Linn County Republican Party co-chair Cindy Golding won the GOP nomination for the November 8 special election in Iowa Senate district 18 tonight. To my surprise, Golding won enough votes on the first ballot against Mary Rathje and Matt Dummermuth.

UPDATE: Republicans will need a new candidate for the Cedar Rapids suburban swing district in 2012, even if Golding wins this year’s special election. Details are at the end of this post.

Nine Republican presidential candidates are debating in Orlando tonight at an event sponsored by Google, Fox News and the Florida Republican Party. Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson will be on stage along with the eight candidates who participated in two debates earlier this month. I don’t know what they’ll tell us tonight that we didn’t hear at the Reagan Library or at the CNN/Tea Party Express debate, but I’ll update this post later with highlights.

Meanwhile, use this thread for any comments about tonight’s debate or the presidential campaign in general. Representative Thad McCotter, who has been excluded from all televised debates so far, announced today that he’s out of the race. He will back former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. Few people besides former Iowa House Speaker Chris Rants will notice McCotter’s absence.

Iowans will gather in at least eleven cities and towns this weekend as part of the Moving Planet rally for action on climate change. Groups organizing the effort include 350.org, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, Oxfam and the World Council of Churches. Click here to search for rallies, walks and bike rides taking place in 175 countries.

Details on the planned events in Iowa on September 24 and 25 are after the jump. I hope to see some Bleeding Heartland readers on the bicycle ride through downtown Des Moines.

Less than 10 days before the current fiscal year ends, Congress has not approved any appropriations bills for fiscal year 2012. Yet again, continuing funding resolutions are needed to prevent the federal government from shutting down after September 30. Yesterday Representative Tom Latham was the only Iowan to vote yes as the U.S. House failed to approve a continuing resolution backed by Republican leaders.

State Representative Kim Pearson told the Des Moines Register’s Jason Clayworth that she is “not sure whether she’ll pursue another term [in the Iowa House] or embrace another avenue to promote her ideas.” Altoona City Council member Joe Riding, a Democrat, declared his candidacy in the swing House district 30 over the summer. Bleeding Heartland previewed that race here. Whether or not Pearson runs in 2012, House district 30 will be a competitive race.

Pearson also told Clayworth that she is actively recruiting primary challengers to some House Republican incumbents. She didn’t name names, but I discuss some of the possible targets after the jump.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell officially died yesterday, allowing tens of thousands of gay and lesbian troops on active duty to stop hiding their sexual orientation. The latest Military Times reader survey indicated growing acceptance for allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military. While that survey does not use random sampling methods, its findings mirror many polls that have shown dwindling support for the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy.

Now that enlisted men and women can stop hiding same-sex relationships, future legal battles over partner and spousal military benefits appear inevitable.  

Former local television news reporter and anchor Liz Mathis confirmed today that she will be the Democratic candidate to replace Swati Dandekar in Iowa Senate district 18.  

Linn County Democrats are working behind the scenes to find a consensus candidate for the November 8 special election in Iowa Senate district 18, but at least three Republican candidates will seek the GOP nomination.

Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal today named five-term Democratic Senator Matt McCoy as chair of the Commerce Committee. He replaces Swati Dandekar, who resigned on Friday to accept an appointment to the Iowa Utilities Board. If Democrats lose the November special to replace Dandekar, McCoy will likely co-chair the Commerce Committee with a Republican colleague during the 2012 legislative session. Jerry Behn was the ranking GOP senator on the Commerce Committee during this year’s session.

I’ve posted background on McCoy and his senate career after the jump. His position on the nuclear energy bill Dandekar championed is unclear.

The Sierra Club Iowa chapter warned today that Swati Dandekar, Governor Terry Branstad’s choice to fill an Iowa Utilities Board vacancy, “will favor the utilities at the expense of the public interest.” In a statement I’ve posted after the jump, leaders in the Sierra Club chapter cited proposed legislation to promote building new nuclear reactors in Iowa. As chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, Dandekar strongly supported that bill during the 2011 legislative session.

Along with the American Association of Retired Persons and the Iowa chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility, Sierra Club Iowa members were among the most vocal opponents of the nuclear energy bill. It never came to a vote on the Senate floor after clearing the Iowa House comfortably.

UPDATE: IowaPolitics.com paraphrased AARP Iowa State Director Kent Sovern as saying Dandekar “served her constituents well,” and that the AARP “looks forward to working with the Iowa Utilities Board.”

News broke on Friday that Iowa lost about 2,300 non-farm jobs in August, causing the state’s unemployment rate to rise from 6 percent to 6.1 percent. On the same day, Governor Terry Branstad named 11 voting members of a new Economic Development Authority board. Branstad said the board will “play a large role in promoting Iowa to businesses looking to expand or relocate in Iowa,” with a view to fulfilling his campaign promises to create 200,000 new jobs and raise family incomes by 25 percent.

After the jump I’ve posted some background on the new board, its mission, and the six men and five women Branstad appointed.

All five Iowans in the U.S. House are co-sponsoring a bill that would require the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers “to revise the Missouri River Master Manual to increase the total amount of storage space within the Missouri River Reservoir System that is allocated for flood control.” After the jump I’ve posted more details on that bill and other news about the Iowans in Congress.

The Gannett Corporation’s last round of newsroom layoffs at the Des Moines Register caught my attention immediately, because I’m a daily subscriber. I learned only recently that the Iowa City Press-Citizen was on the receiving end of more Gannett penny-pinching a few weeks ago.  

Democratic State Senator Swati Dandekar is stepping down from the legislature in order to accept an appointment to the Iowa Utilities Board, the Des Moines Register reported today. Her resignation forces a special election this fall in Iowa Senate district 18, which covers suburban and rural areas in Linn County.

Democrats currently hold a 26-24 Iowa Senate majority, so a Republican victory in the special election would deadlock the upper chamber for the 2012 legislative session. Follow me after the jump for a district map and first take on the race to replace Dandekar.

Iowa Department of Transportation officials have asked the Federal Railroad Administration to separate the $230 million federal grant intended to support passenger rail service from Chicago to Iowa City. Separating the funds would allow the Illinois Department of Transportation to move ahead with the Chicago to Moline (Quad Cities) portion of the rail line. Meanwhile, the Iowa DOT will study a potential passenger rail link all the way to Omaha, Nebraska.

UPDATE: Dix quit the race in November 2011, shortly after Republican David Maxwell declared his candidacy in House district 76.

Iowa’s new map of political boundaries created several competitive state House and Senate districts lacking an incumbent. Democrat Rachel Bly and Republican Mark Dix recently announced their candidacies in Iowa House district 76, covering Poweshiek County and most of Iowa County.  

No wonder the economy remains weak: a new U.S. Census Bureau report on income, poverty and health insurance coverage indicates that median wages in 2010 were about 7 percent below the peak level in 1999, and more Americans lived in poverty last year than ever before recorded. Iowa’s poverty rate rose over the last decade, hitting 10.2 percent in 2010. That figure translates to about 310,000 of the state’s 3,046,355 residents living in poverty.

The report’s findings bolster the case for spending more on social programs and undercut the argument for business tax credits as a job creation strategy. In addition, the new census figures show how badly the 1996 federal welfare reform failed to address poverty in this country.

The cesarean section rate in Iowa climbed again to 30.37 percent in 2010, and statistics compiled by the Iowa Department of Public Health showed huge disparities among hospitals in the percentage of live births done surgically.

Former U.S. Attorney Matt Whitaker joined Texas Governor Rick Perry’s campaign yesterday as Iowa co-chair. He had previously led former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty’s Iowa campaign effort. On Monday Pawlenty endorsed Perry’s leading rival for the Republican nomination, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. Whitaker’s partner in the Des Moines law firm Whitaker Hagenow is State Representative Chris Hagenow. He endorsed Pawlenty this summer and hasn’t publicly committed to another candidate yet.

After the jump I’ve posted part of a Perry for president press release with background on nine new staffers just hired to work field. Romney is not investing as much in his campaign’s Iowa ground game as he did before the 2008 caucuses.

Voters across Iowa elected school board members today. I discuss some of the Polk County results after the jump, and I hope Bleeding Heartland readers will share anything interesting that happened in their neck of the woods.