I just received an e-mail from The Interfaith Alliance of Iowa. The Civil Rights bill hangs in the balance, and the time to e-mail your representatives in the Iowa House is now (Tuesday or Wednesday). Or, you can call during the day on Wednesday.

After the jump, I’ve posted the full text of the e-mail, as well as talking points about the legislation and information on how to contact your legislator by phone or e-mail.

If you believe in ending discrimination against the GLBT community, please act on this appeal.

I posted the latest installment on “How the Iowa caucuses work” at Daily Kos and MyDD today. I’m not cross-posting here because you people all know how the caucuses work.

My main reason for writing that diary was to debunk Mark Kleiman’s idea that Obama could win Iowa by hiring 2,000 field organizers to work here during the final two weeks of the campaign.

If you feel like joining the discussion about GOTV and how hard it is to turn out new voters for the caucuses, head on over to MyDD, where the diary is on the rec list.

Bill Richardson is running tv ads in Iowa and New Hampshire, and you can view them here at his campaign’s website.

There’s a 60-second biographical ad and a 30-second ad on foreign policy. My favorite line: “I approved this message because being stubborn isn’t a foreign policy.”

We don’t watch much tv aside from The Daily Show and Colbert Report, so I have no idea how often these ads are running. Anyone out there seen them on tv? Hear anyone mention seeing them? Do you think they will be effective?

Barack Obama spoke in Iowa City today before a crowd of several thousand. John Deeth liveblogged the event, and you can read all about it here.

If you’ve got a report about this event, or some other campaign appearance by any of the presidential candidates, please consider putting up a diary. Even if you’re not liveblogging or vlogging, it’s still interesting to hear about the stump speeches, the Q and A, and the reactions of the crowd.

I went down to Valley Junction in West Des Moines today, but their Earth Day event was rained out. I did notice that the Edwards supporters were out there talking with lots of people before everyone packed up their tables and tents, though.

Bill Richardson is on a two-day campaign swing through Iowa, and according to the Des Moines Register, he will be going up on tv here next week.

I don’t recall any of the candidates going up on tv this early last cycle. Dean put up some tv ads around June 2003, and at that time political ads before Labor Day were unheard of. The Register says Mitt Romney ran some ads here earlier this year, but I didn’t see any of those because we pretty much only watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.

Join me after the jump for some thoughts about Richardson’s strategy.

Noneed4thneed of Century of the Common Iowan put up this important post about the Permanent Bases Project.

He urges people who are going to see the presidential candidates to ask them if they support having permanent U.S. bases in Iraq, and if so, how many troops would be stationed there.

This is an easy thing to do, and the candidates will notice if they start getting this question often enough. An old peacenik who was active in the Nuclear Freeze movement of the 1980s told me that they had a bunch of supporters asking candidates all over Iowa about one of their issues–I think it was the Trident missile.

One of the candidates (it may have been Babbitt, I can’t remember) later was quoted as saying how knowledgeable Iowans were about foreign and military affairs, because everywhere he went he kept getting asked about the Trident missile!

If you live in central Iowa, you’ll have a lot of fun events to choose from this weekend:

1. Saturday, April 21, “Blues for Greens” event at Water Works Park, Des Moines–10 a.m. to 6 p.m. (Water Works Park is west of Fleur Drive and north of George Flagg Parkway.) 

The Iowa Department of Natural Resource, in association with the Iowa Clean Cities Coalition, and the Iowa American Lung Association, is planning an event that will feature E85, electric, hybrid, diesel, propane, natural gas and flex fuel vehicles at Waterworks Park in Des Moines, Iowa on Saturday April 21st, 2007. 

“Blues for Greens” features environmentally friendly organizations, with blues music and ethnic food vendors acting as the backdrop for this family-friendly event.

2. Sunday, April 22: Earth Day at Greenwood Park ( 4500 Grand Ave., Des Moines ), 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. Several activities that incorporate nature through the arts have been planned for people of all ages.

Go here and click 2007 Earth Day: A Greenwood Experience for more information about this free event sponsored by Metro Waste Authority, Des Moines Parks and Recreation, Polk County Conservation, Metro Arts Alliance and Open Arts.

3. Sunday, April 22: Earth Day in the Junction, Historic Valley Junction, West Des Moines. Click here for more information about this event.

5K Run ~ 10 am

Kids’ Fun Run ~ 11:30 am

Earth Day Celebration ~ 12 – 5 pm

Below are some of the activities planned:

An Inconvenient Truth will be played throughout the afternoon.

Rasmussen Bike will be providing free bike check ups to anyone who bikes to the event.

Heard Gardens is going to be doing a planting demonstration.

Toyota of Des Moines will be bringing hi-bred cars to the event.

Plus…local exhibitors, live music, kids’ activities and food vendors.

Feel free to post information about Earth Day events in your area.

Here’s a link to Trippi’s blog post announcing the move.

And here’s a link to a Daily Kos diary with more background and discussion of this hire.

The former Deaniacs I know in Iowa are largely undecided, with some leaning toward Edwards and others leaning toward Obama. I don’t think anyone will make up his or her mind solely based on what Trippi does, but I think the move sends a positive signal about the change Edwards wants to bring to America.

What are your thoughts, and what have you been hearing from the people you know who caucused for Dean in 2004?

House Democrats are moving forward with a landmark piece of legislation to bring the debate about limits on greenhouse gas emissions to the State of Iowa.  Senate File 485 is being floor managed by Representative Donovan Olson.  This bill creates a “greenhouse gas registry” similar to those found in other states and requires the Environmental Protection Commission and the director of the Department of Natural Resources to quantify the potential for emission of greenhouse gases by applicants for permits for electric power generating facilities.  The registry is considered the first step towards creating a system for carbon emission permit trading in the State of Iowa.

I rarely check in with the conservative blogosphere, but for some reason I clicked on the Cyclone Conservatives link at the right and I found a post proclaiming that for the second month in a row, former Libertarian and Republican U.S. Congressman Ron Paul has won the site’s presidential straw poll.

And he didn’t just win–he crushed the field, getting 44 percent of the 984 total votes. Wingnut Duncan Hunter placed second with 17 percent and Multiple Choice Mitt Romney placed third with 13 percent.

At first I thought that one person must have voted over 400 times for Ron Paul, but the organizers claim that you can only vote once per month per IP address. Presumably there must be some way to stuff the poll despite this restriction.

Alternatively, nearly half of Cyclone Conservative readers think the Iraq War was a colossal mistake. Ron Paul was one of very few, perhaps the only, Republican serving in the U.S. House who voted against the Iraq resolution authorizing the use of force in 2002.

Or is there some other reason why Ron Paul is dominating the field?

Another fun fact from this poll: anti-immigrant crusader Tom Tancredo got 8 percent of the vote, nearly twice as many raw votes as John McCain (3 percent) and Rudy Giuliani (1 percent) combined.

Think the wingnut base is a little unhappy with the GOP frontrunners?

The organization American Rivers has released its list of America’s 10 most endangered rivers, and the Iowa River is number 3 on the list, thanks to “weak enforcement of the Clean Water Act.”

Here is the short explanation for the ranking:

The Iowa River and its tributaries provide a boon to local economies, offering drinking water to nearby communities and wonderful recreational opportunities. Yet a host of polluters inundate the river with toxins and untreated sewage. Unfortunately, the state of Iowa trails far behind the rest of the country in implementing and enforcing the federal Clean Water Act. Unless the state wants water quality in the Iowa and other rivers to deteriorate even further, Iowa must adequately implement key provisions of the Clean Water Act and provide its Department of Natural Resources sufficient funding to enforce these regulations.

If you click through, you can download a pdf that has more detail about this assessment, and you can watch a video of Susan Heathcote, Water Program Director of the Iowa Environmental Council, explaining why the river is considered “endangered.”

At first I worried about this report, but then I remembered that Iowa is an agricultural state and anyone who doesn’t like it can leave in any of four directions.

I support Public Campaign, which is pushing for “clean elections” (voluntary public-financing) nationwide.

Today I got this e-mail from the Public Campaign Action Fund:

Just a reminder that Voter Owned Iowa is holding a rally tomorrow, Wednesday, at 12 p.m. at the Capitol in support of the Voter Owned Iowa Clean Elections (VOICE) Act that would bring full public financing to Iowa’s legislative races.  After the rally, we’ll be lobbying individual members of the General Assembly on the VOICE Act.

Sign up here to join us at the rally!

The VOICE Act (introduced in both legislative chambers as House File 805 and Senate File 553) would allow candidates in Iowa to seek office without having to appeal to wealthy special interests for campaign contributions.  Once elected, the legislators who ran using the VOICE system would be accountable only to the voters who elected them, not well-heeled contributors who would have otherwise funded their campaigns.

We need to show our support for VOICE at the capitol  – RSVP here to attend the rally and lobby afterwards!

I hope you’ll be able to join me, and others from Voter Owned Iowa tomorrow.  We have a good chance to make the VOICE Act law this year, with just a few days left in the legislative session, your support can make all the difference in passing this bill.

Look forward to seeing you there,

Jeannette Galanis

National Field Director

If you can make it to downtown Des Moines over the lunch hour, they could use your support!

If you can’t attend the rally but would like to contribute financially to Public Campaign’s effort to pass Voter Owned Elections in Iowa, you can click here.

Obviously Christopher Rants is the biggest impediment to extending the civil rights code to cover the GLBT community, but there isn’t much we can do about him (other than send even fewer Republicans back to the state house next year).  There are some legislators that need to hear from concerned Iowans about their opposition or indecision on the bill currently bottled up in the house.

These Democrats are either currently planning to vote no or refuse to take a stand one way or the other:

Dolores Mertz

Dawn Pettengill

Brian Quirk

Paul Shomshor

These GOP representatives are believed to be supportive:

Chuck Gipp (Retiring in 2008)

Linda Miller (Voted for it in committee)

Bill Schickel

Tami Weincek

You can call all of them at (515) 281-3221.

This is urgent – if anything is going to happen on this bill, it is going to happen in the next couple of days.  GLBTers have been a model team players for Iowa Democrats, supporting our candidates without hesitation and with very little demanded in return.  While Democrats have been successful in the minority at stopping a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, now that we are in the majority we ought to be working to make Iowa a more equal state.

It’s not like gay activists are being unreasonable here.  They aren’t asking for gay marriage, or even civil unions.  Just one tiny change that says that it is wrong to discriminate against someone based on their sexual orientation.  The fact that there is any difficulty at all getting Democrats to vote for that is depressing, and the fact that not one single Republican is willing to stand up for the principle is appalling.

On Saturday I talked to a woman I know who is involved with the effort to get anti-discrimination language regarding gays and lesbians into the State Civil Rights bill.

The Iowa Senate overwhelmingly passed this bill. There are plenty of votes in the House to pass it, but Republican leader Chris Rants won’t let any Republicans vote for it until at least 51 of the 56 Democrats say they will vote for it.

The Des Moines Register’s David Yepsen heard the same thing and wrote about it in the Sunday paper:

This Legislature has yet to approve anti-discrimination protections for gays and lesbians in housing and employment because of a political game House Republicans are playing.

They want Democrats to put up 51 votes from their members before any GOP lawmakers will vote for it. (This is being done so Democrats from conservative districts are on record casting a tough vote that will then be used against them by conservative Republican challengers in the 2008 election.)

John Deeth put up this post on Friday about GLBT activists in Iowa City who are angry with House Majority leader Pat Murphy about this. I don’t blame them.

The bottom line, though, is that the House Democrats need to hear from lots of people on this issue. They’ve been raising money from the GLBT community, and those who favor equal rights for gays and lesbians, for years. It is wrong for Democrats to run scared on this issue, but if they think that our side is going to give them a pass on it, they might be more inclined to play it safe.

I encourage everyone to contact the House leadership (Pat Murphy and Kevin McCarthy) about this. I have heard that Geri Huser of Altoona is also on the fence, so if you live in her district, give her a call or send an e-mail. I don’t know who the other wavering House Democrats are. If you know, please leave that information in the comments section.

You can call the House Switchboard at (515) 281-3221 and ask to be connected to any of the representatives.

Who would you like to see liveblogging at Bleeding Heartland later this year?

It could be someone from the Iowa Democratic Party, an elected official, a strategist, a presidential candidate, a likely candidate for a different office in 2008, anyone you’d like to hear from directly on this site.

Also, if we ever had a political bigwig liveblogging at Bleeding Heartland, when would you be able to join in the conversation? Would it be better to schedule this in the morning, afternoon, evening?

Consider this an open thread for your suggestions to the authors on this site.

First-term members of Congress generally take one of two paths: they keep their heads down while learning the ropes, or they make a splash. Looks like Bruce Braley is taking the second path.

Not long after his hilarious grilling of GSA administrator Lurita Doan got linked to all over the liberal blogosphere, Braley is making the news again as the most assertive member of the Iowa delegation when it comes to getting answers from the Pentagon.

Join me after the jump to see Braley getting praised by Des Moines Register columnist John Carlson, of all people.

Seriously, it’s great news that Johnson County Republican Chairman Sanders finds Google useful.

We all know that he is the frontrunner in Iowa, but it turns out that Edwards is popular all over the midwest.  Obama is surprisingly strong in the west (anyone have any idea why?), while Clinton is weaker in these two regions.  That’s unfortunate, since those are the two swing regions in the country.  We’re going to win the northeast for sure in 2008.  We’re probably going to lose most of the south, no matter how big our overall victory.  It’s states like New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and, yes, Iowa that are going to make the difference if I’m wrong and it does turn out to be a competitive race.  And in that kind of a fight, it looks like Hillary would be our weakest candidate.

There is nothing more satisfying than looking at the current field of Republican candidates.  Cyclone Conservative has a great list on his blog – my favorite is Millie Howard, whose website is like a bad myspace page and who has apparently been running since 1992.

It’s hard for me to get too worked up about who gets the Democratic nomination, because any one of them is going to win in a landslide.  Jesus, people – the Republican’s best candidate is a cross-dresser and proud adulterer whose (third, if you count the time he married his cousin) wife murders dogs.  This is their best guy!  It’s going to be a fun cycle.