First-term Representative David Young has never been a favorite among Iowa conservatives, but he escaped a strong challenge from the right in his first re-election campaign.

State Representative David Dawson announced today that he will not seek a third term in Iowa House district 14. I enclose below a news release he posted on Facebook at approximately 6:00 pm on March 18. Although I am on the press distribution list for the Iowa House Democrats, at this writing I have not received the statement by e-mail. Earlier today, Timothy Kacena filed for the Democratic nomination in the district, which covers the west side of Sioux City in Woodbury County (scroll down to view a map). I have not received a press release announcing Kacena’s candidacy, though it is not unusual for several days to pass between a campaign launch and the House Democrats e-mailing a statement about the race.

I have not found a campaign website or Facebook page for Kacena. He appears to have retired from Sioux City Fire Rescue. When I reached him by phone this evening, Kacena declined to comment on whether he is personally acquainted with Dawson or when he was recruited to run for House district 14. Most Iowa politics watchers had no idea until today that Dawson was not planning to seek re-election. No one who didn’t have advance notice could have collected 50 signatures and driven from Sioux City to Des Moines in time to file for the primary ballot by the close of business. Kacena will face Robert Henderson, who filed today for the GOP nomination in the district.

I am seeking comment from Dawson on why he didn’t announce his retirement earlier, whether he is acquainted with Kacena, whether he recruited him for this seat, and if so, when they first talked about the race. If I hear back, I will update this post. The photo accompanying today’s Facebook post shows Dawson with three young children. Spending several months a year in Des Moines is demanding work, taking a lot of time away from lawmakers’ families. Opting out is an understandable decision, and for all I know it may have been a last-minute call for Dawson. While I don’t begrudge anyone that choice, I wish state legislators would let it be known that they are wavering on a re-election bid, so others have a chance to consider running for public office in an open seat.

House district 14 leans Democratic, with 5,938 active registered Democrats, 4,102 Republicans, and 4,710 no-party voters, according to the latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office. President Barack Obama received 59.33 percent of the vote here in 2012, and Bruce Braley ran only 1 percent behind Joni Ernst among the district’s voters, far better than his statewide showing in the 2014 U.S. Senate race.

Dawson is the third Iowa House Democrat in as many days to announce a surprise retirement. As Bleeding Heartland discussed here, State Representative Nancy Dunkel revealed her plans on Wednesday, the same day Tom Stecher declared his candidacy in House district 57. State Representative Deborah Berry disclosed Thursday that she will not seek another term in House district 62. Ras Smith filed to run in that heavily Democratic seat the same day. At this writing, neither Berry nor Smith have returned my phone calls or responded to my e-mails asking questions such as: How did they become acquainted? When did they first discuss her retirement and his possible candidacy?

I have received some pushback on this post, but even more encouragement from activists who are as disappointed by the insider dealing as I am. Iowa Democratic leaders seeking more grassroots involvement should think about the message these last-minute handovers send to ordinary people about the political process.

I learned today that California law extends the filing period by five days if a state legislative incumbent does not file for re-election. Five days isn’t “enough” time to give serious consideration to a campaign, but it would be better than nothing. The Iowa House and Senate should adopt similar language to prevent insiders from treating a seat in the public’s house like a private club membership.

UPDATE: Mentioned in the previous post but should add here as well that Nebraska law sets an earlier filing deadline for incumbents across the board. Iowa could adopt that approach rather than California’s.

SECOND UPDATE: Ben Nesselhuf commented,

As a grassroots activist in Woodbury County, I can assure you that the only people cut out of the loop were the [R]epublicans. The search for Dave’s successor ranged far and wide. Anyone with any association with the party who had ever expressed an interest in running, and several who hadn’t, was approached. This was not decided in some smoke filled backroom.

THIRD UPDATE: Democratic State Representative Brian Meyer posted this revealing comment on March 20: “I can assure you everyone knew about the retirements well in advance. It was not nothing [sic] wrong with anything my leadership did. It is hard to find candidates.”

Note Meyer’s use of the word “everyone,” apparently to connote members of the Iowa House Democratic caucus and select party activists. Clearly “everyone” did not know about the lawmakers’ impending retirements. On the contrary, I have heard two separate reports of people directly asking Dunkel about her plans, coming away with the impression that she was seeking a third term.

Meyer’s comment assumes recruiting candidates is a job for leaders before a vacancy becomes public knowledge. His perspective does not acknowledge any benefit to an open process, where people who want to run for office can come forward, even if leaders don’t know about them or prefer other prospects. Relevant background information: when former House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy resigned in 2013, leaving a safe Democratic seat open in the middle of a term, three Democrats announced their candidacies for the special election, only to have Meyer clear the field almost immediately after he expressed interest.

MARCH 21 UPDATE: Three days later, neither Ras Smith nor Deborah Berry have returned my phone calls or responded to my e-mails asking questions about how they arranged this transfer of power and why Smith was selected over all other potential Democratic candidates living in House district 62.

I forgot to mention that this Facebook thread from March 17 belies Meyer’s claim that “everyone knew about the retirements well in advance.” Democratic State Representatives Abby Finkenauer and Liz Bennett assert that they found out Berry was not running for re-election the day before the filing deadline. I have no reason to doubt their accounts.

Just in time for “Sunshine Week,” a divided Iowa Supreme Court today rejected a scheme by Warren County supervisors to evade Iowa’s open meetings law by discussing a downsizing plan individually in turns with the county administrator. Four justices agreed, “the open meetings law does prohibit the majority of a governmental body gathering in person through the use of agents or proxies to deliberate any matter within the scope of its policy-making duties outside the public view.”

Follow me after the jump for background on the case and excerpts from the majority and dissenting opinions. Three Iowa Supreme Court justices would have upheld the District Court ruling, which stated that using a county administrator as a “conduit” or “messenger” to discuss policy did not trigger state law’s requirements for an open meeting with advance public notice.

Dave Swenson

Anyone paying attention in Iowa knows that farmers benefited greatly from robust commodity prices during the earlier part of this decade, but that in recent years prices have slumped, as have the fortunes of farmers. Iowa’s farmers were credited (sometimes over-credited) with helping carry the state through the Great Recession because their boom years allowed them to buy new machinery and other agricultural durable inputs, which in turn multiplied through the Iowa economy. During down times, however, those magical multipliers stop working.

Bret Hayworth had the scoop this morning for the Sioux City Journal, and State Senator Rick Bertrand told the rest of the world at a press conference this afternoon:

“I’m Rick Bertrand, I’m real, and I’m running!” Bertrand said in announcing his candidacy [in the fourth Congressional district]. He added, “I am a viable and credible candidate, and will pose the greatest challenge Mr. King has faced in 14 years.”

Julie Stauch was a leader of the Hillary Clinton delegate group at the March 12 Polk County Democratic convention, which turned into a disaster. She responds to calls by Pat Rynard and others for longtime Polk County Democratic Party Chair Tom Henderson to resign. -promoted by desmoinesdem

I’ve seen posts this week blaming Tom Henderson for a variety of things, ranging from Caucus night to the Polk County Convention. This is wrong for two reasons.

Democratic State Representative Nancy Dunkel is in the Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame, but on Wednesday she acted more like a member of the Old Boys’ Club.

President Barack Obama decided to nominate Judge Merrick Garland of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals for the U.S. Supreme Court vacancy. Of the six judges most often named as possible nominees, Garland was my least favorite. He’s a 60-something white guy with a lot of conservative fans whose record shows a slant toward law enforcement and against criminal defendants. We can do better.

I’ve heard speculation that the president didn’t want to “waste” a good nominee this year, knowing the Republican-controlled Senate will likely not confirm his choice. This way, all of the more appealing choices will be fresh faces for Hillary Clinton to choose from next year, if she is elected president.

My immediate concern is that GOP senators will wake up in the fall and realize that 1) Donald Trump cannot win the presidency, and 2) weakness at the top of the ticket may take down their Senate majority, so 3) they better hurry up and confirm Garland before Clinton has a chance to pick a more liberal judge.

Iowa’s Senator Chuck Grassley was one of the 23 Republicans who voted against confirming Garland in 1997, not because of Garland’s qualifications, but because in his view, “the evidence does not support filling the [appeals court] vacancy at a cost to taxpayers of $1 million a year.”

I will update this post with more reaction after Obama’s announcement. UPDATE: Further news is after the jump.

Whether Eighth Circuit Appeals Court Judge Jane Kelly is still on President Barack Obama’s short list for the U.S. Supreme Court vacancy is an open question. Multiple news organizations confirmed that she was under consideration for the appointment, and she remains a leading contender according to analysts like SCOTUSblog’s Tom Goldstein. Julia Edwards and Jeff Mason reported for Reuters over the weekend that the “White House has narrowed its search for a U.S. Supreme Court nominee to three federal appeals court judges, Sri Srinivasan, Merrick Garland and Paul Watford.” (This piece by Dylan Matthews contains short backgrounders on each of those judges.)

The conservative Judicial Crisis Network is taking no chances. They announced Friday a “a six-figure television and digital advertising campaign in several states exposing potential Supreme Court nominee, U.S. Circuit Court Judge Jane Kelly, as a liberal extremist.” I enclose below the video, transcript, and analysis of the 30-second commercial, which is running in Iowa because our senior Senator Chuck Grassley chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee. Part of the $250,000 ad buy also went toward airing the spot “during Sunday morning public affairs shows in Colorado, Indiana, North Dakota, Washington D.C. and West Virginia,” hoping to put pressure on potentially vulnerable Democratic senators.

Voters in five states weighed in on the presidential race today. This thread is for any comments related to the primaries in Florida, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, or North Carolina. Journalists have not settled on any shorthand reference for the March 15 elections; the Des Moines Register’s Jason Noble suggested “Super Tuesday. Superer Tuesday. Supererer Tuesday. Mega Tuesday. Ultra Tuesday. Uber Tuesday. Hella Tuesday. Big Tuesday and the Delegates.”

On the Republican side, today’s looking like “Four men enter, two men leave Tuesday.” Read fladem’s latest analysis of the GOP delegate race, if you haven’t already. I will update this post periodically with results as they come in. So far Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are heading toward big wins in Florida, which could give Clinton more delegates than she needs to stay on track to win the nomination. Ohio should be much closer on both sides, in part because independents can vote in either the Democratic or Republican primaries.

7:45 pm UPDATE: As expected, Marco Rubio dropped out after getting crushed in his home state. I was so wrong about Trump and Ted Cruz last year, but Rubio would have done better to run for re-election to the Senate and put off his presidential ambitions until 2020 or later.

CNN just projected Kasich to win Ohio, which keeps the “stop Trump” campaign alive, barely. But fladem has convinced me that the delegate math still favors Trump.

On the Democratic side, Clinton not only won Florida and North Carolina by apparently large margins, but has been declared the early winner in Ohio, which surprised me. Waiting for more detailed results to see how she did in the white working-class areas where Bernie Sanders exceeded expectations in Iowa, New Hampshire, and most recently in Michigan.

Further updates are after the jump.

Conservative Republican Robert Rees announced this afternoon that he is ending the U.S. Senate campaign he launched in January. He explained in a statement posted on his campaign’s website,

Due to the death of Justice Antonin Scalia and the subsequent entrance in to the race by former Lt. Governor Patty Judge, the dynamics of the U.S. Senate race in Iowa have changed.

While we are on pace to get on the ballot, I have decided to not run for U.S. Senate at this time.

Rees had been struggling to collect enough signatures to qualify for the GOP primary ballot. Nominating papers must be submitted to the Iowa Secretary of State’s office by the close of business this Friday, March 18. At this writing, Grassley and two of his four declared Democratic challengers (tate Senator Rob Hogg and former State Senator Tom Fiegen) have qualified to run in the June 7 primary. Former State Representative Bob Krause and Judge have not yet submitted their petitions.

Although Rees was never positioned to defeat Grassley, I regret his exit from the race, because his performance on June 7 would have signaled how many highly engaged Iowa Republicans are dissatisfied with the party’s most popular establishment figure. Little-known Tom Hoefling won just under 17 percent of the vote in his 2014 GOP primary challenge to Governor Terry Branstad.

Another revealing look at the battle for the Republican nomination. Click here to read fladem’s earlier analysis of the GOP delegate race. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Before Super Tuesday I wrote a piece here suggesting that the talk in the aftermath of those contests would be a brokered convention. That was right, I think. In fact, if you look at the delegate math today, Trump is actually further from a majority than he was before Super Tuesday. As an aside, a real time delegate projection is here.

But politics is not just measured in delegates won.

I had a feeling this open seat would prove too tempting for just one Democrat. Abbie Weipert announced at the Johnson County Democratic Convention on March 12 that she will run for Iowa House district 77. North Liberty Mayor Amy Nielsen declared her candidacy a few weeks ago, hours after Democratic State Representative Sally Stutsman made her retirement plans public.

Weipert’s campaign is on the web here and on Facebook here. I enclose below the statement she released today as well as information about her experience and and political priorities. Scroll to the end of this post for a map of House district 77, which includes North Liberty, Tiffin, Oxford, and other areas in western and southern Johnson County.

Bleeding Heartland will not endorse a candidate in this primary. Nielsen, Weipert, or others supporting their campaigns are welcome to post guest commentaries here. Before writing, please read the site guidelines on advocating for Democratic candidates.

Republicans Paula Dreeszen and Royce Phillips are also seeking to represent House district 77. The winner of the Democratic primary will be favored in the general election. House district 77 contains 7,736 active registered Democrats, 5,681 Republicans, and 7,070 no-party voters, according to the latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office. President Barack Obama won more than 58 percent of the vote here in 2012, and Bruce Braley outpolled Joni Ernst by 9 points in the district despite the 2014 Republican wave.

Final note: I sincerely appreciate Stutsman’s sense of fair play in letting her constituents know last month that she did not plan to seek re-election. Iowa has an unfortunate bipartisan tradition of state lawmakers waiting until a day or two before the filing deadline to announce their retirement. That tactic allows insiders to hand-pick a replacement without giving other politically active people time to consider running for the open seat.

UPDATE: Forgot to add that the Iowa House Democrats sent out Nielsen’s campaign announcement. At this writing, the have not sent Weipert’s press release, which suggests that party insiders favor Nielsen.

SECOND UPDATE: I sought comment from Weipert on whether she was active in any of the presidential campaigns before the Iowa caucuses. She was a precinct captain for Hillary Clinton in Clear Creek Amana. Nielsen and Stutsman were also active Clinton supporters.

Six-term U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley qualified for the Republican primary ballot today after submitting more than 20,000 signatures to the Iowa Secretary of State’s office on Friday. But Grassley’s would-be GOP challenger Robert Rees is struggling to meet the March 18 deadline to submit at least 3,331 valid signatures from at least ten Iowa counties. In an e-mail blast on Saturday, Rees asserted, “part of the reason we’ve had a tough time getting the signatures required is because the establishment doesn’t want me on the ballot.”

Record-breaking attendance at this year’s Republican caucuses created good opportunities for GOP candidates to put their nominating papers in front of activists around the state. However, Rees asserted in the e-mail (enclosed in full below) that only eight of the 99 GOP county chairs helped his campaign collect signatures on caucus night. His campaign sent petition forms to the 30 largest counties ahead of this weekend’s county conventions, but “Early on in the day on March 12th, we were being told that some counties were dissuading people from signing them and some didn’t put them out at all!” Rees then described and refuted “some new arguments” being used to justify denying him ballot access. Rees has been working hard in recent weeks to collect signatures–reaching out to voters at the girls state high school basketball tournament, for instance. But as of yesterday, his campaign still needed well over a thousand signatures to reach its goal. (Candidates typically submit far more than the minimum number, in case some signatures turn out to be invalid.)

If Rees ends up on the ballot for the June primary, I doubt he would receive even the 16.8 percent of the vote Tom Hoefling got in his bid for the 2014 gubernatorial nomination against Terry Branstad. It’s interesting that GOP leaders are actively working against his efforts to qualify for the primary, though. I guess they don’t want someone traveling the state for the next two and a half months telling voters that Grassley has been in office too long.

The most important business at yesterday’s Iowa Democratic and Republican county conventions was electing delegates to each party’s district conventions in April and state convention in June. Iowa Democratic rules do not bind county convention delegates to the candidates they supported at their precinct caucuses, and not all delegates chosen at precinct caucuses show up for the county conventions. Those factors helped Barack Obama make big gains in March 2008, from a lead of “16 state delegates to Clinton’s 15 on caucus night […] to a 25-14 lead after the county conventions.” John Deeth explained the 2008 county convention happenings at the time and on Friday provided a detailed look at what goes on behind the scenes to organize these events.

Yesterday’s conventions didn’t change Clinton’s expected lead over Bernie Sanders in state delegates. After the Iowa caucuses, the Iowa Democratic Party calculated Clinton had 700.47 state delegate equivalents, Sanders had 696.92 state delegate equivalents, and Martin O’Malley 7.63. The Iowa Democratic Party reported last night that the 99 county conventions elected 704 state delegates for Clinton, 700 for Sanders, one for O’Malley, and one uncommitted. Scroll to the end of this post to see the numbers for each candidate from all 99 counties. The projected national delegate count from Iowa remains 23 for Clinton and 21 for Sanders.

While most counties saw little change after yesterday’s conventions, the balance of power did shift slightly in some counties. For example, Johnson County elected 54 delegates for Sanders yesterday and 38 for Clinton. Those numbers represented a net gain of one delegate for Clinton compared to what was expected following the precinct caucuses.

Sanders improved his standing most in Polk County. He won only about 46 percent of the county delegates here on February 1 to 53 percent for Clinton. But at the end of a very long day in West Des Moines, the Polk County convention elected 115 delegates for Clinton and 113 for Sanders, a net gain of about six state delegates for Sanders.

That could have been big news, except for one problem. Hours before Polk County delegates ratified their slates, social media exploded as thousands of people, eventually including Sanders himself through his campaign Twitter account, alleged that Clinton allies had tried to “steal” the convention.

I wasn’t at Valley High School, but I followed postings yesterday by dozens of delegates for each candidate. Since the convention, I have spoken to or received direct messages from multiple delegates on both sides, including leaders of the Clinton and Sanders groups and members of the Polk County Credentials Committee. My best effort to piece together what happened is after the jump.

Short version: evidence points not to “stealing,” but to mismanagement by convention leaders, especially Rules Committee Chair Jeff Goetz. Unusual procedures implemented without transparency fueled suspicions among people who may have gone into the convention expecting dirty tricks from party establishment types supporting Clinton.

Thanks for this guest commentary. My post on what happened at the Polk County Democratic convention is in progress. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Of course we don’t believe in kings, but it’s a simple way of trying to explain why the Polk County Democratic Convention yesterday was 12 hours long and threatened physical confrontations. Most of what I’m writing is from a Sanders campaign point-of-view, which views itself as somewhat insurgent against a Democratic Party which is established and organized.

Two days after State Senator Mark Chelgren confirmed that he has decided not to run for Congress this year, Republicans have a new challenger for five-term Representative Dave Loebsack. Ed Tibbetts of the Quad-City Times reported that GOP officials at the Scott County convention said Dr. Chris Peters of Iowa City will run for Congress in the second district. A supporter spoke to Johnson County GOP delegates at today’s county convention on Peters’ behalf. Among the 24 counties in IA-02, Scott and Johnson are the largest by population.

Peters is a thoracic and cardiac surgeon affiliated with a surgery practice in Coralville and the UnityPoint Health-Allen Hospital in Waterloo. According to a Bleeding Heartland reader who is active in Republican circles, Peters is aligned with the libertarian wing of the party. I will update this post with more background as it becomes available.

To qualify for the GOP primary ballot, Peters needs to collect and submit to the Iowa Secretary of State by March 18 at least 1,562 signatures from at least twelve of the 24 counties in the Congressional district. Assuming petitions were available for delegates to sign at today’s county conventions, the Peters campaign should have no trouble clearing that hurdle.

The latest official figures indicate that IA-02 contains 160,118 active registered Democrats, 139,960 Republicans, and 180,519 no-party voters. The district has a partisan voter index of D+4, meaning that voters here skewed about 4 percentage points more Democratic than voters nationally in the last two general elections.

UPDATE: John Deeth notes in the comments that Peters ran as a Libertarian against State Senator Bob Dvorsky in 2010, when no Republican filed for that seat. He received about a quarter of the vote.

SECOND UPDATE: Peters posted on Facebook the morning of March 13,

I originally considered running as an Independent candidate, which would have been much more difficult, but perhaps more interesting. Instead, I’m running as a Republican, which should remove significant obstacles, and I am quite pleased that Iowa GOP leaders have thus far encouraged me remain true to my independent views and values. This will be an entirely positive campaign, and a primary focus will be to raise the level of civic discourse, which I believe is greatly deficient at present.

This morning I wrote about a state legislative race where two Democrats are seeking the nomination.

This afternoon I received a robocall from Pat Murphy’s campaign in Iowa’s first Congressional district, directing me to the GOP Monica website to “get the facts” about rival candidate Monica Vernon’s Republican past.

Earlier this week, I wrote two posts about the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, which is getting much more attention in Iowa and nationally now that Patty Judge has entered the race.

Meanwhile, supporters of U.S. Senate candidate Tom Fiegen posted two guest pieces here in two days on behalf of their favored candidate.

All of which reminded me that it’s time to post guidelines for writers advocating for Democratic candidates at Bleeding Heartland. Unfortunately, competitive elections can bring out bad behavior on political blogs.

First-term GOP State Representative Darrel Branhagen announced yesterday that he will retire this year rather than seek another term in Iowa House district 55.

He is the eighth of the 57 House Republicans to announce retirement plans since last summer. The others are Kraig Paulsen (House district 67), Linda Miller (House district 94), John Kooiker (House district 4), Ron Jorgensen (House district 6), Quentin Stanerson (House district 95), Brian Moore (House district 58), and Josh Byrnes (House district 51).

Kooiker’s district is the most solidly Republican in the state. Based on current voter registration numbers, Republicans will be favored to hold House districts 6, 67, and 94. On the other hand, the seats being vacated by Branhagen, Byrnes, Moore, and Stanerson will be strong pickup opportunities for Democrats. Bleeding Heartland previously discussed the political balance and recent voting history of districts 51, 58, and 95.

House district 55 covers most of Winneshiek County (including Decorah), part of Fayette County (including West Union), and a small area in Clayton County (including Elkader). A map is after the jump. According to the latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office, the district contains 5,539 active registered Democrats, 6,568 Republicans, and 6,499 no-party voters.

President Barack Obama took 55.19 percent of the vote among House district 55 residents in the 2012 general election. Joni Ernst outpolled Bruce Braley here in the 2014 U.S. Senate race, but by 50.28 percent to 45.60 percent, substantially less than her statewide margin of victory.

House district 55 was open for the 2014 general election following the retirement of longtime Democratic State Representative Roger Thomas. Branhagen defeated Democrat Rick Edwards by just 27 votes, the closest Iowa legislative result of the cycle.

Two Democrats had already begun campaigning here before Branhagen made his retirement plans known. I enclose below a press release with background on Pat Ritter, an attorney from West Union who launched his campaign in December. Former Winneshiek County Supervisor Steve McCargar announced his candidacy last month. A press release noted McCargar “was a co-manager at Oneota Food Coop for 25 years, helped start Hometown Taxi in 1987 and is currently a pre-school teacher and farmers market manager in Decorah.” I have not yet heard of a Republican candidate in House district 55, but Decorahnews.com reported yesterday that an “announcement is expected soon.”

Two bills to address the impending privatization of Medicaid died in the Iowa House this week. Effective April 1, some 560,000 Iowans on Medicaid will have their health care services managed by one of three private insurance companies. Last month, three Republicans joined Iowa Senate Democrats to pass approved Senate File 2125, which would terminate the state’s contracts with the managed care companies. Last week, six GOP senators voted with their Democratic colleagues for Senate File 2213, which would strengthen oversight of Medicaid by the Iowa Department of Human Services and the state legislature.

To stay alive after the Iowa legislature’s second “funnel” deadline today, non-appropriations bills must have been passed by one chamber and by a committee in the other chamber. However, the bill to end privatization and the oversight bill both died in House Human Resources subcommittees. To my knowledge, the only bill related to Medicaid privatization that remains alive is Senate File 2260, which would prohibit the Iowa DHS from releasing to managed care organizations certain information about board members of non-profits that provide Medicaid services in Iowa.

Speaking to journalists yesterday, Iowa Senate President Pam Jochum described the House failure to act on the oversight and termination bills as a “disappointment” but added, “I can assure you the fight over Medicaid is not done. You will see the human services budget bill contain many of the measures that we believe are needed to protect Iowa’s most vulnerable citizens.” Click here for a detailed summary of the oversight bill’s provisions. Maridith Morris described here how privatization will affect services available for her nephew on Medicaid.

House Speaker Linda Upmeyer told statehouse reporter Erin Murphy that Senate Democrats spent too long “working on killing the Medicaid modernization plan,” while passing the oversight bill too close to the funnel deadline: “That’s an 80-page bill that arrived very late last week. So we will look at oversight. We will work on oversight. But that bill just could not be managed in the time frame we were given. So we’ll look at opportunities.”

For the last five years of divided control at the statehouse, the human services budget has been one of the last bills to be resolved before lawmakers adjourn. Count on history to repeat itself this spring, because negotiations could drag on for months over Medicaid oversight and the near-certain Republican effort to eliminate Planned Parenthood funding for contraception services. A Bleeding Heartland post in progress will cover the family planning funding debate, as well as the fate of abortion-related legislation in the Iowa House and Senate this year.