With virtually no public discussion and no opportunity for independent analysis of the complicated financials, the Iowa Board of Regents on December 10 approved a plan to lease the University of Iowa’s utilities for 50 years in exchange for an up-front payment of $1.165 billion.

Governor Kim Reynolds hailed the “historic day for higher education in Iowa.” In an official news release, Regents President Michael Richards praised what he called an “open, inclusive process leading to this agreement.”

Orwellian spin won’t fool anyone. A government board charged with managing public institutions should not have committed the university to such a far-reaching and costly deal without a full airing of the risks and benefits.

It’s hard to stand out in a historically crowded presidential field, especially when the candidates largely agree on on many issues that matter to Democratic voters.

Tom Steyer is the only candidate seeking to establish a “national referendum” to enact some federal policies through 50-state ballot initiatives.

He has made term limits for members of Congress–twelve years total in the U.S. House and Senate–a central part of his political reform agenda. (Andrew Yang also supports term limits but has focused his campaign message elsewhere.)

While several candidates seeking the Democratic nomination have expressed support for impeaching President Donald Trump, no one has highlighted impeachment in more stump speeches and campaign advertisements than Steyer.

Bleeding Heartland interviewed Steyer about those proposals in Des Moines on December 6.

The Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System (IPERS) posted a job listing for a new chief executive officer on December 9. Staff confirmed longtime CEO Donna Mueller will retire when her current term ends on April 30, 2020.

Eddie Mauro was looking for a fight as he became the first Iowa Democratic U.S. Senate candidate to run television commercials this cycle.

Thousands of Iowans are mourning Berkley Bedell, who passed away of a stroke this weekend at the age of 98.

Bedell was best known as a member of Congress representing northwest Iowa from 1975 through 1986, when he retired while battling what was later diagnosed as Lyme disease. He served on the Spirit Lake school board early in his career but was unsuccessful in his first U.S. House campaign in 1972. Like his friend and colleague Tom Harkin, Bedell ran against the Republican incumbent again in 1974 and won the seat, aided by the post-Watergate Democratic landslide.

Tim Hynds reported for the Sioux City Journal, “At age 15 in 1937, using money earned from a newspaper delivery route, Bedell founded Berkley & Co., a Spirit Lake business that manufactured fishing tackle.” The company became a major employer in the area. President Lyndon Johnson recognized Bedell as Small Businessman of the Year in 1964.

Rachel Junck became the second Iowa State University student elected to the Ames City Council this week, winning the runoff election in Ward 4 by 723 votes (55.1 percent) to 589 votes (44.9 percent) according to unofficial results.

Not only did Junck beat a two-term incumbent with strong ties in the business community, her supporters helped push total turnout on December 3 (1,313 votes) higher than the 1,220 who cast ballots in the ward on November 5. Ask anyone who has worked on local campaigns: that almost never happens.

How did she do it? Junck made time for a telephone interview with Bleeding Heartland on December 5.

U.S. Senator Joni Ernst introduced a potential major donor to one of her campaign’s fundraisers, who later asked that person for a “an investment of $50,000” in a dark money group backing Ernst’s re-election, Brian Slodysko reported for the Associated Press on December 6.

Slodysko’s scoop uncovered what may be illegal coordination between the Ernst campaign and the Iowa Values group, which can accept unlimited contributions without disclosing donors.

It wasn’t the first time Ernst’s campaign ventured into a gray area.

Iowa House district 54 shouldn’t be on the map of competitive 2020 state legislative races. Democrats haven’t fielded a candidate in the district outgoing House Speaker Linda Upmeyer is vacating in any of the last four elections.

However, Republicans are no longer guaranteed to keep this seat in the GOP column.

Clear Lake City Council member Bennett Smith announced on December 5 that he may run for the Iowa House as an independent. Although it’s been nearly a century since anyone with no party affiliation has won an Iowa legislative race, Smith would be a credible candidate.

The U.S. House on December 3 passed a resolution disapproving of “Russia’s inclusion in future Group of Seven summits” until that country ends “its occupation of all of Ukraine’s sovereign territory, including Crimea, and halts its attacks on democracies worldwide.”

The measure easily surpassed the two-thirds vote needed under a suspension of usual House rules, with all 222 Democrats present and 116 Republicans supporting it (roll call). Iowa’s three Democratic members–Abby Finkenauer (IA-01), Dave Loebsack (IA-02), and Cindy Axne (IA-03)–all supported the measure. But U.S. Representative Steve King (IA-04) was among 71 House Republicans who voted no.

Rachel Junck‘s victory in the Ames City Council Ward 4 runoff election on December 3 was historic in two ways. The 20-year-old engineering major is the youngest second-youngest woman elected to any office in Iowa* and the first female Iowa State University student to win a seat on the council of our state’s seventh-largest city.

The outcome in Ames was also in line with a recent trend: candidates with strong ties in business circles have not performed as well in local elections in larger Iowa communities.

The state of Iowa cannot enforce the latest attempt to discourage and criminalize undercover reporting at livestock facilities. U.S. District Court Senior Judge James Gritzner on December 2 granted a request for a preliminary injunction against a law enacted in March, which prohibits “agricultural production facility trespass.”

Montana Governor Steve Bullock became the latest Democrat to end his presidential campaign on December 2, acknowledging in a statement that he “won’t be able to break through to the top tier of this still-crowded field of candidates.”

Like several others who have dropped out of the race, Bullock had a wealth of experience and was solid on many key issues for Democrats. He repeatedly vetoed abortion restrictions passed by the Republican-controlled legislature, yet somehow persuaded the majority party to expand Medicaid in Montana and take steps to limit the influence of dark money. He could have given President Donald Trump a hell of fight in a general election, having won re-election in 2016 even as Trump carried his state by 20 points.

State employees “did not follow the process in place” when they recently approved a request to fly the transgender pride flag above the Capitol building, Iowa Department of Administrative Services spokesperson Tami Wiencek told Bleeding Heartland.

Bleeding Heartland was first to report in June that the Hy-Vee corporation’s political action committee gave $25,000 to the Republican Party of Iowa prior to a fundraiser headlined by President Donald Trump and held at the corporation’s West Des Moines corporate venue. It was the PAC’s largest single recorded contribution.

That story by Gwen Hope received significant public comment online and prompted a press release in which Hy-Vee PAC’s executive director Mary Beth Hart asserted that the donation was “an important opportunity for our CEO to directly provide information about pharmacy-related issues […] to the President and his staff while they were in town.” While the contribution could have been designed to seek political favors from high-ranking Republicans, it also covered most of the Iowa GOP’s rental cost to use Hy-Vee’s facility.

In light of that revelation, some local Democratic groups distanced themselves from the grocery store chain, while others asked the company for contributions to balance the corporation’s Republican-heavy donation history.

On this Small Business Saturday, please consider investing in original reporting about Iowa politics.

All best wishes to the Bleeding Heartland community for a happy and restful Thanksgiving weekend!

If you cooked at home today, you may have some food to use up. Former Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, the 1988 Democratic nominee for president, is famous for making soup from the turkey carcass. Here’s his mother’s soup recipe. I’ve posted some of my favorite ways to use leftovers below.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

Shoppers in the U.S. spent an estimated $160 billion on gift cards in 2018, up from around $90 billion a decade earlier. The holiday season is the peak time for those purchases.

State Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald has warned that much of the value will go to waste. Years ago, his office had a tool to help Iowans recoup the cost of unused gift cards. But state legislators had a different idea.

Good news for Iowans who care about ethics rules and money in politics: Mike Marshall will be the next executive director of the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board.

While testifying before the U.S. House Intelligence Committee on November 21, former National Security Council official Fiona Hill urged Congressional Republicans not to “promote politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests.” She was referring to the idea that “Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country—and that perhaps, somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did.” Hill added, “This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves.”

Meanwhile, “American intelligence officials informed senators and their aides in recent weeks that Russia had engaged in a yearslong campaign to essentially frame Ukraine as responsible for Moscow’s own hacking of the 2016 election,” Julian E. Barnes and Matthew Rosenberg reported for the New York Times on November 22, citing three officials familiar with the classified briefing.

Nevertheless, U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley persisted.

As evidence mounts that President Donald Trump abused his power by pressuring Ukraine to boost his domestic political prospects, Grassley has advanced the narrative that Ukrainian government officials interfered in the 2016 election to support Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump.

Republican members of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee used most of their speaking time during recent impeachment hearings to run interference for President Donald Trump. They attacked the credibility of fact witnesses, pushed alternate narratives about foreign interference in U.S. politics, and tried to shift the focus to the whistleblower despite extensive corroborating evidence.

The Iowan who served on the House Judiciary Committee when Congress considered impeaching President Richard Nixon recalls GOP colleagues who were open to discovering and considering facts about the president’s possible high crimes and misdemeanors.

Ten months after the Des Moines Register revealed that “Iowa’s flawed felon list has been disqualifying legitimate voters for years,” and five months after voting rights advocates warned that “Iowa’s voter list maintenance practices are arbitrary and unlawful,” Secretary of State Paul Pate announced an ambitious plan to clean up the felon database.

“The new steps to ensure the system’s accuracy include a manual review of all 90,000 files,” a November 20 news release announced. The goal is to complete the task before next year’s general election.

Several unanswered questions remain about the plan.

An under-reported Iowa politics story this year has been strong Democratic recruiting for the 2020 state Senate races. Even though recapturing the Iowa Senate is likely to take at least two election cycles, given the current 32-18 Republican majority, Democrats have declared candidates in five out of six Senate seats the party lost in 2016.*

Other Democrats are actively campaigning in three Senate districts that were only nominally contested in 2016.**

As of this week, Democrats also have a challenger in an Iowa Senate district that is so heavily Republican the party did not field a candidate for the last election.

With four presidential contenders packed closely together at the top of the field and a majority of Democratic voters not yet committed to a candidate, televised debates could make or break several campaigns between now and the February 3 Iowa caucuses. As Dan Guild discussed here, debates have fueled breakouts for some lower-polling candidates in past election cycles.

If you missed the fifth Democratic debate on November 20, you can read the full transcript here. My thoughts on the evening in Atlanta:

I’ve wanted to write about Sawtooth sunflower (Helianthus grosseserratus) since the earliest months of Bleeding Heartland’s wildflowers series in 2012. Large colonies thrive at the Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge near Prairie City. But for one reason or another, I’ve never managed to catch them at the height of their blooming period.

After I visited the refuge in early August, I was determined to get back there a few weeks later to capture the sawtooth sunflowers. Again, life got in the way, and I feared these prairie plants had eluded me again.

The first weekend in October, I called the refuge and spoke with a volunteer, who assured me that some sawtooth sunflowers were still blooming near the main parking lot. I took most of the pictures enclosed below there or near the Highway 163 ramp that leads to the refuge (exit 18).

Three cities in Iowa received the highest possible score for “inclusive municipal laws, policies, and services” for LGBTQ people in the latest report by a leading national advocacy group.

The Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship (IDALS) has not acted on advice to improve its management of financial transactions and databases “to prevent losses from employee error or dishonesty.”

For ten years running, under three different state auditors, reports have warned Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig or his predecessor Bill Northey that the IDALS accounting system does not conform to best practices and does not ensure that some divisions are collecting and depositing fees appropriately.

IDALS leaders have responded to each report with boilerplate excuses and non-sequiturs, instead of changing internal procedures to address the concerns.

Although the Democratic National Committee rejected Iowa’s plan to hold “virtual caucuses” by phone, some Iowans who are unable to attend their precinct caucus on February 3, 2020 may still be able to participate at some other location. But the Iowa Democratic Party will soon stop accepting applications to hold satellite caucuses.

What you need to know if you want to make alternate arrangements for caucus night:

Devastating news: Iowa Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark Cady passed away on November 15, having suffered a heart attack.

Best known for writing the court’s unanimous opinion in the Varnum v Brien marriage equality case, Cady was a staunch supporter of civil rights. Since becoming chief justice in 2011, he was often the swing vote on Iowa’s high court and concurred in many 4-3 opinions.

Appointed by Governor Terry Branstad in 1998, Cady sometimes aligned with the high court’s conservatives–for instance, on upholding Iowa’s felon disenfranchisement system. Sometimes he joined his more liberal colleagues–for instance, on juvenile sentencing. Cady also authored last year’s opinion that found Iowa’s constitution protects a woman’s right to an abortion. Seventeen months later, three of the five justices who joined that landmark ruling are gone. (Justice Bruce Zager retired, and Justice Daryl Hecht died.)

Bleeding Heartland intends to publish several reflections on Cady’s legacy in the coming weeks. For now, I want to share the chief justice’s remarks at the recent Iowa Summit on Justice and Disparities.

An Iowa Utilities Board rule intended to provide clarity for electric vehicle (EV) charging stations may face a legal challenge, bolstered by Republicans’ action on an Iowa legislative committee this week.

Snow and freezing temperatures arrived early in Iowa this year, but I’m not ready to put Bleeding Heartland’s wildflower series to bed for the winter yet.

The bitter cold inspired me to pull out some summertime pictures for this week’s edition. I took all of the photographs enclosed below in the parking lot of the Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden in late August. Some wonderful prairie plantings are in front of the main building and along the nearby bike trail.

Tall coreopsis (Coreopsis tripteris), sometimes known as tall tickseed, is native to most of the U.S. and Canada east of the Rocky Mountains. UPDATE: Bleeding Heartland user PrairieFan notes in the comments that “tall coreopsis is native to the southern half of Iowa, but not the northern half.”

It can grow in many types of habitats, from disturbed ground to high-quality prairies. The Missouri Botanical Garden’s website advises that tall coreopsis is easy to grow “in dry to medium moisture, well-drained soil in full sun,” and “Thrives in poor, sandy or rocky soils with good drainage.”

According to Aaron Harpold, assistant director of horticulture for the botanical garden, the plants I photographed were a cultivar, not grown from seed collected in the wild. For any interested gardeners, the specific type is Coreopsis tripteris ‘Flower Tower.’

A rematch is brewing in one of the six Iowa Senate districts Republicans picked up in 2016. Longtime Muscatine firefighter Chris Brase announced on November 12 that he will run for Senate district 46, which he represented for four years before losing to current State Senator Mark Lofgren.

Former Iowa House Speaker Pat Murphy resigned as state political director for Tom Steyer’s presidential campaign on November 8, a day after Alexandra Jaffe reported for the Associated Press that Murphy “privately offered campaign contributions to local politicians in exchange for endorsing his White House bid, according to multiple people with direct knowledge of the conversations.”

Among politically active Iowans, reaction to Jaffe’s scoop ranged from anger to disappointment to a shrug: “Isn’t this long accepted practice?”

No. While presidential hopefuls and their affiliated committees have often donated to Democratic candidates and party organizations, hoping for future support, it is rare for anyone to dangle a possible donation in exchange for an endorsement.

President Donald Trump has finally admitted that he illegally used a Des Moines fundraiser for veterans to boost his 2016 campaign.

Months of work on reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act, which lapsed in February, “came to a screeching halt” this week, U.S. Senator Joni Ernst announced on the Senate floor on November 7.

For 25 years, that federal law has supported “criminal justice and community-based responses to domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking in the United States.” Congress has reauthorized it three times, each time with improvements. By Ernst’s telling, “Democrats are putting politics ahead of people,” rejecting a bipartisan approach to revive the law in favor of “non-starter” legislation the U.S. House approved in April.

Some salient facts were missing from Ernst’s narrative. The House bill to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act was bipartisan: 33 Republicans voted for it.

Ernst also left out a few relevant words: guns, firearms, and National Rifle Association.

State Representative Mary Gaskill will seek a tenth term in 2020, House Democrats announced on November 7.

That’s good news for Democrats, who might have had a difficult seat to defend if Gaskill had chosen to retire.

Iowa has long had one of the country’s worst racial disparities in the criminal justice system. A 2016 report by Ashley Nellis for The Sentencing Project showed the incarceration rate for African Americans in Iowa was the fourth-highest among the 50 states, with approximately one in seventeen adult black males imprisoned. Iowa ranked third-worst in the nation for racial disparity, with an incarceration rate for African Americans eleven times higher than the rate for white people.

Over the past year, the Iowa Department of Corrections has formally recognized the problem and its responsibility to provide a bias-free environment for incarcerated individuals and those in community-based corrections programs. The department has also taken several concrete steps to improve staff training and identify possible sources of racial disparities.

Imagine you’re a newly-elected legislator. Your party leaders think highly enough of you to make you a committee chair right away. It’s a good committee, handling important bills on subjects you care about.

Would you walk away from that post, less than a year into a four-year term, to spend more time running for another office? State Senator Mariannette Miller-Meeks just did.

Of more than 200 kinds of wildflowers Bleeding Heartland has featured since 2012, none had a common name beginning with the letter Z–until today.

Zigzag goldenrod (Solidago flexicaulis) is native to much of the U.S. and Canada east of the Rocky Mountains and thrives in shady wooded habitats. I haven’t encountered this plant often in the wild. Fortunately, Kim El-Baroudi allowed me to explore her lovely Des Moines backyard, where I took all of the enclosed pictures in early October.

Expanding Medicaid “saved the lives of at least 19,200 adults aged 55 to 64” during the four years after the Affordable Care Act went into effect, including an estimated 272 Iowans, according to a new paper by Matt Broaddus and Aviva Aron-Dine for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Conversely, 15,600 older adults died prematurely because of state decisions not to expand Medicaid. […] The lifesaving impacts of Medicaid expansion are large: an estimated 39 to 64 percent reduction in annual mortality rates for older adults gaining coverage.

Iowa city and school board elections are nonpartisan, but in some races, the candidates’ party affiliations are clear. Democrats or candidates backed by organized labor won quite a few mayoral, city council, and school board races on November 5.

The Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board will soon hire a new executive director. Megan Tooker, who has held the position since December 2010, is leaving to pursue unspecified new opportunities, she told Bleeding Heartland on November 4.

The ethics board is one of the smallest state agencies and enforces Iowa law on campaign finance disclosures, government ethics and lobbying the executive branch, and gifts to public officials.

Fourteen people representing a “diverse group of stakeholders” will recommend policies to reduce recidivism and racial disparities in Iowa’s criminal justice system, Governor Kim Reynolds announced on November 4.

Lieutenant Governor Adam Gregg, a former state public defender, will chair the Governor’s FOCUS Committee on Criminal Justice Reform, which will meet for the first time on November 7. FOCUS stands for “Fueling Ongoing Collaboration and Uncovering Solutions.” The other members are:

The time and effort you put into boosting your candidate was not wasted.

Two Des Moines City Council members seeking re-election on November 5 used their appointment powers to perpetuate a gender imbalance on a key board in the state’s largest city, despite a state law requiring certain local boards to have no more than a simple majority of male or female members.

Joe Gatto, who represents Ward 4, and Linda Westergaard (Ward 2) both named men to fill vacancies on the Des Moines Plan and Zoning Commission when state law indicated a woman should have been appointed. Gatto has done so twice. The second time, his choice worsened the commission’s imbalance and happened well before the end of a statutory period during which officials are supposed to make a “good faith effort” to find someone from the underrepresented gender.

The U.S. House voted mostly along party lines (232 votes to 196) on October 31 to approve rules for an impeachment inquiry. Iowa’s four House members split as one would expect: Democratic Representatives Abby Finkenauer (IA-01), Dave Loebsack (IA-02), and Cindy Axne (IA-03) voted for the resolution, while Republican Steve King (IA-04) opposed it.

The New York Times explained that the resolution

authorizes the House Intelligence Committee — the panel that has been leading the investigation and conducting private depositions — to convene public hearings and produce a report that will guide the Judiciary Committee as it considers whether to draft articles of impeachment against President Trump.

The measure also gives the president rights in the Judiciary Committee, allowing his lawyers to participate in hearings and giving Republicans the chance to request subpoenas for witnesses and documents. But the White House says it still did not provide “basic due process rights,” and Republicans complain that their ability to issue subpoenas is limited. They would need the consent of Democrats, or a vote of a majority of members. That has been standard in previous modern impeachments. The majority has the final say over how the proceedings unfold.

I enclose below statements from Finkenauer, Loebsack, and U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley. I will update this post as needed with comments from the other members of the Congressional delegation. Grassley’s mind appears to be made up: “This entire process has been contaminated from the beginning and the Senate may have a difficult time taking seriously an impeachment founded on these bases.” That’s comical, given that Iowa’s senior senator voted to remove President Bill Clinton from office on charges stemming from an investigation into unrelated property transactions.

Trick or treat!

Some wildflowers are nice to look at while blooming but can be a nuisance later, due to one of nature’s effective seed dispersal methods.

A competitive primary is shaping up in the safest Iowa House seat for Democrats. Last week University of Iowa law professor Christina Bohannan announced she will run for House district 85, setting up a race against ten-term State Representative Vicki Lensing.

Republicans won six Democratic-held Iowa Senate districts in 2016. All of them were among the eighteen Iowa Senate districts where voters had favored President Barack Obama in 2012 but Donald Trump four years later.*

Some of the largest swings toward Trump occurred in northeast Iowa. Parts of four counties make up Senate district 32, where Democrat Pam Egli recently announced that she will challenge first term State Senator Craig Johnson.

While this race does not currently appear to be among the best 2020 pickup opportunities for Democrats in the upper chamber, it could become competitive. Either way, state legislative elections in this part of Iowa will be important to watch for signs of whether Republicans are able consolidate their 2016 gains.

State Representative Pat Grassley, who will become Iowa House speaker when the legislature reconvenes in January, is the latest high-ranking Iowa Republican to promise not to change our state’s redistricting process. That’s good.

Unfortunately, GOP legislative leaders and Governor Kim Reynolds have not yet answered an essential follow-up question.

U.S. Senator Joni Ernst repeatedly insisted today that she will evaluate any evidence about President Donald Trump’s wrongdoing as a “jurist.” But in her first conference call with Iowa reporters since mid-September, Ernst didn’t sound like a juror with an open mind about the case.

On the contrary, the senator expertly echoed White House talking points, from denouncing a “political show” and unfair process to using Trump’s derisive nickname for a key House committee chair.

Some wildflowers are “showy,” even if small. Not the blossoms on this “common woodland plant.”

Clearweed (Pilea pumila) thrives in wet habitats with light shade. Sometimes called dwarf clearweed or Canadian clearweed, this member of the nettle family is native to most of the U.S. and Canada east of the Rocky Mountains.

U.S. Representative Steve King (IA-04) was among House Republicans who interrupted a secure hearing on October 23 to protest the Democrats’ impeachment process.

Attorney Thomas Duff has standing to challenge Iowa’s new law giving the governor an extra appointee on the State Judicial Nominating Commission, a Polk County District Court has determined. However, the court dismissed Duff’s challenge to the provisions of the law shortening the Iowa Supreme Court chief justice’s term.

Two Democrats are now running in Iowa Senate district 20, likely to be one of next year’s most competitive state Senate races.

Information technology professional Charlie Hodges of Urbandale will seek the Democratic nomination in a district covering the northwest suburbs of Des Moines (see map below). Johnston City Council member Rhonda Martin has been campaigning here since May. The winner of the June 2020 primary will face four-term Republican State Senator Brad Zaun.

The number of reporters assigned to cover state governments and legislatures has declined sharply over the past two decades, and Iowa has not escaped the trend. But a nonprofit entity focused on statehouse reporting will soon open an Iowa affiliate, with a veteran political journalist at the helm.

Iowans haven’t voted out a sitting U.S. senator since 1984, but several recent events have caused political observers to question Senator Joni Ernst’s strengths going into her first re-election bid.

Inside Elections changed its rating on Iowa’s 2020 U.S. Senate race from “likely Republican” to “lean Republican” this month. (Sabato’s Crystal Ball already rated the IA-Sen race “lean R,” while the Cook Political Report still sees a GOP hold likely.) Writing at the National Journal on October 20, Josh Kraushaar cited several “major red flags suggesting Iowa is a much bigger battleground than Republicans anticipated at the beginning of the year.”

Ernst told supporters at a closed-door fundraiser with Vice President Mike Pence this month that she is the fifth most-vulnerable senator, according to Jennifer Jacobs of Bloomberg News.

What’s going on?

UPDATE: Breitbach announced on February 10, 2020 that he will retire. State Representative Michael Bergan is expected to run in Senate district 28 rather than for re-election in House district 55, but he has not clarified his plans. LATER UPDATE: Bergan will run for the House again. Spillville Mayor Mike Klimesh will seek the GOP nomination in the Senate race. I’ve added background on him below.

A few words about the title: Republican State Senator Michael Breitbach has told some constituents and people connected to the legislature he does not plan to seek a third term in 2020. So Matt Tapscott may end up running for an open Iowa Senate seat.

In response to Bleeding Heartland’s inquiry, Breitbach commented via e-mail on October 14, “There is plenty of time for me to make my decision whether to run again in 2020. I was very happy with the support I received in my last election and I feel I have been successful during my time in the Senate.”

Having covered the Iowa legislature for more than a decade, I’ve learned to be skeptical about retirement rumors. Party leaders have a way of talking reluctant incumbents into seeking re-election. Breitbach has good committee assignments; not only does he chair the Senate Appropriations Committee, he also serves on the Commerce and Transportation panels.

So until Breitbach publicly announces he’s done, I assume he will be on the ballot next November in one of eighteen Iowa Senate districts where voters favored President Barack Obama in 2012 and Donald Trump in 2016.*

The 2018 campaign for Iowa’s third Congressional district was the most expensive U.S. House race in our state’s history. Then-Representative David Young spent more than $2.8 million, his Democratic challenger Cindy Axne spent more than $5.1 million, and outside groups kicked in nearly $9 million to influence the outcome.

The latest Federal Election Commission filings show Axne and Young are both raising plenty for what should be a highly competitive (and expensive) rematch.

Governor Kim Reynolds and Lieutenant Governor Adam Gregg endorsed State Representative Ashley Hinson for Iowa’s first Congressional district on October 17. It was the latest sign that establishment Republicans do not want former U.S. Representative Rod Blum to re-enter politics.

Before this year, no woman had ever represented Iowa in the U.S. House. But after the 2020 general election, women may represent three out of the state’s four Congressional districts.

U.S. Representative Abby Finkenauer’s likely Republican challenger in IA-01 is State Representative Ashley Hinson. Representative Cindy Axne has at least even odds to win a second term against presumptive Republican nominee David Young. And the latest campaign finance reports point to a general election match-up between State Senator Mariannette Miller-Meeks and former State Senator Rita Hart in the second district.

U.S. Representative Steve King has raised a shockingly small amount of money for his re-election and could be outspent by multiple Republican challengers before next year’s primary to represent Iowa’s fourth district.

But while King lacks the fundraising ability of many Congressional colleagues, he has invested his political capital wisely, aligning closely with Donald Trump in the president’s hour of need.

Iowa House Speaker Linda Upmeyer raised more than $1.5 million during the 2018 election cycle and donated most of the money to the Republican Party of Iowa, for use in competitive state legislative races. Upmeyer surely raised significant funds during the first nine months of this year, before she confirmed plans to step down as speaker. (We won’t know how much until Iowa lawmakers file their next campaign finance disclosures in January.)

What’s going to happen to the money in Upmeyer’s campaign account, given that the soon-to-be-former caucus leader won’t run for re-election in 2020?

Midwestern states continue to have greater “racial disparities in economic opportunity and economic outcomes” than do other regions of the U.S., while “policy interventions designed to close those gaps are meager,” concludes a new report by Colin Gordon of the University of Iowa and the Iowa Policy Project.

Gordon’s findings are consistent with past research showing that African Americans in Iowa face pervasive barriers in many areas of life. By some measures, our state’s racial disparities are among the worst in the Midwest region and the country.

Democratic State Representative Scott Ourth has been charged with drunk driving, Stephen Gruber-Miller was first to report for the Des Moines Register on October 10. Police in Cherokee pulled Ourth over on the evening of October 5 for driving his truck with headlights off. He failed a field sobriety test, and breath tests indicated his blood alcohol content was over the legal limit.

Ourth lives in Warren County but was scheduled to appear at a fundraiser for fellow state legislator Chris Hall in Sioux City on October 6.

“We are here because the President did wrongful acts, and he admits that,” U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley said in February 1999, when explaining his votes to remove President Bill Clinton from office.

It’s a far cry from the statements he released in September, accusing U.S. House Democrats of “searching for any reason to impeach President Trump since his inauguration because they couldn’t accept the results of the 2016 election.”

With prospects growing that the Democratic-controlled House will vote out articles of impeachment against Donald Trump, it’s worth revisiting in detail how Grassley approached the Senate’s last impeachment trial.

Prairie plants were obviously the focus during last month’s group walk around Tipton Prairie in Greene County. But we also saw some woodland wildflowers blooming near the edge of the prairie. Dr. Thomas Rosburg of Drake University identified today’s featured plant as woodland lettuce (Lactuca floridana).

Sometimes known as blue woodland lettuce or Florida lettuce, this species is native to most of the U.S. east of the Rocky Mountains, and to the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario.

State Senator Mariannette Miller-Meeks announced on October 7 that former Governor Terry Branstad has endorsed her candidacy in Iowa’s second Congressional district. A statement quoting the former governor and his son Eric Branstad is at the end of this post. Branstad named Miller-Meeks to lead the Iowa Department of Public Health when he took office in 2011, and she served in that role for a little more than three years.

Miller-Meeks, who was the Republican nominee in IA-02 three times previously, has been unofficially campaigning for months but only formally launched last week. The other declared GOP candidate is former U.S. Representative Bobby Schilling.

Although there is plenty of time for other contenders to announce–Miller-Meeks kicked off her 2014 campaign less than a month before the filing deadline–the signal from Branstad could discourage other Republicans from seeking this seat.

Iowa House Republicans meet in Des Moines this morning to elect new leaders for the 2020 legislative session. Linda Upmeyer announced on September 30 that she will step down as House speaker when the legislature reconvenes in January and will not seek re-election next November. She said in a written statement that she wants to spend more time with her husband, children, and grandchildren.

Speaking to WHO Radio’s Jeff Angelo on October 1, Upmeyer said she was also influenced by her predecessor Kraig Paulsen’s decision to leave the post long before an election. A new speaker is “well-served” by having a session under their belt, which helps them with fundraising and recruiting candidates, she explained. “I wanted to make sure that whoever was going to be leading the caucus in the future had those tools at their disposal going into this next election.”

Sources close to the legislature indicate that current House Appropriations Committee chair Pat Grassley is likely to become the next speaker, with Matt Windschitl moving up from House speaker pro-tem to majority leader. Current Majority Leader Chris Hagenow may not be part of the new leadership team, for reasons that remain unclear. UPDATE: The caucus selected Grassley as speaker, Windschitl as majority leader, and State Representative John Wills as speaker pro tem.

I’ve been thinking about Upmeyer’s legacy and how she influenced the chamber.

When Bleeding Heartland last checked in on former acting U.S. Attorney General Matt Whitaker, he had landed three new jobs: managing director of the Kansas-City based political consulting firm Clout Public Affairs, “of counsel” with the Graves Garrett law firm, and outside counsel for what CNN’s Kevin Collier described as a “not-top tier antivirus company.”

Last week, Whitaker campaigned for the ruling political party in Kosovo, a former province of Serbia.

Forty-three years ago this week, Congress overrode a presidential veto to enact an appropriations bill containing the first ban on federal funding for abortion. Republican U.S. Representative Henry Hyde of Illinois had proposed language prohibiting Medicaid coverage of abortion during House debate on what was then called the Health, Education, and Welfare budget. Ever since, the policy has been known as the “Hyde amendment.”

Four Iowans who served in Congress at the time spoke to Bleeding Heartland this summer about their decisions to oppose the Hyde amendment and the political context surrounding a vote that had long-lasting consequences.

The Iowa Secretary of State’s office has revised the absentee ballot request form for the second time in one week, pending clarification from a court on whether the form can list a voter ID number as a required field.

White snakeroot (Ageratina altissima) occupies a tragic place in U.S. history, having indirectly caused thousands of deaths during the 19th century. The Plants that Kill book explains.

When Europeans started to settle in the Midwest region of the United States in the 1800s, they and their livestock began to fall ill. The animals developed violent trembling when they were forced to move or became agitated, and the disease became known as trembles. People who drank the milk of affected animals developed so-called milk sickness, and it is estimated that in some areas of Indiana and Ohio 25–50 per cent of the deaths of early settlers were caused by this condition. One casualty in 1818 was Nancy Hanks Lincoln, whose son, nine years old at the time, would become President Abraham Lincoln.

The National Park Service website for the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial in Indiana adds more context.

The illness was most common in dry years when cows wandered from poor pastures to the woods in search of food. In man, the symptoms are loss of appetite, listlessness, weakness, vague pains, muscle stiffness, vomiting, abdominal discomfort, severe constipation, bad breath, and finally coma. […]

Milk sickness or “trembles” was more prevalent in late summer and early fall, but records show that many cases occurred in the winter and early summer also.

White snakeroot will do you no harm, as long as you don’t consume milk from animals that have grazed on it. That’s good news, because this plant is among the most prevalent late summer wildflowers in shady, woodland habitats, especially in damp areas. If you’ve been on a trail running near an Iowa river or creek lately, you’ve probably seen some blooming. It’s native to almost all of the U.S. and Canada east of the Rocky Mountains.

The State of Iowa has revised the official absentee ballot request form in light of a court ruling that invalidated some sections of Iowa election law. However, the new form still lists a voter ID number as a required field, despite a court order permanently enjoining Secretary of State Paul Pate from “indicating that such information is ‘required.’”

UPDATE: Hanusa announced in March 2020 that she will not seek re-election. Original post follows.

Democrats need a net gain of four seats to take control of the Iowa House after the 2020 elections. One seat that wasn’t on the party’s 2018 target list (but should have been) was House district 16, covering part of Council Bluffs. State Representative Mary Ann Hanusa had a close shave there, defeating Democrat Steve Gorman by only 114 votes, a roughly 1 percent margin.

Gorman is running for the Iowa Senate this cycle, but as of October 1, Democrats have a strong challenger for the House seat: Jen Pellant.

State Senator Mariannette Miller-Meeks made her candidacy in Iowa’s second Congressional district official today after several months of “exploring” the race. The terrain is familiar to the GOP nominee who faced U.S. Representative Dave Loebsack in 2008, 2010, and 2014.

A few thoughts about her prospects in the Republican primary, where she will face former U.S. Representative Bobby Schilling, and a general election against likely Democratic nominee Rita Hart:

Pete Brownell, the CEO of the Grinnell-based firearms retailer Brownells, was a key target in a scheme by foreign agents who used the National Rifle Association “to gain access to American conservative organizations on behalf of the Russian Federation,” an eighteen-month investigation revealed. The report by Democratic staff on the U.S. Senate Finance Committee determined that while representing the NRA, Brownell met with sanctioned individuals in Russia in December 2015. That trip helped demonstrate to the Kremlin that Russian government official Alexander Torshin had strong American connections.

In addition, investigators found evidence Brownell went to Moscow “primarily or solely for the purpose of advancing personal business interests, rather than advancing the NRA’s tax-exempt purpose.” Maria Butina (who worked closely with Torshin and was later charged in connection with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation) set up meetings for Brownell with Russian arms manufacturers and retailers and traveled with the Iowan for three days before the rest of the NRA group arrived.

By using the so-called social welfare organization’s resources in this way, the NRA and Brownell may have violated portions of the federal tax code relating to private inurement and excess benefit transactions.

Bleeding Heartland’s efforts to reach Brownell for comment on September 27 were unsuccessful. The media contact for the Brownells company did not return phone calls.

“Iowa is not working for working families,” Michael Libbie said at the beginning of a video introducing himself as a candidate in state Senate district 22.

A few weeks ago, Libbie became the fourth declared Democrat in what should be one of next year’s most competitive Iowa Senate races.

Representative Steve King is having a good week. The nine-term incumbent wrapped up his taxpayer-funded, 39-county town hall tour in front of a “receptive” Sac County audience on September 21. Five days later, yet another Republican announced plans to run for Congress in Iowa’s fourth district.

Four Iowa Supreme Court justices ruled on September 26 that the Iowa Court of Appeals should hear a challenge to a new law changing judicial selection and shortening the term of chief justice.

During a visit to the never-plowed Tipton Prairie in Greene County earlier this month, I was able to see a native grass at the peak of its blooming period. Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans) was one of the four dominant species of tallgrass prairies, along with big bluestem, little bluestem, and switchgrass. It was once plentiful across the U.S. and Canada (except for west of the Rocky Mountains) and often thrives in prairie remnants or restorations.

The Illinois Wildflowers and Minnesota Wildflowers sites are good resources for botanically accurate descriptions of the plant parts. Indian grass is easy to identify for its reddish-brown color, spear-shaped spikelets before blooming, and flower clusters with yellow stamens.

For the second time this year, the U.S. Senate has approved a resolution terminating the national emergency President Donald Trump declared in February in order to start building a border wall without Congressional authorization. Eleven Republicans joined all Democrats present in the September 25 vote (roll call). The rest of the GOP caucus, including Iowa’s Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, voted against it.

A new plaintiff is challenging the validity of Iowa’s law changing the composition of the State Judicial Nominating Commission and shortening the term of the Iowa Supreme Court chief justice. Attorney Thomas Duff filed suit in Polk County District Court earlier this month, citing the same three points a separate lawsuit raised in May:

After weeks or months of avoiding public comment on the topic, all three Iowa Democrats in the U.S. House expressed support for a formal impeachment inquiry on September 24, the same day House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced, “I’m directing our six committees to proceed with their investigations under that umbrella of impeachment inquiry.”

Iowa Supreme Court Justice Thomas Waterman has again refused to recuse himself from hearing a challenge to a new state law, without disclosing his communications with policy-makers while that bill was pending in the legislature.

Less than four months after persuading Attorney General Tom Miller to cede some of his power to her, Governor Kim Reynolds has already denied ten requests to sign Iowa on to multi-state legal actions related to federal or state policies on gun safety, immigration, environmental regulation, and reproductive or LGBTQ rights.

During the same time frame, Reynolds has approved five requests to join multi-state efforts on consumer protection, drug policy, or to help Iowa obtain a share of negotiated settlements.

Democratic State Representative Mark Smith will not seek re-election in 2020, Lana Bradstream was first to report for the Marshalltown Times-Republican on September 22. Smith broke the news the previous day during an event featuring presidential candidate Cory Booker in Marshalltown. He elaborated on his reasoning in a column for the Times-Republican.

U.S. Senator Joni Ernst is among Ukraine’s most vocal supporters in Congress. While in college, she visited the Ukrainian Republic of the USSR as part of an agricultural exchange. Now a member of the bipartisan Senate Ukraine Caucus, she has met with high-level Ukrainian officials in Washington and Kyiv, advocating for the U.S. to “make it clear to Russia that we will stand by Ukraine in the face of unjustified aggression.”

Yet Iowa’s junior senator has been silent this week as multiple news organizations reported that President Donald Trump abused his power to seek political assistance from his Ukrainian counterpart.

The Iowa Democratic Party has approved a plan to replace the “virtual caucus” recently nixed by the Democratic National Committee.

But while a news release hailed the proposal to “increase participation and make the caucuses more accessible for Iowans who have traditionally been unable to attend their in-person precinct caucus,” many Democrats won’t be able to use satellite caucuses.

Former State Senator Jack Hatch will run for Des Moines mayor, he announced on WHO-TV on September 19, the last day for local candidates in Iowa to file nominating papers. A few minutes later, his campaign released a statement and a video, both enclosed below, and launched a website at JackHatchforMayor.com.

Key issues for Hatch will include fixing roads and neighborhood infrastructure, addressing “the urgent mental health care crisis that has been ignored,” protecting drinking water, improving area schools, and public safety measures including steps to reduce gun violence. All of those topics were mentioned in a telephone poll Hatch commissioned earlier this month, which Bleeding Heartland summarized here.

Defeating sixteen-year incumbent Mayor Frank Cownie will not be easy, and Hatch will have only six and a half weeks to build his case with voters. However, unlike most challengers, he already has very high name recognition. Hatch represented parts of Des Moines in the Iowa House or Senate for more than 20 years, was the 2014 Democratic nominee for governor, and is a well-known property developer.

Hatch told WHO-TV’s Dave Price he started thinking about running for mayor after Cownie “decided not to protect our drinking water when he had a chance to,” adding that Cownie “was silent” as Republican legislators tried to break up the Des Moines Water Works in 2017. Hatch acknowledged he was starting his campaign late, saying others had considered running against Cownie but backed off. He’s in the race because sees the future of Des Moines “being blurred” without strong leadership.

Turnout on November 5 may be higher than usual for a city election, because Des Moines has multiple competitive city council races, and this is the first year school board elections will be held concurrently with elections for municipal offices. Early voting begins on October 7.

Thanks to lead organizer Mike Delaney, I was able to visit Tipton Prairie (west of Rippey on E57 in Greene County) earlier this month. The Raccoon River Watershed Association sponsored a walking tour, with expert guidance from Professor Thomas Rosburg of Drake University.

On my first outing to Tipton two years ago, I saw the four-acre, never-plowed prairie in late spring, when prairie phlox, prairie redroot, and yellow star grass were near their peak. The landscape looks quite different in late summer.

One treat was seeing a large colony of field thistle (Cirsium discolor), also known as pasture thistle. Although this plant is native to most of the U.S. and Canada east of the Rocky Mountains, most thistles growing along Iowa trails and roadsides are invasive species. However, according to the Illinois Wildflowers website, field thistle can thrive on disturbed ground as well as in high-quality habitats. You may find it in “moist to dry prairies, openings in woodland areas, moist meadows near rivers, limestone glades, pastures and abandoned fields, open areas along railroads and roadsides, and waste areas.”

Multiple Iowa Supreme Court justices spoke with Iowa House Republicans shortly before GOP lawmakers approved a bill that gave the governor more influence over the judicial selection process and shortened the chief justice’s term.

But only Chief Justice Mark Cady disqualified himself from considering the legal challenge to that law’s validity, and only Cady has been transparent about his communications on the issue with legislators and staff for Governor Kim Reynolds.

Justice Thomas Waterman and Justice Edward Mansfield appear to have pushed for the bill’s passage and stand to benefit from electing a new chief justice in 2021. Yet neither recused himself from hearing the case. Nor have they revealed their contacts with Republican legislators or the governor’s legal counsel Sam Langholz, despite a judicial rule calling for disclosure of information relevant to a recusal motion.

Board members of the Iowa Communities Assurance Pool, including State Representative Michael Bergan, have “frequently held public meetings at posh out-of-state resorts, costing tens of thousands of dollars while making it harder for the public to attend,” Ryan Foley reported for the Associated Press on September 16.

Industry-funded groups have recently spent more than a million dollars on television and online advertising in Iowa opposing Democratic plans to expand access to health insurance.

Some ads primarily focus on single-payer plans (often known as Medicare for All), which more than half a dozen presidential candidates are supporting. But Partnership for America’s Health Care Future has used its hundreds of thousands of dollars in the Des Moines market targeting more modest proposals to offer a “public option” on exchanges selling private health insurance policies.

Many central Iowa Democratic activists were surprised and upset to see Loretta Sieman, a longtime West Des Moines city council member, in one of the partnership’s commercials. Sieman spoke to Bleeding Heartland on September 11 about why she opposes the public option and why she agreed to appear in the ad, now in heavy rotation on YouTube as well as Des Moines broadcast and cable stations.

First disclaimer: I don’t agree with the Democratic National Committee’s debate criteria and encourage Iowans to keep listening to all the presidential candidates.

Second disclaimer: I doubt anything that happens more than four months before anyone votes will significantly affect the battle for the Democratic nomination. As Dan Guild has shown, history tells us more than half of Iowa Democrats who participated in the 2004 and 2008 caucuses decided in the final month.

That said, here are my thoughts on last night’s three-hour debate at Texas Southern University in Houston.

Four Democrats recently ended their presidential bids, after it became clear they would not qualify for tonight’s televised debate from Houston.

But more than half a dozen candidates who weren’t on stage tonight continue to actively campaign in Iowa. Several prominent Iowa Democrats are encouraging them to stay in the race and not let the Democratic National Committee narrow the field by default.

North Carolina Republican lawmakers have a history of behaving like “banana republic” autocrats, canceling primary elections they couldn’t rig and attempting to limit the authority of the governor and Supreme Court after GOP candidates lost last year’s elections for those offices.

Today Republican leaders of the North Carolina House pulled something new out of their bag of reprehensible tricks. They called a surprise vote to override Governor Roy Cooper’s veto of the state budget while many Democratic colleagues were absent from the chamber for a 9/11 remembrance event or committee hearings.

I doubt Iowa House Speaker Linda Upmeyer would stoop so low. But even if she wanted to, she could not attempt this gambit here.

In a departure from past practice, the Republican National Committee no longer shares information about President Donald Trump’s standing in states or Congressional districts with other Republican committees or candidates, ProPublica and the Texas Monthly reported today.

That could become a problem for down-ballot GOP candidates, especially the contenders hoping to flip three Democratic-held Congressional districts in Iowa.

Former State Senator Jack Hatch appears to be seriously considering a campaign for mayor of Des Moines.

In recent days, numerous Democrats living in the capital city have received a lengthy telephone poll testing positive messages about Hatch and mostly negative messages about Mayor Frank Cownie, a four-term incumbent who has held the position since 2004.

Hatch did not immediately respond to a phone call and e-mail seeking comment on his plans and whether he commissioned the poll. I’ve paraphrased the questions below, based on detailed notes from a source who took the survey on September 9, and will update this post as needed when Hatch makes his intentions clear.

“Our 2020 caucus plans remain unchanged,” Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Jeff Kaufmann confirmed on September 6, amid news that state parties in South Carolina, Nevada, Arizona, and Kansas will not hold presidential primaries or caucuses next year.

I wouldn’t bet the farm on the traditional straw poll happening at GOP precinct caucuses on February 3, 2020.