As always, post a comment or drop me an e-mail (desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com) if I’ve left anything out.

Monday, December 15:

One Iowa and Lambda Legal are organizing a townhall forum to celebrate and discuss the oral arguments before the Iowa Supreme Court in the landmark Varnum v. Brien case. RSVP not required for townhall forums.

Council Bluffs Townhall Forum

Monday, Dec. 15, 2008 – 6:30-7:30 PM

St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 22 Dillman

For more information, contact One Iowa at organize@oneiowa.org or 515-288-4019

From the Iowa Environmental Council’s e-mail bulletin:

Missouri River Group Meeting

December 15-18, Omaha

The new Missouri River Recovery Implementation Committee, also known as MRRIC, has scheduled another meeting. The Committee is made up of Federal, State, and Tribal Representatives as well as stakeholders, with an interest in the river, from throughout the basin. The purpose of MRRIC is to offer guidance to the Army Corps of Engineers and the Fish and Wildlife Service on future management of the Missouri River. The Committee will offer advice on the recovery process for the three Endangered Species on the river. Those include; the interior least tern, piping plover and the pallid sturgeon. MRRIC will also look at possible social, cultural and economic impacts of the recovery process on people in the basin. The next meeting of MRRIC will be December 15th to the 18th in Omaha. To learn more and to get involved, go to: www.mrric.org

Tuesday, December 16:

Reservations are due for the Interfaith Alliance of Iowa’s Crossroads luncheon on Friday (see below).

From the Center on Sustainable Communities:

Eco-Friendly Home Product Showcase

DATE: Tuesday, December 16, 2008

TIME: 11:30am – 1:30pm

LOCATION:

Meredith Corporation

1716 Locust St.

Des Moines, IA

Meredith Corporation is inviting all COSC members to a showcase of

the latest and greatest environmentally friendly home products.

Join us at a green trade show on

December 16th from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

at Meredith Corporation, 1716 Locust St.

Be sure to stop by to learn about what’s new in green building.  If you plan to attend,

please RSVP to Jenny McCoy at Jennifer.mccoy@meredith.com.  She can

provide more information about the event location and parking.

Center On Sustainable Communities

219 1/2 Fifth Street, Suite A

Historic Valley Junction

West Des Moines, Iowa 50265

(515) 277-6222

1000 Friends of Iowa is presenting the 2008 Best Development Awards:

   * New Residential: Upper Mississippi Valley Redevelopment Company, 1820 East Thirteenth Street, Village of East Davenport Development in Davenport, Iowa

   * Renovated Residential: The HEART Program’s Washington Street Project in Dubuque, Iowa

   * Renovated Commercial/Civic: M+ Architects, ISU Design West development in Sioux City, Iowa

   * New Commercial/Civic: RDG Planning & Design, Marion Arts and Environmental Center at Lowe Park in Marion, Iowa

   * Mixed Use: LADCO Development, Village of Ponderosa in West Des Moines, Iowa

   * Leadership: City of Iowa City, Iowa City Subdivision Code in Iowa City, Iowa

The awards ceremony will be held on December 16, 2008 at 6:30 p.m., at RDG Planning & Design, 301 Grand Avenue, 2nd floor in downtown Des Moines, IA 50309. Parking is available behind the building.

One Iowa and Lambda Legal have another townhall forum scheduled:

Sioux City Townhall Forum

Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2008 – 6:30-7:30 PM

Public Library, Glesson Room, 529 Pierce St.

RSVP not required, but for more information, contact One Iowa at organize@oneiowa.org or 515-288-4019

Wednesday, December 17:

It’s the last day to submit nominations for Talking Points Memo’s “Golden Duke Awards.” For more information, click here:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.c…

Friday, December 19:

From the Interfaith Alliance of Iowa:

Migration, Marriage, and Much More!

Making a Difference

Judie Hoffman , TIA Iowa Action Fund Lobbyist

Brad Clark, One Iowa

Brenda Kole, Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa

Judie Hoffman and Friends will discuss the 2009 Legislative Agenda of The Interfaith Alliance of Iowa Action Fund and other progressive ally organizations.  Learn about the issues and how you can join with other progressive voices of faith & goodwill from across the state and make a difference.

The Crossroads monthly luncheon is Friday, December 19 from 11:45 am – 1 pm at Plymouth Congregational Church, 42nd & Ingersoll Avenue, Des Moines.

Reservations are required to attend Crossroads and must be received by noon on Tuesday, December 16.  Cost is $8 and is payable at the door. If you make a reservation and are unable to attend, payment for the reservation is appreciated.

For more information or to make a reservation, call (515) 279-8715 or email tiaiowa@dwx.com.

Sunday, December 21:

From the Iowa Renewable Energy Association:

Join I-Renew to Celebrate Renewable Energy on Winter Solstice. Festivities include: Live Music! Free Giveaways! Silent Auction with great renewable holiday gifts! Discussion and fun with like-minded folks interested in renewable energy! The event is on Sunday December 21 at 6:00 PM at the Mill Restaurant, 120 E. Burlington St. Iowa City. The funds raised at the event will go toward I-Renew’s work educating Iowans about sustainable energy production and use. If you would like to donate silent auction items, help promote the event, get more information about sponsorship opportunities, or have any questions, please contact the I-Renew office at:(319) 643-3160 or by emailing irenew@irenew.org.

Over Thanksgiving my family (all Barack Obama voters in the general) were talking about what we’d like to see him do as president. One of my biggest concerns about Obama has always been that he would compromise too much in the name of bipartisanship and not seize the opportunity to get groundbreaking legislation through Congress. I’ve also worried that he would water down good policies that threaten to significantly bring down his approval rating.

From my perspective, Bill Clinton’s presidency was not very successful for a lot of reasons. Some of them were his fault: he put the wrong people in charge of certain jobs, and he picked the wrong battles and listened too much to Wall Street advisers when it came to policy.

Some things were not Clinton’s fault: the Democrats who ran Congress in 1993 and 1994 were not always interested in working with him, and the leaders of the Republican-controlled Congress were more interested in destroying his presidency than anything else.

After getting burned in the 1994 elections, Clinton hired Dick Morris as a political adviser and moved to the right in order to get re-elected. He served a full two terms, but he didn’t leave a mark on this country. His greatest achievement, balancing the budget, was undone quickly by his successor. Many smaller successes on environmental and social policies were also reversed by George Bush’s administration.

Clinton approved a bunch of good presidential directives, especially on the environment, during his last 60 days in office. Doing them years earlier would not only have been good policy, it also would have prevented Ralph Nader from gaining so much traction in 2000.

Clinton left some very big problems unaddressed, like global warming and our reliance on foreign oil, because the obvious solutions to these problems would have been unpopular.

Compare Clinton’s legacy to that of Lyndon Johnson. Although Johnson made terrible mistakes in Vietnam (continuing and compounding mistakes made by John F. Kennedy), he enacted a domestic agenda that changed this country forever. Some of Johnson’s achievements were popular (Medicare), while others cost the Democrats politically in many states (the Civil Rights Act). But Johnson did not shy away from big change on civil rights because of the political cost.

I understand that no president will ever do everything I’d like to see done. I’d be satisfied if Obama enacted a groundbreaking, lasting improvement in one or two big areas, like health care or global warming. The right policies often have powerful enemies. I would rather see Obama get good laws passed to address a couple of big problems, even if doing so costs him the 2012 election.

My fear is that in Obama will end up like Bill Clinton–a two-term president who didn’t achieve anything that will continue to affect Americans’ lives four or five decades down the road.

If Obama only goes to the mat to accomplish one or two big things, what should they be? Keeping his promise to end the war in Iraq? Getting universal health care through Congress? Taking real steps to address climate change? Enacting a huge public-works program to deal with unemployment? Building high-speed rail connecting major American cities?

Would you be satisfied with progress in one or two areas, even if it meant that Obama was not re-elected in 2012?

After the jump I’ve posted a “meme” on being bold in your personal life, which is going around some of the “mommy blogs.” Some of the questions have more to do with luck or having money than with taking risks or being bold, though.

Three days after he announced plans to cut $40 million from the current-year budget and delay a planned expenditure of $37 billion, Governor Chet Culver said on Friday that he will announce a further $60 million in spending cuts next week. The total state budget for the current fiscal year is $6.1 billion.

Iowa’s Revenue Estimating Conference met the same day and “lowered this fiscal year’s revenue estimate by $99.5 million and next year’s estimate by $132.6 million.”

Iowa House Republican leader Kraig Paulsen slammed Democrats in a statement:

Democrats have put this state in a precarious position […] At a time when the national economy was on it’s way down, Democrats increased state spending by over $2,000 per family, over the span of two years they’ve hired more than 2600 new state employees, and loaded up budgets with pork projects for their preferred constituents. The only thing they have left to show for it is a gaping hole in the budget.

Give me a break. The Republican Party long ago stopped being the party of fiscal responsibility. John McCain himself admitted this:

We lost the election in 2006 because we lost our way. […] Spending lurched completely out of control.

Anyway, the New York Times reported last month,

At least 37 states and the District of Columbia have faced or are facing budget gaps totaling $66 billion in the 2009 fiscal year. Most states, which rely on sales, income and property taxes, are seeing a significant drop in such revenues or increases that are below the inflation rate, compared to the same period last year.

Click here to view a graphic showing which states have budget problems. If you look at that map, you can see that many states’ projected budget shortfalls are larger per capita than Iowa’s. This is a tough economy, and not only for states run by Democrats.

Meanwhile, House Speaker Pat Murphy promised,

We will take action in January to keep the 2009 budget balanced. There will be difficult decisions to make, but we will not balance the state budget on the backs of middle class families in these difficult times.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy commented,

We have over $620 million in the state’s rainy day funds and we have a Governor and state legislature that are committed to fiscal discipline.

Yet, we need to be prepared for real cuts in budgets for both 2009 and 2010.  There will be real cuts and there will be real pain, but I do believe that Iowa is in a better position to weather this budget storm than almost any other state.  

Jason Hancock’s piece about the various budget projections for Iowa is worth a read. The most pessimistic scenario is quite grim.

Very tough choices will have to be made during the legislative session. I wouldn’t expect the return of much, if any, of the state money that was “swept” from other programs last summer to pay for flood relief.

I was asleep at the wheel when the Iowa House Democratic leadership made the committee assignments last week. I didn’t notice that Representative Brian Quirk of New Hampton will replace Representative Geri Huser of Altoona as chair of the Transportation Committee.

The Des Moines Register reported,

The only state lawmaker to get sacked as the head of a committee in either the Iowa House or Iowa Senate was Rep. Geri Huser of Altoona, who was chairwoman of the House Transportation Committee and is known at the Statehouse as a leading expert on road policy.

Huser is a Democrat, but a conservative one who hasn’t been afraid to challenge Democratic leaders on any given issue.

House Speaker Pat Murphy, who made the decision, declined to explain his reasoning. “I’m not going to get into a lot of discussions about it,” he said. “We make decisions like this all the time.”

Murphy complimented Huser’s work on other issues, such as taxes and local government, and said he expects good things from her during the coming session.

Asked Wednesday why she was removed from the committee, Huser said she hasn’t had a conversation with Murphy since June. She learned from news reports that she was no longer chairwoman.

Learned from news reports? Ouch.

Does anyone know why Murphy would have wanted to replace Huser? As the Register notes, she is among the more conservative members of the Democratic caucus. I am not sure whether she was committed to the “fair share” bill that never came to a vote in the Iowa House in 2007. I didn’t realize she had conflict with the House leadership, because when Matt Ballard challenged Huser in the Democratic primary for House district 42 this year, saying she had not been supportive enough of labor, the House Democrats did not allow Ballard to purchase access to the voter database (Voter Activation Network).

Some activists have suggested Huser has a conflict of interest because some of her work in the legislature and on the Des Moines Area Metropolitan Planning Organization could financially benefit her family’s business interests.

If you’ve got a theory (or better yet, information) about why Quirk is replacing Huser as head of the Transportation Committee, please post a comment in this thread or send me a confidential e-mail (desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com).

VERY LATE UPDATE: I’ve heard from multiple sources the same rumor that Cityview’s Civic Skinny reported in December: Huser was removed as chair of the House Transportation Committee because late in the election campaign she refused to give the House Democrats money to use against a vulnerable Republican incumbent. My sources say the Republican in question was Doug Struyk, who narrowly defeated Kurt Hubler in House district 99.

Representative Bruce Braley was an active and vocal supporter of Henry Waxman’s effort to replace John Dingell as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. It was risky for a second-term member of Congress to speak out against someone as powerful as Dingell. At the time, many people (myself included) believed Waxman would not win the Democratic caucus vote.

Now Braley has gained a spot on Waxman’s committee:

The appointment, announced Thursday, to what is considered one of the House’s most coveted committees points to a quick rise for the Waterloo lawyer entering just his second term.

It also amplifies Iowans’ voice regarding a vast spectrum of federal economic policy during stormy times.

“Every state wants someone from their delegation on the committee, and having Congressman Braley on this committee is a positive thing for the state so that the state’s interests are reflected in the deliberations of the committee,” said Tom Tauke, a former Republican congressman who served on the committee prior to leaving office in 1991. […]

The committee is the first stop in the House for such nationally significant legislation as the comprehensive health care reform that Obama discussed Thursday. It will also be the entry point for the new administration’s priority of increasing renewable energy and reducing global warming.

The committee will consider the wind-energy tax credit next year. The tax credit, expected to be renewed for seven years, has been a boon to Iowa, one of the nation’s leaders in wind-generated electricity.

I expect good things to come out of Energy and Commerce under Waxman’s leadership, and having an Iowan on that committee is a nice bonus.

Strong words from President-elect Barack Obama at yesterday’s press conference introducing Tom Daschle as Secretary of Health and Human Services:

Some may ask how, at this moment of economic challenge, we can afford to invest in reforming our health care system. Well, I ask a different question — I ask how we can afford not to….If we want to overcome our economic challenges, we must also finally address our health care challenge.

Obama also promised to address health care “this year,” implying that he will spend political capital to get a plan through Congress in 2009.

Daschle linked health care reform to economic recovery:

Addressing our health care challenges will not only mean healthier and longer lives for millions it will also make American companies more competitive, address the cause of half of all of our personal bankruptcies and foreclosures and help pull our economy out of its current tailspin.

Obama also named Jeanne Lambrew as Daschle’s deputy. Ezra Klein is very pleased with that pick:

Lambrew is an incredibly talented and knowledgeable health wonk, and her involvement should cheer liberals. Unlike during the campaign, when Obama’s health care team seemed heavy on relatively cautious academics, Lambrew has long White House and executive branch experience, and comes to health care as a crusade as much as a topic of study. As Jon Cohn says, the importance of her presence “goes beyond the fact that she happens to know a heck of a lot about health care. She, too, has a strong commitment to what you might call the ‘social justice’ side of the debate.”

For more from Lambrew, check out her congressional testimony from late October, where she argued that “the short-run economic crisis has health policy causes and effects-and arguably the most serious long-run economic challenge is our broken health care system.” That was almost exactly the message Obama delivered today. And it’s the message that will be heard in the White House, and translated into a political strategy by Tom Daschle.

In this article for The American Prospect, Klein compares Obama’s team of “health care heavyweights” to Bill Clinton’s disastrous strategy for pushing health care reform in 1993 and 1994.

The major battle will be making sure there is some public insurance plan Americans can opt into, so that private insurers will need to cover health care in order to compete for customers.

Daily Kos commissioned Research 2000 to poll a hypothetical Senate matchup between Chuck Grassley and Tom Vilsack. Click the link for the full crosstabs. Here are the eye-catching numbers:

Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 12/8-10. Likely voters. MoE 4% (No trend lines)

Grassley (R) 48

Vilsack (D) 44

Grassley’s approve/disapprove numbers are 57/36, while Vilsack’s are 55/36.

If I were running the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, I would immediately commission an internal poll to check these numbers.

Republicans will try to dismiss this poll because Research 2000 is the firm hired by Daily Kos, the leading Democratic blog. But Research 2000’s final poll of the Tom Harkin/Christopher Reed Senate contest in late October was close to the mark, showing Harkin leading 57 percent to 37 percent. (Harkin beat Reed by 63 percent to 37 percent.)

As I’ve written before, taking on Grassley will be an uphill battle for any Democrat. However, I would love to see Vilsack take a shot at this race. A strong and well-funded challenge from Vilsack would in my view increase the chance of Grassley retiring in 2010.

UPDATE: A spirited debate about Vilsack’s chances against Grassley is going on in this thread at Swing State Project.  

At Talking Points Memo, Josh Marshall just opened nominations for the second annual “Golden Duke Awards,” “given out for excellence in corrupt acts, betrayals of the public trust and generalized shameful behavior.” You have until December 17 to submit nominations in the following categories:

Sleaziest Campaign Ad

Best Election Season Fib

Outstanding Achievement in Corruption-based Chutzpah

Best Scandal — Sex and Generalized Carnality

Best Scandal — Local Venue

Best Scandal — General Interest

Click here to view last year’s Golden Duke winners.

Talking Points Memo also has launched a contest to determine the most corrupt state. Reader WO named the short list:

I think it’s pretty clear that the only three serious contenders are Illinois, Louisiana, and Alaska. My money would be on the young upstart, Alaska, over the grizzled corruption veterans of Illinois and Louisiana, but who knows. Statistics should play a part in the contest, but style points are important, too. Cash in the freezer is pretty impressive, as is trying to shake down the President-Elect.

One of Marshall’s readers in New Orleans argues here that Louisiana is the “all time champ”.

A reader in Arizona explains why that state should be a finalist.

Another reader makes the case for Nevada.

Marshall also received a bunch of e-mails nominating New York, New Jersey or Rhode Island. He explained here why those states are not in the same league as Illinois, Louisiana or Alaska:

I know there are a lot of hurt feelings out there. A lot of people feel slighted on behalf of their states. But while a number of these states have impressive histories of corruption, as I told a few emailers, a lot of it really comes down to a case of ‘what have you done for me lately?’ […]

Sure, there’s plenty of crooks in New York and New Jersey and Rhode Island. And Massachusetts has its moment. But I’m just not sure any of them can put the kind of serious and recent per capita muck on the table as these three other worthy states. Certainly not when it comes to governors and federal officeholders.

I think we can all agree that Iowa is never going to win any (mock) awards for political corruption.

Historically and today, our problem is not so much law-breaking by elected officials but the “legal corruption” that stems from the influence of money in our system. So, we get state lawmakers traveling on the dime of the Iowa Healthcare Association, which represents nursing homes, and then lobbying Congress and state officials to reduce regulation of nursing homes.

Similarly, we won’t get any legislative action to give counties zoning authority over agriculture (which would allow greater regulation of large hog lots), even though Governor Chet Culver as well as the Iowa Democratic and Republican party platforms ostensibly support “local control.”

Iowa is not a particularly corrupt state, but we should not let our squeaky-clean image blind us to the influence of money in politics, even here.

To get involved with solving this problem, check out the Voter-Owned Iowa website. Public Campaign’s site has tons of information on how “clean elections” systems work in other states.  

Imagine that–Barack Obama is hiring an Energy Secretary who knows a lot about energy. Dr. Steven Chu is a Nobel prize-winner in physics who heads the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (which employs 4,000 people). Click the link to watch a YouTube of Chu.

The New York Times published some biographical information about Chu here. I love this comment:

In his own words: New houses could be made energy efficient with an investment of an extra $1,000, “but the American consumer would rather have a granite countertop.” (At a lecture in Washington on energy options, June 25, 2008)

Three other key appointees worked in the Environmental Protection Agency during Bill Clinton’s administration, the Associated Press reported:

The president-elect has selected […] Lisa Jackson for EPA administrator, Carol Browner as his energy ”czar,” and Nancy Sutley to lead the White House Council on Environmental Quality, Democratic officials with knowledge of the decisions said Wednesday. […]

— Jackson, who would be the first black person to lead the EPA, is a former New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection commissioner who worked at the federal agency for 16 years, including under Browner when she was Bill Clinton’s EPA chief. Jackson is a co-chairman of Obama’s EPA transition team, and currently serves as chief of staff to New Jersey Gov. Jon S. Corzine. A New Orleans native, she grew up in the Lower Ninth Ward, the area stricken by Hurricane Katrina. She holds chemical engineering degrees from Tulane University and Princeton University.

— Browner, who served as EPA chief for eight years under Clinton, will become Obama’s go-to person in the White House overseeing energy issues, an area expected to include the environment and climate matters. Now chair of the National Audubon Society and on the boards of several other environmental groups, Browner has been leading the Obama transition’s working group on energy and environment.

— Sutley, the deputy mayor for energy and environment in Los Angeles and the mayor’s representative on the Board of Directors for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, is the first prominent gay to earn a senior role in Obama’s new administration. She was an EPA official during the Clinton administration, including being a special assistant to the EPA administrator in Washington. She also previously served on the California State Water Resources Control Board and was an energy adviser to former Gov. Gray Davis.

No clear favorite has emerged for Secretary of the Interior. There’s a major battle going on behind the scenes over that appointment.

Obama met with Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, who has been mentioned as a possible Secretary of Labor.

Moderate Republican Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania is not going to give Eric Holder a pass when the Senate Judiciary Committee holds confirmation hearings for Obama’s attorney general nominee. But I agree with Daily Kos user Dartagnan:

Specter is going to use the Holder hearing (23+ / 0-)

to shore up his credentials with the right for his primary fight against [right-winger Pat] Toomey.

That’s all this is.

Holder will be confirmed with moderate GOP opposition.

UPDATE: Chu seems to be an advocate of expanding nuclear power.

Regarding Specter’s plans for the Holder confirmation hearings, clammyc has a good commentary.

SECOND UPDATE: Rumor has it Obama will go with a compromise choice for Secretary of the Interior, rejecting environmental groups’ favorite Raul Grijalva as well as Blue Dog Mike Thompson. If true, this is an example of why it’s useful to kick up a fuss when a bad choice is floated for an important job.  

In my book, the holiday season is the best time of year to be Jewish. We celebrate Chanukah, but it is a minor Jewish holiday and doesn’t dominate a month of our lives. It is also not commercialized enough to drown out what we do as a family to mark the holiday.

Every year I see people feeling so much pressure to buy things and make things and decorate and create the perfect magical Christmas atmosphere, but they don’t have time to feel peaceful. At the moms’ groups people are always so stressed out.

It’s easy for me to explain to my kids that many people celebrate Christmas, while we celebrate Chanukah. I think it would be more difficult to try to teach children the true meaning of Christmas when your holiday is being used as a vehicle to push consumer spending.

Some conservatives get mad when store employees say “Happy holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” I don’t get the manufactured outrage about the alleged “war on Christmas.” Do they want everyone to think Christmas is all about jolly Santa and decorated trees and dancing reindeer?

This is an open thread for discussing anything you do to make the season meaningful, or at least reduce your stress level.

One friend has a ritual of going through the playroom with her kids before Christmas to pick toys to give away. No one gives away a treasured possession, but all the kids are expected to choose a few things no one plays with anymore, which can go to kids who need them.

Another friend is having a “clothing swap” party before Christmas to inspire us to finish cleaning out our closets. Women will bring clothes they don’t wear, or which don’t fit anymore. Other women can take them home if they like them. The extra clothes will go to charity after the party.

Another friend told me his family became inspired by the Hundred-Dollar Christmas idea a few years ago and now mostly exchanges hand-made or reused gifts.

Feel free also to discuss your favorite things about the holiday season or recommend your favorite holiday music. We mostly listen to Chanukah music, but I do enjoy the Klezmonauts’ Christmas album “Oy to the World”. Click the link to listen to samples of Christmas songs performed in the klezmer (“Jewish jazz”) style.  

Your laugh for the day comes from the Huffington Post, which wrote up an interview right-wing loudmouth Glenn Beck did with Joe “the Plumber” Wurzelbacher.

John McCain made Joe the Plumber famous by dropping his name more than 20 times during the third presidential debate. Although Wurzelbacher is not licensed as a plumber, McCain and Sarah Palin continued to mention Joe the Plumber at rallies, and the campaign even had “I’m voting for Joe the Plumber” printed up on bumper stickers.

Now Wurzelbacher is cashing in with a new book called “Joe the Plumber: Fighting for the American Dream.” Here’s the thanks McCain gets for making this guy a household name:

I honestly felt even more dirty after I had been on the campaign trail and seen some things that take place. It was scary, man […] When I was on the bus with him, I asked him a lot of questions about the bailout because most Americans did not want that to happen. Yet he voted for it. … And I asked him some pretty direct questions. Some of the answers you guys are gonna receive – they appalled me, absolutely. I was angry. In fact I wanted to get off the bus after I talked to him.

Wurzelbacher thinks Palin is “the real deal,” though:

[…] she definitely had energy and she definitely went to work for American people, and it disgusts me on how often they try to bash her just for her sincerity. It’s just, you know, she really wants to work for America and I mean, I wish people would listen to her and let them, and let her work for us. You know, she wants to serve us. She’s not looking for power.

Sounds like somebody would love to be part of Palin’s 2012 presidential campaign.

Huffington Post has a link to the full text of the interview (scroll down the page to find it).

Governor Chet Culver announced on Tuesday that he will reduce Iowa’s general budget by $40 million during the current budget year (which runs through June 2009) and will ask the state legislature to retract an appropriation of $37 million to replace the Wallace Building, which houses many state offices.

The Des Moines Register reported that the $40 million in cuts will come from “freezing most hiring, halting out-of-state travel, reducing purchases and making cuts to the state’s public universities.”

Culver asked state departments last month to recommend cuts to help trim the current fiscal year’s budget. His request was that each agency try to cut roughly 3 percent from its operating budget.

After reviewing those recommendations, Culver decided how to reduce spending by $40 million, which represents about two-thirds of one percent of the current-year $6.1 billion budget.

The Des Moines Register has requested documents showing which spending cuts were recommended by state agencies, but

The governor’s attorney, Jim Larew, said in a letter to The Des Moines Register that the documents are privileged communications between the governor and officers of the executive department. He acknowledged that there is no statute or case law in Iowa that supports that position, but he said such a privilege exists in some states. […]

Several taxpayer and open-record advocacy groups have argued that the information is a public record and should be made available to citizens.

I see no reason to consider recommendations on spending cuts privileged information. Citizens have an interest in learning which proposed spending cuts Culver approved and which he discarded. More spending cuts may be needed in the next few months, and those recommendations would indicate where the ax is likely to fall if necessary.

This information should be a matter of public record.

The Principal Financial Group lowered the boom on 300 workers in central Iowa yesterday:

Principal Financial Group laid off 550 employees Tuesday, including 300 in its Des Moines headquarters, the company said.

Principal, one of the area’s largest employers, has approximately 16,400 employees worldwide and 8,000 in the Des Moines area. […]

The Des Moines-based insurance and financial services company said the cuts are due to continued deterioration of U.S. and global markets.

Principal reported a net income of $90.1 million for the third quarter, a 61 percent decrease from $232.3 million in the same period a year ago. Principal also told a state development agency last month that it is no longer interested in receiving tax incentives in exchange for creating 900 jobs in Iowa.

The last day for most affected employees will be Dec. 31, and all affected employees will receive severance and career assistance, the company said.

It’s great that people will receive severance pay and career assistance, but they will be entering a very tough job market. Other local employers, including Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, have already laid off workers this fall. Finding a job with pay and benefits comparable to what Principal offered won’t be easy.

This isn’t just an issue for central Iowa. As nyceve writes in her latest diary, rising unemployment is expected to greatly increase the number of Americans lacking coverage for basic health care. Add that to the list of problems with our costly and inefficient employer-based health insurance system.

Bruce Braley is once again showing leadership in Congress.

Braley sent a letter to colleagues in the U.S. House about becoming a founding member of a populist caucus to help the middle class and working families.

The letter outlines six goals…

1. Fighting for working families and the middle class through the establishment of an equitable tax structure, fair wages, proper benefits, a level playing field at the negotiating table, and secure, solvent retirement plans.
2. Providing affordable, accessible, quality health care to all Americans.
3. Ensuring accessible, quality primary education for all American children, and affordable college education for all who want it.
4. Protecting consumers, so that Americans can once again have faith in the safety and effectiveness of the products they purchase.
5. Defending American competitiveness by fighting for fair trade principles.
6. Creating and retaining good-paying jobs in America.

Both John Edwards and Mike Huckabee were described as being populists during their presidential runs and that helped them do well in the Iowa Caucuses. This shows the issues outlined have some support on both sides of the aisle.

Matt Stoller has more at Open Left how this populist caucus compares to the Progressive Caucus and the more conservative Blue Dog Democrats. Stoller points out how, historically, Populists have been more rural-based and the Blue Dogs tend to represent more rural areas.

The big news of the day is that the FBI arrested Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich on federal corruption charges. Apparently he has been under investigation for some time, and he was caught on tape talking about trying to get something of value in exchange for appointing someone to fill Barack Obama’s Senate seat. Click the link for more details.

If the allegations are true, Blagojevich needs not just to resign, but to go to jail. Also, way to hand the Republicans another great talking point against “corrupt” Illinois Democrats and the Chicago machine. That is sure to be used against Obama and whoever succeeds him in the Senate.

The possibility that New York Governor David Paterson will appoint Caroline Kennedy to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate has divided the blogosphere, with more and more heavyweights speaking out against the move. Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake explains why this would be a “truly terrible idea”:

Her leadership could have been really helpful when the rest of us were trying to keep the progressive lights on and getting the stuffing beaten out of us by a very well-financed right wing for the past eight years.  But when things were tough, she was nowhere to be found.

Now that the Democrats are in power, she’d like to come in at the top.  We have absolutely no idea if she’s qualified, or whether she can take the heat of being a Kennedy in public life.  She’s certainly shown no appetite for it in the past.  She’ll have a target on her back and if she can’t take it, if she crumbles, she will become a rallying point that the right will easily organize around.

The woman has never run for office in her life.  We have no idea how she’d fare on the campaign trail, or how well she could stand up to the electoral process.  She simply picks up the phone and lets it be known that she just might be up for having one of the highest offices in the land handed to her because — well, because why?  Because her uncle once held the seat?  Because she’s a Kennedy?  Because she took part as a child in the public’s romantic dreams of Camelot?  I’m not quite sure.

And the guy with the biggest megaphone, Markos, piles on:

I hate political dynasties. Hate them. But Jane is right, in this case, the idea is particularly egregious — Caroline has done nothing to help beat back the right-wing machine. But now, she’s supposed to be handed by fiat what others fight their whole lives to attain?

I would like to see Paterson appoint one of New York’s 26 Democratic members of Congress. It would benefit the state to have someone with legislative experience replace Hillary. Daily Kos diarist Laura Stein made a strong case for Representative Carolyn Maloney.

Moving on to the cabinet, on Sunday Obama named retired General Eric Shinseki to run the Department of Veterans Affairs. Everyone seems to think this is a great idea. From the Boston Globe:

In the Bush administration, General Eric K. Shinseki committed the crime of truth-telling: He told the Senate in early 2003 that maintaining order in Iraq would take far more US troops than Donald Rumsfeld planned for. It cost him his job as Army chief of staff. That same virtue, honesty, should stand him in good stead now that President-elect Barack Obama has nominated him to be secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The choice is a stinging rebuke not just of Rumsfeld and President Bush for failing to take Shinseki’s advice on the Iraq war, but also of the administration’s weak effort to solve the medical, educational, emotional, and employment problems that veterans are having in returning to civilian life. Just as the Bush administration thought it could oust Saddam Hussein and create a peaceful, democratic Iraq with a bare-bones force, it has tried to skimp on veterans services.

Daily Kos user Homer J wrote this interesting reflection on an afternoon he spent with Shinseki.

Al Gore is going to Chicago today to meet with Obama, leading to speculation that he may be asked to head the Environmental Protection Agency or the Department of Energy. I think it’s more likely Obama is seeking Gore’s input on other possible choice. I’d be surprised if Gore would consider a cabinet position now. Some people have suggested Obama might create an environment/climate “czar” position, which could go to someone with stature like Gore.

Interior is emerging as a major battleground, with  more than 130 environmental groups signing a letter backing Congressman Raul Grijalva of Arizona for the position, even though he is rumored to have fallen off Obama’s short list.

Meanwhile, environmentalists are upset that Blue Dog Congressman Mike Thompson of California appears to be the leading candidate for Scretary of the Interior. The environmental blog Grist has some highlights of Thompson’s voting record:

In 2003, he voted for Bush’s controversial Healthy Forests Restoration Act, which enviros saw as a massive gift to the timber industry.

In 2004, he voted against an amendment to an Interior appropriations bill intended to protect wildlife and old growth trees in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest by stopping taxpayer-subsidized logging road construction. The measure passed by a vote of 222-205, and he was the only California Democrat to vote against it. He also opposed an amendment to ban the act of bear-baiting in national forests and Bureau of Land Management lands.

He was also one of only 30 Democrats in 2006 to vote against an amendment to the Forest Emergency Recovery and Research Act that would maintain areas of the national forests protected under the Roadless Rule. He also voted against another amendment that would have required the Forest Service to comply with environmental protection, endangered species, and historic preservation laws when conducting “salvage logging” operations in national forests. The amendment failed.

Anyone who supported Bush’s policies on “healthy forests” and road-building is by definition not “change we can believe in.” I sincerely hope Obama will do better than this. Another top-tier candidate for Interior is said to be Kevin Gover, who would be the first Native-American cabinet secretary if appointed.

Here’s a list of people rumored to be in the running for secretary of education.

Over the weekend, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius took herself out of the running for any cabinet position, saying she needs to finish her term and deal with budget and economic challenges in Kansas. She had been mentioned for several possible cabinet positions. Some believe she withdrew her name to save face, having gotten the word that she was being passed over. It seems just as likely to me that she has decided to run for Senate in 2010. Scout Finch has more on that possibility.

UPDATE: Maine Senator Olympia Snowe wants Obama to elevate the head of the Small Business Administration to a cabinet-level position. I fully agree with Jonathan Singer that the best move for Obama here would be to elevate the SBA and appoint Snowe to head that cabinet department. She’s a moderate Republican, and it would free up a Senate seat in a blue state.

At 10 am central time this morning, the Iowa Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Varnum v Brien, a case in which six couples are challenging Iowa’s law declaring that “Only a marriage between a male and female is valid.” Polk County has appealed a district judge’s ruling last year that the statute is unconstitutional. Last night jpmassar published a good overview of the legal issues underlying Judge Robert Hanson’s ruling as well as the county’s defense of the statute. (See also Osorio’s legal primer on the case.)

If you like, you can watch a livestream of the oral arguments at the Iowa Supreme Court’s website as well as at several other media sites. You can download pdf files of the district court ruling and the briefs submitted to the Iowa Supreme Court on appeal here.

My focus in this diary is not the legal arguments, but the political case that will need to be made for marriage equality once the Supreme Court has ruled on Varnum v Brien several months from now. Follow me after the jump for more.

Tuesday, December 9th, 2008, the Iowa Supreme Court will hear oral
arguments in the case of Varnum vs. Brien. In August of 2007 Polk
County District Judge Robert Hanson ruled in that case in favor of
gay couples seeking to marry.  He determined that the statute that
prevents them from marrying, Iowa 535.2, which states in part:

“Only a marriage between a male and female is valid.”

violates the Iowa State Constitution.

Hanson then issued stay of execution of his order, but not before one
couple had legally obtained a marriage license and gotten married.

Continue on as I try to explain what might happen if the Supreme Court
upholds Hanson's decision, his logic contained in the ruling, and give
some interesting exerpts from the ruling itself.

The Iowa Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments at 10 am on December 9 in Varnum v. Brien, a case that will test the constitutionality of Iowa’s “Defense of Marriage Act.”

The Interfaith Alliance of Iowa sent out an e-mail listing the ways people can watch the proceedings live:

Iowa Supreme  Court – www.iowacourts.gov/Supreme_Court/Varnum_v_Brien/index.asp

Des Moines Register –  www.dmregister.com

KCCI TV – www.kcci.com and Digital Channel 8.2

WHO TV – www.whotv.com

Mediacom Channel 247 (Central Iowa)

Mediacom Channel 102 (Eastern Iowa)

One Iowa has also organized “Oral Arguments Watch Parties” from 10 am to 11:30 am at the following locations:

Des Moines Watch Party – Des Moines Public Library, 1000 Grand Avenue

Ames Watch Party – Iowa State Memorial Union, Gallery Room (3rd Floor), 2229 Lincoln Way

Iowa City Watch Party – Iowa City Public Library, 123 South Linn

I’ll have a longer post up later on why marriage equality is important.  

Secretary of State Mike Mauro announced last Friday that a record 1,546,453 Iowans voted in the general election, including 47,553 who registered to vote on election day. In the days before Iowa allowed same-day voter registration, many people did not vote because by the time they became interested in a political campaign, the deadline to register had passed.

Republicans across the country throw around allegations about voter fraud, but states that have had same-day registration for a long time have not experienced this problem.

Take Minnesota, for instance. About one one-hundredth of a percent of the vote separates Al Franken and Norm Coleman in the U.S. Senate race. And yet:

[I]t’s worth noting that neither the Al Franken nor Norm Coleman camps has accused election officials of allowing significant numbers of ineligible people to vote. The two campaigns’ close scrutiny of events on Nov. 4 apparently has found nothing notably defective in either the voter registration or sign-in that occurred at the polls.

That’s the way it has been in every election since Minnesota began allowing voters to register at the polls in 1973. Ramsey County elections manager Joe Mansky said that, in his 24 years as a state and county elections administrator, the number of cases of orchestrated group efforts to subvert the law by registering improperly or voting multiple times has been “exactly zero.”

“There has been the occasional individual” who attempted to vote when or where he or she was not eligible. “But we have their driver’s license or their Social Security numbers,” or other means of detecting inaccurate registrations. “We find them and we prosecute them,” he said.

Only nine states allow voters to register on election day. I’d like to see same-day voter registration implemented across the country.

If you are old enough to remember the 1980 campaign between Chuck Grassley and John Culver, you know that Grassley came up in politics as a conservative Republican.

Amazingly, the GOP has moved so far to the right, and the real moderate Republicans have fared so poorly during the last few election cycles, that Grassley is now among the least conservative Republicans in the U.S. Senate.

After reading this diary by David Kowalski on how losses and retirements have shifted the GOP Senate caucus to the right, I looked up the Progressive Punch scores for all members of the outgoing Senate. On this scale, the higher the number, the more progressive a senator’s voting record.

It would be inaccurate to call Grassley a moderate, because his scores (16.27 for 2007/2008 and 9.23 for the entirety of his Senate career) are way below those of the real Republican moderates. By way of comparison, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania has a 46.90 Progressive Punch number for 2007/2008 and 36.84 lifetime number. Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, more of a middle-of-the-road Republican, has scores of 27.61 fr 2007/2008 and 12.64 for his career, higher than Grassley’s.

Still, because of retirements and losses, Grassley has moved from the 13th least conservative Republican senator during the last two years to seventh or eighth, depending on whether Norm Coleman prevails in the Minnesota recount.

It just goes to show how extreme today’s Republican Party has become. For that reason, I expect the minority in the incoming Senate to break the record number of filibusters Republicans set in 2007 and 2008.