In an emotional White House address, President Barack Obama announced today new executive actions aimed at reducing gun violence, including suicides as well as homicides and other crimes.

• Background Checks: Require all gun sellers — including online and at gun shows — to have a license and perform background checks. Have the FBI overhaul the existing background-check system.
• Enforcement: Improve the use of America’s existing gun laws, and add 200 new agents to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
• Mental Health: Remove barriers that can keep states from reporting and sharing information about people barred from owning guns for mental health reasons, and spend $500 million to increase access to mental health care.
• Technology: Push for research in gun safety technology, such as “smart guns” that can only be fired by authorized users. The research would be done by the Departments of Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security. The White House notes the federal government is “the single largest purchaser of firearms in the country.”

I enclose below more details on steps the president ordered as well as Iowa political reaction. I will update this post as needed, since some of the Iowans in Congress neither released statements on this issue nor responded to my requests for comment.

Happy new year, Bleeding Heartland readers! Here’s an open thread: all topics welcome.

I am grateful to everyone who contributed guest posts during 2015: Dave Swenson, Jon Muller, fladem, 2laneIA, ahawby, Julie Stauch, Susan Staed, Mike Owen, natewithglasses, sarased, frankly, Jane Kersch, aleand67, Matt Hauge, ModerateIADem, Leland Searles, Eileen Miller, Tracy Leone, Pari Kasotia, Roger Pedactor, Stacey Walker, Mike Draper, cocinero, AbramsMom, mrtyryn, desmoinesiowa15, moderatepachy, Joe Stutler, Zach Wahls, and State Representative Chuck Isenhart.

Guest authors can write about any political topic of state, local, or national importance. Pieces can be short or long, funny or serious. You do not need to contact me ahead of time with your story idea. Just register for a user account, log in, write a post, edit as needed, and hit publish when you are ready. The piece will be “pending” until I approve it for publication, to prevent spammers from using the site to sell their wares.

I also want to thank everyone who participates here by commenting on posts. If you’ve never done so, feel free to register for a user account and share your views. If you used to comment occasionally but have not done so since this blog relaunched on a different software platform in October, you will need to reset your password. E-mail me with any problems registering for an account, logging in, or changing a password; my address is near the lower right-hand corner of this page.

I wish everyone success in sticking to your new year’s resolutions. Keep in mind that new habits typically take a few months to establish. I’m still working on my list of Iowa politics predictions for 2016, but now seems like the right time to hold myself accountable for last year’s effort. Follow me after the jump to see how I did.

Speaking shortly after the 2014 general election, Iowa’s senior U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley, in line to chair the Senate Judiciary Committee, promised to “work to confirm consensus nominees” for the federal bench, based on factors such as “intellectual ability, respect for the Constitution, fidelity to the law, personal integrity, appropriate judicial temperament, and professional competence.”

But as the Alliance for Justice noted in a recent report on judicial confirmations in 2015,

Only 11 [federal] judges were confirmed, the fewest in a single year since 1960. Only one court of appeals judge was confirmed, the worst since none were confirmed in 1953. And as confirmations dwindled, vacancies shot up. In 2015, vacancies rose from 43 to 66 (they’ll hit 70 by January 1), and officially-designated “judicial emergencies” went up nearly 160% from 12 to 31.

I enclose below the full Alliance for Justice review, with graphs comparing judicial confirmations by year for the last three presidents and during the seventh year of office for the last four two-term presidents. Click here to access the report online, where you can follow the hyperlinks.

Two nominees for judicial vacancies in Iowa are among 14 “consensus” nominees whose confirmations did not come up on the Senate floor before the winter recess, contrary to what was once “routine practice” in the Senate. People for the American Way pointed out in a November 9 blog post that even though Grassley “promised to process [judicial] nominees in the order he received them,” he “leapfrogged” Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger, whom President Barack Obama nominated in mid-September, “over ten longer-waiting district court nominees.” Ebinger would fill a vacancy in Iowa’s Southern District, which is not a judicial emergency. Most of the non-controversial nominees left hanging until the new year would alleviate judicial emergencies; see the appendix to the Alliance for Justice report.

Jennifer Bendery reported today for the Huffington Post that the growing number of vacancies and emergencies are

hurting the court system — and the people it serves. Civil cases are being delayed for years at a time. Judges are burning out trying to keep up. Semi-retired judges are pulling full-time hours to help keep their courts from collapsing under their own weight. The Senate is effectively strangling parts of the judicial system.

“They’re a co-equal branch,” [Carl] Tobias [a scholar of federal judicial selection at the University of Richmond School of Law] said. “Especially in Texas or the border states or the eastern district of California, these judges are just overwhelmed. They carry huge caseloads.”

The good news is, the federal government won’t shut down before the end of the current fiscal year on September 30, 2016. The bad news is, members of Congress snuck some awful provisions in the “omnibus” budget bill and package of tax cut or tax credit extensions that just cleared the U.S. House and Senate. You know leaders aren’t proud when they bury news about a deal during another event occupying the political world’s attention, in this case Tuesday night’s Republican presidential debate. I enclose below background on key provisions in the bills, as well as statements from the Iowans in Congress. I will update this post as needed.

The House held separate votes on the “tax extenders” and the omnibus. Republicans were nearly united in support of the tax bill (confusingly named “On Concurring in Senate Amdt with Amdt Specified in Section 3(b) of H.Res. 566”), which passed yesterday by 318 votes to 109 (roll call). The Democratic caucus was split; Naomi Jagoda and Cristina Marcos reported for The Hill that House Democratic leaders “opposed the tax package” but “did not whip their members against it.” Republicans Rod Blum (IA-01), David Young (IA-03), and Steve King (IA-04) all voted for the tax extenders; so did Democratic Representative Dave Loebsack (IA-02), one of 77 House Democrats to do so.

Loebsack was the only Iowan to vote for the omnibus bill, which easily passed this morning by 316 votes to 113 (roll call). Most of the Democratic caucus supported the bill that keeps the federal government open for at least nine more months; just 18 Democrats voted against it.

Although House Speaker Paul Ryan and his team persuaded 150 Republicans to vote for the budget measure, 95 Republicans opposed it, including all three Iowans. Blum and Young appear to have concluded that the bill was simply too expensive. King’s main objection was that none of his nine amendments were included in the final deal. Click through to read the texts of those amendments, which would have barred the use of appropriated funds for: enforcing the 2010 Affordable Care Act (health care reform law); implementing President Barack Obama’s executive orders to provide temporary protection against deportation for some immigrants who entered the country without permission; enforcing the U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide; supporting any activities of Planned Parenthood Federation of America or any of its clinics, affiliates, or successors; implementing or enforcing any change to the U.S. EPA’s Waters of the United States rule; resettling refugees; implementing the multilateral deal struck earlier this year to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons; implementing any regulation that stemmed from the recent international agreement to combat climate change; or expanding the use of H-2B visas.

The Senate combined the tax extenders and budget bills into one package, which passed this morning by 65 votes to 33 (roll call). Iowa’s Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst both voted no; in the statements I’ve enclosed below, Grassley went into greater detail about his reasons for opposing the package. However, earlier this week he released a separate statement bragging about some of the provisions he helped to insert in the tax legislation. Members of Congress from both parties use that sleight of hand.

Among the presidential candidates, Bernie Sanders, Ted Cruz, and Rand Paul voted against the omnibus, Lindsey Graham voted for it, and unbelievably, Marco Rubio missed the vote. What is wrong with this guy? He “has missed more than half of the Senate’s votes since October,” Jordain Carney reported for The Hill. I think not showing up for Senate work will hurt Rubio in Iowa, though not having a strong field operation will hurt him more.

The Senate is now adjourned until January 11 and the House until January 5. During the winter recess, Bleeding Heartland will catch up on some of the Iowa Congressional voting not covered here during the late summer and fall.

Iowa politicians from both parties may disagree on hundreds of policy issues, but they have long been united in supporting the biofuels industry. Iowa’s elected officials expressed outrage in late 2013, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed reducing the Renewable Fuel Standard, a “federal program that requires transportation fuel sold in the United States to contain a minimum volume of renewable fuels.” Governor Terry Branstad and then-Representative Bruce Braley were among those who urged the EPA not to reduce the amount of ethanol required. Political pressure eventually delayed the EPA’s action on adjusting the Renewable Fuel Standard.

Yesterday the EPA released the final version of the RFS. More details, background and supporting documents on the rule are available here. The final standards for 2014 and 2015 “reflect the actual amount of domestic biofuel used in those years, and standards for 2016 (and 2017 for biodiesel) […] represent significant growth over historical levels.” They rule also sets higher goals than those the EPA proposed earlier this year. Christopher Doering reported for the Des Moines Register,

Janet McCabe, the acting assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, said in an interview the ethanol quotas follow Congress’ intent to promote the increased use of renewable fuels. She said slower-than-expected growth in the nascent cellulosic ethanol industry and lower gasoline demand made the 2007 figures from Congress no longer achievable.

These numbers will “really drive the volumes significantly beyond where they have been in the last couple of years, which is what Congress intended, and that’s substantial growth, achievable growth,” McCabe said. “The industry is going to really have to push to achieve these, but it provides the signal they’ve been asking for. I think when people look at the numbers they will see that this really is very good for the industry.”

Nevertheless, Iowa politicians expressed strong disapproval yesterday of the EPA’s final rule. I’ve enclosed below statements from the governor’s office and several members of Congress and will update this post as needed.

Once you venture outside political circles, you can find Iowa voices questioning the consensus about federal policy on biofuels. At a January 2014 hearing organized by Branstad, Francis Thicke was the only speaker “to talk about the ‘other side’ of ethanol,” arguing that it is “disingenuous to frame the debate on the Renewable Fuels Standards (RFS) as a struggle between farmers and Big Oil.” Bleeding Heartland user black desert nomad also defended the EPA’s planned update to the RFS. Whereas elected officials tend to cite Renewable Fuels Association statistics as gospel, Iowa State University economist Dave Swenson has questioned industry claims regarding biofuels production and job creation.

Yesterday Governor Terry Branstad joined the club of 24 governors (23 Republicans and a Democrat) who have said their states will not accept refugees from Syria. They don’t have the power to block resettlement of refugees within their state borders, any more than pandering presidential candidates would be able to adopt unconstitutional religion-based criteria for deciding which people to allow into this country.

Still, Branstad’s knee-jerk reaction to Friday’s terrorist attacks in Paris is a disappointing retreat from the more reasonable stance he took earlier this fall on refugees from Syria coming to Iowa.

Former State Representative Ray Zirkelbach is officially exploring a candidacy for U.S. Senate in 2016, James Q. Lynch reported for the Cedar Rapids Gazette on November 7.

Although the field is getting crowded — former legislators Bob Krause of Fairfield and Tom Fiegen of Clarence, and State Sen. Rob Hogg of Cedar Rapids have all entered the race — Zirkelbach, 37, believes he’ll be the Democratic Party’s best candidate to defeat [Senator Chuck] Grassley. His ideas will set him apart from the others, Zirkelbach said. […]

“It’s about progress,” he said.

First elected to the Iowa House in 2004, Zirkelbach served three terms before losing his 2010 re-election bid. He missed the 2006 and 2007 legislative sessions, because his Iowa Army National Guard unit had been called up to serve in Iraq.

I have not seen a website or Facebook page for Zirkelbach’s U.S. Senate exploratory committee yet, but will update this post as needed. In lieu of an up to date official bio, I have posted the “member profile” that appeared on the Iowa House Democrats website during Zirkelbach’s third term. Zirkelbach’s Twitter account hasn’t been active since 2009; his personal Facebook feed is here.

I struggle to understand why Zirkelbach would run for Senate when we already have three progressive Democrats in the field, including one (Hogg) with a much stronger background of legislative accomplishments.

Meanwhile, to my knowledge, Democrats have no declared candidate against GOP State Representative Lee Hein in Iowa House district 96, where Zirkelbach lives (a map is at the end of this post). Hein defeated Zirkelbach in the 2010 wave election, and Democrats didn’t field a challenger against him in 2012 or 2014. Taking on the incoming House Agriculture Committee chair would be a long-shot race; House district 96 leans to the GOP with 4,386 active registered Democrats, 5,761 Republicans, and 8,483 no-party voters according to the latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office. But Zirkelbach would be much better positioned to defeat Hein than Grassley.

UPDATE: Pat Rynard spoke to Zirkelbach about his Senate bid. Added excerpts to that post below.

President Barack Obama announced yesterday that he is rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have transported tar sands oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast of the U.S. Earlier in the week, TransCanada had asked the Obama administration to suspend its review of the pipeline project, presumably hoping to “delay the review process in hopes that a more sympathetic Republican administration will move into the White House in 2017.”

I enclose below the full text of the president’s statement on Keystone and reaction from members of Iowa’s Congressional delegation. U.S. Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst sharply criticized the decision, as did Republican Representative David Young (IA-03). I have not seen any comment from GOP Representatives Rod Blum (IA-01) or Steve King (IA-04) but will update this post as needed. King is currently visiting the Middle East. Both he and Blum have consistently backed the Keystone XL project.

Democratic Representative Dave Loebsack (IA-02) refrained from criticizing the president’s decision, instead calling on politicians to “focus on the issues that are important to the American people.” Loebsack’s voting record on Keystone XL is mixed, but earlier this year he twice supported a bill that would have authorized the pipeline. (Obama vetoed that legislation.)

All three Democratic presidential candidates welcomed the news about Keystone’s demise, while most of the GOP field denounced Obama’s decision.

The USA Today reported that Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement, “The critical factor in my determination was this: moving forward with this project would significantly undermine our ability to continue leading the world in combating climate change.” Kerry’s outstanding lifelong voting record on environmental issues was a major reason I became a precinct captain for him before the 2004 Iowa caucuses and continued to volunteer during that year’s general election campaign. I wish he had acted much sooner on Keystone XL, but better late than never. He doesn’t seem to have entirely convinced the president, though; speaking yesterday, Obama asserted that the pipeline would not have been “the express lane to climate disaster proclaimed” by climate hawks.

I enclose at the end of this post a joint statement from Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement and the Bakken Pipeline Resistance Coalition, which called on “all the other pipelines proposed from the Tar Sands of Canada and the Bakken Oil fields of North Dakota” to be rejected on the same grounds as Keystone XL. Energy analyst Aurelien Windenberger published an interesting commentary this week questioning whether the Dakota Access (Bakken) Pipeline even makes “economic sense” anymore for parent company Energy Transfer Partners. Click here for more background on the Bakken proposal.

UPDATE: Added below a statement from Pat Murphy, one of the Democratic candidates in Iowa’s first Congressional district.

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio is treading on dangerous ground by continuing to avoid the Capitol when he already has missed more votes than most of his colleagues. Last week, he cast his first vote in nearly a month, then skipped several more roll calls to go back on the presidential campaign trail. Rubio apparently feels he can frame his poor attendance as a virtue. “Frustrated” by the ineffective Senate, he prioritizes running for president “so that the votes they take in the Senate are actually meaningful again.”

I doubt that argument will convince many politically engaged people, judging by comments I’ve seen in news accounts and on social media. It’s particularly ill-suited for Iowans, who have been primed to value a good attendance record and to view missed work in Congress as a major character flaw.

Former U.S. Senator Jim Webb ended his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination today. Warning that “The very nature of our democracy is under siege due to the power structure and the money that finances both political parties,” Webb said he will spend the next few weeks deciding whether to run for president as an independent. He still believes he “can provide the best leadership” to meet the country’s challenges and intends “to remain fully engaged in the debates that are facing us.”

Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, who was the Libertarian Party’s presidential nominee in 2012, recently estimated that getting on the ballot in all 50 states would cost about $8 million and would require a lot of organizational work. Webb asserted today, “I have no doubt that if I ran as an independent we would have significant financial help.” But his presidential campaign raised less than $700,000 during the entire third quarter. Nor did Webb build much of an organization, even in the early-nominating states.

Webb could devote the next year to seeking ballot access and public attention, winning a few percent of the vote in the best-case scenario. Or, he could influence a salient public policy debate that is close to his heart with a much smaller investment of his time and other people’s money.

State Senator Brad Zaun endorsed Donald Trump for president last week.

What will he think of next?

If past experience is any guide, nothing that reflects a coherent political philosophy, and nothing that will help him attain the higher office he covets.

State Senator Jason Schultz continues to lead the charge against Iowa accepting any refugees from war-torn Syria. He gained attention last month for warning on a popular conservative talk radio program that migrants from the Middle East “want to live under Sharia law,” and their presence would constitute “an invasion” spreading Muslim “ideology by force.” This week, Schultz beat the drum again as a guest on Jan Mickelson’s WHO Radio program.  

Yesterday Senator Chuck Grassley stood with colleagues from both parties to unveil the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015. President Barack Obama advocated for criminal justice reform in this year’s State of the Union address, but six months ago, prospects for any progress toward that goal seemed dim. All paths to passing such a bill led through the Senate Judiciary Committee, which Grassley chairs. As Senator Richard Durbin noted yesterday, Grassley had been “very skeptical” about criminal justice reform and “said so repeatedly.” For example, Grassley delivered a harsh Senate floor speech in March, accusing the “leniency industrial complex” of misleading people about “nonviolent” or “low level” drug offenders. Who would have guessed the same man would stand up now to hail this “landmark piece of legislation” as the “biggest criminal justice reform in a generation” and the product of “a very thoughtful bipartisan deliberation by the Congress”?

I enclose below a summary of the Sentencing Reform and Correction Act’s key points, along with a press release with links to the full bill text and a section-by-section analysis. I also included several perspectives on the bill’s value. Reform advocates have generally embraced the step; the non-profit Sentencing Project called it “momentous legislation,” ending the “disastrous era of ‘tough on crime’ politics.” On the other hand, Shane Bauer argued in Mother Jones that the bill “doesn’t live up to its own hype.”

Scroll to the end of this post to read the full text of Grassley’s March 10 floor speech, which underscores how hard his colleagues on the Judiciary Committee had to work to bring the chairman around.

Any relevant comments are welcome in this thread. I’ve never found much to admire about tea party hero Senator Mike Lee of Utah, but all credit to him for making criminal justice reform a priority. At yesterday’s press conference, he recalled a story that ignited his passion to work for change. When Lee was an assistant U.S. attorney, a case came to his office involving a father of two in his mid-20s. The man had “made some mistakes,” selling marijuana three times over a 72-hour period while carrying a gun. He was slapped with a 55-year mandatory minimum sentence. “I don’t mean to condone what he did,” Lee said, “but I’ve never met anyone who thought a 55-year sentence was appropriate in that case. He’s going to be in jail until he’s 80.”

On the last day of the 2015 fiscal year, both houses of Congress passed a “clean” continuing resolution to fund the federal government through December 11. Conservative Republicans failed to add language ending all federal funding for Planned Parenthood. The White House has said President Barack Obama would veto any continuing resolution that did not include funds for the health care provider.

Senate leaders gave up this fight for the time being after a September 24 cloture motion on a short-term spending bill that excluded Planned Parenthood fell well short of the 60 votes needed. Iowa’s Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst both supported that bill, but it only gained 47 votes in favor.

Yesterday the U.S. Senate advanced a short-term continuing resolution without special language about Planned Parenthood. This time the cloture motion passed easily by 77 votes to 19 (roll call), with Grassley and Ernst both voting in favor. Today’s vote on the continuing resolution itself was 78 to 20; again Grassley and Ernst supported the measure. In a conference call with Iowa reporters today, Grassley indicated that a partial government shutdown, as occurred in October 2013, would be costly: “We shouldn’t do anything silly to add to the bad fiscal situation the federal government is in.”

Of the senators who are running for president, Bernie Sanders voted for the continuing resolution. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz voted against it; Cruz fought a lonely battle yesterday “to add a one-year ban on federal funding for Planned Parenthood” to the resolution. Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham were on the campaign trail and missed these important votes.

Later this afternoon, the House approved the continuing resolution by 277 to 151 (roll call). All the Democrats present voted yes, including Representative Dave Loebsack (IA-02). Iowa’s House Republicans split with David Young (IA-03) joining 90 other GOP members in support of the resolution. Rod Blum (IA-01) and Steve King (IA-04) were among the 151 no votes. Earlier today, King had submitted four amendments to the continuing resolution in the House Rules Committee. In a statement I’ve enclosed in full below, King said his amendments would “restore Article I authority” to Congress by defunding Planned Parenthood, the Iran nuclear deal, President Obama’s executive orders on deferring deportations for some immigrants brought to this country illegally, and the 2010 health care reform law. However, King did not manage to get his amendments added to the continuing resolution.

I’ve enclosed political reaction to today’s votes after the jump and will update this post as needed with comments from other members of the Iowa delegation. Blum is spinning his vote against the resolution as a stand against “back room deals” and kicking the can down the road, as opposed to a vote for shutting down the government.

On Monday the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released the final version of “stronger protections for the nation’s two million agricultural workers and their families working on farms, forests, nurseries, and greenhouses. These revisions to the 1992 Agricultural Worker Protection Standard will afford farmworkers similar health protections that are already afforded to workers in other industries.” Under the old rules, exposure to chemicals incurred “an estimated $10 million to $15 million in annual health costs” among farm workers The new rules do not cover “persons working with livestock” and exempt “farm owners and their immediate family with an expanded definition of family.” I’ve enclosed after the jump a fact sheet summarizing key changes, a short summary of the public health case for the rule, and a graphic that shows the old and new rules side by side. Click here for the EPA’s press release on the changes and here for a more detailed five-page chart.

Fruit and vegetable farming isn’t a huge industry in Iowa like it is in states with longer growing seasons, such as California or Florida. Still, Iowa farms have been producing more of what some call “specialty crops” as more consumers here seek out local food. Moreover, expanding fruit and vegetable production in Iowa has potential to create jobs and increase local incomes, according to this 2010 paper by Iowa State University economist Dave Swenson. So I sought comment from the Iowans in Congress on the new regulations. At this writing, I have not heard back from the offices of House Representatives Rod Blum (IA-01), Dave Loebsack (IA-02), David Young (IA-03), or Steve King (IA-04). I also haven’t received a comment from Senator Chuck Grassley. Senator Joni Ernst’s communications director sent the following:

Senator Ernst believes that once again the Obama Administration is overstepping its bounds, expanding onerous regulations that fail to consider the full impact on stakeholders, like Iowa’s agriculture industry. The EPA is continuing to act as an unchecked federal agency, adding burdensome new rules and costs. In addition, the EPA completely ignores the safety progress that has already been made under existing guidelines for our youth.

Iowa politicians tend to be hostile to any new regulation affecting farms or other agricultural facilities. Most of Iowa’s federal representatives opposed the U.S. Department of Labor’s efforts in 2011 to update protections for children on working farms. Every Iowan in Congress except for Senator Tom Harkin welcomed the department’s decision to withdraw that rule in April 2012.

A spokesperson for Governor Terry Branstad said they don’t have a reaction to the new farm worker safety rule yet but will evaluate it “in its entirety.” I can’t think of a time Branstad supported any regulation of farming practices, so I assume he will not be favorably disposed toward the new EPA rule. But if he’s serious about making Iowa the “healthiest state,” reducing unnecessary exposure to pesticides would be a worthy goal to embrace.

A bill to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy failed to overcome a U.S. Senate filibuster on September 22. Iowa Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst were among the 54 senators (51 Republicans and three Democrats) who supported cloture on the motion to proceed to debating the bill. But under Senate rules, 60 votes are needed for cloture. Republicans Mark Kirk of Illinois and Susan Collins of Maine joined 40 members of the Democratic caucus in opposing the motion. Collins cited problems with the legislation’s wording on exceptions for rape and incest and the “glaring deficiency” of providing “no exceptions for when the physical health of the mother is at risk of serious harm.”

In a Senate floor statement, Grassley claimed the bill was “aimed at protecting women and children.” He repeatedly cited the testimony of one gynecologist who used to perform abortions but became an anti-abortion activist after a family tragedy. While speaking in favor of the bill, Ernst recounted one Newton, Iowa family’s story of having a son who survived an early premature birth, asserting, “As Micah proves, babies at five months can survive outside of the womb.”

Grassley and Ernst appear ignorant about the circumstances that typically lead to abortions later in pregnancy.

Only about 1 percent of pregnancy terminations happen after 20 weeks gestation. Most abortion providers (including Planned Parenthood of the Heartland’s Iowa clinics and the Emma Goldman clinic in Iowa City) do not terminate pregnancies after 20 weeks. Many women seeking abortions after that point have discovered fetal abnormalities incompatible with life outside the womb, as described here and here, or they have a serious health condition making it dangerous to continue the pregnancy. The happy experience of Micah’s family does not “prove” that other women could have the same outcome if they continued a life-threatening pregnancy or carried to full term a fetus missing vital organs.

Other reasons for women to seek abortions after 20 weeks include domestic violence and logistical delays in accessing abortion earlier in pregnancy. The federal government and states should address those problems in other ways that do not limit women’s right to make their own medical decisions.

After the jump I’ve enclosed the full texts of Senate speeches by Grassley and Ernst about the so-called “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.” I also included comments from Ernst after the Senate vote as well as the Guttmacher Institute’s case against the legislation.

P.S.- Ernst quoted Micah’s mother, Danielle Pickering: “I bet that if Micah could have gone up to everyone who opposes the bill and give them a big hug, he could change all of their minds.” I would suggest that Ms. Pickering open her mind by talking to women like Christy Zink or Danielle Deaver.  

After two months of exploring a candidacy, Democratic State Senator Rob Hogg will make his bid for U.S. Senate official tomorrow, launching a three-day tour of twelve Iowa communities. His full announcement and tour schedule is after the jump. Hogg will kick off the campaign in Callender (Webster County), “a community 15 miles southwest of Fort Dodge.”

“I will be making my announcement in Callender as a symbol of my support for small towns and rural Iowa,” Hogg said.  “I am also announcing in Callender because my grandmother was born in Callender in 1902 and family is important to me.”

Former State Senator Tom Fiegen and former State Representative Bob Krause are also seeking the Senate nomination and have appeared at numerous local Democratic events this year. Krause and Fiegen competed in the 2010 IA-Sen primary, finishing well behind Roxanne Conlin in that contest. This year, Fiegen is branding himself as a “Bernie Sanders Democrat,” posting far more frequently on social media about the Sanders presidential effort than about his own Senate bid. Whether Democratic activists who are “feeling the Bern” will translate into a large base of support for Fiegen after the Iowa caucuses remains to be seen.

Although both Krause and Fiegen promote progressive values and policies, I plan to support Hogg in the Democratic primary. He has been fighting good fights in the Iowa legislature since 2003, sometimes battling bad legislation that had strong backing in his own caucus.

Whoever he may be, the eventual nominee will have an uphill battle against six-term incumbent Senator Chuck Grassley. Not only will the Senate Judiciary Committee chair likely be able to outspend his opponent, he has never lost an election and still has strong favorability numbers, according to most opinion polls. Speaking to Roll Call’s Tom Curry last week, Iowa’s senior senator speculated that Hogg would be the most difficult challenger for him to face: “I know him a little bit, not very much, but he will be a strong competitor.”

This afternoon Democrats in the U.S. Senate blocked a motion to disapprove the deal the U.S. and five other countries reached with Iran in July. All 54 Republicans and four Democrats voted for the disapproval measure, which needed 60 votes to proceed under Senate rules. GOP leaders plan to return to the issue next week, but they are unlikely to change the minds of the 42 Democrats who upheld today’s filibuster. The U.S. House is expected to pass a disapproval motion, but without Senate action, President Barack Obama will not be forced to veto the measure.

Iowa’s Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst both voted for the bill that allowed Congress to weigh in on the Iran deal. Both were skeptical when the Obama administration announced the agreement. Yesterday and today, both delivered Senate floor speeches explaining why they oppose the deal. You can watch Grassley’s speech here and Ernst’s here. I enclose below full transcripts released by each senator’s office.

Incidentally, Ernst’s campaign committee is list-building off the issue. At the end of this post, I enclose an e-mail blast that went out minutes before the Senate voted.

UPDATE: Added below a statement Ernst’s office released after the vote.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

Saturday was the final day for politicians to speak at the Des Moines Register’s Iowa State Fair “soapbox.” You can view all of this year’s videos here. Heckling was the running theme from yesterday’s appearances. O.Kay Henderson summarized the incidents at Radio Iowa.

I have zero sympathy for Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, whom protesters repeatedly interrupted to demand more Democratic presidential debates. Wasserman-Schultz had nothing new to say on the soapbox–certainly nothing as newsworthy as the DNC’s asinine policy limiting the presidential candidates to only six sanctioned debates, with the threat of exclusion if they participate in any unsanctioned ones. The DNC’s position serves no public interest whatsoever. It only creates the appearance of the party establishment putting a thumb on the scale for current front-runner Hillary Clinton. All Democrats, including Clinton, could benefit from starting the debates before October. In sharp contrast to the Donald Trump freak show dominating the other side’s discourse, Democrats have five (perhaps soon to be six) candidates who can talk intelligently about policy.

A group of protesters from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals provided some drama by storming the soapbox while New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was taking questions. Tactics like those make PETA one of the most ineffective advocacy organizations I’ve seen. Christie deserves criticism for vetoing a New Jersey ban on gestation crates for sows, which passed with massive bipartisan support. But PETA only managed to generate sympathy for the governor. He came up with a great line after law enforcement pulled the animal rights activists off-stage:

“I have to tell you the truth when something like that happens and I’m here in Iowa, man, I feel right at home. It feels like I’m back in Jersey for a couple of minutes, so thank you, Iowa, for doing that,” Christie said to cheers from the crowd.

On the other hand, a little heckling that doesn’t go over the top can throw a candidate off his or her game. The best example was the Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement member who got Mitt Romney to say, “Corporations are people, my friend,” at the 2011 Iowa State Fair. Democrats across the country eagerly made use of Romney’s gaffe. Within a matter of weeks, though, Iowa CCI members’ heckling of Senator Chuck Grassley at a town-hall in Carroll drew criticism from Iowa Democratic Party leaders for going too far.

Politically engaged people tend to have strong feelings about what kinds of protests are appropriate. Pat Rynard used unusually harsh language to condemn the activists who disrupted Wasserman-Schultz’s speech. John Deeth has long expressed contempt for Iowa CCI’s “counterproductive” tactics. Though I’ve never heckled a politician at a public event, my take on what I viewed as the Iowa Democratic Party’s “hippie-punching” of Iowa CCI generated one of the most heated comment threads in Bleeding Heartland’s eight-year history.

When, if ever, do you think heckling is a justified and/or effective political tactic?

Actions can be illegal. People are not illegal. Which is why I was disappointed to see yet another reference to “illegals” in a Radio Iowa headline this week.

The news service has substantial agenda-setting power in the Iowa media world, with more than 50 affiliate stations around the state. Over the years, too many Radio Iowa reports have applied the word “illegal” to people, either in headlines (“Marion Mayor wants police to track down illegals”) or when paraphrasing a politician (“[Rick Perry] says the federal resources have to be used in the right way to stop the inflow of illegals”). While Representative Steve King is famous for applying dehumanizing language to people who didn’t immigrate through legal channels, that’s no excuse for headlines like “Congressman King says Gang of Eight bill is almost complete amnesty for illegals.”

Even when the newsmaker used more appropriate language, Radio Iowa has sometimes fallen back on stigmatizing shorthand. Iowa Department of Transportation Director Paul Trombino spoke about driver’s licenses for “foreign nationals,” but Radio Iowa’s headline read, “DOT won’t approve licenses for illegals on deferred action status.” When the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa promised to “vigorously pursue all legal options to change” DOT policy, noting that people with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status “are authorized to be here by the federal government,” Radio Iowa’s headline read, “Iowa ACLU will try to overturn DOT’s ruling on licenses for illegals.”

The latest example involved a story titled, “Senator Grassley wants action on Cuban illegals with criminal records” (a screenshot is after the jump). A few hours after I called attention to the issue, the headline was revised to “Senator Grassley wants action on Cuban ‘aliens’ with criminal records.” Here’s hoping Radio Iowa will enact new editorial standards, perhaps drawing on Associated Press or New York Times guidelines for covering such stories.

Note: neither the AP nor the New York Times approves of “undocumented immigrants,” a term advocacy groups (and Bleeding Heartland) use regularly. The news organizations prefer descriptive phrasing such as “someone living in a country without legal permission,” or “someone who enters, lives in or works in the United States without proper legal authorization.”  

The first Republican presidential debates did not affect U.S. Senator Joni Ernst’s plans to remain neutral before the 2016 Iowa caucuses.  

U.S. Senator Joni Ernst’s bill seeking to end all federal funding for Planned Parenthood failed to reach the 60-vote threshold today to pass a cloture motion for proceeding to debate. Background and details on today’s vote are after the jump, along with the full text of the legislation and some Iowa political reaction to the Planned Parenthood funding controversy.

UPDATE: Added more comments from Senator Chuck Grassley. The Senate Judiciary Committee chairman is spearheading an inquiry into Planned Parenthood’s fetal tissue donation practices. Whereas Ernst would end all federal funding for Planned Parenthood immediately, Grassley appears open to continuing to fund the organization, depending on the findings from that investigation.  

Late last week the U.S. House voted to “withhold certain federal law enforcement grants to cities that have policies designed to shelter illegal immigrants from deportation,” Cristina Marcos reported for The Hill. The “Enforce the Law for Sanctuary Cities Act” passed on a mostly party-line vote of 241 to 179 (roll call). Iowa Republicans Rod Blum (IA-01), David Young (IA-03), and Steve King (IA-04) voted for the bill, while Democrat Dave Loebsack (IA-02) voted against it.

King is a leading voice for House conservatives on immigration policy, some of whom wanted the sanctuary cities bill to go further. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy helped bring the Iowa Republican on board last week by promising “to bring enforcement immigration legislation to the floor after August,” Seung Min Kim reported for Politico, citing an e-mail King sent to fellow House members. What a change from two years ago, when King was battling to stop House leaders from bringing up the Senate-approved comprehensive immigration reform bill.

Senator Chuck Grassley has introduced legislation in the upper chamber to target “sanctuary cities” and presided over a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing to discuss his bill on July 21, Mike Lillis reported. “There is no good rationale for noncooperation between the feds and state and local law enforcement,” according to Grassley. A White House statement indicated that President Barack Obama would veto such legislation and urged Congress to give the president’s 2014 executive orders on immigration “a chance to work,” because they prioritize deporting “the worst offenders”–in contrast to the “coercive approach” of the House bill on sanctuary cities.

The term “sanctuary city” has no precise legal definition. No Iowa municipality has embraced the label, although Iowa City officials have considered the issue in recent years. Some maps of sanctuary cities do not show any existing in Iowa, while others list many Iowa locations where county officials will not honor a detainer from U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement without a judge’s approval. Incidentally, that policy doesn’t just apply to a few liberal enclaves; county jails in rural, conservative areas like Ida, Monona, Greene, and Franklin counties have adopted the same approach.

UPDATE: Forgot to mention that in June, King offered an amendment to the Justice Department appropriations bill that “prohibits Justice Department grants from being used for policies employed by sanctuary cities to shelter illegal immigrants.” King’s amendment passed with support from fellow Iowa Republicans Blum and Young; Loebsack and every other Democrat present voted against it.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

The Americans With Disabilities Act took effect 25 years ago this week. How many laws have changed the country for the better as much as Senator Tom Harkin’s greatest achievement? The ADA helped millions of people who might have been housebound–like my friend who was able to run errands or take her son to the park, even though she was confined to a wheelchair. Judy Schmidt, who chairs the Iowa Democratic Party’s Disability Caucus, shared how the ADA has affected her in a guest column for the Cedar Rapids Gazette. I’ve enclosed excerpts after the jump. Bleeding Heartland posted more background and links about the law to mark its 20th anniversary. For the record, Iowa’s senior Senator Chuck Grassley also voted for the final version of the ADA, as did most of his fellow Republicans. UPDATE: Added below excerpts from Harkin’s guest editorial in the Sunday Des Moines Register.

Donald Trump has led the last five national polls of Republican voters and is rising in stature in Iowa, if you believe the latest surveys of likely GOP caucus-goers. Follow me after the jump for details.

I brought my kids to Bernie Sanders’ town-hall in West Des Moines on Friday night. My reflections on that event are at the end of this post.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

All five Democratic presidential candidates appeared at the Iowa Democratic Party’s Hall of Fame dinner in Cedar Rapids on Friday night. I’ve posted below my impressions from the speeches; you can watch the videos on C-SPAN. It’s a shame the venue couldn’t accommodate more people, because lots of interested Iowa Democrats were unable to get tickets for the event.

Before the Hall of Fame dinner, I spent some time with an old friend who’s a huge Hillary Clinton supporter. Huge, as in, she didn’t take down her Hillary yard sign until the grass was long enough to need mowing in the spring of 2008. She mentioned to me that she’s relieved to see Clinton working hard this year instead of “ignoring” Iowa like last time. When I told my friend that Hillary visited Iowa more than 30 times in 2007, spending all or part of 70 days in the state, she was surprised. I’m amazed by how many Iowans have bought into the media-constructed narrative that Clinton “bombed” in the caucuses because she took the state for granted.

Ten Republican presidential candidates came to Ames on Saturday for the Family Leadership Summit organized by Bob Vander Plaats’ FAMiLY Leader organization. C-SPAN posted all of those speeches here. As usual, Donald Trump sucked up most of the oxygen in the room by questioning whether Senator John McCain had been a hero during the Vietnam War. O.Kay Henderson posted the audio at Radio Iowa. Rival presidential candidates with the exception of Ted Cruz rushed to condemn Trump’s remarks. Some of the Family Leadership Summit attendees may have been more upset by Trump’s comments about his three marriages and his admission that when he’s done something wrong, “I don’t bring God into that picture.”

President Barack Obama announced this morning a deal aimed at preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Negotiators representing the U.S., Russian Federation, United Kingdom, France, China and Germany were involved in the talks. You can read the full text of the deal on the Washington Post’s website. The United Nations will drop its sanctions on Iran, provided that country complies with the agreement, including granting international inspectors access to all nuclear sites.

Most of Iowa’s Congressional delegation has already reacted to the news. I’ve enclosed their comments below and will update this post as needed. This spring, all four Iowans in the U.S. House and both of our U.S. senators voted for a bill Obama signed into law, which allows Congress to vote to approve or disapprove any deal with Iran. Speaking to reporters today, the president said, “I welcome scrutiny of the details of this agreement,” adding “that he would veto any legislation that tried to prevent its implementation.” Opponents of the deal would need to override that veto with a two-thirds vote in both chambers of Congress; so far, just under half the U.S. senate appears inclined to block the deal.  

Democratic State Senator Rob Hogg announced today,

I have formed an exploratory committee to consider becoming a candidate for the United States Senate in 2016.  Like many Iowans, I believe we need Congress to work better for all of our citizens and our country’s future.  If we had a Congress that worked better, we could:

> Build a vibrant, full-employment economy that works for all Americans.

> Improve public health and public safety through prevention, prevention, and more prevention.

> Strengthen Social Security and Medicare and fulfill our commitments to seniors, veterans, and people living with disabilities.

> Confront the challenge of our century – climate change – through solutions that work for our economy, our health, and our environment.

Hogg didn’t set a timetable for deciding on a U.S. Senate bid but said he will travel around Iowa in the coming weeks. His full press release and official bio are after the jump. His exploratory committee is on the web here. He’s on Twitter @SenatorRobHogg and on Facebook here.

Hogg was just re-elected to his third four-year term in the Iowa Senate last November, so he would not have to give up his legislative seat in order to run for U.S. Senate in 2016. Most recently, he has chaired the Iowa Senate Government Oversight Committee; before that, he chaired the Judiciary Committee. He is among the most outspoken Iowa lawmakers on climate change and other environmental issues.

Two Democrats have already announced plans to run against Grassley: former State Representative Bob Krause and former State Senator Tom Fiegen. They recently discussed their key issues with Mike Glover of the Iowa Daily Democrat. Krause and Fiegen also competed in the 2010 Democratic primary, which Roxanne Conlin won with about 77 percent of the vote.

UPDATE: Added below further comments from Hogg, via Iowa Starting Line.

In a 5-4 decision announced Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for same-sex couples to marry in all 50 states and ordered state governments to recognize same-sex marriages performed anywhere in the country. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion in Obergefell v Hodges, joined by Justices Elena Kagan, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Stephen Breyer. Each of the dissenting justices wrote a separate opinion; all are available in this pdf file after Kennedy’s opinion. Amy Howe explained the majority opinion in “Plain English” while Lyle Denniston posted a brief analysis.

Follow me after the jump for Iowa reaction on both sides of the marriage debate. Two years ago, Bleeding Heartland compiled Iowa politicians’ comments on the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Windsor, which struck down the federal ban on same-sex marriages but left state bans intact.

As a group, Iowa Democratic politicians are more enthusiastic and less cautious about welcoming marriage equality now than was the case in 2009, when the Iowa Supreme Court struck down our state’s Defense of Marriage Act. Many Iowa Republicans called for elected officials to overturn the 2009 Varnum v Brien ruling by passing a constitutional amendment, but reacting to the latest U.S. Supreme Court ruling, few in the Iowa GOP sounded hopeful that there was any chance to reinstate state bans on same-sex marriage.

I will update this post as needed.  

Some 40,000 Iowans will continue to receive federal subsidies for purchasing health insurance, thanks to a 6-3 U.S. Supreme Court opinion announced today. Plaintiffs in King v Burwell had argued that Congress intended for subsidies to be available only to Americans who purchased health insurance through state-run exchanges. Chief Justice John Roberts rejected that interpretation in his opinion (pdf), joined by Justices Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. Amy Howe explained the ruling in “plain English” at the SCOTUS blog, where Lyle Denniston wrote a separate analysis of the opinion.

Dissenting Justice Antonin Scalia accused his colleagues of changing “usual rules of statutory interpretation for the sake of the Affordable Care Act,” as the Supreme Court majority did (in his view) when it upheld the individual mandate to purchase health insurance in 2012.

A ruling for the plaintiffs in King v Burwell would not only have threatened health care access for roughly 6.4 million people who receive subsidies for health insurance purchased through the federal website Healthcare.gov. It could have caused cascading effects such as sharp premium increases for millions of Americans who do not qualify for subsidies but would nevertheless have been priced out of the health insurance market. In theory, Congress could have fixed the problem with a one-paragraph bill clarifying that people who buy insurance through the federal exchange qualified for subsidies, but most House and Senate Republicans appeared unwilling to go that route.

Today’s Supreme Court decision removes the only remaining threat to federal health insurance subsidies for eligible Iowans. Last month, several insurance companies applied to offer policies for 2016 to Iowans through the exchange. Only one provider did so for 2015, and if that company had pulled out of Iowa, health insurance subsidies would not have been available to anyone in our state for next year.

UPDATE: Added Iowa political reaction below. Note that several of the Republican statements renew a vow to repeal and replace “Obamacare.” Though destroying the system created by the 2010 health care reform law was transparently the goal of the King v Burwell plaintiffs, their lawyers maintained the charade that the lawsuit was only about getting the Obama administration to follow the Affordable Care Act.

Less than two weeks after an embarrassing defeat for President Barack Obama’s trade agenda, a trade promotion authority bill is headed to the president’s desk. The trade promotion authority legislation, often called “fast-track” or TPA,

will allow the White House to send trade deals to Congress for up-or-down votes. The Senate will not be able to filibuster them, and lawmakers will not have the power to amend them.

The expedited process, which lasts until 2018 and can be extended until 2021, greatly increases Obama’s chances of concluding negotiations on the TPP [12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership], which is a top goal of the president’s.

Follow me after the jump for details on how the Iowans in Congress voted on the latest trade-related bills. Bleeding Heartland covered the Iowans’ legislative maneuvering in late May and early June here. For background and context, I highly recommend David Dayen’s article for The American Prospect magazine, which covers the modern history of trade negotiations and how fast-track emerged some 40 years ago. Dayen also explores “the political transfer of power, away from Congress and into a potent but relatively obscure executive branch office: the United States Trade Representative (USTR).”

I also enclose below some Iowa reaction to the latest Congressional voting on trade. Representative Steve King (IA-04) highlighted one angle I hadn’t heard before, claiming victory because new language allegedly will prevent the president from negotiating provisions on climate change or immigration in trade agreements. UPDATE: Those provisions may not stay in the related bill King is counting on. More on that below.

“Alarming rates” of rape and sexual assault in the U.S. military, most of which go unpunished, are an ongoing scandal. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York has been the leading voice in the Senate for reforms to address the “vastly underreported” problem. Last year, Iowa Senators Chuck Grassley and Tom Harkin both supported a bill Gillibrand introduced, which would have taken sexual assault cases outside the military chain of command.

While former Representative Bruce Braley served in the U.S. House, he repeatedly introduced legislation aimed at reducing rates of sexual assault in the military and removing “decisions over investigating and prosecuting sexual assault allegations […] from the normal chain of command.” Braley’s guest at the 2014 State of the Union address was Service Women’s Action Network executive director Anu Bhagwati, whose group “has been at the center of the national effort to reform the military’s handling of military sexual assault.”

As the Republican nominee facing Braley in last year’s U.S. Senate campaign, Joni Ernst talked a good game on this issue. After disclosing that she had faced sexual harassment while serving in the Iowa National Guard, Ernst promised to support reforms that would remove sexual assault cases from the military chain of command, even if she got “push-back” from Pentagon leaders or GOP Senate colleagues. She also said ensuring “sexual crimes in the military are both independently investigated and prosecuted […] should not be a partisan issue, and as a woman in uniform, I know that we must act now.”

Last week, Ernst had a chance to walk the walk. Instead, she helped kill Gillibrand’s amendment to the 2016 defense authorization bill, going back on her campaign pledge and casting a rare vote in opposition to her fellow Iowa Republican Grassley.

Follow me after the jump for more background and details on Ernst’s broken promise.

The U.S. House voted yesterday to “repeal country-of-origin labeling requirements for beef, pork and chicken products.” The U.S. Department of Agriculture has required meat products to list the country of origin since 2009 and most recently revised the rule in 2013.

Multiple polls have found that some 90 percent of American adults support country-of-origin labeling for meat. U.S. courts have repeatedly upheld the rule. However, last October the World Trade Organization ruled in favor of a challenge brought by Canada and Mexico, saying the U.S. labeling rule unfairly discriminates against imported meat products. Last month the WTO rejected the U.S. appeal of that decision, though advocates of the rule say reduced consumer demand for imported meat stemmed from the “Great Recession” beginning in 2008, rather than from labeling requirements. A broad coalition of farm, labor, environmental, and consumer groups have long opposed any change to country-of-origin labeling. This week, 282 organizations urged the U.S. House not to repeal the rule, while more than 100 business and industry groups advocated repeal to avoid retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods.

Yesterday House members easily passed the Country of Origin Labeling Amendments Act of 2015 by 300 votes to 131 (roll call). Iowa Republicans Rod Blum (IA-01), David Young (IA-03), and Steve King (IA-04) were among the 234 GOP representatives to support the bill. The Democratic caucus was more divided, with 66 House members in favor of repealing the labeling rule and 121 opposed. Iowa’s Dave Loebsack (IA-02) voted against the bill.

Senator Chuck Grassley told reporters this week, “I’m still a supporter of COOL (country-of-origin labeling) but I also recognize the rule of law and international trade has to be respected and I want to respect it.” Cristina Marcos reported for The Hill, “The White House has not issued a Statement of Administration Policy regarding the [country-of-origin labeling] legislation.”

UPDATE: King spoke on the House floor in favor of this bill; you can view his remarks here. Among other things, he said the current labeling rule penalizes Iowa farmers raising pigs that were born in Canadian farrowing operations.

Two provisions of the Patriot Act and one other legal provision granting surveillance powers expired on Sunday night, as the U.S. Senate failed to pass either a short-term Patriot Act extension or the House-approved USA Freedom Act, which would revise parts of that law. Jamie Dupree wrote a good overview of the key points of contention, including the National Security Agency’s bulk data collection practices. Julian Hattem previews the next likely steps in the Senate and House (assuming the Senate approves an amended version of the USA Freedom Act this week). Carl Hulse analyzed the “lose-lose-lose result” for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who prefers not to curtail NSA surveillance powers but arguably “overplayed his hand.”

How Congress will resolve this dispute remains unclear, but we have learned one thing from the last ten days: Iowa’s Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst oppose the current bipartisan compromise on how to revise the Patriot Act. For Ernst, the expiring Patriot Act provisions “are critical to the safety and security of our country”–a view similar to Representative Steve King’s reasons for voting against “data disarmament” when the House considered the USA Freedom Act.

In Grassley’s more nuanced view, Congress should enact “meaningful reform by ending the NSA’s bulk collection of Americans’ telephone records under Section 215” of the Patriot Act, while allowing the government to gather such information in a targeted way. Grassley also objects to how the USA Freedom Act would reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.  

Details on the relevant Senate votes are after the jump, along with statements from Grassley and Ernst. I’ve also noted which Republican senators who are running for president supported either the USA Freedom Act or a short-term Patriot Act extension.

UPDATE: Grassley and Ernst split on June 2 as the Senate passed the USA Freedom Act. Details on their votes are below, along with their explanations. While Iowa’s two Republican senators have voted differently on a handful of amendments or motions related to consideration of other bills, today’s votes represent their first major policy disagreement since Ernst was sworn in.

Scroll to the end of this post for details on how the GOP presidential candidates voted today.

An important Congressional vote went unreported in the Des Moines Register this week, despite two lead editorials in the paper within the past month urging Congress to act on that very issue.

The disconnect provides a good example of a problem I flagged in this post about the Des Moines Register’s political coverage. Ever since the Register closed its Washington bureau, Iowans are less likely to know what our representatives in Congress are doing on our behalf.  

Today Democrats in the U.S. Senate blocked a motion to proceed to debating a “fast-track” bill that would allow President Barack Obama “to negotiate new trade deals without amendments from Congress.” Obama wants the authority so that he can negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, which most Congressional Democrats oppose. The motion to proceed to debating the Trade Promotion Authority bill gained just 52 votes in favor (roll call), well short of the 60 needed for cloture. All of the Senate Republicans support the fast-track bill, including Iowa’s Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst.

I enclose below statements from Grassley and Ernst on the trade issue and today’s failed vote. Grassley called on Obama to “put the bully pulpit of the presidency” behind expanding trade. Perhaps he is not aware that within the last week, the president has used White House meetings, phone calls from Vice President Joe Biden, a high-profile speech, and at least one media interview to bring his fellow Democrats on board with his trade agenda. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and Senator Elizabeth Warren have been leading the opposition to fast-track trade authority. After today’s vote, Obama met with ten Senate Democrats generally considered to be for expanded trade. Most of them would need to join Republicans to get to the 60 votes needed to proceed to debate or end debate on Senate bills.

Yesterday the U.S. Senate approved by 98 votes to 1 a bill that would let Congress vote to disapprove any agreement the U.S. may reach with Iran regarding that country’s nuclear program. Iowa’s The lone vote against the bill came from Senator Tom Cotton, who spearheaded a letter 47 GOP senators sent to Iranian leaders earlier this year. He argued that any deal with Iran should be a formal treaty subject to Senate ratification.

Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst both voted for the bill, although Grassley was one of only six senators (all Republicans) to vote against ending debate before the vote on final passage. I have not seen any statement from Grassley explaining why he voted against cloture but for the final bill anyway. I’ll update this post as needed.

After the jump I’ve enclosed a statement from Ernst as well as more details on the bill’s provisions and on failed attempts by presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio to offer amendments on the Senate floor.  

The U.S. Senate finally confirmed Loretta Lynch as attorney general today, more than five months after President Barack Obama nominated her and nearly two months after the Senate Judiciary Committee forwarded her nomination. The confirmation vote was held up in part because of a dispute over abortion-related language in a separate human trafficking bill. Senate Democrats filibustered that bill several times in March. Compromise wording that allowed both sides to claim victory led to a unanimous vote to approve the trafficking bill yesterday.

Lynch has had more than 50 senators backing her confirmation for some time, but whether her nomination could get to a final vote on the floor was another question. This morning, twenty Republicans joined the entire Democratic caucus to approve cloture on Lynch’s nomination by 66 votes to 34 (roll call). As expected, Iowa’s Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst voted against the motion; they’ve been on record for weeks opposing the attorney general nominee. According to a report by Alexander Bolton of The Hill, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell “worked quietly to round up more than 60 votes” for cloture in order to avoid “publicly validating” a rules change Democrats implemented in 2013, which allowed most presidential nominees to reach a floor vote with support from a simple majority of senators.

The Senate confirmed Lynch later today by 56 votes to 43 (roll call). The ten Republicans who supported her included four who are considered among the most vulnerable incumbents up for re-election in 2016. Grassley and Ernst voted no again. I enclose below Grassley’s floor statement explaining his opposition and Ernst’s official comment after the vote.

The three GOP presidential candidates now serving in the Senate–Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz–all voted against cloture on Lynch’s nomination. Paul and Rubio then voted against her confirmation, while Cruz was absent for that vote.

Dave Swenson

Senator John Thune, from my home state of South Dakota, has a degree in business and an MBA.  He knows little of tax math, incidence, or outcomes from what I can tell. Like many mouthpieces on many topics, he doesn’t let facts get in the way of a heartfelt story, though.  And the best story the GOP has spun over the last decade or so is the tale of woe and intrigue associated with the dreaded federal estate tax, which they’ve disingenuously rebranded as the “death tax.”

Thune co-sponsored the just-passed House bill to eliminate the federal estate tax and at that time said:

For too long the federal government has forced grieving families to pay a tax on their loved one’s life savings that has been built from income already taxed when originally earned. Currently more than 70 percent of family businesses do not survive to the second generation, and 90 percent of family businesses do not survive to the third generation.

Without citing one example, Thune intimated that the federal estate tax was destroying or would destroy businesses and was terrorizing grieving survivors.

Changes to entitlement programs rarely attract strong bipartisan support, but on Tuesday the U.S. Senate approved a bill to change how Medicare sets reimbursement rates for doctors by 92 votes to 8 (roll call). All of the no votes came from Republicans, but Iowa Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst both supported the bill. Follow me after the jump for background and details.

When State Senator Brad Zaun came out “110 percent” behind Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker for president recently, I inferred that Zaun probably won’t run for Congress again. But this week the Urbandale Republican told the Des Moines Register that he is keeping “all my options open” regarding a primary challenge to Representative David Young.

Iowa Republicans aren’t in the habit of seeking my advice, but for what it’s worth: Zaun should stop dreaming about representing the third Congressional district.