Yesterday I conducted a wetlands delineation for the Iowa DNR at Pleasant Valley Wildlife Area, along the South Raccoon between Adel and Redfield. Among the highlights: a good plant list that included a new sedge species, Carex oligocarpa; numerous butterflies, including Tiger and Black Swallowtails, American Lady, Spring Azure, Eastern Comma, and Red Admiral; experience with riparian soils; and overall a good day.

The most memorable part came in the last 15 minutes. Four 20-something year-olds noisily stopped about 450 feet away on the old canoe access road and began making sounds that could have been firecrackers. When the first clear rifle report came, I knew that this was no mere Independence Day warm-up. At least two bullets hit within 100 yards of me and a third whizzed overhead as I crouched behind a low dirt pile.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? The Iowa Democratic Party’s state convention got overshadowed by the circus-like spectacle Republicans put on in Urbandale yesterday. We’re talking about David Young’s surprising nomination in IA-03 here. This is an open thread for all other topics.

After the jump I’ve posted several links about the Democratic convention and the full text (as prepared) of Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley’s speech. He seems to have made a good impression, as he did at the Harkin Steak Fry in 2012. O’Malley won’t challenge Hillary Clinton for the presidential nomination; he was loyal Clinton surrogate during the 2008 primaries, even after Barack Obama crushed her in his state. If Clinton decides against running for president again, O’Malley could have a lot of upside potential in Iowa. He’s much more familiar with this state than your average east-coast governor, having worked as a field organizer for Gary Hart’s 1984 Iowa caucus campaign. John Deeth wrote up O’Malley’s appearance for gubernatorial nominee Jack Hatch and running mate Monica Vernon in Iowa City.

UPDATE: Added below a short version of what would be the progressive case against O’Malley if he competes in the Iowa caucuses.

David Young’s television commercials featured the candidate performing magic tricks, and he certainly pulled a rabbit out of his hat today. Today some 500 delegates selected Young as the Republican nominee in Iowa’s third Congressional district. Not many people saw that coming (aside from Julie Stauch). Young ran a solid and well-funded campaign but finished fifth in a six-man field on June 3.

Kevin Hall live-blogged the special district convention through all five ballots today. Short version: Young won by having less baggage and fewer enemies than the candidate who was eliminated on each ballot. Robert Cramer finished second to last on the second ballot (even though he finished a close second in the June 3 primary) and declined to endorse another contender after dropping out. Matt Schultz was the bottom candidate on the next ballot and endorsed Young afterward. Monte Shaw, widely viewed as the establishment’s favorite and in particular as Governor Terry Branstad’s unofficial favorite, was eliminated after the fourth ballot, leaving just Brad Zaun and Young.

I expected Shaw to win at convention through the same kind of path Young traveled today, benefiting as rivals with more baggage finished last on successive ballots. After his victory this afternoon, Young promised delegates that he would “make [Democratic IA-03 nominee] Staci Appel disappear” in November. Young will have a ton of money at his disposal, thanks to connections built during nearly two decades as a Congressional staffer. From 2006 until last summer, he served as chief of staff to Senator Chuck Grassley.

UPDATE: Radio Iowa has the audio of Young’s victory speech to delegates. After the jump I’ve posted the Appel campaign’s comment on the GOP convention, as well as a comment from Grassley on his protege’s Congressional campaign. Officially, Grassley stayed neutral in the Republican primary, but several of his consultants worked for Young.

SECOND UPDATE: Added more observations below from Craig Robinson, who spent the day at the nominating convention.

Republicans held a special convention in Iowa House district 40 yesterday to nominate a candidate against first-term State Representative John Forbes. Remarkably, no Republican filed to run in this district before the March filing deadline. Two candidates attempted to win the nomination through write-in votes on the June 3 primary, but neither reached the required threshold.

Kevin Hall reported for The Iowa Republican that establishment candidate Ronda Bern won the nominating convention by 4.5 to 3.5 over college student Jeremy Freeman. (GOP Polk County Central Committee members from the various precincts in the House district cast weighted votes based on how many Republican votes came from each precinct in the last general election.) I’m surprised Bern didn’t defeat Freeman more decisively. The nominating convention could have gone the other way if Freeman had a few more friends on the central committee.  

Click here for background on Bern. After the jump I’ve posted a map of House district 40 and the latest voter registration numbers. This will likely be a targeted seat in the general election. Republicans currently hold a 53 to 47 Iowa House majority.

The National Republican Congressional Committee has elevated the GOP nominees in Iowa’s first and second Congressional districts to the second level of their “Young Guns” program supporting challengers. Rod Blum will face former Iowa House Speaker Pat Murphy in the open IA-01. Mariannette Miller-Meeks will face four-term Democratic Representative Dave Loebsack for the third time in IA-02. As official NRCC “contenders,” Blum and Miller-Meeks now have a chance to move up to the top level (“young guns”) if they meet certain targets for fundraising and campaign organization.

Only some of the “young guns” will receive major financial assistance from the NRCC. So far, the group has reserved tv time for independent expenditures in seventeen Democratic-held U.S. House districts, none in Iowa. During the last election cycle, the NRCC paid for a small amount of advertising against Loebsack and against Representative Bruce Braley in IA-01 but never made a big commitment to either race.

Thanks to Iowa naturalist Eileen Miller, Bleeding Heartland is able to feature two more native plants I’ve never seen in person–only in wildflower guides. Eileen contributed the commentary about hoary puccoon and fringed puccoon as well as the beautiful photographs below.

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

More signs suggest that other candidates and their supporters see Monte Shaw as their primary threat at Saturday’s special convention to choose a Republican nominee in IA-03. Craig Robinson wrote about the multi-pronged attacks on Shaw at The Iowa Republican blog. Shaw has served as Iowa Renewable Fuels Association executive director since 2005, and the Liberty Iowa PAC has highlighted donations that trade association’s PAC made to Democratic candidates during the years. The Liberty PAC represents a group of former Ron Paul supporters. They have endorsed State Senator Brad Zaun in the IA-03 primary, although ironically, Zaun backed Michele Bachmann (not Paul) in the 2012 Iowa caucus campaign.

Anonymous e-mails circulated to Republican district convention delegates prompted the Shaw campaign to file a complaint with the Federal Election Commission last week.

I had viewed Shaw and Robert Cramer as the most viable candidates going into convention. Apparently Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz and I finally agreed on something. According to Robinson, Schultz’s campaign has sent GOP delegates direct mail “comparing Schultz to Shaw and Cramer on the issues of government spending and taxes.” Meanwhile, an arm of the American Future Fund has been sending out positive mail about Schultz, while the Tea Party Express attacked Shaw for Iowa Renewable Fuels Association PAC contributions to Democrats including “Staci Appel, Chet Culver, Mike Gronstal, Chris Hall, and Pat Murphy.”

I’ll believe an informal survey showing David Young in a strong position when other campaigns start attacking Young. So far, he does not appear to be viewed as a threat. One could argue that’s a great place to be in a contest likely to force multiple ballots, but I still don’t see delegates nominating a career Congressional staffer over rivals who have spent most of their adult lives in Iowa.

UPDATE: Added more details on the convention procedure below and a new argument against Schultz I hadn’t heard before.

I viewed U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s shocking primary loss as a sign that Representative Steve King (IA-04) could stop worrying about comprehensive immigration reform happening during this Congress. I figured, Republican leaders would not dare to move forward with a policy so unpopular with the GOP base. But since when has King ever listened to me? Speaking to Radio Iowa on June 14, he sounded very worried that an immigration reform bill could move “in September or October and then, of course, in a lame duck session it gets to be a very high risk.”

King’s concern is valid, because House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy quickly consolidated support to replace Cantor as majority leader. McCarthy is on record backing immigration reform principles that King views as “amnesty.” Jeb Hensarling of Texas, an immigration reform opponent like King, took himself out of the running for majority leader quickly. Pete Sessions, also of Texas, abandoned his effort in less than a day.

I still doubt House leaders will bring up the immigration reform bill that passed the U.S. Senate with bipartisan support in the summer of 2013. But if King is right that House Speaker John Boehner plans to give up that job soon, who knows? He may allow immigration reform to reach President Barack Obama’s desk as a a favor to business groups that support the policy and a parting shot to conservative critics. Boehner famously did not appreciate King’s headline-making comments about undocumented immigrants last year. The Senate bill would pass easily with a few dozen House Republicans joining most of the Democratic caucus.

Any relevant comments are welcome in this thread.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jack Hatch announced today that Cedar Rapids City Council member Monica Vernon will be his running mate. In addition to following the Iowa tradition of female lieutenant governors, Vernon balances the ticket geographically and ideologically. An elected official in Iowa’s second-largest city for seven years, she has been campaigning around northeast Iowa since last summer as a Democratic candidate for Congress. She carried Linn County and finished a strong second to Pat Murphy district-wide on June 3.

Some Democrats are grumbling that Vernon is a longtime Republican who joined our party just five years ago. But frankly, Hatch isn’t running in a Democratic primary. He needs to appeal to a statewide electorate including thousands who have become disaffected from the GOP, just like Vernon did. Anyway, she is arguably more progressive than Governor Chet Culver’s running mate, lifelong Democrat Patty Judge. Despite the complaining, there shouldn’t be any major snags when the Iowa Democratic Party’s statewide convention officially nominates Vernon for lieutenant governor this Saturday.

After the jump I’ve posted background on Vernon and other recent news from the Hatch campaign, including his first television commercial for the general election and highlights from his weekend appearance on Iowa Public Television’s “Iowa Press” program.

With only a few days left before special convention delegates choose a Republican nominee in Iowa’s third Congressional district, David Young got a boost from a “poll” by the conservative blog Caffeinated Thoughts. The blog set up a closed, online survey last week and circulated the link to delegates via e-mail.

There’s no way to know whether the 118 people who filled out the survey are representative of some 500 district convention delegates or alternates who will gather in Urbandale on June 21. If they are, it’s good news for Young, who finished fifth in the June 3 voting. Asked which candidate they support, 27 percent of delegates named Young, equal to the percentage backing State Senator Brad Zaun, who won a plurality of votes in the primary. Some 19 percent of delegates who responded named Robert Cramer, 14 percent Monte Shaw (widely seen as Governor Terry Branstad’s favored candidate), and just 8 percent named Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz. The results were even better for Young on the “second choice” question: 34 percent of respondents named him, way ahead of 17 percent for Zaun, 14 percent for Schultz and Cramer, and 10 percent for Shaw.

Young’s campaign was quick to spread the news in an e-mail blast I’ve enclosed below.

I had assumed Shaw held the advantage in a convention scenario, as he has longstanding ties with GOP activists, and to my mind, would be seen as a less-offensive alternative to some other candidates in the race. But if this survey is representative, Young has a chance of filling that “least offensive” niche. Maybe conservatives working together to block Shaw are succeeding in creating a bit of a backlash against the leading establishment candidate.

I was so focused on the environmental impacts of Governor Terry Branstad’s recent vetoes, I failed to look closely at other appropriations in a supplemental spending bill he axed. Today I learned from Democratic State Senator Rob Hogg,

Saturday is the 50th anniversary of the start of Freedom Summer and the murder of Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney – it is too bad Governor Branstad vetoed the $300,000 the Legislature appropriated on a bipartisan basis to help the African-American Museum of Iowa collect Iowa’s civil rights history and educate the public about these historic events.

There it is on page 4 of Senate File 2363: $300,000 for “an oral history of civil rights” at the African-American Museum of Iowa in Cedar Rapids.

It’s maddening that Governor Branstad has no problem with tens of millions of dollars in tax giveaways to wealthy corporations, yet he pleads fiscal prudence when vetoing spending like this, which serves the public interest without major impact to the state budget. Many of the 1950s and 1960s civil rights activists have already passed away, and those who haven’t are senior citizens. “Freedom Summer” was a major event in 20th century American history. Some Freedom Summer veterans with connections to Iowa City or the University of Iowa have already told their stories to historians or recorded their memories on paper or film. The Historical Iowa Civil Rights Network are doing their part too, and you can follow their work here. I’m disappointed that the African-American Museum of Iowa won’t have the funding to collect and archive these stories on a larger scale.  

The Iowa Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Friday that a District Court should hear a lawsuit eight Muscatine residents have filed against the Grain Processing Corporation. Muscatine locals have long had to breathe some of Iowa’s dirtiest air, and the Grain Processing Corporation has long been one of the area’s major polluters. Despite being forced to pay a $538,000 civil penalty for air pollution violations eight years ago, the corporation continued to emit excessive amounts, leading to a lawsuit by Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller in 2011. Earlier this year, the company settled that lawsuit, agreeing to pay a $1.5 million civil penalty and to take several steps to reduce toxic emissions from the facility.

But the Grain Processing Corporation stood and fought when local residents filed a class-action lawsuit two years ago, citing health risks as well as damage to personal property related to the air pollution near the plant.

In 2013, a District Court judge granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss the case, prompting plaintiffs to appeal. The Iowa Supreme Court found that the Grain Processing Corporation “was not entitled to summary judgment” and sent the case back to District Court, which will consider the lawsuit on its merits. You can read the full text of Justice Brent Appel’s ruling here (pdf). (It’s more than 60 pages long and gets into some technical legal issues.) All the other Iowa Superme Court justices concurred, except for Justice Edward Mansfield, who recused himself because some of his former law partners were representing the corporation.

After the jump I’ve posted more background on the lawsuit and excerpts from Jason Liegois’ report for the Muscatine Journal on the Iowa Supreme Court ruling. The plaintiffs are not guaranteed to succeed in District Court, but at least they can present their case. In addition to fighting the lawsuit at the lower court level in Iowa, the Grain Processing Corporation could appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that the federal Clean Air Act preempts claims like the ones the Muscatine residents are making.

The Prison Policy Initiative, a non-partisan non-profit organization created “to document and publicize how mass criminalization undermines our national welfare,” has published a fascinating report on the “global context” of sky-high U.S. incarceration rates. I knew that our country locks up more of its residents per capita than any other country on earth, but I didn’t realize that if you consider the 50 states and Washington, DC individually, three dozen American states have a higher incarceration rate than Cuba, which has the world’s second-highest incarceration rate. Iowa now has 437 people in prison or jail for every 100,000 residents, putting us among the states with the ten lowest incarceration rates. Even so, just three other countries (Cuba, Rwanda, and the Russian Federation) imprison more residents per capita than Iowa. The report notes,

Utah, Nebraska and Iowa all lock up a greater portion of their populations than El Salvador, a country with a recent civil war and one of the highest homicide rates in the world. Five of the U.S. states with the lowest incarceration rates – Minnesota, Massachusetts, North Dakota, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island – have higher incarceration rates than countries that have experienced major 20th century social traumas, including several former Soviet republics and South Africa.

States in New England tend to have the lowest incarceration rates, followed by the Midwest. Most states with the highest incarceration rates are in the South.  

The Prison Policy Initiative recently published a detailed comparison of state prison systems. The Iowa profile shows the growth in the incarceration rate as well as the massive racial disparities other researchers have found in our state. I’ve posted a few graphs after the jump. (Note that one graph shows an incarceration rate a little below 300 per 100,000 residents, rather than 437. That’s because the graph below includes only people serving a prison term longer than one year.) Click here for links to all state incarceration rates by race and ethnicity and here for a report “tracking state prison growth in all 50 states.” Data on that last page show how “state-level policy choices have been the largest driver of our unprecedented national experiment with mass incarceration.”

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

The Republican Party of Iowa held its state convention today in Des Moines. Links and highlights are after the jump.

Sam Clovis, who finished a distant second in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate, will likely be nominated for state treasurer at the Iowa GOP’s statewide convention on June 14, The Iowa Republican blog reported last night. No Republicans stepped up to run for the office long held by Democrat Mike Fitzgerald in time for the March filing deadline. John Thompson, a native of Jefferson and army veteran, recently declared his candidacy for state treasurer and was hoping to be nominated at the state convention. Earlier this week, Iowa Republican blogger Craig Robinson published a hit piece backgrounder on Thompson that read like a desperate plea for some other candidate to seek the treasurer’s office.

Today’s exclusive report by Kevin Hall says “Clovis has received a lot of encouragement to run over the past couple of days,” including a “Thursday evening phone call” from Governor Terry Branstad and Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds. They offered to help Clovis raise money for a statewide campaign, and he would need their help, as fundraising was his weakest area by far as a Senate candidate. Apparently the governor does not want to run on a ticket with Thompson, given the “interesting background” Robinson highlighted.

Fitzgerald is the longest-serving state treasurer in the country, having been first elected in 1982, the same year Branstad was elected governor for the first time. He has been re-elected seven times, twice amid huge Republican landslides (1994 and 2010). He defeated Dave Jamison by more than 60,000 votes in 2010.

One of Branstad’s staffers, Adam Gregg, will be nominated for attorney general at tomorrow’s GOP convention. That’s the only other statewide office for which no Republican filed in time to appear on primary ballots.

Final Iowa trivia note: Fitzgerald’s 2002 opponent was Matt Whitaker, the fourth-place candidate in this year’s GOP Senate primary.

The Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission voted 3-2 today to grant a casino license for a $40 million project near Jefferson (Greene County) in western Iowa, between Boone and Carroll counties. Residents had overwhelmingly approved a gambling referendum last year, but the outcome was in doubt because the commission recently voted down a casino proposal for Cedar Rapids. According to Dar Danielson’s report for Radio Iowa, the commissioners who opposed the license cited evidence a new casino would largely take business from existing Iowa casinos, and that the Greene County community didn’t need a gambling facility as much as other amenities. The commissioners who favored the license cited the potential economic impact for a rural area.

The Prairie Meadows Racetrack and Casino in Polk County had lobbied the commission to reject Greene County’s application, citing potential impact on its business. Jefferson is a little more than an hour’s drive northwest of the Des Moines metro area. But in casting the decisive yes vote, Racing and Gaming Commission Chair Jeff Lamberti noted,

We have lots of advantages in Polk County and I think we have lots of advantages that are going to come in the future,” Lamberti explained. “We’ve got significant population growth amongst all of our suburbs. We’ve got some good things that are in the work that are pretty historic by Iowa standards. And quite frankly, we have advantages that a lot of other parts of the state don’t have, and quite frankly I think we are going to be just fine.”

Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett, who has vowed to keep working toward a casino for his city, sounds furious about today’s decision. I’ve posted some of his comments below.  

Hardly a month goes by without news about Des Moines scoring a top-ten national ranking on some economic or livability metric. Here’s something I didn’t expect, though: the new “Vocativ Queer Index” rates the Des Moines metro fourth among the top 35 queer-friendly cities in the U.S.

Vocativ examined the 100 largest metro areas on sixteen factors related to the quality of life for the LGBT community. Click through to read the full list and how Des Moines scored in each category. In particular, the website hailed the Iowa capital’s “inclusive attitude toward adoption and marriage equality, not to mention its high-profile out politicians” like State Senator Matt McCoy and State Representative Daniel Lundby (whom they mistook for a member of Congress).  

Happy Pride Month to everyone in the Bleeding Heartland community. After the jump I’ve posted recent news about how Iowa Safe Schools, a Des Moines-based advocacy group, is working to improve the environment for LGBTQ students in public schools all around the state.

This week’s featured wildflower can be grown in gardens without too much trouble and is popular with many species of bees. According to Wildflowers of Iowa Woodlands by Sylvan Runkel and Alvin Bull, Penstemon species are commonly called beardtongue because “One of the five stamens is sterile and does not produce pollen. It is often modified into a hairy or bearded tongue and probably attracts insects.” The blue or purple lines sometimes seen inside the tubular flowers are also believed to “function as nectar guides to visiting insects.”

After the jump I’ve enclosed several pictures of beardtongue in bloom, not far from Gray’s Lake in Des Moines. The last two photos show this wildflower near other plants I haven’t identified. If you know what they are, please post a comment in this thread or send me an e-mail: desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com.

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

Roughly 500 Republican delegates from the third Congressional district will meet at Des Moines Christian School in Urbandale on June 21 to select a nominee against Staci Appel. I consider Monte Shaw the best-placed candidate going into the convention, despite his fourth-place finish in the June 3 voting. Several signs point to the other campaigns developing a strategy to stop Shaw at the convention. Executing that strategy won’t be easy.

Tony Bisignano will be the Democratic nominee in Iowa Senate district 17, as second-place finisher Nathan Blake declined to request a recount. From a Facebook status update Blake posted yesterday:

According to the official canvass from the Polk County Auditor’s Office, I ended up 18 votes behind in the Democratic primary election for Iowa State Senate District 17. I congratulate Tony Bisignano on a hard-fought victory. Thank you to my supporters, volunteers, and all who voted. Thanks especially to my wife and partner, Andrea, and our two kids for their patience, support, and sacrifices over the last year. I am proud of the campaign we ran. We won over 60% of the Election Day vote, even if we came up a few votes short.

As for the future, I am committed to to electing Democrats up and down the ballot in Iowa this November. I will continue my work in public service, fighting for consumers as an Assistant Iowa Attorney General. I promise to stay involved in progressive politics and will seek future opportunities to serve in elective office. The issues we care about are too important to sit on the sidelines.

A recount wouldn’t have changed the result, so I think Blake did the right thing not to go through the motions. He did manage a very strong election-day turnout, which is promising for any future candidacies.

Senate district 17 was the best chance for Democrats to elect Iowa’s first Latino state legislator, but two other opportunities remain this year in House district 60 and Senate district 47.

UPDATE: In a Facebook post, Bisignano said of Blake, “I can’t say enough about his poise and character. He has a very bright future in public service and I’m looking forward to helping him. His positive and respectful campaign shows what people want and expect from their public officals.”