The State Central Committee of the Republican Party of Iowa voted yesterday to hold the state GOP convention in Des Moines yet again this June. Bret Hayworth reports:

Sioux City area Republicans pushed hard to land the convention after several consecutive years of the event being held in Des Moines. [..]

It was news that made Bill Anderson of tiny Pierson, a member of the Iowa GOP state central committee, quite disappointed. Anderson, who happens to be running for Iowa Senate District 27, voted for Sioux City, but he was one of only two to do so. He said the vote broke down as 10 for DM, three for Cedar Rapids and two for Sioux City, while two members didn’t take part.

“I am surprised that it was so lopsided,” Anderson said.

In the last two decades, the convention has been held outside of Des Moines, although the couple of times it happened, Cedar Rapids was the only other site. So coming to Sioux City in far western Iowa would have been a break from tradition.

Anderson said with a Sioux City siting, the delegates would have found plenty of hospitable folks eager to show them a good time while the convention played out in venues like the picturesque Orpheum Theatre.

Don’t take it personally, Mr. Anderson. Sioux City will probably host a state convention someday, but choosing that location this year would have been too risky. With four Republicans running for Congress in Iowa’s second district and seven running in Iowa’s third district, there is a good chance that no candidate will win 35 percent of the vote in the June 8 primary. In that case, the Republican nominees in IA-02 and/or IA-03 would be selected by a district convention, which would probably convene during the GOP state convention in late June. Republican commentators had already expressed concern that turnout from central and eastern Iowa would suffer if delegates were asked to drive four to seven hours each way to the convention location.

Getting to Des Moines will be much easier for delegates in the second and especially the third districts. The main logistical problem for Republicans coming to the state convention this summer will be finding hotel rooms here during the same weekend as the Des Moines Arts Festival.

Happy Passover to those in the Bleeding Heartland community who celebrate the holiday. You don’t have to be Jewish to attend a seder. President Obama is having one in the White House.

Our seder plate is “fired up and ready to go” with a beet in place of the shankbone (it’s an accepted alternative). We also follow the relatively new tradition of placing an orange on the seder plate. Here’s why.

Consider this an open thread.

A new report issued today addresses the failures and successes of agricultural regulations in Iowa, Wisconsin, California and other agricultural states. The regulations are meant to reduce agricultural pollution that harms waters and aquatic life both locally and downstream, such as in the Gulf of Mexico where farm run-off from states upstream has created an aquatic Dead Zone the size of Massachusetts.

The report, conducted by the Environmental Law and Policy Center and the Mississippi River Collaborative a partnership of environmental organizations and legal centers from states bordering the Mississippi, examined the effectiveness of state-based rules and laws meant to regulate non-point agricultural pollution.

More after the jump …

Two Democrats are running for Congress in Iowa’s fifth district this year. It’s an uphill climb in a Republican-leaning part of the state, but I appreciate their commitment to challenge Steve King. While King’s embarrassing antics provide a lot of material for this blog, western Iowa deserves a representative who’s not a repeat winner of Keith Olbermann’s “worst person of the world” award.

Learn more about the candidates at their websites: Matt Campbell for Congress and Mike Denklau for Congress. Blog for Iowa recently interviewed both candidates about a wide range of issues. Here’s part 1 and part 2 of the Campbell interview. Here’s part 1, part 2 and part 3 of the Denklau interview.

I don’t plan to get involved in this primary, because from what I’ve read, both Campbell and Denklau seem highly capable, and either would be an enormous improvement over Steve “10 Worst” King. However, I encourage other Bleeding Heartland users to write diaries about the fifth district campaign. Feel free to advocate for your candidate, as NWIA Granny has done, cover a public appearance by either candidate, or compare where Campbell and Denklau stand on the issues.

This Thursday, April 1, from 7 pm to 8 pm, Ed and Lynn Fallon will cover the Steve King “phenomenon” on the Fallon Forum radio show. You can listen at 98.3 WOW-FM and on-line at www.983wowfm.com. If you want to call in to the show, the numbers are (515) 312-0983 or (866) 908-TALK. A podcast will be available later at this site.

State attorneys general have filed two federal lawsuits challenging the individual mandate to purchase health insurance, which President Barack Obama signed into law last week. Those lawsuits look like pure political posturing to me, given the well-established Congressional powers to regulate interstate commerce and taxation.

It turns out that precedent for a health insurance mandate is much older than the 1930s Supreme Court rulings on the Commerce Clause. Thanks to Paul J. O’Rourke for the history lesson:

In July, 1798, Congress passed, and President John Adams signed into law “An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen,” authorizing the creation of a marine hospital service, and mandating privately employed sailors to purchase healthcare insurance.

This legislation also created America’s first payroll tax, as a ship’s owner was required to deduct 20 cents from each sailor’s monthly pay and forward those receipts to the service, which in turn provided injured sailors hospital care. Failure to pay or account properly was discouraged by requiring a law violating owner or ship’s captain to pay a 100 dollar fine.

This historical fact demolishes claims of “unprecedented” and “The Constitution nowhere authorizes the United States to mandate, either directly or under threat of penalty…”

Perhaps these somewhat incompetent attorneys general might wish to amend their lawsuits to conform to the 1798 precedent, and demand that the mandate and fines be linked to implementing a federal single payer healthcare insurance plan.

O’Rourke posted the full text of the 1798 legislation as well.

I’m not one to claim American’s “Founding Fathers” could do no wrong; after all, President Adams also signed the Sedition Act, which violated the First Amendment. But Republican “strict constructionists” say we should interpret the constitution only as 18th-century Americans would have understood it. Some claim judges should cite only 18th-century sources when interpreting the constitution. Well, Congress enacted and the president signed a health insurance mandate less than a decade after the U.S. Constitution went into effect.

I don’t expect these facts to affect Republican rhetoric about health insurance reform. Thankfully, Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller is not wasting our state’s money on this frivolous lawsuit. So far I haven’t heard any Republicans demand his impeachment, as some GOP legislators are doing in Georgia.

After months of obstruction by Senate Republicans, the White House announced on March 27 that President Barack Obama is appointing 15 nominees while Congress is in recess:

“The United States Senate has the responsibility to approve or disapprove of my nominees.  But if, in the interest of scoring political points, Republicans in the Senate refuse to exercise that responsibility, I must act in the interest of the American people and exercise my authority to fill these positions on an interim basis,”  said President Barack Obama. “Most of the men and women whose appointments I am announcing today were approved by Senate committees months ago, yet still await a vote of the Senate.  At a time of economic emergency, two top appointees to the Department of Treasury have been held up for nearly six months. I simply cannot allow partisan politics to stand in the way of the basic functioning of government.”

Following their appointment, these nominees will remain in the Senate for confirmation.

Obama Administration appointees have faced an unprecedented level of obstruction in the Senate.

   * President Obama currently has a total of 217 nominees pending before the Senate.  These nominees have been pending for an average of 101 days, including 34 nominees pending for more than 6 months.

   * The 15 nominees President Obama intends to recess appoint have been pending for an average of 214 days or 7 months for a total of 3204 days or almost 9 years.

   * President Bush had made 15 recess appointments by this point in his presidency, but he was not facing the same level of obstruction.  At this time in 2002, President Bush had only 5 nominees pending on the floor.  By contrast, President Obama has 77 nominees currently pending on the floor, 58 of whom have been waiting for over two weeks and 44 of those have been waiting more than a month.

I put the full list of recess appointees with their bios after the jump. In the good news column, Obama named Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board. Unfortunately, he also named pesticide and biotech lobbyist Islam A. Siddiqui as the U.S. Trade Representative’s Chief Agricultural Negotiator. More than 100 organizations opposed Siddiqui’s nomination “as a textbook case of the ‘revolving door’ between industry and the government agencies meant to keep watch.”

Also bad news: Obama did not use his recess appointment power to name Dawn Johnsen as head of the Office of Legal Counsel. I thought she had already been confirmed, because in January it became clear that there were 60 senators supporting her nomination. However, the Senate Judiciary Committee has repeatedly postponed considering her confirmation, raising questions about whether the Obama administration really wants Johnsen to do this job.

Many Republicans in Congress are calling for repeal of the new health insurance reform law. They know that won’t happen, but it’s good political posturing, because the GOP base is fired up and ready to go against “socialist” Obamacare.

Senator Chuck Grassley is taking a more nuanced approach. As the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, he played a prominent role in crafting the bill. Now he is taking credit for a few aspects of the new law while drawing attention to a populist-sounding provision left out by Democrats.

After the House passed the Senate’s heath insurance reform on Sunday, most Iowa Republicans condemned the effort in broad terms. In contrast, Grassley released an oddly specific statement about an amendment he planned to offer to the bill containing “fixes” to health insurance reform. Grassley called for the president, White House staff and senior Congressional staff to be covered under the new health insurance system. As expected, Senate Democrats voted against all Republican amendments to the reconciliation bill, hoping to avoid another House vote on the legislation. That prompted this press release from Grassley’s office: “Senate approves unfair double standard by rejecting Grassley amendment to apply health care reforms to White House and all of Congress.” (Not every failed amendment offered by Grassley leads to a press release. I don’t recall his office drawing attention to one he offered in October, which would have cut benefits for poor people and legal immigrants in order to save private health insurers $7 billion a year.)

Grassley got some media play this week for his “double standard” framing, but a different statement from his office attracted far more attention. That release noted, “The health care legislation signed into law yesterday includes provisions Grassley co-authored to impose standards for the tax exemption of charitable hospitals for the first time.”

Anyone following this issue knows that Grassley delayed the Senate Finance Committee’s work on the health reform bill for several months, pretending to seek compromise while fundraising on a promise to defeat Obamacare and spreading false claims about what the bill would permit. Grassley then voted against the bill in the Senate Finance Committee and on the Senate floor.

Political blogs quickly publicized Grassley’s effort to brag about good things in a bill he tried to stop. The senator was even featured in a segment on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC program: “Republicans farcically flustered by health reform’s passage”. Two of the Iowa Democrats running for U.S. Senate seized on Grassley’s hypocrisy as well. I posted a press release from Tom Fiegen and a memo from Roxanne Conlin’s campaign after the jump.

Grassley’s balancing act on health reform makes some political sense. He doesn’t need to play to the crowd that despises Obamacare, because the filing deadline for federal candidates in Iowa passed earlier this month. It’s too late for a conservative to mount a primary challenge against the five-term incumbent.

Meanwhile, the news media have reported many details about the new law this week, and some of the provisions are likely to be quite popular. Why should Grassley loudly condemn a law that gives tax credits to small businesses, closes the Medicare “donut hole” and lets young adults be covered on their parents’ insurance policies? If he’s trying to impress swing voters, he’s better off railing against the “double standard” of Washington elitists.  

On the other hand, swing voters might be repelled to see Grassley claim credit for reforms after he tried to “pull the plug” on health insurance reform. The senator defended himself as follows:

“So overall even though it’s got a lot of good things in it, even a lot of things that I wrote, even a lot of things that I thought up myself to help health care delivery, the bad outweighs the good, it’s just that simple.”

When the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee slammed Grassley’s posturing, Grassley’s office responded that DSCC Chairman Bob Menendez has also taken credit for provisions in bills he voted against. We’ve heard similar “two wrongs make a right” arguments from Grassley before. It doesn’t sound statesmanlike to me.

What do you think, Bleeding Heartland readers?

I just saw a commercial for Terry Branstad’s gubernatorial campaign during halftime of the University of Northern Iowa’s game against Michigan State in the Sweet 16 round of the NCAA tournament. That was probably a good way to spend part of Branstad’s campaign war chest. An enormous number of Iowans must be watching that game, though who knows how many were paying attention during the halftime break. To my knowledge, this is the first television commercial run by a Republican candidate in the governor’s race.

I’ll post the video if I can find it on YouTube. The ad includes short clips from Branstad’s “comeback” speech in which he announced his candidacy. It highlights his key campaign promises: creating 200,000 new jobs, increasing family incomes by 25 percent, reducing government spending by “at least 15 percent” and giving Iowa children a world-class education. The commercial also features testimonials from unidentified Iowans about why they support Branstad (“He’s done the job before and he can do it again,” “He’s honest,” “He’s just a good man,” and so on). The viewer also sees some classic rural Iowa footage of Branstad’s campaign bus on the road, snow-covered fields, a country church and so on.

I happen to be taping the game so that my kids can watch it tomorrow, so if I have time later I will do a rough transcript of the ad. If you’re watching live, please post a comment to let me know how many times you saw the ad run during the game.

UPDATE: I didn’t do the transcript, because I found the video and posted that after the jump. Click “there’s more” if you want to watch the commercial.

LATE UPDATE: The Branstad ad ran again on Sunday during the Michigan State/Tennessee game. Craig Robinson predicted (or perhaps got a heads up) that the Branstad campaign would have bought ad time during the Elite Eight game in case UNI advanced.

The student loan reform that Congress just approved as part of the budget reconciliation bill has been overshadowed by the health insurance reform process, but it’s very good news for future college students. Senator Tom Harkin’s office summarized some benefits in a March 18 press release, which I’ve posted after the jump. The most important change is that the government will stop subsidizing banks that currently make big profits on student lending. Instead, the federal government will expand its direct student loans, saving $61 billion over 10 years. Most of the savings will go to increase Pell grants.

Just a couple of months ago, student loan reform appeared endangered because of Republican obstruction and corporate-friendly Democrats who didn’t want to cut student loan companies like Sallie Mae out of the equation. In early February, the New York Times reported on the extensive lobbying campaign against this bill. (One of the key lobbyists for the banks was Jamie Gorelick, a familiar name from Bill Clinton’s administration.)

Scott Brown’s victory in the Massachusetts Senate election made it even less likely that Democrats could round up 60 votes to overcome a filibuster of student loan reform.

Fortunately, Senator Tom Harkin and other strong supporters of this reform were able to get the measure included in the budget reconciliation bill that was primarily a vehicle for passing “fixes” to health insurance reform. Not only is student loan reform a good idea in itself, I agree with Jon Walker that adding it to the health reform improved the political prospects for getting the reconciliation bill through the Senate. Democrats from several states were said to be balking on the student loan reforms, but only three senators who caucus with Democrats were willing to vote no on yesterday’s reconciliation bill.

This reform is scaled back somewhat from the original proposal, which would have saved $87 billion over 10 years and passed the House of Representatives last September on a mostly party-line vote. The original proposal would have provided larger increases in Pell grant funding, because it was budget neutral. In order to be included in the budget reconciliation measure (and therefore not subject to a Republican filibuster in the Senate), the student loan reform had to reduce the deficit. But that compromise was well worth making in order to move to direct lending by the government.

Regarding health insurance reform, financial regulation and many other issues, I’m one of those “cynics and naysayers” President Obama decried in yesterday’s speech in Iowa City. But this student loan reform is a big step in the right direction, and the Democrats in the White House and Congress who kept pushing for it deserve credit.

An alert Bleeding Heartland reader in Des Moines received a brief robocall around dinnertime on Thursday, March 25. Fortunately, he did not hang up on the automated voice, but stayed on the line to get as many details as possible about the call.

The first question was whether Leonard Boswell’s vote for health care reform makes you more or less likely to vote for him. (This person responded “less likely” in an attempt to give the “correct” answer and hear more from the call.) The voice then asked two questions for “statistical purposes,” about the respondent’s gender and party affiliation. After the party ID question, the voice said thanks and ended the call without saying who paid for the call. The Bleeding Heartland reader says that he pressed *69, and a phone number with a 202 area code (Washington, DC) came up, but when he tried to dial that number he couldn’t get through–it didn’t ring.

Republicans believe Boswell is vulnerable this year, and seven candidates are competing in the GOP primary to represent Iowa’s third district (partisan voting index D+1).

I would like to hear from other Bleeding Heartland readers who received these robocalls. Was any phone number provided at the end of the call? Was any information given about who paid for the call?

I wonder whether answering that Boswell’s vote makes you “more likely” to vote for him would lead to the respondent getting a bunch of push-poll questions portraying health insurance reform in an awful light. I also wonder whether constituents of Bruce Braley (IA-01) or Dave Loebsack (IA-02) are receiving similar calls.

Please post any relevant comments in this thread or e-mail me confidentially: desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com.

UPDATE: Another Bleeding Heartland reader e-mailed me to report getting the same call on Boswell. This person answered “more likely” to the first question and got the same two follow-up questions “for statistical purposes.” So this sounds like a voter ID call, not a push-poll.  

Senate Republicans failed to derail passage of the budget reconciliation bill containing changes to the health insurance reform bill and to the student loan program. The vote was 56-43, with all but three Democrats (Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Ben Nelson of Nebraska) voting yes and all Republicans present voting no. The Democratic strategy was to defeat all proposed amendments, so no Democrat offered an amendment to put a public health insurance option in the bill. However, some changes to the part of the bill dealing with Pell grants were made, which means the amended version of the reconciliation bill will have to go back to the House for another vote.

I assume the House will have the votes to pass the amended reconciliation bill. In theory, House Democrats could try to add a public health insurance option, but that would require another vote in the Senate. I think leadership wants to declare victory on this issue and move on.

Speaking of health insurance reform, it turns out the bill Obama just signed had a loophole that will allow insurers to keep denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions until 2014. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius claims this can be fixed through rule-making, but we’ll see. I suspect insurance companies will be able to work around most of the supposedly tough regulations in the new law. They are guaranteed more than 30 million new customers and face no new competition.

UPDATE: It wasn’t nearly as suspenseful as Sunday’s vote, but the House of Representatives passed the revised budget reconciliation bill Thursday evening by a vote of 220-207 (roll call). Just as on Sunday, all three Iowa Democrats in the House (Bruce Braley, Dave Loebsack, and Leonard Boswell) voted for the bill, while Republicans Tom Latham and Steve King voted against it.

Here’s your laugh for the day: MSNBC’s Chris Matthews still thinks he was right and Representative Alan Grayson was wrong about whether changes to the health care bill could be passed using the budget reconciliation process.

The big event of the week is President Barack Obama’s visit to Iowa City today. Approximately 16,500 people requested tickets for the event, where the president will tout the benefits of the health insurance reform law he signed on Tuesday. Some 150 to 200 people showed up for last night’s Republican event opposing the new law.

I hope some Bleeding Heartland readers will post comments or a diary about today’s presidential visit.

UPDATE: Scroll down for the full text of Obama’s remarks in Iowa City, as prepared. What he said about children with pre-existing conditions being able to get insurance coverage this year isn’t accurate, unfortunately.

I’m excited about a couple of other great events for progressives this weekend. Planned Parenthood of the Heartland (formerly known as Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa) holds its spring book sale from March 25-29 in the 4-H building at the State Fairgrounds. It costs $10 to get in on opening night, but admission is free for the rest of the weekend. You will find a huge selection of books in almost every category you can imagine, as well as some CDs, DVDs, comic books and posters. Mr. desmoinesdem and I always find some wonderful out-of-print children’s books. Click here for opening hours and more details. Proceeds from the book sale support Planned Parenthood’s education programs in Iowa and Nebraska.

Another free event worth checking out this weekend is the Natural Living Expo at the Polk County Convention Center in downtown Des Moines Saturday from 10-6 and Sunday from 11-4. About 150 local businesses and non-profit organizations will be represented at the expo, including Iowa farmers, green home remodelers, and cloth diaper sellers. Francis Thicke’s campaign for secretary of agriculture and Iowa’s Water and Land Legacy will have booths too. Click here for a list of vendors, free lectures and panel discussions. If you have children, bring them along, because they may enjoy the storytelling, art and activities like hula-hooping and yo-yos in the kids’ area. I’ll be helping out a couple of non-profits at the expo, so I may see you if you stop by, but I won’t be wearing my “desmoinesdem” hat.

More events coming up this weekend are listed after the jump.

Former Governor Terry Branstad maintains a 16-point lead over Governor Chet Culver, according to a new Rasmussen poll released today. The Republican pollster surveyed 500 “likely voters” in Iowa on March 17. Branstad led a match-up against Culver by 52 percent to 36 percent, similar to the 53-37 lead Branstad had in Rasmussen’s February poll. The latest poll has Bob Vander Plaats leading Culver 42-40, a slight change from the 46-40 lead Vander Plaats had in the February poll. Rasmussen found Culver leading Rod Roberts 40-38 (Roberts was not included in the February poll).

We’ve now seen several polls showing Branstad above the 50 percent mark against Culver. Clearly Culver needs to bring up his own support; Rasmussen’s survey put the governor at 41 percent approve/57 percent disapprove, and it’s never good for an incumbent to barely break 40 percent against all challengers.

Culver also needs Branstad’s numbers to come down. I have been expecting Branstad to get roughed up during the GOP primary, but I question whether Vander Plaats will have the resources to publicize his case against Branstad effectively. Roberts looks mostly like a threat to Vander Plaats from where I’m sitting, so I doubt he will make a strong case against Branstad. Chris Rants seemed determined to put Branstad’s record under scrutiny, but last month he quit the governor’s race after failing to raise enough money for a campaign.

The Republican polling firm Rasmussen conducted a one-day survey of 500 “likely voters” in Iowa on March 17. Click here for topline results.

Senator Chuck Grassley still leads all his Democratic challengers, with no statistically significant change in his lead since Rasmussen’s last Iowa poll in February. He leads Roxanne Conlin 55 percent to 36 percent (the February numbers were 53-36). Grassley leads Bob Krause 57-31 (55-33 in February), and he leads Tom Fiegen 57-28 (56-28 in February).

Instead of asking respondents whether they approved of Grassley’s work in the Senate, Rasmussen asked whether they had a favorable or unfavorable impression of the senator. He was at 66 percent very or somewhat favorable, 31 percent very or somewhat unfavorable. (The latest Selzer poll for the Des Moines Register measured Grassley’s approval at 54 percent, but favorability numbers can often run ahead of approval numbers.)

Clearly the Senate race is still Grassley’s to lose, but he’s not likely to be re-elected with the huge margins he’s had in the past. There is also plenty of time for the race to tighten up if Grassley makes big mistakes. As Senate Guru reminded us in this diary, the current fundraising quarter ends March 31. I encourage Democrats to get involved and support one of Grassley’s challengers. Here are links to donate to the Conlin campaign, the Fiegen campaign and the Krause campaign.

Other notable findings from the latest Rasmussen poll: President Barack Obama’s approve/disapprove numbers were 50/49, but Governor Chet Culver is still in negative territory at 41 percent approve/57 disapprove. About 45 percent of respondents said they favored “the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and the congressional Democrats,” while 53 percent said they opposed it. Remember, this poll was in the field before Congress gave final approval to the bill Obama signed yesterday. I am curious to see future polling on the issue. A quickie USA Today/Gallup nationwide poll released yesterday was the first in a long time to show net positive approval for health care reform: 49 percent of respondents said it was a “good thing” that Congress passed the bill over the weekend, while 40 percent said it was a “bad thing.”

Next week will mark the first anniversary of the Iowa Supreme Court’s ruling in Varnum v Brien. Seven justices unanimously concluded that the section of the Iowa Code enacted through our state’s Defense of Marriage Act violates the equal protection provision of the Iowa Constitution. Since the day that decision was announced, many Iowa Republicans have called for overturning the court’s ruling. Some have denied that county recorders were obliged to implement the ruling, or insisted that government officials may ignore a court’s opinion about the constitutionality of a law. Others have called on Iowans to vote against retaining justices who supposedly overreached their authority. For example, gubernatorial candidate Rod Roberts said last November,

“We need to send a message to the Iowa Supreme Court that they are accountable to the people of Iowa,” said Roberts, who has made restoring the role of the people in state government a centerpiece of his campaign. “The problem with judicial activism is that it thwarts the will of the legislature and of the people of Iowa.”

Now that Congress has approved a health insurance reform bill Republicans don’t like, some GOP politicians have decided judicial activism isn’t so bad after all. Gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats pledged to “invoke the Constitution’s 10th Amendment to protect Iowans from new federal mandates” on health care. Rod Roberts followed Vander Plaats’ lead:

Roberts said that if the federal government passes a nationalized health care plan that conflicts with the Roberts Amendment, as governor he will file a lawsuit in federal court against President Obama to have the plan struck down as a violation of Iowans’ Tenth Amendment rights. The Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides that powers not delegated to the federal government (such as the regulation of health insurance) are reserved for the states.

Gubernatorial candidate Terry Branstad also supported the idea of using the courts to nullify the will of Congress: “Given the massive scope and effect of this [health insurance reform] bill, it is likely that various provisions will be challenged in the courts. Those challenges are both timely and appropriate.”

Any constitutional lawyer can tell you that the U.S. Supreme Court has long affirmed the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce. Law professor Mark Hall explains in detail here why constitutional arguments against an individual mandate to purchase health insurance are wrong. As for the broader 10th amendment claim that the constitution doesn’t empower the federal government to regulate health insurance, Hall notes, “Congress has ample power and precedent through the Constitution’s ‘Commerce Clause’ to regulate just about any aspect of the national economy.”

Conservative legal scholar Eugene Volokh likewise does not find the constitutional arguments against health insurance reform convincing:

While I agree that the recent commerce clause cases hold that Congress may not regulate noneconomic activity, as such, they also state that Congress may reach otherwise unregulable conduct as part of an overarching regulatory scheme, where the regulation of such conduct is necessary and proper to the success of such scheme. In this case, the overall scheme would involve the regulation of “commerce” as the Supreme Court has defined it for several decades, as it would involve the regulation of health care markets. And the success of such a regulatory scheme would depend upon requiring all to participate. (Among other things, if health care reform requires insurers to issue insurance to all comers, and prohibits refusals for pre-existing conditions, then a mandate is necessary to prevent opportunistic behavior by individuals who simply wait to purchase insurance until they get sick.)

The U.S. Supreme Court could overrule the will of Congress on health insurance reform only by reversing several decades of precedent about the definition of commerce. That’s textbook “judicial activism,” but it’s ok with some Iowa Republicans if it achieves the political end they are seeking.

By the way, Vander Plaats claims that as governor, he could issue an executive order halting same-sex marriages in Iowa. I wonder if he also thinks President Barack Obama could issue an executive order overturning a possible Supreme Court ruling against health insurance reform.

UPDATE: Kevin Drum considers prospects for a lawsuit challenging the individual mandate to buy health insurance. He makes the same point about Congressional authority to regulate interstate commerce and adds,

What’s more, the penalties for not buying insurance are tax penalties, and if anything, Congress has even wider scope in the tax area than in the commerce area. The Supreme Court has frequently ruled that Congress can pass tax laws that essentially force people to do things that Congress doesn’t have the direct power to require.

[…]here’s the thing: if the Supreme Court decided to overturn decades of precedent and strike down the mandate even though Kevin Drum says they shouldn’t (hard to imagine, I know), the insurance industry will go ballistic. If they’re required to cover all comers, even those with expensive pre-existing conditions, then they have to have a mandate in order to get all the healthy people into the insurance pool too. So they would argue very persuasively that unless Congress figures out a fix, they’ll drive private insurers out of business in short order. And that, in turn, will almost certainly be enough incentive for both Democrats and Republicans to find a way to enforce a mandate by other means. If necessary, there are ways to rewrite the rules so that people aren’t literally required to get insurance, but are incentivized so strongly that nearly everyone will do it. As an example, Congress might pass a law making state Medicaid funding dependent on states passing laws requiring residents to buy insurance. Dependent funding is something Congress does routinely, and states don’t have any constitutional issues when it comes to requiring residents to buy insurance. They all do it with auto insurance and Massachusetts does it with health insurance.

Like Drum, I view these proposed legal challenges as Republican posturing rather than a serious threat to nullify the law Obama signed this morning.

President Barack Obama is expected to sign the health insurance reform bill on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Iowa politicians from both parties have been responding to last night’s votes in the House of Representatives. After the jump I’ve posted lots of reaction quotes, plus some bonus embarrassing comments from Steve King.

The president is coming to Iowa City this Thursday to promote the health insurance reform bill:

Iowa City was where candidate Obama announced his health-care plan before the 2008 caucuses, when he was in a scrap with Hillary Clinton and John Edwards for the party’s presidential nomination.

A White House official said today the president will be in the state to “discuss how health insurance reform will lower costs for small businesses and American families and give them more control over their health care.”

I’ll be curious to see the public polling on this issue in Iowa. A new nationwide CNN poll released today showed that 39 percent of respondents support the Senate bill just approved by the House. Some 43 percent oppose the bill because it is “too liberal,” while 13 percent oppose the bill because it is “not liberal enough.” In other words, more than half the respondents either support the bill or (like me) feel it doesn’t go far enough.  

UPDATE: The vote on the rules for the reconciliation bill debate passed 224-206 (roll call). The final vote on the Senate bill will be late tonight.

FINAL UPDATE: The House approved the Senate bill 219-212, with no Republicans voting in favor and 34 Democrats voting against (roll call). It’s clear House leaders did not have the votes without the Stupak bloc.

VERY FINAL UPDATE: Two more roll calls: a Republican-backed poison pill that would have inserted the president’s executive order language on the Hyde amendment into the reconciliation fixes failed 232-199. Then the House passed the reconciliation fixes to the Senate bill by a vote of 220-211.

The House of Representatives began debating the health insurance reform legislation on Sunday afternoon. Speaker Nancy Pelosi is using the gavel Representative John Dingell’s father used the day the House approved Medicare in 1965. I will update this post as votes are taken on the reconciliation package and later on the Senate’s bill.

Some kind of new deal appears to have been struck with Bart Stupak and his group of anti-abortion Democrats. Link to follow later when more details become available. I assume this means House leaders didn’t have 216 votes without the Stupak bloc, which is how the whip counts have been looking. (UPDATE: The president agreed to issue this executive order affirming that the health insurance reform bill “maintains current Hyde Amendment restrictions governing abortion policy and extends those restrictions to the newly-created health insurance exchanges.” The executive order allows Stupak and his bloc to vote for the bill without the appearance of caving.)

Republicans are making fools out of themselves warning about the death of liberty and the “government takeover.” Gubernatorial candidate Rod Roberts has filed amendments to two Iowa House bills seeking to “challenge the constitutionality of President Obama’s plan to nationalize the health care industry.” He also says that as governor he would sue the federal government, claiming that health insurance reform violates the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Roberts is copying a Bob Vander Plaats campaign promise here, which supports my view that Roberts’ main function in the governor’s race is to undermine Vander Plaats in the GOP primary.

Meanwhile, Democrats are making fools of themselves claiming that passing a Republican plan from 1993 is something to cheer about. We should be ashamed that corporate interest groups got everything they wanted in this bill, to the extent that the lobbying arm of the pharmaceutical industry is running ads supporting the bill. We should be outraged by all of President Obama’s broken promises on health care reform and the fact that he lied about supporting a public health insurance option after secretly agreeing to leave that out of the bill.

I don’t know whether better health care reform was achievable. Certainly Big Tent Democrat is right that progressives botched the negotiating process (see also here), but once the president decided not to do anything that angered corporate groups, we were probably stuck with what we’re getting. Some people will benefit from subsidized insurance and new primary health care clinics, but other people will be forced to downgrade their coverage, and there will be no new competition for the insurance companies that have near-monopolies in most of the country. I doubt this reform will reduce insurance company abuses, and I doubt it will save tens of thousands of lives a year, and I doubt future Congresses with (at best) smaller Democratic majorities will improve it in any meaningful way, but let’s hope I am wrong.

Failing to pass the bill might have hurt Democrats more in the short term, but I think over-promising the benefits will hurt us badly later. When Americans continue to face medical bankruptcies, and some insured people continue to find medical care unaffordable, and “wellness incentives” become the new method of discriminating against people with pre-existing conditions, Democrats will be blamed.

Listing the alleged “progressive victories” in this bill is just an exercise in self-delusion. This bill was written for the benefit of corporate groups. Many provisions that would have been in the public interest have been left out. It’s a disgrace that large Democratic majorities produced this reform, and it’s one reason the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee will get no money from me for the forseeable future.

You can claim the bill is a slight improvement on the status quo, but calling it “progressive” or a sign of interest groups in decline is an insult to everyone’s intelligence. Not as stupid as calling it a “government takeover,” but almost as deceptive.

Share your own thoughts in this thread, whether or not you feel like celebrating today’s “historic victory.”

UPDATE: Republican strategist David Frum argues that the GOP made a huge mistake by refusing to make a deal with Obama on health care reform:

Barack Obama badly wanted Republican votes for his plan. Could we have leveraged his desire to align the plan more closely with conservative views? To finance it without redistributive taxes on productive enterprise – without weighing so heavily on small business – without expanding Medicaid? Too late now. They are all the law.

No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. […]

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.

There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother? Or – more exactly – with somebody whom your voters have been persuaded to believe wants to murder their grandmother?

I’ve been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters – but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead.

It’s crunch time for health insurance reform, and Senator Tom Harkin and the three Iowa Democrats in the House “announced a major breakthrough today on the issue of Medicare payment reform in the final health care reform bill,” according to a joint press release. Excerpt:

[Representatives Dave] Loebsack, [Senator Tom] Harkin, [Leonard] Boswell and [Bruce] Braley have been outspoken advocates for changing the way Medicare pays health care providers for services, from its current fee-for-service system into a quality and value-based system.

Loebsack, Harkin, Boswell and Braley helped negotiate a compromise adding language to the health care reform bill that provides an immediate $800 million to address geographic disparities for both doctors and hospitals, as well as written guarantees from Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius for further action to reform Medicare reimbursement rates that do not qualify for reconciliation under the Byrd Rule. The Senate bill previously only provided a Medicare reimbursement fix for doctors.

The House reconciliation package maintained automatic implementation of a value index as part of the reimbursement structures for doctors, beginning in 2015.  This language was secured in the Senate bill with the help of Harkin and is based on Braley’s Medicare Payment Improvement Act, introduced in June 2009. Under the fixes secured in the Senate bill and the House reconciliation package, Iowa doctors will see five percent increases in current Medicare reimbursement rates in both 2010 and 2011.

I posted the whole press release, containing more details, after the jump. This deal appears to have secured the vote of Peter DeFazio (OR-04) as well. Yesterday he threatened to vote no because of language on the Medicare payments disparity.

President Barack Obama gave House Democrats a pep-talk today, and his speech (which wasn’t pre-written) got rave reviews from many Democrats. If only the Senate bill were as good as Obama made it sound. (UPDATE: I posted the White House transcript of Obama’s speech after the jump.)

House Democratic leaders have decided to ditch the “deem and pass” method for passing health insurance reform with a single vote, even though the legislative procedure isn’t as rare or controversial as Republicans would have you believe. Instead, the House will hold an hour of flood debate tomorrow on “the rule to allow reconcilation to get to the floor,” then House members will vote on the rule, then they will debate the Senate health insurance reform bill and vote on it. I assume this means that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is confident she has the 216 votes she needs.

Bart Stupak is now claiming only about half a dozen Democrats are willing to vote against the bill unless it contains major new restrictions on private insurance coverage of abortion. Stupak was supposed to hold a press conference this morning, but he cancelled it, so maybe that means he didn’t get the deal he was hoping for from Pelosi. David Dayen speculates on who is still in the Stupak bloc. David Waldman warns about the prospect that Stupak will use a “motion to recommit” to try to get his anti-abortion language into the reconciliation fix package.

Outside the Capitol, tea party protesters shouted racist insults and held signs threatening gun violence if health care reform passes. Congressional Republicans should disavow this reprehensible behavior, but of course they won’t.

The filing deadline for statewide and state legislative offices closed at the end of business today. John Deeth has been covering the highlights at his blog. Click here to download a pdf file from the Secretary of State’s office for the full candidate list.

As I mentioned earlier, Governor Chet Culver has no primary challenger. All three remaining Republican gubernatorial candidates qualified for the ballot (Terry Branstad, Rod Roberts, Bob Vander Plaats).

There will be a three-way Democratic primary for U.S. Senate between Roxanne Conlin, Tom Fiegen and Bob Krause.

Republicans have a full slate of candidates for statewide offices. Sadly, Democrats failed to find anyone to take on Auditor David Vaudt.

Four Republicans filed against Bruce Braley in Iowa’s first Congressional district, and four Republicans filed against Dave Loebsack in the second district. All seven declared GOP candidates qualified for the ballot in Iowa’s third district. I would not be surprised if a district convention ends up selecting Leonard Boswell’s opponent.

Bill Maske is the only Democrat running against Tom Latham in Iowa’s fourth Congressional district. As expected, we will have a competitive primary in the fifth between Mike Denklau and Matt Campbell.

Most surprising statehouse district left uncontested: House district 16 in northeast Iowa. I had heard rumors that Republicans had no candidate against freshman State Representative John Beard, but I’m still shocked they left him unchallenged. That was a battleground race in 2008. Does anyone know whether a GOP district convention will be able to name a candidate for this race later?

Democrats didn’t leave any obviously competitive statehouse districts open. I’m a little disappointed we don’t have a candidate in House district 73, from which Republican Jodi Tymeson is retiring. It is a fairly strong GOP district, but I thought a candidate pounding the pavement there might help State Senator Staci Appel in her re-election campaign against Kent Sorenson (Senate district 37).

We found a candidate in House district 51 (Carroll County), which Rod Roberts is vacating to run for governor. Democrat Larry Lesle of Manning will face the winner of a three-way GOP primary.

Yesterday two-term incumbent Elesha Gayman surprised many people by announcing her retirement from House district 84 in Davenport. Gayman indicated that no one had been lined up to replace her, but today Shari Carnahan filed for that seat as a Democrat. She will face Gayman’s 2008 opponent, Ross Paustian.

Ruth Ann Gaines ended up being the only Democrat to file in Wayne Ford’s district 65 (Des Moines).

Six Democratic Iowa House incumbents have primary challengers. The people running against Dave Jacoby (district 30, Iowa City/Coralville) and Geri Huser (district 42, east side of Des Moines) appear to be backed by organized labor. A socially conservative pastor, Clair Rudison, is running against Ako Abdul-Samad in district 66 (Des Moines). Anesa Kajtazovic stepped up to the plate in House district 21 (Waterloo). Freshman Kerry Burt really should have retired from that seat. I don’t know what the deal is with Kenneth Oglesby, who is challenging Chuck Isenhart in district 27 (Dubuque). Likewise, I have no idea why Mike Petersen is running against Mary Gaskill in district 93 (Ottumwa). Please post a comment or e-mail me (desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com) if you know the backstory.

Most surprising retirement: Republican Doug Struyk in district 99. The GOP candidate for secretary of state in 2006, Mary Ann Hanusa, is running for the Council Bluffs-based seat instead. She will face Democrat Kurt Hubler, who nearly defeated Struyk in 2008. Struyk was first elected as a Democrat but switched parties several years ago. His departure will leave only one turncoat in the Iowa House. We failed to field a candidate against Dawn Pettengill (district 39), who switched to the GOP in 2007.

More posts are coming soon on some of the battleground statehouse races. Meanwhile, post any relevant comments in this thread.

UPDATE: Forgot to mention that we will see seven or eight rematches in Iowa House races. Republicans are running Josh Thurston and Stephen Burgmeier and 2009 special election winners Kirsten Running-Marquardt (district 33) and Curt Hanson (district 90). Also, in district 23 first-term Democrat Gene Ficken will face the Republican he beat in 2008, Dan Rasmussen. Republican Jane Jech is taking another shot at incumbent Mark Smith in district 43. The district 89 race may be a rematch as well if Jarad Klein wins the GOP primary to face first-term Democrat Larry Marek. In House district 60, first-term Republican Peter Cownie faces 2008 Democratic candidate Alan Koslow. Not only will Koslow be at a severe financial disadvantage, his endorsement of Jonathan Narcisse for governor won’t win him friends among the Democratic base. Democrat Pat VanZante is taking another shot at Jim Van Engelenhoven in district 71 (assuming Van Engelenhoven doesn’ lose to his GOP primary challenger). Republican Dave Heaton will face his 2008 opponent, Ron Fedler, in district 91.

SECOND UPDATE: Republicans are crowing that they are fielding candidates in 88 of the 100 Iowa House districts, while Democrats are fielding candidates in only 75 districts. I would like to challenge Republicans everywhere, but it’s only natural that Iowa Democrats are going to focus more on defense this year. We already have the majority, and it could be a tough cycle for incumbents at all levels.

On Sunday, the House of Representatives will vote on the Senate’s health insurance reform bill and some “fixes” to that bill. The procedural details have not been fully worked out (David Waldman takes you through the weeds here and here), but it’s clear that the vote will be very close. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi needs to find 216 votes to pass the bill.

Various whip counts are floating around the internet. Take your pick from David Dayen’s version at FireDogLake, the Chris Bowers tally at Open Left, or the latest from The Hill staff. Several Democrats who voted against the House health care reform bill in November have announced plans to vote for this version. However, others who voted for the House bill remain undecided or have said they will vote no.

Today Peter DeFazio (OR-04) threatened to vote no on the bill because of changes in language on correcting geographical disparities in Medicare spending. DeFazio explained, “We spent months working this out. If we don’t get it in this bill, we will never get it.” The Huffington Post reported that other House Democrats share DeFazio’s concerns.

Because all three Iowa Democrats in the House strongly supported the changes to Medicare reimbursement rates that were included in the House bill, I contacted their offices today to find out whether they, like DeFazio, consider this issue a deal-breaker. I have not yet heard back from staffers for Representative Leonard Boswell (IA-03) or Dave Loebsack (IA-02), but a spokeswoman for Bruce Braley (IA-01) sent me this response:

Congressman Braley has spent hours in meetings with Speaker Pelosi and House Leadership this week, discussing the need to correct geographic disparities in Medicare reimbursement and how those corrections can be accomplished in this final bill.  Congressman Braley is still very much undecided on how he will vote on the reconciliation package and this is one of many factors that will play a role in his final decision.

I’ve never seen Braley on any list of wavering Democrats on the health insurance reform bill. If he and DeFazio do end up voting no, it will be much harder for Pelosi to find 216 votes. On the other hand, a compromise could be reached before Sunday:

At her press briefing Friday morning, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was asked about Rep. Peter Defazio’s objections to the removal of the Medicare disparity fix from the final bill. “We’re working on that language,” said Pelosi. “I feel comfortable about where we are heading.” She said she supports the language that was in the House bill and is working toward restoring it as much as possible.

“We have reached agreement before,” she said of the dicey political issue.

I will update this post if and when I hear back from Loebsack’s and Boswell’s offices.

UPDATE: Loebsack’s spokeswoman confirmed that he will vote for the bill. Boswell seems like a firm yes as well, judging from an e-mail blast he sent yesterday, which I have posted after the jump.

SATURDAY UPDATE: Braley confirmed that he will vote for the bill because of the deal on Medicare reimbursement payments I discussed in more detail here.