President Barack Obama addresses both houses of Congress tonight. The big policy news will be a new executive order requiring federal contractors to pay workers hourly wages of at least $10.10. The move could affect hundreds of thousands of workers. Last year the president proposed increasing the federal minimum wage to $9.00 per hour, but Senator Tom Harkin and other liberal Democrats argued for raising the wage to $10.10. Obama indicated his support for that wage level in November.

I will update this post later with highlights from tonight’s speech and reaction from Iowa’s Congressional delegation. Meanwhile, this thread is for any comments about the substance or the politics of the State of the Union address.

On a related note, I hope Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is right about the president refusing to negotiate with Congressional Republicans over raising the debt ceiling.

UPDATE: Click here for the full transcript of the president’s speech, as prepared. I’ve added some Iowa reaction after the jump.

State Senator Brad Zaun announced today that he will run for Congress again in Iowa’s third district. Radio Iowa posted the audio from his press conference. At this writing, I don’t see any news release on Zaun’s Facebook page. I will add that to this post when I get it. The campaign is on twitter here. So far the campaign website has no content, just a sign-up for supporters and volunteers. Zaun’s already been campaigning around the district, attending the Pottawattamie Republican Party debate for U.S. Senate candidates and a “Speak for Life” event in Council Bluffs earlier this month.

Zaun was mayor of the Des Moines suburb of Urbandale before being elected to the Iowa Senate for the first time in 2004. He won the crowded 2010 GOP primary in IA-03 despite being outspent by a candidate with more establishment support. Here’s a link to Zaun’s paid advertising from that primary. After losing the general election to Democratic incumbent Leonard Boswell, Zaun co-chaired Michele Bachmann’s presidential campaign in Iowa and stuck with her even as her poll numbers declined. During the spring of 2012, he endorsed a couple of candidates who eventually lost competitive GOP primaries in northeast Iowa. After the jump I’ve posted Zaun’s official bio and a statement from the Iowa Democratic Party.

Though stranger things have happened, I doubt Republicans would nominate a candidate this year who couldn’t beat Boswell in the massive GOP landslide of 2010. I think another strike against Zaun is his failure to raise a lot of money for fellow Iowa Senate candidates when he served as the Senate Republican minority whip. How do you not raise big money when you represent Urbandale, which includes some of Iowa’s wealthiest precincts? Zaun gave up his Senate minority leadership position shortly after the 2012 election, when Republicans failed to win a majority in the upper chamber.

Any comments about the IA-03 race are welcome in this thread. Zaun’s current competitors in the Republican primary are Senator Chuck Grassley’s former chief of staff David Young, construction business owner Robert Cramer, Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz, Iowa Renewable Fuels Association executive director Monte Shaw, and Des Moines teacher Joe Grandanette. My gut says that Governor Terry Branstad’s legal counsel Brenna Findley will stay out of this race, but if she runs, she has a pretty good story to tell conservative activists.

UPDATE: Appearing on Simon Conway’s WHO radio show this afternoon, Zaun said he would vote no to raising the debt ceiling, because “we have to pay our bills.” Which is ironic, because the U.S. can’t service its debt or meet other spending obligations already approved by Congress without further increases in the debt ceiling.

Addendum to yesterday’s post: I think the Ready for Hillary super PAC is mostly a waste of time. Hillary Clinton will either run for president, or she won’t. Her decision won’t depend on how successfully other people “grassroots organize” on her behalf.

That said, Ready for Hillary could become a vehicle for those who want to show the Clintons their usefulness, or at least make money selling a list of Clinton supporters to somebody’s future campaign.

It’s worth noting that State Representative Tyler Olson took a leading role in organizing last Saturday’s Ready for Hillary event in Des Moines. A year ago, he was a rising star, newly rubber-stamped as the Iowa Democratic Party chair and the ranking Democrat on an important Iowa House committee. He gave up the party leadership position to run for governor, and later bowed out of that campaign for family reasons. Olson has confirmed he’s not seeking re-election to the Iowa House in 2014. But he obviously isn’t done with politics. Helping to start an “informal conversation” about how to engage Hillary Clinton’s Iowa supporters may get him a paid staff or advisory position before the 2016 caucuses. He may feel pressure to jump on the bandwagon early, since he endorsed Barack Obama rather than Clinton in 2007. Still, he doesn’t have nearly as much to add to a Clinton effort as Jackie Norris, who was state political director for Al Gore’s 2000 Iowa campaign and was deeply involved in the mechanics of Obama’s 2008 campaign.

Of all the non-events to get major Iowa caucus coverage, this past weekend’s “Ready for Hillary” meeting in Des Moines must be among the most ridiculous.

One significant piece of news emerged from the pro-Hillary super PAC’s first foray to Iowa, though. Jackie Norris, who managed Barack Obama’s 2008 general election campaign here, is now publicly on the Hillary bandwagon. In other words, one of the most important early Obama supporters in Iowa has just told any other would-be 2016 Democratic presidential contenders, “You’re on your own.”  

The January 23 edition of the Iowa House Republican newsletter contains a mix of news and spin on a wide variety of topics, such as the state budget, the minimum wage, the check-off for corn growers, distracted driving, marijuana use and even a controversy over whether states should charge sales tax on “take-n-bake” pizzas.

From my perspective, the most interesting nugget was the effort to explain House Republicans’ stubborn refusal to comply with a state law that passed nearly two decades ago with strong bipartisan support. Iowa Senate Democrats are determined to set “allowable growth” levels for K-12 school budgets in the time frame laid out by the law. But Republicans are not budging from the position they staked out last year: no early notice for school district leaders who need to plan their budgets.

On Saturday night the Des Moines Register announced the major stops on the 2014 Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI). The rumor going around the Iowa Bike Expo today turned out to be true: the 418-mile ride takes a northern path through the state from July 20 to July 26. It is the third-shortest route in RAGBRAI history and the second-easiest in terms of feet of climb. I’ve seen some bicyclists complaining on social media already, but let’s face it: north-central Iowa is pretty flat.

Overnight stops are after the jump. This may be the best RAGBRAI ever for architecture buffs.

UPDATE: I’ve been playing around with the Location Affordability Portal this weekend, so just for fun I thought I’d see which of the RAGBRAI overnight stops are the most and least affordable for residents, in terms of housing and transportation costs. Scroll down for the available data.

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

Des Moines continues to make national news as a place with a generally high quality of life. This week NBC’s Today show named Iowa’s capital as “the city where regular folk can live a rich life,” because the “cost of living is almost 10 percent below the average for the country.” Last summer, Forbes magazine named Des Moines the country’s best city for “business and careers,” noting it was “the only place that ranks among the top quartile in at least nine of the 12 metrics we graded the cities on.” Previous research indicates that Des Moines has “one of the shortest commute times in the nation with an average commute of about 19 minutes.”

But given that Iowa wages skew lower than salaries in many other metro areas, how affordable is Des Moines, really? The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Department of Transportation recently launched a Location Affordability Portal that takes into account “the percentage of a family’s income dedicated to the combined cost of housing and transportation in a given location.” (I’ve posted more explanation after the jump.) The algorithm takes into account that many Americans are now spending more on transportation than on rent or mortgage payments, so you can’t just look at housing costs when deciding whether a particular neighborhood is “affordable.”

On this page you can search by a specific address, a zip code, city, county or state to pull up information on average household income and how much a household in that area could expect to spend on housing and transportation.

Windsor Heights (zip code 50324) has a “location affordability” rating of 42 percent. The average household could expect to spend 25 percent of annual income on housing and 17 percent on transportation. Affordability numbers on the west side of Des Moines (50311) are similar. The near north side of Des Moines (50314) is more affordable, and the combined average cost of housing and transportation is lower still on the south side (50315) and around downtown (50309).

Residents in the Iowa City zip code of 52242 can expect to spend less on transportation (16 percent of annual income) but a lot more for housing (39 percent), for a total location affordability of 55 percent. The Cedar Falls zip code of 50613 has a nearly identical combined affordability rating as downtown Iowa City (54 percent), but residents can expect to spend less on housing (29 percent) and more on transportation (25 percent)–unless they take advantage of the bicycle-friendly atmosphere in Cedar Falls.  

The Iowa Supreme Court heard oral arguments yesterday in an appeal of Republican State Senator Rick Bertrand’s defamation lawsuit against his 2010 opponent, Rick Mullin, and the Iowa Democratic Party. Des Moines attorney and law blogger Ryan Koopmans live-tweeted the hearing, and Mike Wiser and Grant Rodgers published summaries.

We’ll know the verdict within a few months, but I’ve posted some thoughts and predictions below.

Today I attended the hearing put on by Governor Branstad to bash the EPA for proposing to change the rules on the Renewable Fuels Standard for ethanol.  It was an all-day pepfest for ethanol.  I came late, but I think was the only one to talk about the “other side” of ethanol.Here are my remarks (although the footnote explanations and references don’t come through):

Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz announced yesterday that nine more Iowans are being charged with “voter fraud.” As you can see from the statement I’ve posted below, eight Waterloo residents face election misconduct charges (a Class D felony) because they registered to vote and cast ballots in the 2012 general election, even though they are felons whose voting rights had not been restored. One Lee County resident who is also an ex-felon is charged with registering to vote and casting a ballot in a 2013 local election.

By my count, Schultz’s obsessive hunt for voter fraud has now yielded criminal charges in 25 cases, representing less than a thousandth of one percent of ballots cast in Iowa’s recent local, state, and federal elections. Most of the cases involve felons whose rights had not been restored, though not all of the accused cast ballots–some had merely registered to vote. No proof has emerged that any of these people knew they were committing a crime. They may have assumed that they had a right to vote, because tens of thousands of Iowa ex-felons had their voting rights restored during Governor Chet Culver’s tenure. They may have assumed they were able to vote once offered a registration form.

Most important, none of these cases could have been averted if Schultz had accomplished his goal of forcing Iowans to show a photo ID when voting on election day. It’s likely that many of these improperly registered voters filled out a form after renewing a driver’s license. Schultz’s full-time criminal investigator has not found anyone guilty of impersonating another voter on election day, which is the only kind of fraud that a photo ID law could prevent.

The new defendants will probably be effective poster children for Schultz’s Congressional campaign, though. Republicans love the fantasy that making it more difficult for thousands of people to vote will somehow protect “election integrity” in Iowa.  

Once upon a time, a few moderate Republicans served in the Iowa legislature. Sometimes they faced primary challenges from the right, because conservatives resented their positions on social issues and their willingness to compromise with statehouse Democrats.

Social moderates are long gone among Iowa House and Senate Republican ranks, but party leaders prefer not to talk about, let alone deliver on, some of the key priorities for hard-liners. That leads to occasional infighting between mainstream Republican lawmakers and those who want to rock the boat.

One of the proud non-compromisers, Tom Shaw, just announced plans to retire from the Iowa House. His comrade-in-arms Greg Heartsill will face at least one Republican primary challenger in Iowa House district 28.

Republican State Representative Mary Ann Hanusa confirmed yesterday that she will seek a third term in the Iowa House rather than running for Congress in the open third district.

“It’s an honor to have people ask me to consider running for Congress, and I did consider it, but it’s not the right time to make that run.”

No surprises there. The field of Republican candidates in IA-03 already includes Secretary of State Matt Schultz, who formerly was a city council member in Hanusa’s home town of Council Bluffs. Hanusa was easily re-elected in 2012, even though President Barack Obama won more votes than Mitt Romney in Iowa House district 16. She will have no trouble winning again in a midterm year. Why give up a safe Iowa House seat for a longshot bid to be her party’s Congressional nominee?

Hanusa’s decision indicates that the IA-03 Republican primary will be an all-male affair unless Governor Terry Branstad’s legal counsel Brenna Findley takes a shot at it. I expect Findley to stay out, although she could credibly claim to have moved the needle on some key conservative issues in her current job. In addition to Schultz, David Young, Joe Grandanette, Monte Shaw, and Robert Cramer have announced plans to run in IA-03. State Senator Brad Zaun is likely to join the race soon.

Later this week state and regional agribusiness leaders will gather at the World Food Prize Hall of Laureates to cheerlead for corn ethanol.  The agenda for this “Hearing in the Heartland” is to rail against a proposed update to the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The bipartisan entrenchment against the update suggests corn ethanol is being somehow threatened, but despite the fanfare it really isn’t.

The EPA’s update to the 2007 law deals mostly with 2^nd and 3^rd generation biofuels. The proposed volume requirements don't hinder corn ethanol; the grain mandates shifts a few percent as business models tend to do when they are updated after 7 years.  The long-term prospects for next generation biofuels also remain strong. So why an update?  Projections for next generation biofuel have not panned out, yet. Simply put: science & engineering need to catch up to ambitious policy.

Corn ethanol was always meant as a stepping stone to “advanced” biofuels. The RFS update only seriously impedes corn if convoluted math is done to figure corn as the stop-gap filler for our old overestimates for next generation biofuels. Vested interests want to double-down on endless growth in corn ethanol, but they have lost sight of the long game amidst a tangled web of conflict-of-interest.  

Who attended their Democratic or Republican precinct caucuses tonight? I was at Indian Hills Junior High School, where Democrats and Republicans from Windsor Heights, Clive, and some parts of West Des Moines gathered. Not surprisingly, turnout was low on the Democratic side, with light snow and temperatures in the teens shortly before 7 pm. Approximately 60 people total showed up from the eight or nine precincts at our location. A representative from Staci Appel’s campaign addressed Democrats at our caucus, as did a gubernatorial candidate I’d never heard of: Zachary Newbrough of West Des Moines. His key issues include improving education, mental health reform, embracing diversity in Iowa, and smokers’ rights (although he didn’t mention the last one at the caucus).

I didn’t sit in on the Republican caucuses, but I walked by their rooms after they broke into precincts from Windsor Heights and Clive. By my count, each precinct had approximately 15-20 participants. Although the weather was bad today, I expected more Republicans to come out tonight, given that Governor Terry Branstad’s campaign and several GOP candidates were said to be mobilizing supporters. Branstad’s team wants to make sure the state convention backs Kim Reynolds for lieutenant governor, and the Republican nominations for IA-03 and U.S. Senate may be decided at conventions if no candidate wins at least 35 percent of the vote.

Any comments about the off-year caucuses are welcome in this thread. I’d particularly like to hear from Bleeding Heartland readers on caucus turnout in the first Congressional district, where the Democratic and Republican nominations could conceivably go to conventions.

Iowa Senate district 15 wasn’t on my top tier of Iowa Senate races to watch or among the competitive seats recently mentioned by Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal. However, I am revising my view amid new signs that Republicans will make a strong push against five-term Democratic incumbent Dennis Black.

After the jump I’ve posted background on Black and the three Republicans who plan to challenge him, along with a district map and the latest voter registration totals.  

Republican State Representative Tom Shaw announced on Facebook last night that he will not seek re-election in Iowa House district 10. Defending his “no compromise” approach to serving in the legislature since his first election in 2010, Shaw quoted a retired California legislator as saying, “When we give in to liberals, even an inch, we’re not compromising; we’re abdicating our rights and our honor.” Shaw and his close allies, State Representatives Kim Pearson and Glen Massie, were perhaps best known for helping to block in committee and later voting against a 20-week abortion ban bill, on the grounds that it did not go far enough to end abortions. Pearson and Massie both retired from the Iowa House rather than seek re-election in 2012. Last year, Shaw could persuade only ten of his Republican colleagues to co-sponsor his more extreme version of a “personhood” bill declaring life to start at conception.

Iowa House district 10 covers Humboldt, Pocahontas, and Calhoun counties, plus portions of Webster County (but not Fort Dodge). I’ve posted a map after the jump. It leans strongly Republican, with nearly 3,000 more registered Republicans than Democrats as of January 2014.  

Shaw confirmed by telephone this morning that he is retiring from the state legislature and will not consider running against Democratic State Senator Daryl Beall in Iowa Senate district 5. Shaw’s retirement may be good news for Beall, as the open Iowa House seat comprising half the district should draw more Republican interest than taking on a three-term incumbent in a much more competitive Senate district. Beall currently has one declared challenger, Fort Dodge-based financial adviser Tim Kraayenbrink.

UPDATE: The first candidate to declare for Shaw’s seat was Mike Sexton, who was elected to the Iowa Senate in 1998 but retired after one term. I’ve posted background after the jump. I would guess that an experienced candidate and former legislator would have been a tougher challenger to Beall than Kraayenbrink. But not surprisingly, Sexton sees the open House seat as an easier path back to the statehouse. I would guess that at least one tea party oriented candidate will compete against Sexton in the House district 10 primary.

Government offices and many public school districts were closed today in honor of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Bleeding Heartland has compiled links about King to mark this day for the past three years, as well as on last summer’s 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. Here’s a new batch:

The civil rights leader was a fan of the “Star Trek” television series and persuaded Nichelle Nichols (Lieutenant Uhura) not to leave the show during the second season.

Thomas J. Sugrue on Restoring King: “There is no figure in recent American history whose memory is more distorted and words more drained of content than Martin Luther King.”

Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon on The Martin Luther King You Don’t See on TV: “[N]ational news media have never come to terms with what Martin Luther King Jr. stood for during his final years.”

Daily Kos user HamdenRice on why Most of you have no idea what Martin Luther King actually did: “his main impact was his effect on the lives of African Americans, not on Americans in general. His main impact was not to make white people nicer or fairer.”

Todd Dorman on King’s visits to eastern Iowa in 1959 and 1962:

“We have come to the point,’ Dr, King said, “where we can say in the South to those who use violence against us:

“We will match your capacity to inflict suffering with our capacity to endure suffering.

“We will meet your physical force with soul force.

“Do to us what you will, and we still love you.”

P.S.-“Abigail Van Buren” published this quote from Dr. King in today’s “Dear Abby” column. It was new to me, but I agree with her that it “applies to many aspects of life”: “All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face-to-face with another problem.”

At least two Democrats will run for governor this year. Jonathan Narcisse, a former Des Moines School Board member and third-party gubernatorial candidate, announced his candidacy this morning at the African-American Museum of Iowa in Cedar Rapids. I don’t have a video from today’s event, but after the jump I’ve posted a speech Narcisse gave last month when he announced the creation of his exploratory committee. Among other things, he proposes to provide free college education for Iowa students who agree to do community service during the summers and to stay in the state for a certain number of years after graduation. Bleeding Heartland posted more background on Narcisse here. He received a little less than 2 percent of the vote in his independent campaign for governor in 2010.

Narcisse will be a big underdog in the Democratic primary, where State Senator Jack Hatch is better known, has more political experience, and will have the resources to run a more extensive statewide campaign. Hatch just reported raising nearly $300,000 for his gubernatorial campaign in 2013, plus $140,000 in loans from himself and his wife. At year-end, his campaign had $236,943.18 cash on hand.

This morning, former State Representative Ed Fallon endorsed Hatch, saying he “has been a strong progressive voice fighting for a better Iowa” for decades. Fallon represented areas of central Des Moines in the Iowa House for twelve years; during part of that time, Hatch served in the state House and Senate. Fallon ran for governor in 2006 and finished third in the Democratic primary for governor with about 26 percent of the vote. I’ve posted part of his e-mail blast after the jump.

Any comments about the governor’s race are welcome in this thread. UPDATE: Added clips on the Narcisse announcement below.

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

I never got around to pulling together news clips on Governor Terry Branstad’s official campaign announcement Wednesday night. After the jump I’ve posted the video of his speech to that rally in Des Moines. Easy for him to take credit for the improving economy when he came back to politics shortly after the worst U.S. recession in 60 years. Every state is doing better economically today than it was four years ago, regardless of which party controls the statehouse or the governor’s mansion. At one of his first re-election campaign stops, Branstad told a Pella audience about some of the achievements and goals he outlined in his speech to state lawmakers earlier this week. As usual, Branstad appeared alongside Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds. He said their focus will be on jobs, especially STEM jobs (science, technology, engineering and math jobs). Branstad and Reynolds held campaign events in thirteen Iowa cities and towns from Thursday through Saturday.

Sam Roecker noted that Olivia Newton John’s “Physical” was the top single the first time Branstad was elected governor in 1982. That one brings back memories: my brother took me to see her concert at Vets Auditorium in Des Moines on the “Let’s Get Physical” tour.

Speaking of blasts from the past, I recently came across a video of “Republican Clair Rudison” telling a bunch of Iowa high school students that the GOP was historically the civil rights party. Which was true 150 years ago and even 60 years ago. But it hasn’t been that way for a long time. Why do you think the states where segregation was most entrenched swung from the Democratic to the Republican Party since the 1960s? Why are Republican politicians the driving force behind efforts to suppress African-American votes in so many states now?

If Clair Rudison’s name sounds familiar, it’s because last time we heard from him, he was masquerading as a Democrat in order to challenge State Representative Ako Abdul-Samad in a 2010 primary. Rudison’s campaign was funded in part by conservatives who opposed marriage equality, so I’m not surprised to see him identifying with Republicans now. In fact, he has endorsed Steve Rathje in the GOP primary to represent Iowa’s first Congressional district. I’ve posted his endorsement letter after the jump.  

I was skeptical about these rumors, but according to Craig Robinson of The Iowa Republican, Governor Terry Branstad’s legal counsel Brenna Findley “has been meeting people about a congressional run in the Third District.” Findley told the Des Moines Register “that she appreciates the encouragement, but she’s focused on her job” in the Branstad administration. That phrasing falls short of ruling out a Congressional bid.

Follow me after the jump for first thoughts on strengths and weaknesses Findley might bring to a GOP primary campaign. At the end of this post, I’ve enclosed background on the potential candidate from her 2010 campaign bio and the news release announcing her appointment as legal counsel.