Once you learn to recognize a native plant, you often start seeing it where you’ve never noticed it before. So it was for me with Toadshade (Trillium sessile), also known as Toad trillium or Sessile trillium. As far as I knew, I’d never seen it until Eileen Miller pointed it out on a recent visit to the Ledges State Park in Boone County. A few days ago, a neighbor’s daughter asked me about a red flower in her back yard, and sure enough, a group of toadshade was blooming there. I’d never have expected to find it in Windsor Heights.

Toadshade isn’t as stunning as some of its trillium relatives, like Snow trillium, but it’s an attractive and distinctive plant. I’ve enclosed several pictures after the jump.

If you have a chance to visit a wooded area in Iowa soon, you are likely to see a variety of spring wildflowers. During the past week, I saw the first blossoms open on May apple (umbrella plant) and Virginia waterleaf. Several early spring wildflowers are mostly gone, but you might still find spring beauty, Virginia bluebells, or rue anemone. Several native plants that usually start blooming in April are still prevalent, such as sweet William (blue phlox), sweet cicely, littleleaf crowfoot or buttercup, violets, and Jack-in-the-pulpit. You’re also likely to find some maroon flowers touching the ground if you peek under wild ginger leaves.

This post is also a mid-week open thread: all topics welcome.

David Chivers started work yesterday as the Des Moines Register’s president and publisher. The Des Moines native comes from a strong background in digital marketing. Speaking to Register employees on the day Gannett announced his hiring, Chivers acknowledged he has a lot to learn about the newspaper and said he welcomed “candid discussions” on how to “push the brand and the business forward.”

In that spirit, I offer my thoughts on ways the Register could better serve readers who rely on the paper for political news. Balanced, fact-based reporting is central to the Register’s brand as “the newspaper Iowa depends upon.” Unfortunately, last year’s election coverage hurt the Register’s reputation among many politically-engaged Iowans. Acknowledging the problem is essential to avoid compounding the damage during the upcoming Iowa caucus campaign.

Catching up on Congressional news, last week the U.S. House approved a joint Republican framework setting top-line numbers for the federal budget as well as the first two spending bills for the 2016 fiscal year, which begins on October 1. Along the way, House members considered amendments covering a wide range of issues, from regulations on incandescent light bulbs to “prevailing wage” rules for federal construction projects to medical marijuana advice for Americans who receive their health care through the Veterans Administration.

Follow me after the jump for details on the latest votes by Iowa Democrat Dave Loebsack (IA-02) and Republicans Rod Blum (IA-01), David Young (IA-03), and Steve King (IA-04).

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

Marriage equality has been all over the news, with the sixth anniversary of legal same-sex marriage in Iowa arriving the same week the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments related to state bans on marriage for LGBT couples. The Des Moines Register published charts showing Iowa poll findings on same-sex marriage going back to 1996. In that year, the Iowa House and Senate approved the Defense of Marriage Act, which the state Supreme Court struck down in the 2009 Varnum v Brien decision. Then State Representative Ed Fallon was the only Iowa lawmaker to vote against the DOMA; click here to read his passionate floor speech against the bill. I’ve posted excerpts after the jump.

The Washington Post compiled five charts showing “gay marriage’s road to popularity.” The most fascinating data point to me was that 34 percent of Republican respondents in an April 2015 nationwide Washington Post/ABC News poll now support marriage equality. Another chart shows that “Same-sex marriage attitudes also continue to be divided along religious lines.” That data set did not include Jews, however, who overwhelmingly support marriage equality.

Today’s Sunday Des Moines Register includes two good features by Mike Kilen following up on the six couples who were plaintiffs in the Varnum case. In a separate piece, Bob Vander Plaats and State Senator Dennis Guth told Kilen why they still believe it was a mistake to allow same-sex couples to marry.

Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger believes the decline in Republican voter registrations in his state is linked to “divisive battle over Proposition 8,” a state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. California voters approved Prop 8 by ballot initiative in 2008, but it ceased to be in effect in June 2013, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Prop 8 supporters did not have standing to appeal a lower-court ruling striking down the marriage ban.

Final note: Dowling Catholic High School in West Des Moines approved a request by a group of students to form a non-religious LGBT support club. The school recently made national news by withdrawing a contract offer made to an openly gay teacher. The new gay-straight alliance, “One Human Family,” will help provide “support, respect, and guidance” for students who either identify as LGBT or have questions about their sexual orientation.  

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is targeting Representatives Rod Blum (IA-01) and David Young (IA-03) as “one-term wonders.” Public Policy Polling’s latest Iowa survey will encourage them:

Rod Blum has a 31/31 favorability rating in his district, with a 38% plurality having no opinion one way or the other. David Young is worse off with a 24/35 favorability rating and 41% having no opinion about him. Both of these folks’ fate will probably be up to which way the political winds are blowing next fall.

Full results from the PPP poll are here. The margin of error for subsamples in a single Congressional district will be larger than for the full sample of 1,219 Iowa voters surveyed between April 23 and 26.

Three Democrats have entered the race in IA-01: Monica Vernon, Ravi Patel, and Gary Kroeger. Former State Senator Swati Dandekar is considering a challenge here too. The district is the most Democratic-leaning in Iowa. According to the latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office, IA-01 contains 154,096 active registered Democrats, 133,458 Republicans, and 189,153 no-party voters.

No Democrats have announced candidacies in IA-03. Several are considering the race, including State Senator Matt McCoy. Former State Senate candidate Desmund Adams has been touring the district talking with Democratic activists over the last couple of months. At this writing, IA-03 contains 150,975 active registered Democrats, 162,894 Republicans, and 160,498 no-party voters.

Any comments about Iowa’s Congressional races are welcome in this thread.

Governor Terry Branstad is forging ahead with some major policies he didn’t campaign on last year, oblivious to concerns about the impact on Iowa’s Medicaid recipients and people served by two mental health institutions the governor wants to close.

According to Public Policy Polling’s latest Iowa survey, the governor’s plans are deeply unpopular.

After serving in Congress for 25 years as an independent, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont announced today that he will seek the Democratic nomination for president.  

Former Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz announced yesterday that he will chair Senator Ted Cruz’s Iowa caucus campaign, calling the Texas senator “a consistent conservative who cares about liberty and won’t back down from a fight.” I can’t think of a more perfect match for Cruz than Schultz, who talked a big game but had little to show for four years of political crusades in state government.

Today’s featured native plant is relatively rare and found mainly in wetlands. The naturalist and photographer Eileen Miller showed me a large stand of Marsh marigold on a recent visit to Dolliver Memorial State Park (Webster County), a beautiful area with some historically significant sites. Eileen contributed the photographs and text about these bright yellow flowers, which I’ve enclosed below.

Many spring wildflowers are peaking in central Iowa. A few days ago, my kids and I went out to pull up garlic mustard (an invasive plant) and saw all of the following native plants in bloom within a wooded area of less than an acre: spring beauty, Dutchman’s breeches, sweet William (blue phlox), sweet cicely, littleleaf crowfoot or buttercup, Virginia bluebells, spring beauty, toothwort, rue anemone, bellwort, violets, and Jack-in-the-pulpit.

Public Policy Polling is out with its first Iowa caucus survey since last May. Click here for full results or here for Tom Jensen’s polling memo. I enclose below highlights and my thoughts on the most interesting findings.

Any comments related to the Iowa caucus campaign are welcome in this thread.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard two and a half hours of oral arguments this morning in several cases related to same-sex marriage rights, collectively called Obergefell v. Hodges. This thread is for any relevant comments or speculation.

April 27 marked six years since LGBT couples were able to obtain marriage licenses in Iowa under our state Supreme Court’s Varnum v Brien ruling. Bleeding Heartland recently compiled some links related to the marriage equality battle in Iowa.

It’s been a while since Bleeding Heartland checked in on how Iowa’s four U.S. House members have been voting. After no House roll calls for more than two weeks, the second half of April has been unusually busy.

Follow me after the jump to see how Republicans Rod Blum (IA-01), David Young (IA-03), and Steve King (IA-04) and Democrat Dave Loebsack (IA-02) voted on more than a dozen bills that reached the House floor this month, covering a range of economic, fiscal, and security issues.

Incidentally, I’m always intrigued by how rarely members of Congress comment on bills they vote for or against on the House floor. For instance, I didn’t see any press release from Blum, Loebsack, Young, or King about any of the legislation discussed below. Instead, members of Congress often play up bills they’ve introduced which have zero chance of becoming law. This month Blum has repeatedly publicized work on lost causes such as co-founding a caucus backing term limits for members of Congress, and introducing a lifetime ban on lobbying by members of Congress. Like Steve King’s attempted end-run around the U.S. Supreme Court on marriage equality, Blum’s posturing has more to do with image-making than legislating.  

A little Iowa House dustup surfaced in social media last week. Susan Staed, who clerks for her husband, Rep. Art Staed, reported on her Facebook page and on Bleeding Heartland about complaints from the chief clerk of the House that she was taking pictures from the House floor – in violation of a House rule.

Seems the House has a seldom-enforced rule that – while photos may be taken from the gallery or press box at virtually any time – they may not be taken from the House floor without permission of those in the photo, and never during a vote.

My, aren’t we sensitive.

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

Iowa’s own Representative Steve King (R, IA-04) grabbed national attention this week by introducing a bill to “prevent federal courts from hearing marriage cases,” thereby stopping the U.S. Supreme Court from “destroying traditional marriage.” After the jump I’ve posted King’s official statement about the “Restrain the Judges on Marriage Act” as well as the full text.

President Barack Obama would surely veto this bill, even if it quickly passed the U.S. House (unlikely) and Senate (less likely). So King’s effort looks like a publicity stunt to bolster his image as one of the leading culture warriors on the right.

Out of curiosity, I asked Drake Law School Professor Mark Kende, an expert on constitutional law, whether it would theoretically be possible for Congress to limit the Supreme Court’s authority to consider any case on marriage. According to Kende, the U.S. Constitution allows Congress to “make exceptions to the Supreme Court’s appellate jurisdiction.” Most Congressional efforts along these lines have failed to become law. However, a 19th-century precedent exists; in that case, Congress blocked the Supreme Court from ruling on an appeal in which justices had already heard oral arguments.

Whether King’s proposal would be constitutional is a more complicated question, Kende said. The Reconstruction-era law blocked a specific kind of appeal based on habeas corpus but did not bar the Supreme Court from ruling on all cases in that area of the law. The Constitution allows some leeway for “jurisdiction stripping” as a Congressional check on the judiciary, but that doesn’t necessarily mean citizens could be prevented from taking any case about their fundamental marriage rights to the Supreme Court.

In an alternate universe where Congress passed and the president signed King’s bill, the twelve federal appellate court rulings would be binding in their regions. Most federal court rulings on same-sex marriage bans have supported the principle of marriage equality. Only a divided 6th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld states’ ability to limit marriage rights to opposite-sex couples.

When I was a child, I hated getting my picture taken. An infamous family photo taken at an older sister’s wedding is of the entire family grouped together, grinning for the professional photographer – except 10-yr-old me. I have a scowl on my face big enough to scare away the Dalai Lama. Not sure how old I was before I quit hiding when mom or dad yelled, “Family picture time!”, but eventually I overcame the low self-esteem and painful shyness that dominated adolescence.

40 years later, it’s more than a little ironic that one of my duties as Art’s clerk is to photograph his legislative day. After winning re-election, Art decided to document the process involved in how our laws are made. This means a gazillion pictures of meetings with constituents one-on-one, pictures of group meetings, pics of sub-committees, full committees, and ultimately pictures of House debate.

Last week, after taking pictures of various representatives during floor debate on education, I returned to my seat next to Art’s. The Chief Clerk came out of the Well (rather unusual during floor action, but House Leadership told her not to wait), up to my desk and told me not to take pictures of individual reps unless I had their permission – per House Rules.

Longtime Republican Polk County Supervisor Robert Brownell apologized this week for calling Democratic State Senator Tony Bisignano names in an e-mail to seven Iowa House Republicans.

Such classless behavior is unbecoming an elected official, but Brownell’s faulty political analysis is perhaps more shocking. In the controversial e-mail, Brownell speculated that Republicans could retake the Iowa Senate majority in 2016 if State Senator Matt McCoy decides to run for Congress.

Sorry, no.  

The U.S. Senate finally confirmed Loretta Lynch as attorney general today, more than five months after President Barack Obama nominated her and nearly two months after the Senate Judiciary Committee forwarded her nomination. The confirmation vote was held up in part because of a dispute over abortion-related language in a separate human trafficking bill. Senate Democrats filibustered that bill several times in March. Compromise wording that allowed both sides to claim victory led to a unanimous vote to approve the trafficking bill yesterday.

Lynch has had more than 50 senators backing her confirmation for some time, but whether her nomination could get to a final vote on the floor was another question. This morning, twenty Republicans joined the entire Democratic caucus to approve cloture on Lynch’s nomination by 66 votes to 34 (roll call). As expected, Iowa’s Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst voted against the motion; they’ve been on record for weeks opposing the attorney general nominee. According to a report by Alexander Bolton of The Hill, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell “worked quietly to round up more than 60 votes” for cloture in order to avoid “publicly validating” a rules change Democrats implemented in 2013, which allowed most presidential nominees to reach a floor vote with support from a simple majority of senators.

The Senate confirmed Lynch later today by 56 votes to 43 (roll call). The ten Republicans who supported her included four who are considered among the most vulnerable incumbents up for re-election in 2016. Grassley and Ernst voted no again. I enclose below Grassley’s floor statement explaining his opposition and Ernst’s official comment after the vote.

The three GOP presidential candidates now serving in the Senate–Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz–all voted against cloture on Lynch’s nomination. Paul and Rubio then voted against her confirmation, while Cruz was absent for that vote.

Iowans who advocate for people with disabilities have deep concerns about Governor Terry Branstad’s plan to privatize Medicaid, shifting most recipients into managed care. Iowa Senate President Pam Jochum, who has been caregiver to a daughter with developmental disabilities, has been warning for weeks that the reorganization of Medicaid is too hasty and needs oversight from state lawmakers. Last week she discussed potential problems in more detail, citing the Kansas experience with Medicaid privatization as a cautionary tale. After the jump I’ve posted the transcript from that press conference. Supporting documents are available here on how managed care has affected Kansans with disabilities.

Meanwhile, Disability Rights Iowa Executive Director Jane Hudson shared her take on the “empty promises” in Branstad’s plan for Medicaid. You can read the full text of her April 20 guest column for the Des Moines Register at the newspaper’s website or at Disability Rights Iowa. I’ve enclosed a few passages after the jump, but you should click through to read the whole piece. Nearly 20 advocacy groups for Iowans with disabilities or mental health challenges signed on to Hudson’s editorial; the full list is below.

Warmer weather and spring rains have caused woodland wildflowers to explode all over Iowa lately. This past week, I saw the first blossoms of sweet William (blue phlox), sweet cicely, and littleleaf crowfoot or buttercup.

I was fortunate to visit the Ledges State Park in Boone County recently with naturalist and photographer Eileen Miller. We saw carpet-like stands of spring beauty, bloodroot, and Dutchman’s breeches. Eileen also noticed a much less showy native plant, which I had never seen (or at least not been aware of seeing) outside books.

After the jump I enclose several pictures of pussytoes in bloom. The plants are native to most of North America. They are so unobtrusive that I would have walked right past them if Eileen had not pointed them out.

As a bonus, I included a photo of bloodroot and Dutchman’s breeches blooming together at the end of this post.

A Hancock County jury acquitted former State Representative Henry Rayhons today on a charge of 3rd Degree Sexual Abuse. Rayhons was accused of having sex with his incapacitated wife in an assisted living facility last May. Prosecutors had tried unsuccessfully to move the trial out of Rayhons’ home county, which he had represented for eighteen years in the Iowa House.

The jury deliberated for three days before reaching a not guilty verdict. During the trial, Rayhons denied that he had sex with his wife on the date in question. He had admitted to doing so when first interviewed by a state investigator, but during the trial he said that the investigator had been yelling at him and bullied him into the admission. His DNA was found on his wife’s clothing and bed sheets, but on the witness stand during the trial, Donna Rayhons’ former roommate testified that she could not be sure of hearing Rayhons having sex with his wife. The the defense argued that the defendant’s DNA “could have been left on his wife’s things from a previous sexual encounter, before Rayhons had been told by nursing home staff his wife was no longer able to consent to sex.” A nurse’s exam produced no proof of sexual intercourse on the date in question.

In closing arguments, Assistant Iowa Attorney General Susan Krisko tried to keep the jury focused on the specific events of this case rather than a “philosophical debate” on “whether or not someone with Alzheimer’s can have sex.” But Rayhons’ attorney warned jurors,

“It’s an unprecedented case. The decision that you make here will be debated, discussed, followed for years,” defense lawyer Joel Yunek said in his closing statement. He said a guilty verdict could make other spouses afraid to even visit a husband or wife with Alzheimer’s disease, for fear of being charged as a rapist if the partner with dementia grabbed them the way Rayhons says Donna Rayhons did to him.

Under those circumstances, I’m not surprised the jury acquitted. The defense was wise to frame the case in broad terms, since the trial was getting national attention. We can only hope that Krisko was wrong about an acquittal being tantamount to declaring “open season” on vulnerable people in nursing homes.

LATE UPDATE: In early May, juror Angela Nelson, posted her perspective on the case and why the jury acquitted. Worth clicking through to read the whole piece, but ultimately, forensic evidence was lacking to prove the prosecutor’s case. Nelson added that people “with Alzheimer’s are still human beings that have the same emotional needs we all have,” and “For the state of Iowa to try and legislate intimacy between a married couple is a very dark road to go down […].”