You don’t have to be a “friend and former adviser on three of Bob Vander Plaats’ campaigns” for governor to know what Dan Moore writes in a Des Moines Register guest editorial today. But the assessment packs more of a punch coming from a former close associate:

Bob is obsessed with the gay-marriage issue. He is so obsessed that he would rather see the Iowa judicial system destroyed, instead of pursuing a change in the law within the channels provided (a constitutional amendment).

This post continues below.

Longtime Iowa political operative Gentry Collins has ended his bid to become chairman of the Republican National Committee, he told RNC members in a January 2 letter. Collins made the news in November by resigning as RNC political director and sending RNC members a devastating critique of current chairman Michael Steele’s leadership. Dropping out of the race to succeed Steele, Collins wrote that

part of his mission in campaigning for chairman was to shed light on the party’s financial condition, which he said, “has been a game-changer for Chairman Steele’s re-election prospects.” […]

“I entered this race to make sure there was a credible alternative to Michael Steele and have said from day one I will not get in the way of electing new leadership at the RNC,” Collins wrote.

Collins continued: “It is after much consideration and thought that I announce my withdrawal from the race for Chairman of the RNC. I believe that there are several qualified candidates in the race for Chairman, each of whom would do a fine job leading the committee through the 2012 Election cycle.”

I figured Collins was a long-shot to take his former boss’s job for various reasons. It didn’t look good for him to establish a committee to support his bid for RNC chairman while he was still working at the committee. Craig Robinson’s critique of Collins’ “ego,” “vengeful style” and “heavy-handed” tactics may have put off some Republican insiders too.

Various “whip counts” published by Washington-based journalists showed Collins with only three firm commitments from voting RNC members, far behind the front-runner, Wisconsin Republican Party chairman Reince Priebus. (That’s pronounced “ryns pree-buhs.”) Iowa GOP Chairman Matt Strawn had publicly backed Collins, but committeeman Steve Scheffler was an early Priebus endorser. Iowa’s committeewoman Kim Lehman is supporting Priebus too; she and Scheffler backed the main alternative to Steele in 2009.

Four previous leaders of the national GOP have been from Iowa. The most recent was pro-choice moderate Mary Louise Smith in the mid-1970s. Smith is still the only woman to have headed the RNC. Two women have entered the race to replace Steele, but a rule requiring the party chair and co-chair to be different genders puts them at a disadvantage.

Best wishes for the new year to everyone in the Bleeding Heartland community. What’s on your mind this first weekend of 2011?

Improving personal health is a common new year’s resolution. I’ll be trying to eat less sugar and exercise more, partly to lose a few pounds and partly to reduce stress. Research suggests that exercising before breakfast is especially helpful, and you don’t have to do intense, long workouts every day to benefit.

Radio Iowa suggested a few ways people can prevent strokes, “the third leading cause of death in Iowa, killing more than 1,600 Iowans last year alone.” Here’s another idea for preventing strokes: reduce coal combustion. Physicians for Social Responsibility has found that 92 percent of Iowans “live within 30 miles of a coal plant.” Particulate matter and other pollutants generated by coal combustion have been proven to cause strokes, as well as heart disease and cancer, the two other leading causes of death in Iowa. Using renewable energy or natural gas to replace some of our coal-fired plants could measurably improve the health of Iowans.

According to State Climatologist Harry Hillaker, 44.66 inches of precipitation made 2010 the second-wettest year out of 138 years for which records are available. Here’s hoping for less rain in 2011, because Iowa isn’t implementing land-use practices that might allow the ground to absorb more rain. Governor-elect Terry Branstad has never been big on flood prevention and still has no plan for flood mitigation. The new Iowa Legislature is no more likely to enact wise floodplain management policies than the last one.

Those trying to reduce their carbon footprints in 2011 can find good ideas here, here and here. Staff charged with making institutions more energy efficient can get inspiration from Luther College in Decorah, one of only eight colleges nationwide “to earn an ‘A’ on The College Sustainability Report Card released Oct. 27 by the Sustainable Endowments Institute.”

Luther received an “A” in seven of the eight graded areas including: administration, climate change and energy, food and recycling, green building, student involvement, transportation, and investment priorities. The college received a “B” in endowment transparency. […]

Luther was among the first colleges in the country to sign the Presidents Climate Commitment, which encouraged institutions to reduce their carbon footprint, operate more efficiently, and make sustainability part of every student’s learning experience. […]

Luther has reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent since 2003 and is committed to a 50 percent reduction by 2012. Reducing greenhouse emissions is one of several goals in the college’s newest strategic plan, a section of which is dedicated to environmental sustainability.

Click here for the full report on how Luther achieved these outstanding results. The College Sustainability Report Card gave “B” grades to Grinnell College and Iowa State University, while the University of Iowa got a “C-“. Note to Luther staff: if you want more recognition next year, have someone return the Sierra Club’s “Cool Schools” survey.

This is an open thread.

Electors in Iowa Senate district 35 chose Jack Whitver on December 30 to run in the January 18 special election. Senate district 35 contains most of the northern half of Polk County. Whitver is a former Iowa State University football player who coaches for the Iowa Barnstormers arena football team, attends Drake University law school and owns a sports training business with locations in Ankeny, Urbandale, and Waukee. (Ankeny is the largest city in Senate district 35; Urbandale and Waukee lie outside the district.) Democrats will choose a candidate for this special election on January 3.

Six Republicans sought the nomination in this GOP-leaning district. The best-known were Kevin Koester, recently elected to a second term in Iowa House district 70, and Jim Gocke, a law partner of former State Senator Jeff Lamberti. Art Smith covered the nominating speeches and results from all five ballots at The Conservative Reader Iowa blog. The bottom candidate dropped out after each round of balloting, and Whitver finally received over 50 percent on the fifth round. Gocke led Whitver in the first and third ballots, but fell behind as more candidates were eliminated. Several GOP State Central Committee members who don’t live in Senate district 35 had backed Matt DeVries, an activist with Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty. DeVries was eliminated after the fourth ballot.

I was surprised to read in Craig Robinson’s post that only 34 of the 43 possible electors showed up to choose the Republican candidate for this special election. I know lots of people travel during the holiday season, but if you’re interested enough in politics to be a district elector, why would you miss a rare opportunity to pick your next state senator?

Robinson put Whitver’s nominating speech up on YouTube. It hits a lot of typical Republican talking points. For instance, according to Whitver, Iowa’s budget isn’t really balanced, because Democrats used one-time federal stimulus money to support the state budget. (Republicans will never understand that it was wise for states to use federal fiscal aid to get through the recession without devastating spending cuts, which would have been a further drag on the economy.) Whitver mentioned his 2006 candidacy against Ako Abdul-Samad in the overwhelmingly Democratic Iowa House district 66. From my perspective, the most interesting part of the speech began around the 2:50 mark:

I believe in term limits. If nominated tonight, I pledge right here, right now that I will serve no more than two terms in the Iowa Senate. I think that career politicians are one of the biggest problems that we have, and I think that getting rid of them are the single most effective way to eliminate the corruption, fix our political system and return our country to greatness.

Strange to rail against corrupt career politicians when your party’s top-ticket candidates last month were Chuck Grassley and Terry Branstad. Grassley has spent 52 years in politics, including 30 in the U.S. Senate, and Branstad just sought and won a fifth four-year term as governor.

The Ankeny area is likely to tilt Republican for some time, and Whitver’s a young guy. If he wins the race to succeed Larry Noble, as he will be favored to do, he may find it tempting not to step down after two terms in the Iowa Senate.

Secretary of State Michael Mauro announced on December 29 that his office and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission have resolved all outstanding issues related to Iowa’s use of federal Help America Vote Act funds when Chet Culver was secretary of state. A federal audit originally questioned the use of about $2.5 million of the $30 million in HAVA funds Iowa received. By June of this year, federal officials reduced to $576,000 the amount Iowa would have to pay back.  The final agreement reached won’t cost Iowa anything.

For three years, state elections staff have worked to correct a long list of problems in an effort to avoid a large repayment, but federal officials concluded $221,000 in “disallowed costs” couldn’t be fixed or whittled down further.

However, the state won’t have to write a check to repay that money, said Secretary of State Michael Mauro said today.

Mauro asked federal officials to give the state a credit for expenses that were eligible for federal voting funds, but that Mauro chose to cover with state money knowing that questionable spending would likely need to be repaid.

Click here to view final correspondence from the EAC to the Secretary of State’s office. Governor Chet Culver’s general counsel Jim Larew emphasized in a statement that “no federal rules were broken,” and “Most of the federal rules that were interpreted to evaluate the Iowa HAVA program had not even been published by the time Iowa HAVA was completed.”

This settlement wraps up four years of outstanding work by Mauro as secretary of state. He never should have lost his re-election bid.

Last month, Governor-elect Terry Branstad praised Mauro’s work and said he would consider hiring him in his administration. On December 30, the Branstad/Reynolds transition announced that Branstad will nominate Mauro to head the Iowa Labor Commission. Before that term starts on May 1, 2011, Mauro will serve as deputy director at Iowa Workforce Development, beginning January 3.

I’ll post a more extensive update on Branstad’s personnel choices and policy statements in the next few days. After the jump I’ve posted Mauro’s press release and Larew’s statement on the HAVA audit resolution, as well as the Branstad statement on Mauro’s new position, which praised “the fair and even way [Mauro] administered election laws and how he effectively managed the Iowa secretary of state’s office.” No wonder Branstad never did much to help Mauro’s opponent Matt Schultz, in stark contrast to his longstanding and highly visible advocacy for attorney general candidate Brenna Findley.

Former Iowa First Lady Christie Vilsack has strongly hinted to local and Washington-based journalists that she is considering a run for Congress, perhaps as early as 2012. Vilsack lives in Polk County, which will remain the population center of the redrawn third Congressional district. Meanwhile, Representative Leonard Boswell has shown no interest in stepping aside for Vilsack. He told a reporter in August,

“Christie [Vilsack] is a smart person. I’m planning on doing this for a while, so I hope that she has got other things she likes to do for a while because I’m going to continue to do this.”

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack did nothing to discourage the rumors when asked last week about his wife running for Congress in 2012:

Christie has extraordinary options. She is well respected and she has devoted most of her life to public service in one form or another and I think she has many options ahead of her. These are decisions that she has to make and I will support her whatever her decisions are.

Meanwhile, many central Iowa Democrats (including myself) received an invitation this week for a Boswell fundraiser on January 7 in Des Moines. Senator Tom Harkin is headlining the event, and since it’s scheduled a week into the 2012 election cycle, maxed-out donors from 2010 will be able to contribute. It’s possible that Boswell has debt to retire from his hard-fought campaign against Brad Zaun, but I agree with Civic Skinny that it looks more like a sign Boswell isn’t afraid of Vilsack in 2012.

What do you think, Bleeding Heartland readers? Would Christie Vilsack run for Congress even if Boswell doesn’t retire, and if so, who would win the Democratic primary? Also share any thoughts about who would stand better chance against Republican Tom Latham. I expect Latham to run in IA-03 even if the new district doesn’t include Story County. Latham won’t want to roll the dice on a Republican primary against Steve King in the new IA-04.

P.S. Last month I pondered whether Boswell might have lost if he had faced Jim Gibbons rather than Brad Zaun. One big question mark was whether Boswell would have had enough negative material to “win ugly” against Gibbons. This week Civic Skinny published some unflattering background on Gibbons that surely would have come out if he’d been Boswell’s opponent. Excerpts are after the jump.

Last year Bleeding Heartland discussed some promising changes in Dubuque, thanks to the vision of community leaders who launched the SustainableDubuque initiative in 2006. Now called the “Dubuque 2.0” sustainability initiative, the program has helped bring the city a long list of recognitions and awards.

Government and public entities: The U.S. Conference of Mayors named Dubuque the country’s “Most Livable Small City” for 2008. The Economic Development Administration (an agency within the federal Commerce Department) gave the an award for “excellence in historic preservation-led strategies” in 2009. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Transportation and Department of Housing and Urban Development selected Dubuque for sustainability pilot programs, also in 2009. The Iowa League of Cities named Dubuque an All-Star Community this year.

Business groups and business-oriented media: Dubuque landed on Sperling’s Best Places top ten “Most Affordable Places to Live and Work” in 2009; was third best in the country for job growth, according to Careerbuilder.com in 2010; and was the seventh best city under 200,000 population in “Economic Growth Potential,” according to Business Facilities magazine in 2010. Dubuque also won an Excellence in Economic Development award this year from the International Economic Development Council, while Forbes.com named it both the “Best Small City to Raise a Family” and “Best Smaller Metro for Projected Job Growth” nationwide.

Non-profit organizations: Dubuque came in third place at the International Awards for Livable Communities in 2010 in the category of cities with populations between 20,000 and 75,000. The city won the 1000 Friends of Iowa 2010 Best Development Award in the leadership category for its recently adopted Unified Development Code, which “promotes best practices in sustainable development and will serve as a model for other cities in Iowa.” (Side note: Dubuque also contains more private Best Development Award winning-projects than any other Iowa city. Most recently, the “beauty and authenticity” of the Hotel Julien historic rehabilitation earned it the 1000 Friends of Iowa 2010 Best Development Award in the renovated and commercial/civic category.)

Too many Iowa politicians portray eco-friendly policies as bad for business or economic growth. Dubuque is proving that sustainability makes a community more attractive to potential job-creators:

According to Mike Blouin, president of the Greater Dubuque Development Corporation, the cachet that comes with operating a business in a sustainable region is becoming increasingly important.

“A growing segment of companies — manufacturers and service providers — want to be a part of this trend,” he said. “They want to be a part of communities that are into sustainability, and they believe it will be easier to attract the kind of workforce they want there. Or companies may manufacture items used in these sustainable communities. Whatever it might be, they want sustainability to be a part of their message.”

He added, “You can be pro-economic development and be sustainable. They’re not mutually exclusive. A smarter city is not the initial thing companies look at, because they still have to make money. The community has to make sense overall, but if it does, sustainability could very well be a deal-maker. If there are a half-dozen cities in front of a company, it may look at smarter sustainability and see that it fits the company’s philosophy. Final decisions are made by those kinds of factors.”

In 2009, the IBM corporation renovated the historic Roshek building in partnership with the city of Dubuque and selected the city for sustainability pilot programs. After the jump I’ve posted more details on some projects implemented this year. These benefit the city by finding ways to reduce costs and use of resources, and benefit IBM by promoting technologies it hopes to sell to other cities.

Deals struck during the Congressional lame-duck session have scuttled for now the federal government’s plan to purchase and open the Thomson Correctional Center facility in Illinois. The high-security prison was mostly built in 2001 but never utilized for lack of state budget funds. A year ago, officials announced plans for the Federal Bureau of Prisons to purchase the facility. The plan involved the Defense Department leasing part of one building to house some detainees transferred from the Guantanamo Bay military prison. Clinton, Iowa lies just across the Mississippi River from Thomson and is the main population center for the area. Local, state and federal officials estimated that opening the prison would generate nearly a thousand jobs directly and more indirectly as workers spent money in the local economy. In late 2009, Representative Bruce Braley said his constituents supported the plan for a new prison at Thomson, while prominent Iowa Republicans stoked fears about bringing terror suspects to a maximum-security facility anywhere in the midwest.

When drafting the 2011 defense authorization bill, House members barred the use of any federal funds for a facility to house former Guantanamo detainees, pending “a thorough and comprehensive plan that outlines the merits, costs, and risks associated with utilizing such a facility.” Similar language made it into the final version of the defense authorization bill, which the House and Senate approved on December 22. The provision will prevent the Obama administration from trying some terrorism suspects in U.S. civilian courts, and was struck to secure Republican support. (By some accounts, Republicans insisted on this provision in exchange for letting Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal move forward.)

Federal Bureau of Prisons officials made clear this year that they still planned to purchase the Thomson Correction Center to relieve overcrowding in the federal prison system. However, it would cost the federal government more than $200 million to purchase and renovate the facility. The 2011 federal budget omnibus bill included funding to buy the Thomson Correctional Center, but an uproar over earmarks prompted Senate Republicans to reject the omnibus bill on December 16. Consequently, the federal government is operating on a continuing spending authorization until March 2011. Republican Congressional leaders have promised big domestic spending cuts next year, and it’s not clear whether the Bureau of Prisons, which is part of the Justice Department, will have the money to purchase Thomson. When the state of Illinois attempted to auction the facility last week, neither the federal government nor anyone else placed a bid.

The stalemate surrounding federal plans for Thomson runs counter to a decades-long American tradition of bipartisan political support for prisons as economic development projects.

Merry Christmas to those in the Bleeding Heartland community celebrating the holiday. Hope you have a joyful day with friends and family. To everyone else, I hope you enjoy some peaceful downtime this weekend. Yesterday our family finished a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle and went out sledding twice before enjoying Chinese food and a movie with a bunch of other Des Moines area Jews.

Today more sledding is on the agenda, and probably a new jigsaw puzzle. My boys received several new games for Chanukah, so we’ve been playing them a lot, especially “Sorry” and the Lego Harry Potter board game. For dinner, it will be my variation on my mother’s noodle kugel, which has become a sort of Christmas tradition for Mr. desmoinesdem. I’ve posted the recipe after the jump. It’s a lot less work than the traditional Christmas dinner Patric Juillet grew up with in Provence. Patric used to blog as Asinus Asinum Fricat. I am going to try some of his sweet potato recipes soon.

We received a card this week from a friend who usually bakes up a storm for Christmas. This year she got behind on her holiday baking, so instead of bringing over a package of goodies she made a donation in our name to Central Iowa Shelter and Services. That was a nice surprise. Food banks and shelters need cash donations now, and we don’t need any extra calories around our house. If you prefer to support charity working globally to reduce hunger, kestrel9000 suggests making a gift to Oxfam.

I didn’t notice too much “war on Christmas” silliness this year, but The Daily Show had a funny go at this American staple: “The holiday season wouldn’t feel the same without people going out of their way to be offended by nothing.” Locally, Gary Barrett tried to stir up some outrage over the demise of a “winter tree” at Ames High School. I felt my children’s public school did a good job of exposing the kids to different holiday traditions. Many children talked about their family’s rituals (religious or not) in class, and a display case had holiday decorations representing Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa and Devali.

The U.S. Census Bureau delivered Christmas cheer to some states this week, including our neighbor to the north, but as we all expected, Iowa will lose a Congressional district.

This is an open thread for anything on your mind this weekend.  

Before the November election, advocates for retaining the three Iowa Supreme Court justices on the ballot warned that throwing out the judges over one controversial decision would bring more politics into the judicial arena. The new debate over impeaching the four remaining Supreme Court justices shows that’s exactly what has happened.

In 2009, calls for impeaching the Supreme Court justices were a bridge too far even for Bob Vander Plaats, Iowa’s leading critic of the Varnum v Brien ruling. Now newly-elected Republican State Representatives Tom Shaw, Kim Pearson and Glen Massie are drafting articles of impeachment to introduce during the 2011 legislative session.

So far not one GOP official has spoken out against using a controversial ruling as grounds for criminal proceedings against four judges.

JANUARY 3 UPDATE: Governor-elect Terry Branstad finally spoke out against impeaching the remaining Supreme Court justices. Click the link or scroll to the bottom of this post to read his comments.

AFSCME Iowa Council 61 announced on December 22 that its membership overwhelmingly approved a new contract covering fiscal years 2012 and 2013. The vote means Governor-elect Terry Branstad will not be able to persuade state employees to accept a pay freeze in the name of budget austerity.

Details on the vote and more are after the jump.

The U.S. Senate ratified the START arms control treaty today by a 71 to 26 vote. Thirteen Republicans joined all 58 members of the Democratic caucus to ratify the treaty, which needed support from two-thirds of the senators present to pass. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley voted no, as did Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and most of the Republican caucus. According to Major Garrett, no Senate minority leader has ever before opposed a major treaty that the chamber ratified.

Grassley said he voted against ratifying START “because it makes the United States give up more than Russia, it’s silent on the major issue of tactical nuclear weapons, and the verification mechanism is weaker than START I, which I supported in 1992.” I’ve posted his full statement on the treaty after the jump. Every former secretary of state alive, plus various Reagan administration officials, agreed that approving the treaty is in U.S. security interests. Tom Harkin’s statement, which is also posted below, hailed the treaty’s ratification, adding, “The fact that it was subjected to months of obstruction and delay underlines the dysfunction that has taken hold in the U.S. Senate.”

Also today, senators passed by unanimous consent a bill on health care for 9/11 responders. Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, backed by his GOP colleagues, had been holding up that bill for some time. Senators from both parties worked out a compromise on the bill, reducing its cost and sunsetting the Victims Compensation Fund, among other things. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House will approve this bill later today, before Congress adjourns for Christmas.

Earlier today, President Barack Obama signed the bill that will lead to repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. However, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network cautioned, “‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ will still be the law until 60 days after the Commander-in-Chief, Secretary of Defense, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs certify repeal can happen.” The SLDN’s full warning to service members is here. Bottom line: “Do NOT come out. At this time, lesbian, gay, and bisexual service members can still be investigated and discharged under DADT.”

Chris Geidner analyzed the Senate numbers on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and found that just two current senators (Russ Feingold and Barbara Boxer) voted “against DADT at every stage in its history.” Grassley was one of five current senators who voted to keep Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell on December 18 and also voted for the 1993 defense authorization bill enacting the policy. Tom Harkin was among 18 current members of the Democratic caucus who voted to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell despite having voted for the 1993 defense authorization. Caveat: Harkin and most of that group had previously voted for a Boxer amendment to strip Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell from that 1993 bill.

In other Congressional news, momentum is building for some kind of filibuster reform when the new Senate convenes in January, but it sounds as if the changes will not reduce the number of senators needed to overcome a filibuster (60).

Secretary of State-elect Matt Schultz has announced several important hires in the past week. Former Republican Congressional candidate Jim Gibbons will serve as Chief Deputy and Director of Business Services, while longtime Story County Auditor Mary Mosiman will run the Elections Division.

Follow me after the jump for background and analysis on those appointments.  

The U.S. Senate approved a continuing resolution today to fund the federal government at current levels through March 4, 2011. Both the cloture motion and the bill itself passed by large bipartisan majorities; Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin and Republican Chuck Grassley voted for the cloture motion and the funding resolution. Harkin slammed Republicans for blocking the fiscal year 2011 omnibus bill last week, because unlike the continuing resolution approved today, the omnibus bill would have increased funding for programs such as Head Start, child care subsidies, meals for seniors and drugs for AIDS patients. The House of Representatives is expected to approve the continuing resolution later today to stop the government from running out of money at midnight. UPDATE: The House approved the spending bill by 193 to 165, with 75 representatives not voting. All five Iowans voted, and they split along party lines.

A bigger problem will come in March, when House Republicans force through major cuts in domestic spending (probably with the eager cooperation of President Barack Obama). Those will be a drag on the economy, erasing any stimulative effect from the lousy deal Obama struck on extending the Bush tax cuts.

Meanwhile, the House gave final approval to the food safety bill today on a mostly party-line vote of 215 to 144. Iowa’s representatives split the usual way, with Democrats Bruce Braley, Dave Loebsack and Leonard Boswell voting for the bill and Republicans Tom Latham and Steve King voting against it. I am still surprised that the Senate resurrected the food safety bill on Sunday. I have yet to see any explanation for why Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma agreed to let it pass. Coburn had been that bill’s most vocal opponent in the Senate all year. It’s not as if Coburn suddenly decided to stop being a jerk; he appears ready to block the 9/11 responders bill from becoming law during the lame-duck session. Even some Fox News commentators are upset about that political maneuver.

The Senate took a step toward ratifying the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) today. Eleven Republicans joined all Democrats present to approve a cloture motion on that treaty, which the U.S. and Russia signed in April. Grassley voted with most of his GOP colleagues against the cloture motion on START; he has voted for various Republican amendments offered to the treaty. I haven’t seen any statement from his office explaining his opposition. The last START expired in December 2009, and we need to ratify the new treaty in order to resume inspecting Russian nuclear bases. There could hardly be a more important national security issue. Ronald Reagan’s former chief arms control negotiator said last month that Iran and North Korea were the “only two governments in the world that wouldn’t like to see this treaty ratified.”

When the 84th General Assembly convenes on January 10, the Iowa House will have 60 Republicans and 40 Democrats. House Republicans selected leaders and committee chairs last month, and Democrats finished choosing leaders and ranking committee members in the past two weeks.

All Iowa House leaders, committee chairs and ranking members can be found after the jump. I’ve included a link to a short biography for each state representative, as well as the year the person was first elected to the Iowa House and the district he or she represents.  

Three attorneys who are challenging last month’s judicial retention elections today withdrew their request for an injunction to allow Iowa Supreme Court Chief Justice Marsha Ternus and Justices David Baker and Michael Streit to continue serving after December 31. The attorneys filed their lawsuit last week, saying the retention vote was illegal because the Iowa Constitution stipulates that judges “shall at such judicial election stand for retention in office on a separate ballot which shall submit to the question of whether such judge shall be retained in office […].” Lynda Waddington reports today that the lawsuit will go forward, but plaintiffs dropped their request to let Ternus, Baker and Streit continue to serve after learning that “the Iowa Judicial Branch and the justices removed from service were not in favor of it.”

A court will consider this lawsuit sometime next year. I believe it will go nowhere for reasons I discussed here. Iowa has been holding judicial retention elections in conjunction with general elections for nearly five decades. No one has ever demanded that voters be provided special ballots for the retention vote. IowaVoter points out that when Iowans approved the constitutional amendment on replacing judicial elections in 1962, lever machines rather than paper ballots were widely used. I share IowaVoter’s reading of the relevant passage in the constitution: it means that there must be a separate ballot line for each judge, so voters aren’t asked to retain or not retain the judges as a group.

Which do you think will get shot down first, Bleeding Heartland readers? This lawsuit challenging the legality of the retention vote, or statehouse Republicans’ efforts to impeach the remaining four Supreme Court justices?

Any comments about Iowa’s judicial system are welcome in this thread. I believe an impeachment spectacle during the 2011 legislative session will only make it harder for Governor-elect Terry Branstad to get lawmakers to pass the modest reform he favors (requiring partisan balance for judicial nominating commissions).

Last week Larry Noble resigned from the Iowa Senate, effective December 17, because Governor-elect Terry Branstad selected him to be commissioner of the Iowa Department of Public Safety in the next administration. After the jump I’ve posted Noble’s official biography from his campaign website. He is well qualified to lead the Department of Public Safety and will have no trouble winning confirmation from his former Iowa Senate colleagues.

Noble’s resignation leaves Republicans with 22 seats in the Iowa Senate. Democrats are assured of a slim majority in the chamber with 26 seats. A January 4 special election in Senate district 48 will determine the successor to Kim Reynolds, who resigned to become lieutenant governor. Sometime this week, Governor Chet Culver will set a date for the special election to replace Noble. The election will take place within 45 days of Culver’s announcement, probably in late January.

Senate district 35 covers most of the northern half of Polk County (map). It includes the Des Moines suburbs of Ankeny and Johnston, as well as Grimes, Polk City, Alleman, Elkhart and rural areas north of I-80. The area has experienced rapid population growth in the past decade and leans strongly Republican. The seat was last vacant in 2006, when Jeff Lamberti stepped down to run for Congress. Iowa Democrats recruited Ankeny Mayor Merle Johnson and invested heavily in the race, but Noble won by 52 percent to 48 percent in a Democratic wave year. Democrats did not nominate a candidate against Noble when he came up for re-election in 2010. As of December 1, Senate district 35 had 23,450 registered Republicans, 18,065 registered Democrats and 19,017 no-party voters.

So far no one has announced plans to run in Senate district 35. Democrats and Republicans will hold special district nominating conventions to select candidates.

UPDATE: In the comments, Bleeding Heartland user nick29 posted a press release from Jim Gocke, who will seek the Republican nomination for this Senate seat. Gocke is a law partner of Jeff Lamberti.

DECEMBER 23 UPDATE: Culver set the election for January 18.

Bleeding Heartland readers may recall that Senate Democrats imperiled the food safety bill, S510, by forgetting to put revenue-raising language in a bill that originated in the House of Representatives. Senate leaders tried to salvage the situation by adding the food safety language to the massive ominbus spending bill Congress was expected to approve last week. However, Senate Republicans torpedoed the omnibus bill, leaving few options for getting the food safety bill to President Barack Obama’s desk before the new Congress convenes.

According to Cox Radio reporter Jamie Dupree, the food safety bill came “back from the dead” on Sunday. The Senate took the food safety language from the continuing resolution on spending that had already passed the House and inserted it into a “Cash for Clunkers” bill the House had previously approved. (The food safety language replaced the Cash for Clunkers language.) The Senate then approved the new bill by unanimous consent. Amazingly, no Republican gummed up the works on that, not even the food safety bill’s deadly enemy Tom Coburn. The bill now goes back to the House, where Dupree says approval is expected this week. UPDATE: The Hill’s Alexander Bolton and Matthew Jaffe of ABC News report on the Senate maneuvering.

I had almost given up on this bill passing. It’s not perfect, but it’s a good step forward with bipartisan support in Congress. Both Tom Harkin and Chuck Grassley voted for the bill a few weeks ago in the Senate.  

What’s on your mind, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread.

It’s the last shopping weekend before Christmas, so I’m reposting my favorite no-clutter holiday gift ideas after the jump. If you’re looking for a more traditional gift for a child, I recommend card games, jigsaw puzzles or something without batteries that’s suited for open-ended play, like blocks or erector sets. Other presents my kids loved this year: a mini hydroponics lab for growing sprouted plants, the Perplexus, one of the Lego board games, and the Zillio, which can be played in many different ways as they grow older. Their aunts, uncles and grandparents have excellent taste!

My kids love listening to audio books too. You can find check out many of these from the library to do a “test run” before buying as a gift. Some of our favorites:

the Frog and Toad books (read by the author, Arnold Lobel, perfect for kids 2-4)

the Usborne Farmyard Tales (CD comes with a fantastic picture book of 20 stories, perfect for toddlers or preschoolers)

Nate the Great collected stories by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat (read by John Lavelle)

The Marvelous Land of Oz by Frank Baum (read by Liza Ross)

any of the Magic Tree House collections (read by the author, Mary Pope Osborne)

any of Beverly Cleary’s Henry Huggins books (read by Neil Patrick Harris)

The Moffats by Eleanor Estes (full-cast audio recording)

George’s Secret Key to the Universe and George’s Cosmic Treasure Hunt, by Lucy Hawking with Stephen Hawking (read by James Goode)

any of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books by Jeff Kinney (read by Ramon de Ocampo)

any of the Harry Potter books by J.K.Rowling (read by Jim Dale)

Star Wars: The Original Radio Drama (full-cast recording, expanded version of the first Star Wars movie, plus The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi)

The U.S. Senate rejected a cloture motion on the DREAM Act today by a vote of 55 to 41. At least 60 yes votes were needed to move forward the bill, which would give some undocumented immigrants brought to this country as children a path to citizenship. Iowa’s Tom Harkin voted yes, as did most of the Democratic caucus. Chuck Grassley voted no, along with most Senate Republicans. Six cowardly and mean-spirited Democrats voted no: Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, and Max Baucus and Jon Tester of Montana. (Correction: it looks like Manchin missed the vote, but his office released a statement this morning saying he could not support the bill because it didn’t require people seeking citizenship to receive a college degree. Jackass.)

Only three Republicans voted yes on the DREAM Act: Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Richard Lugar of Indiana and Bob Bennett of Utah. Fake GOP moderates Scott Brown of Massachusetts, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, Mark Kirk of Illinois all voted against the bill. Sickening. President Barack Obama nominally supports the DREAM Act, but as far as I can tell, the White House did nothing to convince wavering senators to vote for it.

After the DREAM Act failed, the Senate moved to a cloture motion on a stand-alone bill to repeal the ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military. The Senate approved that cloture motion 63 to 33, with Iowa’s senators splitting the usual way (Harkin for repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Grassley against). The Senate will vote on the bill itself early next week later today, and it should easily pass.

UPDATE: Click here for the roll call on the DREAM Act cloture motion. The roll call for the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell vote is here. Congratulations, Chuck Grassley, you put yourself on the wrong side of history twice in one day.

SECOND UPDATE: The bill repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell passed the Senate by 65 to 31 (roll call). Harkin yes, Grassley no, of course. After the jump I’ve posted Harkin’s statements on the DREAM Act and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Grassley’s office hasn’t issued a statement on either vote; typically he sends out a press release every time the Senate considers major legislation.

Harkin’s statement on DREAM noted that the original 2003 bill had 15 Republican co-sponsors, which prompted me to look them up here. Lo and behold, there’s our Chuck Grassley, one of 47 sponsors of Senator Orrin Hatch’s “Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act of 2003.” No wonder he doesn’t want to explain his vote today to block the bill from consideration.