.  

A new report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation shows that the youth incarceration rate in the U.S. “reached a new 35-year low” in 2010. Iowa was one of 44 states where fewer young people were locked up in 2010 than in 1997.

The U.S. Senate voted today to confirm Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense by 58 votes to 41. Although Hagel is a Republican, all of the votes against his confirmation came from GOP senators, including Iowa’s Chuck Grassley. The entire Senate Democratic caucus, including Tom Harkin, voted to confirm Hagel, joined by four Republicans.

Earlier today, a cloture motion on Hagel’s nomination easily passed by 71 votes to 27 (roll call). Just 60 votes were needed to pass the motion. Grassley was one of the 27 Republicans who tried to filibuster Hagel’s nomination. Their effort failed because 18 Senate Republicans voted for cloture; most of them later voted against confirmation.

The 501(c)4 group American Future Fund, led by Nick Ryan of Iowa, was one of the big spenders in the effort to defeat Hagel’s nomination. After the jump I’ve posted excerpts from a good piece explaining why the campaign against Hagel was a “win-win” for “dark money groups,” even though they failed to prevent his confirmation. I’ll update this post as needed if I see comments from Grassley and Harkin.  

While more than 80 nationally prominent Republicans have signed on to a brief encouraging the U.S. Supreme Court to support marriage equality, Iowa Republican legislators continue to march lockstep behind efforts to overturn the Iowa Supreme Court’s Varnum v Brien ruling.

Senator Chuck Grassley announced this morning that he will vote against confirming Jacob “Jack” Lew, President Barack Obama’s nominee for Treasury secretary. In a statement I’ve posted below, Grassley explained his reasons. They relate to Lew’s actions and compensation while he worked at New York University, not his government work during Obama’s first term as director of the Office of Management and Budget and later chief of the president’s staff. Grassley’s objections look reasonable to me, although I have to laugh when Republicans who supported Mitt Romney for president object to Lew’s Cayman Islands investments.

Grassley also plans to oppose two other presidential nominees: William B. Schultz as general counsel of the Department of Health and Human Services and Christopher J. Meade for general counsel at Treasury. The statement below explains his reasons. Grassley has substantive grounds for opposing Meade, but Schultz looks like a victim of other beefs between the senator and the HHS department.

I doubt many presidential appointees have indirectly saved more lives or done more to change American culture for the better than C. Everett Koop, U.S. surgeon general under Ronald Reagan. Koop died today at the age of 96, a legend in the field of public health.

Following up on Saturday’s post about the possible closure of three Iowa airports air traffic control towers, the White House has released more details on how automatic federal spending cuts could affect Iowa, beginning on March 1, if Congress and President Barack Obama don’t agree on a deal to replace the “sequester.”  

This weekend in Des Moines, Democratic State Senator Matt McCoy showed how pro-choice elected officials should talk about abortion rights and the “personhood” movement.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread.

To get the conversation started, I’ve posted some scary or disturbing news after the jump.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood warned yesterday that air traffic control across the country may be severely disrupted if the “sequester” goes into effect. Budget cuts may prompt the Federal Aviation Administration to shut down air traffic control towers at three Iowa airports as early as April.

CORRECTION: Closing the air traffic control towers would not necessarily shut down all traffic at the affected airports. On the other hand, “many corporations won’t fly into airports that don’t have an active tower.”

Senator Tom Harkin, a lifelong Catholic, believes it would “send a strong signal to the rest of the world” for the church to select a Latino pope as successor to Pope Benedict XVI next month.

Five years ago this week, I was hospitalized with an infection that might have become life-threatening or permanently debilitating had I not had health insurance coverage, which allowed me to receive a relatively early diagnosis. Every day in this country, uninsured people hunker down, hoping their health problem will go away without an expensive doctor’s visit. That’s one of many reasons studies have shown that expanding Medicaid saves lives.

Governor Terry Branstad sounds determined not to expand Medicaid, but none of his arguments can withstand scrutiny.

UPDATE: Branstad confirmed on February 23 that he will not agree to expand Medicaid. Added details and other related news below.

Eighteen casinos currently operate in Iowa, but if backers have their way, that number will grow in the near future. Early voting is under way for the March 5 Linn County referendum on a proposed casino in Cedar Rapids.

Meanwhile, this week some people rolled out plans for a new casino in Norwalk (Warren County), just south of the Des Moines metro area. Links and details are after the jump.

Any comments related to expanding casino gambling are welcome in this thread. I tend to agree with Richard Florida, an expert on urban development who made the case against casinos in the Cedar Rapids Gazette not long ago. Florida commented this week that casinos are a good litmus test, showing which self-styled “city builders” are actually “city destroyers.”

The future of Iowa’s Congressional representation is not encouraging, judging from the latest League of Conservation Voters’ scorecard.

Do you want the good news first, or the bad news? President Barack Obama has reportedly settled on a strong candidate to replace Lisa Jackson as Environmental Protection Agency administrator. On the flip side, Steven Chu’s successor at the Department of Energy is likely to be a nuclear physicist with connections to major polluting industries. Details are after the jump. Still no word on the next secretary of transportation.

Florida Governor Rick Scott is the latest Republican governor to decide to expand Medicaid under the 2010 health care reform law. He was one of those leading the charge to have the law declared unconstitutional. Some comments from today’s press conference are after the jump as well. Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, Ohio Governor John Kasich and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder are all Republicans who opposed the Obama administration policy but have agreed to expand Medicaid in their states. I hope that when Iowa Governor Terry Branstad meets with U.S. Health and Human Services officials later this week, he will find some face-saving way to agree to expand Medicaid here. So far he sounds determined to resist the policy, despite the consensus of every major Iowa medical group as well as a wide array of religious and social justice organizations.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

Nine days from now, approximately 85 billion in federal spending cuts will go into effect unless Congress and President Barack Obama can agree on an alternative to the so-called “sequester.” After the jump I’ve posted details on how the spending cuts might affect Iowa, as well as recent comments and actions by some of the Iowans in Congress.

Personal business and political agendas aren’t supposed to influence the work of the Iowa Board of Regents, so why did Bruce Rastetter ask University of Iowa President Sally Mason to arrange a meeting between ethanol industry representatives and Professor Jerald Schnoor?

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack may be thinking about running for Iowa governor again in 2014, according to one of his longtime friends.

UPDATE: Vilsack stopped by the Iowa capitol on February 19 to meet with statehouse Democrats. According to State Representative Marti Anderson, he came to “talk about the looming sequester in DC. and other Food, Farm, and Jobs issues from USDA.”

Catching up on news from last week, all four Iowans in the U.S. House supported a bill seeking to “freeze the pay of federal workers for the third year in a row” as well as the salaries for members of Congress.

Cedar Rapids business owner Steve Rathje announced his candidacy  for the open seat in Iowa’s first Congressional district last Friday. Background on Rathje and thoughts about other possible candidates in IA-01 are after the jump. A district map and the latest voter registration numbers in all 20 counties can be found here.

Many Republicans are thinking about running for Iowa’s open U.S. Senate seat next year, but the field is frozen until Representatives Tom Latham (IA-03) and Steve King (IA-04) make their intentions clear. King has indicated that he needs to battle “elites” like Karl Rove before he can analyze a possible Senate bid. That suggests Latham will be the first to decide whether to seek the Republican nomination.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread.

The Des Moines Register continues to release bits and pieces from the latest Iowa poll conducted by Selzer & Co. After the jump I’ve posted some of the more important findings, other than the IA-Sen numbers, which I discussed in this post. Like the Iowa .Gif-t Shop blog, I found it bizarre that the Register asked respondents whether they’d be “thrilled,” “mildly happy,” or “don’t really care” about the prospect of certain national retailers opening an Iowa store.

The Iowa Democratic establishment continues to consolidate around Representative Bruce Braley for the open U.S. Senate seat. Representative Dave Loebsack (IA-02) posted on his Facebook page this morning,

Bruce, I’m in.

I’m proud to endorse Bruce Braley. We need someone in the U.S. Senate who’ll continue Tom Harkin’s legacy of fighting to strengthen the middle class and speaking out for those who don’t have a voice. I’m pleased to stand with him.

Looking forward to seeing you tonight at the Red, White, and Blue dinner!

We need someone who will continue Harkin’s legacy of speaking some unpopular truths, such as pointing out that a constitutional amendment to balance the federal budget “would require massive cuts to Social Security, Medicare and many other crucial programs” the middle class rely on. Sadly, we won’t hear that message from either Braley or Loebsack in the years to come.

UPDATE: Added the Braley for Iowa press release below.

SECOND UPDATE: Former Representative Leonard Boswell chimed in with his endorsement on January 18. I’ve posted it below. He praised Braley as “a tireless advocate for Iowa’s veterans.” That was a strong theme in Braley’s latest re-election campaign.

Governor Terry Branstad says he called Karl Rove this week to urge the new Conservative Victory Project not to get involved in Iowa races.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will not run for the U.S. Senate next year, his spokesman Matt Paul told the Des Moines Register this morning. I don’t know anyone who expected Vilsack to run for the seat Senator Tom Harkin is vacating, but the Des Moines Register’s latest Iowa poll write-up emphasized that Vilsack would be the most “appealing” candidate of eight names Selzer & Co tested with 802 Iowa voters.

For now, Vilsack seems to be enjoying his work in President Barack Obama’s cabinet. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him run for U.S. Senate if Chuck Grassley retires in 2016, though.

I expect only token opposition to Representative Bruce Braley in next year’s Democratic primary to replace Harkin. Any comments about the Senate race are welcome in this thread.

The Egyptian company that received the largest tax incentive package in Iowa history has a subsidiary accused of defrauding the federal government out of $332 million, Ryan Foley reported yesterday in a must-read story for the Associated Press. Excerpts from Foley’s article are after the jump, but I strongly recommend reading the whole piece.

Iowa Economic Development Authority Director Debi Durham admitted that the federal lawsuit over improper contracts “did not come up in our due diligence,” which is no surprise. Durham’s negotiating strategy seems to have been not to question anything Orascom executives told Iowa officials. Although Governor Terry Branstad has claimed Iowa landed the fertilizer plant deal “by the skin of our teeth,” evidence suggests Orascom would have invested in Iowa even without generous state and local tax incentives.

You have to hand it to the Republican strategists behind a new vehicle that may collect tens of thousands of names and addresses for future use by Governor Terry Branstad’s re-election campaign.  

A cloture motion on the nomination of former Senator Chuck Hagel for U.S. Secretary of Defense failed by a single vote today.  

Bob Krause announced today that he will not seek the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in 2014 “as long as Bruce Braley is in the race,” but may consider running for governor or for Congress next year. Krause was the first declared challenger to Senator Chuck Grassley in 2009. He finished a distant second to Roxanne Conlin in the 2010 Democratic primary.

Krause now lives in the Des Moines area, so a Congressional bid would presumably be in the third district. So far Mike Sherzan is the only declared challenger to 10-term incumbent Republican Tom Latham.

The full statement from Krause is after the jump. He and Governor Terry Branstad go way back; during the 1970s, they served in the Iowa House at the same time, representing districts next door (two halves of the same Iowa Senate district).

The Iowa Senate Ethics committee (unofficial slogan: “See no evil, hear no evil”) met yesterday to consider an ethics complaint filed against Republican Senator Kent Sorenson. Five of the six committee members voted to table two serious allegations raised by Peter Waldron, who was a consultant for Michele Bachmann’s presidential campaign while Sorenson was the campaign’s Iowa chair in 2011.

I’m not much of a wrestling fan, but what the heck were members of the International Olympics Committee thinking when they voted to eliminate wrestling as an Olympic sport beginning in 2020? Wrestling is a much more important sport than some other events they’re keeping. The IOC is adding golf as an Olympic sport in 2016, but even professional golfer Zach Johnson, an Iowa native, disagrees with the IOC’s decision on wrestling. I’ve posted some Iowa political reaction to this news after the jump. UPDATE: More comments are below; also, Governor Terry Branstad’s campaign set up a “keep wrestling” website.

A few weeks ago, Republican State Representative Josh Byrnes made the discovery of a lifetime for a Hawkeye fan: a football signed by Nile Kinnick and other members of the 1939 University of Iowa team. Mike Wiser wrote up the story. Byrnes found the football in the place he’s renting with three other Iowa House Republicans during this year’s legislative session.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources is training volunteers to help with their wildlife monitoring programs. They are looking for people to identify certain types of bird nests and frog and toad calls. I’ve posted some details after the jump.

The Great Backyard Bird Count is happening from February 15 to 18. You don’t have to be an expert bird-watcher to help scientists collect information about bird populations. This winter we’ve had more birds at our finch feeder than usual, and I learned they are pine siskins (closely related to goldfinches). They don’t always over-winter in Iowa.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

Former Iowa House Speaker Pat Murphy announced this morning that he is running for Congress in the first district. After the jump I’ve posted his open letter to Iowans, which for now is the only content on his campaign website. He’s on Facebook here and on Twitter here.

Murphy has represented part of Dubuque in the Iowa House since winning a special election in 1989. He was House speaker from 2007 through 2010. I give him huge credit for having the guts and integrity to welcome the Iowa Supreme Court’s decision on marriage from day one, when some Democrats were running for cover. On the whole, I was disappointed by how little was accomplished during the years Democrats controlled the state House and Senate as well as Terrace Hill. Iowa didn’t reform the tax system to make it less regressive, we didn’t make much progress on labor or environmental issues, we didn’t pass a state-level DREAM act or even repeal the English-only law. In most of those cases, the Iowa House caucus was the key roadblock.

A competitive primary is healthy for a party, and I expect other Democratic candidates to emerge in IA-01. Among other things, Murphy will need to explain why Democrats should nominate a man to replace Bruce Braley when we finally have a good chance to send our state’s first woman to Congress. He told Erin Murphy of the Dubuque Telegraph-Herald that he is “used to tough races,” knows “what I’m getting into” and “what fundraising is like.”

Tea party enthusiasts and Democrats were cheered yesterday to hear Representative Steve King say that the “needle has gone over 50 percent” toward him running for Iowa’s open U.S. Senate in 2014.

I’m not buying it.

President Barack Obama delivers another State of the Union address tonight, and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida is set to give the Republican response. I will miss most of the president’s speech but plan to watch the replay later and will update this post with highlights. Meanwhile, feel free to comment on any topics raised during the speeches in this thread.

UPDATE: Highlights from the speeches and reaction from the Iowans in Congress are after the jump.

I find it depressing that when I came home to catch up on the news, the blogosphere and twitterverse were obsessing over Rubio taking a drink of water during his remarks. So sue him, he’s not the most camera-savvy politician in Washington (yet). Who cares?

The U.S. Senate approved the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization today by 78 votes to 22 (roll call). All of the no votes came from Senate Republicans. It was “deja vu all over again” for Iowa’s senators; just like last year, Democrat Tom Harkin voted to reauthorize the VAWA, while Republican Chuck Grassley voted against the bill. Grassley supports most of the VAWA but objects to a few provisions favored by Senate Democrats. Last week the Senate rejected a substitute bill offered by Grassley.

For more details about the reauthorization and how Iowa’s senators voted on other proposed amendments, follow me after the jump.  

No Republicans have announced firm plans to run for the open seat in Iowa’s first Congressional district, but several people are definitely or rumored to be considering the race.

To evaluate who is best poised to win this Democratic-leaning district, it’s helpful to look at where the votes are in a Republican primary as well as in a general election. After the jump I’ve posted a district map, the latest voter registration numbers for the 20 counties in IA-01, and a brief take on some of the possible Republican candidates.  

Democrat Mike Sherzan announced today that he is running for Congress in Iowa’s third district. I’ve enclosed his press release after the jump, along with excerpts from Sherzan’s comments to the National Journal. He’s on Facebook here and on Twitter here. For now, the Sherzan for Iowa website is only set up to collect donations and the names of volunteers.

Bleeding Heartland covered Sherzan’s biography in this post. If Republican incumbent Tom Latham decides to run for the open U.S. Senate seat, I expect several other Democrats to run in the IA-03 primary, including possibly State Senator Matt McCoy. Otherwise, the field may be clear for Sherzan to take on Latham, which will be an uphill battle. On paper, this looks like a swing district, with 159,939 active registered Democrats, 166,109 Republicans, and 157,442 no-party voters as of February 2013. But Latham consistently outperforms the top of the Republican ticket and gained more votes than Mitt Romney in every IA-03 county last November.

State Senator Kent Sorenson has made news lately leading the charge to restore the death penalty for some crimes in Iowa. I wonder whether that popular cause will be enough to save his political career, in light of recent claims by Republicans who have worked closely with him.  

Iowa Senate President Pam Jochum does not plan to run for the open seat in Iowa’s first Congressional district but is considering a run for governor in 2014, she confirmed in a telephone interview today.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? A few links related to Iowa demographics are after the jump, along with highlights from this week’s “Iowa Press” program, featuring Republican Party of Iowa Chair A.J. Spiker and Iowa Democratic Party Chair Tyler Olson.

This is an open thread.

The Des Moines Register’s Friday edition includes the key findings from its first Iowa poll by Selzer & Co. on the 2014 U.S. Senate race. The top Democratic contender to replace Senator Tom Harkin would be former Governor Tom Vilsack, who has not expressed any interest in the campaign.

Reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act is unfinished business from the last Congress. First adopted in 1994, the Violence Against Women Act expired at the end of September 2011. Since then, Congress has funded VAWA programs through continuing spending resolutions.

Iowa’s Congressional delegation split on party lines when the House and the Senate passed their own versions of the VAWA reauthorization last year.  

As the Senate took up the act again this week, Senator Chuck Grassley offered an amendment to address what he views as problems with the Democratic bill. Senators rejected Grassley’s substitute yesterday by 65 votes to 34 (roll call). Ten Republicans joined the entire Democratic caucus to oppose the amendment. The Senate is likely to approve the Democratic version of the VAWA reauthorization early next week. That bill “would authorize $659 million over five years for the programs, down 17 percent from the last reauthorization in 2005.” That funding drop is remarkable when you consider that in 2005, Republicans controlled both houses of Congress and the presidency.

After the jump I’ve enclosed more details about Grassley’s amendment.

Time for a new thread to discuss any Obama cabinet appointments. The Senate Intelligence Committee held a confirmation hearing today for John Brennan, President Barack Obama’s nominee for CIA director. I didn’t watch the hearing, but based on reports like this and this, it sounds like he didn’t demonstrate that he deserves to be confirmed.

I loved this story in The Onion: “American Citizens Split On DOJ Memo Authorizing Government To Kill Them.”

The president announced earlier this week that Sally Jewell will be his nominee as interior secretary. She’s an interesting choice. I’ve posted some background after the jump.

The Hill discussed some of the names supposedly on the short list for transportation secretary. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus have urged Obama to consider Representative Jim Clyburn of South Carolina for that job, but Clyburn doesn’t sound interested in leaving the House.

Penny Pritzker, “who made her fortune building Hyatt Hotels” and has been one of Obama’s powerhouse fundraisers, is reportedly the president’s choice to run the Commerce department.

Gretchen Morgenson, one of the best reporters on the finance and banking industries, published a recap of Timothy Geithner’s tenure as Treasury secretary.

Representative Bruce Braley e-mailed supporters this morning to confirm that he is “setting up a committee to run for the U.S. Senate.” Excerpts from the e-mail are after the jump.

I’ve also enclosed below the latest news on Karl Rove’s effort to prevent unelectable Republican candidates from winning U.S. Senate primaries. Iowa talk radio host Steve Deace wants conservatives to try to “beat Karl Rove at his own game.”

State Democratic parties including the Iowa Democratic Party are considering selling “information about voters’ views and preferences” to for-profit corporations, according to an important story Lois Beckett reported this week at ProPublica. Newly-elected leaders of the Iowa Democratic Party either declined or did not respond to ProPublica’s multiple requests for comment while Beckett was working on the piece. Iowa Democratic Party staff did not respond to my request for comment on this report yesterday.

UPDATE: Thursday morning, state party executive director Troy Price responded, “The Iowa Democratic Party maintains ultimate control of its data, and pursuant to Iowa Democratic Party policy, as well as state law, we will never sell this data to an entity for commercial purposes.” Having done canvassing for various candidates and spoken with many other Democratic canvassers, I am very glad to hear that news. Other state party leaders would be wise to follow the same policy.

I recommend reading Beckett’s whole article. I’ve posted a few excerpts after the jump.

Governor Terry Branstad is a “pretty clear favorite” for re-election, according to a new Iowa poll by Public Policy Polling.

The U.S. Postal Service announced plans today “to stop delivering and collecting letters and other first-class mail on Saturdays beginning Aug. 5, although packages will continue to be delivered.” The change is expected to save about $2 billion per year, far less than the service’s shortfall in recent years. Congress could remove a significant contributor to the Postal Service’s financial problems by rescinding a 2006 mandate to pre-fund health care benefits for future retirees. Republican leaders in the U.S. House oppose legislation to change that policy.

After the jump I’ve posted reaction to today’s news from Senator Chuck Grassley and Representatives Dave Loebsack and Bruce Braley. I am seeking comment from the other members of Iowa’s Congressional delegation and will update this post as needed. UPDATE: Added Senator Tom Harkin’s comments below.

A bipartisan group of senators including Iowa’s Chuck Grassley sent President Barack Obama an open letter this week asking for access to “secret legal opinions outlining your authority to authorize the killing of Americans in the course of counterterrorism operations.”

UPDATE: The Obama administration will provide “classified Office of Legal Counsel advice” on this issue to members of Congressional intelligence committees. I agree with Grassley that judiciary committees should be included as well, since they oversee the U.S. Department of Justice.

Yesterday Senator Tom Harkin withdrew his offer to donate his papers to Iowa State University, in effect dooming the Harkin Institute of Public Policy created there in 2011.

Paul Singer and Gregory Korte published an interesting feature in USA Today about which members of Congress are gun owners.  

Representative Tom Latham (IA-03) told journalists in Washington yesterday that he is thinking about running for the U.S. Senate in 2014. He declined to specify when he will announce his plans, but he said he will “make my own decision” rather than be influenced by Representative Steve King (IA-04). Deirdre Walsh reported for CNN,

Pressed if he thinks a Senate bid by King could hurt the GOP’s chances of taking the seat – something other national Republicans have expressed concerns over – Latham told reporters outside the House floor that King is “a very viable member of Congress.”

If Latham wants the Senate seat, he would be advised to announce sooner rather than later. A few days ago, King told conservative talk radio host Larry O’Connor that he is “fifty-fifty” on running for the Senate seat. Click through to listen to King’s comments. In weighing his decision, he is considering “whether the energy is out there” to support his bid and “whether we can raise the money” for a statewide race. I still expect King to stay in IA-04, where he’s safe for the next decade, but he may be tempted to take on the Republican establishment.

The least likely scenario in my mind is Latham and King running against each other in a GOP primary. If one of them announces a Senate campaign, the other will stay out. A new Wenzel Strategies poll of “likely Republican primary voters” in Iowa found that King would be the early leader in a Senate primary, with Latham in second place and Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds third. Public Policy Polling surveyed Iowa Republicans over the weekend and found King leading among moderates as well as among respondents who described themselves as “very conservative.”

UPDATE: I missed this story at the Rothenberg Political Report last night. Latham’s changing the name of his campaign committee from “Latham for Congress” to “Iowans for Latham.”

SECOND UPDATE: Michael Devine, a talk radio host for KVFD AM 1400 in Fort Dodge, posted on Facebook today, “Congressman Steve King told us this morning the chances are ‘better than 50 percent’ he will run for the Senate.”

THIRD UPDATE: Excerpts from Public Policy Polling’s latest Iowa poll findings are after the jump.

All signs point to Representative Bruce Braley running for Iowa’s open U.S. Senate seat in 2014, so I thought I’d put up a new thread to discuss scenarios in the first Congressional district.

Former Iowa House Speaker Pat Murphy plans to run in the Democratic primary for IA-01. I don’t think he’s as strong a candidate as either Senate President Pam Jochum or State Senator Liz Mathis would be, and it is long past time for Democrats to nominate a woman in an open seat that leans Democratic. The latest numbers from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office show that IA-01 contains 167,987 active registered Democrats, 140,227 Republicans, and 196,078 no-party voters.

On the Republican side, I am seeking comment about a possible Congressional bid from both Ben Lange and Rod Blum. Both ran against Braley in 2012; Blum narrowly lost the primary. Iowa Senate Minority Leader Bill Dix ran for IA-01 when it was last an open seat in 2006, but he has ruled out running for Congress next year as he tries to take back the Senate majority for the GOP. CORRECTION: Dix lives in Butler County, which used to be in IA-01 but is now in IA-04 under Iowa’s new map.

Any comments about the IA-01 campaign are welcome in this thread. A race between Blum and either Jochum or Murphy would be an all-Dubuque affair.

As Iowa legislators consider what to do with the state’s nearly $1 billion budget surplus, Republicans are advocating a $750 income tax credit for “every average Iowa family.” But that credit would do nothing for lower-income Iowans who have the largest state and local tax burden. The latest report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy shows yet again that in Iowa and across the country, the bottom 20 percent of households by income pay the largest percentage of their income in state and local taxes (mostly property, sales and excise taxes).

The full report is available on the institute’s website. For the Iowa data, click here or here. Some charts, facts and figures on Iowa’s regressive tax system are after the jump. In my opinion, the bulk of Iowa’s surplus should go toward restoring and improving state services that have been underfunded for many years. The most valuable tax policy change would be increasing the earned income tax credit that benefits working families. Cutting personal income taxes should be way down the priority list, especially since high-income Iowans can already use a wide range of deductions to lower their income tax bill.

After a dismal performance by his political vehicles in 2012, the man once known as “Bush’s brain” is working to stop unelectable Republican candidates from winning GOP primaries in 2014. Jeff Zeleny reports in today’s New York Times that Karl Rove’s super-PAC American Crossroads is creating the “Conservative Victory Project.” One of Rove’s associates confirmed that stopping Representative Steve King from becoming the GOP nominee for U.S. Senate in Iowa will be a priority.

Details and toplines from the first poll on the open IA-Sen race are below.