Wednesday’s Des Moines Register contained this article on the “TIME-21” plan that the Iowa Department of Transportation has submitted to the legislature.

TIME-21 is short for “Transportation Investment Moves the Economy in the 21st Century.”

The DOT’s plan for the next two decades would spend an additional $4 billion on road construction and repairs, while spending no additional funds on “public transit, passenger and freight railroads, commuter rail service, walking and biking trails, aviation, or other options.”

To the Register’s credit, they gave space to opposing views:

“It’s unfortunate that we are designating transportation funds to meet the needs of the past,” said Stephanie Weisenbach, program coordinator for 1000 Friends of Iowa, a citizens’ group that promotes sustainable development and responsible land use.

“We know that thoughts about how to move people and goods are changing.”

She points to research by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency showing transportation as the fastest-growing source of greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for about 27 percent of total U.S. emissions.

She contends Iowa needs more flexibility in financing transportation alternatives because money from the state’s road use tax fund can be spent only on road projects.

Not increasing alternatives to cars and trucks “would be a fairly big mistake, just given the interest we are seeing in reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” said Mark Kresowik, a conservation organizer for the Sierra Club in Iowa. He said Iowa is a big producer, per capita, of greenhouse gases because of its heavy reliance on coal, oil and fertilizer and because of long distances that motorists travel in a rural state.

By the way, Representative Geri Huser of Altoona, who chairs the House Transportation Committee, offered the most ludicrous straw man argument I’ve heard in a while:

Huser said she wants to explore alternatives to Iowans’ reliance on automobiles, but she has to be realistic.

“I have to tell you I have not had any legislator come up to me and say, ‘We would rather not fix roads that are a problem, and I want to focus all of our resources on trails and bus transportation,’ ” Huser said.

Representative Huser, no one is talking about focusing “all of our resources” on alternative transportation. We are talking about adjusting a plan that currently calls for spending $4 billion on roads and nothing on other kinds of transportation.

Bicyclists and bus riders also want roads to be fixed, obviously, but we don’t need to do that to the exclusion of any other transportation investments.

Here are a bunch of good links on the benefits of a balanced transportation policy.

If you care about this issue, write a letter to the editor or join one of the groups fighting for sanity in our transportation planning: 1000 Friends of Iowa, Sierra Club of Iowa, or the Iowa Bicycle Coalition.

UPDATE: DOT Director Nancy Richardson responds in Friday’s Register, but doesn’t get the point:

“We can’t have the road system solve the greenhouse-gas emission problem. It’s not emitting the gas, the dangerous fumes – the vehicles are. If we really want to make a difference, we need to focus on the vehicles that are driving on those roads.”

But in fact, if we don’t get a handle on our urban planning and transportation priorities, then we won’t be able to solve the greenhouse-gas emission problem:

In a comprehensive review of dozens of studies, published by the Urban Land Institute, the researchers conclude that urban development is both a key contributor to climate change and an essential factor in combating it.

They warn that if sprawling development continues to fuel growth in driving, the projected 59 percent increase in the total miles driven between 2005 and 2030 will overwhelm expected gains from vehicle efficiency and low-carbon fuels. Even if the most stringent fuel-efficiency proposals under consideration are enacted, notes co-author Steve Winkelman, “vehicle emissions still would be 40 percent above 1990 levels in 2030 – entirely off-track from reductions of 60-80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 required for climate protection.”

“Curbing emissions from cars depends on a three-legged stool: improved vehicle efficiency, cleaner fuels, and a reduction in driving,” said lead author Reid Ewing, Research Professor at the National Center for Smart Growth, University of Maryland. “The research shows that one of the best ways to reduce vehicle travel is to build places where people can accomplish more with less driving.”

In other words, a transportation policy agenda focused solely on road-building will fail to reduce miles driven, which needs to be a key element in our response to global warming.

I doubt I'll even bother to watch the repeat, but if you caught the Republicans debating, use this thread to “document the atrocities,” as Atrios would say.

Secretary of State Mike Mauro wants every precinct in Iowa to have an optical scanner that reads paper ballots. Legislators should listen to him, even though the plan would cost $9.7 million, according to the Des Moines Register.

A new state law says there has to be a paper trail, leading some to call for retrofitting touchscreen machines with windows that would let voters view a “receipt” to confirm their votes. This “verified paper audit trail” would cost about $2 million to put in place, but I’m with Representative Pam Jochum of Dubuque, who says it would be a “total waste of money” to retrofit touchscreen voting machines.

Also,

Mauro pointed out Wednesday that any such system could be obsolete in two years because of pending federal legislation that could change requirements for voting machines.

Iowa needs to find a way to fund Mauro’s proposal, so that we have secure voting procedures and paper ballots that can be recounted if necessary.

Although no voting system is perfect, the recent recount in New Hampshire showed lower error rates in precincts using optical scanners than in precincts that counted ballots by hand on election night.

Touchscreen voting is a disaster in the making, not only because of the potential for tampering but also because it leaves nothing to be recounted in case of a disputed election.

By the way, I had previously reported that New Hampshire would recount all the ballots from the recent primary, but in fact Dennis Kucinich only put in $27,000, enough to recount about 40 percent of the ballots. The recount has now ended, having revealed no significant changes in vote totals for the candidates. Click the link for more details.

The Democratic candidates for Presidents outraised Republicans by about 47%.

The Democratic committees (DCCC, DSCC, and DNC) outraised their Republican counterparts by 4%.  (With the DNC dragging the other two down.)

And now from the Register, we find that state Democrats are doing even better.

Incumbent House Democrats altogether drummed up $1.1 million, based on reports on file Wednesday, while House Republicans raised $721,000.

In the Senate, incumbent Democrats collected $448,000 in reports on file while Republicans pulled in $371,000.For the statewide parties, new reports show the Iowa Democratic Party has $669,000 in cash on hand in its state account, and the Republican Party of Iowa has $49,000.

Because Iowa has basically no campaign finance laws, all of this money is essentially interchangeable.  That means that, overall, Democrats are outraising Republicans in state money $2.22 million to $1.14 million, giving us just short of double their resources.

Dwayne Alons:

“We shouldn't be as concerned, actually, about warming, especially now that we have modern refrigeration and air conditioning,” Alons said Tuesday.

Oh.  My.  God. 

The Iowa Environmental Council’s Lobby Day is Thursday, January 24, in the State Capitol Building rotunda, from 9 am to 3 pm.

If you’ve got time to drop by during those hours, I encourage you to do so. Advocates for many good environmental causes will be educating legislators and the media about their issues.

These organizations will be represented at the lobby day, and their staff or volunteers would be happy to meet citizens who want to get involved:

1000 Friends of Iowa

American Institute of Architects, Iowa Chapter

Center for Energy and Environmental Education (CEEE)

Center on Sustainable Communities

Environment Iowa

Environmental Advocates

Iowa River Greenbelt Resource Trust

Iowa Environmental Council

Iowa Farmers Union

Iowa Global Warming

Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation

Iowa Policy Project

Iowa Recycling Association

Iowa Renewable Energy Association (I-RENEW)

Iowa Rivers Revival

Iowa Whitewater Coalition

Izaak Walton League

Raccoon River Watershed Association

Trees Forever

I shook my head when I read this story in Tuesday’s Register about the fraternity that shut down its U of I chapter because several members were arrested for dealing marijuana:

Four Delta Upsilon members were charged in December with drug violations after police raided the fraternity house and found 650 grams of marijuana, cash, packing materials, scales and drug-deal ledgers, court records state.

Hey, college students: you may think pot should be legal, and I may think pot should be legal, but pot is not legal, and selling pot is definitely not legal. Keeping detailed ledgers of your transactions is not a good idea.

These students who were arrested should know that it could have been worse, however. The year after I graduated from college, two guys who lived in my dorm were arrested for selling drugs to a fellow student who had named them when he got caught with possession. They also had detailed business ledgers on their computers, which the police confiscated.

What they didn’t realize, and probably no one in my dorm realized, was that an elementary school was up the street a few blocks. Most people living in the dorm would never have a reason to walk in that direction, because the rest of campus was the other way. But the state where I went to college had one of those laws doubling prison terms for drug offenses committed within X feet of a school.

The guys were not selling to grade school kids. They were just making some extra cash selling to other college students. But they went away for a long, long time.

Well, well, well. The Newton Speedway didn’t miraculously solve that town’s problems, so now there is a drive to build a casino next to the racetrack in the name of economic development.

Iowa has too many casinos already–20 according to the Des Moines Register article linked above. The Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission should say no to this and all other applications for casino licenses in the future.

How will a casino in Newton help the community? More likely it will just drain the wallets of locals whose family incomes already took a hit after Maytag shut down. People love talking about the jobs created by casinos, but they don’t like talking about the social problems that come along with increased gambling.

The advocates of this proposal say the location, visible from I-80, would be visible to some 10 million people who drive on that stretch of road every year. But I suspect a casino in Newtwon would primarily pull gamblers away from existing casinos in central, eastern and southern Iowa.

In case you don’t normally read the Des Moines Register, Marc Hansen’s column on Ed Fallon in Tuesday’s edition was pretty good.

My only gripe relates to this passage:

Fallon hasn’t had many so-called “real jobs.” Like optometrist or truck driver, as opposed to “field canvasser” or “inner-city community organizer.”

I like Hansen, but this is a cheap shot. Why is engaging the public on political issues any less of a “real job” than driving a truck?

I’m sick of journalists denigrating political work and citizen empowerment.

I learned a lot from this diary by interguru: There Go the Fluorescent Bulb Savings.

Everyone, make it a New Year’s resolution to switch off your electronics when you’re not using them, or put them on a power strip that can be switched off overnight.

I'll be watching the rerun later. Judging from the comments at MyDD, this turned out to be quite the rumble.

What did you think?

UPDATE: noneed4thneed’s take is here:

http://commoniowan.blogspot.co…

The hand recount in New Hampshire is about a third of the way to completion, and if you want to know what’s been uncovered so far, I recommend this informative diary at Daily Kos or this informative diary at Blue Hampshire.

I applaud Dennis Kucinich for asking for this recount. If it helps restore confidence in the election machinery (in New Hampshire, at least), it will have been $60,000 very well spent.  

As some Clinton supporters at MyDD never tire of reminding me, Iowa and Mississippi are the only two states that have never elected a woman governor, senator or Congressional representative.

Over at Iowa Independent, Douglas Burns wrote a feature on Ann Selzer, pollster for the Des Moines Register. She commented:

“I’m rather stymied by Iowa’s failure to elect a woman,” Selzer said. She chalks it up to lack of strong candidates of that gender so far rather than any deep-seeded sexism among Iowa natives.

Democrats are clearly not to blame for this problem. We have nominated two women for governor and many women for Congress. We’ve also nominated women to many statewide offices, and some of those, like Bonnie Campbell and Patty Judge, have been elected.

I think one issue is that we’ve got a lot of long-serving incumbents here, and rarely have we had open seats. Sheila McGuire ran for an open Congressional seat in 1994, but that was in the most Republican district in Iowa. Every other woman I can think of who has run for Congress in Iowa has had to face off against an incumbent. As we know, more than 90 percent of incumbents are reelected to Congress.

Almost every ten years, Iowa loses a Congressional district, which means that even if an incumbent retires, there may not be an open seat available.

Roxanne Conlin ran for governor when the seat was open in 1982, but perhaps there was some backlash against the Equal Rights Amendment at that time. She also was not able to beat back the “Taxanne” message coming from the right-wing.

I believe that many women elected from other states benefit from belonging to a political dynasty. Some states have elected exactly one woman to Congress, and that woman happens to be the widow, daughter or grand-daughter of a long-serving incumbent. For instance, I think we can all agree that Stephanie Herseth would not have won an election in South Dakota without the Herseth family name. We haven’t had any women in that situation in Iowa.

About five years ago I attended a political science conference and heard Stephen Ansolabahere speak. He has published great work on Americans’ voting behavior.

I asked him about Iowa’s reluctance to elect women to high office. One point he made, which surprised me, is that of the 50 states, Iowa has the largest percentage of the population living in small towns and rural areas.

Nebraska, by contrast, is one of the most “urban” states, with a very large percentage of the population living in the Omaha or Lincoln metro areas and a much smaller percentage living in the smaller towns.

Perhaps the “political culture” of Iowa’s smaller towns creates a less friendly environment for women candidates. Most of the women in the Iowa legislature come from urban or suburban districts.

I think that the lack of opportunity for women to run for open seats is a bigger issue, though.

What do you think?

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that women candidates may have an even tougher time defeating incumbents, but that isn’t the case just in Iowa. Someone, and I’m sorry I can’t remember who, studied 20 “serious Democratic challenges” to Republican-held seats in the U.S. House in 2006. A serious challenger was defined as someone who had raised at least $1 million by the end of June 2006. Of those 20 challengers, 13 were men and 7 were women.

On election day 2006, 12 of the 13 men on that list defeated the Republican incumbent, while 6 of the 7 women lost (the exception was Kirsten Gillibrand in New York).

In each case, you can construct a narrative for why the woman lost that has nothing to do with gender. However, looking at the totality of the outcomes in 2006, I think we can posit that the U.S. electorate is slightly more resistant to women challengers to Congressional incumbents.

SECOND UPDATE: I found this piece by Chris Bowers. He also wondered why Democratic women did so poorly in the 2006 elections. He noted that in the 30 Republican-held districts that were top targets for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and EMILY’s list, 21 of the Democratic candidates were men, and 9 were women. (Some of those were open seats, not challenges to incumbents.)

In those races, 20 of the 21 men won, while 8 of the 9 women lost. Again, it appears that American voters are more resistant to electing women to Congress, which could make the difference in a close race.

Just in time for the 2008 legislative session, the Iowa Environmental Council has created a new action alert center:

WHEN IOWA LAWMAKERS HEAR FROM THEIR CONSTITUENTS THEY LISTEN.  YOUR CALLS and EMAILS MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

Now you can receive these alerts, go to a special webpage to update your personal information at any time (e.g. your email address) and you can browse the site to see the latest information on pending Iowa bills related to environmental issues. You’ll find tools for your use, too, like a state legislative directory that allows you to look up your elected officials, and much more!

Take a look now.

There is a current alert waiting for you to respond to regarding renewable energy legislation. And there is lots of other information available about your lawmakers and state departments. At any time, you can go to our homepage at http://www.iaenvironment.org and click on the ICALL icon on the blue side bar.

I encourage people to sign up for this service and let your friends know about it. You can’t count on the media to report on important environmental legislation being considered at the statehouse.

These action alerts make it easy for you to stay in touch with your representative or senator. The corporate groups seeking to block environmental regulations will have people on the phone to legislators, so we need to do our part.

Friday was the last day of public testimony before the Iowa Utilities Board on the proposed new coal-fired power plant in Marshalltown. The Sierra Club put out a release noting that while Iowa debates building more coal plants, other states in the region are overtaking us in wind power capacity.

Key excerpt:

“The difference is clearly policy,” said Mark Kresowik with the Sierra Club’s National Coal Campaign in Iowa.  “Illinois and Minnesota have passed policies that look to the future, such as Renewable Electric Standards, carbon dioxide reduction targets, and even a moratorium on new coal plants.  Iowa’s energy policy remains in the 20th century.”

Time for the Democratic-controlled legislature to do more on this front for Iowa. I’ve put the full text of the press release after the jump. It’s worth a read.

Unfortunately, Mike Huckabee was not able to take this one. Fred Thompson won just enough evangelical voes to give John McCain the victory.

Yet again, Rudy finished behind Ron Paul, as he has in every contest so far.

From TPM, with 93 percent of precincts reporting:

McCain 33

Huckabee 30

Thompson 16

Romney 15

Paul 4

Giuliani 2

Hunter 0

Hunter is dropping out of the race. Thompson will probably follow soon and endorse McCain.

UPDATE: Jonathan Singer observes at MyDD that SC Republicans seemed less enthusiastic about voting this time than they did eight years ago:

Another way of looking at it, this is kind of an underwhelming win for McCain. Well, perhaps even a really unimpressive win. In 2000, McCain received 237,888 votes in coming in second place to George W. Bush. This time? A mere 134,474 votes, or more than 100,000 votes short of what he received eight years ago.

Link: http://www.mydd.com/story/2008…

I will update later when more results are available. For now, I am taking these Nevada results from TPM:

Clinton 51 percent

Obama 45

Edwards 4

Romney 52 percent

Paul 13

McCain 13

Huckabee 8

Thompson 8

Giuliani 4

Hunter 2

Time for Edwards and Obama supporters to face some hard truths.

Even if he had won Iowa and gotten the unions to jump off the fence, it looks like Edwards would not have been able to take Nevada from Hillary.

If Obama couldn’t win this state despite getting favorable media coverage, more than 80 percent of the black vote (according to entrance polling), and the key union endorsements in Nevada, then it seems that no one could have beaten Clinton here.

Hillary won at least 6 of the 9 at-large precincts on the Las Vegas strip, and one of them was a tie. Those precincts supposedly were going to be dominated by the Culinary Union, which backed Obama. That’s why Clinton supporters went to court (unsuccessfully) to try to block the at-large precincts. But Culinary was not able to deliver for Obama in most of those precincts.

I haven’t seen any data yet on what percentage of Democratic caucus-goers were independents or Republicans who switched party affiliation. Total turnout shattered predictions and exceeded 114,000.

Many of the February 5 states will hold closed primaries, which means Obama will not benefit from strong support among independents and Republicans.

Entrance polling in Nevada suggests that Clinton led Obama 51-38 among women (who made up 59 percent of caucus-goers) and crushed Obama 64-26 among Latinos. That suggests a steep uphill climb for Obama in some of the larger February 5 states.

Obama supporters have been calling for Edwards to drop out, but I am not convinced that doing so would benefit Obama. In South Carolina, Edwards is  taking more away from Hillary.

Whichever candidate you favor, it’s obvious that Clinton is in the driver’s seat. She will have to make some big mistakes to lose the nomination now.

Obama was not able to put her away in New Hampshire, and it’s going to cost him big.

I just learned about the blog 2008 Democratic Convention Watch. It looks like a good place for political junkies to bookmark and check from time to time. The focus is “News and views about the 2008 Democratic National Convention and the race for the nomination.”

There’s a delegate counter and archive of past blog posts on the left-hand side of the page.

Recent posts include this one listing all of the “superdelegates” who have endorsed each of the Democratic candidates. If you click through, there is a link to a list of all the superdelegates who have not yet committed to a candidate.

You can also learn about the DNC’s standing committees on credentials, platform and rules, including who will co-chair each of those committees.

Some of you may be interested in this post about how to apply to be one of the DNC’s official state bloggers. Apparently one blogger from each state will be credentialed at the convention in Denver.  

Iowa Politics has a story up about the possible retirement of State Senator Larry McKibben in Senate District 22.

Sen. Larry McKibben, R-Marshalltown, chose not to seek the Senate minority leader post in September because of work-related responsibilities. He said Thursday he hasn't decided if his name will appear on the November ballot.

“I am talking it over with my family,” McKibben said. “I will make my decision in the next couple weeks.”

McKibben won reelection in 2004 by less than 800 votes, in a race where over $425,000 was spent. McKibben might not be looking forward to another long summer and fall on the campaign trail or the time trying to raise that much cash.

Democrats already have a candidate who announced his campaign for McKibben's seat in Steve Sodders, a Deputy Sheriff in Marshall County. Sodders has been knocking on doors throughout the district this fall and has been working hard raising money. Sodders has two fundraisers coming up in the next few weeks.

The Nevada caucuses and the GOP primary in South Carolina take place tomorrow. How do you think the candidates will do? Here is my stab in the dark:

Nevada

Clinton 42

Obama 38

Edwards 20

Romney 35

McCain 30

Huckabee 15

Paul 5

Thompson 3

Giuliani 2

South Carolina

McCain 32

Huckabee 28

Thompson 20

Romney 12

Giuliani 5

Paul 3