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

Yesterday was Yom Kippur, the most important Jewish holiday. Naturally, the situation in Syria is on a lot of people’s minds and prompted some animated discussions between services. Our rabbi’s sermon focused on a freakish lightning strike at a Reform Jewish summer camp in June. Another popular topic of conversation for central Iowa Jews was University of Iowa running back Mark Weisman’s “tough choice” to play in the football game against Iowa State. Weisman felt obliged to honor his “commitment” to the Hawkeye football program. His father told the Des Moines Register a few days ago, “He wouldn’t let his teammates down, his coaches down, himself down, the whole nine yards […] It was a tough decision, but I think he made the right decision for him.”

As the old joke goes, ask any two Jews a question and you’ll hear three opinions. I heard lots of perspectives on Weisman’s choice yesterday. Many disapproved and felt he was setting a bad example for Jewish kids. (Almost 50 years after the fact, many American Jews are still proud of Sandy Koufax’s decision not to pitch in a World Series game on Yom Kippur.) But I heard someone comment that Yom Kippur would be almost over by the time the big game started at 5 pm anyway. The guy’s on a scholarship, and there are only twelve college football games in a year.

I knew lots of Jewish kids in college who didn’t observe Yom Kippur, and many Jewish adults don’t fast or spend the whole day in services. If marking the Day of Atonement is not particularly important to Weisman, who am I to say he should sit out a football game?

I will say this: I believe Coach Kirk Ferentz should have shown some leadership so that Weisman wasn’t made to feel that he would be letting the whole team down by not playing.  

Republican Party of Iowa Chair A.J. Spiker tried this week to end discussion over the unpopular decision to schedule the state GOP convention for July 2014. However, he was forced today to acknowledge that the State Central Committee cannot ignore criticism from a growing number of elected officials, GOP candidates, and even central committee members.

State Representative Walt Rogers inched closer to a Congressional bid in Iowa’s open first district, telling a group of Delaware County Republicans last night that he is forming an exploratory committee. Speaking to journalist Mike Wiser, Rogers said he would evaluate his potential to raise money, adding that each of his Iowa House colleagues in IA-01 have “encouraged me to run.” The following Iowa House Republicans represent parts of this Congressional district: Speaker Kraig Paulsen, Brian Moore, Lee Hein, Quentin Stanerson, Sandy Salmon, David Maxwell, Dawn Pettengill, and Josh Byrnes.

Bleeding Heartland recently posted background on Rogers here. I doubt fundraising will be a problem for him. Not only did he raise more than the average state lawmaker for his 2012 re-election bid, he has national connections. In fact, Rogers just returned from the GOPAC Emerging Leaders Summit in Tennessee. The two declared Republican candidates in IA-01, Steve Rathje and Rod Blum, are not powerhouse fundraisers.

Assuming Rogers runs for Congress, his main competition in the GOP primary will probably be Blum. He narrowly lost the 2012 primary to establishment favorite Ben Lange and is organizing around the district, including in Rogers’ home base of Black Hawk County. Blum would likely paint Rogers as a compromiser and opportunist, like he described Speaker Paulsen. Although Rogers wouldn’t bring as much baggage into this race as Paulsen might have done, he may be vulnerable to similar attacks as a member of the Iowa House Republican leadership team.

I am seeking comment from two Republicans in Linn County who are said to be considering the IA-01 race as well: former State Representative Renee Schulte and Paul Pate, a former state senator, Cedar Rapids mayor, and Iowa Secretary of State.

Side note: if Rogers runs for IA-01, both parties are likely to target the vacant Iowa House district 60 in Cedar Falls and Waterloo. While Republicans have a slight voter registration advantage there, no-party voters are the largest group, and President Barack Obama carried House district 60 in last year’s general election.

UPDATE: Added the official announcement from Rogers after the jump.

SECOND UPDATE: According to James Q. Lynch of the Cedar Rapids Gazette, Pate will enter the IA-01 primary field soon.

Iowa House Republicans failed in 2011 and again last summer to curtail Medicaid coverage of abortions in this state. A compromise passed near the end of this year’s legislative session gave the governor power to determine whether the state should reimburse abortion providers for certain Medicaid cases. However, administrators at the University of Iowa Hospitals in Iowa City have apparently let Governor Terry Branstad off the hook: the hospital no longer bills Medicaid for the handful of abortions that might be eligible for coverage.

Follow me after the jump for background and more details on the current policy.

You don’t have to travel to a natural area to see today’s featured plant. Ironweed grows near many Iowa roadsides as well as on prairies or in marshes, and its bright pink/purple color makes it easy to spot. After the jump I’ve posted several pictures of ironweed growing in a restored Dallas County prairie.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

Some potentially good news for Iowa waterways: after months of delays, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finally signed a work plan on new procedures for permitting and inspecting large livestock farms.

Iowa’s confined animal feeding operations create more untreated manure annually than the total sewage output of the U.S. population. An EPA report published last summer concluded that the DNR’s CAFO permitting and inspection protocols did not conform to the Clean Water Act.

Federal and state officials negotiated a draft work plan to address these problems last fall, and the plan was ready to be signed in January of this year. However, the DNR requested changes to the plan based on feedback from the Iowa Farm Bureau, which tries to protect corporate agriculture from effective public oversight. Governor Terry Branstad tried to intervene with EPA officials to reduce inspections of factory farms. (Click here to read the correspondence.) To the dismay of some environmentalists, the governor also insisted that EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy meet with industry representatives to discuss the CAFO inspection regime.

Although the final work plan isn’t ideal and provides for fewer in-person inspections than the earlier draft, the agreement looks like a big improvement on the status quo at the DNR. After the jump I’ve posted statements on today’s news from the DNR and environmental organizations that have been involved with this process. I also posted the seven-page work plan for inspecting thousands of CAFOs over the next five years. For more background, check out the EPA Region 7’s website and the Sierra Club Iowa chapter’s documents on CAFOs.

It will take a lot of follow through to make sure the DNR implements this plan. The agency indicated last fall that it would need thirteen new livestock inspector positions to meet Clean Water Act goals. Then DNR Director Chuck Gipp formally asked for eleven new positions in the 2014 budget, but Governor Branstad requested funding for only five new inspectors. Iowa Senate Democrats approved funding for thirteen new inspectors, but Iowa House Republicans supported the governor, and final budget for fiscal year 2014 included funding for just seven new DNR positions in this area.

Depending on how a possible diplomatic breakthrough develops, the U.S. House and Senate may not take any vote on authorizing the use of military force in Syria. However, several members of Congress and Iowa Congressional candidates have made additional comments on the situation since last week’s news roundup. I’ve posted the latest statements about military action in Syria after the jump and will update this post as needed.

UPDATE: Added reaction to President Barack Obama’s televised address on Syria this evening.

Wapello County Supervisor Steve Siegel is kicking off his campaign in Iowa Senate district 41 today with “ice cream social” events in Bloomfield (Davis County), Keosauqua (Van Buren County), Fairfield (Jefferson County), and Ottumwa (Wapello County). I’ve posted his campaign announcement after the jump, along with a map of Senate district 41.

Siegel is challenging first-term GOP State Senator Mark Chelgren, a top target for Democrats hoping to hold and if possible expand their 26 to 24 Iowa Senate majority. Chelgren’s victory by 10 votes over a Democratic incumbent in the Ottumwa-based district was among this state’s most shocking 2010 election results.

Any relevant comments are welcome in this thread. The latest voter registration numbers from the Secretary of State’s office indicate that Senate district 41 contains 15,203 registered Democrats, 11,572 Republicans, and 13,634 no-party voters.

School board elections take place all over Iowa today, and seven community colleges in our state have property tax levy renewal questions on the ballot. I encourage Bleeding Heartland readers to make your voices heard. Your vote is more likely to be decisive in a low-turnout local election. Regardless of whether you or any family members use public education, we all benefit from adequate funding for community colleges and competent leadership of K-12 school district boards. The Republican Party of Iowa is urging supporters to reject the community college tax levies.

I live in the West Des Moines school district, where as usual, there is no real competition: just three candidates this year for three spots on the school board. It’s still important to turn out, not only because of the Des Moines Area Community College tax levies, but also to prevent some “out there” write-in candidate from winning a school board seat with a few dozen votes. I’m biased against write-ins, because it’s not hard to get on the ballot in our state. If you want to serve on the school board, you shouldn’t hide behind some stealth agenda.

Many communities have highly competitive school board races. I haven’t studied all the candidates for Des Moines school board, but I do hope voters reject the incumbents. They were rubber stamps for former superintendent Nancy Sebring and have mishandled several controversial issues in recent years. Time for new blood on the Des Moines school board. A lot of Democrats I know are voting for Rob Barron, a longtime staffer for Senator Tom Harkin.

John Deeth has been covering the Iowa City elections at his site, including turnout, campaign funding, and teachers’ union endorsements.

I learned from Blog for Iowa that the city of Pleasant Hill wants to put a massive industrial warehouse next to Southeast Polk High School along Highway 163. That is insane. Mixing a bunch of semi trucks with inexperienced high school drivers is a recipe for disaster. Even if there aren’t any traffic fatalities, the idling trucks will pump out a lot of polluted air near the school, day in and day out.

Chris Essig of the Waterloo/Cedar Falls Courier observed on Sunday, “You might live in Iowa if… Wrestling being retained as an Olympic sport is the lead sports story over the NFL kicking off its season.” True that. You also might live in Iowa if politicians in both parties remind you how hard they worked to get wrestling back into the Olympics. Shortly after the International Olympic Committee’s vote on Sunday to reinstate one of Iowans’ most beloved sports for the 2020 summer Olympics and beyond, celebratory press releases from Representatives Dave Loebsack (D, IA-02) and Bruce Braley (D, IA-01) appeared in my in-box. I’ve posted those after the jump, along with comments Governor Terry Branstad made today at a telephone press conference.

Although I’m not a wrestling fan, I was very happy to hear the IOC corrected their idiotic mistake. You don’t have to follow the sport closely to comprehend that wrestling belongs in the Olympics. Few sports have as much history or connection to the Olympic tradition.

Any relevant comments are welcome in this thread. I recommend this ESPN feature on Iowa wrestling legend Dan Gable.

P.S.-The Branstad campaign’s “Let’s Keep Wrestling” website was the best list-building exercise I’ve ever seen in Iowa politics. The governor claims that more than 25,000 people supported their efforts.

Dubuque-based business owner Rod Blum is running an aggressive campaign for the Republican nomination in Iowa’s first Congressional district. Instead of waiting for Iowa House Speaker Kraig Paulsen to announce his expected candidacy, Blum went to Paulsen’s home-town newspaper to denounce him as an “opportunist” and “career politician.”  

With Paulsen out of the picture as a Congressional candidate, speculation has turned to State Representative Walt Rogers of Cedar Falls. (Blum has support from the “Liberty” wing of the Republican base, but many people in the GOP are looking for an alternative to him or Cedar Rapids-based businessman Steve Rathje.) Rogers has said he’s analyzing the IA-01 race. I am seeking comment on his plans and will update this post if I hear back from him.

Meanwhile, Blum’s campaign announced the creation of a Black Hawk County Steering Committee last week. I’ve posted the press release after the jump, including the names of more than two dozen steering committee members. Black Hawk County is the second-largest by population in IA-01, and Rogers would presumably need to do well in his home base to win the GOP nomination. Blum is better-known to Republican activists around the district, having nearly beaten establishment favorite Ben Lange in the 2012 primary to represent IA-01.

UPDATE: Justin Bartlett of Rogers’ Iowa House campaign responded to my request for comment, saying that Rogers “is still strongly considering a Congressional run.”

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee signaled today that Staci Appel will receive “early financial communications, operational and strategic support” in her campaign against ten-term Republican incumbent Tom Latham. The former state senator is one of nine new candidates added to the DCCC’s “Jumpstart” program for recruits the committee considers “standouts.”

Appel will be heavily favored in the IA-03 Democratic primary against Gabriel De La Cerda. Any Democrat will have an uphill battle against Latham, who tends to outperform the top of the Republican ticket and can raise money easily as a House Appropriations subcommittee chairman. The National Republican Congressional Committee is watching this race closely and has already added Latham to its incumbent protection program.

Any comments about the IA-03 race are welcome in this thread. The latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office indicate that the district contains 157,431 active registered Democrats, 164,289 Republicans, and 157,968 no-party voters.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? I’ve been thinking about math, or rather, the inability to do math. This fascinating article by Robert Charette exposes the “myth” of an alleged shortage of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) workers. The real problem in the U.S., Charette argues, is “a STEM knowledge shortage.”

To fill that shortage, you don’t necessarily need a college or university degree in a STEM discipline, but you do need to learn those subjects, and learn them well, from childhood until you head off to college or get a job. Improving everyone’s STEM skills would clearly be good for the workforce and for people’s employment prospects, for public policy debates, and for everyday tasks like balancing checkbooks and calculating risks.

Speaking of public policy debates, Congressional Republicans are poised for another showdown over the debt ceiling, armed with phony concern about a “growing” federal deficit. In fact, the deficit is falling at the fastest rate in decades, but very few Americans realize that, and self-appointed fact-checkers bend over backwards not to acknowledge it.

Speaking of the inability to count, Governor Terry Branstad’s administration has touted misleading “job creation” numbers for a long time, but the latest propaganda is “inflated” even if you accept the governor’s “bizarre” practice of counting only jobs created while not subtracting jobs lost.

Politicians aren’t the only ones who let ideology interfere with basic numeracy. This must-read piece by Chris Mooney summarizes findings from a new study: “people who are otherwise very good at math may totally flunk a problem that they would otherwise probably be able to solve, simply because giving the right answer goes against their political beliefs.”  Regardless of party affiliation, research subjects with higher math skills were better at solving a problem about the effectiveness of skin cream. When the same numbers were presented as evidence related to handgun bans, liberal Democrats and conservative Republicanss were more likely to arrive at the wrong answer if the correct answer went against their opinions about gun control and crime.

This is an open thread.

Elected officials in both parties welcomed Governor Terry Branstad’s decision this week to bring back Larry Noble as Iowa Department of Public Safety commissioner, but some important questions about Brian London’s disastrous tenure have yet to be answered.

Democrat Brian Meyer and Republican Michael Young were both unanimously chosen as candidates for the October 22 special election in Iowa House district 33 during nominating conventions on September 4. Background on Des Moines City Council member Meyer is after the jump; he became the consensus candidate in this heavily Democratic district two weeks ago, preventing a potentially messy nominating process.

Young is a Marine Corps veteran who has lived on the south side of Des Moines for most of his life. He serves on the city’s Access Advisory Board, dealing with implementation of the Americans With Disabilities Act.

It would be a monumental upset for Meyer to lose this election. Not only do Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly 5,000 in House district 33, south side voters have elected Meyer to the Des Moines City Council twice. Democrats would be wise to take nothing for granted in a low-turnout special, though.

This week’s featured Iowa native is one of the tallest of the tallgrass prairie plants. Like ox-eye, sawtooth sunflower, common sunflower, and its close relative cup plant, compass plant (Silphium laciniatum) is a member of the aster family with yellow flower heads. Its great height makes it easy to distinguish from the other yellow asters. Generations of people have used the plant to help find their way. Several photos of compass plant are after the jump.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome. Happy new year to the members of the Bleeding Heartland community who celebrate Rosh Hashanah.  

Governor Terry Branstad’s office announced today that the governor’s legal counsel Brenna Findley will serve as interim chief of staff until outgoing chief of staff Jeff Boeyink’s replacement is found. Having run Representative Steve King’s office in Washington for years, Findley is better-qualified for the chief of staff position than she is for her current job. She worked as an attorney only briefly after finishing law school and did not maintain an active license to practice in Iowa during her years on King’s staff. Branstad had to hire outside counsel to represent him in a high-profile lawsuit (at significant taxpayer expense), because Findley is a co-defendant in that case, accused of trying to strong-arm Iowa Workers’ Compensation Commissioner Chris Godfrey in 2011.

Branstad tapped Findley to be his legal counsel shortly after she lost the 2010 election for Iowa attorney general. He had promoted her candidacy heavily and even appeared in one of her campaign commercials, which he did not do for other GOP statewide candidates.

According to the press release I’ve posted after the jump, Branstad will name a permanent replacement for Boeyink sometime after September 18, when the governor is scheduled to return to Iowa from a trade mission to India and Japan.  

Governor Terry Branstad accepted Brian London’s resignation last night as head of the Iowa Department of Public Safety. This morning the governor announced that he is reappointing former State Senator Larry Noble to the position. Noble served as Department of Public Safety commissioner from January 2011 until June 2012.

Follow me after the jump for background on London’s short and rocky tenure.

Several members of Congress from Iowa spoke out about potential U.S. intervention in Syria last week, and Bleeding Heartland sought comment on the issue from the declared Congressional candidates. News clips and the statements I’ve received so far are after the jump. I will update this post as needed. Note: most of the comments enclosed below came before President Barack Obama confirmed on August 31 that he will seek Congressional authorization for a strike on Syria. (He never sought approval for military action in Libya two years ago and he believes he has “the authority to carry out this military action [in Syria] without specific congressional authorization”.)

I am 100 percent convinced that both the House and the Senate will approve the use of force in Syria, perhaps after revising the administration’s first draft, which “is not particularly constrained.”  

Any relevant comments are welcome in this thread. I am no expert on foreign policy or the Middle East, but my gut feeling is that military intervention will not accomplish anything good in Syria. It’s a “tall order” to “mount a limited, targeted, and effective strike that will indeed deter Assad without drawing the United States deeper into the ongoing civil war, causing unacceptable unintended consequences.” By the way, former State Department official William Polk wrote the most interesting analysis I’ve read so far about the situation there.