President-elect Barack Obama has appointed Patrick Dillon to be the White House Deputy Director of Political Affairs, according to an Iowa Democratic Party press release on January 16.

The news completes Dillon’s transition from one-half of an Iowa power couple to one-half of a Washington power couple. Dillon managed Chet Culver’s gubernatorial campaign in 2006 and served as the governor’s chief of staff until a few days ago.

Dillon’s wife, Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, directed John Edwards’ presidential campaign in Iowa and then served as battleground states director for Barack Obama’s campaign before Obama chose her to be the new executive director of the Democratic National Committee.

No class.

UPDATE: Like I said, no class.

Barack Obama promised during his presidential campaign to “finally make the Employee Free Choice Act the law of the land.”

So why did I read this in today’s Washington Post?

The president-elect also gave his support for legislation that would make it easier for workers to unionize, but he said there may be other ways to achieve the same goal without angering businesses. And while many Democrats on Capitol Hill are eager to see a quick vote on that bill, he indicated no desire to rush into the contentious issue.

“If we’re losing half a million jobs a month, then there are no jobs to unionize, so my focus first is on those key economic priority items I just mentioned,” he said. “Let’s see what the legislative docket looks like.”

Marc Ambinder has the exact wording of Obama’s answer, which the Washington Post paraphrased.

A lot of labor unions backed Obama during the primaries, and even more backed him during the general election campaign. Unions were there for Obama when he needed them. Now, they need him to follow through on his promise.

This diary by TomP lays out the very strong case for passing the Employee Free Choice Act.

Why do we need to dance around looking for some way to help unions without angering businesses? Obama won the election and has high approval ratings. Democrats enlarged their Congressional majorities. Now is the time for the president to spend his political capital on getting good laws through Congress.

Setting the policy merits aside for the moment, this is a poor negotiating strategy.

By announcing before taking office that his goal is to help unions without arousing intense opposition from businesses, Obama has just given the business lobby every incentive to raise hell about even the most innocuous bill to support workers’ rights.

He should not have telegraphed that he is willing to sacrifice the Employee Free Choice Act if necessary. You never announce before negotiations begin what concessions you are willing to make. (For more on Obama’s negotiating strategy so far, read this diary by bruh3.)

In any event, there isn’t going to be some magical bill that would make it significantly easier for workers to organize, but which the business lobby would take in stride. They will fight every bill perceived as pro-labor, and they will claim that it will cost jobs, just like they fought any number of good laws, from minimum wage increases to the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Here’s hoping that incoming Labor Secretary Hilda Solis (a passionate supporter of the EFCA) will be able to strengthen Obama’s resolve to fight for this bill.

By the way, American Rights at Work just launched a major tv advertising campaign in support of the EFCA and has a petition you can sign if you care about this issue.

Jason Hancock has the story at Iowa Independent: former Iowa Democratic Party chairman Gordon Fischer wants to become the U.S. Attorney for Iowa’s southern district. He is asking prominent Democrats to “reach out to Sen. [Tom] Harkin on my behalf, with either a letter, or phone call, or (preferably) both.”

Fischer wasn’t a particularly early supporter of Barack Obama by Iowa standards, but he was an enthusiastic one, as any regular reader of his blog Iowa True Blue can attest.

Sometimes Fischer was a bit too caught up in the primary wars, by his own admission. Even though I never backed Hillary Clinton for president, I also felt Fischer went too far on more than one occasion (like when he approvingly quoted Andrew Sullivan’s casual reference to the Clintons as “sociopaths”).

One Clinton supporter even filed a Federal Election Commission complaint against Fischer because of his blogging. The FEC found no evidence to substantiate the allegations made in that complaint.

I have no idea whether Fischer is the leading candidate the U.S. Attorney job. Anyone hear about other Iowa lawyers who are putting their names in for this one?

I have no opinion about who should get the appointment, as long as it’s someone who won’t prosecute members of the other political party on very thin evidence.

UPDATE: Someone in a position to know tells me that several others have applied for this position, including Iowa Assistant Attorney General Donn Stanley and Tom Henderson, chairman of the Polk County Democrats.

So I’m reading La Vida Locavore, and Jill Richardson has a post up about Burger King’s new marketing campaign:

Now, if you ditch 10 [Facebook] friends, they’ll give you a free burger. Then they send your ex-friends a message saying you like Whoppers better than you like them. Gross.

It sounded so weird that I followed her link to this article from Adweek. Sure enough, it’s a real story and not satire from The Onion:

The fast-food chain has released the Whopper Sacrifice application on Facebook. The app rewards people with a coupon for BK’s signature burger when they cull 10 friends. Each time a friend is excommunicated, the application sends a notification to the banished party via Facebook’s news feed explaining that the user’s love for the unlucky soul is less than his or her zeal for the Whopper. […]

“We thought there could be some fun there, removing some of these people who are friends [but] not necessarily] best friends,” said Jeff Benjamin, executive interactive creative director at Crispin, and friend to 736 on Facebook. “It’s asking the question of which love is bigger, your love for your friends or your love for the Whopper,” he said.

The app also adds a box to user profile pages charting their progress toward the free burger with the line, “Who will be the next to go?”

The application is available on Facebook and at WhopperSacrifice.com.

This concept strikes me as bizarre. I don’t know whether that’s because I am not a Facebook person, because I’m older than the demographic they are targeting, or because I haven’t eaten at Burger King in who knows how many years.

Are excess friends that big a problem on Facebook? Is a Whopper that desirable? It seems so unappetizing.

Jill reminds us that Burger King has had other unusual marketing campaigns lately, namely a meat-scented Burger King fragrance, ads featuring “Whopper Virgins” from cultures where fast food is unknown, and a series of YouTube videos

of people eating the “Octo Stacker” – a burger made with 2 buns, 8 patties, 9 pieces of cheese and 16 pieces of bacon.

Seriously, who are the ad wizards who came up with this one?

UPDATE: Thanks to ragbrai08 for pointing me to this Washington Post article. After “233,906 friends were removed by 82,771 people in less than a week,” Facebook shut down this application because it supposedly “facilitated activity that ran counter to user privacy […].”

For the record, Crispin Porter + Bogusky were the ad wizards who came up with this one. Clearly they were tapping into real potential to generate buzz for Burger King. Go figure.

Thanks to Bleeding Heartland user ragbrai08, who sent me this link to a survey on the Iowa Department of Natural Resources website:

What fundamental experiences do you believe children in Iowa should have in order to develop a healthy, active lifestyle? Cast your vote today. Voting has been extended until January 16, 2009.

Results obtained from the survey will be used to guide creation of an “Iowa Children’s Outdoor Bill of Rights.”

It only takes a few minutes to complete the survey, and you do not have to give your name, address, phone number or e-mail. (For demographic analysis, they want your zip code, gender and age range.)

Here is a brief post on the benefits of getting children to play outdoors. Richard Louv wrote a whole book on the subject called, “Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder.”  

Tom Vilsack appears to be on track for unanimous confirmation by the Senate as Secretary of Agriculture in Barack Obama’s cabinet. At his confirmation hearing yesterday, Republicans didn’t ask hostile questions, and Vilsack didn’t have to explain away any embarrassing behavior like Treasury Secretary-nominee Timothy Geithner’s failure to fully meet his tax obligations over a period of years.

Despite the lack of drama, Vilsack made a number of noteworthy comments during the hearing. Here are some highlights.

Vilsack told senators on Wednesday that

The Obama administration wants to accelerate the development of new versions of biofuels made form crop residue and non-food crops such as switchgrass. The plants’ fibrous material, or cellulose, can be converted into alcohols or even new versions of gasoline or diesel.

“Moving toward next-generation biofuels, cellulosic ethanol, is going to be really important in order to respond” to concerns about the impact on food prices of using grain for fuel, he said.

Vilsack addressed a range of other issues, pledging, for example, to promote fruit and vegetable consumption and promising to ensure that any new international trade agreement is a “net plus for all of agriculture.”

It makes a lot of sense to produce ethanol from perennial plants that are less energy-intensive to grow and need fewer herbicides, pesticides and fertilizer than corn.

Vilsack’s opening statement also

promised swift implementation of the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) which, alone among farm bill conservation programs, has languished under the Bush Administration since passage of the 2008 Farm Bill last May.

A little later during the hearing, Vilsack described the Conservation Stewardship Program as important for the environment and cited its potential to boost farm income and create jobs.

By the way, Vilsack’s disclosure documents show that he collects payments from the US Department of Agriculture on some Iowa farmland he and his wife own:

The former Iowa governor and his wife, Christie, have been receiving payments since 2000 for an acreage in Davis County that is enrolled in the land-idling Conservation Reserve Program, according to USDA data compiled by the Environmental Working Group.

In a Jan. 8 letter to USDA ethics officials, Vilsack said he would seek a waiver to continue receiving CRP payments while he is secretary. Otherwise, experts said, he would have to break his contract and reimburse the USDA for all previous payments he has received, which would total nearly $60,000.

Craig Cox, Midwest vice president of the Environmental Working Group, a research and advocacy organization, welcomed having an agriculture secretary who receives conservation payments.

At a time “when simultaneously protecting our soil, water, wildlife habitat and climate is an urgent priority, it is encouraging that our new secretary of agriculture is personally participating in a conservation program that does just that,” he said.

I’m with Cox; it’s good for the secretary of agriculture to have first-hand knowledge of the conservation reserve program’s value.

Earlier this week the Register published an article on the opening statement Vilsack prepared for his confirmation hearing:

Tom Vilsack is promising to use the U.S. Department of Agriculture to “aggressively address” global warming and energy independence.

In an opening statement prepared for his Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday, President-elect Barack Obama’s nominee for agriculture secretary also said he would use the department to “create real and meaningful opportunities” for farmers and to guarantee that rural communities grow and prosper. […]

Vilsack, a former mayor of Mount Pleasant, also said rural communities continue to lose population and “find it increasingly difficult to keep pace with the ever-changing national and global economy.”

He pledged to try to resolve the long-standing civil rights claims against the department.

“If I’m confirmed, the message will be clear: discrimination in any form will not be tolerated,” Vilsack said.

After reading that Register article, La Vida Locavore’s Jill Richardson commented,

I want to see our subsidy structure change to reward farmers for sustainability instead of yield. I want the government to ease the financial risk on any farmer transitioning to organic because it appears to me that being an organic farmer isn’t so bad on your bank account, but transitioning alone might break several farmers financially. I want to outlaw CAFOs altogether. But will Vilsack do this? Let me just say this: I am so confident he won’t that I promise now to entirely shave my head if he DOES do each of these 3 things.

I think we can all agree that Jill is not going to look like Sinead O’Connor anytime soon. I totally agree with her first two suggestions. As for CAFOs, it’s not realistic to expect them to be banned, but I believe they would be greatly reduced in number and size (over time) if government policy made them pay for the harm they cause.

On a more encouraging note, I read this at the U.S. Food Policy blog:

Some highlights included Vilsack’s encouragement of locally grown fruits and vegetables and pronouncement that they should be grown not just in rural areas, but everywhere. He announced that he met with Health and Human Services nominee Tom Daschle last week in order to demonstrate the importance of working together for nutrition. “It’s going to be important for us to promote fresh fruits and vegetables as part of our children’s diets. . .that means supporting those who supply those products” and making it easier for consumers to buy locally grown products, Vilsack said.

Maybe Vilsack and Daschle will take some of Angie Tagtow’s excellent advice on how their agencies can work together to improve human health. I would also encourage them to read this recent piece by Steph Larsen: “For healthy food and soil, we need affordable health care for farmers.”

I am curious about what Vilsack means by “supporting those who supply” locally-grown fresh fruits and vegetables. One problem with our current agricultural policy is that commodity farmers lose all federal subsidies if they put more than two acres into growing fruits or vegetables. Apparently that was the price needed to get California’s Congressional delegation to vote for various farm bills over the years. Even though almost no subsidies go directly to California farmers, this penalty limits the competition California growers might otherwise face from Midwestern farmers.

So, very little of the produce consumed by Iowans is grown in Iowa, and our grocery stores are full of produce trucked in from thousands of miles away. Most of the crops Iowa farmers grow are inedible for humans without processing.

A few years back the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University published a report on “Food, Fuel and Freeways.” It showed how far food travels to Iowans and how much Iowans could reduce greenhouse-gas emissions if we increased the proportion of locally-grown food in our diets to even 10 percent of what we eat.

Getting back to the Vilsack hearing, members of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee made some notable comments yesterday. who questioned Vilsack made some notable comments on Wednesday. Iowa’s own Tom Harkin, who chairs the committee, gave Vilsack a warm welcome:

“I just couldn’t be more proud to see you sitting there. I don’t think President-elect [Barack] Obama could have picked a better person for this position,” Harkin said.

Harkin also discussed federal child nutrition programs:

Agriculture Chairman Tom Harkin , D-Iowa, said reauthorization of a law (PL 108-265) governing school lunches and other child nutrition programs “is really the only thing that we have to do this year.” […]

During the hearing, Harkin said he will propose that the Department of Agriculture use Institute of Medicine guidelines to set standards for junk food sold in schools. Current USDA school food standards exempt most snack foods, because they aren’t a part of subsidized lunches.

During the last renewal of the child nutrition act, then-Gov. Vilsack wrote a letter to lawmakers and the Bush administration expressing concern about childhood obesity and the problem of vending machine snacks that compete with school meals.

At the time, Vilsack backed limits on the kinds of snacks and beverages students can buy outside the lunch line. Nutrition advocates want junk food kicked out of schools, but many schools use the cash from sales to cover the rising costs of meal services.

(Side note: the state of Iowa is now considering banning the sale of junk food in public schools.)

Meanwhile, Iowa’s Republican Senator Chuck Grassley urged Vilsack to act quickly on several other fronts, including rule-making that would protect smaller volume livestock producers. Also, Grassley and Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota wrote an open letter to Vilsack asking him to close a loophole affecting commodity program payment limits. Ferd Hoefner, Policy Director of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, explains that “This particular loophole is the single most important one allowing mega farming operations to collect payments in multiples of what otherwise appears to be the statutory dollar limit.”

According to Hoefner,

Another former chairman, Pat Leahy (D-VT), weighed in with a comment that the Department is not keeping up with the rapid growth of organic and then with a question asking whether it wasn’t time for the Department to get on with the business of actually actively promoting organic.  Vilsack said we need to “celebrate and support” organic and USDA should view it as one very legitimate option in a menu of options for improving farm incomes.  Then, in response to an extended monologue from Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS) deriding organic as marginal, Vilsack held his ground, but diffused the implied antagonism, saying the Department needs to support the full diversity of American agriculture.

The Ethicurean blog published an excerpt of Roberts’ insult to “small family farmers”:

That small family farmer is about 5’2″ … and he’s a retired airline pilot and sits on his porch on a glider reading Gentleman’s Quarterly – he used to read the Wall Street Journal but that got pretty drab – and his wife works as stock broker downtown. And he has 40 acres, and he has a pond and he has an orchard and he grows organic apples. Sometimes there is a little more protein in those apples than people bargain for, and he’s very happy to have that.

How disappointing that an imbecile like this could easily get re-elected in Kansas. Roberts’ caricature does not resemble any of the sustainable farmers I know. They work just as hard as Roberts’ idealized “production agriculture farmer” but don’t receive any federal subsidies, despite growing high-quality food and being good stewards of the land.

If you haven’t already done so, please go to the Food Democracy Now site and sign their new petition recommending 12 good candidates for undersecretary positions at the USDA. These will be important appointments, since Vilsack won’t single-handedly be setting the USDA’s policy direction.

The Center for Rural Affairs has also launched a petition worth signing, which urges Vilsack to implement a number of programs that would benefit farmers and rural economies.

We’re halfway through January. This is a thread for discussing anything new you’ve been enjoying lately.

Favorite new habit: getting more cardio exercise. I’ve only stuck with it for three weeks so far, but I am motivated.

One of my favorite Chanukah presents was a pair of mittens my sister found at a craft fair, made out of recycled wool sweaters. They are perfect for walking the dog in sub-zero weather.

My family likes jigsaw puzzles, and my in-laws got us a 400-piece puzzle “featuring an extract from the US Geological Survey map base centered on your home.” The map covers an area six miles east to west and four miles north to south. It’s very challenging, because there’s no picture on the cover of the box to guide your way. It helps if you know most of the names of streets, parks, and schools in your area. My husband and I noticed the geological survey map was a few decades out of date; the puzzle shows lots of undeveloped space where the suburbs have sprawled, as well as some landmarks that no longer exist (such as Riley and Rice schools in Des Moines). I’m guessing the puzzle manufacturer pulled a map from the late 60s or maybe the very early 70s. West Des Moines is very small, but Valley High School is out on 35th St, rather than in the old Valley Junction location. If you want to order a puzzle of your home town or the place where you live now, here is the website.

If you have been enjoying any new (to you) books, magazines or blogs, tell us about them.

California-based blogger Ellinorianne has just launched a new blog called Chronic Share, “a welcoming community for those living with chronic disease.” (She suffers from fibromyalgia.) If you or a friend have a chronic illness, check it out. The format is very much like Bleeding Heartland; it only takes a minute to register, after which anyone can post comments or diaries.

Great news, everyone! Today the House of Representatives approved an expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). In Iowa, this program is known as HAWK-I, and it provides coverage for thousands of children whose families are not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid, but not wealthy enough to purchase health insurance:

The child health bill would provide $32.3 billion over four and a half years to continue coverage for seven million children who now rely on the program and to extend coverage to more than four million who are uninsured.

“This is a day of triumph for America’s children,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said. “We put women and children first.”

After years of frustration, Democrats were exultant.

“Today is a new day,” Representative Dave Loebsack of Iowa. Representative Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, said, “Passing this bill sends a very important signal that change has come to Washington as a result of the last election.”

Representatives Bruce Braley and Leonard Boswell joined Loebsack in voting for the bill, which passed by a comfortable margin of 289-139. But as you can see from the roll call, Representatives Steve King and Tom Latham voted no.

King has been a proud opponent of the SCHIP program for years. In the bizarro world he inhabits, this program is Socialized Clinton-style Hillarycare for Illegals and their Parents.

Gee, I thought it was for people like my friend, who owns her own business but couldn’t afford health insurance for her kids after her husband got laid off. With the enormous job losses of the last few months, more and more families will need this program.

Anyway, we’ve all come to expect this kind of vote from King.

I hope some Democrats who crossed over in the fourth district to support Latham will open their eyes now. Today’s vote should not surprise anyone, because Latham has voted against expanding the SCHIP program on several occasions.

Still, I doubt this is what most voters had in mind when they saw television ads touting Latham’s “trusted leadership” on health care.

The Senate will take up this bill within the next two weeks, and I doubt Republicans will be able to filibuster it. So, Barack Obama will have a major achievement on health care very early in his presidency. Let’s hope it will be the first of many.

UPDATE: In typically dishonest fashion, Steve King (who never met a tax cut for the rich he didn’t like) claims the SCHIP bill “provides new benefits to illegal immigrants and wealthy families at the expense of low-income children.”

Earlier this week Senate Guru laid out some reasons why Senator Chuck Grassley might retire rather than seek a sixth term.

Iowa Independent asked the senator’s office about the rumors and got this reply:

“We appreciate you taking time to check with us. Those writing these reports haven’t ever done so,” said Beth Pellett Levine, Grassley’s press secretary. “Sen. Grassley has held eight fundraisers since Election Day, and 10 more are scheduled. Like he’s always said, Sen. Grassley is running for reelection to the U.S. Senate.”

I’m still in favor of a serious candidate taking on Grassley, but who will rise to the challenge?

Last month Chase Martyn discussed some possibilities on the Democratic bench.  

Over the weekend Republican insider Doug Gross speculated that attorney Roxanne Conlin, the Democratic nominee for governor in 1982, might run against Grassley. However, Conlin immediately denied the rumor:

“I can tell you that it never crossed my mind,” Conlin said. “Really, it’s not something I’m going to do.”[…]

“I really think this is a fund-raising ploy for Grassley,” she said. “That is the only reason I can possibly think Doug would have said such a thing because it’s not based in fact.”

That sounds about right.  

A new report by Democracy Corps examines the trend toward early voting in the 2008 election and confirms that Barack Obama greatly benefited from banking so many votes before election day.

Democratic Congressional candidates also did better among early voters than among non-early voters.

The study did not analyze the effects of early voting on races further down the ticket, but several Democratic legislative candidates lost the election-day vote but were saved by a strong early vote.

The Republican Party of Iowa will try to match the Iowa Democratic Party’s early-voting efforts in 2010, so we would do well to keep improving on the model. Early voting is insurance against bad weather on election day as well as last-minute smear campaigns against our candidates.

The highlight of Governor Chet Culver’s “condition of the state” address yesterday (video here and prepared text here) was a proposal to issue state bonds to borrow up to $700 million over the next few years:

Thousands of new jobs will be created, Culver said. Every $100 million spent on highway construction alone means more than 4,000 new jobs, he said.

“We’re cutting back on the day-to-day expenditures of state government,” Culver said in his Condition of the State speech this morning. “But, at the same time, we will be investing in bricks and mortar – to create jobs and keep our economy going.”

Culver said Iowa won’t need to raise taxes to pay for the plan. The state is in the position to issue bonds, which is essentially borrowing money. Existing gaming revenue would repay the bonds, he said.

Predictably, road industry lobbyists like the spending plans while expressing some doubts about the borrowing plans.

Republicans also don’t seem to like the bonding proposal, while statehouse Democrats think it’s a good idea. State Auditor David Vaudt, who may be a Republican candidate for governor in 2010, said he needed to study the details before expressing an opinion, but noted, “What we’ve got to remember is we’ve got to dedicate and set aside a piece of revenue stream to pay that principal and interest.”

Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal made a great point:

Gronstal deflected Republican criticism by pointing out that [Senate Minority leader Paul] McKinley, in his opening day speech, talked about a business he once owned.

“He borrowed every nickel he could and leveraged himself as far as he could because he believed in his future. I believe in Iowa’s future. I believe it makes sense now to borrow money and move this state forward,” Gronstal said.

He added: “This is probably one of the best times in our history to go out and borrow money with a dedicated repayment stream. Do you own a home? Did it make sense for you to borrow money? Or did you just pay cash?”

Gronstal is absolutely right. Iowa has a triple-A bond rating, interest rates are fairly low, and creating jobs is essential to bringing the economy back. Two-thirds of our economy depends on consumer spending, and good jobs generate the money people then spend at businesses in their communities. Construction jobs tend to be good jobs too.

Des Moines Register columnist David Yepsen, who is usually a deficit hawk, also likes the infrastructure bonding idea:

The money will be borrowed over the next few years, supervised by an oversight board and repaid with gambling profits, so no tax increases will be necessary. (If we have to have all this gambling in Iowa, wouldn’t it be nice to see something tangible in return?)

It will be the modern-day equivalent of the Depression-era Works Progress Administration, which built infrastructure we still use today, such as dams, sewers, parks and shelters. Previous American generations left us wonderful systems of interstates, canals, railroads, river locks and dams. What are we leaving our kids? Potholes, bridge collapses and sewers that pollute river ways.

Iowans are a frugal people. Perhaps we are too frugal. According to state Treasurer Mike Fitzgerald’s office, Moody’s Investors Service says Iowa’s per-capita level of public debt ranked 48th in the country last year. Iowa has $98 of state public debt per person. The national average of state debt is $1,158. You could double Iowa’s $98 of per-capita state debt to $200, and we would then rank 46th.

Culver should have told us that. Clearly, most other states saddle their citizens with more debt than is proposed here. And many are more attractive places to live, too, as our children attest when they leave for the better jobs and brighter lights elsewhere.

It’s funny to watch all these Republican legislators, who borrow all sorts of money to buy, expand or repair homes, businesses and farms, now turn prune-faced when Culver suggests doing the exact same thing in state government.

The Des Moines Register explained how Culver’s plan would work:

* Borrow $700 million in 20-year tax-exempt state revenue bonds

* Secure the bonds with about $56 million a year in gaming tax revenues

* Create a Rebuild Iowa Infrastructure Authority to issue the bonds. It will be overseen by a five-member board.

* The authority would be administered and staffed by the Iowa Finance Authority.

How money will be spent:

housing

trails

highways

roads

bridges

mass transit

railways

airports

water quality and wastewater treatment improvements

flood control improvements

energy infrastructure

disaster-relief infrastructure

public buildings

Projects will be judged on:

Whether they are ready to proceed

How quickly the project can be started and completed

Number of jobs to be created by the project

Contribution to sustainability

On the whole, I support the idea. My main concern is that infrastructure money be spent on fixing what we already have, not on building every new road on developers’ wish lists. In the past, our legislators and state officials have focused too much on funding new roads instead of a balanced transportation policy.

The housing slump is likely to continue for at least two more years, and there is no reason to spend large sums to build new highway interchanges and major new roads through undeveloped farmland now. We should spend the money to fix stretches of existing major roads and highways and crumbling bridges, as well as on modes of transit that allow alternatives to driving. These projects will improve the quality of life for large numbers of Iowans while also creating jobs.

As for airports, I would only support spending money on needed repairs and improvements to existing airports. This is not the time to start building a bunch of small regional airports that would benefit a handful of corporate executives.

Culver emphasized that he did not plan to raise taxes, but Gronstal indicated that raising the state gas tax is still on the table.

I would like to hear more lawmakers talk about closing various tax loopholes that mainly benefit wealthy Iowans. The Iowa Policy Project has documented this and various other flaws in our current tax policies.

If you’ve got the time and the inclination, the governor’s official website has a video Culver showed during his address, called “In Deep Water: The Flood of 2008.” Iowa Public Television has House Minority leader Kraig Paulsen’s response to Culver’s address.

The University of Iowa's professor Doug Jones, a world leader in voting machine oversight, has today described the Diebold voting machine audit logs as “just totally nuts.” Diebold machines count most of the votes in Iowa elections. The audit logs are supposed to reveal what the machine has been doing as it proceeds through the stages of ballot reading and counting.

Audit logs came under scrutiny in Humboldt County, California when a public auditing process discovered that votes had not been counted in the official results. Those official totals had come from Diebold (now hiding behind the name Premier) vote counting software. Wired.com interviewed Jones, who said

“These audit logs could give us some assurances [about an election] if they were genuinely designed so that a casual bystander could look at them and understand them,” says Doug Jones, a University of Iowa computer scientist and former chairman of a board that examines and approves voting machines for use in Iowa. “[But] having them cryptic and obscure destroys the value in terms of election transparency.”

So it seems that Diebold logs don't tell everything that happened in the correct order, as we all thought a log was supposed to do. Wired's “Threat Level” reporter Kim Zetter goes on–

The audit logs appear to record only limited types of events on the system and provide no comprehensive record that tracks every event performed by an election official.

Premier didn't respond to a query from Threat Level about the logs. But Jones said the Premier/Diebold system, as far as he knows, provides no single log file that chronologically lists all events in the life of an election.

Instead, he says, the system keeps “lots and lots of different logs” that appear to have been “independently designed by people who didn't talk to each other” and that are incomprehensible to anyone except the vendor. He assumes Premier has documentation explaining how to interpret the logs, but says if it does, the company doesn't share that information with election officials, making independent audits of a voting system difficult if not impossible.

So . . .lots of logs . . .don't talk to each other . . .need documentation to interpret the logs . . .but WAIT—

“From the point of view of actually doing any forensics, it's a mess,” Jones said. “Because you have to understand what all of the logs are saying, and all of the documentation to understand what they're saying are not public documents. I find that truly reprehensible. The idea that you can have this inscrutable document, but that you can't have any document to understand that document, is just totally nuts.”

I know that Iowa auditors are conferring with the Secretary of State about a weak audit bill for the current legislature to consider. “It will be better than nothing,” I was told. Given the “threat level,” I think that is a pretty low standard for a state that wants to be First in the Nation again in 2012. Having fallen for Diebold's disasterous devices despite Jones's best efforts to protect Iowa, we need a strong audit bill. States from Maine to California (literally) are pushing past us.

cross posted at IowaVoters.org

I have to be away from my computer this morning, but please use this thread to discuss Governor Chet Culver’s annual “condition of the state” address to members of the state legislature.

Citing Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge and Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, the Des Moines Register reported that Culver is expected to announce some new proposals. Presumably those will address flood recovery and the state budget.

I’ll be interested to see whether Culver goes out on a limb to back anything really controversial. If he wants to go down in history as one of the all-time greats, he’ll need to take some risks.

I wasn’t surprised in November when the Des Moines Register failed to report on opposition to former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack’s possible appointment as secretary of agriculture.

I wasn’t surprised in December when the newspaper omitted the same perspective from its piece on reaction to the news that President-elect Barack Obama was picking Vilsack for the job.

But I find this January 12 Des Moines Register article by Chase Davis quite odd. The subject is how Vilsack has relatively few ties to agribusiness. Excerpt:

Secretary of Agriculture nominee Tom Vilsack raised only a small portion of his campaign cash from farmers, grocers and others with direct ties to the agriculture industry, despite serving eight years as governor in one of the country’s most emblematic farming states, documents and fundraising data show.

From his first run for governor in 1998 to his short-lived presidential bid in 2006, Vilsack raised almost $15.8 million through contributions to his campaign and political action committees. Only about 2.3 percent, or $364,000, came directly from interests connected to agriculture.

Political observers said the small share of industry donations Vilsack received could earn him credibility and a perception of independence as he prepares for his confirmation hearing Wednesday. Others note the agricultural industry has long exerted its political influence through connections, not money.

“(Agriculture businesses) are much more human than a lot of other businesses. They have a very tight network,” said Edwin Bender, executive director of the National Institute on Money in State Politics. “Money is maybe not the prime indicator there.”

To the extent that influence follows money, Vilsack can make a convincing case that he is not beholden to the agribusiness industry – which could serve him well in the position, local experts said.

Agribusiness “will have more trouble getting everything they want, and they know it,” said Arthur Sanders, chairman of the Politics and International Relations Department at Drake University.

But if companies do convince Vilsack to support their policies within the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Vilsack “will have more credibility if he pushes for them,” Sanders said.

The article baffles me on two levels. It ranks Vilsack’s “top political donors associated with agribusiness interests,” and number one on the list is the philanthropist Doris Jean Newlin, whose husband was a vice president of Pioneer Hi-Bred International before he retired.

Newlin has made significant gifts to quite a few Democratic politicians, the Iowa Democratic Party, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. It’s a stretch to consider her donations to Vilsack’s campaigns the most noteworthy link between Vilsack and agribusiness, just because Newlin is married to a retired vice-president of Pioneer.

What makes the article even more strange is that it does not mention biotech companies. Vilsack was an outspoken and persistent advocate for growing more genetically-engineered crops in Iowa and elsewhere. The Biotechnology Industry Organization named him governor of the year in 2001. He even used to fly on the Monsanto corporate jet. What opposition there was to Vilsack’s appointment as secretary of agriculture stemmed primarily from his many ties to biotechnology companies like Monsanto.  

Vilsack may well have fewer connections to agribusiness than others who have headed the USDA. I think the Senate should confirm him, given that he is the president’s choice, and he is certainly qualified for the job.

But it was quite a strange editorial decision by the Register to publish a whole article about Vilsack not having strong ties to corporate agriculture, while failing to mention any of his connections to the biotechnology industry. If you’re going to report a story, at least report the whole story.

Governor Chet Culver named a new chief of staff today: Charles Krogmeier, up to now the director of the Department of Management.

The move was expected, as Culver’s outgoing chief of staff Patrick Dillon resigned to move to Washington. His wife, Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, will be the new executive director of the Democratic National Committee.

In a statement, Culver said

I’m sorry to see him leave Iowa for now, but Patrick and I have always said that we married up, and I fully understand he needs to be in the same city as his better half.

Radio Iowa has some background on Krogmeier:

Krogmeier was appointed by the Governor to the position of Director of the Department of Management in December 2006, and confirmed by the Senate in March 2007.  The Department of Management is the executive branch’s planning and budget agency and serves as the Governor’s principal financial advisor.

Previously, Krogmeier directed the gubernatorial transition in 2006, and served as First Deputy Secretary of State from June of 2004 to November 2006. Prior to that he was a partner in the Des Moines law firm of Brown, Winick, Graves, Gross, Baskerville and Schoenebaum for 7 years. Krogmeier began his career in public service as a Lee County Supervisor (1979-86) followed by service as General Counsel to the Iowa Department of Transportation (1986-89) and as a Deputy Attorney General (1989-1997).

{Originally posted at Senate Guru.}

Just twelve days into 2009, we already have four Senate Republican retirements, including two in the last week.  And there may still be more to come.  With Florida’s Mel Martinez, Kansas’ Sam Brownback, Missouri’s Kit Bond, and now Ohio’s George Voinovich all out, who’s next?  My money is on Iowa’s Chuck Grassley.  Let’s re-visit the prescient words of The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder from December 3, 2008:

But… more Republican retirements are expected, including at least two in blue states (Chuck Grassley of Iowa and George Voinovich of Ohio. (A Voinovich spokesperson denies the retirement rumor.))

Ambinder put those words out almost a month and a half ago.  In fact, it’s particularly interesting that, after reporting that the retirements of both Grassley and Voinovich were “expected,” it was noted that a Voinovich spokesperson denied the retirement rumor.  Of course, this suggests that Grassley’s office did not deny the rumor.  Surely, Ambinder must have contacted both offices over the course of his research.  Grassley’s office could have denied the rumor, but apparently chose to remain silent.  Now, if Voinovich’s office went so far as to actively deny the rumor, despite the Voinovich retirement announcement now having come to pass, what should we make of Grassley’s silence?  Maybe the Iowa media should be a little more tenacious in asking Mr. Grassley what he thinks at this point his 2010 plans will be.

Further, being a Senate Republican in an ever-weakening minority cannot be fun.  I have not seen a single analysis of the 2010 Senate map that suggests that it favors Republicans, meaning that it is likely that Democrats will achieve a 60+ seat majority in 2010, further relegating Senate Republicans to the realm of powerlessness.  Recalling a scene from Spring 2001, when then-Senator Jim Jeffords famously left the Republican Party, being out of the majority is something that deeply affects Grassley:

The mellower Republicans want to beat Jeffords about the head and neck with a semi-frozen flounder. For example, during his press conference, Jeffords admitted that the current chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Charles Grassley, “dreamed all his life of being chairman. He’s chairman a couple of weeks, and now he will be no longer the chairman.”

OK, I admit, it takes a very strange person to say as a small child, “Daddy, when I grow up, I want to be the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.” Still, a dream’s a dream, and by tipping the balance of power to the Democrats, Jeffords snatched Grassley’s away from him. And, yet, if Grassley were to, well, you know, Grassley would be the one to go to jail.

With such a sizable Democratic majority in the Senate, Grassley must know that he’ll never be Finance Committee Chairman again.  It will be several cycles, at least, before Senate Republicans even have a reasonable shot at getting back to 50 seats.  Does Grassley want to spend another six years, including the first years of his 80’s, in a guaranteed minority in which the only question is whether or not the GOP could sustain a filibuster?

This passage from Voinovich’s retirement statement stood out to me:

In addition, Janet and I have concluded that once my second term is complete, we should devote ourselves to our children and grandchildren. We have been blessed with good health, but we’re no spring chickens. In 2010, I will be 74 years old and will have served 44 years in public office, having been elected to more public offices than any other person in Ohio history.

On Election Day 2010, Chuck Grassley will be 77 years old.  If Grassley ran for and won another term, he would be 83 years old at the conclusion of that term.  Grassley has a wife (his marriage to whom will celebrate its 55th anniversary in September) and five children, so who knows how many grandchildren.  Grassley has been an elected official for fifty years (Iowa state House 1959-1974; U.S. House 1975-1981; U.S. Senate 1981-present).  After having spent more than half a century as both an elected official and a family man, I don’t think anyone would be surprised if he opted to give all of his time and energy to the latter designation after giving so much to the former.

I would imagine that spending your day playing with your grandchildren is a lot more enjoyable than spending your day waking up at 5am to catch a shuttle from Des Moines to Washington in order to take votes you know your caucus will lose, unable to make any progress on your desired agenda, and then staying up until midnight with policy meetings, political fundraisers, and personal fundraising calls that will all be in vain anyway given the relative weakness of your caucus’ minority.

Mr. Grassley, do you really want another six years of this?

The Iowa Legislature opened its 2009 session today, and Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal let the members of the upper chamber know that he has “never seen such a tough situation” with the state budget and economy in his 26 years at the statehouse.

In his opening address the the Iowa Senate, Gronstal listed some of the biggest challenges facing legislators, in particular rebuilding communities damages by last year’s natural disasters and leading Iowa “through these tough times without sabotaging the commitments we’ve made on economic growth, health care and education.”

He warned that a lot of legislators won’t get what they want this year:

Our resources are limited.  We will say “no” to many good ideas.  We are going to disappoint some people and frustrate others.

If your idea of being an elected official involves being loved by everyone, the next few months will be pretty rough.

Gronstal also noted that bipartisan majorities approved many key policies in Iowa during the past few years, and called for finding “bipartisan solutions” to this year’s challenges.

In his opening address to the chamber, Senate President Jack Kibbie echoed Gronstal’s warning that leaders will be saying “no” to a lot of requests from legislators.

He also advocated some policies that are anything but bipartisan: a gas tax hike and the expansion of workers’ bargaining rights.

Kibbie said increasing the gas tax would create jobs and boost economic development:

First, we can no longer put off the challenges to our transportation infrastructure. It is vital that we begin to clear the backlog of projects that play a  significant role in future economic development. In my district my constituents, Republicans and Democrats, all tell me that we need to get to work and if the only impediment to that progress is money they are willing to pay a few more cents at the pump. I support efforts that result in a gas tax increase. Success in that endeavor will mean better roads, jobs, and an economic boost to Iowa’s families and communities.

I’ve supported a gas tax increase since John Anderson proposed it during his 1980 presidential campaign, but I don’t expect that measure to get through the legislature without a bruising battle.

Here’s a piece listing the many potential benefits of a federal gas tax increase. Kibbie is talking about a smaller increase in the state gas tax, but many of the same benefits would apply.

Kibbie also said Iowa workers need good wages, and therefore “we should not fear passing Legislation that help[s] workers bargain for a better future.”

Kibbie could be referring to the “fair share” bill that Democrats didn’t have to votes to get through the Iowa House in 2007, or to the collective bargaining bill that Governor Chet Culver vetoed last spring. Either way, Republicans and corporate interest groups will put up a fight.

Getting labor legislation through the Iowa House, where Democrats have a 56-44 majority, is likely to be more difficult than getting it through the Iowa Senate, where Democrats have a 32-18 majority.

The complete texts of the opening statements by Gronstal and Kibbie (as prepared) are after the jump.

Thanks to the Iowa Voters blog, I learned about a transparency project in a California county that uncovered errors made by machines counting paper ballots in the recent election. Click here for more detail on the program and the errors it revealed.

This story provides further evidence that we need verified voting across the country. Mandatory manual audits of voter-verified paper records would allay fears about malfunctions or tampering with optical scanners.

It’s great that Iowa eliminated touchscreen voting machines last year, but we also need to make sure machines are counting paper ballots accurately. I hope Secretary of State Mike Mauro will work toward this goal.

I recommend that you check out the Verified Voting site to learn more about this issue. Also, it’s not too late to urge Barack Obama to support verified voting at the federal level.

The State Central Committee of the Republican Party of Iowa went outside the box yesterday in selecting a new party chairman. They picked Matt Strawn, best known as part of the group that owns the Iowa Barnstormers arena football team, instead of someone with experience as an elected official or leader of a county GOP operation.

Strawn began his campaign for the chairmanship as an underdog compared to outgoing state GOP treasurer Gopal Krishna (at one time seen as the front-runner in this race) and former State Representative Danny Carroll. The latter appears to have been the grassroots favorite in the field; he turned out the most enthusiastic supporters to a recent public forum for the state chair candidates and was supported by several conservative Iowa bloggers.

Strawn prevailed with a combination of old-school politicking (a “Pizza and Politics” tour to ten Iowa cities) and a technologically savvy online campaign (a blog with occasional YouTube video postings).

The new Iowa GOP chairman wants to use technology to improve Republicans’ standing with younger voters:

Strawn, 35, noted that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama beat Republican John McCain by 2-1 among young adults in Iowa. He said part of the problem is Republicans have failed to use modern communications methods, such as Twitter and Facebook. People are left with the impression that the party either doesn’t know how to use those channels or doesn’t care to, he said. “Either way, we’re sending a terrible message.” […]

Strawn said at a press conference that he would reach out to all age groups as he seeks to build up party registrations, raise money and recruit strong candidates for office. He vowed to regain the majorities in both houses of the Legislature, win back the governorship and make gains in Congress.

He said Republicans could do all those things without watering down the party’s conservative priorities. “If we communicate our beliefs, we can win elections,” he said.

There’s no question that the Republican Party lost young voters by large margins in 2006 and 2008, and not just in Iowa. This map created by Mike Connery shows that if only voters aged 18-29 had cast ballots for president, John McCain would have won fewer than ten states.

Instead of complaining that “a bunch of stupid college students” sank the campaigns of “far superior” candidates such as Carroll (who lost to Eric Palmer for the second time in Iowa House district 75) and Mariannette Miller-Meeks (who lost to Dave Loebsack in Iowa’s second Congressional district), Republicans should be asking themselves why young voters are rejecting their candidates in such large numbers.

Strawn’s answer is that the GOP’s failure to fully exploit new technology is “sending a terrible message” to young voters.

I sincerely hope that Republicans continue to believe that their recent election losses are rooted in communication problems. I think the Republicans’ ideology is what turns off young voters. The tendency for Republicans to campaign on “culture war” issues exacerbates this problem, highlighting the topics that make the party seem out of touch to younger voters.

When I was growing up in the 1980s, the Republican Party did quite well with the 18-30 age group, including college students. In fact, my age cohort is still relatively strong for Republicans. (A chart in this post shows the presidential vote among young Americans for the past 30 years.)

Republican campaign rhetoric in the 1980s tended not to emphasize abortion, the so-called “homosexual agenda” and other polarizing social issues. Will Iowa Republicans be ready to nominate more pro-choice moderates, or at least not demonize slightly less extreme anti-choice candidates, in 2010? Given how many party activists and State Central Committee members are also involved with anti-choice groups, I am skeptical.

The Iowa Supreme Court will rule on the Varnum v Brien case sometime this year. If the majority grants same-sex marriage rights or even state-recognized civil unions, I expect an anti-gay marriage crusade to figure prominently in Republicans’ 2010 gubernatorial and statehouse campaigns. That won’t help the party’s image with young voters, who are overwhelmingly tolerant of same-sex unions. I am not even convinced it would help Republicans with the electorate at large. The only recent Iowa poll on this issue showed that even before the publicity surrounding Varnum v Brien, 58 percent of Iowa voters supported either gay marriage or civil unions.

Some Republicans want their candidates to emphasize economic issues more and do away with “litmus tests” on social issues. Shortly after the election, Doug Gross discussed the Republican Party’s problems on Iowa Public Television. Gross worked for Republican Governors Bob Ray and Terry Branstad in the 1970s and 1980s, and he was the Republican nominee for governor against Tom Vilsack in 2002. Gross had this advice for Republican candidates:

What we really have to do is speak to the fundamental issues that Iowans care about which is I’m working hard every day, in many cases a couple of jobs, my wife works as well, we take care of our kids and yet the government is going to increase our taxes, they’re going to increase spending and they’re going to give that to somebody who is not working.  That kind of message will win for republicans among the people we have and we’ve gotten away from that.  

Ah yes, the glory days, when Republicans could win by running against “tax and spend” Democrats who supposedly took money away from hard-working Americans and gave it to “welfare queens” and other unemployed ne’er-do-wells.

Suppose the Republican Party of Iowa goes back to the future with this 1980-style message. I am not convinced that this is a winning ticket. Nationwide exit polling from the most recent election showed that a majority of voters believe government should do more, not less. The same exit poll found Barack Obama won even though most people believed Republican claims that he would raise taxes.

Moreover, rising unemployment is not just an issue for lower-income or blue-collar workers. Layoffs are also hitting groups that have trended toward the Democratic Party in the last decade: suburban dwellers, white-collar professionals and college-educated whites generally. Even in affluent neighborhoods, just about everyone knows someone who has been laid off in the past six months. Government assistance to the unemployed may be more popular now than it was in the 1980s.

Losing your job means losing your health insurance for many Americans, which is particularly scary for those who have “pre-existing conditions.” More and more people are delaying routine preventive care and treatment for chronic conditions in this tough economy. I believe that the problems with our health care system are another reason that Republican “small government” rhetoric has less salience now than it did 20 years ago. Just talk to people whose families have been devastated after a private insurance company denied coverage for expensive, medically necessary procedures.

Strawn can’t single-handedly reshape the ideology of the Iowa GOP, even if he wanted to. What can he do, besides use more online social networking tools?

Fundraising must become a big part of Strawn’s job, because Iowa Republicans have fallen behind Democrats in the money race as they’ve lost political power.

Doug Gross touched on this problem in his Iowa Public Television appearance:

Now, what I hear from large givers for the Republican Party is they are tired of losing elections. They think we need to do something different, they think we need the kind of candidates who can appeal to a broader scope of the populous, that we can’t just have litmus tests associated with one particular issue if we’re going to accomplish overall republican goals and we’ve got to accomplish that if we’re going to meet them in terms of the fundraising goal.

Even wealthy people don’t like throwing money away, so Strawn will have to demonstrate that he has a winning strategy if he wants to get major donors to open their wallets yet again.

Gross is also alluding to the fact that a lot of the business community Republicans do not agree with the GOP platform on social issues. Not only that, last year party insiders snubbed one of the all-time largest donors to Iowa Republican candidates, according to Gross:

Marvin Pomerantz is a dear friend of mine and no greater supporter of the republican party than Marvin Pomerantz over the course of his life in terms of financial contributions and otherwise.  A few months before he died he wanted to be able to go to the convention because he was John McCain’s chair, finance chair in the state of Iowa and was prohibited from doing so because some member of his family had given to Planned Parenthood.  Now, I don’t support Planned Parenthood any more than you do but at the same time you don’t punish somebody who is with us 80% to 90% of the time over an issue like that.  That’s how we narrow the party and that’s how we don’t broaden it.  We have to get away from that.

Steve Scheffler, the RNC committeeman who sat next to Gross during that taping, did not dispute this account. All I can say is wow. As it turned out, Pomerantz passed away before the Republican convention, so he would not have been able to attend. But his health was known to be poor, and it is beyond belief that delegates to the state GOP convention rejected his desire to go to St. Paul as a delegate, after everything he had done for the party over so many years. I would love to replace our campaign finance system, but with the system we have you just don’t spit on your most generous contributors. I have no doubt that this story traveled widely among Republicans in the business community.

If I were Strawn, I don’t know how I would go about mending fences with offended Republican moderates, because I doubt he has the will or the ability to take social conservatives in the party leadership down a peg.

At the end of the day, I have no idea whether the State Central Committee picked the best person to run the Republican Party yesterday. Krishna’s bizarre public attack on his State Central Committee colleagues (see also his interview with Iowa Independent), just days after he failed to show up at a public forum for candidates seeking to run the party, suggests to me that he lacked the maturity for the job. Carroll’s failure to learn from his 2006 loss to Eric Palmer makes me wonder whether he would be able to turn the party around.

As I’ve written before, Republican prospects for a comeback may have less to do with new GOP leadership than with how well the Democrats govern (in Iowa and nationally). If Governor Chet Culver and state legislative leaders are seen to be doing a good job, Iowa will continue the trend toward becoming a blue state. If Culver and the statehouse leaders screw up, the Republicans may rebound no matter what Strawn does.

That said, Strawn has his work cut out for him if he wants to do more than sit back and wait for Democrats to self-destruct. I don’t think the Republican Party of Iowa can twitter and YouTube its way out of the hole they’re in, especially when it comes to younger voters.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that Strawn will need to inspire confidence among statehouse Republicans in order to minimize the number of retirements. Four Republicans in the U.S. Senate have already indicated that they plan to retire rather than run for re-election in 2010. Republicans in the Iowa House and Senate may do the same, recognizing the GOP will be the minority party for some time to come. The more open seats the GOP has to defend, the more difficult it will be for them to come back.