“Mark me down as Never Trump,” State Senator David Johnson said today, becoming the most prominent Iowa Republican elected official to renounce the presumptive presidential nominee. The longtime Senate incumbent told the Des Moines Register’s William Petroski he became a no-party voter because of Donald Trump’s “racist remarks and judicial jihad.”

“I will not stand silent if the party of Lincoln and the end of slavery buckles under the racial bias of a bigot,” Johnson said, referring to Trump. His criticism was prompted by Trump’s comments that a judge presiding over a lawsuit involving his business was biased because of his Mexican heritage. […]

“If Mr. Trump is the nominee, he becomes the standard bearer for a party that’s on the verge of breaking apart. He simply cannot unify the GOP. If there is a profound split, I’ll gladly re-join Republicans who are dedicated to equality and justice for all, and let Mr. Trump lead his supporters over the cliff,” Johnson said. […]

“There are consequences to the decision to suspend, for now, my Republican registration. I am fully aware of that,” Johnson said. “As I have for the past 18 years, I will put a high priority on constituent service. Many of the voters who elected me are supporting Mr. Trump. I respect that, but disagree that he is qualified to lead the nation and the free world.”

Johnson represents one of the most heavily Republican state Senate districts, covering five counties in northwest Iowa. Ted Cruz carried two of those counties (Lyon and Osceola) by a relatively wide margin, while Trump carried the other three (Dickinson, Clay, and Palo Alto) by slim margins. Johnson endorsed former Texas Governor Rick Perry for president in early 2015, eventually backing Carly Fiorina last October.

Conservation funding aside, I rarely find myself in agreement with Johnson. But kudos to him for speaking out while Senator Chuck Grassley, Governor Terry Branstad, and others tried to sidestep Trump’s steadfast assertion that a federal judge is biased because “he’s Mexican.”

UPDATE: A reader asked whether Johnson had endorsed Representative Steve King’s re-election, given King’s long history of offensive statements regarding Latinos. Johnson was not on the list of state legislative supporters the King campaign released on May 24.

King himself has not yet endorsed Trump, for reasons unrelated to the presidential candidate’s comments about immigrants.

SECOND UPDATE: Added below excerpts from Johnson’s interview with Ben Jacobs of The Guardian.

“When I saw Donald Trump mock somebody with a disability, it showed me his soul. It showed me his heart. And I didn’t like what I saw.” The father of a child with spina bifida delivers that devastating closing line in a new tv ad by Priorities USA Action. The super-PAC that supports Hillary Clinton for president is running the 60-second spot in seven swing states, including Iowa. I enclose below the video and transcript.

Although this commercial probably won’t change the minds of anyone inclined to support Trump for president, it should reinforce his historically low favorability ratings, especially among women with children.

Most early electoral vote projections show Iowa as a tossup state, though I have seen a few putting our state in the “lean D” category. Democratic candidates have won Iowa’s electoral votes in six of the last seven presidential elections.

UPDATE: Boulton won this race by just under 53 percent of the vote to 47 percent.

One of the most closely-watched state legislative primary results tonight will be the race to represent the open Iowa Senate district 16, covering the east side of Des Moines and Pleasant Hill in Polk County. No Republican has filed to run in this overwhelmingly Democratic district. The two contenders seeking to replace retiring Senator Dick Dearden are his daughter, Pam Dearden Conner, and Nate Boulton. Bleeding Heartland posted background on both candidates here. Each has substantial support from influential local Democrats.

I love three things about this primary:

1) It is happening. Dearden announced his plans to retire six months before the filing deadline, giving all local residents plenty of time to enter the Senate race. He could have pretended to be seeking another term, then pulled his nominating papers on the last day, leaving time for only his daughter to file. Too many Iowa lawmakers, including three House Democrats this year, have engineered their retirements so that only favored insiders had a chance to consider running for office.

2) Both sides are working hard. Although some Iowa Democrats have a bizarre fear of competitive primaries, I see no downside to two candidates and a small army of volunteers knocking doors and making phone calls, trying to identify supporters and get them to vote. As of May 24, more than 1,200 voters in Senate district 16 had requested absentee ballots. Both campaigns were out in force this past weekend, enjoying perfect weather for canvassing. Boulton has raised and spent more money, as you can see from his and Conner’s latest disclosure reports, but both sides have done substantial district-wide voter outreach.

3) As far as I can tell, the candidates have stayed positive. Months ago, I was worried the Senate district 16 primary might turn nasty like the 2013 Des Moines City Council race between Chris Diebel and Skip Moore, which lit up social media and strained friendships.

May the best Democrat win. I’ve posted below some examples of campaign literature and direct mail supporting each candidate. You can find more information on the websites for Conner and Boulton.

The Iowa Utilities Board voted today to allow Dakota Access LLC to begin construction of the Bakken pipeline on Iowa land that is not subject to the federal permitting process and where the company has obtained easements from landowners. The decision marks a shift from the stance the board took when approving the pipeline proposal in March.

The Des Moines Register released more results from Selzer & Co’s latest Iowa poll today. Jason Noble led with the presidential preference numbers: among 542 Iowans likely to vote in the June 7 Democratic primary, 42 percent support Bernie Sanders, 40 percent favor Hillary Clinton, and 11 percent support neither candidate. (No-party voters or Republicans can change their registration to cast ballots in the Democratic primary.) In the same survey, 58 percent said Clinton is better positioned to beat Donald Trump, while 29 percent believe Sanders has a stronger chance in the general election.

The most striking finding for me: Clinton and Sanders have the same net favorability at 62 percent. About 35 percent have an unfavorable view of Clinton, and 34 percent say the same about Sanders. Clinton has only slightly lower “very favorable” and slightly higher “very unfavorable” numbers than Sanders does. That’s a big slide in positive impressions of the Democratic contenders compared to the last two Selzer polls before the Iowa caucuses. A Des Moines Register poll taken in early January indicated that “89 percent of likely Democratic caucusgoers view Sanders favorably, and 86 percent of them view Clinton favorably.” During the last week before the February 1 caucuses, Selzer measured the net favorability for Clinton at 81 percent and for Sanders at 82 percent–both close to the 86 percent number for former President Bill Clinton.

Granted, Selzer was not interviewing the same respondent pool in all of these surveys. Still, I was surprised to see net favorables for both Clinton and Sanders so low among people who are likely to vote in tomorrow’s Iowa Democratic primary. The long and increasingly bitter competition for the presidential nomination appears to have turned a lot of Democrats off both candidates. Many Sanders supporters resent Clinton’s establishment or corporate ties and believe primaries in some states have been “rigged” on her behalf. Many Clinton supporters are angry that Sanders plans to take his fight for the nomination to the floor of the Democratic National Convention, despite trailing Clinton by millions of popular votes and hundreds of pledged delegates–a wider gap than Barack Obama’s lead over Clinton at the same point in 2008.

Healing these hard feelings over the summer should be a priority for party activists. Democratic hopes of seriously challenging Senator Chuck Grassley, defeating Congressional Republicans Rod Blum and David Young, holding the Iowa Senate majority, and winning back the Iowa House depend on a strong turnout in November.

P.S.- The Iowa Democratic Party’s Caucus Review Committee should consider these findings as they weigh whether to introduce bound delegates, so that presidential campaigns don’t have to keep fighting each other at county and district conventions. I still occasionally hear Democrats expressing anger and frustration over this year’s Polk County Democratic convention.

UPDATE: The Associated Press reported on the evening of June 6 that Clinton has clinched the Democratic nomination, having won 1,812 pledged delegates in primaries or caucuses as well as the support of 571 superdelegates surveyed by AP journalists. More details are on the AP’s delegate tracker. Most of Iowa’s superdelegates committed to Clinton long ago, though to my knowledge Iowa Democratic Party Chair Andy McGuire is still officially neutral.

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

A bunch of Iowa primary election previews are in the works to post between now and Tuesday. Still trying to decide on my last few guesses for the latest Bleeding Heartland election prediction contest.

Meanwhile, the Iowa Board of Regents will meet this week to discuss, among other things, how to handle the upcoming search for a University of Northern Iowa president and whether to approve a staff recommendation on raising tuition for the coming academic year.

Democratic candidates and their supporters are welcome to write guest posts at Bleeding Heartland. -promoted by desmoinesdem

It doesn’t have to be, and you are the person that decides.

Since launching her U.S. Senate campaign in March, former Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge has held relatively few public events. She hasn’t put out attention-getting policy proposals. Her campaign has announced high-profile endorsements through news releases, not at press conferences where tv cameras would be rolling. She didn’t come to the two televised debates ready to drop headline-grabbing talking points.

Both Iowa and national Republicans have mocked Judge’s sparse public schedule, asking, “Where’s Patty?” Even some Democrats have been puzzled by the experienced candidate’s low-profile approach to a race she entered very late.

Judge’s strategy had a certain logic, though. If her internal polling showed her well ahead of the other three Democrats seeking the nomination–expected given her higher visibility as a former statewide office-holder–packing her schedule with rallies and town-halls would have little upside. Republican video trackers, like the ones who have been following State Senator Rob Hogg around since last summer, would catch any slip and blow it out of all proportion.

Two public polls released in recent days lend support to persistent rumors in Democratic circles that surveys conducted for the Judge campaign put her 10 or 15 points ahead of her nearest rival.

Though presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump says something outrageous on almost a daily basis, I can’t get over his incredibly offensive comments this week about U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel. On Thursday he said out loud that a judge should not hear the case involving alleged fraud by one of his companies, because Curiel’s “Mexican heritage” creates “an absolute conflict.”

Trump doubled down in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper yesterday. Media Matters posted the partial transcript, and I’ve enclosed excerpts below. Trump repeatedly asserted he has been “treated very unfairly” by Judge Curiel, because “I’m building a wall” along the Mexican border. He called Curiel “Mexican” even though the judge is a native-born U.S. citizen and repeatedly said the judge is “proud of his heritage,” as if that should be disqualifying. He also claimed the case involving Trump University should have been over two years ago–but if that’s the case, what does the wall have to do with it? Trump only started talking about the border wall last year, as a presidential candidate.

I’ve never heard Republican strategist Ana Navarro sound as angry as she did while talking about these comments on CNN yesterday. Her kicker: “what he is doing is disgusting. I am livid about it, and if this is his strategy to win over Hispanics, he’s got a hell of a wake-up call coming to him come November.”

In early 2013, the Republican National Committee published its Growth & Opportunity Project, better known as the so-called “autopsy” on Mitt Romney’s failed 2012 presidential campaign. A key point in that document concerned the need for Republicans to do a better job appealing to Latino voters. It’s hard to conceive of a candidate more alienating to that demographic than Trump. This week, Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns reported for the New York Times that Ruth Guerra is resigning as head of the RNC’s Hispanic media relations because she did not want to work for Trump. Adrian Carrasquillo reported for Buzzfeed that Guerra’s replacement Helen Aguirre Ferré has been “very critical of Trump in a multitude of Spanish-language interviews” and wrote in now-deleted Tweets that she was #NeverTrump.

Every Iowa Republican who has promised to support Trump should be held accountable for the GOP standard-bearer’s bigoted view of a federal judge. Let’s start with Senator Chuck Grassley, who is preventing President Barack Obama from filling a U.S. Supreme Court vacancy in the hope that Trump will be able to name Justice Antonin Scalia’s successor. Does Grassley think whole ethnic groups should be disqualified from hearing certain kinds of cases?

UPDATE: Several prominent Republicans have condemned Trump’s remarks about Curiel, Dan Balz reported for the Washington Post. One of them was Newt Gingrich: “I don’t know what Trump’s reasoning was, and I don’t care, […] His description of the judge in terms of his parentage is completely unacceptable.” Maybe a Trump/Newt ticket isn’t the perfect match I thought it would be. LATER UPDATE: On June 6 Trump said on Fox News, “as far as Newt is concerned, I saw Newt, I was surprised at Newt, I thought it was inappropriate what he said.”

SECOND UPDATE: Grassley didn’t condemn Trump’s remarks during his meetings in meetings in three towns on June 3 as part of his 99-county tour. Asked to comment by Pat Rynard, Grassley said, “It would help him very much to be elected President of the U.S. if he would be a little more mild in his demeanor.” In other words, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee has nothing to say about the substance of Trump’s beliefs about a federal judge’s ethnicity as disqualifying. But Grassley wishes Trump would display a different “demeanor” to improve his chances of winning the November election. Weak.

At Grassley’s Humboldt even, he dodged a question from someone else about Trump’s comments: “And the other point your brought up about what he says about a judge, I’ve already answered that–there’s a process for anybody that doesn’t like the judge you have, you think that judge isn’t going to be fair, you can file a petition. And if you file a petition that a judge should get out, and that judge says you shouldn’t get out, then you’ve got a right to appeal that to a higher court and get fair judgment that way.” Again, he did not address the central issue: the Republican candidate believes a judge whose parents came to this country from Mexico cannot be impartial.

Meanwhile, Trump refused to back down during a June 5 appearance on the CBS show “Face the Nation.” Now he says it’s “common sense” that being “proud of his heritage” is why Judge Curiel “not treating me fairly.” Furthermore, Trump told John Dickerson, it’s “possible” that a Muslim judge also would not be able to treat him fairly in court.

THIRD UPDATE: Added below some of Governor Terry Branstad’s outrageous comments on the story.

FOURTH UPDATE: Grassley spoke further about the subject to Roll Call’s Bridget Bowman. Excerpts are below.

Austin Frerick, an Iowa native and economist who has worked at the Institute for Research on Poverty and the Congressional Research Service, makes a distinctive case for raising the minimum wage, last increased in Iowa in January 2007. -promoted by desmoinesdem

All of the states that border Iowa, except one, have raised their minimum wage above the federal level. In fact, a majority of states in the union have a higher one. A recent study estimated that 413,000 Iowa workers would benefit from a wage increase to at least $12 and most of the benefits would accrue to full-time adult women. The public also already decidedly supports this action as a recent Des Moines Register poll found that nearly two-thirds of Iowans favored raising it. This debate is especially relevant for Iowans employed in the numerous slaughterhouses that dot the state.

Company towns, once a relic of America’s industrial past, have reemerged in American society, notably in rural Iowa slaughterhouse communities. This occurred because of a market climate that made their monopsony position in these communities attractive to firms. This predicament causes a market failure. Therefore, raising Iowa’s minimum wage will correct this market distortion for these especially vulnerable Iowans.

Iowa’s primary election is just four days away. Democrats have a statewide race for U.S. Senate and spirited primaries in the first and third Congressional districts. Republicans nave no statewide race to vote on, but Representatives Steve King and David Young are both facing primary challengers. Contested primaries for either the Democratic or Republican nomination are happening in dozens of Iowa House or Senate districts as well. The full candidate list is here.

The early voting period for Tuesday’s primary began five weeks ago, but lots of people who prefer to cast early ballots still haven’t voted, either out of procrastination or because they are undecided. In particular, I’ve heard many Democrats say they are struggling to choose among the three candidates running in IA-03.

If you haven’t voted yet but prefer to do so before primary election day, you still have options.

It’s that time of year. For your chance at bragging rights in the Bleeding Heartland community, post a comment in this thread with your answers to the following fifteen questions sometime before 7 am central time on Tuesday, June 7.

Anyone can enter, whether you now live or have ever lived in Iowa. It’s fine to change your mind about some or all of your answers, as long as you post a comment with your new predictions before the deadline.

Only comments posted in this thread will be valid contest entries. Predictions submitted by e-mail or posted on Facebook or Twitter will not be considered. Please try to answer every question, even if it’s just a wild guess. We’re all guessing anyway, since no public polls have been published for most of these races.

Bleeding Heartland user ModerateIADem won this blog’s primary election prediction contests in 2010 and 2012. There was no clear winner two years ago.

A retired University of Iowa employee has filed suit to nullify last year’s hiring of University President Bruce Harreld, on the grounds that five members of the Iowa Board of Regents violated the state’s open meetings law, Ryan Foley reported yesterday for the Associated Press.

I enclose below more background on the case as well as the full text of the plaintiff’s court filing.

Of the approximately 120 kinds of wildflowers Bleeding Heartland has featured since March 2012, none look more like a Dr. Seuss creation than Geum triflorum.

Native to most of western North America and the upper Midwest, these plants are among the earliest to bloom in prairie landscapes. They can continue to produce flowers into the summer. However, the common names prairie smoke and old man’s whiskers are drawn from the appearance of Geum triflorum seedpods (technically achenes)–not from the pink or pale red blossoms on the flowering stalks.

I took the pictures enclosed below in mid-May along the Meredith bike trail in Des Moines. Several colonies of these unusual plants can be found along the southern edge of the trail, just west of where it passes under SW 9th Street.

I feared the worst when Governor Terry Branstad waited until the Friday before Memorial Day weekend to sign the last 30 bills from the Iowa legislature’s 2016 session. Announcing vetoes of state funding late in the week has become a hallmark of Branstad’s leadership style. If he can dump the news just before a holiday weekend, so much the better.

A few days after former Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge became the first U.S. Senate candidate in Iowa to run television commercials this year, six-term Senator Chuck Grassley’s campaign placed a small buy for ads in Des Moines and Cedar Rapids. Despite facing no competition for the Republican nomination, Grassley has run tv ads in May during previous re-election races, most recently in 2010.

The senator’s debut spot this year carries over the “Grassley Works” slogan from past campaigns. But whereas the opening pitch from 2010 emphasized the incumbent’s personal qualities and commitment to visiting every Iowa county every year, the new spot appears designed to rebut criticism over Grassley’s refusal to hold hearings for U.S. Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland.

Thanks to Jon Muller for a close look at the effects of a law that is a major reason Iowa lacked the revenue to fund K-12 schools and higher education adequately this year. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Senate File 295, the keystone tax bill passed into Iowa law in 2013, is now in full swing. It left a big hole in the State’s General Fund. It delivered handsomely on its promise to cut taxes for commercial property owners, at least in the short run. It provided modest help to the working poor. For its $500 million (plus) price tag, it has accomplished little else.

One positive aspect from the bill, at least from the perspective of most readers on this blog, was an increase in the Earned Income Tax Credit, which returns approximately $30 million to low-income working Iowans. Whether that benefit was worth the hundreds of millions given away to Iowa commercial property owners is a question left to the political analysts.

The remainder of this piece will focus on the property tax components of the bill. For reasons economic, these provisions are not likely to fulfill their stated purpose of spurring development or reducing rents for small businesses and renters. Those issues will be the subject of a different blog post. This post addresses a variety of tax burden shifts, some intended, some not. Virtually all of the benefit has gone directly to improve the wealth of commercial property owners, and shifted the property tax burden to homeowners in the short-medium run. In a strange twist, for those who desired that impact, even that may possibly fail the test of time.

I don’t post job listings here often, but since many Bleeding Heartland readers have substantial public policy experience and are interested in the issues at the core of the American Civil Liberties Union’s work, I wanted to spread the word that the ACLU of Iowa is hiring a policy director. The full job listing is after the jump. The non-profit organization will accept applications through June 26, with the goal of filling the position by August.

The eventual hire will be “responsible for advancing the ACLU’s broad civil liberties agenda before the state legislature, executive branch, and local governmental bodies,” leading policy projects related to “areas including but not limited to voting rights, racial justice, criminal justice reform, immigrant’s rights, free speech, reproductive freedom, women’s rights, LGBT rights and privacy rights.”

Once known as Decoration Day, the concept of honoring Americans who died in military service on the last Monday in May “originated in the years following the Civil War and became an official federal holiday in 1971.” Many Americans visit the graves of fallen relatives on Memorial Day. Morgan Halgren described visiting the grave of her uncle, who was killed in action during World War II, during a trip to the Netherlands.

In a guest editorial for today’s Des Moines Register, Joy Neal Kidney described her family’s annual ritual of visiting Violet Hill Cemetery in Perry (Dallas County), to honor the memories of relatives including three uncles killed during World War II.

Lynda Waddington’s latest column in the Cedar Rapids Gazette called for offering “more than words” to the war dead and their surviving families.

Since Memorial Day weekend is also the unofficial beginning of summer, it’s a good time to share Mario Vittone’s must-read piece for recreational swimmers: “Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning.” Once a lifeguard at Valley View Aquatic Center in West Des Moines jumped in to help a child in trouble in the shallow pool where I was standing near my children. Although I could not have been more than fifteen feet away, I hadn’t noticed a thing.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

UPDATE: Added below a map prepared by the Legislative Services Agency, which shows the home towns of Iowans killed in military conflicts since in Vietnam, the Gulf War, Iraq, Afghanistan, or other locations.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources has told attorneys for Dakota Access the company is “no longer authorized to engage in any activities” related to a permit previously issued for a pipeline across the Big Sioux River Wildlife Management Area in northwest Iowa, Gavin Aronsen reported at Iowa Informer. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service informed Iowa DNR Director Chuck Gipp on May 25 that a “significant archeological site” identified within that Wildlife Management Area “may fall along the proposed path of the Dakota Access Pipeline,” more commonly known as the Bakken pipeline. Consequently, the federal agency revoked approval of that permit and asked the DNR to “stop all tree clearing or any ground-disturbing activities within the pipeline corridor pending further investigation.”

Citing the letter from the Fish and Wildlife Service as well as e-mail communication from Iowa’s State Archeologist John Doershuk, yesterday the DNR sent Dakota Access a stop work order for the eastern half of the Wildlife Management Area in Lyon County, overlapping the proposed pipeline route. Aronsen posted both letters in full. Iowa Informer is a must-follow for Bakken pipeline news.

The Bakken Pipeline Resistance Coalition is holding a day of action in Oskaloosa (Mahaska County) on Saturday, May 28. In the morning, kayaks and canoes will float along the South Skunk River near where the pipeline would cross it. Along that section of river, paddlers will pass “7-generation landowner Sylvia Rodgers Spalding’s property adjacent to the proposed pipeline route.” Authors Carolyn Raffensperger, Fred Kirschenmann, Angie Carter, and Rachel Morgan will read from the recently-published book Fracture: Essays, Poems, and Stories on Fracking in America at 3 pm at the Book Vault in Oskaloosa (105 South Market Street).