Republican State Senator Mark Chelgren confirmed today that he has decided not to run for Congress in Iowa’s second district. Chelgren launched his campaign against five-term Representative Dave Loebsack last October but never filed a year-end report on fundraising and expenditures with the Federal Election Commission. I sought comment after Iowa Starting Line’s Pat Rynard reported rumors that Chelgren planned to end his Congressional bid.

Speaking by phone, Chelgren said “I do believe it is a winnable race,” but he felt the timing was wrong for his family, since his daughter is 10 years old and his son 15. “While they’re still young, I didn’t want to spend my full time fundraising and campaigning,” he explained. Based on conversations with members of Congress and other candidates, he became convinced that those activities would dominate his life if he were elected. “It’s not a question of whether or not I’m afraid to lose, at this point in my life, it’s more, what do I do if I win.” Chelgren added that he is only 48 years old and has time to think about running for Congress in the future, when his daughter is older.

Chelgren is not aware of any other Republican ready to challenge Loebsack. To appear on the GOP primary ballot this June as a candidate in IA-02, a Republican would need to submit nominating petitions with at least 1,562 signatures from a minimum of twelve counties in the district by Friday, March 18. Chelgren suggested that a candidate may be nominated at the upcoming second district Republican convention in April.

The 24 counties in IA-02 contain 160,118 active registered Democrats, 139,960 Republicans, and 180,519 no-party voters, according to the latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office. 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. In a presidential election year, any Republican would face an uphill battle against Loebsack.

Having won his second four-year term in the Iowa Senate in 2014, Chelgren will be up for re-election to the state legislature in 2018. His seat will surely be a top target for Democrats, who have a voter registration advantage in the district that includes Ottumwa and Fairfield (map enclosed below).

MARCH 11 UPDATE: A libertarian-oriented candidate is rumored to be collecting signatures to file for the Republican primary in the second Congressional district. I do not yet have a name.

Chelgren told me yesterday that he did not have another candidate in mind but he would support any “conservative” Republican running for Congress.

Pipes intended for use in the Dakota Access pipeline being stored in Jasper County, Iowa during 2015. Photo provided by Wallace Taylor, used with permission.

UPDATE: As expected, the board voted unanimously to approve the permit. Scroll to the end of this post for more details and reaction.

The Iowa Utilities Board will meet this afternoon to issue a decision on the proposed Dakota Access pipeline. Everyone I know in the environmental community expects the three board members to approve the permit for this project, better known as the Bakken pipeline. Litigation is sure to follow, as opponents charge the Iowa Utilities Board’s eminent domain powers may be used only in the service of a “public good,” not “to privilege a private corporation.”

Other legal hurdles include the need for a permit from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, because the pipeline route would cross “four areas in Iowa that have been identified as sovereign lands.” The Sierra Club Iowa chapter has been pushing for a thorough Environmental Impact Study and archaeological review. (Too many Iowa politicians from both parties signed a letter to the utilities board opposing an independent environmental impact assessment.)

Iowa State University economist Dave Swenson has long cast doubt on the “bloated” economic impact numbers Dakota Access has used to market the project. Click here for Swenson’s detailed analysis on the pipeline’s “purported economic and fiscal benefits to the state of Iowa.”

A growing number of observers believe the project no longer makes economic sense even for Energy Transfer Partners, the parent company of Dakota Access.

A fourth Iowa Democrat joins the race to un-seat republican US Senator Chuck Grassley. Her name is Patty Judge. US Senate candidate Tom Fiegen — a Sanders Democrat — issued a warning to progressive Iowa democrats this week about the Big Money influence pulling the strings of this latest candidate to enter the race.

“I welcome Lt. Governor Judge to the race because of the contrast between us. Her political base is big money industrial agriculture interests where poisoning Iowa’s waters is part of the deal. The majority of Iowans want clean drinking water and small family farmers growing more fresh healthy local food. A majority of Iowans want Citizens United overturned. Make no mistake, this election is a choice between status-quo politics where everything is for sale to the high bidder and the politics of putting the needs of working people ahead of Super PACs.”

Fascinating look at how investors view the electability question. One 2003 study found that the Iowa Electronic Markets were “both closer to eventual election outcomes and more stable than polls over the course of election campaigns.” According to Muller, last night’s primary results dropped Clinton slightly to 87.1 cents, while Sanders rose to 12 cents. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Supporters of both Senator Bernie Sanders and Secretary Hillary Clinton are busy on social media making their respective cases for why one or the other has a better chance of beating Donald Trump in the General Election. Insofar as you’re reading this, you have no doubt heard the arguments on both sides. Sanders is a socialist, and more than half of the American electorate will never vote for a socialist. Clinton has too much baggage, and is owned by Wall Street. On the one hand, there are national polls showing Sanders may have the edge over Trump, relative to Clinton. On the other hand, all of Clinton’s baggage is already common knowledge (real or imagined), and no one has really started attacking Sanders yet.

This is all an exercise in conjecture. Even sophistry. While I generally come down on the Clinton side of this debate, it’s been little more than a general feeling. Perhaps there are actual data that might give us a reason to prefer one candidate over another, provided “Democrat Winning the White House” is an important issue for a voter. The Iowa Electronic Markets (IEM) provide the data required to address the issue with a little more statistical rigor.

Key figures in the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee did everything short of a formal endorsement to communicate this week that they want former Lieutenant Governor and Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Patty Judge to be the Democratic nominee against six-term U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley.

Lots of votes remain to be counted from tonight’s primaries, but two losers are already clear.

Republicans are overwhelmingly rejecting Marco Rubio. To my mind, that’s a bigger story than Donald Trump winning the two biggest contests. In Mississippi, Trump won nearly half the vote, Ted Cruz won more than a third of the vote, and Rubio is down around 5 percent–in fourth place behind John Kasich. Trump won Michigan with more than a third of the vote, Kasich and Cruz are fighting for second place with about 25 percent each, while Rubio is unlikely to hit the 10 percent cutoff for delegates. As Taniel noted, Rubio missed statewide delegate cutoff thresholds in Alabama, Texas, Louisiana, Maine, and Vermont, and barely cleared them in Tennessee and Alaska.

Rubio and his surrogates continue to express confidence about winning the Florida primary a week from today, but the way he’s been hemorrhaging support, that scenario seems highly unlikely. Furthermore, Taniel observed, “Michigan & Mississippi (from which Rubio is probably being shut out) have as many delegates combined as Florida. Can’t all be about 1 state.”

On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders trailed by double digits in every recent Michigan poll but is leading by 50 percent to 48 percent with about half the results in. Although Hillary Clinton may be able to win the state narrowly once all the votes from the Detroit area come in, pollsters need to ask themselves some tough questions. For instance, did they underestimate how many independents would vote in the open primary? CNN’s exit poll suggests Clinton won Michigan Democrats by double digits but Sanders is ahead by more than 40 percent among independents. Whatever the final results, Sanders will be encouraged going into next week’s contests.

Clinton won Mississippi in a rout, with nearly 83 percent to just 16 percent for Sanders, at this writing.

Any comments about the presidential race are welcome in this thread. Trump’s victory speech/press conference was one of his most absurd yet–more like an infomercial than a political event.

UPDATE: Referring to the Michigan Democratic primary, Harry Enten pointed out that the difference between winning or losing narrowly means little in terms of delegates awarded to Clinton and Sanders. Psychologically, a win is always better than a loss, though.

SECOND UPDATE: One key factor for Sanders in Michigan was cutting down Clinton’s margin with African-American voters. She is still winning the black vote, but “only” by about a 2 to 1 margin. Nate Silver pointed out that Michigan results have confounded pollsters before.

THIRD UPDATE: Shortly after 10:30 pm, the Associated Press called the Michigan primary for Sanders. With a little more than 90 percent of the votes counted, he leads by 50 percent to 48 percent. Clinton is still above 80 percent in Mississippi, which is remarkable, but the Michigan upset is clearly the bigger story on the Democratic side.

Cruz leads in the early returns from the Idaho primary (Democrats didn’t vote there today) and has edged in front of Kasich for second place in Michigan.

According to the Michigan Campaign Finance Network,

Here’s a run down of spending in support of each candidate in Michigan as of March 6:

Bernie Sanders, $3.5 million
Hillary Clinton, $2.6 million
Marco Rubio (Conservative Solutions Super PAC), $1.2 million
John Kasich (Kasich campaign, New Day For America Super PAC), $770,353
Donald Trump, $184,636
Ted Cruz, $1,112

Likely final delegate allocation from Michigan: 25 for Trump 25, 17 for Cruz and Kasich, zero for Rubio.

WEDNESDAY MORNING UPDATE: Many people on social media have shared anecdotes about Democrats in Michigan who crossed over to vote for Kasich, thinking (based on polls) Clinton would easily win the Democratic primary. Nate Silver called the Sanders win the biggest upset since Gary Hart winning the New Hampshire primary in 1984. However, Bleeding Heartland user fladem worked on that Hart campaign and showed why Silver is wrong.

Cruz won Idaho’s primary with 45.4 percent of the vote, to 28.1 percent for Trump, 15.9 percent for Rubio, and 7.4 percent for Kasich. Trump took the Hawaii caucuses with 42.4 percent, to 32.7 percent for Cruz, 13.1 percent for Rubio, and 10.6 percent for Kasich. Neither Rubio nor Kasich will win any delegates from Idaho or Hawaii.

Former presidential candidate Carly Fiorina endorsed Cruz at a rally in Miami on March 9.

I haven’t seen a definitive delegate count yet, but fladem and Taniel have both updated their tables.

On the Democratic side, Mark Murray calculates that Clinton now leads Sanders by 761 to 547 in pledged delegates and by 1193 to 569 when superdelegates are counted. The overwhelming majority of superdelegates (including in Iowa) have endorsed Clinton.

After the jump I’ve posted excerpts from three early attempts to explain why Sanders won Michigan.

The Iowa Senate voted today to add protections for transgender people to Iowa’s hate crimes law. Currently, hate crimes are defined as offenses “committed against a person or a person’s property because of the person’s race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, political affiliation, sex, sexual orientation, age, or disability, or the person’s association with a person of a certain race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, political affiliation, gender identity, gender expression, sex, sexual orientation, age, or disability.” Senate File 2284 would add the words “gender identity” and “gender expression” to that list. The full bill text is after the jump.

Democratic State Senator Matt McCoy has championed this bill and addressed his colleagues yesterday about last week’s horrific murder of Kedarie Johnson, a 16-year-old high school student in Burlington who was transitioning from female to male. I enclose the video of that speech below.

During today’s floor debate, Republican State Senator Mark Chelgren, who is also running for Congress in Iowa’s second district, offered an amendment that would have removed all individual classes from the state code on hate crimes. McCoy countered that such an amendment would “destroy the point of a hate crimes statute.” Senators rejected Chelgren’s amendment by 30 votes to 18, with Republicans Bill Dix, Mike Breitbach, Charles Schneider, and Jack Whitver joining all 26 Democrats to vote no. Chelgren then withdrew another amendment he had proposed, which would have added “military veteran or military personnel status” to the list of protected classes.

Republican Senator Jake Chapman offered an amendment to add “unborn status” to the hate crimes bill, but as he was speaking in its favor (and graphically describing abortion procedures), Democratic Senator Tony Bisignano questioned whether the remarks were relevant. McCoy then formally objected that the amendment was not germane, and Senate President Pam Jochum ruled the objection “well-taken” and Chapman’s amendment out of order.

Schneider was the only Republican to join all 26 Democrats in approving the bill on final passage. Republicans Rick Bertrand and Brad Zaun were absent, and the 21 other GOP senators voted no. Schneider represents my own district in the western suburbs of Des Moines, and I’m proud to see him continue a tradition of Republicans from this area supporting protections for LGBT Iowans. The same was true when the Iowa House and Senate added sexual orientation and gender identity to the state’s Civil Rights Code in 2007, and when lawmakers approved an anti-bullying bill the same year.

I don’t expect Iowa House Republican leaders to bring up Senate File 2284 this year, but I hope to be proven wrong.

UPDATE: The video from today’s debate is up on the Iowa legislature’s website. Chapman went on for several minutes, starting around the 1:38 mark. Jochum repeatedly asked him to confine his remarks to why “unborn status” should be included in the hate crimes statute, but Chapman kept talking about abortion procedures.

Maridith Morris is a nurse and the Democratic candidate in Iowa House district 39. -promoted by desmoinesdem

This picture is my nephew Fin. He is an adorable, happy little guy and I love him to pieces. Fin has autism spectrum disorder. Fin is just one vulnerable Iowan who is going to be hurt by Medicaid privatization.

At Fin’s age, early intervention therapy is crucial for his positive outcomes. Therapy can mean the difference between him becoming a high functioning adult, one who is able to live independently, work, and pay taxes and a disabled adult needing tax payer support. Despite the crucial nature of Fin’s therapy, the rush to privatize Iowa’s Medicaid puts those services in jeopardy. To receive therapy, Fin’s parents will have to transport him from Indianola to appointments at Blank Children’s Hospital in Des Moines because services are no longer in network in Indianola.

Patty Judge’s decision to run for U.S. Senate was Iowa’s biggest political news last week. Taking their cue from Washington-based pols who recruited the former lieutenant governor, many national reporters who covered the story took for granted that Judge will be the Democratic challenger to six-term Senator Chuck Grassley, glossing over the fact that she will face serious competition in the June primary.

On the flip side, the Des Moines Register’s Kathie Obradovich and Howie Klein of the Down With Tyranny! blog recently made some odd assessments in their reviews of the Democratic race for Senate.

Paritosh Kasotia is the founder and CEO of Unfolding Energy and was named to the Midwest Energy News list of “40 under 40” last year. She led the Iowa Energy Office until late 2014. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Unfolding Energy, a not-for-profit organization released its Iowa Energy Assessment and Planning for a Cleaner Future Report. The report is intended for the State of Iowa, elected officials, Iowans, and potential political candidates as a resource to guide the Iowa Energy Office’s planning process as they work towards creating a statewide energy plan.

The report provides an overview of Iowa’s energy production and consumption patterns and dives into Iowa’s current regulatory and policy framework in the context of climate change, renewable energy, energy efficiency, and building codes. Other sections of the report examines the potential for various clean energy sources and concludes the report with recommendations that the State of Iowa should implement.

Excerpt from the report below

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

A year ago this weekend, nine presidential candidates, both of Iowa’s U.S. senators, three of our U.S. House representatives, Governor Terry Branstad, and Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds were among the speakers at Bruce Rastetter’s inaugural Iowa Ag Summit. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was the early front-runner in the presidential field and had just rolled out his first big batch of endorsements here. Although Donald Trump had recently hired heavyweight conservative organizer Chuck Laudner, few people expected him to be a strong contender for the Iowa caucuses. The billionaire didn’t make it to Rastetter’s event; like Marco Rubio, he initially accepted the Ag Summit invitation but developed schedule conflicts later.

Jeb Bush looked like a strong presidential contender in March 2015. He was raising money like no one else in the GOP field and had hired veteran Iowa political operative David Kochel earlier in the year. The day before the Ag Summit, the Des Moines Register ran a front-page feature on Bush that was so flattering to the former Florida governor, I felt compelled to write this post and begin work on a lengthier critique of the Register’s political coverage, which took nearly two months to complete.

Chris Christie was among the Ag Summit speakers. More than six months later, he picked up endorsements from Rastetter and several other prominent Iowa business Republicans. Christie’s poor performance on caucus night showed the limits of the would-be kingmaker’s influence, and that of others in Branstad’s orbit who had actively supported Christie’s presidential campaign.

Rastetter invited more than a half-dozen prominent Democrats to his Ag Summit. Wisely, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and all of the potential presidential candidates blew off the event. Only one Democrat spoke to the gathering: former Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge, in her capacity as co-chair of America’s Renewable Future. That group was formed and funded by biofuels companies and related interest groups to advocate for the Renewable Fuel Standard. (Later in 2015, America’s Renewable Future spent more than $100,000 on radio ads and direct mail attacking Ted Cruz over his stand on the ethanol mandate.)

I enclose below a video of Judge’s remarks a year ago this weekend. Near the beginning of her speech, she commented, “Let me say from the outset, I truly believe that I disagree with just almost everyone that you will see on this stage today, on almost every issue. However, I certainly hope that we do agree on the importance of maintaining the Renewable Fuel Standard and keeping Iowa leading our nation forward in the development of renewable fuel.”

I doubt anyone would have predicted a year ago that Walker wouldn’t even make it to the Iowa caucuses, that Trump and Cruz would be leading in the GOP delegate count, or that Judge would enter the race against U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley.

P.S.- The Greeley (Colorado) Tribune published a good backgrounder on where all the remaining presidential candidates stand on agricultural issues.

Democrats and Republicans are caucusing today in Kansas and voting in the Louisiana primary. Republicans are also caucusing in Maine and Kentucky; Democrats will caucus in Maine tomorrow. Democrats caucused in Nebraska today, while Republicans will hold a primary there in May. This thread is for any comments about the presidential race. I will update throughout the evening.

Ted Cruz won the Kansas caucuses, which went to Rick Santorum in 2012 and Mike Huckabee in 2008. Speaking from Idaho about his latest victory, Cruz told supporters, “The scream you hear, the howl that comes from Washington DC, is utter terror at what We the People are doing together.”

Trump is still on track to win the Republican nomination, but a brokered GOP convention can’t be ruled out, especially if Cruz wins states dominated by social conservatives, John Kasich wins Ohio and possibly Michigan, and Marco Rubio wins the Florida primary. Ben Carson has ended his campaign, which could help alternatives to Trump win other states. Cruz just won the straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference, a sign of his continuing strength with hard-core activists.

Pat Rynard previewed the Democratic caucuses in Nebraska and in Kansas (where some voters will have to drive very long distances to participate). His account and others suggest that Bernie Sanders will win those states. However, Hillary Clinton is favored in Louisiana and has already built up a substantial pledged delegate lead. Unless Sanders can overtake Clinton in pledged delegates, the superdelegates are expected to go overwhelmingly for Clinton (Iowa is no exception).

UPDATE: Further updates are after the jump. It’s a disastrous night for Rubio: a distant third in Kansas, where most of the establishment was supporting him, and fourth place in Maine. He pursued a flawed strategy over the past couple of weeks, culminating in Thursday night’s debate in Detroit. Rubio went after Trump by getting down to Trump’s maturity level. Cruz had a much better debate, attacking Trump on policy and mocking him as childish. After some particularly un-presidential comments by Trump, Cruz scored his best points, asking the viewers at home whether this was the kind of debate they want to see play out over the summer.

Not only did Cruz dominate the field in Kansas, he won the Maine caucuses, a rare victory for a social conservative in New England and a rebuke to Governor Paul LePage, who endorsed Trump on February 26, less than a week after trying to mobilize GOP governors to stop Trump. So far, Trump leads the vote count in Kentucky and may carry Louisiana as well, but Cruz took a big step toward cementing his position as the viable alternative to Trump. He has called on Rubio to promise to drop out if he doesn’t win the Florida primary on March 15.

Shortly before starting work as the University of Iowa’s president, Bruce Harreld told the Iowa City Press-Citizen’s Jeff Charis-Carlson that he had no immediate plans for high-level staff changes.

“I’ve done this in different environments multiple times,” said Harreld, who was an executive at Boston Chicken and Kraft Foods before becoming senior vice president for marketing and strategy at IBM. “And I always believe that the institutional knowledge that the existing team has is enormously important.”

There will be changes, of course, Harreld said, but agendas for change will involve the people who know the university best.

“I see a lot of leaders do this wholesale changing of leadership, and I think they lose a lot of momentum in that process,” Harreld said. “I’m a huge believer in culture and context, and I’ve been teaching that and practicing it all my life.”

This week Harreld demonstrated too much commitment to the university’s existing team.

Iowans who approve of U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley’s work greatly outnumber those who disapprove, according to the latest poll by Selzer & Co for the Des Moines Register and Mediacom. Selzer conducted the survey between February 21 and 24, when Grassley’s stance against filling the U.S. Supreme Court vacancy was a prominent news topic. Among the 804 Iowa respondents, 57 percent said they approved of the way Grassley is handling his job and 28 percent disapproved.

That approval is down 7 percentage points from a year ago, but it remains well within his normal range over the last several years, Register pollster J. Ann Selzer said. Over the past decade, Grassley has rated as high as 75 percent, in January 2009, and as low as 54 percent, in February 2010.

Public Policy Polling’s last several Iowa surveys have all measured Grassley’s approval at 50 percent or higher, well above his disapproval rating, and showed the senator leading any of his declared Democratic challengers by more than 20 points. PPP surveys in the field last week indicated that GOP senators up for re-election in Ohio and Pennsylvania could be hurt by the refusal even to consider President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee. However, those senators don’t have Grassley’s 36 years of constituent service and traveling the state every year to fall back on.

Whether Grassley’s general election opponent turns out to be Patty Judge or Rob Hogg, Democrats have a long way to go to make this race competitive.

Incidentally, the Selzer poll showed that about a year into Senator Joni Ernst’s tenure, 43 percent of respondents approve of her work, while 31 percent disapprove and 25 percent are not sure. PPP has found similar approval numbers for Ernst in recent months, with disapproval numbers also in the low 40s.

UPDATE: Public Policy Polling released a new Iowa poll on March 4. Grassley’s approval and disapproval numbers were 47 percent and 44 percent, “down considerably from what we usually find for him as he loses crossover support from Democrats because of his intransigence on the Supreme Court issue.” Some 56 percent of all Iowa respondents and 58 percent of independents in the sample “want the Supreme Court vacancy to be filled this year.” In addition, by a 66 percent to 26 percent margin, Iowa respondents “say that the Senate should at least wait and see who’s put forward before deciding whether to confirm or deny that person.” Among independents in the sample, just 24 percent say they would be more likely to vote for Grassley if he refuses to confirm the president’s Supreme Court nominee, 48 percent say they would be less likely to vote for him, and 28 percent say it would make no difference.

Former Lieutenant Governor and Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Patty Judge will seek the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate, Jason Noble reported today for the Des Moines Register, citing multiple unnamed sources. She will make her candidacy official tomorrow. Two weeks should be plenty of time for her supporters to collect the 2,104 signatures needed to qualify for the ballot.

Three Democrats are already competing for the chance to run against six-term incumbent Senator Chuck Grassley, but once Judge enters the race, the main contest will be between her and State Senator Rob Hogg. Intending no disrespect to Tom Fiegen or Bob Krause, their performance in the 2010 IA-Sen primary suggests they will not be major factors on June 7.

I see three main factors influencing Iowa Democrats as they decide between Judge and Hogg.

Since Terry Branstad returned to the governor’s office, the overwhelming majority of Iowa Senate votes on contentious political issues have fallen along strict party lines: 26 Democrats one way and 24 Republicans the opposite. However, the Branstad administration’s rush to privatize Medicaid has created space for bipartisanship, as a growing number of Republicans acknowledge the dangers of shifting to managed care for a program through which one in six Iowans access health services.

Last month, three GOP senators joined their Democratic colleagues to vote for a bill that would have halted Iowa’s Medicaid privatization. That legislation is going nowhere in the Republican-controlled state House, and federal officials recently approved waivers to allow the Iowa Department of Human Services to implement the managed care policy as of April 1.

Yesterday a quarter of the GOP state senators voted with all 26 Democrats for a Medicaid oversight bill that had cleared the Senate Human Resources Committee unanimously. In her remarks to open floor debate on Senate File 2213, Human Resources Committee Chair Amanda Ragan said the bill was designed “to safeguard the interests of Medicaid members, encourage the participation of Medicaid providers, and protect Iowa taxpayers.” She told colleagues, “we must require DHS and the managed care companies to protect consumers, preserve provider networks, address the unique needs of children and assure accountability.”

I enclose below highlights from the debate on SF 2213, the roll call on final passage, and Ragan’s full remarks, along with a Democratic staff analysis summarizing the bill’s key points.

The Iowa House Government Oversight Committee wasted more time today arguing over efforts by some Republicans to investigate last year’s Governor’s Conference on LGBTQ Youth. For background on the controversy surrounding the annual event organized by the non-profit Iowa Safe Schools, see reporting by Iowa statehouse correspondents William Petroski and James Q. Lynch, as well as Mark Joseph Stern’s article for Slate. Committee Chair Bobby Kaufmann could be directing his oversight energy toward the governor’s hasty privatization of the Medicaid program, which will affect health care for one in six Iowans. But no, Kaufmann asserts “it would be a dereliction of my duty if we did not have an investigation” of the Governor’s Conference on LGBTQ Youth, attended by roughly a thousand people last year. (I am a longtime supporter of the conference but play no role in planning it.)

Iowa Safe Schools Executive Director Nate Monson has declined invitations from Kaufmann’s committee to testify about the conference. Today Democratic State Representative Mary Wolfe, a defense attorney by trade, and Republican State Representative Dawn Pettengill, occasionally prone to paranoid fears, disagreed over whether Monson should be compelled to appear. I’ve enclosed below excerpts from their remarks at the latest committee meeting.

House Republican Clel Baudler interrupted the exchange to declare it a “catfight,” “eliciting laughter from some committee members, including Pettengill,” by Lynch’s account.

It’s disappointing but not surprising that an Iowa lawmaker would belittle two of his female colleagues by reducing their substantive disagreement to a “catfight.”

Equally disappointing and much more surprising: O.Kay Henderson validated Baudler’s assessment by elevating his description to the headline and lede of her story for Radio Iowa. Putting the word in quotation marks signified that the label came from someone other than the journalist. Nevertheless, a story called “Committee ‘catfight’ over panel’s subpoena power,” with the opening sentence “One committee member today used the word ‘catfight’ to describe this debate,” gave Baudler’s interjection more importance than it warranted. Henderson’s reports reach thousands of Iowans, not only online but also through more than 50 affiliate radio stations.

In contrast, Lynch played it straight with his title (“Iowa lawmakers clash on scope of oversight in LGBT case”) and lede (“Members of an Iowa House committee that reviews the performance of state agencies clashed Wednesday over the scope of its authority to compel testimony from members of the public”). He mentioned Baudler’s comment near the end of the story, where the colorful detail belonged.

I don’t expect Baudler to provide enlightened commentary on legislative happenings. I do expect one of Iowa’s most accomplished and respected female journalists not to seize on a sexist cheap shot as clickbait.

“The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been conducting background interviews” on Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jane Kelly, Julie Hirschfeld Davis reported today for the New York Times. Assuming that news is accurate, Judge Kelly is on President Barack Obama’s list of possible nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court. Within hours of Justice Antonin Scalia’s death last month, many court-watchers speculated that Kelly could be named to replace him. After spending most of her career as a federal public defender, she won unanimous confirmation to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2013 with strong support from Iowa’s senior Senator Chuck Grassley.

As Senate Judiciary Committee chair, Grassley has the power to schedule hearings and votes on any judicial nominee. He has promised not to give Obama’s choice any hearing in the Senate. Denying a Supreme Court nominee any consideration for a full year is without precedent in U.S. history. Yet Grassley and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stuck to that stance yesterday during a White House meeting with the president and Vice President Joe Biden. I enclose below Grassley’s official comment on that meeting, a guest column the senator’s office submitted to Iowa media outlets late last week, and Grassley’s Senate floor speech from April 2013, urging colleagues to confirm Kelly.

Already, Democrats are bombarding Grassley and other GOP senators with calls to “do your job.” Nominating Kelly for the Supreme Court vacancy would put Grassley in a particularly awkward position, forcing him to explain over and over why he refuses to give a well-regarded, highly-qualified Iowa judge even the courtesy of a Senate hearing, let alone a floor vote.

UPDATE: According to appellate attorney Steve Klepper, Kelly set the record for fastest Senate approval of an Obama appeals court nominee: 83 days from nomination to confirmation.

SECOND UPDATE: The Cedar Rapids Gazette reported, “Grassley said Wednesday [March 2] that news the White House had ordered checks on Judge Jane Kelly of Cedar Rapids as a possible Supreme Court nominee wouldn’t neutralize his stance against any choice of President Barack Obama.” The same article quoted from a statement the senator released last month, noting that “It’s not an issue of any particular candidate. […] If a Democrat wins the White House, I’m sure Jane Kelly would be on any Democrat’s short list of candidates.”

Polls have closed in a few of the Super Tuesday primary states, so here’s a thread for any comments about the Democratic or Republican presidential contests. I will update this post periodically with results. So far Virginia and Georgia have been called for Hillary Clinton, while Vermont was called for Bernie Sanders. In his victory speech, Sanders vowed to take his fight to every one of the 35 states that have not yet voted.

On the Republican side, Donald Trump is the early winner in Georgia and is expected to win most of today’s primaries and caucuses. However, the size of his delegate lead will depend greatly on how many other candidates exceed the threshold for winning delegates in various states. Guest author fladem’s post on Republican delegate scenarios is essential reading, in case you missed it yesterday.

UPDATE: A disappointing night for the “Stop Trump” forces. (By the way, who was it who said, “whenever you hear about a ‘Stop X’ campaign, bet on X?”) Ted Cruz won Texas and Oklahoma, Marco Rubio won Minnesota, and Trump looks likely to sweep the rest of the states. John Kasich and Rubio split enough moderate votes to give Trump the win in Vermont and perhaps also in Massachusetts. Rubio may not hit the 20 percent threshold needed to win any delegates in some of the southern states. Trying to put a good spin on the results, Rubio told CNN that “this was supposed to be Ted Cruz’s big night” and depicted himself as the only person who can stop Trump from winning the GOP nomination. The look on his face when Jake Tapper asked him whether he was in denial was priceless.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie didn’t look very happy at Trump’s victory party. The times being what they are, Christie’s face spawned immediate memes and caption contests. So far this is my favorite: “That moment when you realize you misunderstood literally every Bruce Springsteen song.”

Clinton had a very big night. Sanders is on track to win just four states: Vermont, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Colorado. Massachusetts was probably a must-win for him. According to Nate Silver, “Clinton is running ahead of her benchmarks by an average of 16 percentage points tonight, which is equivalent to her holding a 16-point lead over Sanders in national polls.”

Twitter user Xenocrypt (who long ago posted a fascinating piece here) commented tonight, “A socialist won in Oklahoma! Just like old times. Really, really old times.” Turns out Oklahoma had one of our country’s strongest socialist parties a hundred years ago.

Clinton won the four states awarding the most delegates by large margins. Nate Cohn commented, “The biggest lesson of the Sanders campaign is that there is no progressive/left majority in the Democratic Party without black voters.” Farai Chideya speculated, “Pragmatism about black political interests and how the game is played is likely the primary factor [in Clinton’s overwhelming margin among African-Americans], since Sanders has also spoken to issues of core interest to black voters.”

WEDNESDAY MORNING UPDATE: In the UK, they would call this “a right royal mess” for Republicans. By splitting the establishment vote, Kasich and Rubio allowed Trump to win Vermont and Virginia by narrow margins. Trump also barely won Arkansas. Cruz picked up Alaska, despite Sarah Palin’s Trump endorsement. Rubio missed the cutoff for at-large delegates in Texas and Alabama. Cruz outperformed his recent polling numbers to win Texas by a wide margin. One unofficial delegate count puts Trump at 338, with 233 delegates for Cruz, 112 for Rubio, 27 for Kasich and 8 for Carson; full spreadsheet here.

According to Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report, Clinton easily surpassed the number of delegates she needed to put her on track to win the Democratic nomination.

Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, who ran for president as a Libertarian in 2012 and is doing so again this year, said in a statement I’ve enclosed below that he “may have won Super Tuesday,” because more voters will be looking for a third-party alternative to Clinton or Trump.

In an effort to halt Donald Trump’s momentum and also to preserve some self-respect, a growing number of Republicans are vowing never to vote for Trump, even if he becomes the GOP presidential nominee. As Megan McArdle reported for Bloomberg, the #NeverTrump faction represents “all segments of the party — urban professionals, yes, but also stalwart evangelicals, neoconservatives, libertarians, Tea Partiers, the whole patchwork of ideological groups of which the Republican coalition is made.”

Former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman said she would consider voting for Hillary Clinton over Trump. At a funeral in Des Moines this past weekend, the daughter of the deceased (like Whitman a moderate Republican) struck a chord with some of the mourners when she joked during her eulogy that she was a little envious her mother would not have to vote in the presidential election now.

At the other end of the GOP ideological spectrum, staunch conservative U.S. Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska became the first member of Congress to take the #NeverTrump pledge, laying out his reasoning in a long Facebook post.

So far, the most prominent Iowa Republican to join the #NeverTrump camp is right-wing talk radio host Steve Deace, who explained his stance in a column for the Conservative Review website. Deace worked hard to persuade fellow Iowans to caucus for Ted Cruz. Meanwhile, Marco Rubio endorser and former Waukee City Council member Isaiah McGee described himself to me as a “founding member” of #NeverTrump.

Early signs suggest that few, if any, elected GOP officials in Iowa will join the club.