It’s time for political junkies in the Bleeding Heartland community to make their best guesses about what will happen next Tuesday. Twenty questions about this year’s elections in Iowa are after the jump. To enter the contest, post your predictions in this thread before 7 am on November 2. Remember, percentages don’t always have to add up to 100 percent; several contests feature minor-party candidates.

The contest winner will receive no prize, just bragging rights for being the the Bleeding Heartland community’s most astute observer of Iowa politics in 2010. Can you match American007’s performance in 2008 or ModerateIADem’s prowess in this year’s primary election contest?  

Exactly one week before election day, State Auditor David Vaudt released his report on Iowa’s film tax credit program, which Governor Chet Culver halted in September 2009. The audit found problems with about $26 million of the $32 million in tax credits awarded under the program. The Des Moines Register summarized the key findings and covered the civil and criminal cases filed so far in connection with fraudulent film tax credits.

Getting this fiasco back in the spotlight is likely to hurt Culver and help GOP candidate Terry Branstad, whom Vaudt has endorsed and joined on the stump. Branstad’s campaign seized on the chance to slam inadequate oversight of the film tax credit program. Vaudt probably also benefits from making news just before voters will see his name on the ballot. The audit featured prominently in newscasts on October 26 and was a front-page story in many Iowa newspapers the following day. According to Radio Iowa,

Vaudt, a Republican, was asked about the timing of the release of the report the week before the election.

Vaudt says the governor actually requested the investigation, and his office worked in collaboration with the Department of Revenue and the Attorney General’s office. Vaudt says they handled this report like any other and released it once the report was completed.

More like two months after completing the report. Radio Iowa posted the full report here (pdf file). On page 6, a cover letter from Vaudt and his chief deputy, Warren Jenkins, states, “Copies of this report have been filed with the Department of Management, the Division of Criminal Investigation, the Attorney General’s Office and the Polk County Attorney’s Office.” That letter was dated August 19, 2010. What’s Vaudt’s excuse for waiting nearly ten weeks to release the report to journalists?

Culver told the Des Moines Register on Tuesday, “The timing is interesting. It was purely political but [Vaudt]’s been the most partisan auditor that we’ve ever had so it’s not a surprise.” Scott Harrington, campaign manager for Democratic candidate for state auditor Jon Murphy, on 26 October asked Vaudt “to provide a detailed timeline as to how today was determined to be the appropriate date to release this report.” I’m not holding my breath until that happens.

State Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald has been mostly invisible during this year’s campaign. As the longest-serving state treasurer in the country and a survivor of the 1994 Republican wave, Fitzgerald may have less reason to be worried than other Democratic incumbents. Still, I’ve been wondering when he was going to get around to asking voters to re-elect him.

Today I caught the first television commercial for Fitzgerald’s campaign. As far as I know, it went up on the air this week. I haven’t found a video to embed here, but my transcript and description of the visuals are after the jump, along with the transcript of the radio ad Fitzgerald’s opponent is running. UPDATE: I’ve added the script for Fitzgerald’s radio commercial.

Six days before the general election, the number of early ballots already returned in Iowa now exceeds the total early votes cast in any previous midterm election, the Secretary of State’s office announced today.

As of this morning, 355,192 Iowans have requested an absentee ballot and of those ballots, 254,836 have been received back by auditors’ offices.

In the 2006 General Election, 242,385 Iowans voted absentee. Four years prior in the 2002 General Election, 242,357 voted absentee.

Among Iowans who have requested absentee ballots, 158,286 (44.6%) are registered Democrats, 129,316 (36.4%) are Republicans, 67,288 (18.9%) are no-party voters and 302 have some other registration. Those whose ballots have already been returned to county auditors include 114,193 Democrats (44.8%), 97,398 Republicans (38.2%), 43,037 no-party voters (16.9%) and 208 voters with a different registration.

The total number of Iowa votes cast in the 2006 general election was 1,044,459.

Both parties have improved their early voting programs, especially the Iowa GOP, which didn’t have much going on this front in past midterms. On election night we’ll find out which party had more success banking early votes in the battleground state legislative districts.

From the numbers released today, it’s not clear whether most of the early votes came from Iowans who would have turned out anyway on November 2. Although everyone’s vote counts the same, an absentee ballot returned by someone who normally votes only in presidential years is more valuable than an absentee ballot returned by someone who never misses an election.

There’s still time for Iowans to vote early. I posted three ways to do so here.  

The attorney general’s race isn’t getting much coverage in Iowa print or broadcast media. Higher-profile campaigns for governor and U.S. Senate, as well as the unprecedented drive to oust Iowa Supreme Court judges, don’t leave much of a “news hole” for candidates seeking down-ballot statewide offices. I doubt many Iowans caught Attorney General Tom Miller and Republican Brenna Findley’s debate, since it has only been broadcast at odd hours on Mediacom Channel 22. The candidates had little time to discuss issues in depth during their joint appearance on Iowa Public Television.

As a result, 30-second commercials during news and entertainment programs will be all most Iowa voters see about the attorney general race. This week new ads targeting Miller and Findley hit Iowa tv screens. To my knowledge, none of the video clips have been posted online, but I taped the ads. Transcripts and descriptions of the visuals are below. UPDATE: Scroll down for a description of the Findley campaign’s latest commercial.

Senator Chuck Grassley and Democratic challenger Roxanne Conlin are debating at 7 pm tonight on WHO Radio in Des Moines. Iowa Public Television will broadcast the debate statewide at 9 pm.

I’ll update this post later with my thoughts about the debate. Meanwhile, I encourage Bleeding Heartland readers to weigh in on the debate or the Senate race in general.

LATE UPDATE: I forgot to post my notes on the debate, but they are now after the jump. The short version is, I think both candidates did fairly well and gave their supporters reasons to stick with them. Conlin kept Grassley on the defensive, but he seemed to have answers to most of her criticisms. Since she is behind in the race and needs to win over undecided voters and Grassley leaners, a tie in the debate is for all practical purposes a win for Grassley. I suspect being able to refer to notes during this debate helped him greatly improve on his performance during the candidates’ joint appearance on Iowa Public Television last month.

If you missed the debate, Kay Henderson’s write-up is worth a read.

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller and Republican challenger Brenna Findley debated at the University of Iowa law school on October 20. I read the news coverage of the debate highlights at at the Des Moines Register blog, WCCC.com, Radio Iowa and IowaPolitics.com, but I was anxious to watch for myself. This afternoon Mediacom showed the debate, and I was able to take detailed notes, which you can read below. Both candidates communicated their central message well. Findley tried to keep the incumbent on the defensive, but I thought Miller handled her points and defended his record well. He also noted several times when her ideology or lack of experience seemed to affect her views on the attorney general’s proper role.

Unfortunately, Iowa Public Television isn’t showing this debate, and to my knowledge Mediacom has not posted the full video. Miller and Findley appeared jointly on IPTV earlier this month (video and transcript here), but although they touched on some of the same issues, that discussion lacked the depth and intensity of the one-on-one debate. Mediacom cable subscribers have one more chance to watch the attorney general candidates’ debate on Channel 22 this Sunday, October 31, at 7 am.

I have another post in progress on this campaign, because both candidates are running new negative television commercials this week. Also, the Progress Project, which is closely linked to the American Future Fund, is up on television with an attack on Miller.

My play-by-play of the Miller-Findley debate is after the jump.  

So-called reckless spending has been one of the Republicans’ top talking points in this year’s state legislative elections. Direct mail, television and radio commercials targeting at least two dozen incumbent Democrats have decried wasteful, pork-barrel spending. A few specific spending programs come up most frequently in GOP candidates’ messaging. Bleeding Heartland already discussed the misleading talk about “heated sidewalks” here. Three other popular examples of alleged out-of-control spending are $120,000 for flowerpots in Des Moines, $690,000 for trolley service in Des Moines, and $1.8 million for kayak waterways.

Follow me after the jump for background on those appropriations.

Representative Leonard Boswell and Republican challenger Brad Zaun are about to hold their only debate of the campaign on KCCI-TV at 7 pm. (They also taped a joint appearance on Iowa Public Television earlier this month.)

I’ll update this post later with thoughts on the debate. Share any thoughts about the debate or the third Congressional district race in this thread.

TUESDAY UPDATE: I only caught part of last night’s debate live, but watched the whole tape this morning. Boswell and Zaun had their strong and weak points, and I doubt many people’s minds were changed by the debate. Both candidates gave strong closing statements framing the choice in this election. More specific comments about the debate are after the jump.

The U.S. Department of Transportation awarded $230 million in federal funding today for a new Amtrak route connecting Chicago and Iowa City, Senators Tom Harkin and Dick Durbin announced. The route will go through the Quad Cities. From a statement released by Harkin’s office:

The project – scheduled for completion in 2015 – will create 588 jobs per year for the first four years of design and construction.  Once initiated, the new service is expected to increase business activity at $25 million per year. […]

The new Chicago – Quad Cities – Iowa City route will provide two daily round-trips and carry trains traveling at speeds up to 79 miles per hour (mph) with an expected trip time of less than 5 hours.  The long-term vision for the line includes expanding the frequency of trains to offer more than two daily round-trip trains; extending the route; and making additional infrastructure investments to increase speeds from 79 mph to 90 mph, or even 110 mph.

Today’s news is a pleasant surprise. Although Governor Chet Culver and several members of Congress strongly advocated for expanding passenger rail in Iowa, the U.S. Department of Transportation did not fund an earlier grant request supporting Amtrak routes between Chicago and Iowa City and Chicago and Dubuque.

A 2008 Amtrak feasibility study on passenger rail from Iowa City to the Quad Cities estimated annual ridership on the route at “about 187,000 passengers, based on two daily round-trips and if improvements are made allowing maximum speeds of 79 mph.” Typical passenger trains reach maximum speeds of 79 mph; anything faster than 110 mph is considered “high-speed rail.”

More details on today’s announced funding are in the full statement from Harkin’s office, which I’ve posted after the jump. The Quad-City Rail Coalition website has additional background information on the proposed route. Central Iowa business and political leaders hope a Chicago-Iowa City passenger rail link could eventually be extended through Des Moines to the Council Bluffs-Omaha metro area.

UPDATE: I’ve added a press release from the governor’s office with more details. It states that first-year ridership on the route between Iowa City and Chicago is projected at 246,800.

TUESDAY UPDATE: Senator Chuck Grassley also expressed support for this passenger rail link: “You’re finding a situation where, connected with the problems of Homeland Security, the problems of terrorists on airplanes, the fact that airlines are having trouble providing the service they used to provide, alternative service like rail service is something that, at least on a regional basis, is going to pay off.”

Catching up on some news from last week: on October 20 U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pratt denied a preliminary injunction request against Iowa’s new campaign finance disclosure requirements for corporations. The Iowa Right to Life corporation filed a lawsuit challenging the new law in September, claiming it places unconstitutional restrictions on corporate political speech.

More background on the law in question and Iowa Right to Life’s lawsuit are after the jump.  

On Monday, Family Research Council Action and the National Organization for Marriage will launch a “Judge Bus Tour” to campaign against retaining Iowa Supreme Court justices Marsha Ternus, Michael Streit and David Baker. Organizers will take their bus through 45 Iowa counties, stopping at 20 planned rallies. Featured speakers at the rallies will include nationally-known heroes on the religious right: Family Research Council Action President Tony Perkins, National Organization for Marriage President Brian Brown, Representative Steve King of Iowa’s fifth Congressional district, and former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.

My hunch is the big purple judge-hating bus will drive more votes toward retaining than ousting the Supreme Court justices.

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

The weather’s been dry and unseasonably warm this October, ideal for candidates and volunteers. It’s not too late to spend a few hours helping a campaign near you. The state legislative candidates can especially use help with phone-banking and door-knocking. Even if your home district is a shoo-in for one party, you probably live near one of the two dozen Iowa House districts or four Iowa Senate districts considered competitive.

For instance, the Des Moines area has basically no swing districts, other than House district 59 in the western suburbs, but it’s easy for Democrats in the metro to volunteer for State Senator Staci Appel’s campaign in Senate district 37. You don’t even have to drive down to Warren or Madison County. Volunteers can make phone calls for Appel at the AFSCME Local 61 office (4320 NW Second Avenue in Des Moines) on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 4 pm to 8 pm, on Saturdays from noon to 6 pm, or on Sundays from 1 pm to 6 pm. I did this one evening, and it’s so easy.

If you want to help but don’t know how or where, I recommend calling your county Democrats or the Iowa Democratic Party (515-244-7292). Volunteers will also be needed on election day for phone-banking and contacting likely Democratic supporters who haven’t voted yet.

Newspapers across the state have been weighing in on the elections. I’ve been browsing the endorsement editorials, and a few have left me wondering what the editors could have been thinking. Some examples are after the jump.

UPDATE: Click here for the 2012 version of this post.

Iowans will set a new record this year for early voting in a midterm election. About 242,000 voters cast early ballots here in 2002 and 2006, but as of October 22, the Secretary of State’s office reported that voters have requested 317,973 absentee ballots, and county auditors have received 202,037 ballots. Those numbers include mailed ballots as well as early voting in person.

Iowans who want to vote before election day have three options. Details and the partisan breakdown of early votes cast so far are after the jump.

With so many Democratic incumbents around the country endangered this year, U.S. Senate candidate Roxanne Conlin hasn’t received much campaign assistance from Democratic organizations outside Iowa or their allies. That changed this week when the advocacy groups Democracy for America and Progressive Campaign Change Committee started running a 60-second television commercial targeting Republican Senator Chuck Grassley.

Unfortunately, the ad fails to make a persuasive case against sending Grassley back to Washington.

Follow me after the jump to watch the new commercial, along with more Grassley and Conlin campaign ads.

Share any reactions to today’s debate between Democratic Governor Chet Culver and Republican Terry Branstad in this thread. My thoughts are after the jump.

Note: some Bleeding Heartland readers have had trouble commenting lately using Internet Explorer. The problem seems to disappear when they try a different web browser (such as Firefox, Safari, or Chrome).

UPDATE: Watched the whole debate on Iowa Public television, which has posted the video on the web. To my mind, this was Culver’s strongest performance, and he probably helped himself with people who once supported him but weren’t sold on a second term yet. Branstad didn’t make any huge mistakes, but he evaded several questions and came across as hesitant at times. I doubt any Branstad supporters would change their minds based on the debate, though. More specific comments about each candidate’s strong and weak moments are at the bottom of this post.

Governor Chet Culver and Republican Terry Branstad debate for the third and last time today at noon in the Iowa Public Television studios. You can watch live at the Des Moines Register website, IPTV.org or on Mediacom Channel 119. Tonight Iowa Public TV will rebroadcast the debate statewide at 8 pm.

After the jump I’ll cover recent news from the gubernatorial campaign and the main points Culver and Branstad are likely to emphasize today.  

The latest round of financial reports for Iowa statewide candidates are available on the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board website, and once again Republican attorney general candidate Brenna Findley has turned in strong numbers. Thanks to transfers totaling $547,500 from the Republican Party of Iowa, Findley raised $756,617 between July 15 and October 14. During the same period, Democratic incumbent Tom Miller raised $243,326. The huge support from the Iowa GOP allowed Findley to spend more than twice as much as Miller during the reporting period ($661,252 to $298,604). Most of each candidate’s spending went toward advertising: $564,000 for Findley and $225,000 for Miller. Findley has been up on statewide radio for a month and started running television commercials before Miller did. To my knowledge, Miller has not done any radio advertising. Lynn Campbell listed the largest donors to the Findley and Miller campaigns at IowaPolitics.com.

The state party’s massive support for Findley is striking. Republicans have not run a strong challenger against Miller for ages. The party didn’t even nominate a candidate for attorney general four years ago. Also, the Iowa GOP did essentially nothing for state treasurer candidate Dave Jamison or secretary of state candidate Matt Schultz. Jamison received contributions from several of Findley’s high-dollar individual donors and some of the same political action committees backing her (including those created by potential presidential candidates), but the only direct support from the Republican Party came from some GOP county central committees. Schultz received donations from some of those presidential candidate PACs but even less than Jamison from the county central committees and “usual suspect” individual donors.

One could argue that Findley earned the party’s backing through her strong fundraising. She reported far more donations in May and July than the other Republican challengers for statewide offices. Without any financial support from the Iowa GOP, Findley would still have been competitive with her opponent’s contributions and cash on hand totals. She has been an energetic campaigner all year, and serving as Representative Steve King’s top staffer for seven years probably opened a lot of doors for her in terms of fundraising.

Jamison raised $60,479.25 between July 15 and October 14. That was more than the $32,070.52 State Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald raised during the same period, but Fitzgerald had $94,073.48 cash on hand as of October 14 compared to $14,608 for Jamison. Schultz raised $25,903.60 since the July disclosure reports, while Secretary of State Michael Mauro raised $52,862.51. Mauro had $64,267 on hand as of October 14, while Schultz had $7,000.94 on hand and $18,174.77 in unpaid bills to himself. If I were Jamison or Schultz, I’d be upset to be ignored by the state party that gave Findley more than half a million dollars. A hundred thousand or two for Jamison and Schultz would have been enough for a bare-bones paid advertising campaign.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Terry Branstad has been praising Findley at just about every campaign stop for months. He makes a brief appearance in one of her tv ads too. Before the June primary, I thought perhaps Branstad was singling out Findley because there were competitive GOP primaries for the other offices. However, even after winning their primaries Jamison and Schultz haven’t received as much attention or help from Branstad as Findley has.

Bleeding Heartland readers, share your own thoughts about the Iowa Republican establishment’s strong support for Findley in this thread.

Final note on the attorney general’s race: Findley and Miller debated yesterday in Iowa City. You can read about the highlights at the Des Moines Register blog, WCCC.com, Radio Iowa and IowaPolitics.com. Unfortunately, the debate won’t be broadcast on Iowa Public Television, but Mediacom cable subscribers can watch it on channel 22 at 2 pm on October 26 and 11 am on October 31. In the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City market, Mediacom subscribers can watch the debate at 7 am on October 24, 8 pm on October 25 or 7 am on October 31.

The Iowa for Freedom coalition launched another statewide television commercial today urging Iowans to vote against retaining Supreme Court justices Marsha Ternus, Michael Streit and David Baker. The concept and images strongly resemble the coalition’s first tv ad on the subject, which started running in mid-September.

Video, transcript and comments are after the jump.

The secretary of state campaign isn’t often in the news, but both candidates are now using paid advertising to get their message to the voters. Incumbent Michael Mauro launched his first campaign television commercial this week, a spot focusing on his accomplishments and bipartisan work. Challenger Matt Schultz is running a radio ad that emphasizes his call for photo ID requirements and his Republican affiliation.

Videos, transcripts and comments are after the jump.

All candidates for federal offices were required to submit third-quarter disclosure reports to the Federal Election Commission by October 15. You can view or download the reports for Iowa’s U.S. House candidates at the FEC website. IowaPolitics.com posted links to documents filed by Senator Chuck Grassley and Democratic challenger Roxanne Conlin.

Follow me after the jump for highlights: money raised and spent during during the third quarter as well as cash on hand totals as of September 30.

Election news is keeping me busy, but several reports related to energy policy in Iowa caught my eye during the last week.

Links and excerpts are after the jump.  

In another sign of a competitive race in Iowa’s second Congressional district, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has spent $90,000 to run a television commercial against Mariannette Miller-Meeks.

The ad targets Miller-Meeks’ support for a national sales tax, but does so in a misleading way. Video, script and a few comments are after the jump.

Attorney general candidate Brenna Findley needs a strong Republican wave to defeat the better-known 28-year incumbent Tom Miller, and her new television commercial features a visual endorsement from GOP gubernatorial candidate Terry Branstad.

The ad, script and some commentary are below.

Anyone go to the Iowa Democratic Party’s Jefferson-Jackson Dinner last night? If you missed it, like I did, Kay Henderson posted a good live-blog at Radio Iowa. Keynote speaker Ed Rendell, the governor of Pennsylvania, called plans to cut preschool funding “dumb and dumber”:

“In a year when there are some of the worst and craziest ideas are being put forth by Republican candidates, perhaps the worst in the country is cutting pre-K here in Iowa,” Rendell said.

Newspaper endorsements are starting to come in. The Cedar Rapids Gazette endorsed Branstad for governor today. The Des Moines Register ran a full-page editorial urging readers to retain the Iowa Supreme Court justices, calling the retention vote “by far the most important question in this year’s election.”

On a related note, former Republican Governor Bob Ray recorded a radio commercial for Fair Courts for Us, which asks Iowans to turn over the ballot and vote “yes, yes, and yes to retain the Iowa Supreme Court.”

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

A longer update on the governor’s race is in progress, but Terry Branstad’s comments on the budget during yesterday’s Des Moines Register interview are a must-read. Since the day he declared his candidacy, Branstad has said “the cost of government must be reduced by at least 15 percent.” He put that promise in his stump speech and in his television and radio commercials. But anyone who has paid attention to his campaign rhetoric could see that the program cuts he has mentioned so far wouldn’t put Iowa on track to reduce spending by 15 percent over five years. Moreover, Branstad’s property tax relief proposal depends on the state taking over some county government functions, which would increase the state budget.

As Jason Clayworth writes,

The Register has for weeks requested Branstad outline how he would reduce Iowa’s $5.3 billion budget, of which more than 80 percent is spent on education and human services that assist the state’s economically- or physically-disadvantaged families.

Branstad’s been good at evading such questions, but his time ran out yesterday when he sat down face to face with the Register’s reporters and editorial writers. I encourage you to read Clayworth’s whole piece as well as Kathie Obradovich’s take. Some excerpts are after the jump.

I figured Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks was too conservative to have a chance against Representative Dave Loebsack in Iowa’s second Congressional district. Loebsack represents the most Democratic-leaning House district in the state (partisan index D+7), and Miller-Meeks failed to reach the 40 percent mark in 2008. But I was wrong. Plenty of House incumbents who cruised two years ago are in tough races now, and many signs point to a highly competitive rematch in IA-02.

It’s been too long since Bleeding Heartland last checked in on this race. Television commercials for Miller-Meeks and Loebsack are after the jump, as well as highlights from this week’s debate between the candidates.

Former Republican Governor Bob Ray is co-chairing a new group that will urge Iowans to retain three Supreme Court justices who are on the ballot:

The group, Fair Courts for US, plans to stage a direct mail and media advertising campaign as part of a statewide grassroots answer to several conservative advocacy groups that are urging Iowans to vote against retention of Chief Justice Marsha Ternus as well as Justices Michael Streit and David Baker.

Three of the four co-chairs are prominent Republicans: Ray, who was governor from 1969 to 1983, Art Neu, who was lieutenant governor from 1973 to 1979, and Sioux City attorney Dan Moore, a past-president of the Iowa State Bar Association and former secretary and treasurer of Bob Vander Plaats’ gubernatorial campaign. The fourth co-chair is Democrat Christie Vilsack, who was first lady from 1999 to 2007.

[Moore] said there are other avenues available to those who disagree with a court decision, such as appealing to a higher court or amending the state constitution, rather than targeting a judge or justice up for retention based just on one decision.

“The courts are accountable to the constitution and to the rule of law and not politicians. It’s not a popularity contest that’s run here,” Moore said. “(In) our system of justice, courts must look at the facts. They must apply the laws and make a determination for an outcome of a case. Our citizens deserve the very best courts that they can have access to and that’s what they have today.” […]

“Our system is far and away superior to those states where judges are elected every four years. That’s why Fair Courts For Us is urging Iowans to take a stand and vote ‘yes’ to retain the justices and preserve our system of jurisprudence,” Ray said.

I wish this effort every success, but I don’t know how much grassroots work can be accomplished with less than three weeks left before the election. According to the Secretary of State’s Office, nearly 250,000 Iowans had requested absentee ballots as of October 14, and nearly 120,000 ballots had already been returned.

I hope Fair Courts for Us has television and radio commercials featuring Ray ready to launch as soon as possible. Ray commands tremendous respect among Iowans who remember him as governor, and older Iowans are least likely to support the Supreme Court’s Varnum v Brien decision on marriage. Backers of the Iowa for Freedom effort to oust the judges have been advertising statewide for a month already and have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the campaign.

Two other groups are trying to educate the public about the benefits of Iowa’s current judicial system: the Justice, Not Politics coalition and Iowan for Fair & Impartial Courts. However, those advocates are not explicitly urging Iowans to vote yes on retaining Ternus, Streit and Baker.

UPDATE: Fair Courts for Us started running this 60-second radio commercial in seven major Iowa markets on October 15. My transcript:

Sound of football game, tackle, referee’s whistle, sports announcer’s voice: And the flags are flying. Looks like a questionable call.

Referee’s voice: Unnecessary roughness.

Sports announcer: I think we’re gonna see some fans calling for these refs’ jobs.

Bob Ray: Listen, we’ll never agree with every call, but you shouldn’t fire the good referees over just one call. The same is true for the Iowa Supreme Court. I’m Bob Ray, a Republican and former Iowa governor. The Iowa Supreme Court has been making solid judgments over the years. The court protected Iowa families by requiring convicted sex offenders to live at least 2,000 feet away from a school or child care center, protected Iowa seniors, and protected our individual property rights. Please join me, Bob Ray, in turning over the ballot and voting yes, yes, and yes to retain the Iowa Supreme Court. There’s enough politics out there. We don’t need it in our courts.

Announcer: Paid for by Fair Courts for Us.

I wouldn’t have picked Iowa’s ineffective sex-offender residency restrictions as the best example of how the Supreme Court has worked for Iowans. This law clusters sex offenders in a few areas, and “many of those who work most closely with sex offenders and say restrictions are not working and public safety would benefit from change.” That’s not to say the Supreme Court’s decision on this law was incorrect (similar laws have been upheld in other states), but Iowans weren’t “protected” by the law.

In any event, this commercial is obviously targeting a conservative audience who might be inclined to vote against the judges, as well as senior citizens who probably remember Ray as governor.  

Since last spring, I’ve thought conservatives who denied the Iowa Supreme Court’s authority to rule on marriage didn’t grasp the judicial review concept. But Reverend Cary K. Gordon of the Cornerstone World Outreach church in Sioux City proved me wrong with his prayer:

“Dear God, please allow the IRS to attack my church, so I can take them all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.”

Gordon says he’ll defy federal tax laws this month by urging his congregation to vote against the retention of three Supreme Court justices because of the ruling that effectively legalized same-sex marriage in Iowa. He’s asked 1,000 church leaders to join him, prompting a complaint to the Internal Revenue Service.

Churches and other nonprofit organizations are prohibited from directly advocating for or against candidates. Their tax-exempt status is at risk if they do, although the IRS rarely goes so far.

Gordon is among church leaders who feel the restriction is unconstitutional. He apparently sees no irony in seeking court protection.

Gordon has been recruiting Iowa clergy to preach a “no” vote on judicial retention for the past month. He thinks he has a strong case on First Amendment grounds. There’s plenty of legal precedent for requiring tax-exempt organizations to refrain from certain kinds of political advocacy. But I’m more amused by Gordon’s desire to have the courts strike down part of a tax code adopted by the people’s representatives. How is that different from the Iowa Supreme Court striking down a key provision of Iowa’s Defense of Marriage Act?

Supreme Court Chief Justice Marsha Ternus, one of three high court judges on the ballot this year, noted Gordon’s hypocrisy in a speech at Iowa State University yesterday:

“The pastor claims this law is unconstitutional, and has vowed to challenge the law – where? In the courts,” she said. “It seems the pastor is quite comfortable arguing the will of the people, as expressed in this federal law, can be declared void in the courts.”

Ternus also asserted that activists urging a no vote on retention “are blinded by their own ideology.”

“They simply refuse to accept that an impartial, legally sound and fair reading of the law can lead to an unpopular decision.” […]

One of the main arguments for those wishing to oust the justices is centered around the idea that the justices did not have the authority to overturn the marriage law. As she extensively points out, judicial review is entrenched in both the American and Iowan judicial tradition, seeing support from the 1787 Constitutional Convention and from the authors of the Iowa Constitution. […]

Critics have also said justices subverted the will of the people by overturning a state law that is supported by a majority of Iowans. Ternus refutes this claim and other claims of judicial activism by saying the court fulfilled its constitutional role by acting in the interests of protecting constitutionally protected rights.

“When ruling that a statute violates the constitution the court does not usurp the powers of the other branches of government, the court exercises its own authority,” she said. “The court is not legislating from the bench, it is resolving a dispute between the parties by declaring the legislature’s act unenforceable because it violates the will of the people as expressed in their constitution.”

I’m concerned about the retention vote, partly because the judges’ opponents are spending so much money, and partly because about 25 percent of voters typically vote against retention even in a year without controversy. Share any thoughts about these election in this thread.

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller started running television commercials this week. I didn’t see the video on YouTube or his campaign website, but I taped it during the lunchtime newscast on KCCI. UPDATE: The video is now available on YouTube:

My transcript:

Male voice-over: His number one priority: protecting Iowans. Attorney General Tom Miller [photo of Miller, words “Tom Miller Protecting Iowans” on screen]

582 dangerous criminals sent to prison for life–Tom Miller. [Words “582 in prison for life–Tom Miller Attorney General” on screen]

84 sex predators and rapists kept in prison beyond their original terms. [words “84 predators and rapists kept in prison” on screen]

And he continues to lead the fight in the legislature for tougher laws on sex predators–Tom Miller. [photo of Miller, words “tougher laws on sex predators, Tom Miller Attorney General” on screen]

A mortgage hotline helping twelve thousand Iowans struggling to keep their homes. [words “12,000 home owners helped” on screen]

Cracking down on crime, standing up for Iowans. Tom Miller: A tough crime-fighter, a proven attorney general.

They certainly mentioned his name a lot of times, which is important for an incumbent who’s not in the news every day. I would like Miller to emphasize his consumer protection work, but I’m not surprised he went with the “tough on crime” angle. Republican attorney general candidate Brenna Findley is running tv and radio ads emphasizing her commitment to locking up sex predators (which implies the incumbent is not doing that job).

Miller has lobbied the state legislature for tougher laws on sex predators, so his commercial is accurate. I think it’s worth noting that while the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld state laws keeping sex offenders in custody beyond their terms, the programs “have almost never met a stated purpose of treating the worst criminals until they no longer pose a threat.”

The mortgage help hotline is important, and Miller should talk more about that kind of work before the election.

Speaking of foreclosures, the Attorney General’s Office announced today that Miller “is leading a 49-state bipartisan mortgage foreclosure working group, as part of a coordinated national effort by states to review the practice of so-called ‘robo-signing’ within the mortgage servicing industry.” The Wisconsin-based Daily Reporter has more on that effort. I’ve posted the press release from the AG’s office after the jump.

UPDATE: The Iowa Student Bar Association of the University of Iowa College of Law is sponsoring a debate between Findley and Miller, now scheduled for October 20 at the law school in Iowa City. Law students will submit the questions in advance.

President Barack Obama supposedly wants to end the ban on gays and lesbians openly serving in the U.S. military. His administration has backed a legislative compromise that would probably lead to the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell next year. However, the votes aren’t there in the Senate to attach that provision to this year’s defense authorization act. The Senate will consider the bill again after the November election, but I doubt senators would vote to lift the ban on gays in the military during a lame-duck session. Next year the issue will be off the table in a House and Senate with many more Republican votes, and possibly Republican majorities.

Yesterday a U.S. District Court judge in California gave Obama an easy way to keep his promise on ending the ban:  

U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips’ permanent worldwide injunction — praised by gay rights organizations — orders the military “immediately to suspend and discontinue any investigation, or discharge, separation, or other proceeding, that may have been commenced” under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. […]

In her ruling Tuesday, Phillips stated the policy infringes on the rights of military personnel. “Furthermore, there is no adequate remedy at law to prevent the continued violation of servicemembers’ rights or to compensate them for violation of their rights,” the judge wrote.

Now the question is whether Obama will have his administration appeal this ruling:

President Barack Obama has backed a Democratic effort in Congress to repeal the law, rather than in an executive order or in court.

But U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips’ injunction leaves the administration with a choice: Continue defending a law it opposes with an appeal, or do nothing, let the policy be overturned, and add an explosive issue to a midterm election with Republicans poised to make major gains.[…]

If the government does not appeal, the injunction cannot be reversed and would remain in effect. If it does, it can seek a temporary freeze, or stay, of her ruling. An appeal would go to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. Either side could then take it to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Pentagon did not immediately comment, and a Justice Department spokeswoman said the government was reviewing the decision. Meanwhile, a group of 19 Democrat senators signed a letter sent to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder urging him to let the injunction stand.

As of yesterday, Senator Tom Harkin was not among the Democrats who co-signed that letter. I am seeking comment from his office on whether he supports a Justice Department appeal of Judge Phillips’ ruling.

Since the last time Bleeding Heartland caught up on the third Congressional district race, seven-term incumbent Leonard Boswell’s chances for re-election have improved. Long considered Iowa’s most vulnerable Democrat in Congress, Boswell may now be in a stronger position than he has been all year.

New commercials, a new poll, and more are after the jump.  

For months, Republicans lied about Iowa supposedly running a billion-dollar budget deficit. Then they claimed that while Democrats might have balanced the current-year budget, they had pushed the state to the edge of a “cliff” for the following fiscal year. Another billion-dollar shortfall loomed, we were told, because Democrats relied too much on “one-time” federal funding and rejected the GOP’s proposed spending cuts. (By the way, those wouldn’t have saved the state as much money as Republicans claimed).

Yesterday Iowa’s Revenue Estimating Conference increased revenue projections for fiscal year 2011 by just under $298 million, citing improvements in the economy.

The REC additionally made its first projection for the fiscal year that will begin July 1, 2011.  The estimate for that year is almost $5.946 billion. […]

The Legislative Services Agency has previously estimated that Iowa faced a budget gap of between $800 million and $1 billion for the fiscal year that begins July 1, 2011.

Gaps are not deficits. Instead they are projections. And projections of hundreds of millions of dollars are common prior to the beginning of any budget year due to how the state budget is put together.  State lawmakers gather to whittle the state’s budget requests to fit the expected revenue.

Holly Lyons, director of the Legislative Services Agency’s Division of Fiscal Services and an REC member said today’s number would likely mean that the 2012 gap will be roughly $300 million smaller.

Contrary to Republican rhetoric, Democrats were wise not to deeply slash state services during the recession. The 2009 stimulus and other forms of federal fiscal aid did the job of helping Iowa get through a period of declining revenues without making huge cuts in education, Medicaid and other programs. Not using those federal dollars to support the state budget would have imposed unnecessary hardship on Iowans. In addition, deeper public-sector cuts would have further weakened the national economy. The latest U.S. jobs report demonstrated the impact of cutbacks in state and local budgets.

Iowa Republicans should apologize for their drumbeat on “overspending,” but don’t expect anything to change during the last three weeks of the campaign.

Final note: the swings in state revenue projections show that Terry Branstad’s plan to move Iowa to biennial budgeting would be foolish. It’s hard enough to predict revenues 12 months into the future, let alone 24 months out. That’s why many states have abandoned biennial budgeting in recent decades. Branstad hasn’t talked much about this issue since the Republican primary campaign, but he was on record then insisting that Iowa should move away from annual budgets.

Senator Chuck Grassley and Democratic challenger Roxanne Conlin both launched new television commercials today, their first in a couple of weeks.

Videos and transcripts are after the jump.

State Auditor David Vaudt has been a heck of a surrogate for Iowa Republicans. Dozens of candidates have adopted his rhetoric about Iowa being on the edge of a budget “cliff.” His false assertions have been featured in television commercials for Terry Branstad, and he joined the GOP nominee for governor on a so-called “truth in budgeting” tour this summer.

There are a few problems with Vaudt’s analysis. Iowa is running a larger than expected surplus, not a deficit. Independent analysts have confirmed our state finances weathered the recession well. Those analysts include all three major bond rating agencies, which have given Iowa the highest possible credit rating.

As the Des Moines Register reports today, however, Vaudt’s management decisions may bring down that credit rating despite Iowa’s relatively strong fiscal position.

An outside observer watching the Iowa House and Senate races would have trouble telling the Republican candidates apart. No matter which district you live in, the Republican candidate is using the same talking points in media interviews, campaign ads, or direct mail. They point to deficits that don’t exist, heated sidewalks that don’t exist, and so-called reckless borrowing that hasn’t created any jobs (a big distortion of the I-JOBS program). Republicans blast supposedly out-of-control spending, even though growth in expenditures on business tax credits “far exceeds general fund spending growth” in Iowa. They claim the local Democrat has “forced” large property tax increases, even though economists have debunked that claim, as “dozens of factors” affect property tax rates. Those include local bond issues and changes related to Iowa’s “rollback” calculation.

Sandy Greiner, GOP candidate in Iowa Senate district 45, sounds indistinguishable from other Republicans. At her campaign website and in her her radio advertising, she claims state government is “spending too much.” Like many other GOP candidates, she asserts (wrongly), “The last four budgets passed by the legislature have been the largest in the state’s history.” Greiner herself voted for the fiscal year 2007 budget, the last one approved by a Republican-controlled legislature in Iowa. That budget provided for greater general fund spending than the current-year budget.

Greiner is unique among Republican candidates in one respect, however. No one else leads a group that’s raising and spending more in undisclosed political donations than all candidates will spend in all of Iowa’s 125 legislative races combined.  

Between visiting Iowa City yesterday and the Wills Family Orchard/pumpkin patch today, I forgot to put up a weekend open thread.

Share anything on your mind, Bleeding Heartland readers. Reports of political robocalls, direct mail, radio or television ads are always welcome. The candidates and volunteers must have enjoyed the perfect weather for knocking on doors.

From time to time I enjoy pondering counterfactual history questions like “Should the Republicans have nominated Romney in 2008?” or “Could Clinton or Edwards have beaten Obama in Iowa?”

Since establishment Republicans suffered shocking losses last month in the Delaware and Alaska U.S. Senate primaries, another question has been on my mind. Could a primary challenger have taken out or seriously threatened Senator Chuck Grassley in Iowa?

Governor Chet Culver and Republican Terry Branstad face off in a few minutes at Cedar Rapids’ Coe College. KCRG and the Cedar Rapids Gazette are live-streaming the debate. From 8 to 9 pm people anywhere in Iowa can watch the debate on Iowa Public Television.

Unlike last time around, I won’t shirk my blogger duties. Live-blogging commences after the jump.

UPDATE: For the most part I agree with Todd Dorman; no surprises in the debate. I think whoever prepped Branstad for the debate was wise to have him waive rebuttals when the question didn’t play to a good issue for him.

In reference to the debate sparring over property taxes (see below) Culver’s campaign sent out a list of bills Branstad signed that authorized new or expanded property taxes.

Governor Chet Culver and Republican challenger Terry Branstad will debate for the second time tonight at 7 pm. You can watch live online at KCRG in Cedar Rapids, or statewide on Iowa Public Television at 8 pm. I’ll put up a debate discussion thread here later, but first let’s preview each candidate’s message on the big issues likely to come up tonight. As was apparent during the first gubernatorial debate, these two are masters at answering the question they want to answer.

Jobs, flood recovery, tv ads and more are after the jump.

Republicans didn’t recruit a high-profile challenger against two-term Representative Bruce Braley, who outperformed Barack Obama in Iowa’s first Congressional district in 2008. For months, Ben Lange’s campaign in this D+5 district attracted little attention as Iowa Republicans talked up their chances against Leonard Boswell in the third district.

Four weeks before the election, Lange is definitely on the radar. Yesterday the National Republican Congressional Committee bumped him up to the top tier of its “Young Guns” program. The NRCC hasn’t reserved any paid media in Iowa so far and isn’t likely to spend on behalf of Lange. But he doesn’t need their help–not with the 501(c)4 group American Future Fund reserving $800,000 in air time to attack Braley on top of direct mail and robocalls criticizing the incumbent.

A survey of recent news and advertising in the IA-01 race is after the jump.

Republican attorney general candidate Brenna Findley has been one of the hardest-working challengers in Iowa this year. For months, she’s been campaigning across the state, and she’s raised lots of money, helped by her close ties to Representative Steve King and an enthusiastic booster in Terry Branstad. Findley launched her introductory television commercial this week and has had a radio ad running since mid-September. In contrast, 28-year Democratic incumbent Tom Miller has been mostly invisible on the campaign trail.

Findley’s introductory tv and radio ads are after the jump, along with some other recent news from the attorney general’s race.  

Direct mail attacking Democratic incumbents has reached voters in many competitive Iowa House and Senate districts. From reports I’ve heard, most mailers employ cookie-cutter messaging about unsustainable spending, or supposedly “forced” property tax increases, which have been debunked again and again.

One GOP talking point had me stumped: in press conferences, message-testing phone calls and campaign mailers, Republicans have accused Democrats of spending thousands of dollars on “heated sidewalks.”

Follow me after the jump for background on the origin of this canard. You’ll be “shocked” to learn that Iowa House and Senate Democrats did not vote to spend money on heating sidewalks, nor are such sidewalks planned or installed anywhere in Iowa.  

Matt Schultz, the not-very-informed Republican who wants to be Iowa’s chief elections officer, has been on a tear lately. Last week he launched the Stop Mauro website, which publishes new allegations almost daily about Secretary of State Mike Mauro’s supposedly nefarious doings. A common thread in Schultz’s rhetoric, dating from the Republican primary campaign, is that Mauro engages in Chicago-style politics, which have no place in Iowa.

On October 1 Schultz slammed Mauro for filming public-service announcements regarding new voting technology for the visually impaired. Radio Iowa’s Kay Henderson covered Schultz’s joint press conference with Republican state treasurer candidate Dave Jamison. Mauro’s office responded as well. There is an obvious public interest in educating Iowans about new voting equipment during election season. Mauro appears in the commercial, but so do a Republican county auditor and the president of the Iowa Chapter of the National Federation of the Blind. More details on the production, funding and script of the ad are here.

Schultz’s attention-getting press conference seems to have backfired. On Monday two more Republican county auditors joined the crowd supporting Mauro for re-election. One of the new endorsers was Marilyn Jo Drake of Pottawattamie County. Schultz is well-known there, having served on the Council Bluffs City Council since 2005. But Drake said in a statement, “I’m proud to support Michael Mauro as he seeks a second term as Secretary of State. Michael Mauro has been a strong and effective partner with county auditors across Iowa. I encourage all Iowans to vote for him this fall.”

Elected county officials rarely back statewide candidates from the other party. Schultz doesn’t have the experience to do this job, and his unfounded claims don’t inspire confidence from the county auditors who work with the Secretary of State’s office.

Jamison’s complaints about State Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald are no more convincing. Jamison claims “taxpayers” are funding television, radio and newspaper ads featuring Fitzgerald. The ads publicize the College Savings Iowa 529 plan and the “Great Iowa Treasure Hunt,” which encourages Iowans to retrieve unclaimed property from the state. Deputy State Treasurer Karen Austin told me that unclaimed property finances the publicity for the treasure hunt, which state law requires twice a year. Those ads typically appear in May and September. The state’s general fund budget doesn’t pay for the college savings fund commercials either; those are funded by the 529 plan’s assets. Austin told Kay Henderson that many states including Iowa normally promote college savings in September. Jamison accused Fitzgerald of using public funds to promote himself, but

Austin says, “The way that we look at it, is having a state office that does this adds credibility to the program, and that is one thing that gives people comfort in understanding and knowing who is promoting this program, and why should I invest in this program and is that state tax benefit legitimate. So we have always felt that it is very important to make sure that people understand what this program is.”

Similarly, Schultz claimed the commercials on voting technology could have been produced without featuring Mauro. Guess what? Incumbents have some natural advantages in politics–like when Republican office-holders use taxpayer money to fund visits to all 99 Iowa counties every year.

Share any thoughts about the secretary of state or state treasurer races in this thread.

P.S. One point on the Stop Mauro site deserves additional comment. Schultz says Mauro “snubs the law,” citing a 2008 Polk County district court ruling. The court determined that Mauro violated Iowa’s official English law by providing and accepting voter registration forms printed in other languages. Legal scholars Evan Seite and Michael Zuckerman have analyzed this case in detail, and the issues at hand are more complicated than Schultz implies. In fact, the judge who wrote the King v Mauro opinion “suggested that the federal Voting Rights Act […] might require Iowa’s use of non-English voter registration forms” under an exception allowing for “language usage required by or necessary to secure the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of the United States.” If plaintiffs ever challenge the Iowa English Language Reaffirmation Act in federal court, Mauro’s actions may be vindicated. Zuckerman argues that English-only laws are constitutionally vulnerable as applied to voting.  

At about 6:20 pm today I received a robocall informing me about one of the “most important” elections this year, which is “buried at the bottom of your ballot.” The recorded female voice told me that voting no on the three Iowa Supreme Court judges would send a “clear message,” since the judges had ignored the “overwhelming” will of the people, blah blah blah. Toward the end the caller again urged me to vote no on retention, adding a populist closing line: “This time, you get to be the judge.”

I was taking notes as fast as I could, ready to write down who paid for the call and the phone number of the sponsor. However, the call ended without giving any of that information. Using *69, I learned that the source of my last incoming call was 515-418-9339, but when I pressed 1 to contact that number, I heard, “The number called cannot be reached.” Subsequent attempts to dial 515-418-9339 didn’t produce a ring, busy signal or any answering machine message.

In federal elections, groups making automated calls must “identify themselves at the beginning of the call and provide a call-back number.” Although most robocalls I’ve received do provide that information, Iowa statute does not require it, to my knowledge.

I wonder why those campaigning against the Iowa Supreme Court judges are reluctant to publicize who is bankrolling their campaign activities. Shouldn’t the sponsor be “loud and proud” about what they’re doing? Perhaps they don’t want to call attention to the vast amounts of out-of-state money trying to influence the retention vote. The Washington, DC-based National Organization for Marriage and the Mississippi-based American Family Association Action are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars urging Iowans to vote no on retention.

Please share any relevant thoughts, and post a comment or contact me off-line if you’ve received the same robocall.

Yesterday the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency formally approved the new “antidegradation” rules adopted by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources to protect high quality Iowa waters. The Iowa Farm Bureau Federation and two industry groups immediately filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of the state Environmental Protection Commission’s vote to adopt the antidegradation rules. The EPC and the DNR are named as defendants.

A Farm Bureau press release charged that two members of the EPC should not have been able to vote on the rule. Carrie LaSeur, president of the non-profit organization Plains Justice, “was already living and voting in Montana when she cast her vote on the Iowa antidegradation rule,” the lawsuit contends. “That is a clear violation of the residency laws governing the EPC, which require members to be registered Iowa voters.” The lawsuit further claims EPC member Susan Heathcote had a conflict of interest because she works for the Iowa Environmental Council, a non-profit that advocated adoption of antidegradation standards. Environmental attorney James Pray posted a link to the petition on his blog and summarized a third angle to the lawsuit:

The third count alleges that Iowa’s antidegradation rules are more restrictive than the federal law. Iowa Code section 455B.105(3) requires the EPC to state in the Notice of Intended Action or preamble that a rule will be more restrictive than what is required under federal law. The Iowa antidegradation rule invents a Tier 2 1/2 designation in between the federal Tier 2 and Tier 3 designation. No mention was made in the preamble or Notice of Intended Action that this change was in the offing.

The Iowa Farm Bureau has 154,000 members. The Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, and the Iowa Water Environment Association are industry groups with 100 and 600 members, respectively. All three groups have some members who will be required to obtain or renew NPDES permits that comply with antidegredation requirements.

The EPC has nine commissioners and needs at least five yes votes to adopt a rule. The antidegradation rule passed on December 15, 2009 by a vote of six to two with one abstention (pdf). In other words, it would have passed without LaSeur voting, or without Heathcote, but not without both of them.

I am not an attorney and don’t know Iowa case law relating to residency and LaSeur’s eligilibity to serve on a state commission.

Heathcote declined my request for comment today, not having had a chance to read the legal petition. She had served on the EPC for more than two years before the antidegradation rule passed, but this is the first lawsuit challenging her ability to vote on commission matters related to environmental regulation.

The EPA noted yesterday that the federal Clean Water Act requires Iowa “to develop and adopt a statewide antidegradation policy and to identify procedures for implementing the policy.” I thought Iowa’s many years of non-compliance were over once opponents failed to stop the water quality rules in the Iowa legislature’s Administrative Rules Review Committee in February. The Farm Bureau’s lawsuit means at least a delay and perhaps the demise of rules designed to “maintain and protect high quality waters and existing water quality in other waters from unnecessary pollution.”  

Another independent analysis concludes Iowa is well-managed and compares favorably to most other states. 24/7 Wall St, a website geared toward investors, released its survey of “The Best and Worst Run States in America on Monday. Iowa ranked third, behind Wyoming and North Dakota. This survey took many indicators into account:

It is based on evaluation principles used in the award-winning Best Run States In America ratings published by the Financial World Magazine during the 1990s. These studies were used by state governments to evaluate the efficiency of their own operations. The new 24/7 Wall St. study is meant to help businesses and individuals examine state operation with an unbiased eye.

The word involved in comparing states is challenging. This is due the volume of the data and the many ways it can be interpreted. A comparison is made even more difficult because state governments have advantages and disadvantages that may be decades old. These include the presence of natural resources, the the decisions by large companies to locate or leave and the extent to which populations are rural or urban. […]

Ultimately, however, states can control their own destinies. Well-run states have a great deal in common with well-run corporations. Books are kept balanced. Investment is prudent. Debt is sustainable. Innovation is prized. Workers are well-chosen and well-trained. Executives are picked based on merit and not “politics.”

24/7 Wall Street identified surveys with complete data sets for each state. Using this data, our formula ranked each state giving weight to metrics that are most important to prudent governance. In addition to traditional fiscal information, including GDP per capita, debt per capita, and and credit rating, our analysis also showed the impact of state policies on its residents.

24/7 Wall St posted more information about its methodology near the bottom of this page. Governor Chet Culver and the Democratic-controlled state legislature can’t take credit for all of the factors that helped Iowa gain such a high ranking. However, this survey demonstrates the emptiness of Republican campaign rhetoric about “out of control” state spending and borrowing. Iowa has maintained a top credit rating and the sixth-lowest debt per capita, and our unemployment rate is relatively low by national standards.

Since Democrats gained Iowa House and Senate majorities four years ago, they have passed bills to expand access to health care for children and adults (see here and here for two examples). Those laws helped reduce Iowa’s already low percentage of residents without health insurance. Only Massachusetts and Hawaii now score better than Iowa on this metric, according to a chart near the middle of this page in the 24/7 Wall St report.

Yet again, outside analysts who don’t have a dog in the outcome of Iowa elections have concluded that the state is doing well, thanks to capable and prudent management. Don’t expect Republicans to notice, though.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is headlining a sold-out fundraiser for Republican gubernatorial candidate Terry Branstad in Des Moines this evening. Branstad has praised Christie for “cleaning up the state’s budget and again putting his state on the right track.” One Republican speaker after another tonight will bash Iowa Governor Chet Culver, ignoring the fact that our state ended the last fiscal year with a sizable surplus and has been described as one of the states “least like California” in terms of budget problems.

Bleeding Heartland would like to welcome Christie to Iowa by comparing his record on state borrowing with Culver’s I-JOBS infrastructure bonding program, a frequent Republican punching bag.

The latest Des Moines Register poll by Selzer and Co finds three Iowa Supreme Court justices are in danger of not being retained this November. The Register’s Monday edition contains details from that portion of the poll, which surveyed 550 likely voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percent.

Among all likely voters, just 31 percent plan to vote to retain all three Supreme Court justices, 12 percent will vote to retain some of them, 29 percent will vote against retaining all of them, 16 percent will probably not fill out that part of the ballot, and 12 percent were unsure. Among respondents who planned to vote on the retentions, 44 percent said they would vote to retain all the Supreme Court judges, 16 percent said they would vote to retain some, and 40 percent will vote to remove all three.

Click here for the Register’s graph showing the breakdown among certain demographic groups (party affiliation, income, union household and born again Christian). Grant Schulte summarized the findings:

Retention supporters and opponents split largely on party lines. Voters most likely to retain all the justices were Democrats, women, younger Iowans, union households, and those with high incomes and college degrees.

Senior citizens, Republicans, men, tea party supporters, born-again Christians, low-income voters and those with only a high school education were more likely to vote “no” to all the justices, the poll found.

I had feared worse numbers, since the Register’s poll was in the field September 19-22, not long after television commercials making the case against retention started running statewide.

Schulte’s article notes,

The retention election could hinge on which side mobilizes the most down-ticket voters. A Register analysis of voting records in the past two non-presidential elections shows that only 60 percent of Iowa voters answered the retention questions for justices and appeals-court judges.

The judges don’t plan to campaign for themselves. Groups backing retention won’t be able to match the advertising budgets of groups on the religious right. I doubt they will reach as many voters as the pastors who plan to preach directly against retaining the judges either.

Ousting three Supreme Court wouldn’t change Iowa’s judicial system right away, but it would give momentum to those who want to replace merit-based selection with a more politicized process. Please remind your friends to fill out the whole ballot and vote yes on the judges up for retention.

The National Rifle Association released its complete list of Iowa endorsements late last week. Though the announcement didn’t receive as much media coverage as the group’s backing for Democratic Governor Chet Culver, announced a few days earlier, I found some of the choices interesting. Like the Iowa Corn Growers Association, the NRA has a policy of endorsing incumbents who have supported the group’s agenda, regardless of party. (In contrast, the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation endorsed almost exclusively Republicans this year, passing over many Democrats in the state legislature who have supported that group’s agenda.)

The NRA Iowa endorsements and candidate ratings candidates are here. Some highlights are after the jump.

Exactly one month remains before the November election. Many Iowans have already received phone calls or direct mail promoting or attacking candidates for the state legislature, and those voter contacts will accelerate in the final weeks. Based on what I’ve heard about Republican message-testing phone calls in various Iowa House and Senate districts, Democratic candidates can expect lots of lies or distortions: the so-called “budget deficit” that doesn’t exist, alleged attempts to force workers to join unions, the claim that I-JOBS hasn’t created any jobs, and alleged government spending on “heated sidewalks” that never happened.

I’ll have more on Iowa Republicans’ lies and exaggerations in the coming weeks. I encourage Bleeding Heartland readers to help get the word out by posting diaries here or e-mailing me (desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com) about any deceptive mailings and robocalls you receive.

Meanwhile, it’s imperative that Democratic candidates and allied groups stick to the facts when criticizing Republican opponents. This week Iowa conservative bloggers were enraged over mailers attacking Kent Sorenson, GOP challenger against State Senator Staci Appel in Senate district 37. The seat is one of Republicans’ top targets, and activists in both parties expect a close election. Shane Vander Hart posted two of the mail pieces on the Des Moines Register website. At least one was paid for by the Iowa Democratic Party; I can’t tell from Vander Hart’s photo who paid for the other piece.

The mailers highlight Sorenson’s vote against Senate File 2357, which Governor Chet Culver signed into law this year after it passed with bipartisan support. The bill prohibits “a person who is the subject of a no-contact order or a protective order or who has been convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence from possessing, transferring, or selling firearms and ammunition or offensive weapons.” Sorenson and most other Republicans felt making someone give up their guns because of a no-contact order was taking away a constitutional right “without due process.” It disgusts me when self-styled law and order Republicans care more about domestic abusers’ gun rights than about preventing violent crimes. A large percentage of women who are murdered are killed by male partners or ex-partners who have previously abused or threatened them. Women have to demonstrate a pattern of abuse or harassment in order to get a no-contact order. Criticizing Sorenson for that vote is fair game.

The mailers also mention House File 596, which Sorenson co-sponsored in 2009. This bill would have relaxed concealed weapons permit requirements. Thankfully, it never made it out of subcommittee. The anti-Sorenson mailers claim HF 596 “would allow concealed weapons in bars.” That’s partly true; from my reading of the bill, it looks like only people in certain occupations would be able to carry concealed weapons in bars (a bad idea). The mailers also claim HF 596 “would allow kindergarten teachers to carry concealed weapons in classrooms.” I can’t find anything in the text of the bill to support that claim. Sorenson may be crazy, but even he isn’t that crazy.

Stretching the truth to score political points is not only wrong, but also likely to backfire. Sorenson does hold extreme views on guns. His own supporters cheer his efforts to repeal all handgun permit requirements and eviscerate Iowa’s permitting system in other ways. Unfortunately, sloppy work by whoever produced those direct-mail pieces will allow Sorenson to portray himself as the victim of a smear campaign.

Democrats shouldn’t let Republican attacks go unanswered, but they need to stick to the reality of Republicans’ voting records, public statements and the wacky ideas in the Iowa GOP platform.

Speaking of sloppiness, why does anyone listen to Krusty Konservative? This week he stated definitively that the National Rifle Association had endorsed Appel over Sorenson. The NRA announced a few days later that it was backing Sorenson. Click here to view the rest of the NRA’s Iowa endorsements.

This is an open thread, so feel free to share anything that’s on your mind this weekend.

Iowa Supreme Court Chief Justice Marsha Ternus confirmed on September 30 that she and her colleagues will not wage a campaign urging Iowans to retain them in office.

Ternus said she and justices David Baker and Michael Streit don’t want to set an example for judges by campaigning and raising money.

“How would you feel, as a litigant, to appear in court and know that the opposing party’s attorney gave money to the judge’s re-election campaign and your attorney didn’t? Is that the kind of system Iowans want? I just hope they think about it. This is way more important than whether any one judge is retained or not,” she said.

I’ve talked to some people who are frustrated the Supreme Court justices aren’t more actively defending themselves and their records. I admire them for honoring the principle that judges should not engage in election-style campaigns, even when their own jobs are on the line.

Former Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats is heading a campaign to oust the judges. His Iowa for Freedom organization has massive financial backing from the American Family Association and the National Organization for Marriage. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have already been spent on a statewide television commercial and radio advertising urging Iowans to vote no on retaining Ternus, Streit and Baker.

The Justice, Not Politics coalition formed recently to defend the judges and our current judicial system, but they won’t be able to match the conservative groups’ spending against the judges. The Iowa State Bar Association has created Iowans for Fair and Impartial Courts, but as a pending 501(c) organization, that group cannot explicitly urge Iowans to vote yes on retaining the Supreme Court justices.

Please remind your friends and relatives to turn the ballot over and vote yes on retaining the judges listed. All of them “are well qualified to remain as judges” according to the Iowa State Bar Association’s survey of Iowa attorneys. Survey results were released on October 1. All 74 judges up for retention this year received “high marks” for “professionalism and demeanor” on the bench. The Des Moines Register listed the bar association’s survey results for the three Supreme Court justices and all Polk County judges on the ballot.

All judges had more than 70 percent support from the attorneys, but Ternus’ retention rating (72 percent) was lower than the ratings for Streit and Baker. In general, women judges receive lower retention ratings from the legal community than men on the bench. Ternus also made the news in the summer of 2009 when seven 19-year-olds, including her son, were arrested for drinking at a party outside her home. Her husband was charged with interference with official acts as Polk County sheriff’s deputies broke up that party, but the charge was later amended to harassment of a public official.

UPDATE: Saturday’s Des Moines Register offered another possible explanation for Ternus’ slightly lower rating:

But the vote also follows a tight budget year for the courts. Ternus, who issues administrative orders as part of her duties, required clerk-of-court offices to reduce their public hours, and imposed courthouse closure days as a cost-cutting measure. Some court reporters were laid off.

“The chief justice is the person who addresses issues such as dealing with court’s budget, or administrative issues in the court,” Knutson said. “Certainly, she had to be the public face on some of those hard decisions.”

Iowa Republicans have nominated some candidates who are remarkably ill-suited for the jobs they are seeking. There’s secretary of state nominee Matt Schultz, who doesn’t know how voter rolls are maintained, uses unfounded fraud allegations to get attention, and thinks a focus on job creation means the secretary of state should get involved in legislative battles over tax and labor bills.

There are incumbents like State Representatives Jason Schultz and Dwayne Alons, whose oddball ideas Bleeding Heartland has covered before.

But this story in the Carroll Daily Times-Herald suggests that Dan Dirkx, Republican candidate in Iowa House district 51, sets the gold standard for ignorance.  

At about 4:00 pm today a woman from Lawrence Research called with a survey on the upcoming elections. As always when I receive a political phone call, I didn’t hang up and took as many notes as possible on the poll. Judging from the question wordings, this was a message-testing survey commissioned by a group trying to oust the three Iowa Supreme Court justices who will be on the ballot this November.

The Lawrence Research polling firm is run by Gary Lawrence, who was active in California’s Prop 8 campaign against same-sex marriage. His firm recently conducted a poll purporting to show that Minnesotans want a governor who opposes same-sex marriage rights. The Minnesota Family Council and National Organization for Marriage publicized that poll.

I assume the American Family Association and/or the National Organization for Marriage commissioned the poll for which I was a respondent today. Those groups are lavishly funding the “Iowa for Freedom” effort to oust the judges. Television commercials urging a no vote on retention began running statewide two and a half weeks ago.

If this poll shows that Iowans are poised to vote no on retaining the Supreme Court justices, whoever commissioned it will probably announce the results. I’ll assume the numbers were good for the judges if I don’t see an Iowa for Freedom press release about the poll in the coming weeks.

After the jump I’ve posted as many details as I could about the survey questions.

Speaking of the retention elections, get a load of this brazen recruiting effort by a Sioux City church: “Pastors who join this effort are asked to commit to confront the injustice and ungodly decisions of the Iowa Supreme Court by boldly calling upon their flocks to ‘vote no on judicial retention’ for the three consecutive Sundays prior to Election Day.”  

Iowa finished fiscal year 2010 on June 30 with an ending balance of $335.6 million and $419 million in various reserve accounts, the Iowa Department of Management reported yesterday. Remarkably, the surplus is the second-largest in the last 10 years despite the weak national economic recovery of the past year.

It’s been clear since July that the ending balance would exceed the $100 million projected when the legislature adopted the 2010 budget. Revenues during the second half of the fiscal year came in higher than expected.

Republicans have been lying about Iowa’s so-called “budget deficit” all year. During the past three months, gubernatorial candidate Terry Branstad has continued to accuse Governor Chet Culver of spending too much, and GOP candidates for many other offices have joined in the chorus about allegedly “out of control” spending.

Don’t expect Republicans to apologize for their demagoguery. Instead of acknowledging our state’s fiscal health, Iowa House Republicans put out a statement today fanning fears about a huge Medicaid funding shortfall in fiscal year 2012 (that’s the year that begins on July 1, 2011).

Kathie Obradovich’s take on today’s news at the Des Moines Register blog was stunning as well. Instead of pointing out that the final budget numbers disprove statements Branstad has been making all year, she chided Culver for “name-calling” against his Republican opponent. Why doesn’t she ask Branstad to show how he would balance the budget without accepting federal fiscal aid or dipping into reserve funds, while keeping his promise to reduce the size of state government by 15 percent over five years? We’ve seen no budget details from Branstad, and his plans to cut corporate taxes while having the state take on more responsibility for funding mental health and education services simply don’t add up.

More details on the final state budget numbers for fiscal year 2010 are after the jump, along with ending balances for each of the last ten fiscal years.

UPDATE: Iowa House Republican leader Kraig Paulsen still claims Culver “has a history of reckless and irresponsible budgeting” and accuses him of forcing a $500 million property tax increase. That Republican talking point has been debunked before. Paulsen asserts that Culver has “left a budget shortfall of over $1 billion for next year, including $600 million in Medicaid.” Again, that refers to fiscal year 2012. The Iowa legislature will take account of updated revenue and expense projects when drafting next year’s budget during the 2011 legislative session, just like legislators adjusted spending plans during this year’s session to keep the 2011 budget balanced.

Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey has run a low-key campaign for re-election so far this year. Democratic challenger Francis Thicke has faulted Northey for not doing enough to ensure food safety, proposed stronger regulations for Iowa egg producers and an energy policy that would increase farm incomes. I expected Northey to respond by telling voters how he has protected the food supply or helped farmers improve their bottom lines.

Instead, Northey’s opening television commercials have spread the usual Republican lies about Iowa’s “budget deficit” in order to depict Northey as a leader in keeping down his department’s exPenses.

UPDATE: Northey is also distorting Thicke’s stance on ethanol plants in Iowa. For more, scroll to the bottom of this post.

SECOND UPDATE: Another central claim from Northey’s ads turns out to be false. As Thicke points out in the comments, Northey didn’t “work with the legislature” to reduce his department’s budget.

President Barack Obama is discussing the economy this morning at a private home in Des Moines. Governor Chet Culver and several other elected Democrats are there, but the president isn’t doing any campaign rallies in Iowa like his appearance in Wisconsin yesterday.

The latest Des Moines Register statewide poll by Selzer and Co showed just 45 percent of all Iowa respondents approve of Obama’s performance, while 50 percent disapprove. Among the “likely voters” subset, Obama’s approval is 42 percent, with 55 percent disapproving.

Last night Obama tried to fire up a group of Democratic activists about this year’s election. Maybe Democrats would be more enthusiastic about voting and volunteering if the president had delivered on more of his campaign promises and implemented better economic policies. That’s a topic for another post.

I’ll update this post later with links on today’s event on the economy. Meanwhile, share any thoughts about Obama or his impact on the Iowa elections in this thread.

LATE UPDATE: The group of people invited for Obama’s backyard visit wasn’t representative of Iowans struggling in today’s economy. He spent a lot of time criticizing Republican ideology on tax cuts, mostly with accurate facts and figures. But I just don’t find Obama’s economic message credible. He seemed afraid to face the people hurt the most by the recession, and he won’t acknowledge or correct his administration’s inadequate response to the housing crisis and continuing high unemployment. Where is the president’s plan to help the “99ers,” people who have exhausted all their unemployment benefits but still can’t find work? Why did he reappoint a Federal Reserve chairman who won’t do much to attack the unemployment problem? Heads should have rolled at Treasury for designing a foreclosure response program primarily to benefit banks rather than Americans who are underwater on their mortgages. (See David Dayen’s “Portrait of HAMP failure” series at Firedoglake.)

Obama’s backyard event succeeded at what may have been its primary aim–generating positive vibes with Iowa journalists like Kathie Obradovich. She somehow concluded the staged performance helped “Obama reconnect with Iowa” by allowing “the president to interact with people in a way he never could in a huge venue.” Oh, and we’re supposed to be impressed he got a couple of semi-critical questions during the Potemkin visit.

Iowa’s first Congressional district race was long assumed to be safely in the Democratic column. Two-term incumbent Bruce Braley won by a 25-point margin in 2008, outperforming President Barack Obama in the district. No well-known Republican stepped forward to challenge Braley in 2010, and as of July, the incumbent had more than six times as much cash on hand as Ben Lange, the little-known attorney from Independence who won the Republican primary.

Lange’s campaign has produced some web videos with a generic message: Braley increased the national debt, voted for bailouts, “Obamacare,” the “failed stimulus,” and supports House Speaker Nancy Pelosi 98 percent of the time.

Lange’s website and web advertising portray the national debt as a huge threat to our national security. But the former Congressional staffer to a Minnesota Republican seems to have little grasp of the federal budget. He wants to replace our current income tax structure with two tax brackets: everyone making less than $125,000 per year would pay 10 percent in income taxes, while everyone over that threshold would pay 25 percent. I would love to see the Congressional Budget Office estimate on how much that plan would add to the deficit over 10 years. I couldn’t find any details on Lange’s website about spending he would cut to pay for his tax plan while balancing the budget. He has asserted (wrongly) that “unspent bank bailout and stimulus funds, as well as a freeze on federal hiring and pay increases,” would cover the $3.7 trillion it would cost over 10 years to extend all of George W. Bush’s tax cuts and fix the alternative minimum tax. He claims (wrongly) that the health insurance reform bill didn’t address the Medicare reimbursement formula.

All of this is a roundabout way of saying that Lange doesn’t seem ready for prime time. Nor can he afford much of what would raise his name recognition in the district, such as direct mail, radio and television advertising.

Lange has something most unheralded Congressional challengers don’t have, however: a 501(c)4 group willing to spend roughly a million dollars on his behalf. The American Future Fund began television advertising against Braley last month and has reserved another $800,000 in advertising time before the November election. The group has also paid for robocalls and direct mail to district voters, attacking Braley’s record. Last week the American Future Fund’s PAC formally endorsed Lange, gave his campaign $5,000, and launched a 60-second radio ad hitting Braley on the usual Republican talking points (read the ad script here).

Unsolicited advice for Lange: when you’re benefiting from a million dollars in outside spending by people who won’t say where they get their money, it’s not wise to accuse your opponent of taking too many campaign donations from outside the district.

Braley didn’t fundraise heavily during the first half of the year, probably assuming he didn’t have a serious challenger. He now faces the prospect of being outspent between Labor Day and election day. Without the American Future Fund in this race, it would probably be sufficient for Braley to run a standard incumbent campaign with positive advertising. He could tout the more popular elements of financial reform, consumer credit card protections, health insurance reform and federal fiscal aid to Iowa. Braley was a key architect of the “Cash for Clunkers” program, which stimulated hundreds of thousands of new car sales last year. He also was a leading advocate of the “plain language” bill the House has passed twice, which finally got Senate approval on September 27.

Now Braley has to balance defending his own record with responding to the American Future Fund’s attack ads. Lange can sit back and be the generic Republican on the ballot.

In recent weeks, Braley has tried to taint Lange by association with the American Future Fund, which doesn’t disclose its donors and has a sleazy ad consultant. Braley’s campaign has also accused Lange of illegally coordinating campaign activities with the 501(c)4 group. I don’t know how they could prove that, because Republican candidates around the country are using the same kind of rhetoric we’ve heard from Lange. It’s not as if the American Future Fund came up with a unique set of talking points against Braley.

I haven’t seen any internal polling on this race, so I don’t know whether Lange is in striking distance. A poll commissioned by the American Future Fund found Braley ahead of Lange by 50 percent to 39 percent, and by 47.1 percent to 42.7 percent among the most likely voters. I also don’t know the margin by which Democratic Governor Chet Culver and U.S. Senate candidate Roxanne Conlin are trailing their opponents in the first Congressional district; that would affect Braley’s prospects too.

Share any thoughts on the IA-01 race in this thread.

UPDATE: The American Future Fund’s latest television commercial against Braley is after the jump.

Monday was role reversal day in the Iowa governor’s race, with the National Rifle Association endorsing Democratic incumbent Chet Culver as a union group backed Republican challenger Terry Branstad.

The candidates’ rival job creation proposals also made news during the past week. Branstad’s plan looks like a cover for letting business interests gut almost any regulation they dislike.

More on those stories, along with Culver’s latest television commercial, are after the jump.

UPDATE: The Culver campaign announced the Teamsters Union endorsement on September 28. Details are below.

More than 30 organization and several dozen “community leaders” have formed a new coalition called Justice, Not Politics. Former Lieutenant Governors Joy Corning (a Republican) and Sally Pederson (a Democrat) are co-chairing the coalition, which will counter the well-funded campaign to oust three Iowa Supreme Court justices up for retention this year. Pederson and Corning spoke to Radio Iowa’s Kay Henderson on September 27:

Pederson charges that Iowa for Freedom – the group now headed by former Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats – is trying to “hijack” the courts and using a quarter of a million dollars in out-of-state money to do it. “There is no Iowa for Freedom organization that you can write a check to. It is a project of the American Family Association out of Tupelo, Mississippi, and they don’t have the interests of Iowans at heart. They have their own agenda,” Pederson says. “The American Family Association is really a extremely outrageous, you know, right-wing group.”

The leaders of Iowa For Freedom say they’ll continue to educate Iowans about their right to “hold the court accountable” for the gay marriage ruling and they accuse Pederson and Corning of “scare tactics.”

Corning says judges shouldn’t be subjected to “political retribution” and Corning argues the three justices up for a retention vote this fall have met the right standard by showing an ability to uphold the law “fairly and consistently.”

“There is much work to be done to fight extremists who want to insert their narrow special interests into the one branch of government that should be free from politics,” Corning says.

Click here to view a list of Justice, Not Politics supporters. Many churches and religious organizations have signed on, and lots of the “community leaders” are clergy. I am not aware of any current Republican elected official or candidate who has spoken out for retaining the justices, but in addition to Corning, two other prominent former Republican politicians have joined the effort: Ambassador and former Iowa Senate President Mary Kramer, and former State Senator Maggie Tinsman.

Iowa’s judicial system is one of the finest in the country. Iowa’s merit selection and retention process keeps politics and campaign money out of our courts, safeguarding its fairness and impartiality. To keep it that way, Iowans from all political spectrums should resist efforts by one extremist group from Mississippi who are funding an effort to politicize our courts. If politics and campaign money are allowed into the courts, justice will be for sale.

Why a Coalition?

Groups from across the state are working together to counter the effort of extremists from hijacking Iowa’s courts. Justice, Not Politics is a broad based, nonpartisan coalition of organizations and Iowans across the political spectrum —- progressive to conservative; Republicans, Independents and Democrats —- all who are committed to protecting Iowa’s courts and our system of merit selection and retention.

The Iowa State Bar Association created Iowans for Fair & Impartial Courts earlier this year, but that pending 501(c)3 group cannot engage in direct political advocacy. Iowans for Fair & Impartial Courts has raised money for a public education campaign about the benefits of Iowa’s merit selection system for judges, but it cannot explicitly urge citizens to vote yes on retaining the Supreme Court justices.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Terry Branstad has tried to remain neutral on this issue, stating that “people should vote their conscience” on the judges. But as three law school deans wrote in this guest editorial for the Des Moines Register, the retention elections were not intended to be referenda on specific court rulings:

The merit selection process includes periodic votes on judges. Every eight years each member of the Supreme Court appears on the ballot with the simple question: Should this individual be retained for another term in office? The retention vote was designed for a very limited purpose, to provide a mechanism to remove a judge who was unfit for office, for example, because of corruption such as bribery, other unlawful conduct, or misconduct.

Those seeking to remove the three Supreme Court justices fail to recognize the substantial harm they will do to Iowa’s judicial system if they succeed. It would do serious harm to the rule of law in Iowa and the fair and impartial administration of justice if judges are removed from office through campaigns of political opponents because of the results reached in particular cases. It would be an open invitation to well-funded interests to band together and retaliate against judges. Inevitably, decisions would appear to be influenced by politics and ideology, not by the law and evidence in a case.

The three justices under attack have a record of integrity, competency and distinguished public service, and a “yes” vote on their retention is merited by the facts.

Senator Chuck Grassley has a solid lead over Democrat Roxanne Conlin in the latest Iowa poll for the Des Moines Register. Among 550 likely voters Selzer and Co surveyed between September 19 and 22, 61 percent said they would vote for Grassley and just 30 percent for Conlin if the election were held today.  

More details from the poll, along with Grassley’s latest television commercials and other news from the race, can be found after the jump.

UPDATE: Scroll to the bottom for videos and transcripts of two new ads Grassley’s campaign released on September 27.

SEPTEMBER 28 UPDATE: The latest Iowa Senate poll by Republican pollster Rasmussen sees Grassley well ahead of Conlin, but by a 55 percent to 37 percent margin.

The Des Moines Register’s new Iowa poll shows Republican Terry Branstad leading Governor Chet Culver by 52 percent to 33 percent among likely voters. Selzer and Co surveyed 803 Iowa adults, of whom 550 were classified as likely Iowa voters, between September 19 and 22. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.2 percent.

I expected Branstad’s numbers to drop somewhat following the Republican primary, but his margin over Culver is almost exactly the same as the Register found the last time it polled this matchup in February. At that time Branstad led Culver 53-33, and Culver’s approval rating was 36 percent.

The new Selzer poll has no good news for Culver. His approval rating is 35 percent. Not only is Branstad polling above 50 percent, he leads “with voters from communities of all sizes, in all congressional districts and from all age groups and income levels.” No-party voters support Branstad by a 46 percent to 27 percent margin.

Culver’s campaign issued this statement on September 25:

“We believe that this poll serves as wake up call to Iowa voters,” said Governor Culver’s campaign manager, Donn Stanley. “When all is said and done, we believe that Iowans will ultimately choose Chet Culver, a leader who stands for Iowa values.

“The fact is,” Stanley continued, “all one has to do is look back as recently as Tom Vilsack’s race against Jim Ross Lightfoot in 1998 to see that this poll is not a harbinger of things to come. At this point in the race, Tom Vilsack was down a full 20 points in the Iowa Poll. I’m sure Governor Lightfoot would be happy to tell you the degree to which the Iowa Poll predicts the outcome of the race.”

That’s true, but Vilsack was not an incumbent with low approval ratings in a tough economy. Only 59 percent of likely voters said their minds were “firmly made up,” but I don’t know how Culver can convince the other 41 percent to give him another chance. It’s not as if no one ever heard of Branstad’s shortcomings:

Overall, 53 percent of likely voters say the candidate they are supporting is someone they can most easily tolerate, while only 36 percent say he is the best person for the job.

I hope the Culver campaign has budgeted well enough to stay up on television from now through election day. I doubt the Democratic Governors Association will spend any more money in Iowa this year.

UPDATE: More findings from the Register’s new poll are after the jump.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers?

Yesterday Stephen Colbert testified before a House Judiciary subcommittee about the need to provide more visas and better working conditions for migrant farm workers. He was in character, cracking jokes, during part of the hearing, but answered seriously when asked why he took an interest in this issue:

“I like talking about people who don’t have any power and it seems like one of the least powerful people in the United States are migrant workers who come and do our work but don’t have any rights as a result. But yet we still invite them to come here and at the same time ask them to leave. […] Migrant workers suffer and have no rights.”

Representative Steve King was at the hearing and didn’t care for Colbert’s stunt. He suggested that Colbert didn’t really spend a day working on a farm, as he claimed to have done, and accused Colbert of disparaging American workers who “perform the dirtiest, most difficult, most dangerous (jobs) that can be thrown at them.”

Maybe King was jealous that someone advocating for immigration reform grabbed a lot of media attention. Immigration has long been one of King’s pet issues. Fox News invited King on for a segment about whether Colbert’s testimony was appropriate.

Not surprisingly, media commentators seem more interested in the controversy surrounding Colbert’s appearance than in the topic at hand: an agriculture jobs bill that would give undocumented farm workers a path to U.S. citizenship.

This is an open thread.

UPDATE: Both Governor Chet Culver and Republican candidate Terry Branstad are scheduled to announce “major endorsements” on Monday morning. Who do you think those could be? My guess is the Branstad endorser will be a business person who has supported some Democrats in the past.  

Now that campaign season is in full swing, Democratic candidates up and down the ballot need volunteers to GOTV every week from now until the election. Contact your county Democrats or local Iowa House or Senate candidate if you would like to help. There are many ways to volunteer, even if you don’t like making phone calls or knocking on strangers’ doors. You might have a friend or neighbor who needs an absentee ballot request form, or a ride to an early voting location.

Democratic candidates, please send me your public schedule so I can include your fundraisers or meet and greets on event calendars at this blog.

Paging Attorney General Tom Miller: any day now you might want to start campaigning for re-election. Miller’s campaign website is mostly empty and lists no upcoming events, though he is scheduled to be at the Johnson County Democrats Fall barbecue this Sunday. I don’t think Miller is seriously endangered, but Republican attorney general candidate Brenna Findley has raised a lot of money and is campaigning actively all over the state.

The third district Congressional race is expected to be one of this year’s most competitive elections in Iowa, and both sides have been hitting the airwaves this month. Brad Zaun is offering voters a generic Republican message, while incumbent Leonard Boswell and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee have produced negative commercials specifically tailored to Zaun.

Ads, transcripts and more are after the jump.

The House of Representatives approved the Small Business Jobs Act today by a vote of 237 to 187. Iowans Bruce Braley, Dave Loebsack and Leonard Boswell joined most House Democrats in supporting the bill; Tom Latham and Steve King joined all but one House Republican in voting no. CNN summarized the bill’s main provisions:

The Small Business Jobs Act authorizes the creation of a $30 billion fund run by the Treasury Department that would deliver ultra-cheap capital to banks with less than $10 billion in assets.

The idea is that community banks do the lion’s share of lending to small businesses, and pumping capital into them will get money in the hands of Main Street businesses.

Another provision aims to increase the flow of capital by providing $1.5 billion in grants to state lending programs that in turn support loans to small businesses. The state programs have proven themselves to be efficient, targeted and effective, but with many states struggling to balance their budgets, the programs are going broke.

The bill would also provide a slew of tax breaks that will cost $12 billion over a decade, according to a preliminary estimate from the Joint Committee on Taxation. The breaks aim to encourage small businesses to purchase new equipment, to incentivize venture capital firms to invest in small businesses, and to motivate entrepreneurs to start their own business.

When the Senate approved the same bill on a mostly party-line vote, Democrat Tom Harkin voted for it, while Republican Chuck Grassley voted against. Several House Republicans today characterized the lending fund as another “bailout”; Grassley used the same talking point last week. Republicans have supported similar small business tax breaks in the past, and the House Republicans’ new “Pledge to America” mentions small business many times.

In other news from Congress, a motion to start debate on new campaign finance regulations fell one vote short in the Senate. All 59 senators who caucus with Democrats voted for the DISCLOSE Act, but 60 votes are needed to pass a cloture motion. Grassley was among 39 Senate Republicans to voted against starting debate on this bill. Open Congress summarized the DISCLOSE Act as follows:

This is the Democrats’ response to the Supreme Courts’ recent Citizens United v. FEC ruling. It seeks to increase transparency of corporate and special-interest money in national political campaigns. It would require organizations involved in political campaigning to disclose the identity of the large donors, and to reveal their identities in any political ads they fund. It would also bar foreign corporations, government contractors and TARP recipients from making political expenditures. Notably, the bill would exempt all long-standing, non-profit organizations with more than 500,000 members from having to disclose their donor lists.

The DISCLOSE Act wouldn’t do nearly enough to reduce the influence of money in American politics, but it’s amazing to see Republicans united against even these modest disclosure rules and restrictions. Democratic Senate candidate Roxanne Conlin’s campaign sharply criticized Grassley’s vote:

“Senator Charles Grassley voted today to allow foreign interference in U.S. elections.  This vote means that BP and other foreign companies, the Iranian government and other foreign governments, are free to spend any amount of money to affect the outcome of U.S. elections,” said Conlin spokesperson Paulee Lipsman.

“In voting against debate on the federal DISCLOSE ACT, meant to provide Iowans with information on who is funding campaign attack ads, Senator Grassley also sided with the Wall Street bankers, insurance companies, corporations and other special interests who have filled his campaign war chest.  The Senator is protecting those who want to anonymously produce the ads filled with distortions and lies that are intended to influence voters.”

Grassley also voted against ending the filibuster on the DISCLOSE ACT on July 27.

Senators Chuck Grassley and Tom Harkin are among 25 co-sponsors of a bill that would require utilities to produce more electricity from renewable sources, Andrew Restuccia reported at Iowa Independent today. Grassley became the fourth Senate Republican to co-sponsor the bill. Kate Sheppard described its main points earlier this week:

The renewable electricity standard (RES) measure represents the last, best hope for those pushing for action on climate and energy in the Senate this year.

The RES, from lead co-sponsors Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), hews closely to the standard passed in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee last year. Beginning in 2012, utilities will be required to draw 3 percent of their electricity from renewable sources. The percentage scales up to 15 percent by 2021, where it would remain through 2039.

Wind, solar, ocean, geothermal, biomass, new hydropower, and gas drawn from landfills would all qualify as renewable under the standard. States will also be allowed to meet a little more than a quarter of the requirement by improving efficiency at power plants. The definition is expanded somewhat from the version included in a larger energy package that Bingaman’s committee approved in June 2009.

A renewable electricity standard falls short of the comprehensive energy policy we need, but it would be better than passing a fake “climate change” bill that includes massive subsidies for fossil fuels. Although the standard proposed by Bingaman and Brownback isn’t ambitious enough, it’s an improvement on doing nothing. Good for Harkin and Grassley for getting behind the bill quickly.

Wind energy production in Iowa already exceeds the goals of the new federal proposal, but we could do more to increase small-scale wind, which would boost farmers’ income.

UPDATE: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid supports a renewable electricity standard but won’t schedule floor time until backers have filibuster-proof majority.

Early voting starts today in Iowa, 40 days before the November 2 general election. The Iowa Democratic Party has made it easy to download an absentee ballot request form or find your county auditor’s office to vote early in person. I plan to vote at the Polk County auditor’s office the next time I need to be in downtown Des Moines on another errand. Some of the larger counties will open additional satellite voting locations. For instance, 11 early voting places will be open in Polk County between October 12 and October 23.

The Secretary of State’s Office is updating absentee ballot totals every weekday here. As of September 22, 62,591 Iowans had requested absentee ballots: 37,219 Democrats, 14,219 Republicans, 11,116 with no party affiliation and 37 belonging to some other party. How good those numbers are for Democrats is a matter of debate.

The Iowa Catholic Conference this week endorsed a ballot initiative calling for a constitutional convention, which church leaders view as a path to banning same-sex marriages. Democrats have blocked several efforts to bring a marriage amendment to the floor of the Iowa House and Senate.

More details on Catholic advocacy against marriage equality are after the jump.  

Francis Thicke, the Democratic candidate for secretary of agriculture, announced a “comprehensive energy policy for agriculture” that would increase the use of renewable energy in the agriculture sector, with a focus on systems that “put profits in farmers’ pockets.” Corporate agriculture interests have often demonized environmentally friendly energy policies as bad for farmers, but Thicke points out that farmers are currently vulnerable to volatile energy costs. I’ve posted his full statement on the energy policy after the jump, but I want to highlight a few parts:

As a state, we currently have no plans for how to power agriculture beyond fossil fuels, leaving us vulnerable to the effects of escalating and widely fluctuating energy prices. In 2008, oil prices rose to $147 per barrel, but within seven months fell to less than $34. This wild fluctuation whipsawed agriculture. Fertilizer and fuel prices tripled; corn prices spiked and fell sharply; ethanol plants went bankrupt.

Oil economists tell us that repeated cycles of price spikes followed by precipitous price falls are the future for energy costs as long as we are dependent on fossil fuels.ii  Even the U.S. military warns that oil prices will rise greatly, and we should expect oil shortages in the near future.iii

Our current biofuel production is not targeted to secure the energy future for agriculture. We use about a third of our corn crop to produce ethanol, but use it for cars driving on highways, not to power agriculture. Iowa farmers are selling corn as an energy crop at cheap commodity prices while paying high retail prices for the fuel needed to power their farms.  Biofuels today make only a dent in total U.S. fuel needs,iv but could go a long way toward making agriculture energy self-sufficient.

Thicke also advocates stronger policies to encourage wind energy production, not only looking at the total megawatts generated, but at wind energy systems that would create wealth for farmers and rural communities:

Today, 20 percent of the electricity generated in Iowa comes from wind power. That is good. However, the next generation of distributed wind systems holds promise to put more of the wealth created into the pockets of farmers and increase the amount of wind energy that can be distributed through the existing electrical grid.

When farmers lease out land to put corporate-owned wind turbines on their farms, they still pay retail rates for the electricity they use to power their farms. In other words – like with biofuels – farmers sell cheap and buy high.

The next generation of wind power should be mid-sized wind turbines on farms all across Iowa, so the wind that blows over the farm will power the farm, and the wealth created will be retained on the farm. This kind of distributed wind power has several advantages:

  1. The wealth created by the wind turbines is retained by the landowner and stays in the local community,

  2. The electricity generated is used locally, avoiding the need to build new transmission lines, and

  3. Distributed wind turbines will more fully utilize wind fronts as they move across the state, compared to when most wind farms are located in a few places in the state.

Policies the Legislature could enact to hasten the development of mid-sized wind turbines on farm across Iowa include mandatory net metering for all Iowa electrical utilities and feed-in tariff (FIT) policies. FIT policies have been used successfully in Europe to encourage the rapid expansion of solar-powered systems.

I urge the Iowa Legislature to adopt a FIT policy targeted to small and mid-sized wind turbines that are owned by Iowa farmers and landowners. The FIT policy would require electrical companies to pay a high rate of return per kWh for the initial years of the lifetime of targeted wind systems. That will allow farmers and landowners to pay for the wind systems during those initial years. After the specified initial time period, the rate of pay will drop to wholesale rates. That will allow the power company to buy cheap, green energy for the remainder of the lifetime of the turbine, and allow the farm wind turbine to continue to generate electricity to power the farm and to serve as a profit center for the farm.

Feed-in tariffs have been successful in many other places, and there’s no reason not to use them in Iowa. Getting the policy through the Iowa legislature would be an uphill climb no matter which party was in control, however.

Thicke rolled out his energy policy this morning in Des Moines. He has public events scheduled later today in Cedar Rapids and Waterloo, September 23 in Dubuque, Davenport and Iowa City, and September 24 in Council Bluffs and Sioux City. I hope the media will cover his ideas, because they have potential to make farming more profitable while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It’s too bad that neither the current Secretary of Agriculture, Republican Bill Northey, nor his predecessor, Democrat Patty Judge, took the initiative on reducing our agriculture sector’s reliance on fossil fuels.

Back when George W. Bush was president, Republicans assailed any vote against any military funding bill as not supporting our troops on the battlefield. But the Republican caucus was united yesterday as the Senate voted 56-43 to block debate on this year’s Defense Authorization Act. The bill included a compromise likely to lead to lifting the ban on gays openly serving in the military. Even Republican Susan Collins of Maine, who says she’s for repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, stuck with her caucus over complaints about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s restrictions on amendments during debate over the bill. One amendment Reid had planned to allow would have added the DREAM Act to the defense authorization bill. The DREAM Act “would allow undocumented students brought to America as children to earn a path to citizenship through completion of higher education or military service.”

Only two Democrats sided with Republicans to block debate on this bill: Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor of Arkansas. (Reid switched his vote to “no” at the last minute for procedural reasons, so he would be able to bring it up again later this year.) Lincoln’s excuse was the same as Collins’: she claimed to be for the DREAM Act and the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell compromise, but was angered by limits on amendments during the debate. Senate procedure is more important to these people than civil rights. At least Lincoln’s going to lose her re-election campaign anyway.

Although President Barack Obama has said he’s for repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, there’s no indication he or other White House officials lifted a finger to influence yesterday’s vote in the Senate. Nor did the president accuse those who blocked debate of undercutting soldiers at war, the way George Bush surely would have done in similar circumstances.

In Iowa, critics of Senator Chuck Grassley reacted quickly to his vote blocking debate on the defense bill. A statement from One Iowa accused him of compromising military readiness:

“Senator Grassley should stop playing politics with our national security,” said One Iowa Executive Director Carolyn Jenison. “Gay and lesbian servicemembers provide additional expertise and skills the military needs. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell compromises the integrity of our armed sources and puts gay servicemembers at risk.”

Although Democratic Senate candidate Roxanne Conlin has long advocated civil equality for gays and lesbians, her campaign strangely sidestepped the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell angle in its statement yesterday:

“This is just one more inexcusable vote from Iowa’s senior Senator,” said Paulee Lipsman, spokesperson for the United States Senate campaign of Roxanne Conlin.  “His action denies a pay raise for the very men and women who are risking their lives for their country in the Middle East.  These families should not have to be on food stamps while a member of their family is off fighting in Afghanistan. Grassley’s vote denies better health care for those who are wounded.  It denies better equipment for those in combat.”

“Over the past two years, Senator Grassley has followed the advice of Senator Jim DeMint that Republicans block everything proposed by the Obama administration.  This partisanship is why Washington is broken.”

Key provisions of the bill include:

·         Authorize an across the board 1.4% pay raise for the military.

·         Improve the quality of life of the men and women of the all-volunteer force (active duty, National Guard and Reserves) and their families through fair pay, policies and benefits, including first rate health care, and address the needs of the wounded, ill, and injured service members and their families.

·         Provide our servicemen and women with the resources, training, technology, equipment (especially force protection) and authorities they need to succeed in combat and stability operations.

·         Enhance the capability of the Armed Forces to conduct counterinsurgency operations and apply the lessons of Iraq to Afghanistan, as appropriate.

I don’t think Grassley was proud of this vote. His Senate office put out several press releases yesterday, but nothing on the Defense Authorization Act.

Share any relevant thoughts in this thread.

UPDATE: During her September 22 meeting with the Sioux City Journal editorial board, Conlin called for Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell to be overturned:

Closeted gays ably serve in the military today, she said, but cited that 13,000 have left service at a time when the military needs positions filled by well-prepared Americans.

“We are granting waivers to convicted felons and we are throwing out people, experienced West Point graduates. It makes no sense,” Conlin said.

She continued: “It is not as though, right now, gay people are not serving. They are, they’re there, they’re fighting for us, they are dying for us. The only question is – can they do it without living a lie? The answer to that, in the United States of America, has to be ‘yes.’ “

One of the simplest ways to boost electricity production from renewable sources, rather than fossil fuels, would be to adopt a federal renewable electricity standard (RES). About 30 states, including Iowa, already have some form of RES, requiring utilities to produce a certain percentage of electricity from renewable sources. The demise of broad climate change legislation in the U.S. Senate in favor of a pathetically watered-down energy bill appeared to end hopes for the RES in this Congress. However, three Republicans and six Democrats today announced a new bill that, in their view, could gain support from enough senators to break a filibuster:

The RES, from lead co-sponsors Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), hews closely to the standard passed in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee last year. Beginning in 2012, utilities will be required to draw 3 percent of their electricity from renewable sources. The percentage scales up to 15 percent by 2021, where it would remain through 2039.

Wind, solar, ocean, geothermal, biomass, new hydropower, and gas drawn from landfills would all qualify as renewable under the standard. States will also be allowed to meet a little more than a quarter of the requirement by improving efficiency at power plants. The definition is expanded somewhat from the version included in a larger energy package that Bingaman’s committee approved in June 2009.

The Bingaman/Brownback proposal is a weaker RES than what the U.S. needs to reduce fossil fuel pollution, but passing it would be better than doing nothing. Kate Sheppard reports that the new bill has six Democratic supporters and three Republicans: Brownback, John Ensign of Nevada, and Susan Collins of Maine.

Senator Chuck Grassley has supported RES legislation in the past, but the Politico’s Josh Voorhees reported today,

Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley, who could be in play, also has yet to sign on to the effort. He told reporters last week that while he is a long-time supporter of an RES, he’s unwilling to join Democrats in voting for one unless a healthy number of his GOP colleagues do as well. “I’m not going to be a part of one or two Republicans, get 60 votes, so they can have a partisan victory,” he said in the Capitol.

For the moment let’s forget about the environmental benefits of generating more renewable electricity, and the health benefits of reducing our reliance on coal combustion. Iowa’s economy could benefit tremendously from federal law that requires utilities to invest more in renewables. Not only is Iowa the number two state for wind energy production, we have a growing number of people manufacturing equipment for wind turbines. Iowa also has good potential for solar power.

Grassley would turn his back on a bill that’s good for his constituents and the country as a whole, because he doesn’t want to be among a small group handing Senate Democrats “a partisan victory.”

Small-minded stuff for the senator whose campaign slogan is “Grassley works…for us.”

Iowans can contact Grassley’s offices in Washington (phone 202-224-3744, fax 202-224-6020) or in Des Moines (phone 515-288-1145, fax 515-288-5097) to urge him to co-sponsor the Bingaman/Brownback bill.

Democratic Senate candidate Roxanne Conlin supports a federal RES and other policies to increase renewable energy production.

UPDATE: Grassley confirmed on September 23 that he is co-sponsoring this bill. Good for him.

Secretary of State Michaul Mauro’s campaign announced today that 43 county auditors–31 Democrats, 11 Republicans and one with no party affiliation–have endorsed the Democratic incumbent for re-election. One of the Republicans, Auditor Renee McClellan of Hardin County, said in a statement, “From the first day he took office, Michael Mauro has walked arm-in-arm with county auditors of both political parties and approached his job as Iowa’s commissioner of elections in a non-partisan way, choosing results over politics. I’m proud to support Secretary Mauro and encourage all Iowans to vote for him this fall.”

It’s unusual for partisan county officials to publicly support a statewide candidate from the other party, and Mauro said the endorsements “confirm that my administration has worked effectively with both Democrats and Republicans to make the voting process accessible, safe, and secure.”

No doubt the Republican auditors have noticed that Mauro’s GOP challenger Matt Schultz is ignorant about Iowa election procedures and casually throws around fraud allegations for political gain.

The full list of auditors who support Mauro is after the jump.  

No Republican in Congress has been more vocal about repealing “Obamacare” than Representative Steve King. He has tried to make undoing everything in the health insurance reform law the top priority for Republicans. Speaking to the Spencer Daily Reporter’s Gabe Licht in August, King asserted:

“I think we’ve lurched to the left so hard that we’re nearly off the cliff into the abyss of socialism … We should keep in mind so many things I think should be undone.”

Topping that list for King is what he calls nationalization of health care.

“When I say nationalization, I mean under the ownership, management or control of the federal government,” he said. “Now our skin and everything inside it has been nationalized by ‘Obamacare.’”

That may sound like an extreme interpretation of a law that gave health insurance industry interests almost everything they wanted, but remember, we’re talking about Steve King. He has derided the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (which pays for kids’ medical care but doesn’t dictate where they must receive it) as Socialized Clinton style Hillarycare for Illegals and their Parents.

Imagine my surprise, then, to see this press release from Representative King’s office a few days ago:

Congressman Steve King has released the following statement in support of the Veterans Affairs Department’s decision to locate a new Veterans’ Community Based Outpatient Clinic at St. Anthony Hospital in Carroll, Iowa.

“The VA has wisely chosen to locate its new VA clinic at St. Anthony Hospital. The Carroll community and the providers, administrators, and staff at St. Anthony have made significant investments in the hospital in recent years, and the veterans who will be making regular visits to the new clinic will be the beneficiaries of many of the improvements that have been made,” said King.

“St. Anthony Hospital has served as an important anchor in the Carroll community for decades, and it makes sense for the VA to turn to it to facilitate the opening of a new clinic to better serve the many veterans who live in the area. In the past few years, I’ve worked with the VA to increase Fifth District veterans’ access to health services through the establishment of new VA clinics in both Spirit Lake and Shenandoah. Setting up this new clinic in Carroll will make it even easier for western Iowa’s veterans to get the care they were promised. It has been a privilege to be part of the process and the credit goes to St. Anthony’s administration and staff. I’m pleased the VA has finally put its stamp of approval on this proposal. Congratulations to our veterans, St. Anthony’s and the Carroll community. I look forward to the ribbon cutting.”

Nothing in the United States resembles socialized medicine as much as the VA. The government runs the veterans’ clinics, employs the doctors and other staff, and uses its bulk purchasing power to reduce some costs. (Medicare is sometimes described as socialized medicine but is actually a single-payer system, in which the government pays for care but doesn’t control the health care providers.) The health insurance reform law King detests didn’t even create a minimal government-run insurance plan, nor did it permit Medicare to negotiate for lower prescription drug prices.

I think King is smart enough to understand the inconsistency between welcoming the VA’s expansion in his district and warning that Obamacare has given the government control over “our skin and everything inside it.” It reminds me of how he hailed new funding for Highway 20 in northwest Iowa, hoping no one would notice that he voted against the 2009 stimulus bill which provided those funds. When it’s politically expedient, he’ll get behind “big government” spending and services that will be popular with his constituents.  

Republican gubernatorial candidate Terry Branstad is rolling out two new commercials this week to highlight the campaign’s new applications for Droid, Blackberry, iPad and iPhone. I’m not a smart phone user, so others will have to review the applications.

The main thing I learned from the television ads, which I’ve posted below, is that no amount of fact-checking will deter Terry Branstad from lying about the I-JOBS infrastructure bonding program.

UPDATE: The Iowa Democratic Party produced a web video imagining what a Terry Branstad app would really look like. “Nothing says innovation quite like moving backwards.”

Researchers who have studied Iowa’s 2008 floods have shown that certain land use practices contributed to the natural disaster. New floodplain management recommendations from a panel of experts were mostly shelved during the 2010 legislative session. However, the appropriations bill approved just before legislators adjourned in March included some provisions that could improve floodplain management. Section 17 of Senate File 2389 (text) spelled out 10 “Iowa smart planning principles,” which “State agencies, local governments, and other public entities shall consider and may apply […] during deliberation of all appropriate planning, zoning, development, and resource management decisions […].”  Section 25 established an Iowa Smart Planning Task Force to encourage and support the use of such principles. By November 15, that 33-member task force must submit policy recommendations to the governor and state legislature.

Iowans have a rare opportunity to support wise land use policies by speaking out on the task force’s draft recommendations, which cover five broad areas:

Establish a framework to coordinate planning, geographic information and data systems, and state-level investment.

Require completion of regional comprehensive smart plans within 5 years after legislation is enacted.

Create financial incentives and offer technical assistance to incent smart planning at both the regional and local levels.

Develop a watershed planning and coordination program, including goals and strategies referencing land use for each of Iowa’s nine major river basins.

Make the definition of “local comprehensive plan” uniform throughout the Iowa Code.

The task force is accepting public comments through October 10. Click here to download the full draft recommendations (pdf file). This survey at the Rebuild Iowa Office website asks whether you support, oppose or are neutral to each specific recommendation, and leaves blank space for suggesting anything that should be added or deleted from the document. Surveys can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to Aaron Todd at the Rebuild Iowa Office. His contact information is here.

The smart planning recommendations will be discussed at five public meetings and one webinar between September 28 and October 7. I’ve posted event details for the meetings in Spencer, Red Oak, Waverly, Coralville, and Boone below. You do not need to attend a public meeting or sign on to the webinar in order to submit comments.

Increased precipitation is expected to lead to more major flooding in Iowa in the coming decades. Terry Branstad dropped the ball on flood prevention during the 1990s. Although I-JOBS has funded many valuable flood mitigation projects, those are not a substitute for more comprehensive and coordinated land use planning.

After the jump you’ll find an action alert from 1000 Friends of Iowa, containing the times and locations for the public meetings and webinar. I’ve also posted the suggestions that 1000 Friends of Iowa co-founder LaVon Griffieon has submitted to the Iowa Smart Planning Task Force.

I’m putting up this thread early because of the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur, which starts at sundown Friday evening. While I’m in services, a large crowd will attend the Republican Party of Iowa’s Reagan Dinner in Des Moines. Representatives Steve “10 Worst” King, Tom Latham, gubernatorial nominee Terry Branstad, Senator Chuck Grassley, and Iowa GOP Chairman Matt Strawn will speak before the keynote address by former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

C-SPAN will televise the event. Political junkies will watch to see how Palin addresses the activists whose support she’ll need if she runs for president in 2012, as expected. An early poll commissioned by The Iowa Republican blog found Palin in fourth place among Iowa Republicans this summer, behind Mike Hucakbee, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. Some supporters of Bob Vander Plaats for governor have hard feelings about her substance-free endorsement of Branstad shortly before the June primary. Will she placate them tonight by enthusiastically backing the effort to remove Iowa Supreme Court judges from office this November?

I encourage Bleeding Heartland readers who watch the Reagan Dinner to post your impressions here. Please refrain from sexist insults when talking about Palin.

My only prediction is that no speaker will acknowledge how much Ronald Reagan raised taxes as president and as governor of California.

This is an open thread, so share anything on your mind this weekend.

UPDATE: Apparently Palin praised Terry Branstad’s record on supporting special education. The Iowa Democratic Party set the record straight in a statement I’ve posted after the jump.

Ben Smith summarized Palin’s message as defending the Republican insurgency. She still hasn’t explained why Iowa is one of the few places where she backed the establishment candidate (Branstad) over the more conservative alternative.

Jonathan Martin wondered why Grassley talked about Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi so much. He’s been doing that for a while–for example, during his joint appearance with Roxanne Conlin on Iowa Public Television.

During Tuesday night’s debate, Republican gubernatorial candidate Terry Branstad bashed the “ill-fated” I-JOBS infrastructure bonding program as a “huge” mistake. Bleeding Heartland has noted before that Iowa’s debt load is still low by national standards, and Branstad grudgingly acknowledged that fact. At the same time, he argued that Iowa’s debt load is moving in the wrong direction and had tripled since he left office.

As usual, Branstad exaggerated the I-JOBS repayment costs and failed to explain how he would have financed rebuilding after the worst floods in Iowa history on a “pay as you go” basis during a severe recession. I was intrigued to see a couple of new angles in the Republican’s case against I-JOBS, though.  

Senator Chuck Grassley remains a loud and proud voice for extending all the Bush tax cuts, as he and Democratic challenger Roxanne Conlin argue over who is the real advocate for small business interests.

That and other news from the U.S. Senate race is after the jump. You can also view Conlin’s second television commercial of the general election campaign, which introduces her as “one tough grandma.”

Three times as many Democrats as Republicans have submitted requests for an absentee ballot in Iowa, according to numbers released by the Secretary of State’s Office today. Early voting begins on September 23, and so far Iowa county auditors have received 33,017 absentee ballot requests from registered Democrats, 11,785 from Republicans and 8,811 from no-party voters. We can’t tell which direction those independents are leaning; both Democratic and Republican campaigns have been trying to identify supporters not registered with either party.

Democrats will be pleased by their early lead, but only a small percentage of Iowa voters (perhaps 5 percent of the electorate) have submitted absentee ballot requests already. About 1.05 million Iowans cast ballots in the 2006 general election.

Iowa Democrats had a successful early voting program in 2008, which saved several state legislative seats. How well they replicate that program could make the difference in some of the battleground state House and Senate districts. Banking votes early leaves fewer voters who need to be contacted by phone or at the door. It also reduces the number of people who could be swayed by last-minute attack ads and mailers against Democratic candidates. Since early summer, Democratic candidates and volunteers have brought absentee ballot request forms with them while canvassing. Some Democrats who have voted absentee in the past have received mailings that include the request form.

Iowa Republicans are doing more early GOTV this year than in the past. I’ve been told Terry Branstad and his running mate Kim Reynolds recorded robocalls urging Republicans to vote by absentee, and the Branstad campaign produced a glossy direct-mail piece including a request form. I don’t know whether that was mailed to a large voter population or only to people who responded to the robocall that they would like to vote by absentee.  

After the jump I’ve posted the full press release from the Secretary of State’s Office. The official website will update numbers for absentee ballots requested every weekday from now through the end of the campaign.

Democrat Roxanne Conlin launched her first television commercial in the U.S. Senate general election campaign yesterday, highlighting Chuck Grassley’s vote for the Wall Street bailout in 2008 and tax breaks for companies that move manufacturing overseas.

The ad, transcript and other thoughts about the Senate race are after the jump.

UPDATE: I’ve added the Conlin campaign’s response to one of Grassley’s new tv ads too.

The stage is set for Chet Culver and Terry Branstad’s debate. According to the Culver-Judge campaign site,

To watch the debate you can tune your TV to one of the following channels:

KCAU – Sioux City

WOI – Des Moines

WHBF – Quad Cities

Mediacom Public Access channels

CSPAN

Or watch it live online at any of these websites:

myabc5.com

siouxcityjournal.com

qctimes.com

wcfcourier.com

Several Iowa politics-watchers will be live-blogging, but in an act of flagrant blogger malpractice I will be away from my tv and my computer this evening for a prior commitment. Bleeding Heartland readers, use this thread to chat about the debate. I’ll watch later and update with my thoughts.

I hope Culver is able to get Branstad on the defensive early and keep him there. The Branstad campaign continues to lie about Iowa’s fiscal condition in response to the new Culver television ad released today. After the jump I posted the Culver campaign’s fact check on Branstad’s response.

UPDATE: I didn’t catch the Iowa Public TV replay on my vcr, and I couldn’t find the video online last night. Still looking for a transcript; here’s the Sioux City Journal liveblog. Judging from that and the recaps posted at Iowa Independent, the Sioux City Journal, and the Des Moines Register, it seems like a solid performance for Culver. Bret Hayworth writes,

I give the debate edge to Culver. Branstad was just like the Campaign Trail Branstad, workmanlike, delivering a message, but ultimately reserved.

It sounds like Branstad had plenty of awkward moments, including apparently not understanding the debate rules. Hayworth and several others noted Culver’s inelegant phrase about wanting Iowa to have a “brain suck” rather than a “brain drain.” That reminds me of Ross Perot on the “giant sucking sound” of jobs heading to Mexico because of NAFTA.

After the jump I’ve posted three statements the Culver campaign released last night. The first hits the main themes Culver wants to take from the debate: Culver “delivers,” Branstad “confused and dishonest.” The second challenges Branstad’s failure to meet previous job-creation promises, and underscores problems with the Indiana economic development model Branstad favors. The third lists 60 taxes Branstad raised during his 16 years as governor.

SECOND UPDATE: Todd Dorman thinks “‘undecided’ likely gained some significant ground” because of the slugfest. He also listed the debate moments that stuck out in his mind: the candidates’ comments on judicial selection, mistakes, taxes, preschool and floods. I didn’t realize Branstad was backtracking on his anti-preschool stance and desire to change the way we select judges. Kathie Obradovich didn’t care for the debate and wrote, “I doubt this debate did more than cement supporters’ positions on both sides. Any undecided voters who ventured to watch could have easily been persuaded by the nonstop attacks to turn off the TV and find a place to hide their brains until Nov. 3.”

Also at the Des Moines Register, Jason Clayworth fact-checked a number of statements Culver and Branstad made during the debate. As Bleeding Heartland readers already know, Branstad inflates the cost of the I-JOBS bonding program.

THIRD UPDATE: Radio Iowa’s Kay Henderson posted a detailed live-blog here.

The Iowa Democratic Party posted six video clips of debate highlights here. I think my favorite is “Governor Culver on Terry Branstad’s love affair with Indiana.”

Tonight Governor Chet Culver and Republican Terry Branstad meet in the first of three scheduled debates. Branstad can afford to play it safe, since he has led every head to head poll of this race. Culver is under more pressure, because he needs to change the dynamic of the race. After watching the Republican gubernatorial debates in the spring, I think Culver can throw Branstad off-balance by pointing out how his campaign rhetoric doesn’t square with what he did in 16 years as governor.

Culver also needs to make a convincing case for his own re-election. His campaign has been sending some mixed messages, with three new television commercials–very different in tone–going up in the past week.

Iowa for Freedom, the group seeking to oust three Iowa Supreme Court justices this November, began running a statewide television commercial on Monday.

The ad echoes language Iowa for Freedom chair Bob Vander Plaats used during his gubernatorial campaign, and it reflects the same failure to understand the judicial review process.

The video and transcript are after the jump, along with an update on the counter-effort to protect judicial independence in Iowa.

Less than a week after his first general election television ads went on the air across Iowa, Senator Chuck Grassley launched two new commercials today.

The first ad is the most brazen image make-over I’ve seen in a while, casting Grassley as a brave warrior against drug companies. The other commercial touts the way Grassley uses new media to keep in touch with constituents.

Videos, transcripts, and more are after the jump.

UPDATE: I’ve also added the Conlin campaign’s response to one of these ads.

Democratic candidate for Secretary of Agriculture Francis Thicke is calling for regulations “modeled after a program that has been used successfully in Maine for more than 22 years to return integrity to Iowa-produced eggs.” Thicke introduced the proposal during his September 11 debate with Republican incumbent Bill Northey. Excerpt from his opening statement:

The State of Maine’s egg safety program complements the new [Food and Drug Administration] egg rule and shores up weaknesses in the federal rule. Specifically, the Maine program has three features that go beyond the requirements of the new FDA egg rule: 1) An effective program for vaccination of laying hens; 2) Monthly inspection of laying facilities for sanitation, and testing for Salmonella within the building; and 3) Egg testing when Salmonella is found in the building.

I’ve posted the full text of Thicke’s opening statement after the jump. Gabe Licht covered the debate for the Spencer Daily Reporter, and Lynda Waddington was there for Iowa Independent. Northey defended his record on egg safety, denying his department had the authority to inspect the feed mill suspected in the salmonella outbreak:

Thicke reiterated the secretary of agriculture should inspect feed mills, noting the [Jack] DeCoster feed mill filled 12,500 semi loads annually.

“First of all, there is a distinct word in there,” Northey fired back. “… Commercial feed mills that sell feed. The reason that we do that is to actually protect the consumer of those that are buying feed from others. Our regulations are actually not for food safety, but are for protection of consumers… We have been told … this mill does not sell feed — that birds at the other facility are owned by DeCoster as well… Just as we don’t go to a farmer mixing his own feed, we do not go to those mills that are producing feed for private facilities or on their own facilities.”

“The secretary of agriculture has the authority to make rules to cover loopholes and this is a DeCoster loophole playing a shell game and we should not play that game with him,” Thicke said.

The incumbent had pointed words for his rival.

“Unless you know something we need to know more about the situation …, it would be important to … wait for the information and be able to find out whether they were actually in violation of that or not,” Northey said. “… We don’t just make decisions on large facilities different than others because our rule says we are to inspect commercial facilities selling feed to others, not facilities of a certain size.”

Thicke has said Iowa Department of Agriculture rule-making could have closed the loopholes that allowed DeCoster’s feed mill to avoid state inspections.

The secretary of agriculture candidates also clashed over agricultural zoning:

Although both candidates were clear that there is enough room in Iowa for all types of sizes of agriculture, and that they would support all aspects of the industry, a major difference between them was exposed while answering a question regarding local control of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) placement.

“Absolutely,” said Thicke, who argued that allowing local government to decide the site of CAFOs would not add additional regulations for owners, who already must follow county building policies, but would allow local residents control over their environment.

Northey disagreed and stated that agribusinesses “need one set of rules,” otherwise there would be “a real challenge” in getting any new developments approved.

Thicke, who formerly served on the Iowa Environmental Protection Commission, sympathized with country residents who had to live near “toxic fumes,” while Northey sympathized with producers “who have been demonized.”

Speaking of local control, last week Dave Murphy of Food Democracy Now wrote about the connection between DeCoster’s operations and Iowa’s 1995 law protecting CAFOs from zoning at the county level:

After initially rising from poverty in Maine with a small chicken operation, DeCoster’s run-ins with New England legal authorities led him to flee to Iowa, where he ventured into building hog confinements and factory farm egg facilities just in time to coincide with that state’s loosening of the environmental regulations in 1995, with the passing of House File 519, which stripped all local authority from regulating factory farms.

The passage of this piece of legislation single-handedly pushed more independent hog farmers out of farming in Iowa, the nation’s number one hog and egg producer, than any other law in the state’s history. Since 1994, the year prior to the passage of H.F. 519, Iowa has lost nearly 72% of the state’s hog farmers, as the number has dropped from 29,000 to 8,300 today. As part of the industry trend, hogs moved off pasture into massive warehouse-style confinements, hundreds of which Jack DeCoster built across much of central Iowa, laying the foundation for a “protein” producing empire that included pork, eggs and a steady stream of state and federal violations.

That would be a great issue to use against Republican gubernatorial candidate Terry Branstad, in an alternate world where the Culver-Judge administration and the Democratic-controlled Iowa legislature had done something to advance local control during the past four years.

After watching this weekend’s “Iowa Press” program on Iowa Public Television, I’m not surprised Senator Chuck Grassley has been ducking debates with Democratic challenger Roxanne Conlin. You can view the 30-minute program or read the full transcript here. Conlin had Grassley on the defensive several times during the program, not only for refusing to debate her, but also for helping to create the federal deficit he now rails against:

This whole idea of tax cuts for the wealthy being the key to economic vibrancy is just plain wrong, we tried that, that’s what got us where we are.  We’ve got to solve the deficit problem that Senator Grassley, Senator Grassley as chair of the finance committee created a lot of the problem with the deficit, two tax cuts for the very wealthy. […]

Two tax cuts mostly benefiting the very wealthy passed by Senator Grassley, chair of the committee, not a dime paid for.  Two wars fought on the credit card.  Medicare Part D which includes that crazy provision that we can’t negotiate prices with the drug companies.  Those were under Senator Grassley’s finance committee and resulted in $1.3 trillion dollars a year of deficit.

Conlin also pointed out that Grassley used to support the individual health insurance mandate he now claims is unconstitutional. When he accused her of supporting amnesty for undocumented immigrants, she pointed out, “There’s only one person in this room who has voted for amnesty and that is Senator Grassley, not just once but twice.  In 1982 he introduced a bill for amnesty.”

Grassley tried to link Conlin to Senate Majority leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He also claimed she supports regulations and tax increases that would kill jobs. As for his refusal to debate Conlin, he said he frequently takes questions on the issues from Iowa reporters and from members of the public.

I mostly agree with Kathie Obradovich, who wrote, “Conlin scored the deepest cuts on Grassley and got only scratches in return.”

Grassley’s most successful gambits against Conlin were on job creation. He accused her of supporting what he called job-destroying legislation such as cap and trade, ending the Bush tax cuts for people over $250,000 in income and shutting down offshore oil drilling.

But he lost his momentum when Conlin countered that Grassley, as Finance Committee chairman, contributed to the deficit by supporting the Bush tax cuts without an offsetting spending cut and spending for two wars. He scoffed that she must not know that the Finance Committee doesn’t appropriate money.

“Aren’t you a senator?” Conlin shot back. “Didn’t you vote?”

An unclear question led to an odd statement from Grassley. Asked whether President George. W. Bush was wrong on Iraq, Conlin said he was wrong to start the war. Grassley, however, responded: “I think the fact the president (Obama) declared victory two weeks ago and brought the troops home is evidence that it was not wrong.” It left me wondering how the war’s end could justify the beginning.

The 30-minute limit wasn’t kind to Grassley. It takes him longer than Conlin to make his points and he seemed to get frustrated when a reporter tried to cut him off. He came off as angry, while Conlin looked composed. Iowa Public Television offered to make the show an hour long, but Grassley declined. That was a mistake.

Grassley didn’t look at Conlin during the television program, nor did he mention her name. After the taping, Radio Iowa’s Kay Henderson asked him about that:

I was one of the reporters in the studio for the taping of today’s “Iowa Press” show, and during the news conference with Grassley I asked:  “Senator, I know Dean, Mike and I are very compelling figures, but you never once looked at Roxanne Conlin during the entirety of the show.  What were you signalling with that body language?”

“Nothing,” Grassley said in reply.

Lynn Campbell of IowaPolitics.com then asked another question.  “Senator, how confident are you about your reelection this November and how would you describe the challenge from Ms. Conlin versus the other five elections you’ve faced?”

Grassley said this to Campbell:  “I’ll have you repeat the question.”

Then Grassley directed his comments back to me:  “I wish you had told me because I would have been very happy to look at her.  She’s a very nice looking woman.  She’s very intelligent.  I have nothing against looking at her, but I thought I ought to concentrate on the people who were asking the questions because from your body language I learned a lot.”

The assembly of reporters laughed.

Grassley makes some really odd comments sometimes.

In other news this weekend, the “big game” between Iowa and Iowa State turned into a blowout. Congratulations to Hawkeyes and condolences to Cyclones in the Bleeding Heartland community.

This is an open thread. What’s on your mind?

Two-term incumbent Dave Loebsack launched the first television commercial of this year’s campaign on Thursday. The 30-second spot is playing district-wide (Cedar Rapids, Quad Cities, Ottumwa-Kirksville, and Quincy, Illinois) on broadcast and cable networks. The campaign hasn’t specified the size of the buy.

For now I can’t embed the video here; you’ll have to watch at his campaign website. LATE UPDATE: Video up on YouTube:

Here is my rough transcript:

Loebsack: I’m Dave Loebsack, and I approved this message.

Male voice-over: Raised in poverty by a single mother, Dave Loebsack knows first-hand the struggle just to get by. Starting at 16, Loebsack pulled himself up, worked at a sewage treatment plant, then through college as a janitor. It’s why Loebsack is fighting to help small business create jobs and hold Wall Street accountable for recklessness and greed. Because Dave Loebsack will always stand up for what’s right.

This ad doesn’t break any new ground visually or in terms of content. The biographical piece emphasizing the candidate’s humble beginnings and connection to ordinary people has become a staple of campaigns for all offices. The only unusual thing I noticed is the man with a pony tail talking to Loebsack near the end of the commercial. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that in an Iowa political ad before. But it’s hardly a radical fashion statement in a district with the Iowa City/Cedar Rapids corridor as its population center.

Loebsack’s campaign hasn’t released any internal polling on his rematch against Mariannette Miller-Meeks, but I assume it’s not too terrible if he’s beginning with a positive ad. Many Democratic incumbents around the country are already running negative spots about the Republican challenger. Representative Leonard Boswell’s opening radio advertisement contrasted his record on biofuels with statements by Republican Brad Zaun.

Among Iowa’s five Congressional districts, IA-02 has the strongest Democratic lean (partisan voting index of D+7). In other words, Loebsack’s district voted about 7 points more Democratic than the national average in the last two presidential elections. The Iowa City ballot measure regarding the ban on under-21s in bars will probably drive student turnout higher than in an ordinary midterm election, which has to be good for Loebsack.

The high unemployment rate in several of the 15 counties in the district works against the incumbent, however. Also, Mariannette Miller-Meeks has relatively high name recognition as a repeat challenger. It remains to be seen whether conservative Republicans will get behind Miller-Meeks. In October 2008, Iowa Right to Life unfairly accused her of being a “pretender” on the abortion issue. During her September 7 interview with the Des Moines Register editorial board, Miller-Meeks said she might support a path to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants, after our international border has been secured and if the American people favor that policy. That reasonable stance will be anathema to segments of the Iowa Republican base.

Both Loebsack and Miller-Meeks held campaign events today before the big Iowa/Iowa State football game in Iowa City.

UPDATE: Thanks to corncam for flagging this disappointing article in the Cedar Rapids Gazette:

“Where rubber hits the road – because it’s connected to the deficit issue, the debt issue – is what we do about those making over $200,000 and couples making $250,000?” he said. “I’ve said all along that I didn’t want to extend those [Bush] tax cuts, but I’m rethinking that at the moment.”

Extending the tax cuts for those top-earners would cost the federal treasury $700 billion over 10 years, but Loebsack is having second thoughts because of the impact ending the tax cuts for the wealthy might have on the economy.

“We have a weak recovery that needs to continue,” Loebsack said. “Those folks at those top levels consume a pretty fair amount of what is consumed in this country and this is a demand-driven economy.

No, the folks at the top tend not to spend most of what they get back in tax cuts. In contrast, people who are struggling will spend all their extra money immediately. If Congress wants to “support the recovery” to the tune of $70 billion a year, they should extend unemployment benefits for the “99-ers” (those who have exhausted all 99 weeks of payments). Unemployment benefits are among the most stimulative forms of government spending.

The conservative 501(c)4 organization American Future Fund commissioned polls last week in Iowa’s first, second and third Congressional districts. Yesterday the group released partial results from the surveys, touting the supposedly low re-elect numbers for Bruce Braley (IA-01), Dave Loebsack (IA-02) and Leonard Boswell (IA-03).

The topline results showed Democratic incumbents leading their challengers in all three races, even among the “certain to vote” sub-sample.

Terry Branstad launched a new campaign ad on Tuesday. Like his previous commercials, the “Big Bad Debt” spot strings together a bunch of numbers (some of them wrong) to create the false impression that Iowa’s in bad fiscal shape.

The commercial invites a lot of tough questions journalists could be asking the Branstad campaign, such as:

Why do you keep claiming Iowa has a $1 billion budget deficit when the state budget is balanced?

Why do you keep citing months-old warnings about Iowa’s “budget cliff” when the latest revenue collections were stronger than projected, and the ending balance for fiscal year 2010 will be much larger than expected?

Why are you still using inflated estimates for the I-JOBS repayment costs, when you know the bonds were sold at lower interest rates more than a year ago?

You keep attacking $2.5 billion in “overspending,” alluding to federal stimulus money and funding from the state reserves. How would you balance the state budget without accepting any federal stimulus money or using state reserve funds?

Why are you making the I-JOBS borrowing the centerpiece of your case against Culver when Branstad also borrowed to fund infrastructure projects when he was governor, and sometimes had to borrow money to address the state’s cash-flow problems?

Why are you bragging about New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s upcoming Iowa visit when Christie presided over more state borrowing in his first year than Culver has in his whole term?

The ad is after the jump, along with the kind of scrutiny Iowa’s media should be providing.

Senator Chuck Grassley launched two new campaign advertisements on Tuesday, his first television commercials since a 30-second spot that aired shortly before the June primary. Like that first ad, both new commercials say nothing about conservative policy stands or opposing President Obama’s agenda. They don’t even mention his party affiliation. Instead, they depict the senator as a hard worker who has stayed connected to Iowa and works for all of his constituents.

Videos and more analysis are after the jump.

Mariannette Miller-Meeks considered withdrawing from her rematch against Representative Dave Loebsack in Iowa’s second Congressional district this summer, the Republican candidate told the Des Moines Register’s editorial board yesterday. Miller-Meeks stepped down from her ophthalmology practice in early 2009 to focus on running for Congress again, so when her husband lost his job this July, her family had no income.

Miller-Meeks said she told no one about her dilemma, not even Republican Party officials. […]

The family financial crisis influenced her political perspectives, she said. It sharpened her beliefs that the government should stay out of debt and that steps must be taken to make health insurance more affordable.

Since stepping down from her medical practice, Miller-Meeks had had health insurance coverage through her husband’s job. He has a new job now, but Miller-Meeks told the Register’s staff that she has chosen not to be on his insurance plan.

“I’m a very healthy person, and what I’ve done is look at my family history and determine what my level of risk is,” she said. “Am I saying it’s a smart thing to do? No. I think we need to make health insurance more affordable.”

The country needs to get to a point where a family of four can pay $2,000 a year for a plan that covers immunizations, preventative medicine and catastrophic needs, Miller-Meeks said. She also supports a nationwide risk pool and allowing health insurance purchasing across state lines, she said.

If elected, she would like to choose a federal plan that covers only catastrophic illness or injury, she said.

It must have been a very stressful summer for the Miller-Meeks family. While I’m sorry to hear about her situation, I wouldn’t recommend going without health insurance based on a good medical history. A flukey infection can incur tens of thousands of dollars in health care costs, to say nothing of a cancer diagnosis or some chronic illness. I also wouldn’t advise a friend to choose a limited catastrophic plan like the one Miller-Meeks prefers for herself and many others. There’s a reason such policies are commonly known as “junk insurance.” Letting people buy insurance across state lines sounds good in theory, until you consider how the race to the bottom gutted regulations for credit card issuers.

Miller-Meeks is a hard worker and clearly committed to seeing this race through, but some Republicans may be upset to learn that she was on the verge of quitting for the second election in a row. A wingnut faction in the Iowa GOP already distrusts Miller-Meeks for allegedly being too moderate.

Miller-Meeks has been campaigning energetically around the second district with a generic Republican message. She calls Loebsack names like “Do-nothing Dave” and Pelosi’s puppet, rails against the health insurance reform law and the 2009 federal stimulus:

Stimulus funding has failed to create jobs, and it probably would have worked better to funnel money directly to the American people, she said.

The stimulus bill created and saved millions of jobs according to Congressional Budget Office estimates. Without it the economy would have continued to decline steeply. Evidence is mounting that the stimulus wasn’t big enough, the opposite of Miller-Meeks’ claim. Tax cuts made up about one-third of the stimulus bill’s costs, even though government spending provides more “bang for the buck” than tax cuts do. The stimulus provisions with the biggest “bang for the buck” did give money directly to Americans in the form of extended unemployment benefits and food stamps. Other stimulus spending that kept teachers and public safety workers on the job helped ordinary Americans as well.

Few analysts expect the IA-02 race to be competitive this year, because the district has a strong Democratic lean, and Loebsack defeated Miller-Meeks by 57 percent to 39 percent in 2008. (A Green Party candidate who isn’t running this year picked up 3 percent last cycle.) Loebsack also has a large cash on hand advantage over his challenger. Then again, the overall political environment favors Republicans, and pockets of the second district have high unemployment.

I do agree with Miller-Meeks on one point: Loebsack should debate her. Barbara Grassley advised Miller-Meeks to schedule a debate and show up to face an empty chair if necessary (funny advice in light of Senator Chuck Grassley’s refusal to debate Roxanne Conlin). But I hope it doesn’t come to such theatrics. Miller-Meeks deserves a chance to debate the incumbent, just as fifth district candidate Matt Campbell deserves a debate against incumbent Steve “10 Worst” King.

Any comments about the IA-02 campaign are welcome in this thread.

CORRECTION: I didn’t realize that the candidates had agreed to three debates already: an AARP forum in Coralville on September 13, a joint Iowa Public Television appearance on September 24 and a debate hosted by KCRG in Cedar Rapids on October 12.

UPDATE: Miller-Meeks thinks staggered enrollment in Medicare is the way to make the program solvent. But people approaching retirement age are among those most likely to have pre-existing conditions and have sky-high private insurance costs. How is that going to work?

SEPTEMBER 24 UPDATE: Miller-Meeks said on Iowa Public TV’s Iowa Press program that she has catastrophic health insurance coverage.

Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor urged a large crowd in Des Moines today to safeguard judicial independence in Iowa:

“We have to address the pressures that are being applied to that one safe place, the courtroom,” O’Connor said. “We have to have a place where judges are not subject to outright retaliation for their judicial decisions. That’s the concept. Sure they can be ousted and that’s part of the system, but what the framers of our federal constitution tried to do was establish a system of judicial selection where the judges would not be subject to retaliation by the other branches for their judicial actions.”

O’Connor is in Iowa at the invitation of the Iowa State Bar Association, which was key in forming the group Iowans for Fair and Impartial Courts. The group’s efforts come as another group, Iowa for Freedom led by former Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats, is working to oust three Iowa Supreme Court justices who were part of the unanimous decision in Varnum v. Brien legalizing same-sex marriages. […]

O’Connor said today there are threats to the court system by about 20 states that still have openly partisan elections to select judges with vast amounts of campaign contributions coming into the courtrooms. She said it’s eroding the faith in the court system. She urged Iowa to stay the course. “Iowa is probably going through a stressful time now,” she said. “Just don’t throw out the system because at times it’s under stress. And I know you won’t do that.”

O’Connor has experience with partisan politics as well as judicial elections. She was a Republican leader in the Arizona State Senate before being elected as an Arizona judge. Then Governor Bruce Babbitt appointed her to the state’s court of appeals before President Ronald Reagan nominated her for the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Republican Party of Iowa isn’t taking a leading role in ousting the three Supreme Court judges who are up for retention this November. They’ve left that battle to interest groups on the religious right, which plan to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on the campaign. Behind the scenes, the Republican Governors Association is also reportedly funding Vander Plaats’ new vehicle, Iowans for Freedom.

Many Republican attorneys and business owners oppose the campaign to punish judges for making an unpopular decision. But to my knowledge, not a single Iowa Republican office-holder or candidate has spoken out for retaining the Supreme Court judges and preserving our current judicial nominating system. I’ve seen many Republican candidates call for ousting the judges and returning to judicial elections. Gubernatorial nominee Terry Branstad is nominally staying neutral, declaring the retention vote “an issue on which people need to decide for themselves” and “vote their conscience.”

What a shame that the Iowa Republican tent isn’t large enough to accommodate politicians who respect our judicial system enough to openly defend its independence.  

1000 Friends of Iowa is taking nominations through September 28 for the organization’s Best Development Awards. Projects anywhere in Iowa can be nominated in one of six categories: new residential, renovated residential, renovated commercial/civic, new commercial/civic, mixed use, and leadership. Click here for details on how to submit a nomination. I posted the selection criteria after the jump.

I’m active with 1000 Friends of Iowa, and while I’m not involved in choosing the award winners, every year I’m inspired to see the amazing development work being done around this state.

Click here for photos and information about the 2009 Best Development Award winners: the Marshalltown Public Library (new commercial/civic), Court Avenue Lofts in Des Moines (new residential), Durrant Building in Dubuque (renovated commercial/civic), Westfield Avenue Lofts in Waterloo (renovated residential), Plaza Towers in Iowa City (mixed use), and the Historic Millwork District Master Plan in Dubuque (leadership).

Projects in Davenport, Dubuque, Sioux City, Marion, West Des Moines and Iowa City won Best Development Awards in 2008. The ISU Design West building in Sioux City was one of my all-time favorite nominees.

Projects in Dubuque, Elkader, Davenport, Lake Park (near Spirit Lake) and the City of Okoboji won Best Development Awards in 2007. Projects in Conrad, Central City, Cedar Rapids, Waterloo and Des Moines won Best Development Awards in 2006. The 2005 award-winners were Iowa City’s Peninsula neighborhood, the Van Allen building in Clinton, the America’s River Project in Dubuque and the Strand Theater in Grinnell.

The number of award-winning projects in Dubuque is a testament to how hard city and business leaders have been working on redevelopment and sustainability in recent years. Many other Iowa towns and cities could learn from their example.

UPDATE: The Des Moines Rehabber’s Club is taking nominations for its 3rd Annual Most Endangered Buildings list through October 8. Click the link for details on that competition.

Republican Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey will debate his Democratic challenger Francis Thicke on September 11, the Thicke campaign announced today. The Spencer Daily Reporter is sponsoring the debate, which will take place from 11 am to 12:30 pm at the Clay County Fairgrounds, during this weekend’s county fair. The Thicke campaign’s press release states that the Spencer public access cable channel will broadcast the debate, but I hope Iowa Public Television and other media organizations will bring the exchange to a wider audience. Thicke argues,

Iowa voters deserve a full discussion of the issues that are important in this campaign – protecting water and air quality; local food production; local control over – and reducing the impacts of – concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs); more diversity on the landscape, including more use of cover and perennial crops; and truly sustainable, renewable, farmer-owned energy systems for agriculture.

Thicke is seeking five debates with Northey, one in each of Iowa’s Congressional districts, but details about other possible meetings have not been finalized. The candidates clashed last week over the Iowa secretary of agriculture’s responsibility to inspect feed mills like the one where a recent salmonella outbreak seems to have originated.

Northey has won the endorsement of the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation and the Iowa Association of Business and Industry, while Thicke has the Iowa Farmers Union’s endorsement. Last month Thicke published the questionnaire he completed for the Farm Bureau Federation and called on Northey to do the same, so that “so that Iowa voters can determine for themselves where each candidate stands on critical farm issues.”

In related news, today the Iowa Chapter of the Sierra Club sent an open letter to Attorney General Tom Miller requesting a “thorough investigation of the circumstances surrounding the egg recall for shell eggs produced by Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms Inc for violations of state law. This investigation should also include Quality Egg LLC Feed Mill, the supplier of the feed to both egg producers.” I’ve posted the full text of the letter after the jump. It includes a detailed list of facts supporting the Sierra Club’s view that the egg producers showed “reckless disregard for the health and well-being of the public.” To prevent similar violations in the future, the Sierra Club is also asking the Attorney General’s Office to consider possible “internal policy changes, legislative needs, and administrative rule changes.”

Miller recently returned a $10,000 campaign donation that Peter DeCoster made in 2005. DeCoster’s father owns the company at the center of the egg recall.

State Senator Rob Hogg of Cedar Rapids toured Iowa last week to discuss former Governor Terry Branstad’s record of inaction on flood prevention. This press release from September 3 highlights five key recommendations from 1994 Iowa Flood Disaster Report prepared by Brig. Gen. Harold Thompson of the Iowa National Guard (click here for a pdf file of the report) .

1. “Reducing vulnerability to future floods is as important as improving disaster relief capabilities and programs.” – Terry Branstad took no action on this recommendation

2. Communities need “adequate state assistance in mitigating future flood damage” – Terry Branstad took no action on this recommendation

3. Better flood technology and information including “electronic river monitoring,” “detailed river basin modeling,” and “extensive mapping” – Terry Branstad took no action on this recommendation

4. Incorporate “watershed management” including “wetland restoration” and “unchannelized streams” which can “play a large role in reducing flood damage downstream” – Terry Branstad took no action on this recommendation

5. “The State of Iowa should review the floodplain management responsibility [and] create a viable, effective program with adequate resources” – Worse than no action, the report says that Terry Branstad allowed the state’s program to “erode” and then took no action to restore the program

For a guy whose central campaign message is, “We did it before, and we can do it again,” Branstad has remarkably little to say in defense of his record. In fact, he didn’t respond directly to Hogg’s comments last week. Instead, his campaign manager attacked the messenger and tried to change the subject.  

How are you spending the holiday, Bleeding Heartlanders? I’m off to see the Iowa Cubs’ last game of the regular season. If they win, they’ll make the playoffs.

If you attended any labor celebrations this weekend, you may have encountered some Democrats running for office. U.S. Senate candidate Roxanne Conlin attended the Clinton County Labor Day picnic yesterday and was grand marshall of the South Central Iowa Federation of Labor Parade in Des Moines today. Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge is at the Dubuque Labor Day parade today. Senator Tom Harkin, Iowa Democratic Party chair Sue Dvorsky and others will be at the Iowa City Federation of Labor picnic. Governor Chet Culver walked the labor parade in Des Moines today; later he’s is scheduled to attend the Hawkeye Federation of Labor picnic in Cedar Rapids. Culver’s relationship with organized labor has been strained in recent years, but he is clearly a better choice for working people than Terry Branstad. Culver’s campaign released this statement on September 4:

CULVER HONORS LABOR AND DIVERSITY; BRANSTAD’S POLICIES ATTACK LABOR AND LATINOS

Des Moines – Governor Culver is participating in Labor Day activities all across the state of Iowa this weekend including festivities with hard-working Iowans in Ottumwa, Cedar Rapids and Burlington.  Governor Culver has been on the side of working families from day one of his administration.  The first bill he signed raised the minimum wage in Iowa.  He favors labors reforms that give workers their Choice of Doctor, Prevailing Wage, Expanded Scope of Collective Bargaining and Fair Share.

By contrast, Terry Branstad has vowed all labor reform is dead if he becomes Governor.  As Governor, Branstad had to be ordered by the Iowa Supreme Court to honor a legally binding contract between him and the state’s largest state labor union.  He has also opposed working families by his plan to cut health insurance for children, cut state funding for preschool, eliminate job creating entities such as the the Department of Economic Development, the Iowa Jobs and Infrastructure Initiative, and the Iowa Power Fund.

Governor Culver is also attending the Latino Festival today in Des Moines.  This year, Governor Culver signed legislation combating wage discrimination and a bill requiring new legislation to be reviewed for its impact on minority incarceration. Governor Culver is also a strong supporter of civil rights, women’s rights and worker’s rights.

By contrast, Terry Branstad now opposes a United States Supreme Court decision stating that all children in the U.S. are entitled to a basic public education regardless of the citizenship status of their parents.  Branstad says this decision should be challenged even though it has been the law of the land since before he was governor and he failed to challenge or even speak out against the ruling during his entire 16 years in the governor’s office.  Even more extreme, Branstad wants Iowa to go further than the Arizona law currently being challenged in federal court by requiring that everyone carry their birth certificate with them when traveling.  His plan would not only be an unconstitutional invasion of privacy but it would also cost local counties a fortune in increased law enforcement and jail costs.

The choice for the future is clear:  Governor Culver wants to help working families and encourage economic and population growth by making Iowa a more tolerant and welcoming place.  Conversely, Branstad wants to return to his extreme policies of the 1980s by making it tougher on working families.  He also wants to implement some of the most extreme policies in the nation by going further than the Arizona law regarding the immigration issue.

President Barack Obama is in Milwaukee today to announce “a comprehensive infrastructure plan to expand and renew our nation’s roads, railways and runways.” Trouble is, to create a significant number of new jobs we need to spend much more than the $50 billion the president is now proposing.

Farmers and farm workers who are regularly exposed to pesticides, take note: a new study conducted in Iowa and North Carolina showed that “women who are married to farmers who were licensed to apply pesticides” had a higher incidence of thyroid disease.

The percentage of private-sector American workers who belong to labor unions has fallen to about 7 percent. That’s unfortunate, because not only are union jobs more frequently higher-wage jobs, non-union employees are more likely to have health benefits if some of their colleagues belong to a union. I saw this summer that the Service Employees International Union is trying to organize Sodexo, the giant food-service company that runs dining-hall operations at many Iowa colleges.

The AFL-CIO ran a Labor Day television ad during some college football games, major-league baseball games, and a NASCAR race over the weekend. The commercial has a mostly non-political message about “America’s workers” being “the backbone of our communities,” “moving our country forward,” “working together for a stronger America.” Expect more hard-hitting ads to come later this fall: AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka has promised “an aggressive and massive mobilization of working people this Labor Day weekend and for the fall election.” Democrats up and down the ticket in many states will be praying for a strong labor turnout, because most pollsters see a likely voter universe that tilts more toward Republicans than in 2008.

Finally, I got a laugh out of John Deeth’s observation today:

TheIowaRepublican says: “This Labor Day, Celebrate Iowa’s Right to Work Law.” Isn’t that like honoring deadbeat dads on Father’s Day?

Share any Labor Day thoughts in this thread.

Iowa marked an anniversary on September 1: three years since all accredited schools in the state had to start implementing the Iowa Safe Schools law. I wasn’t able to attend the event celebrating this milestone, but I looked up more information on Senate File 61, “an act relating to the establishment of state and school antiharassment and antibullying policies.” The Iowa legislature passed this law in March 2007, thanks to the leadership of State Representative Roger Wendt and State Senator Mike Connolly. Governor Chet Culver signed it right away, but it didn’t take effect until September 1.

The law defined “harassment” and “bullying” as “any electronic, written, verbal, or physical act or conduct toward a student which is based on any actual or perceived trait or characteristic of the student and which creates an objectively hostile school environment […].” The law further defined “trait or characteristic of the student” as any of the following 17 categories: “age, color, creed, national origin, race, religion, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, physical attributes, physical or mental ability or disability, ancestry, political party preference, political belief, socioeconomic status, or familial status.”

That’s quite an inclusive list, but you won’t be surprised to learn that when this bill was under consideration, activists on the religious right opposed what they characterized as special rights for the LGBT community. I read through the bill history for Senate File 61 and downloaded the Iowa House and Senate journals for the days the bill was debated on the floor. Republicans offered one weakening amendment after another, most of which were rejected or withdrawn. But in the end, six Iowa Senate Republicans joined all 30 Democrats in the upper chamber to pass the bill. Nine Iowa House Republicans joined 53 Democrats in the lower chamber to pass the bill.

Although their votes weren’t needed to pass Senate File 61, the Republicans who sought to reduce bullying and harassment in Iowa schools should be commended. They went against their caucus leaders on that vote. Many represented suburban districts where tolerance for the LGBT community is more widespread.

Sadly, to my knowledge none of the Republican legislators who voted for this bill in 2007 attended the September 1 celebration, nor did any current Republican elected official or candidate. (Someone please correct me if I’m wrong.) According to a source who was there, the crowd included First Lady Mari Culver and many other Iowa Democrats, but only one well-known Republican: former Lieutenant Governor Joy Corning. Her pro-equality stance has been known to send Republicans into conniption fits.

State Senator Brad Zaun’s vote for the bullying bill briefly became an issue in this year’s GOP primary in the third Congressional district. Although he offered a couple of weakening amendments and voted for many others during the Iowa Senate floor debate, Zaun ultimately recognized the importance of this bill. Kids should not be bullied in school. Too bad that’s not a politically correct position for the Republican base.

Speaking of schools, the U.S. Department of Education formally approved $96.5 million for Iowa school districts last week. The funding came from the fiscal aid package Congress approved last month. Governor Chet Culver hailed the decision:

“This will allow our schools to recover almost completely from the difficult budget cuts created by the economic downturn. It will mean more teachers staying on the job and fewer students per classroom. I encourage school districts to use these funds immediately to offset previous budget cuts, as that is the intent of the Education Jobs Act.”

Republican gubernatorial candidate Terry Branstad opposed the bill that allocated extra federal funds to state education and Medicaid budgets. If he and Congressional Republicans had gotten their way, many Iowa teachers would not have their jobs back. In my children’s school district, elementary school students would have less time for art, music and physical education.

This is an open thread. What’s up with you this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers?  

Following up on yesterday’s post, the recall of half a billion Iowa-produced eggs continues to reverberate in Iowa politics.

Republican Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey still denies that he could have done more to ensure food safety regulations were followed at the DeCoster facilities. Northey’s opponent, Francis Thicke, has said feed mill inspections “could have identified a strain of Salmonella Enteritidis before 1,470 Americans were sickened and a half billion eggs were recalled.”

Meanwhile, the non-profit Food Democracy Now announced that two major supermarket chains have agreed to stop selling eggs produced by Jack DeCoster’s operations.

Details and more links are after the jump.

Democratic Secretary of Agriculture candidate Francis Thicke spoke this morning about the recall of half a billion eggs originating from two Iowa companies. I’ve been wondering why our current Secretary of Agriculture, Bill Northey, has kept quiet about the salmonella outbreak that prompted the largest food recall in history. Thicke pointed out that Northey had the authority to license and inspect feed mills like the one that served “habitual violator” Jack DeCoster’s operations, but instead Northey did nothing.

More details on the perspectives of Northey and Thicke are after the jump, along with many other links on the egg recall story.

If you think Northey’s failure to prevent or adequately respond to this disaster is outrageous, wait till you hear the agriculture policy Republican gubernatorial candidate Terry Branstad rolled out this week.