Former Republican Party of Iowa Chair Matt Strawn’s name came up earlier this year as a possible candidate for U.S. Senate, but don’t expect him to be a serious contender for any statewide office in the foreseeable future. News broke yesterday that the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois has hired the firm Strawn and two prominent Illinois Republicans founded earlier this year to to lobby GOP lawmakers in Illinois to support a bill legalizing same-sex marriage. This spring, Illinois appeared to be on the brink of adopting a marriage equality bill, but supporters never brought it up for a vote in the state House. They plan to try again when the legislature returns in November. Although Strawn’s partner Pat Brady, the former Illinois GOP chair, will do the heavy lifting on this job, social conservatives who dominate the Iowa GOP’s activist base will surely hold a grudge against Strawn.

I got a kick out of Craig Robinson’s rewriting of history yesterday, saying Strawn “abdicated” the Iowa GOP chairmanship, but that “some Iowa Republicans still consider him to have been a good chairman, especially in comparison to his successor.” Robinson was the loudest voice demanding Strawn’s resignation in the wake of the 2012 Iowa caucus vote-counting fiasco. Be careful what you wish for.

Governor Terry Branstad doesn’t care for our state’s merit selection process for nominating judges. He would prefer to nominate whomever he wants, subject to confirmation by the Iowa Senate, instead of being forced to appoint judges from short lists drawn up by the State Judicial Nominating Commission. But changing that procedure would require amending the Iowa Constitution, a lengthy process for which there is no support in the Iowa Senate. Branstad has moved to “correct” an imbalance by appointing Republicans to the State Judicial Nominating Commission. (Conservatives have long charged that Democrats came to dominate that commission under Governors Tom Vilsack and Chet Culver.)

Putting conservatives in a position to select judges is one thing, but is it too much to ask the governor to pick people with a clue about separation of church and state? Ryan J. Foley of the Associated Press reports today that Scott Bailey, a 2012 Branstad appointee, asked Assistant Iowa Attorney General Jeanie Vaudt during a public interview, “Did you make covenant vows with your husband, and do you feel you have or that you are breaking those in this situation?” Excerpts from Foley’s report are after the jump.

Judicial Nominating Commission members aren’t supposed to inquire about applicants’ marital status at all, let alone ask whether they are adhering to a “covenant” marriage. Vaudt was one of 22 applicants for a vacancy on the Iowa Court of Appeals and made the short list of three forwarded to Branstad last week.

Traditionally, the governor’s appointees to judicial nominating commissions are non-lawyers. Branstad ought to insist on non-lawyers with some clue about how the judicial system works. Red flags were there from the beginning with Bailey, a leader of the “Christ-centered” Network of Iowa Christian Home Educators who admitted on his own application that he would like “to help identify qualified candidates who will judge without partiality and uphold both civil and natural law.” Unfortunately, Bailey has been confirmed to serve on this commission through the end of January 2018. Here’s hoping that Branstad will be more discerning next time he fills a vacancy on the commission.

UPDATE: Radio Iowa posted the audio of Vaudt’s opening statement and Bailey’s question. Bailey commented to O.Kay Henderson, “I was happy that she and her husband were unified on this and it wasn’t causing a disturbance to their marriage.” Not a factor he needs to consider.

A growing number of rank and file Iowa Republican lawmakers are ready to see State Senator Kent Sorenson exit the political stage as soon as possible. While legislative leaders have remained silent on the issue, yesterday State Senator Brad Zaun and State Representative Clel Baudler both called on Sorenson to resign over allegations that he solicited and received payments in exchange for ditching Michele Bachmann’s presidential campaign for Ron Paul.  

The Republican Party of Iowa’s State Central Committee meetings rarely make news, but two proposals approved on August 24 could affect next year’s elections.

UPDATE: Added Governor Terry Branstad’s reaction at the end of this post.

SECOND UDPATE: Added reactions from Senator Chuck Grassley and several of the GOP candidates for U.S. Senate.

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

Students and staff at John Dickinson High School near Wilmington, Delaware built the world’s largest lego tower, standing at nearly 113 feet tall. It’s an impressive structure.

In response to Senator Al Franken’s boasting about the Minnesota State Fair (the country’s largest), Democratic Senate candidate Bruce Braley did a guest post at Buzzfeed on 18 reasons nothing compares to the Iowa State Fair. By far, my favorite item on his list is the giant yellow slide. He left out the all-time greatest butter sculpture, depicting the Last Supper.

Braley and I have very different taste in Iowa State Fair food. My top two picks are Bauder’s ice cream and lemonade from the Iowa Honey Producers’ booth in the Ag building. I am not a fan of corn dogs or pork chops on a stick, but for meat eaters I would recommend the lamb kebab from the Iowa Sheep Producers kiosk, just outside the sheep barn.

I love these maps showing how Americans feel about different states. Texas, California, and New York evoke the strongest opinions in several categories. Iowa wasn’t tops on any question. We were near the middle of the pack on “Which state is most underrated?” Al Franken might be proud to know that Minnesota outscored us on “Which state is the nicest?” Then again, Minnesota was a top 5 state on “Which state has the weirdest accent?”

Catching up on news from last week, the Iowa Supreme Court handed down three important decisions related to juvenile sentencing on August 16. I finally had a chance to read through the rulings, which do not guarantee early release for any prisoner but could allow hundreds of Iowans to have their sentences reviewed, if they were convicted for crimes committed as minors.

Follow me after the jump for background and key points from the three rulings. Unfortunately, Governor Terry Branstad still seems to be missing the point of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that set all of these cases in motion.

August 28 will mark 50 years since the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s March on Washington, where he delivered his most famous speech. To mark the occasion, the Pew Center released a report on racial disparities (real and perceived) in the U.S.

The analysis finds that the economic gulf between blacks and whites that was present half a century ago largely remains. When it comes to household income and household wealth, the gaps between blacks and whites have widened. On measures such as high school completion and life expectancy, they have narrowed. On other measures, including poverty and homeownership rates, the gaps are roughly the same as they were 40 years ago.

I strongly recommend clicking through to read the full report. What a treasure trove. Chapter 1 covers perceptions of progress toward racial equality. Chapter 2 covers opinions about “short-term progress for black Americans.” Chapter 3 “looks at a variety of economic, educational, health, political and social indicators to assess change in the relative well-being of black and white Americans in recent decades.” I wasn’t surprised to learn that white respondents are much more likely than African-Americans to say that “the situation of black people in this country is better now than it was five years ago.” It’s striking that only a minority of white respondents perceive that “blacks in their community are treated less fairly than whites by the criminal justice system, in the workplace and when voting in elections.”

This slideshow highlights the key findings from the Pew Center’s report, and this interactive feature tracks up to 50 years of data on “racial and ethnic gaps among whites, blacks, Asians and Hispanics.”  

Democrats on the south side of Des Moines may not have a competitive race to replace Kevin McCarthy in House district 33, but they’ll still be at the center of an exciting primary in Iowa Senate district 17. Former State Senator Tony Bisignano is already running in the district State Senator Jack Hatch currently holds, and former State Representative Ned Chiodo is leaning toward running. Assistant Iowa Attorney General Nathan Blake confirmed by telephone this week that he is also exploring a candidacy in Senate district 17, pending Hatch’s decision on whether to run for governor. Given that Hatch recently hired Grant Woodard to manage his exploratory committee and already ran a television commercial criticizing Governor Terry Branstad, I doubt there’s any realistic chance Hatch will seek another term in the Iowa Senate in 2014.

Blake has worked in the Consumer Protection Division of the Iowa Attorney General’s Office since 2011. He originally moved to Des Moines out of law school and, after a few years in private practice, worked on Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in Iowa in 2007 and 2008. Blake then served as special assistant to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Under Secretary for Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services Kevin Concannon.

Assuming Hatch runs for governor, the Senate district 17 Democratic primary could become an interesting generational battle between Bisignano and Chiodo, two war horses of the south side, and Blake, a relatively fresh face on the scene. Young professional Chris Diebel opted to run for the Des Moines City Council instead of for this Senate seat.

Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey announced yesterday that he has hired Mike Naig as the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship’s new deputy secretary. In the press release I’ve posted after the jump, Northey praised Naig as a “tremendous asset” and a “natural fit” for IDALS. Naig has spent the last 13 years working for Big Ag companies or trade associations, most recently as a state lobbyist for Monsanto.

While Naig helps the agriculture department be “accessible to Iowans by traveling regularly” to meetings, and assists in managing the IDALS budget and personnel, Northey will continue to ignore some big problems facing Iowa farmers. Research has implicated Monsanto’s genetically-modified “Roundup ready” seeds and/or glyphosate, the key ingredient in Roundup herbicide, in the following trends:

• the accelerated evolution of herbicide-resistant weeds;

• “sudden death syndrome,” a crop disease affecting soybeans;

• “harmful changes in soil” and possibly a “fungal root disease” in conventional crops;

• digestive problems in hogs fed a diet of GM crops;

• other diseases and reproductive problems observed in swine and cattle fed a diet containing Roundup ready corn and soybeans.

But never mind all that.

Speaking of government officials with their heads in the sand, you won’t hear anything from the Iowa Department of Public Health about the risks of glyphosate exposure in humans. Nevertheless, research has linked the key ingredient in Roundup herbicide to breast cancer, birth defects, obesity and other “diseases and conditions associated with a Western diet.”  

I’ve been on a prairie flower kick this summer, and today’s installment continues the trend. Several woodland wildflowers Bleeding Heartland featured last year are now blooming along Iowa trails and meadow edges, so if you’re walking or bicycling in a wooded area, keep your eyes open for the yellow blossoms of common evening primrose, wingstem, and cutleaf coneflower. I’ve seen some goldenrods flowering lately too.

Speaking of yellow flowers, I enclosed a bonus photo below of big bluestem on a restored prairie in Dallas County. Big bluestem is the “star component of the Big Four native grass species that characterize the tallgrass prairies of central North America.”

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

Following up on yesterday’s news, Des Moines City Council member Brian Meyer will be unchallenged for the Democratic nomination in Iowa House district 33, where a special election is set for October 22. The two Democrats who had announced campaigns, Karl Schilling and Joe Henry, both endorsed Meyer yesterday. Felix Gallagher confirmed by telephone today that he had considered running for the House seat but decided against the race. By the way, I forgot to mention that Gallagher was the treasurer for Desmund Adams’ campaign in Iowa Senate district 22 last year.

Meyer’s press release spoke of entering the race “in the hopes of unifying the party and continuing the good work of former Representative [Kevin] McCarthy.” I don’t see any urgency to unify the party in a district Republicans have no realistic hope of winning. The latest Civic Skinny column in the Des Moines weekly Cityview suggests another reason for Meyer to get into the race:

Word is that Marshalltown’s Mark Smith, who bested Des Moines’ Rick Olson, 24-20, in the caucus vote to succeed Kevin McCarthy as head of the Democrats in the Iowa House, has let go McCarthy’s key aide, Des Moines City Councilman Brian Meyer. The move has surprised – and upset – some Democrats. …

In all likelihood the Iowa House seat will be Meyer’s for as long as he wants it. That would force a special election to replace Meyer as the Des Moines City Council member representing Ward 4. Bleeding Heartland user Columcille raises the interesting possibility of Chris Diebel running for that seat, instead of challenging incumbent Skip Moore for the at-large council seat. UPDATE: A Bleeding Heartland reader alerted me to a big problem with that scenario: Diebel lives in Ward 3, not Ward 4 (city council map here).  

State Representative Pat Murphy announced yesterday that he has received the Communication Workers of America Iowa State Council’s endorsement as a Congressional candidate in Iowa’s first district. According to a press release I’ve posted after the jump, the CWA Iowa State Council approved the endorsement at a regional conference on August 19. Murphy’s campaign held off on spreading the news until August 20, the same day State Representative Anesa Kajtazovic made her Congressional campaign official. Incidentally, the president of CWA Local 7110 is Francis Giunta, longtime chair of Murphy’s Iowa House campaigns and his preferred candidate the last time Dubuque had an open Iowa House district. Chuck Isenhart defeated Giunta in the 2008 Democratic primary for that seat.

The CWA Iowa State Council is the fourth labor union to endorse the former Iowa House speaker in IA-01. With an estimated 4,500 members statewide, including retirees, it’s not nearly as large as AFSCME Iowa Council 61, which backed Murphy earlier this summer.

Any comments about the IA-01 campaign are welcome in this thread. At this point I consider Murphy the front-runner in the five-way Democratic primary. He has raised enough money to run a credible district-wide campaign, even if he doesn’t end up with the largest war chest. Three women candidates may split the votes of Democrats who want to make history with this election. Three candidates from the Cedar Rapids area will compete for support in the district’s most populous county. Labor activists will be helpful as Murphy tries to get out the vote before next June’s Democratic primary. If no candidate wins the primary outright with at least 35 percent of the vote, a district convention will select the nominee. Murphy has become acquainted with a huge number of activists in northeast Iowa during his long career in the state legislature. Furthermore, labor unions can provide the organization to get sympathetic county delegates elected at the precinct caucuses in January, and district delegates elected at the county conventions next spring.

Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean is visiting Iowa today. As the keynote speaker at the Iowa Federation of Labor Convention in Altoona, he will highlight Democracy for America‘s work on state legislative races. DFA’s “Purple to Blue” program “is a national, multi-year effort to win state House and Senate chambers across the country by making so-called ‘purple’ state legislative seats decisively Democratic.” That is a hugely important political project, and I am pleased to learn that Iowa is one of the states Democracy for America will be targeting.

Some national news reporters will view Dean’s travel schedule as a sign of renewed presidential aspirations, especially since he plans to give a health care policy speech in New Hampshire next month. Dean told the Des Moines Register today that he is supporting Hillary Clinton for president “at this point.” Even if Clinton doesn’t run for president again, I would be surprised to see Dean take another shot at the presidency. But admittedly, stranger things have happened.

Polk County Republican Party co-chair Chad Brown has resigned his office and switched his voter registration to no-party, Kathie Obradovich reported for the Des Moines Register today. Click through to read his resignation letter to the Polk GOP Executive Committee, which is as damning as any focus group comments or “autopsy” I’ve seen. Brown pointed out that Republicans have lost ground in Polk County, not just in the city of Des Moines but even in the suburbs. He has concluded that “we are now headed in the wrong direction on several fronts” and that he would only be “enabling” to help “a dysfunctional Party that does not want to address its problems.”

In his resignation letter, Brown wrote that he finds it “increasingly difficult to defend issues and statements made by Party leaders and officials” at the national, state, and local levels. Speaking to Obradovich by phone, Brown cited Representative Steve King’s recent comments about undocumented immigrants, guns, and what he characterized as “war on science and common sense” with respect to climate change.

UPDATE: The Sunday Des Moines Register published a guest column by Brown on August 25. Excerpts are after the jump. He plans to switch his party registration to Democrat.

Public policy has been slow to make a dent in the obesity epidemic, which turns out to be “a lot more deadly than previously thought.” But a new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control shows that Iowa is one of eighteen states where obesity among low-income preschoolers declined by a statistically significant amount from 2008 through 2011. An estimated 14.4 percent of low-income two- to four-year-olds in Iowa were obese in 2011. Iowa Department of Public Health officials credited several programs with helping to reverse the trend.

Adult obesity is still a major health problem, according to the latest “F as in Fat” report by the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Iowa had the twelfth-highest adult obesity rate in the country at 30.4 percent in 2012. The sort-of good news was that for the first time in decades, obesity rates held steady in most states. But it’s depressing to see that the adult obesity rate exceeds 20 percent in even the “healthiest” state of Colorado now. As recently as 1991, not a single state had an obesity rate that high.

Speaking to Radio Iowa about the new obesity estimates, Iowa Department of Public Health Director Mariannette Miller-Meeks had sensible advice:

“People don’t have to go out and do a programmed physical aerobics program for 30 minutes or an hour or two hours a day. […] Just eating less, a plant slant to your diet, and trying to get in 30 minutes of exercise a day.”

Mark my words: the Iowa Farm Bureau and other groups representing industrial agriculture will go nuts over Dr. Miller-Meeks encouraging Iowans to bring “a plant slant” to their diet, especially if she runs for Congress a third time in Iowa’s second district. But here’s an inconvenient truth for Big Ag: peer-reviewed research shows that “meat consumption is associated with obesity” in U.S. adults.

Here’s the second inconvenient truth: even if everyone ate responsibly and exercised regularly, Americans would be more prone to obesity because of exposure to certain chemicals, such as the endocrine disruptors Bisphenol-A (BPA) and phthalates, and some organotins used in pesticides. Long-term, low-level exposure to the prevalent herbicide atrazine can cause insulin resistance and obesity too (click here for an explanation of that research in layman’s terms).

Three years ago, a White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity called on federal and state agencies to “prioritize research into the effects of possibly obesogenic chemicals.” That won’t happen in my lifetime, at least not in Iowa.

P.S.- For anyone wondering, Iowa Department of Public Health Medical Director Dr. Patricia Quinlisk warns against ingesting a tapeworm as a weight-loss method.

State Representative Anesa Kajtazovic kicks off her Congressional campaign today with events in Marshalltown, Waterloo, Cedar Rapids, and Dubuque. I enclose her campaign’s press release after the jump. Like rival first district candidate Swati Dandekar, Kajtazovic emphasizes her life story as an example of the American dream. Like outgoing U.S. Representative Bruce Braley, Kajtazovic lives in Waterloo, and she describes herself in today’s announcement as a “Bruce Braley Democrat” who “will grow on his progressive legacy” in Congress.

I will update this post later for clips from Kajtazovic’s events today. Earlier this month she launched her campaign website and completed a “listening tour” of all 20 counties in the first Congressional district.

I highly recommend watching KWWL journalist Ron Steele’s interview with Kajtazovic, which aired over the weekend: part 1, part 2, and part 3.

Any comments about the IA-01 race are welcome in this thread. The district leans Democratic with a partisan voting index of D+5. According to the latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office, IA-01 contains 162,447 active registered Democrats, 136,290 Republicans, and 192,715 no-party voters. Kajtazovic will compete in the Democratic primary against former Iowa House Speaker Pat Murphy of Dubuque and three candidates from Linn County: former State Senator Dandekar, Cedar Rapids City Council member Monica Vernon, and Cedar Rapids-based attorney Dave O’Brien.  

Three candidates are competing for the Democratic nomination in Iowa House district 33, which Kevin McCarthy has vacated to take a position in the Attorney General’s Office. Because this district contains 8,142 registered Democrats, 3,334 Republicans, and 5,273 no-party voters, the Democratic nominee is almost guaranteed to win the October 22 special election.

After the jump I’ve posted background on Karl Schilling, Joe Henry, and Felix Gallagher, who are seeking to replace McCarthy, plus details on how the Democratic nominating convention will be conducted on September 4. Regardless of who wins the nomination, I hope all three candidates will compete in next year’s Democratic primary. On principle, I don’t believe ten people on a party central committee should decide who represents 30,000 people in the Iowa House.

I also enclose below a map of House district 33, which covers parts of south and southeast Des Moines.

UPDATE: On August 20 Schilling and Henry dropped out of the race after Des Moines City Council member Brian Meyer announced that he will seek the Democratic nomination for House district 33. Meyer will be the heavy favorite going into the September 4 convention, even if Gallagher stays in the race. I’ve enclosed Meyer’s press release at the end of this post.

How about a new thread on the Iowa caucuses? The off-year caucuses in 2014 could be extremely important on the Republican side. The U.S. Senate nomination could be decided at a statewide GOP convention, if no candidate wins at least 35 percent of the vote in the June primary. Furthermore, supporters of Governor Terry Branstad will need to focus on electing delegates at the precinct, county, and district levels, if rumors of an attempt to replace Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds on the ticket are accurate.

Democrats in the first Congressional district have extra incentive to turn out supporters for the 2014 caucuses as well, in case none of the five declared candidates in IA-01 wins at least 35 percent of the vote in the primary.

As for the next presidential-year caucuses, U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota was the featured speaker at the north Iowa Democrats’ “Wing Ding” event in Clear Lake last Friday. She indicated that she is not interested in running for president and even joked that Minnesota supplies the country with vice presidents. If Hillary Clinton does not run for president again, Klobuchar is one of several Democratic senators who might join the race.

Former U.S. Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts visited the Iowa State Fair on Sunday with his wife, Iowa native Gail Huff. He wants to know if there is substantial support for his “brand of leadership and Republicanism.” I can hardly imagine a worse fit than Brown for Iowa Republican caucus-goers.

Speaking of which, Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey signed a bill banning so-called gay conversion therapy for minors in his state. That intrusion on parental decision-making will be a deal-breaker for social conservatives.

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, the new darling of the Iowa Republican base, has released his birth certificate to show that he is eligible to run for president. He will also renounce his dual Canadian citizenship.

Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, my early pick to win the 2016 Iowa caucuses, previewed his future case against GOP members of Congress who may become rivals for the presidential nomination.

Following up on this post, I’ve been looking through the list of 1,040 county co-chairs for Governor Terry Branstad’s re-election campaign. Many former state lawmakers and most of the current Republicans in the Iowa legislature signed on in their home counties. I would expect all the sitting GOP legislators to cooperate with the Branstad campaign, because down-ticket candidates stand to benefit from a strong showing for the governor next November. However, four of the 24 Iowa Senate Republicans and fourteen of the 53 Iowa House Republicans have not signed on.

Follow me after the jump for details on which legislators signed on as Branstad-Reynolds volunteers and which are conspicuously absent. I have a few theories about why some people ended up in each group, but some choices surprised me.

UPDATE: Some of the absent names may simply have been unable to respond to the governor’s campaign in time to be included in today’s release. For example, Iowa House Majority Whip Chris Hagenow contacted me to clarify that he is co-chairing the Branstad-Reynolds campaign. I will continue to update this post as needed.

Governor Terry Branstad’s re-election campaign revealed today that it has recruited 1,040 county co-chairs, including multiple volunteers in every county. I’ve posted the official announcement below. You can view the full list of Branstad-Reynolds co-chairs here (pdf). The campaign plans to line up chairs in every Iowa precinct.

This show of organizational force will cement the conventional wisdom that Branstad is favored to win a sixth term, assuming he seeks re-election. It may also fuel rumors in some Iowa Democratic circles that the governor is planning to stand aside for Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds. The deliberate branding of “Branstad-Reynolds,” which Bleeding Heartland discussed here, is apparent in today’s press release. Every testimonial from a county co-chair mentions the “governor and lieutenant governor” as a unit, as well as both Branstad and Reynolds by name.

The governor and lieutenant governor have made fourteen joint public appearances in the last two weeks alone. That’s consistent with the Branstad administration’s pattern in recent months but a departure from the traditional role of Iowa’s lieutenant governors, who have largely handled events the governor doesn’t have time to attend. Some Democrats believe that Reynolds is being groomed to step in as the candidate.

If Branstad bows out shortly before the filing deadline next March, an organization with more than 1,000 volunteers could easily collect enough signatures for Reynolds to qualify for the ballot as a gubernatorial candidate. In contrast, other Republicans would be hard-pressed to collect at least 3,654 valid signatures spread across at least ten counties on short notice.

I still believe Branstad will run for re-election, barring some catastrophic health event. Any comments about the governor’s race are welcome in this thread.

P.S.- An alternate rumor has Branstad planning to resign in the middle of his sixth term, turning the office over to Reynolds. Perhaps for that reason, some conservative Republicans are plotting to try to replace Reynolds on the ticket at next summer’s statewide convention, according to longtime political reporter Mike Glover. Branstad told reporters today, “We’re not afraid of any challenge” to Reynolds for the lieutenant governor slot.