It’s a nail-biter in Iowa House district 90. Democrat Curt Hanson carried Jefferson County, which includes Fairfield. Republican Stephen Burgmeier ran up a big margin in Van Buren County. A few precincts remain to be counted in Wapello County, and Hanson leads by about 200 votes, but I can’t tell whether the absentee ballots have already been reported.

I’ll update this post later with more results, but I invite other Bleeding Heartland readers to post links in the comments if final returns become available before I can get back to my computer.

Turnout was reportedly high for a special election, but I don’t know what that means in terms of percentage.

UPDATE: Democrats will retain a 56-44 majority in the Iowa House for the 2010 session. From the Secretary of State’s office: There were 8,046 total votes (I had heard predictions that 6,000 to 7,000 people would vote in this race). Hanson won 3,932 votes (48.9 percent), and Burgmeier 3,825 votes (47.5 percent). Click the link for the breakdown by county. Only four votes separated the two candidates in Wapello County. Jefferson County was the key for Hanson–he led by more than 600 votes there, while Burgmeier led by just over 500 votes in Van Buren County.

Conservative Dan Cesar of the Fourth of July party got just 40 votes, but independent candidate Douglas Phillips got 242 votes. I have no idea what kind of campaign he was running or which candidate he drew support from. (NOTE: Commenters at The Iowa Republican blog say Phillips was running as a social conservative. He got about 9 percent of the vote in Van Buren County.)

I received this statement from Iowa Democratic Party chair Michael Kiernan:

FAIRFIELD, IA – “I congratulate Curt Hanson on a successful campaign. His was a local campaign about local issues, and it is not surprising he was successful.  Curt will make an excellent addition to the Democratic majority in the Iowa House.  Congratulations to Speaker Murphy, Majority Leader McCarthy and the staff of the Iowa Democratic Party, for their outstanding effort and teamwork, and the victory that has followed.  

“Democrats have been successful in the last two election cycles and tonight because we have recruited great candidates, followed through on the promises we’ve made and are governing the state responsibly.

“We will continue to build upon this strong organization and team approach as we prepare for statewide elections next fall.  Tonight’s results don’t change our strategy for 2010.  Tomorrow we will get back to work on candidate recruitment, fundraising and organizing.  We have every reason to expect continued success.”

I was nervous about this race, but Bleeding Heartland user American007 was right on the money, predicting a Hanson victory today and observing more than a month ago, “never underestimate the power of a well-liked local teacher in politics.”

SECOND UPDATE: A few more thoughts come to mind. Once again, the Democrats’ superior plan for banking early votes made the difference in a statehouse race. No doubt absentee ballots will remain a crucial part of both parties’ GOTV next year.

This result should make it easier for Democratic leaders in the Iowa House and Senate to keep their caucuses in line next year regarding marriage equality. Republicans will use every procedural trick in the book to try to force floor votes on a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. If Burgmeier had won, some Democrats in tough districts might have been more inclined to support the Republicans on procedural votes of this kind.

Tonight’s result must be very disappointing for Iowa Republicans, who invested a lot of resources in this race and were hoping a victory would boost their candidate recruitment and fundraising going into next year. The GOP has suffered net losses of seats in the Iowa House and Senate for the last four elections. Burgmeier was well-known in the district as a Jefferson County supervisor and was thought to have a lot of crossover appeal. Republicans have been beating the war drum over tax and spending issues, while the National Organization for Marriage ran ads for Burgmeier because of his support for overturning same-sex marriage. You would think that this message would be successful in the middle of a recession and just a few months after the Iowa Supreme Court ruling went into effect.

THIRD UPDATE: Statements from Governor Chet Culver, Iowa GOP chairman Matt Strawn and Iowa House minority leader Kraig Paulsen are after the jump.

I saw on Radio Iowa’s site that 16 shelters serving the homeless and victims of family violence will receive a total of $10 million through the I-JOBS state bonding initiative.

Grants will provide approximately half the funding to build new shelters in Des Moines, Iowa City, and Sioux Center. The other grants will pay for almost all of the renovation costs at 13 shelters in Muscatine, Dubuque, Mason City, Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Waverly, Boone, Davenport, and Burlington. Click here for more details about the 16 shelter projects.

According to the governor’s office,

Last year, more than 17,000 people sought help at Iowa’s shelters. Nearly 8,000 of these clients were members of families, and close to 40% of them were children.

The need is greater this year, probably because of the recession and growing number of foreclosures. From the Radio Iowa report:  

Tim Wilson, executive director of the shelter in Cedar Rapids, says there is an increased demand for services. “We have been very full from the spring through the summer on the men’s beds and particularly the family units. Lately, we’ve been turning away many more people than we can actually accommodate,” Wilson said.

Iowa Republicans keep bashing the I-JOBS program, but their false advertising and misleading talking points aren’t doing a thing to help the thousands of Iowans who need shelters during these tough times.

Today’s the big day in Iowa House district 90. Latest news from the race:

Beth Dalbey wrote a good feature on the campaign for Iowa Independent. I didn’t realize that Republican candidate Stephen Burgmeier ran for Jefferson County supervisor as a Democrat and later as an independent before switching to the Republican Party.

One Iowa and the Interfaith Alliance of Iowa Action Fund filed a formal ethics complaint against the National Organization for Marriage with the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board.

The NOM claims to be in compliance with Iowa law.

Post any thoughts or election predictions in this thread. I am having trouble making a prediction. This race “should” go to Burgmeier because low-turnout special elections favor the opposition party, and because conservative interest groups have advertised much more heavily in the district. On the other hand, I hear field organizers supporting Curt Hanson on the ground have been doing a tremendous job. I will update this post with my final prediction this afternoon.

I agree with Kathie Obradovich, who argued last week:

This is primarily a local race. So what will the outcome say about the larger political landscape? Republicans have the most to gain and the least to lose. If Burgmeier fails, they can point to the Democratic advantage in the district. If he wins, it will be another boost for GOP voters. It’ll look like a rejection of Culver and the Democrats’ policies.

Still, another State Fair will have come and gone before the general election. Both parties will have a chance to learn from any mistakes in this race, and voters will have long forgotten them. Victory will be as sweet as cotton candy and probably just as long-lasting.

The state of the economy next fall will be much more important for the 2010 Iowa legislative races than whatever happens in House district 90 today.

UPDATE: Trying to be optimistic, but unfortunately I think Burgmeier will win this narrowly (53-47).

UPDATE: Hubbell told Iowa Independent he’s not interested in running against Grassley.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Democracy for America have produced a new television commercial, which asks which side Chuck Grassley is on:

Click here to donate to help keep this ad on the air in Iowa and Washington, DC.

Speaking of which side Grassley’s on, Monday’s Des Moines Register reports on our senior senator’s massive campaign contributions from health industry interest groups. Thomas Beaumont’s story was based on numbers compiled by Maplight.org.

Meanwhile, Representative Bruce Braley confirmed on Friday that he is running for re-election in Iowa’s first Congressional district. I consider him highly likely to run for U.S. Senate when one of our current senators retires.

Rumors persist that a prominent Democrat will join Bob Krause and Tom Fiegen in challenging Grassley next year. Al Swearengen of The Iowa Republican blog speculates that Fred Hubbell is the mystery candidate. Hubbell currently chairs the Iowa Power Fund Board. From his official bio:

Fred S. Hubbell was a member of the Executive Board and Chairman of Insurance and Asset Management Americas for ING Group. Mr. Hubbell retired from ING Group’s Executive Board effective April 25, 2006. Mr. Hubbell was formerly Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Equitable of Iowa Companies, an insurance holding company, serving in his position as Chairman from May 1993 to October 1997, and as President and Chief Executive Officer from May 1989 to October 1997.

Charlotte Hubbell, Fred Hubbell’s wife, serves on the Environmental Protection Commission.

Democrats and Republicans were busy in Iowa House district 90 over the weekend, making calls and knocking on doors to GOTV for tomorrow’s special election. Democrats had an early lead in terms of absentee ballots returned, and according to the field organizer for the Fairness Fund, efforts to collect outstanding absentee ballots continued.  We won several Iowa House seats in 2008 through big leads in early voting. A strong absentee ballot showing will be crucial for Curt Hanson, because the national political environment for Democrats is less favorable now than it was last November, conservative interest groups are heavily invested in this race, and same-sex marriage has galvanized the Republican base in Iowa.

Speaking of gay marriage, the National Organization for Marriage has spent nearly $90,000 trying to get Republican Stephen Burgmeier elected. It’s an astronomical sum to spend on advertising in a rural Iowa House district. The group will have to do things differently if they want to get involved in our statehouse races next year:

An out-of-state anti-gay marriage group will likely need to form its own Political Action Committee and disclose its donors if it continues its Iowa activities, a state official warned today. […]

NOM will likely need to disclose future donors if it continues its Iowa activities, Charlie Smithson, the head of the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board, warned NOM in a letter today.

“I’m not as much concerned with this particular race as I am that Iowa is not going to become a dumping ground for undisclosed campaign contributions,” Smithson said in an interview.  “Anyone can play the game here, but they are going to play within the rules.”

The One Iowa blog has more details and a link to Smithson’s letter. The bottom line is that the National Organization for Marriage will need to form a PAC that discloses donors in order to spend more than $750 on advocacy activities in Iowa. Click here to sign One Iowa’s petition calling on NOM to disclose their funding sources.

If you live in or near House district 90, let us know what you’ve seen in terms of advertising, yard signs, or door hangers for either candidate. I’m also interested to know whether either party has been aggressively contacting the large number of Green and Libertarian voters in the Fairfield area. The Greens would be more inclined to support Democrat Curt Hanson, while I could see Libertarians going either way in this race.  

Trish Nelson of Blog for Iowa forwarded to me a job listing from Democracy for America. They are hiring “public option field organizers” in 12 states, including Iowa. This is a short-term position but does include health benefits. You can apply here. I’ve posted the full listing after the jump.

Click here to see the list of 64 House Democrats who have promised to vote against any health care reform bill that does not include a public health insurance option. Click here to donate to Democracy for America.

I spent most of Saturday in Coon Rapids at the events celebrating the 50th anniversary of Nikita Khrushchev’s visit to Iowa, so I missed the live coverage of Ted Kennedy’s funeral. Several people told me former Senator John Culver’s remarks were a must-see, so I wanted to post the video for the Bleeding Heartland community:

Share any thoughts about the Kennedy funeral or legacy in this thread.

Around 5:30 on Friday afternoon I received a robocall paid for by the Democratic National Committee on behalf of Organizing for America. The voice informed me about a rally for health care reform, scheduled for Saturday at 6 pm just west of the state capitol building in Des Moines. Press 1 if you plan to attend.

I didn’t press 1 and stayed on the line to see what would happen. The voice came back, telling me “The president needs you to show support” for reform.

The folks at Organizing for America have some pronoun trouble. It’s not President Obama who needs us. We need him to show support for real reform.  

In four days voters will elect a new state representative in Iowa House district 90. Here are some links to recent news in the campaign.

The Iowa Democratic Party has organizers in the district, and they are doing a good job:

A report released today by the Iowa Secretary of State shows that of the 2,156 early absentee ballots received in his office by noon, 1,308 of them were from Democrats while 603 were from Republicans. The rest were from people who registered as no- or other-party voters.

This is no time for complacency, though, because low-turnout by-elections tend to favor opposition parties. Iowa Republicans have a lot of angry, enthusiastic activists. Click here to volunteer for Curt Hanson’s campaign, and be sure to remind your friends and relatives in district 90 to vote on Tuesday.

Jason Clayworth of the Des Moines Register and Jason Hancock of Iowa Independent reported on the disclosure reports filed by Hanson and Republican Stephen Burgmeier. Burgmeier is getting much more help from outside groups; the National Organization for Marriage is spending nearly $90,000 on advertising, and Iowans for Tax Relief has also been running ads supporting Burgmeier.

One Iowa, an advocacy group supporting marriage equality, has slammed the National Organization for Marriage’s involvement in this race:

This is not an isolated effort, but an organized, well-funded, full-throated assault on civil marriage equality across the country. The same extremists that bankrolled ballot initiative efforts in Maine and California are now spending money to buy an election in Iowa. NOM has a history of funneling money from the Mormon Church into anti-gay measures, while refusing to disclose the source of their funds.

Click here to sign One Iowa’s petition demanding that the National Organization for Marriage disclose their funding sources. By the way, a money laundering complaint has been filed in Maine in response to the way groups including the National Organization for Marriage are funding efforts to overturn same-sex marriage rights in Maine.

The Fairness Fund PAC has a blog here with a field organizer’s updates from district 90. The Fairness Fund also has received a matching gift pledge to help respond to the NOM’s effots. Click here to donate so they can meet their fundraising goal. Hard work on the ground will determine the outcome in this special election.

If you’re on Twitter, use #HD90 to find updates from Republicans and Democrats who are involved in this race.

Share any thoughts about the campaign or election predictions in this thread.

No surprises here: Congressman Steve “10 worst” King announced yesterday that he won’t run for governor in 2010.

U.S. News and World Report this month ranked King among Obama’s “top five foes.”

“There are compelling reasons to run for governor and have the direct influence on policy that can shift the state. That’s been weighing on me for a long time,” King told The Des Moines Register. “But the final deciding factor is this: If America takes this leftward lurch, it won’t matter what we do in Iowa if we don’t get it right in Washington.” […]

King declined to say whether he thinks Branstad ought to run.

“There is no one in the state of Iowa who loves Iowa more than Terry Branstad,” he said. “If he does run, it would be a pay cut, and it wouldn’t be because he needs to pad his resume. I would certainly respect him if he does.”

Although King made some noise about running for governor after the Iowa Supreme Court cleared the way for same-sex marriage in April, I never thought it likely that he would give up a safe seat in the U.S. House to get beaten by Chet Culver. Also, his current position gives his son, Jeff King, a full-time job as manager of the congressman’s re-election campaigns.  

A new law will encourage local food production in Illinois.  The Local Food, Farms, and Jobs Act sets procurement goals of local farm and food products for food purchases funded by the state.

One goal of the law is that by 2020 20% of all food and food products purchased by state agencies and state-owned facilities be produced in Illinois.  State-owned facilities include prisons and public universities.

A second goal of the law is that by 2020 10% of all food and food products purchased by entities that at least partly funded by state dollars be produced in Illinois.  This category includes public schools, child care facilities, and hospitals.

The legislation creates a Local Food Council that will help facilitate meeting these goals.

This seems like a reasonable approach that we should consider here in Iowa.  We in Iowa like to claim the title of “Food Capital of the World.”  However, estimates are that about 80% of the $8 billion worth of food we eat in Iowa comes from out of state.  Producing more of the food we eat right here in Iowa would be good for our economy, rural communities, health and environment.

A few days after an unregistered group distributed a flyer attacking former Governor Terry Branstad from the right, a YouTube has appeared portraying Branstad as just like Governor Chet Culver on fiscal matters:

The comparison is ridiculous, since Culver never kept two sets of books to conceal deficit spending. Also, contrary to the claim made in this video, Culver didn’t try to sell the Iowa Lottery.

Still, the YouTube is a preview of attacks Branstad will face if he enters the governor’s race. He probably would win the nomination anyway, but the question is whether he wants to get mired in this kind of fight. I don’t know whether all of these claims are true; for instance, I don’t recall Branstad trying to end federal deductibility, although that may have happened while I was living outside Iowa.

I take as a given that no rival candidate directly authorized the creation of the flyer or the YouTube. People usually try not to let this kind of hit piece be linked to a campaign. Supporters of other Republican candidates may have acted independently, though. They have an obvious interest in keeping Branstad out of the race. Bob Vander Plaats is the front-runner now, but his prospects drop sharply with Branstad in. Most if not all of the other candidates would have no hope of competing against Vander Plaats and Branstad at the same time.

Over at The Iowa Republican blog, Krusty Konservative sees visual and stylistic clues in the YouTube pointing to Victory Enterprises, a firm working for Christian Fong’s campaign. I have no idea whether Krusty’s right, but consultants working for Fong stand to lose a lot of money if Branstad forces Fong from the race several months before next June’s primary.

Share any thoughts or speculation about the attacks on Branstad or the Republican primary campaign in this thread.

LATE UPDATE: Krusty followed up with another piece explaining why he believes someone at Victory Enterprises produced this video.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman is ready to shine a light on the health insurance industry’s business practices, according to this piece by Bill Boyarsky at Truthdig:

Waxman has already begun by demanding that major insurance companies reveal how much they pay top executives and board members and, most important, the size of their profits from selling policies. […]

I asked Waxman whether he expected the insurance companies to reply to his letters. “Oh yes,” he said. “When we write letters, we expect to get answers.” And what was his purpose in seeking the information? At first, he was reluctant to discuss the investigation. Finally, he gave a guarded reply: that many folks perhaps take too benign a view of private insurance companies. […]

The letters from Waxman and his colleague, Bart Stupak, chairman of the House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, went to every major insurance company, ranging from Aetna to Wellpoint. The lawmakers want to know the pay, stock options, perks, incentives, and retirement and other financial information of executives earning more than $500,000 a year. They are curious about the cost of promotional junkets. They are seeking disclosure of premiums, revenue, claims payments and sales expenses for health insurance policies. This includes sales to employers, individuals and the government. Interestingly, while insurance companies rail against the federal government, they earn money from participating in a number of federal programs, such as Medicare.

David Mizner has more on why this is important.

Speaking of insurance industry practices, Froma Harrop of the Providence Journal wrote a powerful column last week on the “death panel” her late husband faced from their insurance company, United Healthcare, after he was diagnosed with liver cancer.

A United Healthcare subsidiary owns the Lewin Group, which has been putting out so-called “non-partisan” research to discredit the idea of a public health insurance option.

Disappointing stuff from Lynn Campbell of IowaPolitics.com:

Republican gubernatorial candidate Christian Fong has refused to take down his statewide radio ad, despite complaints and threats of legal action by the Iowa Democratic Party.

“We have no intention to take down the ad,” Marlys Popma, Fong’s campaign manager, told IowaPolitics.com today. “We’re very confident that everything in the ad is completely accurate.”

Fong on Monday launched the 60-second ad called “Iowa Dream” that focuses on introducing himself and outlining his story for Iowa Republicans, but also says: “We have a state government that borrowed almost a billion dollars to pay its bills.” Popma said the $830 million I-JOBS program will actually cost the state about $1.4 billion by the time it’s paid off.

Campbell goes on to quote Iowa Democratic Party chair Michael Kiernan’s statement calling the ad “materially false and misleading.” Finally, Campbell quotes Popma as saying the Fong campaign hasn’t heard directly from the Iowa Democratic Party.

This is a perfect example of bogus “objective” journalism that offers readers nothing but “he said/she said.” If Campbell has spent even 10 seconds wondering whether the state of Iowa is borrowing a billion dollars to pay its bills, you’d never know it from her story.

Yet Fong’s claim can be disproved by minute or two of online research. The I-JOBS program is funding special infrastructure projects, not line items from the budget. If Iowa were borrowing money to meet ongoing spending commitments, the state would not have a AAA bond rating, and the I-JOBS bonds would not have a AA rating.  

For whatever reason, Campbell makes this story about Republican confidence and Democratic “complaints” instead of about the accuracy of Fong’s ad.

I recommend that the folks at IowaPolitics.com read this piece by Philip Meyer on “The Next Journalism’s Objective Reporting.” Excerpt:

True objectivity is based on method, not result. Instead of implying that there is an equal amount of weight to be accorded every side, the objective investigator makes an effort to evaluate the competing viewpoints. The methods of investigation keep the reporter from being misled by his or her own desires and prejudices.

I was asked by desmoinesdem at swing-state-project.com to crosspost here. I normally post there and at dailykos.com. PBI or Party Brand Index is a concept I have developed as a replacement for PVI.  PVI (Partisan Voting Index), which is measured by averaging the percentage of the vote from the last two presidential elections in each house district, and comparing it to the nation as a whole, is a useful shorthand for understanding the liberal v. conservative dynamics of a district. But PVI in my opinion it falls short in a number of areas. First it doesn't explain states like Arkansas or West Virginia. These states have districts who's PVIs indicates a Democrat shouldn't win, yet Democrats (outside of the presidency) win quite handily. Secondly why is this the case in Arkansas but not Oklahoma with similar PVI rated districts?

Lastly PVI can miss trends as it takes 4 years to readjust. The purpose of Party Brand Index is to give a better idea of how a candidate does not relative to how the presidential candidate did, but compared to how their generic PARTY should be expected to perform. I've tackled IN, NC, CO, VA, MO, OK, AR, now I will look at the swing states of Nevada and Iowa.

Highly recommended: the National Journal’s compilation of several dozen tributes to Ted Kennedy, as his current and former staffers and other elected officials remember him.

Ted Kennedy has died of brain cancer:

But while the White House eluded his grasp, the longtime Massachusetts senator was considered one of the most effective legislators of the past few decades. Kennedy, who became known as the “lion of the Senate,” played major roles in passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act and the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act, and was an outspoken liberal standard-bearer during a conservative-dominated era from the 1980s to the early 2000s. […]

Said Kennedy’s biographer, Adam Clymer: “He was probably best known for the ability to work with Republicans. The Republican Party raised hundreds of millions of dollars with direct appeal to protect the country from Ted Kennedy, but there was never a piece of legislation that he ever got passed without a major Republican ally.”

There’s much more detail about his life in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times obituaries. Norman Ornstein observed, “When you survey the impact of the Kennedys on American life and politics and policy, he will end up by far being the most significant.” Some may focus on his personal flaws, but he had a lot of demons to escape from, having had four of his older siblings die violently before his 40th birthday.

I appreciated Kennedy’s commitment to improving legal protections for so many disadvantaged people. I never met him, but I’ll always remember seeing him speak at a rally for John Kerry shortly before the 2004 caucuses. The Hoover High School gymnasium was packed, and Kennedy got the crowd going with humor and passion.

It’s sad that cancer prevented Kennedy from being more involved in the Senate health care deliberations this year. He would have been a voice for many of the reforms we need.

Even if Congress approves a health care bill, it will fall short of the universal coverage Kennedy advocated for most of his career. On the other hand, Kennedy famously regretted not reaching a health care compromise with President Richard Nixon in the early 70s. (Nixon was prepared to require employers to provide health insurance, while Kennedy wanted a single-payer type system.) While that compromise wouldn’t have helped everyone, we would have a lot fewer than 47 million uninsured Americans today if it had passed.

Massachusetts law requires a special election in the event of a U.S. Senate seat vacancy. Last month Kennedy asked Governor Deval Patrick and state legislators to amend the law to allow the governor to appoint a temporary replacement (who would not be able to compete in the special election) so that Massachusetts will not be lacking a vote when important legislation comes before the Senate this fall.

Share your thoughts and memories about Ted Kennedy in this thread.

UPDATE: I’m with Senator Tom Harkin: “We must now rededicate our efforts toward passing legislation to provide robust, quality health insurance coverage for all Americans.”

SECOND UPDATE: More reaction after the jump, including a video of Vice President Joe Biden.

The Congressional Democrats fighting for a strong health care reform bill need as much help as they can get, with the insurance industry increasingly confident that they will get the bill of their dreams: a mandate for all Americans to buy health insurance, with no public option to compete with private insurers that dominate most markets.

We should all agree on how stupid it would be to let insurance companies “reap a financial windfall” from reform, when so many of our current problems stem from those companies’ high overhead costs and bad-faith business practices. If cost containment is an important goal of health care reform, we’re not going to get there by requiring people to buy overpriced private insurance.

The political fallout would be just as disastrous. Like David Waldman says,

If I’m uninsured or poorly insured, and the answer coming out of Congress is that I now have to buy crappy insurance from some private company that has no plan to actually help me pay for my health care without raking me over the coals, then I’ve gone into this fight an ardent supporter of strong reform, and come out a teabagger.

Digby warned in this excellent post that selling out the Democratic base on health care could fuel a movement comparable to the one that delivered nearly 3 million votes for Ralph Nader in 2000. Glenn Greenwald added more thoughts on the political calculations here.

The alternative to this scenario is not complicated.

Cedar Rapids Gazette columnist Todd Dorman published his take on the first statewide radio ad from Republican Christian Fong. Dorman’s not buying into Fong’s promise to “end the use of taxpayer money to fund lobbyists.” He makes some excellent points:

For starters, I don’t think leaving the lobbying playing field to non-government interests only is smart. I’m not sure how the public interest is advanced by allowing, for example, a corporation to lobby for loosened pollution rules while barring state regulators from pushing the other way.

Second, lawmakers would lose a pretty important resource. I can’t tell you how many times I saw members of a legislative committee get stuck in the complex details of a piece of legislation before turning to the audience and finding a department lobbyist who swiftly cleared up the confusion. Walling off one branch of government from another is going to slow down a process that’s already painfully slow.

Third, it really doesn’t bother me that state departments pursue legislative agendas. It’s not OK for the attorney general to lobby for tougher criminal penalties? The Department of Public Health should be barred from advocating for pandemic preparedness funding?

I agree totally, and Fong should be prepared to refute Dorman’s points if he is a serious thinker about policy, as opposed to a candidate taking cheap shots.

My only problem with Dorman’s column is that he cites this Des Moines Register report as saying that “state departments spent $1.8 million on lobbying state lawmakers” during the past year. In fact, the Register arrived at that figure by including lobbying expenses of “state agencies, municipalities, county agencies and associations where member dues are paid by taxpayers, such as the Iowa League of Cities.”

Ask anyone who has spent time at the statehouse; the League of Cities and State Association of Counties are forces to be reckoned with. It’s not hard to see why, since a lot of bills considered by the legislature affect city and county governments. I wonder whether Fong really thinks the governor should ban cities and counties from making their voices heard with state legislators.

In related news, Fong still hasn’t corrected his ad’s demonstrably false statement about the I-JOBS bonding initiative. He knows how financial markets work, and it doesn’t reflect well on him that he would mislead voters by claiming the state of Iowa is borrowing money to pay our bills.