Matt Chapman, who closely follows legislative happenings, reports on an Iowa Senate debate you can watch beginning at 8:19:30 on this video. -promoted by desmoinesdem

The March 21 debate on Senate File 2117 started off with a bang.

Charles Bruner is a longtime advocate for “policies that support children and strengthen families.” He posted this reflection on Facebook following the passing of his friend, a former legislator and founder of the State Public Policy Group. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Thanks to Facebook friends Angie Slater, Mark Lambert, Jodi Tomlonovic, Tom Jochum, Christopher Slater, and I am sure others for their reflections on Tom Slater, who died on St. Patrick’s Day after a life much longer and enriching than 72 calendar years.

To add to these reflections, I first met and talked with Tom over thirty-five years ago, in 1981. He was a state senator and I was a lowly state representative, trying to figure out whether I should run for re-election to the House or go to, in Don Avenson’s view, the moribund and dreaded Senate. I contacted Senator Slater, the closest thing to a Young Turk the Senate had, to seek advice. Tom took me out to lunch – at one of the greasiest of greasy spoons I thought could exist, which made Iowa State Fair food seem health-giving.

The Iowa Senate confirmed Jerry Foxhoven as director of the Iowa Department of Human Services in an unusually close vote on March 21.

Most of Governor Kim Reynolds’ appointees have won unanimous confirmation, as has typically been the case in Iowa for many years. Foxhoven’s nomination was controversial because of how privatized Medicaid has been managed, along with several tragedies involving abused children. Senate Democrats asked to defer consideration on the DHS director last month “until we can fully assess his leadership.”

The Iowa Democratic Party’s Third District Central Committee will meet on March 26 to consider whether to nominate Theresa Greenfield for the Congressional primary. But it’s far from a sure thing that committee members will vote to nominate Greenfield, or that such an action could withstand a legal challenge.

Former Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett may not have collected enough signatures to qualify for the GOP primary ballot for governor. Craig Robinson, publisher of The Iowa Republican blog, filed a challenge with the Secretary of State’s office today after scrutinizing copies of Corbett’s nominating papers.

Voters in Iowa Senate district 25 will elect a successor to disgraced former Senate Majority Leader Bill Dix on April 10. The special election campaign is happening on a compressed timetable because the vacancy arose during the Iowa legislature’s session. Dix should have faced pressure to resign last year over his many missteps in handling sexual harassment in the Senate GOP caucus. Instead, he stepped down unexpectedly last week after publication of a video and photographs showing him “in a romantic relationship” with a lobbyist.

Local Democrats nominated Tracy Freese for the special election on March 17. Sweeney won the GOP nomination three days later. The former Republican lawmaker will be heavily favored on April 10 and in the November election for a full four-year term. However, if Freese keeps it closer than expected, the special election may provide a snapshot of high Democratic voter engagement, like the recent over performance by Todd Wendt in Iowa Senate district 3 and Rita DeJong in Iowa House district 6.

Retired educator Bruce Lear warns about factors driving Iowa toward a significant teacher shortage. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Iowa is in the midst of a perfect storm. It’s not a blizzard, a tornado, or a flood. This one is man-made, and unfortunately it won’t move through the state until the current batch of majority party politicians are blown away by its gale force wind.

There are really three man-made causes fueling this storm, which has the potential to cause at least two major kinds of damage.

Carl Olsen is a longtime advocate for expanding access to medical cannabis in Iowa and maintains the Iowans for Medical Marijuana website. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Representative David Young is co-sponsoring federal legislation, the CARERS Act of 2017, H.R. 2920, that would interfere with Iowa’s Medical Cannabidiol Act of 2017, passed during the closing hours of last year’s legislative session.

And it’s not just Young. Representative Dave Loebsack, Iowa’s only Democrat in Congress, is also co-sponsoring the CARERS Act of 2017.  What is surprising to me as a Democrat is that the Republican representing the first district, Rod Blum, is actually the only Iowa member of Congress that understand federalism.  What I mean by “federalism” is that Blum is representing the people of the state of Iowa rather than federal interference with our new state medical marijuana law.

The Iowa Secretary of State’s office announced today that Theresa Greenfield’s campaign submitted fewer than 1,500 of the 1,790 signatures needed to qualify for the Democratic primary ballot in Iowa’s third Congressional district.

More Iowa women are running for office in 2018 than ever before, which could lead to record numbers of female state representatives and senators next year.

However, in other meaningful ways, Iowa’s legislature could become less diverse after the November election.

The Libertarian Party of Iowa has full political party status for the first time this election cycle, thanks to a record-breaking showing here by presidential candidate Gary Johnson in 2016. But Libertarians are far from fielding anything close to a full slate of candidates for state offices.

After watching Iowa House Republicans advance an unconstitutional abortion ban, Matt Chapman has a “modest proposal.” -promoted by desmoinesdem

Toward the end of the second “funnel” week, when most non-appropriations bills must be approved by one chamber and by a committee in the other chamber to remain viable, House Republicans amended a fetal body parts bill to ban almost all abortions in Iowa after a fetal heartbeat can be detected.

Selling fetal body parts is not legal or happening in Iowa. That issue was merely a distraction, a vehicle to advance the true Republican agenda: taking away women’s rights to control their own bodies.

Democrats are fielding a nearly full slate of Iowa House and Senate candidates this year, leaving far fewer GOP-held seats unchallenged than in the last two midterm elections.

The improvement is particularly noticeable in the Iowa House, where Republicans have an unusually large number of open seats to defend. Twelve of the 59 GOP state representatives are retiring, and a thirteenth seat (House district 43) is open due to Majority Leader Chris Hagenow’s move to safer Republican territory in Dallas County.

The Democratic primary field for Iowa’s third Congressional district is shrinking on the last day of the filing period. Austin Frerick ended his candidacy this afternoon, saying “we could not raise what I believed to be the necessary funding to continue in this race.” And Theresa Greenfield’s campaign staff were “scrambling” today to collect enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot, Jason Noble reported for the Des Moines Register.

Dan Guild argues that the swings we have seen in recent special U.S. House elections “are a sign that something very big may be about to happen.” -promoted by desmoinesdem

It is fair to say the stakes have seldom been higher in a mid-term election. Obamacare survived by a margin of one vote in the U.S. Senate. It is likely the Republicans will gain the one Senate seat they need to undo Obamacare. The Republicans have finished their report on Russian involvement in the 2016 election. The only real way for true public hearings into Russia and our elections is for the Democrats to retake the House.

2016 was in many ways a VERY unusual election. Some of those ways are as obvious as a Trump tweet, others are less obvious. Essentially there were two large swings, each in opposite directions:

It is very rare to find swings like that – when they occur they are usually indicative of a political re-alignment. I have NEVER seen swings like that in the same election in opposite directions.

During the last week before the filing deadline, Republican State Senators Mark Chelgren and Rick Bertrand announced that they will not seek re-election in 2018. Iowa Senate districts 41 and 7 were already the best Democratic pickup opportunities on a difficult midterm election map. Of the 29 Republicans now serving in the upper chamber, only four–Chelgren, Bertrand, Dan Dawson, and Tom Greene–hold seats where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans (barely in Dawson’s district). Dawson and Greene won’t be up for re-election until 2020.

Winning an open seat is usually easier than defeating a legislative incumbent, and Bertrand’s retirement clearly improves Democratic chances in Senate district 7.

But Republicans have likely increased their odds of holding Senate district 41 by swapping out Chelgren for Mariannette Miller-Meeks.

Dubuque-based Tin Moon still promotes its work on behalf of 11,000 website clients it doesn’t have and “success stories” that did not involve the firm’s customers, if they happened at all.

But the company selling search engine optimization and reputation management services “recently removed any mention” of U.S. Representative Rod Blum from its website, the AP’s Ryan Foley reported today.

A survey is testing brief, positive messages about two-term Representative David Young in Iowa’s third Congressional district. A respondent took notes on the call on the evening of March 14.

My first thought was that the National Republican Congressional Committee or some outside group supporting GOP House candidates commissioned the poll. The phrases about Young didn’t have the level of detail I would expect from a survey designed by a campaign, and the question order was somewhat unusual.

On the other hand, Federal Election Commission filings don’t appear to show any expenditures by Young’s campaign on polling during the third or fourth quarters of 2017. Perhaps this survey is the incumbent’s early attempt to see where he stands.

Iowa Senate Republicans elected new leaders today following Bill Dix’s unexpected resignation on March 12. Jack Whitver moves up from Senate president to majority leader, and Charles Schneider moves up from majority whip to Senate president. Amy Sinclair, who has been one of four assistant majority leaders, moves up to majority whip. Jake Chapman will take her place as an assistant leader.

Jon Neiderbach will not file nominating papers for governor and will support John Norris in the Democratic primary, he told Bleeding Heartland by telephone this morning. On Monday, following a long drive back from an event in Jackson County over the weekend, Neiderbach determined he was unlikely to break through in a field with “lots of good candidates.” (He raised far less money in 2017 than did five other Democratic contenders.)

Asked whether he planned to endorse before the June 5 primary, Neiderbach said,