What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread. I’ve been thinking about Iowa icons. A separate post is in progress summing up “lowlights” from U.S. Senator Ted Cruz’s two-day visit.

On Friday my Facebook and Twitter feeds were full of tributes to Peggy Whitworth, who lost her battle with cancer at the age of 71. She was an influential activist and mentor to countless Democrats in Linn County and statewide. The Iowa Democratic Party gave Whitworth a Hall of Fame award two years ago, and she continued to take leadership volunteer roles for Barack Obama’s re-election campaign and Brad Anderson’s bid to become Iowa’s secretary of state.

Former U.S. Representative Ed Mezvinsky recently donated his papers to Iowa State University. The collection looks extremely interesting, even if some of the House Judiciary Committee papers related to the Watergate investigation will be sealed until August 2024. A native of Ames, Mezvinsky narrowly lost his first Congressional campaign in 1970 but was elected to represent Iowa’s first district in 1972. (This Mezvinsky television commercial, playing on his difficult-to-pronounce name, is a classic.) He served two terms in the House before losing to Jim Leach in 1976. The boxes donated to Iowa State include material from Mezvinsky’s various political campaigns in Iowa and later in Pennsylvania, but not material related to fraud and other crimes for which he served five years in federal prison.

In all the years I watched “The Simpsons,” I never knew that Marcia Wallace, the voice of Mrs. Krabappel, was born and raised in Creston, Iowa. She died recently at the age of 70, and “The Simpsons” will retire her character. During the 1970s, Wallace played Bob receptionist on “The Bob Newhart Show”–an underrated sitcom in my opinion.

Johnny Carson grew up in Nebraska, but he was born in a small house in Corning, Iowa (Adams County). Locals recently completed a restoration of the house, where some mementos of the longtime “Tonight Show” host are on display.

I highly recommend a visit to the restored Orpheum Theater in Marshalltown, where you can find memorabilia from Marshalltown native Jean Seberg, a famous actress from the 1950s to the 1970s. A new documentary about Seberg’s life will premiere at the Third Annual Jean Seberg International Film Festival, which will take place at the Orpheum from November 15 to 17.  

State Representative Anesa Kajtazovic received her first labor endorsement this week in the Democratic primary to represent Iowa’s first Congressional district. The United Food and Commercial Workers Locals 431 and 1149 decided to support Kajtazovic because “she understands better than anyone the concerns of Iowa’s working families,” and “She shares the experience of arriving to Iowa as an immigrant with many of our members.” According to the press release I’ve posted after the jump, the UFCW Locals 431 and 1149 represent more than 2,500 workers living in IA-01.

Former Iowa House Speaker Pat Murphy had seven organized labor endorsements going into this week. Today his campaign announced that Murphy has the backing of five more labor unions: the Iowa State Association of Letter Carriers, the Iowa Statewide American Postal Workers Union, Iowa Statewide United Transportation Union (SMART Union), Statewide Ironworkers Labor Union Local 89, and the Teamsters Local 90. I enclose the full press release below. It does not mention the number of members who live in IA-01.

The Cedar Rapids/Iowa City Building Trades Council endorsed Cedar Rapids City Council member Monica Vernon last month. The other two Democrats running in IA-01 are Dave O’Brien, who supports organized labor’s agenda, and Swati Dandekar, who was not known as a pro-labor member of the Iowa House and Senate.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris announced yesterday that her office and “the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) have jointly secured a $1 million civil settlement against two out-of-state organizations for violations of the California Political Reform Act.” In addition, a political group registered in Iowa called the “California Future Fund for Free Markets” is supposed to to pay a $4.08-million penalty to the state of California. The 501(c)4 group American Future Fund, run by longtime Iowa Republican operative Nick Ryan, was the sole source of funding for the now-defunct California Future Fund for Free Markets.

Follow me after the jump for details on the scheme to evade California’s campaign finance disclosure rules last year.

Via Radio Iowa I saw that a report just came out about spending in judicial elections across the country in 2011 and 2012. Researchers from the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, the National Institute on Money in State Politics, and the nonpartisan group Justice at Stake collaborated on the report, which you can download here (pdf). Excerpt:

Spending in the Iowa Supreme Court retention election totaled more than $833,000 in 2012, down from the $1.4 million spent in 2010 but still substantial in a state with no recorded spending on high court races during the previous decade. Anti-retention groups spent $466,000 on the 2012 election, including $318,000 by Iowans For Freedom and $148,000 by the National Organization for Marriage. Both groups ran television ads. Pro-retention groups spent $367,000, including $320,000 by Justice Not Politics, $37,000 by the Iowa State Bar and roughly $5,000 each by Progress Iowa and the Human Rights Campaign.

Major donors to Iowans for Freedom (a campaign group fronted by Bob Vander Plaats) included “CitizenLink, Patriot Voices, The Family Leader, the National Organization for Marriage, and CatholicVote.” Of the $466,000 spent on the “No Wiggins” campaign, an estimated $163,600 went toward broadcasting two television commercials. Bleeding Heartland posted videos and transcripts of those ads here and here.

Justice David Wiggins didn’t create a campaign fund or raise money directly. The largest donor to Justice Not Politics Action was the LGBT advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, which gave $135,000. That’s more than a third of the total funds spent campaigning for retention.

Iowa voters retained Wiggins by a margin of 680,284 votes to 567,024 (about 54.5 percent to 45.5 percent). Whereas just ten counties had voted to retain the three Iowa Supreme Court justices up for retention in 2010, 36 counties voted yes on Wiggins in 2012.

The wildflower season is winding down, but I plan to do a few more of these posts before putting the series on break for the winter.

Most Iowa wildflowers have gone to seed, but you may still find some goldenrods or asters blooming on prairies or at woodland edges. After the jump I’ve enclosed several photos of a striking yellow aster I found recently along the Meredith bike trail between Gray’s Lake and downtown Des Moines.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

The Branstad administration has offered no response more than one month after the Iowa Accountability Project submitted a request for open records pertaining to the 'gross over the month employment gains' statistic invented by Iowa Workforce Development. Progress Iowa issued the request as part of the project, to determine how the newly invented number is calculated, as it is not recognized by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

The request was made thirty four days ago, on September 19th. According to the Iowa Open Records Law, delay in permitting examination and copying of public records 'shall not exceed' 20 calendar days and ordinarily 'should not exceed' 10 business days. A copy of the request letter can be found by clicking here.

For the first time yesterday, I heard radio commercials supporting Chris Diebel’s campaign for the at-large Des Moines City Council seat. The National Association of Realtors Fund paid for the radio spots. I managed to tape one this morning and have posted the transcript after the jump, along with a comment from Diebel.

Both Diebel and Skip Moore, the incumbent he is challenging, are Democrats, but the realtors’ ad seems designed to appeal to Republican-leaning voters. The election will take place on November 5.

During the past ten days, two people who are well-known to Iowa Democrats have endorsed Anesa Kajtazovic for Congress: Tim Dwight and Zach Wahls. A former Iowa Hawkeyes star and successful professional football player, Dwight now runs the solar energy company iPowerCorp and is president of the Iowa Solar/Small Wind Energy Trade Association. In recent years he has lobbied state legislators to help make Iowa a leader in “distributed generation, which is solar, small wind and also solar thermal.” Distributed generation holds many economic benefits beyond what Iowa gains through large wind farms.

Since her first election to the Iowa House in 2010, Kajtazovic has recognized the huge potential for solar energy in Iowa. She has supported several bills to promote solar power, including new state tax credits enacted in 2012. That law reduced the payback time for small solar power systems installed in Iowa homes and businesses. Dwight described her as “a true champion for solar.” After the jump I’ve posted the press releases announcing support from Dwight and Wahls and a video of Kajtazovic discussing her work on solar power.

Wahls gained national fame as an advocate for marriage equality when a video of his comments to an Iowa House hearing went viral in 2011. He was a speaker at the 2012 Democratic National Convention. John Deeth was to my knowledge the first to report that Wahls was supporting Kajtazovic for Congress. On Monday, her campaign confirmed that endorsement.

Underscoring the candidate’s appeal to a younger generation, Dwight spoke of Kajtazovic’s “fresh ideas,” while Wahls said “it’s time for fresh, new voices” in Washington. Kajtazovic is the only candidate under age 50 in the five-way Democratic primary to represent IA-01. In the press release announcing Wahls’ support, she condemned former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum’s views on equality for LGBT couples. Santorum recently endorsed State Representative Walt Rogers, a Republican candidate in IA-01. Whatever other issues may divide Democratic voters in this district, you can bet that all of them dislike Santorum’s politics.

Any relevant comments are welcome in this thread.

Maria Bribriesco announced today that she is running for Iowa Senate district 47 in 2014. The district covers parts of Scott County, including Bettendorf, some neighborhoods in Davenport, and several small towns. Before retiring, Bribriesco was a longtime civilian attorney with the U.S. Army at Rock Island Arsenal, a major employer in the Quad Cities. I’ve posted her campaign press release containing more biographical information after the jump, along with a detailed map of the district. In 2012, Bribriesco unsuccessfully ran against State Representative Linda Miller in House district 94, which covers half of Senate district 47.

The Republican incumbent in Senate district 47 is Roby Smith, who defeated the previous senator Dave Hartsuch in the 2010 GOP primary. Although I haven’t heard anything official and Smith hasn’t updated his campaign website, I assume he will seek re-election next year. I enclosed the bio from his 2010 campaign website below. Smith is an assistant Senate minority leader and serves on the Senate committees on Appropriations, Ways & Means, State Government, and Education (where he is the ranking member).

I consider Smith favored to hold Senate district 47, which contained 13,959 registered Democrats, 15,667 Republicans, and 19,813 no-party voters as of October 2013. However, last year Barack Obama defeated Mitt Romney in Senate district 47 by 50.65 percent to 48.31 percent.  

Des Moines City Council member Brian Meyer won today’s special election in Iowa House district 33 by a convincing margin of 1,380 votes to 363 (79.1 percent to 20.8 percent), according to unofficial results. Although Governor Terry Branstad recorded robocalls to get out the vote for Republican candidate Michael Young, it wasn’t enough to overcome the overwhelming Democratic advantage in this district. Meyer was previously a top aide to Iowa House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, whose resignation in August left this seat open. Today’s outcome means that for now, the Republican majority in the Iowa House remains 53-47.

I wish Meyer well but regret that other potentially good candidates stepped aside before the Democratic nominating convention. Two of the three people who strongly considered this race would have become Iowa’s first Latino state legislator. Instead, we have another white male insider in the Iowa House.

Meyer’s victory opens up a Des Moines City Council. Joe Henry, who had announced a campaign in House district 33 before Meyer got in the race, is a likely candidate to replace Meyer on the council.

Any relevant thoughts are welcome in this thread. A press release from the Iowa House Democrats is after the jump.

Iowa House Republican Julian Garrett will face former Iowa House Democrat Mark Davitt in the November 19 special election to represent Iowa Senate district 13. The district covers Madison County and most of Warren County. State Senator Kent Sorenson resigned earlier this month, forcing a special election to fill the vacant seat. The winner will be up for re-election in 2014.

Senate district 13 is a must-hold for the GOP if they want to win a Senate majority in 2014. For that reason, many state party leaders and several Iowa Senate Republicans attended the nominating convention on October 17. Garrett went into the convention as the only announced candidate and easily won the nomination on the first ballot. Kevin Hall liveblogged the event for The Iowa Republican. I expected at least one far-right Republican to compete for the nomination, but I was surprised to learn that delegates nominated three alternatives to Garrett. Unsuccessful 2012 Iowa House candidate Steve McCoy was an obvious choice, but I wouldn’t have guessed that Republican National Committeewoman Tamara Scott would run for the Iowa Senate. I’d never heard of the third candidate, David Keagle, and I couldn’t find much information about him, other than his past donation to former Iowa House Republican Glen Massie.

Democratic delegates nominated Davitt at a special Senate district 13 convention last night. This race will be an uphill climb; as of October 1, the district contained 13,293 registered Democrats, 15,013 Republicans, and 15,909 no-party voters. That said, upsets can happen in a low-turnout environment. McCoy spoke harshly of the GOP establishment during the nominating convention. If from tea party Republicans stay home on November 19, hoping to nominate one of their own in the primary next June, strong GOTV could win it for Davitt.  

After the jump I’ve posted Garrett’s official bio, a Senate Democrats press release containing background on Davitt, and a map of Senate district 13. Any relevant comments are welcome in this thread.

Three weeks into the launch of exchanges where millions of Americans are supposed to shop for private health insurance, the federal Healthcare.gov website is still a disaster. At a White House press conference today, President Barack Obama promised a massive effort to fix the problems and highlighted other benefits of the 2010 Affordable Care Act.

After the jump I’ve posted news and analysis related to the botched rollout of the health insurance exchanges. Any comments related to the 2010 health care reform law are welcome in this thread. It’s worth noting that Democrats in the Iowa legislature favored creating a state-run exchange, which would have eliminated the need for Iowans to purchase insurance through the screwed-up federal website. But Governor Terry Branstad insisted on a state-federal partnership, under which the federal government would administer the website for finding health insurance.

Hopes to bring passenger rail service from Chicago to Iowa City and eventually to Des Moines and Council Bluffs appear to be dead. For the last three years, State Senator Matt McCoy tried to secure state matching funds for a federal passenger rail grant, citing many possible economic benefits to Iowa. Both Governor Terry Branstad and Iowa House Republicans have opposed allocating funds toward new passenger rail. Speaking to the Sunday Des Moines Register’s William Petroski, McCoy blamed Iowa House Republicans, not the governor, for killing the project. House Speaker Kraig Paulsen told the Register that his caucus did not see the project as a “wise investment.”

I’ve posted excerpts from yesterday’s story after the jump. Neither McCoy nor Paulsen mentioned that the Iowa House speaker works for a trucking company. The trucking industry generally opposes improvements to rail infrastructure. Paulsen’s closed mind on passenger rail is one reason I was disappointed when he decided against running for Congress.

UPDATE: Added new comments from Branstad after the jump.

Apologies for not putting up this weekend’s open thread sooner. What’s on your mind?

The weather was good this morning for runners in the IMT Des Moines Marathon and Half Marathon. Congratulations to anyone in the Bleeding Heartland community who raced today. I saw that Iowa Workers’ Compensation Commissioner Chris Godfrey, who is suing the state after Governor Terry Branstad tried to force him out of his job, ran the half in an excellent time of 1:50:59 (8:29 per mile).

Yesterday was an abysmal day for college football in Iowa, as all three state universities lost in painful fashion. Paraphrasing a question posed by a friend last night, what do you think is the worst way to lose a football game? Blowing a three-touchdown lead in the second half before losing in double overtime, as the University of Northern Iowa Panthers did? Building a halftime lead against a heavily favored team before dashing your fans’ hopes, as the Iowa Hawkeyes did? Or almost getting shut out 71-0 before scoring a touchdown in the final minute, as the Iowa State Cyclones did? To my mind, the UNI loss would be the most painful by far, but the ISU loss would be the most embarrassing.

Speaking of which, as a West Des Moines Valley High School alumna I was appalled to see that on Friday night, Valley defeated Council Bluffs Jefferson by 88-0. Running up the score like that is arguably inappropriate in any football game, but especially in high school. What a lack of sportsmanship and failure of leadership by Valley’s coach. In conversations with me yesterday, several Valley fans defended him, saying put in second-string and third-string players after the team went up by 30 or 40 points. I say there must be a way to run down the clock in a football game without scoring an extra eight or nine touchdowns you don’t need. They humiliated the other team in front of their home-town fans.  

As a member of the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB), I have been asked by consumers how the rules recently got changed in the National Organic Program (NOP) to make it easier for synthetic materials on the National List of Approved Materials to be relisted when they sunset after five years (as required by law).  To clarify, any synthetic materials approved for use in organic production and handling must be approved by the NOSB by a two-thirds majority vote.  And, by law, those materials sunset in five years and must be re-approved by the NOSB to remain on the National List.  

The recent rule change — made by USDA without consultation with the NOSB — turns the voting upside down, changing the voting for sunseting materials from a former two-thirds majority to re-approve a sunseting material to two-thirds majority to de-list a sunseting material.  As Jim Riddle, long-time leader in the organic community and former Chair of the NOSB points out below in a letter to the Organic Trade Association (who supports the rule change), that is a huge change.  

Although Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller hasn’t made any official announcement about plans to seek a ninth term in 2014, he recently previewed what could become central themes of a re-election campaign. Storm Lake Times editor Art Cullen made a splash in the Iowa newspaper world last month with editorials calling for Miller to retire. Cullen cited the attorney general’s position on open records controversies and his alleged efforts to thwart the work of Iowa’s ombudsman. Newspapers including the Des Moines Register and the Des Moines-based weekly Cityview republished Cullen’s case for Miller to step aside and clear the path for “an attorney general for the people.” Des Moines Register columnist Rekha Basu cited several other troubling examples of how Miller has lost his way in recent years.

To defend his work and “set the record straight,” Miller wrote guest editorials for various publications. You can read his specific rebuttals to Cullen here. I was more interested in the list of achievements he cited as proof that “in the last few years,” the Attorney General’s office has “done more than ever to serve Iowans.” It sounds like the kernel of a stump speech or television commercial to me. I’ve posted those excerpts after the jump.

Please share any relevant thoughts in this thread. I haven’t heard yet about a Republican challenger to Miller, but I would not be surprised to see his 2010 opponent Brenna Findley take another shot next year. She is currently Governor Terry Branstad’s legal counsel and just completed a six-week stint as the governor’s interim chief of staff.

Most Americans are relieved the federal government will be fully operational again this week, but the short-term deal on the 2014 budget and debt ceiling isn’t popular on the right wing of the Republican base. I got a kick out of this “Tea Party Insult Generator” based on real comments posted to House Speaker John Boehner’s Facebook page.

Of the members of Congress who may run for president in 2016, only Representative Peter King of New York voted yes on the deal to reopen the government (the House roll call is here, and the Senate roll call is here). King isn’t a real contender for the GOP nomination anyway; he would be running for president to send a message.

House Budget Committee Chairman and former Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan voted no last night, as did Senators Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz. After the jump I’ve posted statements from all of those politicians about the deal. Their talking points will make a good impression on likely Iowa Republican caucus-goers, even if the events of the last few weeks have hurt the GOP on the generic Congressional ballot.

Any comments about the federal budget, debt ceiling, or next presidential campaign are welcome in this thread.  

The Central Iowa Building and Construction Trades Council is standing by its endorsement of former State Senator Tony Bisignano in the Democratic primary to represent Iowa Senate district 17. Bisignano is one of three Democrats running for the seat State Senator Jack Hatch is vacating in order to run for governor. Bisignano was recently arrested for driving with a blood alcohol level over the legal limit. Commenting on that arrest, Cityview’s Civic Skinny columnist noted that supporters of Ned Chiodo “think Bisignano should drop out.” Both Chiodo and Bisignano have a political base on the south side of Des Moines. The third candidate, Nathan Blake, lives in the Sherman Hill neighborhood near downtown.

The latest edition of Cityview contains a letter to the editor by Earl Agan Jr., president of the Central Iowa Building and Construction Trades Council. He explains why his group “reaffirmed” its support for Bisignano last week. I’ve posted excerpts from Agan’s letter after the jump.

Any comments about the race in Iowa Senate district 17 are welcome in this thread. The winner of the Democratic primary is almost certain to succeed Hatch in the Senate. As of October 2013, Senate district 17 contained 16,943 registered Democrats, 7,179 Republicans, and 11,256 no-party voters.

The U.S. Senate and House voted tonight to fund the federal government through mid-January 2014 and raise the debt ceiling by enough to last until early February. Here’s the bullet-point version of the deal Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid negotiated with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. In classic Congressional fashion, senators loaded this must-pass bill with a bunch of goodies. A new House and Senate conference committee will negotiate over the federal budget for fiscal year 2014, and that committee must reach some agreement by December 13. The big sticking point will be whether to fund the government at levels approved for fiscal year 2013 before the “sequester” cuts went into effect in January.

Tonight the Senate approved the deal first by 81 votes to 18. All the Democrats, including Iowa’s Tom Harkin, and most Senate Republicans supported the deal to reopen the government. Our state’s senior Senator Chuck Grassley was one of the 18 no votes.

House Speaker John Boehner reluctantly agreed to put the bipartisan Senate agreement up for a vote on the House floor. He had wanted to bring up a different bill, but a “stunning rebuke” from GOP colleagues forced him to abandon a House vote yesterday on his latest plan.

The House approved the deal by 285 votes to 144. Every Democrat present voted yes, including Bruce Braley (IA-01) and Dave Loebsack (IA-02). Tom Latham (IA-03) was among 87 Republicans who also voted yes. Steve King (IA-04) was one of the 144 House Republicans who voted no. He has long demanded that “Obamacare” be defunded as a condition of funding the federal government, and he does not believe that the U.S. faced a real risk of default if Congress failed to raise the debt ceiling by October 17.

I enclose below some Iowa reaction to today’s events. I will update this post as needed.  

Today Tom Rubel became the second Democrat to enter the race in Iowa Senate district 41, a strong pickup opportunity in 2014. First-term Republican State Senator Mark Chelgren currently represents the district, covering the population centers of Wapello and Jefferson counties, plus all of Davis and Van Buren counties. I’ve posted a map after the jump. According to the Iowa Secretary of State’s office, Senate district 41 contained 15,169 registered Democrats, 11,558 Republicans, and 13,698 no-party voters as of October 2013.

Rubel is a former superintendent of the Ottumwa Community School District and is now executive dean of Regional Economic Advancement at Indian Hills Community College. More background is in his campaign announcement, which I’ve also posted below. He is the second Wapello County-based Democrat to enter this race. Wapello County Supervisor Steve Siegel kicked off his campaign in September. Ed Malloy, the mayor of Fairfield in Jefferson County, is considering this race too. Presumably Malloy would have a better chance in a primary against two people splitting the Ottumwa vote.

Any relevant comments are welcome in this thread.