The Brennan Center for Justice released a new study today in which Alicia Bannon analyzed judicial vacancies in federal district courts. Key finding: “for the first time in 20 years, judicial vacancies averaged more than 60 vacant seats for five straight years from 2009-2013, breaking historic patterns and delaying the resolution of critical legal disputes in civil and criminal trials.” You can find the whole report on “Trial Courts in Trouble” here. After the jump I’ve posted the Brennan Center’s press release and an excerpt from the report’s introduction, along with some comments by Jonathan Bernstein.

Since Barack Obama became president, Senate Republicans have increasingly delayed consideration of district court nominees, whereas previously only appeals court and Supreme Court judges could expect a politicized confirmation process.

Senator Chuck Grassley, the ranking GOP senator on the Judiciary Committee since 2011, has claimed that Republicans are voting on more judicial nominees this year than Senate Democrats did early in President George W. Bush’s second term. However, Bannon’s research confirms earlier analysis showing that Obama’s judicial nominees are waiting longer for votes than Bush’s did. Four and a half years into Bush’s presidency, the Senate had placed more of his judges on the bench. Unfortunately, Obama has also been “slower to nominate” judges than either Bush or President Bill Clinton.

After several months of preparations, Jim Mowrer made it official today: he is challenging Representative Steve King in Iowa’s fourth Congressional district. I’ve posted his formal announcement after the jump. His campaign is on the web here and also on Facebook and twitter.

Mowrer grew up in Boone and lived in Des Moines for a time after his tour in Iraq. He headed the Iowa Veterans for Joe Biden committee in 2007 and was Midwest Veterans Chair for the Obama-Biden campaign in 2008. He was a private contractor in Iraq during 2009 before getting a job as special assistant to the Under Secretary of the Army in the U.S. Department of Defense. Mowrer has also been a senior adviser to Vote Vets, a political advocacy group focused on veterans’ issues.

Mowrer recently resigned from his Pentagon job and returned to Boone with his wife and two sons. Speaking to Radio Iowa, he criticized politicians who focus on partisan sound bites rather than accomplishments:

“The work that I did there [at the Pentagon] was on making the Army and our defense more efficient and effective and saving taxpayer dollars and ensuring that we have the strongest Army the world has ever seen,” Mowrer said, “so I’m running for congress because I saw firsthand the problems and the damages that a broken congress can cause and I want to be a part of the solution.” […]

“Democrats and Republicans need to work together to get things done,” Mowrer said. “Regardless of party, people on extremes on both sides need to come to the table to find common sense solutions to make sure they protect middle class families like the one I grew up in.” […]

“Steve King isn’t working for Iowans. He’s not working for the 4th district and I have a record of actually getting things done,” Mowrer said.

Mowrer would need strong Democratic turnout and probably 70 percent of the independents to have any prayer against King. As of July 2013, IA-04 contained 127,701 registered Democrats, 178,309 Republicans, and 173,985 no-party voters.

UPDATE: Ben Nesselhuf resigned as South Dakota Democratic Party chair in order to manage Mowrer’s campaign. I’ve also added Mowrer’s official bio below.

David Osterberg stepped down yesterday as executive director of the Iowa Policy Project, Iowa’s leading think tank. A legendary figure in this state’s environmental community, Osterberg served six terms in the Iowa House, chairing the Agriculture Committee for four years and the Energy and Environmental Protection Committee for two years. He has received honors and awards from many non-profit organizations and was the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate against Chuck Grassley in 1998.

In 2001, Osterberg created the Iowa Policy Project “to bring a fact-based focus to public policy issues affecting Iowa families.” The organization’s research reports and Iowa Policy Points blog are must-reads for anyone interested in state policy. In conjunction with the Des Moines-based Child and Family Policy Center, the Iowa Policy Project also publishes valuable research on the Iowa Fiscal Partnership website. The latest Iowa Fiscal Partnership report shows how food assistance programs in the Farm Bill affect thousands of Iowans.

I was pleased to read in the statement enclosed below that Osterberg will keep working with the Iowa Policy Project on energy and environment research, and longtime assistant director Mike Owen will take over as executive director.  

Ronald Reagan was 69 years old in 1980 and 73 years old in 1984. George H.W. Bush was 64 when first elected president and 68 when he ran for re-election. John McCain was 71 when nominated for president in 2008. Yet Republican politicians and strategists appear to believe that Hillary Clinton’s age and long time on the national stage will be potent factors working against her possible candidacy in 2016. One experienced GOP campaign hand even believes Democrats will raise concerns about Clinton’s age before Republicans will.

Dream on.  

The path appears clear for passionately conservative State Representative Jason Schultz to move up to Iowa Senate district 9 in next year’s election. Longtime State Senator Nancy Boettger announced Friday that she will retire. Although she’s one of the longest-serving Iowa Senate Republicans, she’s never played a particularly important role. The last three Senate minority leaders haven’t tapped Boettger for their leadership teams.

Boettger’s retirement creates a career advancement opportunity in the strongly Republican Senate district 9. The two obvious potential candidates are State Representatives Matt Windschitl and Jason Schultz, who represent both halves of the district in the Iowa House. Within hours, Schultz announced his Senate candidacy. Windschitl told The Iowa Republican blog over the weekend that he will stay in the Iowa House. Windschitl is one of the GOP’s rising stars and serves as an assistant House majority leader, but he’s drawn criticism from some “pro-life” activists as not strong enough on their issue. In contrast, Schultz co-sponsored the most extreme version of “personhood” legislation and has fought to get a personhood vote on the Iowa House floor when Windschitl and others blocked a vote on that legislation. (Windschitl introduced a different “personhood” bill this year.)

After the jump I’ve posted a map of Senate district 9 and the latest voter registration numbers for the district, along with Schultz’s official bio. It’s also worth noting that Schultz chairs the Iowa House Local Government Committee and previously chaired the Appropriations subcommittee on economic development. He endorsed Ron Paul for president in 2012. In my opinion, he’s a contender for most clueless Iowa legislator. His passionate opposition to marriage equality prompted him to introduce one of the dumbest bills I’ve heard of, which would have banned Iowa judges from citing case law or precedent in their rulings. Schultz also joined a small group of legislators who threatened to yank state funding for the Des Moines Area Community College over the Governors LGBTQ Youth Conference.

Republican State Senator Kent Sorenson no longer has to worry about open court testimony regarding his alleged theft of a homeschooling organization’s e-mail list on behalf of Representative Michele Bachmann’s presidential campaign in late 2011. Bachmann has settled the lawsuit her former presidential campaign staffer Barb Heki announced last year. On Friday, Heki’s attorney filed legal papers to dismiss the case. In a statement provided to The Iowa Republican blog, Bachmann said,

“Barb Heki is a trustworthy person and a woman of integrity. She was a loyal member of the Bachmann for President team and capably performed her duties. I am not aware of any evidence whatsoever that Barb had any part in misusing or misappropriating NICHE’s email list of homeschoolers and I consider her an exemplary homeschooling leader.”

It’s not clear whether Bachmann agreed to pay any compensation to Heki or her husband for damage done to their reputations. They had to resign from a national homeschooling organization’s board after the Bachmann campaign hung Heki out to dry. Heki won’t be able to re-file the lawsuit, because it was dismissed “with prejudice.”

Sorenson’s attorney Ted Sporer told the Des Moines Register that “the settlement included a release of all claims with no admission of wrongdoing by his client.” Previously, a trial date for Heki’s lawsuit had been set for May 2014, meaning the case would have been big local news shortly before the June primary election. To my knowledge, no Republican has declared plans to challenge Sorenson in Iowa Senate district 13, but I’d be looking for new representation if I were a Republican in that district. A former aide to Sorenson acknowledged downloading the list from Heki’s computer, but other sources have said Sorenson was involved.

Technically, the Urbandale Police Department has a criminal case open regarding the theft, but I doubt charges will ever be filed. Sorenson still faces an ethics investigation into indirect salary payments he allegedly received from the Bachmann campaign, but I don’t expect the Iowa Senate Ethics Committee to impose any serious consequences.  

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers?

As Ryan Koopmans first reported at On Brief: Iowa’s Appellate Blog, at least one Iowa Supreme Court justice seems to have changed his mind about the unanimous ruling issued last December in a gender discrimination case. The decision drew national media attention after justices determined that the plaintiff, Melissa Nelson, was not discriminated against for being a woman, but fired as “an isolated employment decision based on personal relations.” Koopmans wrote this week, “Chief Justice Cady issued an order withdrawing the December opinion and stating that the court would resubmit the case, without oral argument, this Wednesday, June 26.  There’s no indication of when the court will issue its new decision […].”

Nelson’s attorney filed a petition to rehear the case soon after the ruling was announced. The Iowa Supreme Court has granted only five requests for re-hearings in the past decade, Jeff Eckhoff reported for the Des Moines Register. Koopmans commented, “I expect that there will be at least one opinion coming out in favor of Melissa Nelson. The question is whether that opinion is the majority or the dissent.”

For those sympathetic to Paula Deen, who says she’s not a racist and no longer uses “the N-word,” I recommend reading what’s been alleged in the lawsuit filed against her. Her disturbing behavior goes way beyond using offensive language from time to time. She deserves to lose her Food Network show and her various endorsement contracts. I’ve disliked Deen ever since she started profiting from a diabetes drug after promoting an unhealthy diet for years. DeWayne Wickham said it well in this column, which I’ve excerpted after the jump.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome. Congratulations to the Cedar Rapids Gazette’s Todd Dorman on 20 years working in journalism.

Democrats hoping to retain the Iowa Senate majority got good news this afternoon, as State Senator Sandy Greiner confirmed that she will retire next year. Her decision isn’t a big surprise, as Greiner didn’t join the Senate Republican leadership team last year, even though she was an early backer of Bill Dix’s campaign to become minority leader and is among the most experienced GOP lawmakers.

Greiner represents Senate district 39, which contained 13,335 registered Democrats, 13,352 Republicans, and 16,127 no-party voters as of June 2013. Half of this swing district lies in Johnson County, where Democrats need strong GOTV to prevail in next year’s statewide races. I’ve posted a detailed district map after the jump.

First-term Democrat Sally Stutsman represents Iowa House district 77, the Johnson County part of Senate district 39. Two-term Republican Jarad Klein represents House district 78, the other half of the Senate district, covering all of Keokuk County and most of Washington County. I would consider them strong potential candidates for the open Senate seat, though others may take a crack at this swing district.

UPDATE: Added the press release announcing Greiner’s retirement after the jump. Environmentalists will be surprised to learn that she allegedly “worked diligently” to improve water quality.  

SECOND UPDATE: John Deeth says Democrats had recruited a challenger for this seat from Washington County. He also comments, “This is a must-win for both parties and good logistically for Democrats; sure, the Iowa City-Coralville folks can’t VOTE in this race but we can sure doorknock North Liberty.” I would say it’s more of a must-win for Republicans, because they need a net gain of one for shared power and two for control of the Iowa Senate. Status quo is ok for Democrats, if not ideal.

THIRD UPDATE: Here’s one good example of why I won’t miss Greiner. She has repeatedly co-sponsored constitutional amendments to overturn marriage equality in Iowa, most recently this year. Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has joined the Iowa Supreme Court in striking down the Defense of Marriage Act on equal-protection grounds, Greiner pretends that she opposed equality because gay marriage will allegedly increase health care costs. Jon Trouten dismantles that intellectually dishonest argument here.

Using an unusual voting procedure reserved for very important legislation, the U.S. Senate approved a comprehensive immigration reform bill yesterday by 68 votes to 32 (roll call). Every senator who caucuses with Democrats voted yes, joined by fourteen Republicans. The rest of the GOP caucus, including the entire leadership team and Senator Chuck Grassley, voted no.

In the run-up to the vote on final passage, senators considered many amendments to the immigration reform conceived by the bipartisan “Gang of Eight.” After the jump I cover how Grassley and Senator Tom Harkin voted on the significant amendments, as well as reaction to the bill’s passage from both senators and other Iowa politicians. Representative Steve King (R, IA-04) has vowed to block any comparable legislation from passing the U.S. House. He opposes any path to legal status or citizenship, even for undocumented immigrants brought to this country as young children.

It’s been a while since Bleeding Heartland covered the status of President Barack Obama’s cabinet nominees. Within the last week, senators have confirmed three nominees with little controversy. However, Republicans appear determined to block two highly-qualified appointees: Thomas Perez and Gina McCarthy.

Details on recent cabinet confirmation votes are after the jump, along with background on the latest to be confirmed, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx.  

This week’s featured native plant is unusual in several ways. Lacking chlorophyll, Indian pipe (Monotropa uniflora) is not green at all. It’s mostly white, inspiring the common names ghost flower or ghost plant. I thought it was a fungus on first sight. In addition, Indian pipe “is more of a parasite,” using a fungus to draw nutrients from nearby plants. Several pictures of this strange wildflower are after the jump.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

The Republican field for Iowa’s open U.S. Senate seat continues to expand, as Mark Jacobs confirmed today he is forming an exploratory committee. He will travel around Iowa while deciding whether to run. Speaking to Radio Iowa, Jacobs laid out the case for his candidacy:

“This came about with the work I’ve done with ‘Reaching Higher Iowa’ which is a non-profit organization I started in January to advocate for improved public education in the state and I’ve had the opportunity through ‘Reaching Higher Iowa’ to travel all over the state and meet a lot of great people and through the course of those travels I’ve had a number of people that have urged me to consider the U.S. Senate race in 2014,” Jacobs said during an interview with Radio Iowa. […]

“Made the decision to move home. I’ve been teaching up at Iowa State in the business school which has been a terrific experience for me to try to bring a little bit of the real-life business experiences and give students a glimpse of that and I started ‘Reaching Higher Iowa’ in January of this year to advocate for improved public education,” Jacobs said. […]

“I have approached everything I have done with good old-fashioned Iowa values and common sense business principles,” Jacobs said, “and one of the things I learned over the course of my business career that in order to solve problems you need to understand the root cause and you need to listen to people at a grassroots level.”

Some Republican activists may question whether Jacobs is a true believer in social conservative causes, but I believe others will be attracted to his resume. Business owner Mike Whalen easily won the GOP primary to represent IA-01 in 2006 against two rivals who were more politically experienced.

The Iowa Democratic Party launched its opening salvo against Jacobs this afternoon. In a statement I’ve posted after the jump, IDP executive director Troy Price criticized Jacobs’ “Wall Street background” as “out-of-step with Iowa.”

In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has determined that the federal Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional. The ruling means that legally married gay and lesbian couples in Iowa and elsewhere will be entitled to equal treatment under federal law. More than 200 Congressional Democrats, including Senator Tom Harkin and Representatives Bruce Braley and Dave Loebsack, signed an amicus curiae brief urging justices to strike down the key provision of the DOMA, adopted in 1996 with overwhelming bipartisan support.  

In a separate case, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that backers of California’s Proposition 8 did not have standing to appeal a lower-court ruling striking down that ballot initiative. The decision means that LGBT couples will be allowed to marry in California. It does not affect other states’ statutory or constitutional bans on same-sex marriage. Braley and Loebsack were among scores of Congressional Democrats who recently posed for the “NoH8” campaign supporting marriage equality and opposing Prop 8.

Excerpts from the DOMA decision and Iowa reaction to today’s rulings are after the jump. I will update this post as needed. At this writing, most of the Congressional delegation has not publicly commented on the Supreme Court decisions.

I also enclose below Democratic State Representative Ako Abdul-Samad’s reaction to yesterday’s disgraceful 5-4 Supreme Court ruling on the Voting Rights Act.

U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley is sticking to his promise not to play favorites in the GOP primary for the open U.S. Senate seat. Last week news emerged that Grassley will be a “special guest” at fundraisers for his former chief of staff, David Young. This week both Matt Whitaker and Sam Clovis revealed that Iowa’s senior senator has offered to be a guest at fundraisers for their own Senate campaigns. Whitaker said in a statement that he looks forward to Grassley’s “help and his counsel”. Clovis told the Des Moines Register,

“He wanted to commend me for being in the race,” said Clovis, a Sioux City conservative radio personality and college economics professor. “He said he had to remain neutral in this primary … and he wanted to make sure everything was being played even.” […]

Clovis said he and the senator have “a great relationship” after years of animated discussions on the radio.

Grassley has repeatedly expressed concern that Representative Bruce Braley, who is unchallenged in the Democratic primary for Senate, will go into the general election with a financial advantage.

Speaking to Cameron Joseph of The Hill, The Iowa Republican blogger Craig Robinson sounded a more skeptical note: “Yes, Grassley says he’s neutral, but nearly everyone connected to him is supporting Young. Appearance and perception are two different things. The whole Grassley operation is helping Young.”

State Representative Mark Lofgren of Muscatine will formally announce tomorrow that he is running against four-term Representative Dave Loebsack in Iowa’s second Congressional district, James Q. Lynch reported today for the Cedar Rapids Gazette. After the jump I’ve posted Lofgren’s official bio and material from the “issues” and “endorsements” pages of his campaign website. Of the seventeen current Iowa House Republicans and four former state representatives who have endorsed Lofgren, four live in Loebsack’s district. Dan Dolan, who lost last year’s GOP primary in IA-02 to John Archer, has also endorsed Lofgren.

As of June 2013, the 24 counties in IA-02 contain 170,130 active registered Democrats, 138,390 Republicans, and 180,950 no-party voters. Loebsack defeated Archer by a comfortable margin in 2012, but in the 2010 midterm election he needed help from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to fend off a challenge by Mariannette Miller-Meeks, winning by only about 11,000 votes in what was then a more Democratic-leaning district.

Governor Terry Branstad appointed Miller-Meeks to lead the Iowa Department of Public Health in 2011. The GOP challenger to Loebsack in 2008 as well as 2010, Miller-Meeks has attended some Republican Party events this year and confirmed last week that she is still considering a third Congressional bid. Having fallen short in the 2010 Republican wave, Miller-Meeks would likely face an uphill battle persuading GOP primary voters that she deserves another chance to win this district.

Lofgren’s decision leaves Iowa House district 91 open for the 2014 election cycle. This swing district currently contains 6,300 registered Democrats, 6,291 Republicans, and 8,401 no-party voters. A detailed district map is at the bottom of this post. Democrat Nathan Reichert represented the Muscatine area in the Iowa House for three terms, losing to Lofgren in the 2010 wave. Lofgren defeated Democratic challenger John Dabeet last year by 915 votes.

Former Iowa GOP Chair Matt Strawn and two prominent Illinois Republicans have formed Next Generation Public Affairs Inc, Jennifer Jacobs reported for the Des Moines Register today.

The firm will provide strategies in government affairs, issue advocacy and media relations, as well as strategies in sourcing capital and structuring large-scale public-private partnership projects, Strawn said this morning.

It will have an upper Midwest focus and initial offices in Chicago and Des Moines.

“Too often comprehensive public affairs strategies for transactions that require both public and private resources are an afterthought, or used defensively in attempt to rescue failing or stalled deals,” [Chicago-based business owner] Fitzsimmons said in a written statement. “The ability to develop sophisticated advocacy campaigns, source capital and navigate complex transactions to completion truly is the next generation of public affairs.”

Strawn and [former Illinois GOP state party Chair Pat] Brady became close friends during their tenure on the Republican National Committee.

The concept for the firm has been in the works since last year, Strawn said. He will lead the company’s social media engagement and data capturing technologies.

Strawn may have felt that he was criticized unfairly over problems with reporting the 2012 Iowa caucus vote, but in retrospect he probably benefited from stepping down early as state party chair. He can still claim credit for rebuilding the Iowa GOP while riding the 2010 wave and registration gains related to the 2012 caucuses. At the same time, Strawn doesn’t get the blame for Iowa Republicans’ subpar early GOTV in the 2012 general election. I believe President Barack Obama would have carried Iowa in any event, but turning out more Republicans and identifying more GOP-leaning independents would have kept things a lot closer. Strawn can say those failures didn’t happen on his watch.

I am seeking comment on whether Strawn will remain involved with the 527 group GOPAC. Last year the troup tapped Strawn to chair its efforts in down-ticket Iowa races.

P.S.- Here’s some free advice for Jennifer Jacobs: see how easy it is to provide a link and a mention when you first saw a story on someone else’s website? If the Des Moines Register were more willing to do the same where appropriate, people like Kevin Hall might not ridicule you so much about getting scooped.

Catching up on news from last week, two-time Republican nominee Ben Lange has confirmed that he will not run for Congress next year in the open first district. Lange’s written statement, which I enclose at the end of this post, cited family reasons. As a practical matter, he would have been an underdog to win the nomination in IA-01 for a third time. He barely defeated Rod Blum in the 2012 primary despite having raised far more money and hired a larger campaign staff. In that race, many prominent Iowa Republicans and the National Republican Congressional Committee favored Lange, probably because he had come so close to defeating incumbent Bruce Braley in 2010. But Braley easily won re-election last year, carrying 17 of the 20 counties in IA-01.

Also last week, Blum previewed his case against likely primary rival Kraig Paulsen, the speaker of the Iowa House. I recommend reading the whole article by James Q. Lynch for the Cedar Rapids Gazette. A few excerpts are after the jump. I believe that Blum’s attacks on Paulsen will resonate with many activists who participate in Republican primaries.

It’s time for a new discussion thread on the campaign for Iowa’s open U.S. Senate seat. I’ve pulled together lots of news on the declared and potential Republican candidates after the jump.

Some candidates who have expressed interest may back off before the filing deadline next March, but if most of them follow through, it’s plausible that no Republican will receive 35 percent of the vote in the June 2014 primary. That would allow statewide GOP convention delegates to select a nominee to face Democrat Bruce Braley in the general election.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? It finally got warm enough to go swimming in Iowa, so I wanted to re-post this link on recognizing the signs of drowning. A few excerpts from the article are after the jump. A person in trouble in the water looks nothing like common depictions on television or in movies.

The Environmental Working Group’s latest guide to sunscreens is the best resources for finding effective sun protection with minimal harmful chemicals. Other good links on that site: Nine Surprising Facts About Sunscreen, why it’s better to avoid sunscreens containing vitamin A, and why marketing of sunscreens with SPF above 50 is misleading.

A recent report by AAA and experts from the University of Utah again confirmed that hands-free cell phones are not safe to use while driving. The DC Streets blog posted a good summary of the findings. The full report is here (pdf), and you can download a fact sheet here (pdf). I’ve posted excerpts from the AAA study after the jump. Earlier research reached similar conclusions (pdf) about distracted driving, one of the leading causes of fatal car accidents. Pull over when you need to make or answer a call. Even if both hands are on the wheel, a cellphone conversation can lead to “inattention blindness.” Many people wrongly believe it’s safe to send voice-activated texts while driving, texting while driving is extremely dangerous as well as illegal in Iowa.

If you saw the moon Saturday night or early Sunday morning, you witnessed the largest full moon of the year.

UPDATE: The wet weather has ushered in a banner year for mosquitoes, but it’s safer to protect yourself with DEET-free products. Also, watch out for poison ivy if you are out and about. It’s prevalent along recreational trails.  

The future of most U.S. farm programs is in question today, as the House of Representatives voted down a new five-year farm bill that had bipartisan support in the House Agriculture Committee. Background, details on today’s vote, and some Iowa reaction are after the jump.