It took seven ballots, but front-runner Reince Priebus (pronounced “ryns pree-buhs”) finally won today’s election to chair the Republican National Committee. Priebus led on every ballot.

Still, Priebus faced major hurdles from the start, not least of which because of his proximity to Steele himself, who had become deeply unpopular on the committee. In 2009, Priebus was Steele’s closest advisor and biggest backer; Steele appointed Priebus general counsel after winning, and Priebus spent much of the next two years defending Steele and comforting upset members. Opponents used that connection to imply Priebus would run the committee like his predecessor, a charge Priebus spent much of his time denying.

Even when he served as Steele’s close advisor, Priebus was able to maintain good relations with the RNC membership. He enjoyed early support from both Steele allies and detractors, building a coalition that, once Steele dropped out, grew to become insurmountable. […]

Priebus also denied Steele the chance at another two years on the job. The once-close relationship has frayed since Priebus began contemplating a run for the top job, and Steele endorsed [Bush administration official Maria] Cino as he dropped out.

Priebus chaired the Wisconsin GOP during the latest election cycle, when the party made huge gains. Iowa’s Republican National Committeeman Steve Scheffler became an early Priebus endorser, later followed by Iowa Committeewoman Kim Lehman. Our state’s third RNC member, Iowa GOP Chair Matt Strawn, backed Gentry Collins, then switched to Saul Anuzis of Michigan after Collins ended his bid to replace Steele.

Political Correction posted background information on Priebus here.

House Speaker John Boehner had tried to drum up votes for Cino, who most recently has lobbied for a major pharmaceutical company. She had other influential Republican supporters, but on the final ballot got only 28 votes, to 97 for Priebus and 43 for Anuzis.

Terry Branstad begins his fifth term as governor this morning. Iowa Public Television is live-streaming the inauguration and will broadcast the event statewide tonight at 8:30 pm.

My liveblog begins after the jump. I’ve got another post in progress on Branstad’s latest appointments and policy statements. Share any thoughts about the changeover in this thread. I have to hand it to the Republicans who recruited Branstad back into political life. I believe no one else could have beaten Bob Vander Plaats in the GOP primary, and Governor Chet Culver probably could have beaten Vander Plaats even in a year as bad as 2010.

Culver shared a few thoughts with Radio Iowa yesterday:

“Leaving the governor’s office is awkward,” Culver said during an interview with Radio Iowa, laughing before he added: “It’s hard for any governor including, I guess, the Branstads.  It’s the best job in the world.” […]

Culver cleared out his desk in the statehouse late Wednesday, finding the letter Governor Tom Vilsack wrote to him in 2007. “(The letter was) very kind and thoughtful,” Culver said. “…It’s something I’ll always cherish and now, appropriately, put in a scrapbook rather than burying it in my desk.”

It is tradition for the exiting governor to leave a note behind for his successor and Culver plans to leave a hand-written letter in the desk Branstad will now use.

Culver has said he hopes to land a job in the renewable fuels industry and he vows he’s been putting an ethanol blend in the tank of the used pickup he bought last week.

Culver isn’t attending the inaugural, just as Branstad didn’t attend Culver’s final condition of the state speech to the Iowa legislature on Tuesday. This week the two camps traded accusations about who rejected whose invitation first.

UPDATE: Here’s Governor Branstad’s new official website.

The preschool program will be at the center of Democratic opposition to a “deappropriations” bill the Iowa House Appropriations Committee approved this week. Republicans say House Study Bill 1, which has been renamed House File 45, would save $500 million over three years. Nearly a third of that total would come from eliminating the statewide voluntary preschool program for four-year-olds (estimated to cost $69.9 million in fiscal year 2012 and $75.1 million in fiscal year 2013). Click here for a summary listing the budget cuts and supplemental appropriations in House File 45.

On January 13, House Democrats launched a website to help mobilize Iowans who value the long-term benefits of preschool. Ending the program could affect 20,000 children across the state. This chart (pdf file) shows the preschool enrollment for four-year-olds and cost to the state for each school district. For instance, in the Des Moines area there are 1,335 children enrolled in the preschool program through the Des Moines Community Schools, 235 in the West Des Moines school district, 208 in Johnston, 207 in Southeast Polk, 163 in Norwalk, 147 in Urbandale, and 122 in Ankeny. In the Cedar Rapids area, 473 children are enrolled in preschool through the Cedar Rapids school district and 175 in Linn-Mar.

A public hearing on House File 45 will take place Tuesday, January 18 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in the House chambers at the capitol. Only 40 people will be allowed to speak, but any Iowan can send written comments on the bill to lioinfo AT legis.state.ia.us, with “testimony” in the e-mail subject line. House Democrats are also asking members of the public to post comments at the Save Preschool site.

Statehouse Republicans and incoming Governor Terry Branstad want to replace the preschool program with a voucher system geared to low-income families. However, many middle-income families in Iowa are also unable to afford preschool, which can easily cost $700 to $800 per month. If state assistance for middle-class families disappears, many preschools could close for lack of students.

It’s unfortunate that preschool became a partisan issue in Iowa. A Pew Center on the States report published last month found, “Despite persistent budget shortfalls, the majority of state legislatures have once again made the prudent decision to protect pre-k programs.” In addition, more than a dozen states “with control of the executive and legislative branches split between the two major parties” nevertheless “protected their pre-k investments from budget cuts.”

The Iowa Board of Medicine has dismissed a complaint regarding Planned Parenthood of the Heartland‘s use of telemedecine to provide abortions:

The system, the first of its kind in the nation, allows a physician in Des Moines to deliver the pills to patients in remote clinics around the state. After speaking to a patient for a few minutes via videoconferencing, the doctor pushes a computer button that opens a drawer in front of the patient. The patient reaches in the drawer to retrieve the pills, then takes the first dose while the doctor watches. She then takes the rest of the pills at home, where she has an induced miscarriage.

The national anti-abortion group Operation Rescue complained to Iowa regulators that the system broke state law, which says abortions may only be performed by a physician. The group said the remote-control method did not meet the requirement. Planned Parenthood of the Heartland leaders said that the method was legal, and that Operation Rescue was looking for any excuse to limit women’s access to abortion services.

The Des Moines Register posted the letter from Iowa Board of Medicine Executive Director Mark Bowden to Operation Rescue. Excerpt:

After a thorough investigation and careful review of the investigative materials obtained in this matter, the Board voted to close the file Without taking disciplinary action against Dr. Haskell. Although this may not be the outcome you were seeking, you can be assured that your complaint was investigated and the Board reached its decision after full review of the investigative record. […]

The Board’s primary responsibility is to protect the public by ensuring that physicians provide appropriate medical care to patients. The Board takes seriously all complaints it receives.

Republican lawmakers have vowed to push legislation restricting abortion access during the Iowa legislature’s 2011 session, which started this week. One bill likely to pass the Iowa House will be modeled on a Nebraska statute that bans abortions after the 20th week of gestation. Some representatives also want to ban abortions via telemedecine, and Governor-elect Terry Branstad has said he wants that practice to be discontinued. That could force many Iowa women to travel great distances to a clinic providing surgical abortion or a drug that induces abortion.  

Public Policy Polling’s latest Iowa poll finds President Barack Obama ahead of four potential Republican opponents among 1,077 Iowa voters surveyed between January 7 and 9.

Yesterday’s release showed Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney as the leading Republicans in the early caucus race for 2012, and if the election were today, those two are the only ones who would give Obama a bigger run for his money than McCain did two years ago. Obama tops Huckabee by a slender 47-43 margin, and Romney by 47-41. But against Newt Gingrich, he would prevail, 51-38, and by 53-37 over Sarah Palin.

The difference comes with independents, who make up a full quarter of the electorate, with Democrats and Republicans splitting the rest evenly. Obama has a significant party- unity advantage against all four Republicans, taking 86-91% of his own party and holding each of them to 67-79% of the GOP. But while he leads with unaffiliated voters by a 49- 34 margin over Gingrich and 49-38 over Palin, he actually trails Huckabee, 41-42, and leads Romney only 40-38. Huckabee and Romney do also hold Obama’s crossover support down. While he takes 13% of Republicans to Gingrich’s 5% of Democrats and 17% of Republicans to Palin’s 6% of Democrats, the split against Huckabee is only 10-7, and 11-9 against Romney.

Click here for the summary and here for the full polling memo (pdf). The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 3 percent. PPP found 50 percent of Iowa respondents approved of Obama’s performance as president, while 43 percent disapprove. Tom Jensen commented, “When you combine Obama’s relative popularity in the state with the GOP field’s lack of appeal, it looks like things are going to have to get a lot worse for the President over the next 22 months to send Iowa back into the red column.”

I wouldn’t be too sure about that. If the unemployment rate stays roughly the same or inches up, and the Republicans nominate someone without high negatives like Gingrich or Palin, Obama will have to fight to hold Iowa. Huckabee has led several early polls of Iowa Republicans, but I think he would have trouble winning the nomination if he runs. If I were a GOP primary voter, I’d be looking for a bland senator or former governor who could essentially campaign as a generic Republican.

Incidentally, Iowa may become crucial to Obama’s path to victory in 2012. Reapportionment after the 2010 census took six electoral votes away from states Obama won, and several of the 2008 blue states are likely to go Republican next cycle. One path to exactly 270 votes would have the president winning all the states he carried in 2008 except for Virginia, Ohio, Florida, Indiana, North Carolina, and the second Congressional district in Nebraska.

UPDATE: The Cook Political Report lists Iowa as a tossup for the 2012 presidential race. The other states in that category are Colorado, Florida, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.  

The Iowa House Appropriations Committee passed House Study Bill 1 on January 12, by a party-line vote of 15 to 10. Republicans call the bill the “Taxpayers First Act” and claim it would save the state more than $500 million over three years, while refunding some money to taxpayers and allocating an extra $25 million for mental health services over the next 18 months. As Bleeding Heartland discussed here, the potential savings in the current budget year are far smaller. The Democratic-controlled Iowa Senate is unlikely to approve some of the big-ticket spending cuts, such as complete elimination of the voluntary preschool program for four-year-olds. The full text of the bill as introduced is here (pdf file). The Legislative Services Agency analysis of how much various provisions would cost or save is here (pdf file).

Looking through the lobbyist declarations on HSB 1, so far only Iowans for Tax Relief, the National Federation of Independent Business, and the Washington-based 501(c)4 group American Principles in Action have declared support for it. The bill’s opponents include the Greater Des Moines Partnership, the Iowa City Area Chamber of Commerce, the Iowa Association of School Boards, the Iowa chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, major labor unions (AFSCME and the Iowa State Education Association), the State Bar Association, and many organizations that advocate for public health and environmental causes. Numerous lobbyists haven’t taken a position on the bill; influential organizations still undecided include the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation, the Iowa Association of Business and Industry, the League of Cities, the State Association of Counties, the Iowa Medical Society, the Cedar Rapids Chamber of Commerce, the Iowa Chamber Alliance, and the American Association of Retired Persons.

UPDATE: The “deappropriations” bill was renamed House File 45. Click here for a bill summary.

Iowa Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark Cady addresses the Iowa legislature this morning in what will surely be the most-watched ever state of the judiciary speech. Iowa Public Television is carrying the live feed at 10 am, and I’ll liveblog after the jump. Cady is the senior justice remaining on the high court, having been appointed by Governor Terry Branstad in 1998. He is also the author of the 2009 Varnum v Brien ruling, which struck down Iowa’s Defense of Marriage Act. That decision sparked a successful campaign against retaining Chief Justice Marsha Ternus and Justices Michael Streit and David Baker in November. The four remaining justices chose Cady to serve as chief justice until replacements for Ternus, Streit and Baker have been appointed.

So far 61 people have applied for a position on the Iowa Supreme Court. The current list is here, but more applications may come in by the deadline (January 14). So far applicants include 10 women and 51 men from many different towns and cities of the state. Most are in their 40s or 50s. The few applicants in their 30s include both U.S. attorneys appointed by George W. Bush for Iowa (Matt Whitaker and Matt Dummermuth). One Republican state legislator, Iowa House Judiciary Committee Chair Rich Anderson, has applied as well. The Des Moines Register noted that one applicant, University of Iowa law professor Angela Onwuachi-Willig, submitted a brief in support of same-sex marriage when the Supreme Court was considering the Varnum v Brien case. Another applicant, Michael Keller, has praised that ruling, which allowed him to marry his partner.

State Court Administrator David Boyd told the Des Moines Register that “he was ‘very pleased, and maybe a little surprised’ with the quality and number of applicants, given the intense public scrutiny on the court since the election.” The state judicial nominating commission “welcomes written comments from the public about the qualifications of any of the applicants.” After interviewing the candidates, the judicial nominating commission will send a short list of nine names to Branstad, who will fill the three vacancies.

P.S. This week a report by the National Institute on Money in State Politics summarized the independent expenditures in last year’s retention campaign. Supporters of retaining Ternus, Streit and Baker were vastly outspent by groups seeking to oust the justices.

UPDATE: Liveblog starting now after the jump. Iowa Public TV will rebroadcast the speech at 9:30 pm on Wednesday.

THURSDAY UPDATE: House Judiciary Committee Chair Anderson seems to be closing the door on impeachment.

Rep. Rich Anderson, R-Clarinda, said he personally believes that the justices’ actions in issuing a ruling that in effect legalized same-sex marriage do not meet the standard for impeachment spelled out in the Iowa Constitution: “misdemeanor or malfeasance in office.” The court ruled that an Iowa law limiting marriage to a man and a woman was unconstitutional.

He said his gut reaction is that the yet-to-be-filed bill won’t make it out of his committee, one of the first steps in the legislative process.

“I don’t believe there’s any likelihood of impeachment,” Anderson said.

I’ve posted more reactions to Cady’s speech from state legislators below.  

Two polls released this week suggest that former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee would be the front-runner in Iowa if he runs for president in 2012. Poll details and some speculation are after the jump.

During Governor Chet Culver’s final address to the Iowa legislature this morning, he mentioned that his administration

provided the legislature and the new administration with a detailed summary addressing the historic egg recall last summer. This includes five proposed changes in Iowa law that will help improve food safety and employee training standards in the wake of the salmonella outbreak last summer.

I’ve posted the full text of the Culver administration’s egg safety proposals after the jump. This passage summarizes the five areas that would require legislative action:

Although the new federal egg regulatory regime is aimed at the state’s largest producers, a new, mandatory Iowa [Salmonella enteriditis] detection and prevention program should be enacted under amendments to existing law and the creation of a new Iowa Code Section 196.15 to complement the federal government’s efforts to prevent SE contaminated shell eggs from entering into the nation’s food chain from all of Iowa’s egg producers.

There are at least five issues that are not covered by the recent federal egg regulatory reforms, that Iowa law does not currently address and that, therefore, unless corrected legislatively, may leave consumers of Iowa-produced eggs vulnerable to future SE poisoning.  First, federal egg safety laws pertain only to egg farms that host at least 3,000 hens and do not cover smaller operations.  Second, under federal law, producers have no legal obligation to report positive SE testing results to any federal or state agency.   Third, there are no accreditation or certification standards for laboratories that conduct SE testing.  Fourth, there are no legal criteria that establish the minimal level of training and competency for persons who are charged with the responsibility for implementing a new mandatory SE detection and prevention program.  And, fifth, there is no clearly-identified funding stream to support an effective expansion of state egg programs.

It would take heavy lifting to get these sensible ideas passed and signed into law. Even when Democrats controlled both chambers of the Iowa legislature, few new regulations on agriculture saw the light of day. The Iowa House now has a 60-40 Republican majority, which makes passing new food safety rules even more of an uphill battle. Governor-elect Terry Branstad has repeatedly criticized what he views as excessive regulations on farms, and the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation endorsed Branstad and almost a full slate of Republican legislative candidates last year.  

State Senator Sandy Greiner has confirmed that she will continue to serve as president of the American Future Fund, a 501(c)4 advocacy organization. In an e-mail to Iowa Independent,

Greiner said she stepped down from the board of directors of the group’s political action committee. However, she will remain as president of the organization’s regular board of directors.

That is ludicrous. The American Future Fund’s PAC raised and spent about $85,000 during the 2010 election cycle, whereas the American Future Fund 501(c)4 raised and spent more than 100 times that amount ($9.6 million). The 501(c)4 was among the top 10 outside election spending groups nationwide.

Serving in the state legislature while heading a politically active group that does not disclose its donors strikes me as a major conflict of interest. The American Future Fund The Under the Golden Dome blog posted a few questions that Greiner should answer:

Is Sandy getting paid as the Board President? Who is paying her? Does the American Future Fund have any business before the legislature? As a member of the Government Oversight Committee, will Sandy be involved in the debate over campaign finance reform?

Share any relevant thoughts in this thread.

UPDATE: Representatives of Public Campaign Action Fund, Public Citizen and Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement have called on Greiner to resign from the American Future Fund.

Governor Chet Culver addresses Iowa legislators for the last time this morning. Iowa Public Television will carry the speech, and I’ll liveblog after the jump. Meanwhile, use this thread for any comments about Culver’s record and legacy. I expect Culver will highlight efforts to increase renewable energy production and give more children access to health care and preschool, while leaving the state in better fiscal condition than most of the country.

I see Governor-elect Terry Branstad declined Culver’s invitation to attend today’s speech, and Culver won’t attend inaugural events on Friday.

UPDATE: The speech is now over, and my liveblog is after the jump. The biggest surprise for me came toward the end: Culver alluded to a report prompted by last summer’s massive egg recall, recommending five changes in Iowa law to address food safety issues. I’ll write a separate post later with more details on those proposed changes.

SECOND UPDATE: Here is the full text of Culver’s speech, as delivered.

When Representative Steve King got passed over for the chairman’s post on the House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on immigration last Friday, he suggested that House Speaker John Boehner made the call. In an interview with the National Journal this week, King made clear that he isn’t happy with Boehner (hat tip to the America’s Voice blog):

   “I’m going to be OK with it. I’m going to be OK,” King told National Journal in a 40-minute interview. Even in the wake of the “unbelievably tragic” news of the Arizona massacre, King was obviously still smarting from the subcommittee rebuff. He didn’t mince words in placing the blame directly at House Speaker John Boehner. “The speaker holds the big gavel, and he decides who gets the other gavels,” King said. “It makes it very clear that it’s not a meritocracy.” […]

   “John Boehner isn’t very aggressive on immigration,” King said, noting that the GOP “Pledge to America” barely mentions immigration or border security. “It’s the tiniest section,” he said.

Not a meritocracy?

The Iowa legislature convenes this morning for its 2011 session. Join me after the jump for clips on two of the most contentious issues to be resolved this session: proposed spending cuts and impeachment proceedings against four Iowa Supreme Court justices.

UPDATE: You can listen to opening speeches by Senate President Jack Kibbie, Senate Minority Leader Paul McKinley, Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, House Speaker Pro Tempore Jeff Kaufmann, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and House Majority Leader Linda Upmeyer at the Radio Iowa site.

SECOND UPDATE: Lawmakers issued the official canvass of the 2010 gubernatorial election: Branstad/Reynolds 592,079 votes, Culver/Judge 484,798 votes.

This week is a big one in Iowa politics, with the state legislature’s 2011 session starting Monday and Terry Branstad’s inauguration for a fifth term as governor on Friday. Several non-profits are organizing members and supporters to lobby legislators as well. Event details are after the jump.

One of my new year’s resolutions is to post event calendars regularly at Bleeding Heartland. Activists and politicians can help by sending your event notices to me: desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com. Please post a comment if you know of something I’ve left out.

Candidate Terry Branstad promised to make it harder for some people to vote. He wants to turn back the clock, reversing a national trend of thirteen years.

In the early days of the USA only property owners could vote. A hundred years later all barriers to voting were gone except the one that kept women away from the polls. Then new barriers were built against Blacks and felons, notably poll taxes and other tests that were unfairly applied.

Branstad thinks it terrible that everyone might be able to vote: “All of the sudden you're just going to make 50,000 people eligible to vote,” he fretted. Imagine that!  
(continues after the jump)

The attempted assassination of Representative Gabrielle Giffords is more important than the links I had planned to post in this weekend’s open thread. At least six people were killed and a dozen more wounded by a 22-year-old gunman who is now in custody. He fired many shots at close range while Giffords was holding a “Congress on your corner” event at a Tucson grocery store. Giffords made it through surgery and responded to some of the doctors’ commands. The dead include a nine-year-old girl, Congressional staffer Gabe Zimmerman, and U.S. District Court Judge John Roll. Law enforcement are searching for a second suspect who was not a shooter.

[Pima County Sheriff Clarence] Dupnik declined to provide more information on the second individual who he would only describe as “white” and “in his 50s.” Authorities have photographs of the person of interest and are “actively pursuing him,” the sheriff said.

The congresswoman was the clear focus of the gunman’s assault, Dupnik said.

“He ran through the crowd and when he got to [Giffords] he just started shooting,” the sheriff said.

“The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And unfortunately Arizona I think is the capital. We are the Mecca for prejudice for prejudice and bigotry,” he said.

Dupnik said authorities are also investigating a suspicious package at one of Giffords’ field offices in Tucson.

Many more links on today’s attack are here. House Republican leaders are postponing all legislation scheduled for the coming week.

I’m sure the Bleeding Heartland community joins me in sending out healing thoughts or prayers for the bereaved and injured.

This is an open thread.

UPDATE: After the jump I’ve posted the names of all those killed in Saturday’s attack.

SECOND UPDATE: Psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey’s take on the suspect, Jared Lee Loughner, is worth reading. Some excerpts are after the jump.

Representative Steve King’s surprise appointment as vice chair rather than chairman of the House Judiciary Committee’s immigration subcommittee was big news in the beltway yesterday. Tom Latham’s main committee assignment slipped under the radar, as usual for the member representing Iowa’s fourth district. Latham is sitting pretty: he’ll chair the House Appropriations Committee’s subcommittee on transportation, housing and urban development, and he’ll be the number two republican on the Appropriations agriculture subcommittee.

Speaking to the Des Moines Register’s Thomas Beaumont Friday, King tried to put a positive spin on his new role (“I’m a member with fewer limitations than I might have had otherwise”). His other comment intrigued me:

King declined to say why he was not selected, except that [House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar] Smith likely received guidance from new House Speaker John Boehner. […]

“There’s an agenda that’s true of all committees that is driven by the chairman of the overall committee, and the chairman of the overall committee takes his marching orders from the top leader,” King said in an telephone interview.

King’s habit of saying offensive things about immigrants gives Boehner ample reason to put him in a less visible role. Latinos are an important voting bloc in many House seats Republicans need to hold to stay in the majority. Then again, knocking King down a peg also serves Boehner’s “buddy Latham” quite well. The speaker and Latham have been close friends for many years.

I expect Latham to run in the redrawn third district in 2012 against Leonard Boswell or some other Democrat. But our state’s new map might create unfavorable conditions for a Republican in IA-03 (say, including Polk, Story, Marshall and Jasper counties but not Madison, Dallas or others to the west). In that case, Latham might be tempted to duke it out with King in a primary in the new IA-04. Latham represented most of northwestern Iowa during the 1990s and could move from Ames back to Franklin County if necessary. A typical GOP primary would favor “loud and proud” King over the low-profile Latham, whose voting record is a tiny bit less conservative. But now Latham has a powerful post on one of the top House committees, while King got left out in the cold.

Any relevant speculation is welcome in this thread.

The Republican takeover of the House of Representatives put Iowa’s Steve King in line to chair the immigration subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee. Immigration is one of King’s primary concerns, and he was raring to get to work on the issue. His top priority was ending “birthright citizenship” guaranteed by the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Yesterday (the first day the 112th Congress was in session), King and several colleagues introduced a bill to that effect.

But King won’t be able to push that agenda as a subcommittee chair, because House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith selected Representative Elton Gallegly of California to chair the immigration subcommittee instead.

King, who served as the ranking Republican on the Immigration subcommittee since 2007, was selected as vice chairman of the panel.

Gallegly has been in Congress three times as long as King and doesn’t regularly make the news by saying offensive things about immigrants, or outlandish remarks in general.

A few thoughts on today’s news are after the jump.

Thousands of Wellmark Blue Cross/Blue Shield customers learned late last year that their health insurance premiums would go up by 11 percent in 2011. Yesterday state Insurance Commissioner Susan Voss received reports from two actuaries who found that rate hike to be too steep:

Close to 46,000 Iowa policyholders under age 65 will see an increase in their base premium rate of 10.8 percent, effective April 1, 2011, if approved. Another 3,000 basic and standard policyholders will receive an increase of 11.3 percent. Approximately 2,500 Blue Transitions policyholders will receive an increase of 15 percent.

The company raised rates by 18 percent in May of 2010. […]

Lewis & Ellis Inc., of Overland Park, Kan., said Wellmark’s proposed rate increase is too high. They recommend a 7.5 percent instead of the proposed 10.8 percent increase.

The Insurance division’s in-house actuary is recommending a 9 percent increase.

Tom Alger with the Iowa Insurance Division said the reports will weigh heavily in Voss’ decision about whether Wellmark will get the rate increase it wants.

Voss also presided over a public hearing yesterday, at which an attorney for Wellmark defended the rate hike, and some customers asked Voss to reject the insurer’s proposal. But a rate increase of 7 percent or 9.5 percent would still be unaffordable for many customers, and there are other problems too:

State Rep. Janet Petersen, who last year pushed legislation requiring the hearings and the independent actuarial review, called the recommendations a small victory.

The Des Moines Democrat noted that even if Wellmark is denied permission to raise its base rates as much as it wants, it still can impose big increases for people who shift into new categories, including as they age.

For individuals and families who buy their own health insurance, Wellmark has a virtual monopoly in Iowa. Giving Americans the option of buying into Medicare would not instantly make health insurance affordable, but it might constrain the excessive rate increases from companies like Wellmark.

Representative Leonard Boswell told Roll Call this week that he will run for Congress again in 2012.

Rep. Leonard Boswell, the oldest member of Iowa’s House delegation by 14 years, was thought to be considering retirement, making it easier for the other Members. But Boswell told Roll Call he will seek re-election, saying that preparing to run in a not-yet-drawn district is no different from his previous races.

National Republicans have frequently targeted the Des Moines-area Democrat since he was elected to the House in 1996, one reason he is preparing early – Boswell declared on election night that he would be on the ballot in 2012.

Boswell is holding a campaign fundraiser in Des Moines tomorrow. If former First Lady Christie Vilsack or some other Democrat plans to challenge him in the 2012 primary, she or he should get cracking sooner rather than later. Almost the entire Iowa Democratic establishment supported Boswell against primary challenger Ed Fallon in 2008, but I believe liberal activists are no longer the only ones who would prefer a different Democrat on the ballot in Iowa’s third district.

I expect Representative Tom Latham to be the Republican nominee in the new IA-03, and that campaign will be quite different from Boswell’s 2010 race against Brad Zaun. Latham is a nine-term incumbent and House Appropriations subcommittee chairman. He will have a ton of money in his own war chest, plus the full faith and credit of the National Republican Congressional Committee. House Speaker John Boehner has been one of Latham’s best friends for many years. In fact, I suspect the desire to keep the GOP field clear for Latham was one reason the NRCC never got behind Zaun last year. Latham would reasonably want to avoid a Republican primary against an incumbent with a Polk County base.

Incidentally, Roll Call says it’s “unclear from where Vilsack would run,” since she is from Mount Pleasant, which is in Loebsack’s district. I seriously doubt she would challenge Loebsack in an IA-02 primary. She has lived in Des Moines for more than a decade and works for a Des Moines-based non-profit organization.