Congressional press releases don’t always tell you about important votes, but they always tell you what members of Congress want you to know about them. Representative Steve King (R, IA-04) didn’t release a statement last week explaining his vote to let John Boehner stay on as House speaker. But I think he’s a little worried about his street cred as a bold conservative, because he quickly moved to flaunt his work on some hopeless right-wing causes.  

The U.S. Senate is about to get bogged down in a debate over whether Chuck Hagel is pro-Israel enough to be President Barack Obama’s secretary of defense. An amusing sideshow will feature Republicans appalled by Hagel’s anti-gay remark about a 1998 nominee of President Bill Clinton. After much time is wasted, senators will confirm Hagel to run the Pentagon.

Meanwhile, there is likely to be little debate over Obama’s most appalling nominee yet: John Brennan to head the Central Intelligence Agency. I don’t have much to add to concerns the American Civil Liberties Union and Glenn Greenwald raised yesterday. It’s bad enough that the Obama administration is still doing renditions, spying on Americans without a warrant, and escalating its use of drone strikes that kill many civilians. The president is promoting his top terrorism adviser, who’s deeply associated with those policies, and it’s not even a controversial appointment. The Senate should have a real debate about this policy but won’t. Greenwald noted, “the reason Obama needs a new CIA chief is because David Petraeus was forced to resign. Here we see the ethos and morality of imperial Washington: past support for torture and rendition does not disqualify one for a top national security position; only an extramarital affair can do that.”

Any comments about Obama’s cabinet appointments are welcome in this thread. UPDATE: Senator Chuck Grassley commented on Hagel’s nomination today but did not say whether he plans to vote for or against confirming him.

Apparently Brennan denies having supported torture as U.S. policy, but he is on record backing “coercive methods” of interrogation.

Catching up on some news from late December, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources have negotiated a draft work plan on inspecting and issuing permits to confined-animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in Iowa by the end of calendar year 2018. Follow me after the jump for background and details.

Many Iowa Farmers and residents are becoming interested in distributed electrical generation (DG). DG is a broad category, usually consisting of generation installed on Distribution lines (not transmission lines) close to electrical load. Common technologies are Solar PV, Wind Turbines, Fuel Cells, Biomass, etc. Size of systems start with small solar arrays and wind turbines installed on rooftops or farm yards, and continue up to systems of several megawatts constructed near communities or large electric users.

Iowans stand ready to invest in and build these types of renewable energy facilities. However, development of this type lags behind other states and countries, despite the fact that Iowa has excellent wind, solar, and biomass resources. The reason for this is that Iowa lawmakers have not made the policy changes necessary for them to proceed. DG simply needs a fair price for the electricity produced and simple procedures for interconnecting to the electric grid. Iowa lawmakers have declined to take this issue up for several years, fearing the wrath of the utility lobby. Since 2005, Iowa legislators have only been willing to encourage DG in Iowa with several, mostly ineffective incentive programs. The main programs are a tax credit program passed in 2005 to encourage distributed wind energy and a tax credit for solar PV passed in the 2012 legislative session. DG systems need fair treatment from Iowa Utilities, not subsidized, in order to move forward.

Let’s look a little deeper.  

Yesterday the Republican Party of Iowa’s State Central Committee voted to keep letting the inmates run the asylum re-elect A.J. Spiker as state party chair and put Ron Paul supporters in other leadership positions.

Change is coming to President Barack Obama’s cabinet, as is typical for a second term. After the jump I’ve posted some links and recent news on possible appointees.

Any comments about the cabinet are welcome in this thread.

Today the U.S. House easily approved the first phase of legislation designed to help those affected by Hurricane Sandy in October and November. The two-paragraph bill (pdf) will “temporarily increase [by $9.7 billion] the borrowing authority of the Federal Emergency Management Agency for carrying out the National Flood Insurance Program.”

All 193 Democrats present and 161 Republicans voted for the bill, but 67 Republicans voted against it (roll call). Iowa’s Bruce Braley (IA-01), Dave Loebsack (IA-02), Tom Latham (IA-03), and Steve King (IA-04) were all the yes column.

During the last Congress, I would have expected to see King among a group of several dozen hard-line conservatives defying GOP leaders, especially since the Club for Growth had warned Republicans to vote no (opposing government involvement in the insurance industry on principle). After the jump I’ve posted King’s statement explaining his vote. Maybe the Missouri River flooding in his district has increased his appreciation for the national flood insurance program. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him oppose the second Sandy relief bill next week, on the grounds that it contains too much pork. Alternatively, maybe he is more reluctant to defy House leaders from his new perch as a subcommittee chairman. I’m curious to see how his voting evolves in the new Congress.

The new U.S. House of Representatives convened yesterday and narrowly re-elected John Boehner speaker. He received 220 votes, needing 214 to be elected because a few House members were absent. The roll call shows that Iowa Republicans Tom Latham (IA-03) and Steve King (IA-04) voted for Boehner, while eight members of the GOP caucus voted for others and several did not vote. Latham and Boehner have been close friends and smoking buddies since Latham was first elected in the mid-1990s. King has sometimes been among the “tea party” dissenters within the GOP caucus, but most of that group (Michele Bachmann, for instance) fell behind Boehner yesterday. King will be a House Agriculture subcommittee chairman in the new Congress. Several of the Republicans who voted for other speaker candidates recently lost prime committee positions.

Boehner’s opponents were disorganized and couldn’t agree on a replacement as speaker.

Bruce Braley (IA-01) and Dave Loebsack (IA-02) were among the 192 votes for Nancy Pelosi as speaker, but five Blue Dog Democrats voted for other candidates.

The new thing I learned this week is that the speaker of the House does not have to be a member of the House. One Democrat voted for Colin Powell, one Republican voted for Comptroller General David Walker, and two Republicans voted for outgoing Representative Allen West.

In November on Bleeding Heartland, desmoinesdem posted a review of reaction to Iowa's Nutrient Reduction Strategy, which aspires to clean up the nitrogen and phosphorous pollution that together with Iowa's chronic soil erosion is keeping the state's waters brown and green instead of clear and clean.

Now the public comment deadline for the new strategy has been extended by two weeks, giving Iowans one more chance to weigh in before the comment period ends January 18.

The U.S. Senate and the House Agriculture Committee approved versions of a new five-year farm bill last summer, but discontent within the House Republican caucus kept Speaker John Boehner from bringing the bill up for a vote in the full chamber. Iowa Republican Tom Latham signed a discharge petition seeking to force a vote, while Steve King promised to work toward passing the bill during the lame-duck session.  But Boehner never put the five-year farm bill on the House calendar.

With time running out before U.S. law reverted to the 1949 bill provisions, House and Senate Agriculture Committee leaders agreed last week to push for a one-year extension of farm programs. But that bill never came up for a vote either. Instead, negotiators added a nine-month partial extension of farm programs to the “fiscal cliff” tax agreement. Since Tuesday I’ve been looking into the details of what Congress approved on farm policy. It’s not pretty.

A former Iowa student whose black armband led to an important U.S. Supreme Court decision of the 1960s died last week in Florida, the Des Moines Register reported yesterday. The Iowa Civil Liberties Union sued the Des Moines Independent Community School district on behalf of Christopher Eckhardt and his friends John Tinker and Mary Beth Tinker after all three students were suspended for wearing black armbands to their schools as an anti-war protest. The case eventually made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in 1969 that the school principals were not justified in limiting the students’ free expression.

Tinker v. Des Moines Ind. Comm. School Dist. may be the most important case from Iowa ever to reach the Supreme Court. Judges have applied the “Tinker standard” in many other First Amendment cases. After the jump I’ve posted links about the case and some reflections on Eckhardt’s role.

U.S. House Speaker John Boehner is getting slammed by members of both parties today after the House adjourned without considering a Hurricane Sandy disaster relief bill. The U.S. Senate approved about $60 billion in Sandy aid last week. Details on how Iowa’s senators voted on that package are after the jump, along with links on Boehner’s choice not bring the bill up during the lame-duck session.

Iowa has a lot of strengths as a place to live, but good public transportation isn’t one of them. In most of our cities and towns, adults need to drive to get to work, school, or shops for necessities.

That’s going to be a lot more difficult for approximately 5,000 Iowa residents who were brought to this country as undocumented immigrants during childhood.  

Iowa GOP Chair A.J. Spiker spoke for many conservative Republicans yesterday when he urged members of Congress to vote against the “ill-advised” deal to avoid tax increases. “The so called “Fiscal Cliff Deal” will only hurt middle class families, continue out of control government spending and fails to address the $16.5 Trillion Federal deficit [sic],” Spiker said in a statement.

Republicans Tom Latham (IA-04, IA-03 in the new Congress) and Steve King (IA-05, IA-04 in the new Congress) voted against this bill. So did likely 2016 presidential candidates Marco Rubio and Rand Paul in the U.S. Senate. However, in a surprising move to me, House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan voted for the deal. I figured Ryan would end up with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and most other House Republicans, who objected to the lack of spending cuts. Ryan later told reporters, “I am not afraid of anything, I think it needed to pass. […] I wanted to stop a big tax increase.”

Any comments on the long-term political implications of yesterday’s votes are welcome in this thread. Rubio has already warned that the deal will hurt small businesses and future economic growth. He is wrong about the impact on small businesses, but economic growth probably will be weak during the next few years, which will vindicate his views in the eyes of conservatives.

UPDATE: A few more House Republicans who voted no may run for president in 2016 or 2020: Mike Pence, just elected governor of Indiana; Tim Scott, just appointed U.S. senator to replace Jim DeMint of South Carolina; Jeff Flake, just elected U.S. senator from Arizona.

Members of Congress are in Washington today trying to make last-minute deals to avoid supposedly dire consequences on January 1. So far it appears likely that some kind of one-year extension of current farm policies will pass in order to avoid a huge price spike for milk and problems for agricultural producers. UPDATE: A nine-month farm bill extension was added to the fiscal cliff bill.

Lots of plans are floating around to deal with the so-called “fiscal cliff”: Bush income tax cuts (last extended for two years in December 2010) are set to expire, along with lower payroll tax and estate tax rates. Meanwhile, various budget cuts are due to go into effect in January, including a “sequester” of federal spending on defense and other programs but also lower Medicare payments to doctors. At this point, I would be surprised if we don’t go over the cliff, and I agree with Senator Tom Harkin that no deal is better than a bad deal.

I will update this post throughout the day and evening with news on Congressional voting. After the jump I’ve enclosed some links on the latest proposals floating around the Capitol. Tremendous hypocrisy is on display. If deficit hawks believed their own propaganda, they would embrace higher taxes and lower spending to solve this supposedly dire threat to the U.S. economy. UPDATE: More news is below.

All signs point toward U.S. Senator Tom Harkin seeking a sixth term in 2014. He loves his policy work and even passed up a chance to chair the Senate Appropriations Committee in order to continue as head of the Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee. In a December 27 e-mail blast from his campaign committee, Harkin indicated that he will “never stop” fighting for the middle class, even though certain “special interests” would love to send him “into early retirement.” Citizens for Harkin finance director Jeremy Gold sent out another fundraising e-mail on December 29, including phrases like “We don’t know for sure who will challenge Tom” and “Republicans are already lining up to challenge Tom.”

I don’t know about Republicans “lining up” to run against Harkin. Early handicappers inside the beltway consider this race a “likely Democrat” hold, and I agree for reasons Bleeding Heartland discussed here. Iowa’s ambitious Secretary of State Matt Schultz already took himself out of contention as a challenger to Harkin in 2014. I would be shocked if either U.S. Representative Tom Latham (IA-03 in the new Congress) or Steve King (IA-04) gave up a safe House seat to be a long-shot in a statewide race. Public Policy Polling found Harkin leading both Latham and King in an October 2011 survey. A poll by the same firm last month found Harkin leading a generic Republican opponent by 48 percent to 40 percent.

Any speculation about Harkin’s re-election campaign is welcome in this thread.

Judging from this thread, Bleeding Heartland readers are interested in scenario spinning about the 2014 Iowa gubernatorial election. Former Governor Chet Culver is among several Democrats considering the race. I’ve posted a few thoughts about that prospect after the jump.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

UPDATE: Dave Wasserman continues to update presidential election popular vote totals on this spreadsheet. As of December 29, Barack Obama has exceeded 51 percent of the popular vote and is nearly 5 million votes ahead of Mitt Romney: 65,892,366 votes to 60,926,847 votes.

The U.S. Senate voted today to extend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) for five more years, allowing “electronic eavesdropping” without a warrant to continue in the U.S. and abroad. President Barack Obama (who at one time opposed the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping policy) will sign the bill sometime before the end of December 31. Follow me after the jump for details on the Senate voting, including how Democrat Tom Harkin and Republican Chuck Grassley voted on various amendments.

When the U.S. House approved this bill in September, four of the five Iowans voted yes: Democrats Dave Loebsack (IA-02) and Leonard Boswell (IA-03) and Republicans Tom Latham (IA-04) and Steve King (IA-05). Democrat Bruce Braley (IA-01) was among 118 House members to oppose the bill.

An Iowa Supreme Court ruling announced last week made news around the country. The seven justices unanimously rejected a gender discrimination claim from a plaintiff whose boss had obviously treated her unfairly.

Politicians and commentators continue to react to recent comments by National Rifle Association Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre. He broke the NRA’s weeklong silence following the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting with a December 21 speech (falsely billed as a “press conference”) and an appearance on NBC’s “Meet The Press” two days later.

LaPierre rejected any new restrictions on guns or ammunition and blamed a wide range of cultural influences for mass shootings. He suggested that Congress should respond by funding armed security officers in every school in the country.

This thread is for any comments about the root causes of violence or policies that could prevent future gun-related tragedies. I’ve enclosed lots of relevant links and analysis after the jump.