Yesterday the Iowa Senate unanimously confirmed eleven of Governor Terry Branstad’s appointees. You can find the full list of confirmations in the Senate Journal (pdf). The department or agency heads confirmed were:

Chuck Gipp, who has been serving as director of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources since last May, shortly after his predecessor resigned;

Steve Lukan, whom Branstad hired to run the governor’s Office of Drug Control Policy last June;

Nick Gerhart, who replaced Susan Voss as state insurance commissioner at the end of 2012;

Robert von Wolffradt, whom Branstad appointed as Iowa’s chief information officer last May.

Seven of the nominees senators confirmed yesterday will serve on state boards, councils, or commissions, including Joanne Stockdale, a former chair of the Iowa Association of Business and Industry who is one of Branstad’s appointees to the Environmental Protection Commission.

Iowa received a mediocre “C” grade on the Sunlight Foundation‘s new Open Legislative Data Report Card, designed to compare “how state legislatures make their data publicly available.”  

State Senator Brad Zaun announced today that he will not run for the open U.S. Senate seat in 2014 (hat tip to WHO-TV’s Dave Price).

During 2011 and 2012, the Iowa Senate was our state’s firewall against the social conservative agenda. The Republican-controlled Iowa House passed a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, sweeping limits on abortion rights (twice), a “stand your ground” bill and a constitutional amendment that would invalidate virtually all restrictions on guns. All of those bills died in the Democratic-controlled state Senate.

Social issues have never been a priority for Iowa House leaders. They blocked a floor vote on a “personhood” bill in 2011 and steered clear of extremist crusades like impeaching Iowa Supreme Court justices and replacing gun permit laws with “constitutional carry.” Still, I expected House Republicans to cover the usual bases during this year’s legislative session.

Instead, almost every high-profile bill on so-called family values failed to win House committee approval and therefore died in the legislature’s first funnel deadline last Friday. That includes some mainstream conservative efforts as well as freak show bills like ending no-fault divorce or barring county recorders from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Most amazing to me, House Republicans no longer have the votes to pass a constitutional amendment restricting marriage to one man and one woman.  

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? The Bureau of Labor Statistics released a better than expected jobs report on Friday, but not all the numbers were encouraging. States have continued to cut jobs even after the end of the “Great Recession,” and the “sequester” federal budget cuts will lead to more public-sector job losses later this year. Disappearing state government jobs are a drag on the national economy.

Surprise, surprise: the Iowa Chamber Alliance thinks shoveling more taxpayer dollars to large corporations is the best way to create jobs. The Iowa Policy Project disagrees and points out that Iowa is already writing large subsidy checks to some companies that paid no income tax in 2012. UPDATE: Forgot to mention that Iowa just agreed to give the Principal Financial Group $22.5 million in tax credits for its $285 million renovation plan in downtown Des Moines. Why should Iowa taxpayers underwrite office remodeling for a profitable company? That’s part of the cost of doing business.

Conservatives who think high tax rates can’t coexist with economic prosperity should explain why “the average Canadian household is now richer than an average American household for the first time ever.” My guess is the answer is related to Canada’s efficient, single-payer health care system (no medical bankruptcies or huge out of pocket costs because of health problems).

Senator Tom Harkin has introduced a bill to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 over three years before “before indexing it to keep up with the rising cost of living.” Indexing the minimum wage to inflation should have happened a long time ago.

This is an open thread.

Senator Chuck Grassley doesn’t plan to endorse a candidate in the Republican primary for Iowa’s open U.S. Senate seat next year, he told John Stanton of BuzzFeed.com this week. He has a favored candidate in mind, but plans to keep that view to himself:

Despite his role as the elder statesman of the party, Grassley said he’s not getting seriously involved in the primary: though he has spoken to one candidate. “I said to him, ‘You’re the only one I’m going to encourage to run, I’m not going to tell anyone they shouldn’t run.’ Because everyone I’ve heard talked about is a viable candidate … that’s as far as I’m going to go.

Grassley was wise not to discount Representative Steve King’s prospects; respect from elder statesmen like him and Governor Terry Branstad will make it easier for King to bow out of the Senate race without looking chicken.

I would guess that Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey is the person Grassley has encouraged to run for Senate. Northey is thinking about the race, but I suspect that his past support for a gasoline tax would become a problem in a GOP primary.

Any comments about the Senate race are welcome in this thread. UPDATE: Bret Hayworth of the Sioux City Journal has been covering King for some time. He believes that King is more likely than not to run for Senate.

SECOND UPDATE: Iowa GOP Chair A.J. Spiker confirmed that he is thinking about running for Senate. Good luck with that. The Ron Paul machine is well-organized but probably not large enough to deliver victory in a statewide primary.

The U.S. Senate confirmed John Brennan yesterday as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. A cloture motion on Brennan’s nomination passed by 81 votes to 16. Senator Tom Harkin voted yes, as did all the Senate Democrats and most Republicans. Senator Chuck Grassley was one of the 16 Republicans who attempted to block Brennan’s nomination from coming to a vote. Senators then confirmed Brennan by 63 votes to 34. Again, Harkin voted yes, like all but two members of the Senate Democratic caucus. Grassley voted no, as did most of the Senate Republicans. I am disappointed but not surprised that most of the Senate Democrats went along with one of President Barack Obama’s worst cabinet appointments. If a Republican president had nominated someone with Brennan’s record on civil liberties, Democratic senators would have raised more serious questions.

I will update this post if I see any public comments from Harkin or Grassley on the Brennan confirmation vote.

Earlier this week, Grassley and 40 other Republicans successfully filibustered the nomination of Caitlin Joan Halligan to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Senate Republicans previously filibustered her nomination in 2011; President Barack Obama renominated her for the same position. Halligan is highly qualified, having argued many cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, but the National Rifle Association has lobbied Senate Republicans to oppose her. Grassley has not released any comment explaining his vote against cloture (ending debate) on Halligan’s nomination. After the jump I’ve posted a statement from the Iowa Fair Courts Coalition.

MARCH 22 UPDATE: President Obama withdrew Halligan’s nomination, saying she had requested that action. In a written statement, the president commented, “This unjustified filibuster obstructed the majority of Senators from expressing their support. I am confident that with Caitlin’s impressive qualifications and reputation, she would have served with distinction.”

Governor Terry Branstad did not succeed in changing the health insurance benefits available to most of the 20,000 state employees covered by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). However, the governor managed to block across-the-board salary increases for state workers during the next two fiscal years.  

Yesterday the U.S. House approved a bill to fund the federal government through the remainder of the current fiscal year. Dave Loebsack (IA-02) was one of 53 House Democrats to vote for the spending bill, along with most of the Republican caucus. Follow me after the jump for details and the latest sleight of hand by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky delayed Senate business yesterday by launching a filibuster that lasted nearly 13 hours. The ninth-longest filibuster in Senate history and the longest since 1992 focused on the president’s power to order an American citizen killed on U.S. soil. Paul managed to delay a planned confirmation vote on President Barack Obama’s nominee for CIA director, John Brennan. Senators are likely to confirm Brennan today, but Paul’s tactic served two longtime historical purposes of the filibuster: slow down Senate business and call attention to an issue of national importance. To my knowledge, the last lengthy filibuster of this kind happened when Bernie Sanders talked for more than eight hours against the December 2010 deal to extend most Bush tax cuts.

Eight other senators joined Paul’s filibuster yesterday: seven Republicans and Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon. Iowa’s GOP Senator Chuck Grassley did not take part.

In related news, some Senate Democrats are warning that the majority may revisit filibuster reform because Republicans continue to demand a 60-vote majority for almost any kind of Senate business. That was entirely foreseeable. But Democrats missed their best chance to change the rules at the beginning of this year’s Congress. They should have listened to Senator Tom Harkin, who has been trying for years to curtail the abuse of the filibuster.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

Jennifer Jacobs’ latest piece speculating on GOP candidates for Iowa’s U.S. Senate seat includes a classic comment from former Mitt Romney strategist and marriage equality supporter David Kochel: “When I hear names like Steve Deace and Bob Vander Plaats for Senate, it reminds me of the bar scene in ‘Star Wars.'”

Jacobs also mentioned one name I hadn’t heard before in this context: State Senator Mark Chelgren. He is up for re-election in the Democratic-leaning Ottumwa area next year, so he would have to give up his Iowa Senate seat in order to seek the GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate.

This week an anonymous group calling itself “Iowa Republicans for Truth” declared war against The Iowa Republican blog and its publisher, Craig Robinson. More details are after the jump. I enjoyed the Iowa .Gif-t Shop’s take on the kerfuffle.

UPDATE: In the comments, Bleeding Heartland user conservative demo mentioned Ed Tibbetts’ piece for the Quad-City Times on the battle brewing inside the Scott County Republican Party. I’ve added excerpts below.  

State Senator Steve Sodders will “take a serious look” at running for the first Congressional district seat Bruce Braley is vacating. Speaking by telephone yesterday, Sodders said he is in the “very exploratory” phase, talking with different groups and individuals. He currently has no deadline for announcing his plans, but he expects to decide sometime before this summer whether to run in next year’s Democratic primary.

Marshall County Deputy Sheriff Sodders was first elected to the Iowa Senate in 2008. He was just re-elected to a four-year term in Senate district 36, covering Marshall and Tama counties and a small area in Black Hawk County. Consequently, he would not need to give up his Senate seat to run for Congress. In addition to serving as Senate president pro-tem, Sodders chairs the Economic Growth Committee. I’ve posted his official bio after the jump.

So far State Representative Pat Murphy is the only declared Democratic candidate in the first Congressional district, and Cedar Rapids businessman Steve Rathje is the only declared Republican.

I continue to believe that Iowa Democrats should nominate a woman for this very winnable seat–preferably someone other than the woman who just voted herself a 25 percent raise. I wish Senate President Pam Jochum had not taken herself out of the running so early.

Any relevant comments are welcome in this thread. The latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office indicate that the 20 counties in IA-01 contain 165,428 active registered Democrats, 137,943 Republicans, and 193,674 no-party voters.

UPDATE: Sodders posted on Facebook on March 11, “Headed to Wash DC next week to talk to several groups and individuals about District 1.” At the end of this post I’ve added more recent comments from Sodders.

Ever hear that Republicans are more reliable voters in bad weather? The same day a snowstorm closed most schools in the Iowa City area, Republicans appear to have won their first seat on the Johnson County supervisors since 1962. With 57 of 58 precincts reporting, GOP candidate John Etheredge had 3,040 votes, while Democrat Terry Dahms had 2,931 votes. The only precinct left to report had just 82 voters as of 6 pm. UPDATE: With all precincts in, Etheredge leads Dahms by 3,102 votes to 2,974 votes. In a low-turnout election like this one, I doubt there will be enough late-arriving absentee ballots to overcome that margin (narrow as it is).

A Republican won a few Johnson County elections for sheriff in the 1970s and 1980s, but the last GOP supervisor in the “people’s republic” finished his term in 1962. Iowa City-based blogger John Deeth tried to warn local Democrats to vote early in case of a snowstorm. But early voting was low, and total turnout was a pathetic 6.65 percent.

Today’s special election fills the vacancy created when Democrat Sally Stutsman won Iowa House district 77 last November.

UPDATE: Deeth comments on how Johnson County Democrats fell asleep at the switch: “Blame the weather? Maybe. But that doesn’t explain the much lower early vote total. We saw that coming two weeks out. It doesn’t explain Dahms’ narrower early vote margin, which should have been 3 to 1 rather than 60-40.”

Linn County voters have strongly endorsed a plan to build a casino in the middle of Cedar Rapids. With almost all precincts reporting, “yes” leads “no” by 36,076 votes to 22,763 (61 percent to 39 percent). The referendum does not guarantee that the project will move forward. In 2010, the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission rejected applications for new casinos in Fort Dodge, Ottumwa and Tama County despite public support. Commissioners determined that those projects would primarily draw business away from Iowa’s existing casinos. On the other hand, Governor Terry Branstad has close ties to key figures supporting the Cedar Rapids project and has appointed several new members of the Racing and Gaming Commission.

Owners of casinos in Riverside and Waterloo bankrolled the “no” campaign in Linn County. Critics slammed them for profiting from Iowa bettors while paying for warnings about the potential social costs of gambling in Cedar Rapids. Dan Kehl, CEO of the Riverside casino, attempted a hail-Mary pass last Friday, promising to build a family-friendly water park in central Cedar Rapids if voters rejected the casino. In my opinion, Kehl’s hypocrisy and desperation do not invalidate the strong arguments against casinos as economic development projects. But the Linn County voters have spoken.

I don’t cover many science topics here, but this story fascinated me. Scientists have recently confirmed that an “asteroid as big as a city block” created a crater more than three miles wide under what is now Decorah, Iowa. This anomaly would be only the 184th confirmed impact crater on earth, according to an excellent piece by Brian Vastag for the Washington Post.  Bevan French, an adjunct scientist at the National Museum of Natural History, announced the discovery last month. His research built on the work of geologists from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources began several years ago. Aerial surveys conducted this year provided more evidence of the meteor crater, Science Daily reported today.

Scientists estimate that the meteor smashed into what is now northeast Iowa approximately 470 million years ago, during the Ordovician geologic period. That’s way before the age of dinosaurs–in fact, before any amphibians, bony fish, or reptiles appeared on earth. Quite a few meteors hit earth around this time, probably asteroid fragments created by a “massive collision in the asteroid belt beyond Mars.”

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee released its new “Frontline” list of vulnerable U.S. House incumbents going into the 2014 election cycle. Four-term Representative Dave Loebsack is not on the list. The DCCC put Loebsack on the Frontline in early 2012, presumably because of redistricting. Iowa’s new political map removed Linn County from the second Congressional district and added Scott County, among others.

The DCCC did not end up buying television or radio advertising in IA-02 during the 2012 campaign. Despite a significant investment by the National Republican Congressional Committee in the district, Loebsack easily defeated GOP challenger John Archer and even carried Archer’s home base of Scott County.

The Frontline list doesn’t always predict which House races will be competitive. Going into the 2010 election cycle, Representative Leonard Boswell was the only Iowan on the DCCC’s list. That year, the committee ended up spending money to defend both Loebsack in IA-02 and Representative Bruce Braley in IA-01, both of whom were re-elected by narrower margins than Boswell.

The National Republican Congressional Committee has put both Democratic-held districts in Iowa on its long list of targets for 2014. The latest voter registration totals show that there are about 27,500 more registered Democrats than Republicans in IA-01, and nearly 34,000 more Democrats than Republicans in IA-02. No-party voters have a plurality in both Congressional districts.

President Barack Obama announced two new cabinet appointments yesterday: Ernest Moniz as secretary of Energy and Gina McCarthy as Environmental Protection Agency administrator. Bleeding Heartland posted background on Moniz and McCarthy here; I’ve added more information after the jump.

McCarthy has served as the EPA’s top air quality official since 2009. Because she is well-qualified for the position and committed to making the country’s air cleaner, environmentalists are excited about this choice. I hope that Obama is not merely “promoting a climate change champion” to soften the blow when he approves the KeystoneXL pipeline. The State Department’s draft report on KeystoneXL whitewashed the impact that project would have on the environment.  

Also yesterday, Obama formally nominated Sylvia Matthews Burwell to be the new director of the Office of Management and Budget. The White House announcement notes, “She served as Deputy Director of the OMB from 1998 to 2001, as well as Deputy Chief of Staff to the President and Chief of Staff to the Secretary of the Treasury during the Clinton administration.” UPDATE: I should have added that Burwell is a former president of the Gates Foundation’s Global Development Program, and that her most recent job was running the Wal-Mart Foundation.

The president has not yet announced his picks to run the departments of Labor, Transportation, or Commerce.

Democratic State Senator Tom Courtney is recovering from successful heart surgery performed last Thursday, the Des Moines Register’s William Petroski reported today. Courtney chairs the Iowa Senate Budget Subcommittee on Justice Systems and serves on several other committees. I’m sure the whole Bleeding Heartland community joins me in wishing him a speedy recovery.

While Courtney is recuperating, Democrats lack the 26th vote they need to pass controversial legislation in the Iowa Senate. However, Courtney’s absence should not be too disruptive as long as he is able to return by April 5. That is the second “funnel” deadline, by which time most non-appropriations bills need to be approved by one chamber and by a committee in the other chamber in order to stay alive. The first “funnel” approaches this Friday, March 8. Most bills that have not cleared at least one committee in one chamber by that date will be dead for the 2013 legislative session. But bills need not be approved by the full Iowa Senate to make it through the first funnel.

MARCH 11 UPDATE: Courtney told the Des Moines Register that he plans to return to the Iowa Senate this week.

Governor Terry Branstad announced his administration’s alternative to Medicaid expansion this morning at his regular weekly press conference. The “Healthy Iowa Plan” would cover approximately 89,000 Iowans with income below the federal poverty level. In contrast, Medicaid expansion would cover up to 150,000 Iowans with income below 133 percent of the poverty level.

Details on the new plan are after the jump. Early reaction from Senate President Pam Jochum suggests that the Iowa Senate will not be inclined to approve this proposal. I also question whether the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will grant a waiver for Branstad’s plan. Federal officials have already denied requests from Branstad and other governors to allow a smaller Medicaid expansion than what the 2010 health care reform law provides.  

A Terrace Hill mystery: why doesn’t Governor Terry Branstad have more details to share about his proposed alternative to expanding Medicaid in Iowa?

Answer: Outside consultants are still working up a plan for him. CORRECTION: Branstad rolled out his “Healthy Iowa Plan” on March 4.