As long-term unemployment continues to rise, unemployment benefits for many Americans will run out tonight because the U.S. Senate failed to pass a bill extending the benefits late last week. An estimated 1.2 million Americans, including about 75,000 Iowans, stand to lose unemployment benefits during the month of March if Congress does not act. For reasons I don’t understand, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid left the benefits extension out of the jobs bill approved by the Senate on February 24.

The following day, the House of Representatives approved a separate bill containing a one-month extension of unemployment benefits, federal subsidies for people on COBRA health insurance plans, current Medicare reimbursement rates for doctors, and a few other programs. Democrats tried to bring this bill up for a Senate vote right away, but retiring Republican Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky repeatedly objected to motions for unanimous consent. Democrats promised to keep filing motions until Bunning broke down, but instead they adjourned near midnight on Thursday night.

Democrats have been slamming Bunning in public statements and e-mail blasts. Here’s an example from Senator Tom Harkin’s office on Friday:

“We need to act quickly to extend the safety net and make sure laid-off workers have access to unemployment benefits through the end of the year, at least,” said Harkin.  “It is heartbreaking to see political games being played with the lives of hardworking people who are struggling to find a job, particularly when there has been strong bipartisan support in the past to extend unemployment benefits and other vital safety net programs.  

“Unfortunately this is emblematic of the larger issue plaguing the Senate today: abuse of Senate procedure.  We saw it in November as well.  While Senate Republicans play games, families are sitting around their kitchen tables wondering how they will make ends meet.  

“I intend to do everything in my power to fight this and hope other Senators will join me in this effort.”

[…] In November, Senate Republicans used a similar delay tactic to filibuster a motion to proceed to a bill to extend unemployment compensation.  After delaying and grinding Senate business to a halt for nearly a month, the bill passed 97-1.

Bunning’s behavior is inexcusable, and he even had the gall to complain about missing a college basketball game while staying on the Senate floor to block this bill.

At the same time, it is pathetic that Democrats adjourned instead of standing and fighting Senate Republicans all weekend long. Apparently one or two other Republicans showed up Thursday night to back up Bunning, but so what? Democrats should have refused to leave until the unemployment benefits bill passed. At the Congress Matters blog, David Waldman explained other ways Democrats could have handled Bunning’s procedural roadblock. Chris Bowers looked at the big picture here:

Democrats are in charge, and they are going to get blamed for this.  Democratic attempts to blame this on Senate procedure will ring utterly hollow.  Not only do people not understand, or care about, those rules, but it simply sounds wimpy and pathetic for the people running the United States Government to throw their hands up in the air and say “our procedural rules prevented us from doing anything to solve this huge problem. Sorry.”

Democrats did not have to adjourn.  They could have kept fighting Bunning.  Further, they all agreed to the rules under which the Senate operates, and most of them are still defending those rules.  Blaming Senate procedure is not going to extend anyone’s unemployment or COBRA benefits, and its not going to win many hearts around the country.

Sure, Jim Bunning is currently the biggest asshole in the country right now.  However, if you think that procedure is a problem, then start working to change the procedure.  If you think that unemployment benefits need to be extended, then don’t adjourn for the weekend when those benefits are slated to run out.  

Sometime this week, or perhaps later in March, Senate Democrats will break the Republican obstruction. But when that happens, “state governments will still have to deal with the extra administrative costs of shutting down and restarting the extended benefits programs.”

Some Republicans, like Representative Steve King, are philosophically opposed to extending unemployment benefits, but they fail to acknowledge that extending unemployment benefits has tremendous “bang for the buck.” The Iowa Fiscal Partnership recently calculated that that the unemployment benefits extension contained in last year’s federal stimulus bill “produced $501.7 million increased economic activity and $112.1 million in income in 2009, while creating or saving 3,727 jobs” in Iowa alone.

While Governor Chet Culver visited Iowa reservists serving in Iraq this week, several developments back home may affect his re-election campaign.

Links and analysis are after the jump.  

I expected Terry Branstad to drive all of the lesser-known Republicans out of the governor’s race. To my surprise, State Representative Rod Roberts has not followed the lead of Paul McKinley, Christian Fong, Jerry Behn and Chris Rants. Roberts told WHO’s Dave Price last weekend that he is staying in the governor’s race all the way to the June primary.

Roberts acknowledges the other two men have raised a LOT more money and are better known. After all, Branstad has been governor 4 terms before. [Bob] Vander Plaats has run for governor 3 times. Roberts plans on not just going after typical Republican primary voters to make up for his lack of recognition (he also added that he will just have to outwork the other 2). He plans on getting Democrats and Independents who are unhappy with the money Governor Chet Culver has spent since he took over and who are also unhappy with the overall direction of the state. Roberts told me this will be the year for the outsider. And he said he will be the outsider.

Join me after the jump for closer look at Roberts and his campaign strategy. I doubt he has any chance of winning the primary, but his presence in the race will probably help Branstad.

I didn’t watch President Barack Obama’s health care summit today, but I wanted to post this thread for people to discuss the spectacle and the state of play for health care reform. Blog for Iowa liveblogged the proceedings, as did FireDogLake (in four parts).

Senator Tom Harkin got good reviews for his comments at the summit today but disappointed a lot of Democrats yesterday by saying the public health insurance option can’t pass this year. Harkin repeatedly promised during 2009 that Congress would approve a health care bill with a public option. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is still advocating for the public option, but clearly there is no hope. Glenn Greenwald wrote an excellent piece at Salon about “the Democratic Party’s deceitful game” (click over and read the whole thing):

   Progressives:  We want a public option!

   Democrats/WH:  We agree with you totally!  Unfortunately, while we have 50 votes for it, we just don’t have 60, so we can’t have it.  Gosh darn that filibuster rule.  

   Progressives:  But you can use reconciliation like Bush did so often, and then you only need 50 votes.

   Filbuster reform advocates/Obama loyalists:  Hey progressives, don’t be stupid!  Be pragmatic.  It’s not realistic or Serious to use reconciliation to pass health care reform.  None of this their fault.  It’s the fault of the filibuster.  The White House wishes so badly that it could pass all these great progressive bills, but they’re powerless, and they just can’t get 60 votes to do it.  

   [Month later]

   Progressives:  Hey, great!  Now that you’re going to pass the bill through reconciliation after all, you can include the public option that both you and we love, because you only need 50 votes, and you’ve said all year you have that!

   Democrats/WH:  No.  We don’t have 50 votes for that (look at Jay Rockefeller).  Besides, it’s not the right time for the public option.  The public option only polls at 65%, so it might make our health care bill — which polls at 35% — unpopular.  Also, the public option and reconciliation are too partisan, so we’re going to go ahead and pass our industry-approved bill instead . . . on a strict party line vote.

I have to give credit to Bleeding Heartland user ragbrai08, who called this one a long time ago.

Meanwhile, the Republicans made one bogus argument after another today. David Waldman blows up some of their ridiculous claims about the Senate reconciliation process, which is used to avoid a filibuster.

Ezra Klein reminds you why selling insurance across state lines (the centerpiece of the Republican “plan”) is a terrible idea:

Conservatives want the opposite: They want insurers to be able to cluster in one state, follow that state’s regulations and sell the product to everyone in the country. In practice, that means we will have a single national insurance standard. But that standard will be decided by South Dakota. Or, if South Dakota doesn’t give the insurers the freedom they want, it’ll be decided by Wyoming. Or whoever.

This is exactly what happened in the credit card industry, which is regulated in accordance with conservative wishes. In 1980, Bill Janklow, the governor of South Dakota, made a deal with Citibank: If Citibank would move its credit card business to South Dakota, the governor would literally let Citibank write South Dakota’s credit card regulations. You can read Janklow’s recollections of the pact here.

Citibank wrote an absurdly pro-credit card law, the legislature passed it, and soon all the credit card companies were heading to South Dakota. And that’s exactly what would happen with health-care insurance. The industry would put its money into buying the legislature of a small, conservative, economically depressed state. The deal would be simple: Let us write the regulations and we’ll bring thousands of jobs and lots of tax dollars to you. Someone will take it. The result will be an uncommonly tiny legislature in an uncommonly small state that answers to an uncommonly conservative electorate that will decide what insurance will look like for the rest of the nation.

Jonathan Cohn discusses the same problem here.

Post any comments related to health care reform in this thread.

Ed Fallon confirmed this week that he is trying to recruit a primary challenger against Governor Chet Culver. Fallon has been sounding the alarm about Culver’s re-election prospects for some time. He now believes Culver will lose to Terry Branstad, and Iowa Democrats would have a better chance nominating someone else for governor.

I voted for Fallon in the 2006 gubernatorial primary and wrote a short book’s worth of posts at this blog on why I supported his 2008 primary challenge to Congressman Leonard Boswell.

This time, I think his efforts are misguided, and I explain why after the jump.  

The House of Representatives approved a bill to repeal the insurance industry’s exemption from anti-trust laws today by an overwhelming margin of 406 to 19. All 253 Democrats present were joined by 153 Republicans in voting for H.R. 4626, the Health Insurance Industry Fair Competition Act. Representative Tom Latham of Iowa’s fourth district voted with the majority, but Steve King disgraced the fifth district again by voting no (roll call here).

The anti-trust exemption has helped health insurers to avoid meaningful competition in most markets. Price-fixing is wonderful for corporate profits but doesn’t help consumers obtain affordable insurance coverage. The anti-trust exemption is one reason insurers have been able to jack up premiums by far more than the rate that medical costs are increasing (and many times the overall rate of inflation). Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield, which controls about 70 percent of the health insurance market in Iowa, recently announced rate hikes averaging 18 percent for about 80,000 individual policy-holders. Many of those policies (including my family’s) will see premiums go up by 22 percent as of April 1.

How many of King’s constituents will be forced to downgrade their coverage or drop their insurance because of this rate increase? How many Iowa businesses will suffer because their customers have less disposable income to spend on other goods and services? I’ve come to expect outrageous votes from King, but I’m curious to hear how he will justify his vote to keep consumers at the mercy of colluding insurance companies. I will update this post when I see an official statement from him.

A press release from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee noted that King has received $53,835 in campaign contributions from the insurance industry. (That number appears to have come from Open Secrets site.) I posted the full text of the release after the jump.

The White House issued a statement yesterday supporting the Health Insurance Industry Fair Competition Act. It’s unfortunate that the the Obama administration didn’t fight to get this provision in the larger health care reform package, but passing it as a stand-alone bill would still be a step forward.

Quite a few Senate Republicans are on record claiming to support repealing the insurance industry’s anti-trust exemption. Senate Majority Harry Reid should bring this bill to a vote as soon as possible. I suspect that if it reaches the floor, Senate Republicans will be as afraid to vote against it as the majority of House Republicans were today.

UPDATE: The Associated Press reports that prospects for this bill “are dim in the Senate.” If that turns out to be correct, it’s yet another reason rank and file Democrats should stop giving to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Meanwhile, David Dayen notes that before the anti-trust exemption bill passed, “there was also a motion to recommit, which would have essentially stopped the bill in its tracks, and 165 Republicans voted for that, along with 5 Democrats.”

Iowa’s own Tom Latham was among the 100-plus Republican cowards who voted for the procedural motion to stop the bill, then for the bill once the blocking attempt had failed.

The U.S. Senate passed a scaled-back jobs bill today by a 70-28 vote (roll call here). 57 of the 59 Senate Democrats voted for the bill; Ben Nelson of Nebraska voted no and Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey was absent. 13 Republicans voted for the bill. Five of them helped Democrats break a Republican filibuster on Monday: Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, Scott Brown of Massachusetts, and the retiring Kit Bond of Missouri and George Voinovich of Ohio. Two Republicans who were absent for Monday’s cloture vote also voted yes today: Orrin Hatch of Utah and Richard Burr of North Carolina. Six other Republicans tried to block this vote from going forward on Monday but turned around and voted for the bill today: Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker of Mississippi, James Inhofe of Oklahoma, George LeMieux of Florida, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

Senate Democrats and the media are calling this a $15 billion jobs bill, but David Dayen notes, it’s really a $35 billion measure: “the extension of the Highway Trust Fund would add $20 billion for infrastructure projects, but because of the way it’s financed, through a fund shift, it doesn’t count as an expense.”

In addition to the highway fund money, the main features of the jobs bill are a tax credit for small businesses that hire new workers, “Build America Bonds” that help state and local governments to borrow money, and a provision to allow small businesses to write off more expenses.

Senator Chuck Grassley voted against today’s bill and against the cloture motion on Monday. He and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus had agreed on a different jobs bill, which Senate Majority Leader Reid abandoned. In a statement submitted to the Senate record on Monday, Grassley slammed Reid’s “disregard for bipartisanship” and noted that tax-extending provisions in the Baucus-Grassley bill had enjoyed broad support from both parties in the past.

The House passed a larger jobs bill in December that included many of the tax-extending provisions Reid omitted from the Senate bill.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moodys.com, said last week that Reid’s jobs bill was “a good first step” but not nearly large enough to address the unemployment problem:

A failure to provide additional funding to struggling states, for example, would lead to job losses that would “overwhelm” all the other job-creating efforts being tried, he said. And while the Schumer-Hatch tax credit would create between 200,000 and 300,000 new jobs, Zandi estimated, that number is a drop in the bucket relative to the roughly 11 million new jobs needed to get the country back to pre-recession jobless levels.

Reid has promised to introduce more jobs-creating legislation soon. Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will try to move quickly on the bill the Senate just approved, Roll Call reported.

UPDATE:  Iowans for Voting Integrity members were informed yesterday that a leading Senator views this bill as a “solution in search of a problem” and that a provision for post-election audits is not likely to move this year. See IVI's press release addressing various objections to the bill, and take action below!

 Iowans, and especially Polk County folks, please take some time out of your busy day to protect the 2010 elections.

Second funnel is fast approaching at the Statehouse, and your help is needed to pass House File 682, an important bill that would provide checks and balances on the vote count in general elections.

Iowa got rid of unverifiable touch screen voting machines in 2008, but we Hawkeyes lag behind half the states and the District of Columbia in a crucial area of election protection: post-election audits.

Mismanagement of Iowa’s state film tax credit program has led to more personnel changes at the Iowa Department of Economic Development this week. On Monday three longtime employees of the department were dismissed: general counsel Melanie Johnson, Jeff Rossate, and Amy Johnson. The Des Moines Register reported,

Rossate, as division administrator for business development, was the direct boss for film office manager Tom Wheeler. Johnson was Rossate’s No. 2 as the coordinator of the business development division.

The Des Moines Register reported on Saturday that e-mails showed those officials were privy to some of the worst problems facing the film program in the two months before it was suspended.

Amy Johnson had been serving as interim director of the film office before she was dismissed. IDED announced Tuesday that attorney Jessica Montana will be the new interim director of the film office. Montana has worked on IDED’s regulatory assistance team since 2007.

I wonder whether the latest dismissals will complicate the criminal case against Wheeler and two film producers. Wheeler was fired from IDED shortly after the scandal broke, and earlier this month the Iowa Attorney General’s Office charged him with non-felonious misconduct. His defense attorney will now be able to claim that Wheeler’s boss and others knew about problems with the film tax credit program.

No matter what happens with that case, I don’t envy IDED director Bret Mills, who needs to sort out this mess. Mike Tramontina resigned as IDED director when the film tax credit scandal broke, and Fred Hubbell served as interim director of the department until Governor Chet Culver appointed Mills in late December. The Iowa Senate confirmed Mills unanimously this month.

Here’s hoping state legislators will put the film tax credit program out of its misery. A bill is pending to suspend the tax credit until July 2011, but the program was ill-conceived from the beginning and doesn’t deserve to be revived. There are a lot better ways for the state to spend up to $50 million a year.

Meanwhile, the Des Moines Register reports today,

Eleven film companies are suing Iowa’s Department of Economic Development, saying they believe certain documents that have not been released since the scandal broke – including expenses and budgets they reported to the state – should be kept confidential.

Scott Brennan, an attorney for the film companies, said Tuesday there is a difference between public curiosity and public interest in the ongoing probe. His clients believe they were guaranteed “by contract and by statute” that certain trade secrets would be kept secret.

The attorney general’s office and the Register argue that the records – first requested last fall – are public under state law and should remain so because they are of significant public interest. The two sides met in court for the first time Tuesday.

According to a brief filed Tuesday by Michael Giudicessi, the newspaper’s lawyer, “Whether evidenced by the very requests of the Register and other news organizations for access, the suspension of the film tax credit program by the governor’s office, the conducting of an independent audit by the department, the vast and increasing amount of taxpayer dollars involved or the ongoing terminations … it is clear that the public interest is not served by any degree of continuing secrecy.”

Jim Gibbons has emerged as the Republican insiders’ choice against seven-term incumbent Leonard Boswell in Iowa’s third district. Nine members of Congress are hosting a fundraiser for Gibbons in Washington on February 24, the Gibbons campaign announced today. The hosts are Senator Chuck Grassley, House Republican Whip Eric Cantor (VA-07), and Representatives Jason Chaffetz (UT-03), Dean Heller (NV-02), Jim Jordan (OH-04), Steve King (IA-05), Tom Latham (IA-04), Kevin McCarthy (CA-22), and Peter Roskam (IA-06).

I cannot recall whether Grassley or Latham endorsed a candidate in the four-way GOP primary to represent IA-05 in 2002, which King won at a district convention. I also don’t remember Grassley, Latham or King getting involved in the three-way GOP primary in IA-01 in 2006, or the three-way primary in IA-02 in 2008. If any Bleeding Heartland reader remembers endorsements by members of Congress in those races, please post a comment here or e-mail me at desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com.

CORRECTION: Not all of the co-hosts at this event are endorsing Gibbons in the Republican primary. Bleeding Heartland user mirage notes in the comments that Iowa Republicans in Congress also co-hosted an event for Dave Funk in Washington. Grassley’s spokeswoman e-mailed the following comment to me today: “Senator Grassley has not endorsed anybody in the 3rd District race. It is correct that Senator Grassley was also listed as a co-host of an event for Dave Funk.  If the other Republican candidates asked, he would do the same thing for them.”

Gibbons was recruited by key Iowa Republican donors, and has since been anointed by the National Republican Congressional Committee.

State Senator Brad Zaun, probably the strongest rival to Gibbons in the five-way Republican primary, has the backing of several Republican state legislators, including Iowa Senate Minority leader Paul McKinley. An internal poll for Zaun showed he begins the campaign with more name recognition and support in the district. However, Gibbons raised far more money in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Tea Party favorite Dave Funk recently attacked Gibbons for supposedly saying in an interview, “It[‘]s fine for me where the Constitution says that the federal government should be in charge of education.” Today Gibbons advocate Craig Robinson of The Iowa Republican blog declared Funk’s attack “sloppy and untrue.” After listening to a recording of the interview, Robinson concludes that Gibbons actually said, “Find for me where in the Constitution does it say that the federal government is in charge of education.”

Robinson transcribed part of the interview in question and posted it here. Gibbons doesn’t come across as someone who knows what he’s talking about. But that’s not surprising, given his ignorance about Congressional procedures and idiotic federal income tax holiday proposal.

What does surprise me is that according to Robinson, no one at the Gibbons campaign “set the record straight” after Funk issued his press release. Maybe it’s a strategy for Gibbons to not acknowledge his primary opponents, but I think his press shop needs to stay on top of what the other candidates are saying about him.

UPDATE: In this comment thread Funk stands by his press release about what Gibbons said, and several commenters write that they heard Gibbons’ remarks as Funk did.

LATE UPDATE: Latham assured moderate Republican Mark Rees that he will not be endorsing a candidate before the primary.

Governor Chet Culver will not sign a bill that would weaken Iowa’s current restrictions on spreading manure over frozen and snow-covered ground. Culver’s senior adviser Jim Larew confirmed the governor’s opposition during a February 22 meeting with members of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement. Iowa CCI is among the environmental groups that have sounded the alarm about House File 2324 and a companion bill, Senate File 2229. The bills would exempt many large farms from the new manure application rules adopted last year. Earlier this month, the House Agriculture Committee approved HF 2324 with minimal debate.

Culver had previously promised to block the new proposal in private conversations. The bill’s lead sponsor in the Iowa House, Democratic State Representative Ray Zirkelbach, told IowaPolitics.com yesterday, “Basically I was told that the governor’s going to veto it no matter what … if it came to his desk […].” Zirkelbach contends that the bill is needed to help the struggling dairy industry. He denies that it would lead to more manure contaminating Iowa waters.

I am glad to see the governor take a stand against Zirkelbach’s proposal. Improving the manure application bill was a major victory during the closing days of last year’s legislative session. We should not have to keep fighting efforts to move us backwards on water quality.

The full text of yesterday’s press release from Iowa CCI is after the jump.

Representative Steve King doesn’t come across as the most compassionate guy in the world, bragging about opposing aid for Hurricane Katrina victims and questioning the need to stop deporting undocumented Haitian immigrants after last month’s earthquake.

But if you thought King was incapable of feeling empathy, you’re wrong. Over the weekend he spoke to a panel on immigration at the Conservative Political Action Conference:

During his closing remarks, King veered into a complaint about high taxes, and said he could “empathize” with the man who flew a plane into an IRS building last week.

During the question and answer session, the Media Matters staffer asked King to clarify his comment, reminding him of his sworn duty to protect the American people from all sworn enemies, foreign and domestic. In response, said the staffer, King gave a long and convoluted answer about having been personally audited by the IRS, and ended by saying he intended to hold a fundraiser to help people “implode” their local IRS office.

That’s right, King feels empathy for a guy who crashed his plane into a federal building, intending to harm the IRS employees inside. In the process, the man killed a loving family man and longtime federal worker who served two terms in Vietnam.

Following King’s remarks at the CPAC panel, a man with a video camera gave the congressman a chance to clarify his remarks. King dug deeper. (continues after the jump)

Republican pollster Scott Rasmussen released a new poll of the Iowa governor and U.S. Senate races today. Rasmussen surveyed 500 “likely Iowa voters” on February 18.

Given Rasmussen’s usual “house effect” favoring Republican candidates, I expected the numbers to be worse for Democrats than other recent Iowa polling. Instead, they were comparable to last week’s Research 2000 Iowa poll for KCCI-TV and the Selzer and Co. poll for the Des Moines Register, which was conducted three weeks ago.

Like the other pollsters, Rasmussen found Governor Chet Culver well behind Republican front-runner Terry Branstad. Like Research 2000, Rasmussen found Senator Chuck Grassley above 50 percent against Democratic challengers, but well below Grassley’s usual re-election numbers and even below the numbers Rasmussen found for Grassley in late January.

More details are after the jump.

Charlotte Eby reports that Democratic State Representative Roger Wendt won’t return for the rest of the current legislative session or seek re-election this year because of a “serious unnamed medical condition.” I will update this post as more is known about Wendt’s condition. I’m sure the Bleeding Heartland community joins me in hoping that Wendt will receive the medical care he needs now.

UPDATE: Bret Hayworth reports that Wendt has lung cancer. He had apparently been cancer-free since beating the disease in his other lung 17 years ago. Best wishes for another full recovery.

Wendt was first elected to House district 2 in 2002. The district includes part of Sioux City (here is a map (pdf file). In 2008, Wendt defeated Republican Rick Bertrand with about 51.5 percent of the vote. Bertrand is running again this year.

Democrats hold a 56-44 majority in the Iowa House, but leaders haven’t always been able to find 51 votes to pass bills on their agenda, particularly relating to labor and taxation. Wendt’s departure will complicate efforts to pass House File 2420, the “fair share” bill that would require non-union public employees to compensate the union for bargaining services done on their behalf.

Woodbury County Democrats will have to work harder than ever on getting the vote out this year. In November, State Representative Wes Whitead announced plans to retire from House district 1, which is also in the Sioux City area. Rick Mullin, a past chair of the Woodbury County Democrats, will face Republican Jeremy Taylor in the first district. Taylor nearly defeated Whitead in 2008.

Republican State Representative Chris Rants is retiring from House district 54 this year, leaving a third open seat in Woodbury County. That district, which stretches from southeastern Sioux City to the Sergeant Bluff area, is less friendly territory for Democrats. I believe we have better pickup opportunities in House district 74 in Warren County and in House district 51 in Carroll County, which Republican Rod Roberts is vacating in order to run for governor this year.

UPDATE: The Des Moines Register’s blog recounts some highlights from Wendt’s career. He left a mark on this state’s education policy while chairing the House Education Committee:

* Wendt fought for a model core curriculum, intended to give all students the same strong education foundation, in 2008.

* He supported an anti-bullying law. The legislation in 2007 forced public and private schools to have policies that prevent and punish bullying or harassment of any student, including based on sexual orientation.

* Wendt was one of the lawmakers who led the charge three years ago on a statewide sales tax to raise money for school building projects. The old method was more piecemeal – counties voted periodically on a tax for their area. Urban schools, where most shopping and sales taxes happen, raked in more money, while rural districts felt funding inequity. Money is distributed equally per pupil across the state now.

* He began speaking out about a “dramatic need” for preschool programs in 2005.   Two years later, a law passed so that nearly all of Iowa’s 4-year-olds could attend preschool on a voluntary basis, paid for by the state and taught by licensed teachers.

* He helped make high school more rigorous. He believed that students – and their parents – need to take high school more seriously. Too many students coast in their junior and senior years, he said.

LATE UDPATE: Dave Price notes that three other Iowa legislators are currently battling cancer: Republican State Senators David Johnson and Pat Ward and Democratic State Representative Paul Bell. Wishing them all a full recovery.  

Last Thursday, the Iowa Senate approved a bill that would improve the health and well-being of Iowa working mothers and their children. In addition, this bill would reduce many employers’ health care costs while lowering employee turnover and absenteeism. Unlike legislation that pits business interests against the needs of working families, this bill would be a win-win.

Nevertheless, almost the whole Republican caucus voted against Senate File 2270, which promotes workplace accommodations for employees who express breast milk.

Follow me after the jump for background on this bill and Republican opposition to it.

President Barack Obama and Senators Chuck Grassley and Tom Harkin registered record low approval number in the latest Iowa poll by Selzer and Co. for the Des Moines Register. The poll was in the field from January 31 to February 3 and surveyed 805 Iowa adults, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percent.

The Sunday Des Moines Register reported,

Forty-six percent of Iowans approve of Obama’s handling of his job, according to the poll taken Jan. 31 to Feb. 3. That’s down from 49 percent in November. […]

In Iowa, views of Obama’s handling of key domestic issues remain a problem for him. No more than 40 percent of Iowans approve of his performance on the economy, health care and the budget deficit, although the rates are essentially unchanged since the Register’s last poll, taken in November.

What has changed: The fractions of independents who support Obama’s handling of all three of these issues have shrunk in the past three months.

One-third of independents now say they approve of his work on the economy, about 30 percent on health care and less than a quarter on the budget deficit. Obama pledged during his State of the Union address in January to make jobs, health care and spending cuts top priorities this year.

The Register’s poll did find that 60 percent of Iowans approved of Obama’s work on “relations with other countries,” and 54 percent approved of how he’s handling “the fight against terrorism.” However, I expect economic issues to dominate the mid-term election campaign.

Research 2000 polled 600 likely Iowa voters last week for KCCI-TV and found only slightly better numbers for Obama:

OBAMA FAVORABILITY:

FAV UNFAV NO OPINION  

BARACK OBAMA 52% 41% 7%

QUESTION: Do you approve or disapprove of the job Barack Obama is doing as President?

APPROVE DISAPPROVE NOT SURE

ALL 49% 46% 5%

MEN 45% 50% 5%

WOMEN 53% 42% 5%

DEMOCRATS 82% 12% 6%

REPUBLICANS 13% 83% 4%

INDEPENDENTS 47% 48% 5%

The Sunday Register also included new approval numbers for Senators Chuck Grassley and Tom Harkin. The link doesn’t appear to be on their website yet, but I will add that when it becomes available later today. (UPDATE: Here is that link.) Grassley is at 54 percent approval/28 percent disapproval. Harkin’s numbers are 51/34. Those are all-time lows for both senators, the Register reported. I don’t ever recall seeing Grassley with such a slight advantage over Harkin in terms of overall approval.

The Sunday Register didn’t publish full crosstabs from the poll but reported that Grassley’s approval among Republicans “fell to 68 percent in the new poll, down from 76 percent in the November Iowa Poll and from 80 percent in September.” It sounds as if Harkin’s main drop came from independents; in November 52 percent of independent respondents in the Register’s poll approved of Harkin’s work, but now only 44 percent do.

Harkin won’t be on the ballot again until 2014 (if he runs for a sixth term), but Grassley faces re-election this year. Compared to where a lot of incumbent senators are, 54 percent approval isn’t too bad, but for Grassley this is a surprisingly low number. I had wondered whether his support would rise as public opinion of the health insurance reform bill soured, but it appears that isn’t the case so far. I hope Grassley’s declining support among Republicans prompts many conservatives to stay home in November. A lot of them also aren’t wild about the likely Republican nominee for governor, Terry Branstad.

This week’s Research 2000 poll of 600 likely Iowa voters for KCCI-TV included a couple of questions related to the rights of same-sex couples:

QUESTION: As you may know, same-sex marriages have been legal in Iowa for over a year. Would you favor or oppose a constitutional amendment which would over turn current law allowing same sex marriages in Iowa?

YES NO NOT SURE

ALL 39% 42% 19%

MEN 43% 40% 17%

WOMEN 35% 44% 21%

DEMOCRATS 22% 64% 14%

REPUBLICANS 66% 13% 21%

INDEPENDENTS 33% 45% 22%

QUESTION: Regardless of how you feel about same-sex marriages, do you favor or oppose allowing same-sex couples the same benefits allowed to heterosexual couples, known as civil unions?

FAVOR OPPOSE NOT SURE

ALL 51% 40% 9%

MEN 47% 44% 9%

WOMEN 55% 36% 9%

DEMOCRATS 77% 21% 2%

REPUBLICANS 16% 68% 16%

INDEPENDENTS 55% 35% 10%

Less than a year after the Iowa Supreme Court’s Varnum v Brien ruling, a slight plurality of Iowans would not support a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. Among independents, a plurality oppose a constitutional amendment and a strong majority would support equal rights for same-sex couples in the form of civil unions. Even among Republican respondents, just two-thirds supported banning gay marriage.

Research 2000’s results are similar to the findings of a statewide poll Selzer and Co. conducted for the Des Moines Register last September. In that survey, 41 percent of respondents said they would vote for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, while 40 percent would vote against such an amendment. In addition, 92 percent of respondents said marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples had led to “no real change” in their own lives.

In the most recent Des Moines Register poll, conducted less than a month ago, more than 60 percent of respondents said gay marriage “does not deserve the [Iowa] Legislature’s limited time” this session.

Iowa conservative blogger Shane Vander Hart has complained that the Des Moines Register asked the wrong question two polls in a row. He thinks pollsters ought to ask Iowans whether citizens should be able to vote on a definition of marriage. The Iowa Republican blog commissioned a poll asking that question last summer and found that 67 percent of respondents said yes. However, that Republican poll conveniently failed to ask respondents whether they would support or oppose a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

Last week Democrats in the Iowa House and Senate defeated Republican efforts to force a floor vote on a marriage amendment. Although GOP candidates and interest groups will push their “let us vote” campaign this fall, I am less and less worried about the marriage issue hurting Democrats in the 2010 statehouse elections. Economic issues will be far more important to voters.

Research 2000 conducted an Iowa poll of 600 “likely voters who vote regularly in state elections” for KCCI-TV, the CBS affiliate in Des Moines. The poll was in the field from February 15 to 17, and KCCI published the results on its website yesterday.

It’s not a good poll for Governor Chet Culver, but it’s less bad than the Des Moines Register’s latest Iowa poll. Chuck Grassley has a comfortable lead in the Senate race, but not the kind of margin he has enjoyed against previous Democratic opponents.

Click here for all the numbers, and join me after the jump for some analysis.

The Iowa Legislature has been moving at an unusually fast pace during the shortened 2010 session. It’s time to catch up on what’s happened at the statehouse over the past three weeks. From here on out I will try to post a legislative roundup at the end of every week.

February 12 was the first “funnel” deadline. In order to have a chance of moving forward in 2010, all legislation except for tax and appropriations bills must have cleared at least one Iowa House or Senate committee by the end of last Friday.

After the jump I’ve included links on lots of bills that have passed or are still under consideration, as well as bills I took an interest in that failed to clear the funnel. I have grouped bills by subject area. This post is not an exhaustive list; way too many bills are under consideration for me to discuss them all. I recommend this funnel day roundup by Rod Boshart for the Mason City Globe-Gazette.

Note: the Iowa legislature’s second funnel deadline is coming up on March 5. To remain alive after that point, all bills except tax and appropriations bills must have been approved by either the full House or Senate and by a committee in the opposite chamber. Many bills that cleared the first funnel week will die in the second.  

Rod Boshart has the story:

Sioux City lawmaker Christopher Rants announced today that he is ending his quest to become governor of Iowa.

“Today I am ending my campaign for the office of governor,” Rants said in an e-mail he entitled as his “last Rants & Raves” column. “I’ve enjoyed meeting and learning from so many Iowans I’ve encountered on my 54,346-mile journey around our state.

“It has been a rewarding experience for me, and I hope that I’ve given my fellow Republicans some ideas to consider as they shape an agenda for the 2010 election,” he added. […]

“I continued out of a belief that campaigns should be about issues and ideas, and it was worth the effort to shape the public debate around issues that concern my supporters and me,” he added. “It is now clear that those opportunities for such a debate are not materializing, and I cannot in good conscience accept or solicit support for an effort I know will be ultimately unsuccessful.”

In the e-mail, Rants also confirmed that he won’t run for re-election to the Iowa House. You can read the whole thing at the Rants 2010 website.

Rants has campaigned hard since announcing his gubernatorial bid last June, but his fundraising dried up after former Governor Terry Branstad entered the race. Rants used his campaign website to expose Branstad’s record of fiscal mismanagement, and he called attention flip-flops on funding the Iowa State Patrol from the Road Use Tax Fund, but that seemed to have little effect.

Rants talked more about substantive policy issues than any other Republican candidate, and appeared at dozens of GOP events around the state, but just couldn’t get any traction in the race. A series of “debates” against Jonathan Narcisse in December and January didn’t attract much media attention. Rants then tried to distinguish himself on the marriage issue by vowing to veto every piece of legislation that hits his desk, including the state budget, until the legislature votes on a constitutional amendment restricting marriage to one man and one woman. Still, the Iowa Family Policy Center endorsed Bob Vander Plaats.

Rants once seemed likely to be a heavyweight contender for governor someday, but that was not to be.

Rants’ departure leaves three Republican candidates for governor: Branstad, Vander Plaats, and State Representative Rod Roberts of Carroll. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Roberts go before the primary, but he insisted in December that he would not drop out. Roberts started running radio advertising last month.

I was surprised not to see Republican primary numbers from the Des Moines Register’s latest Iowa poll. Maybe they plan to release those this weekend.