The U.S. Senate approved a new transportation authorization bill on March 14. Iowa’s senators Chuck Grassley and Tom Harkin were both part of the 74 to 22 majority supporting the highway bill, officially called MAP-21. Republicans cast all of the no votes. In today’s polarized Senate, 74 votes looks like an overwhelming mandate, but it’s worth noting that even larger bipartisan majorities approved the four previous transportation authorization bills from 1987, 1991, 1998, and 2005.

Before final passage of MAP-21, senators voted on numerous amendments. Some were related to transportation policy, while other “non-germane” proposals were considered as part of a deal to avoid a Republican filibuster. Bleeding Heartland covered how Grassley and Harkin voted on the first batch of amendments here. Follow me after the jump for details on the rest of the Senate debate over the transportation bill. Iowa’s senators were on opposite sides most of the time.

All the expected Congressional candidates in Iowa have filed nominating papers with the Secretary of State’s Office: Bruce Braley, Ben Lange, and Rod Blum in the first district; Dave Loebsack, Dan Dolan, and John Archer in the second district; Leonard Boswell and Tom Latham in the third district; and Steve King and Christie Vilsack in the fourth district.

No one I talked to last weekend saw petitions for State Senator Joe Seng at various county conventions in IA-02. Therefore, I assume Seng will not file to challenge Loebsack in the primary. Either Iowa’s worst Democratic lawmaker was just looking for a little free publicity earlier this month, or he didn’t realize how many signatures he would need to qualify for the ballot as a Congressional candidate. FRIDAY UPDATE: I was dead wrong–don’t know how Seng got the signatures, but he’s on the candidate list from the Secretary of State’s Office.

To mark the field being set in all four districts, I’m posting updated active voter registration numbers for Democrats, Republicans, and no-party voters in all 99 Iowa counties, grouped by Congressional district. The numbers in the tables after the jump come from this page at the Iowa Secretary of State’s website (pdf).

Any comments about the Congressional races are welcome in this thread. I love this story about Dolan accidentally addressing the wrong convention in Monroe County last Saturday. The Democratic delegates politely listened to his stump speech, after which someone raised his hand to suggest Dolan might want the Republican convention instead. Now that’s what I call Iowa nice!

UPDATE: Here’s a change of pace: King has never debated a Congressional challenger before, but he is proposing to debate Vilsack six times. No word yet on the details of the offer.

A third Democratic candidate has filed nominating papers in the new Iowa Senate district 38. Nick Volk, a bank vice president from Walford (Benton County), will face LaForest Sherman and Shelley Parbs in the June primary. The winner will take on first-term Republican State Senator Tim Kapucian in a swing district. A map is after the jump, along with more background on Volk.

U.S. Attorney Stephanie Rose told members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday that she wasn’t a key decision maker regarding the May 2008 immigration raid in Postville, Iowa.

Following up on this post: Des Moines Register Editor Rick Green has announced that the newspaper will publish all of this week’s Doonesbury comic strips in the Sunday Register Opinion section. The paper will also run commentary for and against the Texas ultrasound law, the target of Garry Trudeau’s ridicule.

Iowa is one of five states to receive a failing grade in the U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund’s new report, Following the Money 2012: How the 50 States Rate in Providing Online Access to Government Spending Data. The full report is here (pdf). I’ve posted highlights and excerpts after the jump.

The Iowa Environmental Council is one of 11 plaintiffs in two lawsuits filed today to challenge inaction by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The legal actions are aimed at forcing the EPA “to address the nitrogen and phosphorous pollution degrading water quality in Iowa, the Mississippi River Basin, and the Gulf of Mexico, where this pollution causes the Dead Zone.”  

Republicans saved the day for Iowa Senate Commerce Committee Chair Matt McCoy, providing most of the votes he needed to drag the nuclear energy bill over the line on Tuesday.

The Iowa Senate voted to confirm former Senator Swati Dandekar to the Iowa Utilities Board this evening by 43 votes to 6 (pdf).  

Competition for the “not Romney” niche may allow Mitt Romney to emerge from today’s Deep South primaries as a close second or third, rather than as a front-runner hated by the conservative base. With about a third of the votes counted in Alabama as of 9 pm, Rick Santorum has 35 percent of the vote, Newt Gingrich has 30 percent, Romney has 28 percent, and Ron Paul has 5 percent. Nearly 80 percent of the votes have been counted in Mississippi, where Santorum has 33 percent, Gingrich 32 percent, Romney 30 percent, and Paul 4 percent. Polls are still open in Hawaii, where I assume Romney will win easily. None of the candidates spent much time campaigning there.

Any comments about the Republican presidential race are welcome in this thread.

UPDATE: The streak continues: Romney has not won any Republican primary or caucus “where the evangelical portion of the vote has been over 50 percent.” Final unofficial results from Mississippi: Santorum 33 percent, Gingrich 31 percent, Romney 30 percent, Paul 4 percent. From Alabama: Santorum 35 percent, Gingrich 29 percent, Romney 29 percent, Paul 5 percent.

WEDNESDAY UPDATE: 45 percent of Hawaii primary voters went for Romney; Santorum had 25 percent, Paul 18 percent, Gingrich 11 percent.

The Des Moines Register is one of many newspapers across the country that declined to run this week’s “Doonesbury” comic strips, which mock Republican legislative efforts to shame and intimidate women seeking abortions.

Governor Terry Branstad and Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller both joined a brief filed today by seven Midwestern states that oppose California’s Low Carbon-Fuel Standard. Branstad was eager to “take a stand for Iowa farmers against [an] unconstitutional California law,” as a press release put it.

It’s not every day that a governor who has praised strict constructionists and “the philosophy of judicial restraint” cheers for the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to keep an injunction on (and eventually strike down) a state law.

NOTE: A third Democrat, Nick Volk, filed nominating papers in this district on March 15.

Shelley Parbs announced today that she will run for Iowa Senate district 38. She is the second declared Democratic candidate in this district; the winner of the June primary will face first-term Republican Tim Kapucian, a Senate minority leader and ranking member of the Transportation Committee. Background on Parbs is after the jump, along with election-related developments in the two Iowa House seats that make up Senate district 38.

Expanding nuclear power is again a hot topic at the Iowa statehouse. It’s not clear whether Iowa Senate Commerce Committee Chair Matt McCoy can find the votes he needs to advance House File 561. McCoy announced last week that new language in the bill would protect consumers and satisfy a majority of his committee members. However, opponents say the changes address only one of many problems in a bill that would primarily benefit MidAmerican Energy at the expense of its ratepayers. McCoy was forced to delay consideration of House File 561 on March 8, but he is expected to bring up the bill before his committee sometime this week–if he has the votes.

Follow me after the jump for analysis on the prospects for passing House File 561 and the merits of the bill.

The Iowa Democratic Party and Republican Party of Iowa held county conventions today. After the jump I’ve posted some notes on where Iowa politicians and candidates spent the day, and which Democrats addressed the Polk County Democratic convention. I left the convention during the lunch break, because delegates had finished most of the day’s business, including all work on the platform. However, the Polk County Republican convention was still going strong at this writing (around 5 pm).

This is an open thread; all topics welcome, especially county convention stories from today or years past.

Rick Santorum destroyed the competition in today’s Kansas caucuses, winning 52 percent of the vote to 21 percent for Mitt Romney, 14 percent for Newt Gingrich and 13 percent for Ron Paul. Romney swept the delegates at stake yesterday and today in the Guam and Northern Marianas Islands caucuses. Romney also won the Wyoming caucuses and most of the delegates from the Virgin Islands.

BONUS POTENTIAL FLAMEWAR TOPIC: Kevin Drum makes a counter-intuitive case: Return of the Jedi is the best Star Wars movie, especially if you take out the 10 minutes of horrific Ewok sequences. Thoughts?

David Flores was released from the Polk County jail yesterday, more than two years after a Polk County district judge ordered a new murder trial for him.  

A jury of six women and men found former State Representative Ed Fallon not guilty today of trespassing in connection with last October’s Occupy protests on the state capitol grounds.

High gasoline prices are the focus of the first radio ad for John Archer, one of the Republicans running against Representative Dave Loebsack in Iowa’s second Congressional district. Follow me after the jump for the ad script and some fact-checking.

All federal transportation programs are at risk of shutting down if Congress does not pass a new authorization bill by March 31.  House Speaker John Boehner has failed to find 218 votes in his chamber for his preferred five-year highway bill. Last month the House passed the first part of Boehner’s three-pronged approach, expanding offshore oil drilling as a way to fund federal transportation programs. However, many House conservatives believe the rest of Boehner’s bill is too expensive, and the lack of earmarks gives members nothing to sell in their districts. Yesterday Boehner told reporters that he plans to “see what the Senate can produce and to bring their bill up” in the House.

Boehner’s failure put the ball in the Senate’s court. In theory, passing a transportation bill should be straightforward, because portions of the bill already passed Senate committees with unanimous bipartisan support. But for the past month the Senate has been bogged down in disputes over how many amendments will be voted on when the chamber takes up the highway bill on the floor. This week the Senate moved toward resolution; after the jump I discuss how Iowa’s two senators voted on key procedural motions and amendments related to the transportation bill.

The U.S. House approved the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act today by an overwhelming majority. All five Iowans were among the 390 votes for passage (roll call). Details on the legislation are below.

UPDATE: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is hammering House Republicans for keeping certain amendments out of the otherwise bipartisan JOBS Act. I’ve enclosed DCCC press releases naming Tom Latham and Steve King below.