In 2012, the Iowa legislature agreed to a three-year experiment with the the Iowa Virtual Academy, despite problems reported with for-profit, online schools run by the same corporation in other states. The Iowa Virtual Academy promises “Iowa students in grades K-6 an exceptional learning experience” with “individualized learning approaches.”

Darcy Bedortha, a former lead teacher at a virtual charter school, paints a very different picture in this must-read post at the Education Week blog. I’ve enclosed a few excerpts after the jump, but you should click through and read the whole thing. Bedortha confirmed that her former employer is the same company that runs Iowa’s virtual school. Diane Ravitch commented that Bedortha

confirms all the worst fears of critics of virtual charters.

They make a lot of money. They are passionate about profits, not students.

Students need one-to-one contact with a human being. They don’t get it.

I hope state lawmakers and staffers at the Iowa Department of Education are closely scrutinizing the Iowa Virtual Academy’s work. If it’s anything like what Bedortha describes, the experiment should be shut down at the end of next academic year.

Governor Terry Branstad’s re-election campaign collected more than $3.4 million in contributions during 2013 and ended the year with more than $4.1 million cash on hand and no debts, the campaign announced yesterday. I’ve posted the press release after the jump. The huge war chest means that the governor’s campaign will be able to pay for an extensive GOTV program, if (as appears likely) the Republican Party of Iowa lacks the funds to do so later this year.

The first real test of the Branstad campaign’s vaunted organization will be the off-year caucuses on January 21. The governor’s team are encouraging supporters to attend precinct caucuses with a view to being elected delegates to Republican county conventions, district conventions, and eventually the state convention. The goal is to undercut any potential state convention challenge to Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds as the governor’s running mate. Last week an Iowa caucus GOTV piece from the governor’s campaign hit Republican mailboxes (you can view it here).

Speaking of the lieutenant governor, some Iowans suspect that Branstad intends to step aside at the last minute and allow Reynolds to file as a candidate for governor this March. I don’t believe in that scenario for several reasons, not least because under Iowa law, the Branstad campaign could not simply transfer its enormous bank balance to a Reynolds for governor effort.

The press release I’ve posted below quotes Reynolds as “pleased with the progress we’ve made to bring 137,000 jobs to Iowa.” That alleged job creation figure is highly misleading, because it counts only jobs gained and not jobs lost in recent years. The upshot is that the Branstad administration claims credit for job “gains” even in months when Iowa had a net loss of jobs. In any event, no matter who is governor, fluctuations in Iowa’s unemployment rate track closely with changes in the national unemployment rate.

Final note on the Branstad campaign: its new spokesperson is Tommy Schultz. His predecessor Jimmy Centers moved to the position of communications director for the governor last month after Tim Albrecht (who ran communications for Branstad’s 2010 gubernatorial campaign) left the governor’s office to join a new political marketing firm called Redwave Digital, a partnership with longtime Republican strategist David Kochel.

Today the U.S. Senate confirmed Janet Yellen to be the first woman to chair the Federal Reserve. All of the Democrats present, including Iowa’s Tom Harkin, voted for the cloture motion on Yellen’s nomination in December. All of the Democrats present on January 6 voted to confirm her, joined by eleven Republicans. Incidentally, only 59 senators voted for cloture, which would have sunk Yellen under old Senate rules. Senate Democrats removed the 60-vote requirement for motions on presidential nominations in November.

Although a sizable group of Republicans voted to confirm Yellen, most of the Senate GOP caucus opposed her nomination, including Iowa’s Chuck Grassley. In a floor statement I’ve posted after the jump, Grassley said he could not support her nomination because he is concerned the Federal Reserve’s “easy money” policies are “misguided” and will lead to high inflation. Yellen is widely considered an “inflation dove” who is willing to balance the Fed’s longstanding concern for keeping inflation down with a focus on reducing unemployment.

UPDATE: Corrected to clarify that the cloture vote on Yellen happened before the holiday recess. Grassley was among the 26 Republicans who voted no on Yellen’s confirmation. Harkin was absent for the final vote on Yellen on January 6, as were many other senators because of the extreme winter weather.

Didn’t take long for news to force me to update last week’s post on Iowa Senate races to watch in 2014. Today Johnson County Deputy Sheriff Kevin Kinney announced his candidacy in Iowa Senate district 39. After the jump I’ve posted a district map and Kinney’s press release. He is also a corn and soybeans grower and a cattle producer on a century farm. Republican State Senator Sandy Greiner is not seeking re-election in Senate district 39, and the seat should be competitive. The latest numbers from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office indicate that Senate district 39 contains 13,294 registered Democrats, 13,320 Republicans, and 16,452 no-party voters.

Richard Gilmore was the first Democrat to announce in this district in September. I would consider Kinney the favorite to win the nomination, because as John Deeth points out, Democratic primaries in Johnson County have relatively high turnout, and Johnson County has gained more residents than other parts of the district since Iowa’s redistricting plan was adopted in 2011. Gilmore is from Washington County.

FEBRUARY UPDATE: Kinney’s campaign is on the web here.

In an excellent two-part series on food stamps and the need for food assistance in Iowa, Mike Wiser caught Iowa Department of Public Health Director Mariannette Miller-Meeks in an embarrassing lie:

“The No. 1 food item bought with food stamps in Iowa is Mountain Dew,” said Miller-Meeks, director of the Iowa Department of Public Health [in a speech to the World Food Prize Hunger Week symposium in October].

Several in the audience of a few hundred — an international crowd of academics, journalists and nonprofit types — shook their heads or smiled with bemusement. Phones came out, tweets were sent.

But what Miller-Meeks said wasn’t true.

At least not in any verifiable way. The Iowa Department of Human Services — the state agency that oversees the food stamp program, correctly called Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP, in Iowa — doesn’t track food purchases down to the brand of soft drink. Asked where she came up with the statistic, Miller-Meeks later said through a spokesperson she “found it online” but couldn’t remember where.

Bleeding Heartland has long argued against cutting food assistance for many reasons. The SNAP program addresses real need efficiently and is rarely abused. In addition, government spending on food assistance has tremendous “bang for the buck” compared to most other policies designed to stimulate the economy. I recommend reading the full text of Wiser’s latest reports on the rhetoric and reality of the food stamp debate and on reasons private aid agencies are struggling to help all the hungry Iowans.

Today I want to speculate on how a fake “fact” about food stamp purchases landed on Miller-Meeks’ radar.

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

I didn’t post a year-end summary of Iowa politics news from 2013, but two big stories are obvious bookends: Senator Tom Harkin’s decision in January not to seek re-election, and Representative Tom Latham following suit in December. Other important developments ranged from the surprising (a highly productive legislative session despite divided control) to the expected (Representative Steve King making national news with offensive remarks).

The Sioux City Journal compiled King’s highlight reel for 2013. “Cantaloupe calves” seems destined to become a lasting catch phrase, and may stir nightmares for Republican strategists hoping to make inroads with Latino voters. But King can feel successful in that immigration reform now appears less likely to pass than it did early last year.

Four Democratic state legislators and the leader of Iowa’s largest public employee union filed a lawsuit yesterday seeking to block Governor Terry Branstad’s administration from closing the Iowa Juvenile Home in Toledo (Tama County) this month. Joining AFSCME Iowa Council 61 President Danny Homan are gubernatorial candidate Senator Jack Hatch, Senator Steve Sodders (whose district includes Toledo), Iowa House Minority Leader Mark Smith, and former Iowa House Speaker Pat Murphy. The lawsuit alleges that it is unconstitutional for Branstad to close the home after signing into law budget appropriations for operating the home in fiscal years 2014 and 2015. An official statement from the plaintiffs is after the jump, along with a brief summary provided by Sodders.

When Iowa Department of Human Services Director Chuck Palmer announced in December that the Iowa Juvenile Home would be closed after all the resident girls were relocated, he said the “difficult decision” was in the best interests of the girls who had lived there. Yesterday Governor Branstad also cited the interests of “those kids who’ve been mistreated and abused and not gotten their education.”

Over the past year, the Des Moines Register’s Clark Kauffman has documented outrageous practices at the Iowa Juvenile Home, including long placements in isolated cells. In October, a task force appointed by Branstad recommended reforms for the facility. The lawsuit alleges that at the governor’s direction, DHS Director Palmer disregarded the task force’s recommendations and will unlawfully use funds appropriated for the Juvenile Home for other purposes.

In 2012, the Iowa Supreme Court found that Branstad had improperly used his line-item veto power to change how state funds were allocated. This case is somewhat different but poses similar constitutional questions.

State Senator Janet Petersen has decided against running for governor in 2014, she told Todd Dorman of the Cedar Rapids Gazette yesterday.

Petersen, 43, said family concerns led to her decision. She has children age 6, 9 and 12, and a husband who travels frequently for work. She said trying to balance the demands of a statewide race with her work in the Senate is also a worry. […]

Petersen weighed the prospects of a campaign “struggling with taking on a governor who has been governor forever and doesn’t miss a parade or ribbon cutting,” she said. And, in the end, she decided to stay out of the race.

Last month Petersen ruled out running for Congress in the third district.

An early endorser of Tyler Olson for governor, Petersen had been considered a likely running mate for Olson if he had won the Democratic nomination. Now she’ll go on the list of likely candidates for governor sometime in the future.

State Senator Jack Hatch is now the prohibitive favorite to be Governor Terry Branstad’s Democratic opponent this year. Jonathan Narcisse may enter the Democratic primary, but otherwise Hatch would face only token opposition from Paul Dahl.

State Senator Brad Zaun will have company in the Republican primary to represent Iowa’s third Congressional district. Today David Young told the Des Moines Register that he is ending his U.S. Senate campaign to run in IA-03.

In an exclusive interview, Young said when he began pondering a run for elective office he had the 3rd in mind, assuming that Latham would run for the Senate seat opened by U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin’s retirement in 2014.

Shifting to the Senate race made sense once Latham took himself out of that contest. As of September 30, Young had $124,052.27 cash on hand for his Senate campaign, which would go further in a Congressional district than in a statewide primary.

Meanwhile, Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz announced today on Facebook, “I have received a lot of support and encouragement as I have considered becoming a candidate for Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District. Next week, I will be making an important and exciting announcement about this race and my future plans to fight for Iowa.” I’m no marketing guru, but I think it’s more exciting to say what you’re doing than to promise “an important and exciting annoucement” soon. I suppose the idea is to make the news twice instead of once. Zaun took the same approach.

I agree with John Deeth’s preview of a forthcoming IA-03 Republican debate: “Mr. Schultz, explain your position on the farm bill. ‘Voter ID.’ Should we intervene in Syria? ‘Voter ID.’”

State Senator Jack Whitver confirmed today that he will run for re-election in Iowa Senate district 19 rather than run for Congress in IA-03. Likewise, State Representative Chris Hagenow will pass on the Congressional race to seek re-election to House district 43 and as House majority whip. In a message to supporters, Hagenow wrote, “Serving in Washington D.C. at this time will not allow me to be the husband and father that I have promised to my family.  After prayerful consideration, we believe that I can best serve the people of Iowa by continuing my work in the state legislature.”

Former State Representative Bob Krause announced on Facebook a few minutes ago that he is withdrawing from the Iowa governor’s race after exploring a candidacy for most of 2013. He has endorsed State Senator Jack Hatch in the Democratic primary and plans to “act as a surrogate speaker and policy advisor to the Hatch campaign,” specifically helping with outreach to veterans and labor unions.

Krause also announced that he plans to run against U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley in 2016. He was one of three Democrats who challenged Grassley in 2010 and finished second in the primary with just under 13 percent of the vote. He urged Iowa Democrats “to give me the same clean shot at defeating a sitting incumbent as I am giving Jack Hatch.” I’ve posted excerpts from Krause’s Facebook post after the jump.

Krause has long been an advocate for veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, and/or military sexual trauma. This weekend he is organizing a workshop in Urbandale on responding to military sexual trauma.  

It’s the time of year for blog posts about notable candidates and upcoming elections. Every politically engaged Iowan knows already that 2014 will be an unusually exciting year. We haven’t seen an open U.S. Senate race since 1974. The last time Iowa’s first Congressional district was open was in 2006. The last time Iowa’s third Congressional district was open was in 2002, but it wasn’t a wide open seat, since incumbent Representative Leonard Boswell moved into Polk County to run. Amazingly, 1940 was the “last time there was a Congressional race in Polk County without an incumbent seeking re-election.” All of Iowa’s statewide elected officials are up for re-election as well this year, and the secretary of state’s position may become open if Matt Schultz decides to go for the Republican nomination in IA-03.

Since Bleeding Heartland readers already know about the big Iowa races to watch, I want to focus today and tomorrow on the elections that are likely to determine control of the Iowa House and Senate in 2015 and 2016.  

Happy new year to the Bleeding Heartland community. Here’s an open thread. I’m among the minority of Iowans not watching the Outback Bowl today, but for what it’s worth, I do hope the Hawkeyes beat Louisiana State. LSU jumped out to an early lead.

Several new laws take effect in Iowa today, notably the alternative to expanding Medicaid, just approved by the federal government in mid-December. Under the plan, federal funds will cover Medicaid for Iowans earning up to 100 percent of the federal poverty level and private health insurance for Iowans with incomes between 100 and 138 percent of the federal poverty level. In theory, the Iowa Health and Wellness Plan is supposed to cover between 100,000 and 150,000 people, roughly half of our state’s uninsured population. Problems with the federal health insurance exchange website may leave a lot of people with a gap in coverage, though. The Iowa Department of Human Services has advised roughly 16,000 Iowans who applied for coverage through Healthcare.gov and may be eligible for Medicaid to apply again to the state agency. If they apply by January 31, they can get coverage retroactive to today.

Teen drivers in Iowa face new restrictions under Senate File 115, which passed both chambers with large bipartisan majorities last year. After completing driver’s ed and having an instruction permit for six months, teenagers will have an intermediate license for 12 months (extended from six months under the previous statute). Also, the teen driver’s parents have the option to limit the driver to having no more than one unrelated minor passenger in the vehicle. Rod Boshart explained more details about the new law, intended to reduce the risk of traffic accidents involving young drivers.

Boshart also reports, “Thousands of commercial property owners in Iowa face a Jan. 15 deadline to apply in their counties for a new tax credit established” in the compromise property tax bill approved at the end of last year’s legislative session with strong bipartisan support.

As of today, it is legal in the state of Colorado to sell marijuana to people over age 21 at certain licensed stores. Drivers with Colorado license plates were already among the groups more likely to be pulled over by Iowa State Patrol. I would guess that profiling will increase.

In some parts of the country, black-eyed peas are considered a lucky food to eat on New Year’s Day. I’m not a fan of “hoppin’ John,” the most traditional preparation, but I’ve posted the recipe for my favorite black-eyed peas dish after the jump.  

Three-term Democratic State Senator Amanda Ragan has her first declared challenger, as Timothy Junker announced yesterday that he will seek the Republican nomination in Iowa Senate district 27.

Ragan’s race is one of a handful of contests that will likely determine control of the Iowa Senate after 2014. As of December 2013, Senate district 27 contained 11,997 registered Democrats, 13,396 Republicans, and 17,747 no-party voters according to the Iowa Secretary of State’s office. I’ve posted a district map after the jump. It covers Franklin County, part of Butler County, and most of Cerro Gordo County, including the population center of Mason City.

Junker is from Butler County and served six terms as the elected county sheriff before President George W. Bush appointed him U.S. Marshal for the Northern District of Iowa in 2006. Since leaving that position in 2010, “Junker has been selling real estate for Schuck Realty Co., served on the Allison City Council and Allison Tree Board, and is an active member of Trinity Reformed Church, Allison Am Vets and the Am Vets/Legion Drill Team.” He has been exploring this candidacy for some time and held a meet and greet with Franklin County Republicans earlier this month.

I’ve heard rumors of several other Republicans considering this race. This fall, some Mason City residents received telephone polls asking whether they would support former Mayor Bill Schickel or Ragan for the Senate seat. Other possible candidates include former Mason City Mayor Roger Bang and former State Senator Merlin “build my fence” Bartz, who runs Representative Steve King’s Mason City office. Bartz would have to move from his Worth County farm to run against Ragan, though. Cerro Gordo County GOP Chair Gabe Haugland was on my radar because he considered running for the Iowa House during the last election cycle. But he told me today that he is “99 percent sure” he is not running in Senate district 27.  

A governor committed to a certain policy will have his staff or a commission work out a plan, then push hard for its adoption in his annual address to state legislators. We’ve seen Governor Terry Branstad take that route in the past to support commercial property tax cuts or education reform.

A governor casting about for a re-election campaign issue may advocate some vague idea, then blame its inevitable defeat on his political opponents. Case in point: Branstad’s half-assed “plan” to allow higher earners to opt into a lower state income tax rate with fewer deductions.  

Who in the Bleeding Heartland community remembers Dick Clark, the Democrat Iowans elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972? Clark lost his 1978 re-election bid to Roger Jepsen (whom Tom Harkin defeated in 1984). David Rogers published a fascinating story at Politico this week about Senator Clark’s work as chair of the African Affairs subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He knew little about Africa before taking the position but learned quickly. In 1976, he sponsored an amendment to prohibit U.S. covert assistance for paramilitary operations in Angola, but he told Rogers that his larger goal was “disassociate us from apartheid and from South Africa.”

It was a time when Republican challenger Roger Jepsen felt free to taunt the Democrat as “the senator from Africa.” Tensions were such that the State Department called in a South African Embassy official in May for making disparaging remarks about Clark in Iowa. And after Clark lost, South Africa’s ousted information secretary, Eschel Rhoodie, said his government invested $250,000 to defeat Clark, who had become a thorn in the side of the white regime.

Jepsen denied any knowledge of South Africa’s alleged role. Nor does Clark accuse him of such. But 35 years after, Clark has no doubt that the apartheid government led by Prime Minister B. J. Vorster wanted him out – and had a hand in his defeat.

Clark’s liberal record and support of the Panama Canal Treaty, which narrowly cleared the Senate in the spring of 1978, also hurt his chances in Iowa. But the fatal blow was a fierce wave of late-breaking ground attacks from anti-abortion forces-something even conservative writers like Robert Novak had not anticipated in a published column weeks before.

I remember Jepsen running attack ads about the Panama Canal (“I voted to keep what is rightfully ours”), but I didn’t know the South African government was so vested in Clark’s defeat. Rogers describes how Clark tried to steer U.S. policy away from supporting the apartheid regime even after losing his re-election campaign. He worked with the Aspen Institute during the 1980s and 1990s to “to try to get a get a cadre of Congress who would know about South Africa and what was going on in South Africa.” I highly recommend reading the whole story.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? The Des Moines Register reported on a Waukee City Council member who admitted to sock puppetry on Facebook. I’ve posted some details about the case after the jump. Unfortunately, Shane Blanchard was just re-elected in November.  

Blanchard’s reprehensible actions reminded me that with an election year coming, I need to repeat this site’s policy on posts by elected officials, candidates, and campaign staffers or consultants.

Bleeding Heartland commenters and diarists can write under any screen name they choose. No one is required to reveal real names or any personal information. “Outing” other users will get you banned here. I do ask Bleeding Heartland users not to make false statements about themselves. You’re free to never mention your age, gender or location, but if you say you are a 40-something Jewish mother living in Windsor Heights, you should be a 40-something Jewish mother living in Windsor Heights.

I also ask that you stick to one username whenever you comment at Bleeding Heartland. In other words, creating “sock puppets” to lend support for your own position is not acceptable.

Democratic candidates and elected officials are welcome to post here, and I often promote their diaries to the front page. In order to avoid problems that have cropped up at other political blogs, I ask paid campaign staffers or consultants to disclose that fact if they write about the campaign they’re working on. However, someone employed by a campaign can post anonymously about topics not related to that candidate’s race.

The Raccoon River had very high sustained levels of Nitrogen in 2013. Nitrogen can be toxic at high levels. The United States government has determined that nitrogen levels above 10mg/l are not healthy. So water treatment plants like the Des Moines Waterworks must keep the nitrate levels below that number. That was a real challenge last spring. When the Ikes, Waterworks, RRWA and Wells Fargo volunteers cooperated in a Polk County water quality snapshot last spring N levels were above 20 mg/l at many locations. The Des Moines Waterworks pumps Raccoon River water into ponds for natural denitrification. It mixes water from Maffit Lake to bring down the N levels. If all else fails the Waterworks cranks up the expensive denitrification equipment installed for that purpose. Much of our surface water across the state is polluted with Nitrogen, Phosphorus and bacteria. The federal EPA has told Iowa to reduce the N and P in our waters and that which leaves the state by way of the Mississippi and the Missouri. The Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy is the result of efforts by the DNR, IDALS and others to achieve a 45% reduction in these pollutants.

Republican State Senator Brad Zaun posted on Facebook and twitter today, “I hope each of you had a great Christmas! I will have some big news to announce after the first of the year and I look forward to sharing it with my supporters and friends first!” (Hat tip to Bleeding Heartland user rockm.)

The suspense would be greater if the message weren’t coming from the “Zaun for Congress” Facebook page and Twitter account.

Longtime Iowa politics watchers will recall that Zaun emerged from a crowded Republican primary to be the GOP nominee in Iowa’s third Congressional district in 2010. However, he fell short against Democratic incumbent Leonard Boswell. Zaun was just re-elected in 2012 to his third four-year term in the Iowa Senate, so he wouldn’t have to give up his set in the legislature to run for Congress next year. But from where I’m sitting, he’ll struggle to convince GOP primary voters to give him another chance to represent IA-03. He hasn’t delivered much for the party. During his time as the Senate Republican minority whip, he didn’t raise a lot of money for fellow Iowa Senate candidates, despite representing some of the wealthiest precincts in Iowa. 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 relevant comments are welcome in this thread.

Merry Christmas to everyone in the Bleeding Heartland community who celebrates the holiday, and peace on earth to all, regardless of religion. All topics are welcome in this open thread.

Last year I posted a few links on the origins of the Christmas narrative. Historians agree that the birth of Jesus was not one of the earliest Christian festivals, and it wasn’t until the fourth century that Christmas was widely celebrated on December 25 or January 6. No one knows the date of Jesus’ birth, and I had always assumed that the late December celebration stemmed from Christians appropriating pagan winter solstice festivities. However, Andrew McGowan offers a different theory on the Biblical Archaeology website.

There is another way to account for the origins of Christmas on December 25: Strange as it may seem, the key to dating Jesus’ birth may lie in the dating of Jesus’ death at Passover. […]

Around 200 C.E. Tertullian of Carthage reported the calculation that the 14th of Nisan (the day of the crucifixion according to the Gospel of John) in the year Jesus diedc was equivalent to March 25 in the Roman (solar) calendar.9 March 25 is, of course, nine months before December 25; it was later recognized as the Feast of the Annunciation-the commemoration of Jesus’ conception.10 Thus, Jesus was believed to have been conceived and crucified on the same day of the year. Exactly nine months later, Jesus was born, on December 25.d

This idea appears in an anonymous Christian treatise titled On Solstices and Equinoxes, which appears to come from fourth-century North Africa. The treatise states: “Therefore our Lord was conceived on the eighth of the kalends of April in the month of March [March 25], which is the day of the passion of the Lord and of his conception. For on that day he was conceived on the same he suffered.”11 Based on this, the treatise dates Jesus’ birth to the winter solstice.

Many people eat traditional family dishes on Christmas. I enjoy reading Patric Juillet’s account of the Provencal culinary traditions from this season. I don’t cook anything that elaborate at any time of year, but I do plan to make noodle kugel later today. Like many Jewish Americans, we marked Christmas Eve last night by eating Chinese food and watching a movie.

Representative Tom Latham’s surprise retirement announcement last Tuesday was an early Christmas present to some ambitious Republicans (who now have an opportunity to move up) as well as to Democrats (who now have a prayer of winning IA-03).

Here’s a new thread on potential GOP contenders for the vacant seat next year. My thoughts on many possible candidates are after the jump. Appearing on Iowa Public Television’s “Iowa Press” program, Latham said he does not expect to endorse a candidate in the GOP primary to represent IA-03. He added that he might become a lobbyist or work for a charity after leaving Congress.