The Republican National Committee released a so-called “autopsy” on the 2012 election results today. You can read the full report on the “Growth and Opportunity Project” here. I’ve posted a few excerpts, links and thoughts after the jump.

Any comments about the GOP’s rebuilding and rebranding effort are welcome in this thread.

Anyone who follows the Iowa legislature has frequent occasion to wonder how someone that ignorant got elected to the Iowa House or Senate. But every once in a while, a spectacularly clueless act grabs our attention. Last week a little-known first-term state representative made himself a contender for the title of Iowa’s most clueless lawmaker.

UPDATE: Not so fast–see today’s news, added at the end of this post.

On Friday the U.S. House approved a bill that would reorganize nearly three dozen federal job training programs into one fund providing job training money to states. Iowa’s four representatives split on party lines.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to Bleeding Heartland readers who celebrate the occasion. This is an open thread; all topics are welcome. For a laugh, enjoy The Onion’s recent write-up of Iowa fashion week: “The big themes this season are ‘roomy,’ ‘loose,’ and ‘comfortable.'”

After the jump I’ve posted a few links about health and happiness, including details from Gallup’s 2012 report on well-being in the United States. Iowa ranked ninth on the “Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index” but was not one of the “elite five states” that have shown consistently high levels of resident well-being over five years.

Yesterday Rob Portman of Ohio became the first sitting Republican U.S. senator to endorse marriage equality. In a guest editorial for the Columbus Post-Dispatch, Portman explained that he reconsidered his opinion on gay marriage after his son came out of the closet.

As a rule, I welcome any public support for marriage equality from Republican ranks. It’s nice to see a current elected official join the long list of campaign professionals and former GOP office-holders who support civil marriage rights. Still, something about Portman’s comments yesterday rubbed me the wrong way.

Iowa Senate Democrats offered Governor Terry Branstad a compromise this week to address his concerns that the federal government will not keep its promises to fund the Medicaid expansion provided under the 2010 health care reform law. Follow me after the jump for details on their latest offer and a cost comparison of Medicaid expansion and Branstad’s “Healthy Iowa Plan.”

March 14 is the International Day of Action for Rivers. These stories about water pollution and the economic potential of healthy rivers are worth a read.

Contrary to what agribusiness industry lobbyists would have you believe, a majority of Iowa farmers “support expanding conservation requirements for soil erosion and the control of nitrogen and phosphorous runoff.”

Iowa’s confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs or factory livestock farms) create more untreated manure annually than the total sewage output of the U.S. population.

Aging sewer systems in urban areas also allow too much sewage to leak into watersheds. The I-JOBS infrastructure bonding initiative (signed into law by Governor Chet Culver) included some money to improve sewer systems in Iowa, but we need to do much more on this front.

Iowa Rivers Revival Executive Director Rosalyn Lehman recently published a call to revive Iowa’s rivers in the Des Moines Register. I’ve posted excerpts from her guest editorial after the jump.

The Metro Waste Authority has created an Adopt a Stream website, with “resources to help you organize a stream cleanup in the Greater Des Moines area.”

Dam removal as part of a river restoration project supports local economic activity as well as the environment.

It’s been a while since I posted about the 2016 Iowa caucus campaign. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker agreed to headline the Polk County Republican Party’s spring fundraiser in May. According to Kevin Hall’s report for The Iowa Republican blog, Governor Terry Branstad helped make arrangements for Walker’s appearance. Like Branstad and unlike eight other GOP governors around the country, Walker opted against taking federal funding to expand Medicaid in his state.

Hall reports that retired insurance executive Cameron Sutton “played a key role in securing Scott Walker’s appearance” as well. Sutton was one of seven Iowa Republican donors from the business community who flew to New Jersey in May 2011 to urge Governor Chris Christie to run for president. (Christie’s star has fallen in Republican circles since he praised President Barack Obama’s handling of Hurricane Sandy and later agreed to expand Medicaid in New Jersey.) Sutton endorsed Newt Gingrich for president before the Iowa caucuses but wasn’t pleased with the way Gingrich bashed Mitt Romney during the GOP primaries.

Any comments about the next presidential campaign are welcome in this thread.

Yesterday the U.S. House approved a bill seeking to prevent the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from allowing states to lift work requirements for federal welfare benefits. Republican arguments for the bill echoed false claims from Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign.  

Iowa’s largest labor union, AFSCME Iowa Council 61, announced its endorsement of Representative Bruce Braley for U.S. Senate yesterday. A press release from the Braley campaign noted that two other labor unions have previously announced their support: Iowa State Council of Machinists and the Great Plains Laborers’ District Council. As a member of Congress, Braley has a strong voting record on labor rights, as does retiring Senator Tom Harkin.

Endorsements this early in the cycle are another sign that Braley will not face real competition for the Democratic nomination next year. During Iowa Democrats’ last hard-fought statewide primary, the larger labor unions endorsed either Mike Blouin or Chet Culver for governor only a few months before the 2006 primary.

UPDATE: The non-profit, non-partisan advocacy group Council for a Livable World endorsed Braley for Senate on March 14. I’ve added their press release and some background after the jump.

SECOND UPDATE: Service Employees International Union Iowa – Local 199 endorsed Braley for Senate on March 15. A press release from the campaign comments, “SEIU Local 199 represents over 5,000 nurses, school employees, childcare workers, and county employees across the state of Iowa.”

White smoke rose from the Vatican today after the cardinals selected Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, Argentina to be the next pope. He will be known as Pope Francis I. CORRECTION: He will be known as Pope Francis. According to John Allen Jr. of the National Catholic Reporter, Bergoglio was the “runner-up” to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger during the last papal conclave in 2005. More excerpts from Allen’s profile of the new pope are after the jump. Bergoglio was not considered a leading contender; one Irish betting site had the odds on his becoming pope at 25/1. On the other hand, he was one of the leading Latino contenders. Pope Francis I will be the first non-European pontiff. Last month Senator Tom Harkin said it would be a “great move in the right direction” for the cardinals to select a Latino pope. UPDATE: Added comments from Iowa bishops and Democratic State Representative Bruce Bearinger’s speech about the new pope on the Iowa House floor today.

SECOND UPDATE: Added Representative Bruce Braley’s comments on the new pope.

President Barack Obama has not announced any new cabinet appointments in the last few days, but Thomas Perez, currently head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, is rumored to be the next secretary of labor. He would face strong opposition from Senate Republicans, including Iowa’s Chuck Grassley.

Susan Rice, who withdrew her nomination for secretary of state late last year, may become the president’s next national security adviser.

Congressional Black Caucus Chair Marcia Fudge wrote to the president this week, expressing concern that none of Obama’s new cabinet appointees are African American.

Attorney General Eric Holder, appointed in Obama’s first term, remains the Obama administration’s only black Cabinet-level appointee. According to a Politics365 analysis released last week, that’s the fewest by any president over the last 38 years.

This is an open thread.

Governor Terry Branstad traveled to Fort Madison yesterday to discuss a fertilizer plant project involving the largest tax incentive package in Iowa history. Previewing a likely theme of his re-election campaign next year, Branstad spun questions over his administration’s handling of the Orascom deal into an attack on Iowa Senate Democrats and the Koch brothers.

U.S. House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan presented his new federal budget blueprint today. As before, he would end Medicare as a single-payer system for all Americans under age 55, slash spending on programs for the poor such as food stamps and Medicaid, and cut taxes for some, though the details there are fuzzy. He would not cut the defense budget or Social Security. Ryan says his budget would be balanced in 10 years, but he relies on some assumptions that won’t happen, such as repeal of the 2010 health care reform law.

I’ve enclosed Iowa political reaction to the Ryan budget below and will update this post as needed.

Expanding Medicaid in Iowa would add nearly $2.2 billion to the state’s economy, create an estimated 2,362 jobs, and save state government about $1.6 billion, according to a new study. For now, Governor Terry Branstad is sticking to his alternative plan for covering some low-income Iowans, but Senator Tom Harkin predicted last week that federal officials will not approve a waiver for Branstad’s approach.

Follow me after the jump for details on those stories and more about Medicaid in Iowa. I’ve also enclosed a moving personal statement State Senator Mary Jo Wilhelm delivered today about Iowans who can’t afford health insurance.

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.