Iowans awaiting federal flood relief money will have to wait a little longer.

Congressional leaders thought they had a deal to approve $19.1 billion in disaster aid before the Memorial Day recess. The U.S. Senate passed the bill on May 23 by 85 votes to 8. (Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst both supported the measure and said they’d worked to secure “specific relief for farmers whose grain bins busted because of flooding.”) President Donald Trump was willing to sign the legislation. House passage seemed assured, so most representatives left town for the holiday weekend.

Then a first-term Republican from Texas used a procedural move to hold up the bill on May 24. While most of the blame lies with U.S. Representative Chip Roy and the GOP leaders who failed to dissuade him, top House Democrats should not have put themselves at the mercy of any member of the minority.

Osceola Mayor Thomas Kedley is the first declared Republican candidate in Iowa’s second Congressional district, Zachary Oren Smith was first to report for the Iowa City Press-Citizen on May 6. Kedley filed a statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission on May 3. At this writing I haven’t found a Congressional campaign website. The candidate is on Twitter @tjkedley and has a Facebook page for his mayoral campaign.

Kedley has been mayor of the Clarke County seat since 2015. He told Oren Smith his top priorities would be education, agriculture and a balanced budget.

Thomas Nelson of the Waterloo/Cedar Falls Courier was first to report last week that former U.S. Representative Rod Blum’s campaign has spent $11,365 on polling this year. Blum’s quarterly filing with the Federal Election Commission showed two disbursements to the candidate’s longtime pollster in early January.

The payments exceeded the $4,119 Blum for Congress owed The Polling Company at the end of December, indicating that Blum commissioned new surveys in the first district and wasn’t merely settling debts left over from the 2018 campaign.

While I have not been able to find details about the questions asked, his campaign likely tested voters’ views on key issues as well as approval and favorability numbers for himself and Representative Abby Finkenauer. Blum hasn’t ruled out running for office again. Nelson noted that he appeared at a Jones County GOP event on April 11.

No Republican has confirmed plans to run against Finkenauer. I see Blum as a weaker challenger than State Representative Ashley Hinson, who has said she’s considering the race and will make her intentions known after the legislative session ends.

Matt Sinovic is the executive director of Progress Iowa. -promoted by Laura Belin

This week, the Trump administration released its proposed budget for fiscal year 2020, which revives a call to repeal the Affordable Care Act and lays out massive cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, and the Department of Health and Human Services. The administration’s budget reveals just how steadfast it remains in trying to take away Americans’ health care.

Here are five things you need to know about Trump’s Health Care Sabotage Budget:

President Donald Trump will soon cast his first veto. The U.S. Senate approved on March 14 a resolution disapproving of Trump’s declaration of emergency powers. All 47 members of the Democratic caucus and twelve Republicans voted for the resolution (roll call). Iowa’s Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst were among the 41 Republicans to oppose terminating Trump’s power grab.

The U.S. House voted on February 26 to terminate President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency to build a wall that Congress repeatedly declined to authorize or fund. All 232 Democrats present, including Iowa’s Representatives Abby Finkenauer (IA-01), Dave Loebsack (IA-02), and Cindy Axne (IA-03) backed the resolution, joined by thirteen House Republicans (roll call). Representative Steve King (IA-04) was among 182 Republicans who opposed the joint resolution.

In statements enclosed in full below, Finkenauer, Axne, and Loebsack highlighted the need to defend the checks and balances prescribed by the U.S. Constitution, which grants spending power to Congress.

The National Emergencies Act requires a U.S. Senate vote within eighteen days on any House-approved joint resolution to terminate a presidential declaration. Three Senate Republicans have already pledged to vote for the resolution. More than half a dozen others criticized Trump’s decision and seem open to formally rejecting it.

Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst are not seen as potential supporters of this bipartisan effort. They have never defied the Trump administration and had little to say about the president’s power grab. But given their stature in the Republican caucus and their forceful denunciations of President Barack Obama’s executive actions, Iowa’s senators have an excellent opportunity to show some principles matter more to them than political loyalty.

Iowa is not among the sixteen states that filed suit yesterday to block what they called President Donald Trump’s “unconstitutional and unlawful scheme” to declare a national emergency in order to divert federal funds toward building a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.

Attorney General Tom Miller has joined dozens of multi-state legal actions challenging Trump administration policies, and his office has not ruled out joining this lawsuit, communications director Lynn Hicks told Bleeding Heartland on February 19.

“Whatever a national emergency may be, that’s not it,” tweeted experienced Supreme Court litigator Neal Katyal, after President Donald Trump admitted during his February 15 press conference, “I didn’t need to do this. But I’d rather do it much faster.”

The courts may stop Trump from using funds appropriated for other purposes to have the military build a wall along the southern border, which Congress has repeatedly declined to authorize. But the president’s warlord-like behavior can still do lasting harm to democratic institutions.

Iowa Republicans in Congress are either unconcerned about this “reckless disregard for the separation of powers” or cheering it on.

The federal government reopened as of 9:23 pm Eastern time on January 25. Earlier in the day, President Donald Trump retreated from his demand that any spending bill include money for a wall along the U.S. southern border.

Why cave now? For weeks, media around the country have been reporting on the hardship faced by some 800,000 federal workers and at least 1 million contractors going without pay. Trump changed course largely for two reasons: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi denied him permission to deliver a State of the Union address while the government was shut down, and several major east coast airports experienced delays on January 25 due to air traffic controller staff shortages.

Shortly after Trump announced his new position, the U.S. House and Senate approved by voice votes a continuing resolution to fund the government for three weeks. Congressional leaders and White House representatives will attempt to work out some kind of immigration compromise by February 15. The deal includes an extension and reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which expired near the beginning of the shutdown.

Clive native T.J. Foley is a Harvard College undergraduate. -promoted by Laura Belin

As shutdowns abound and federal workers around the country continue to celebrate the holidays without their paychecks, the fiscal practices of our state and federal government continue to destabilize economic outlook. Day after day, elected officials in Washington bicker about spending cuts and public expenditures with no end in sight, all from the supposed guardians of fiscal responsibility.

Democratic Representatives Abby Finkenauer (IA-01) and Cindy Axne (IA-03) joined a long list of “firsts” when they were sworn in on January 3. Iowa had never elected a woman to the U.S. House before 2018, but now women make up half of our state’s delegation. The “most diverse Congress in history” includes record numbers of women and members of religious, racial, ethnic, or LGBTQ groups that have not previously represented their states in Washington. Finkenauer also became the second-youngest woman to serve in Congress, after Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.

The first votes in the 116th Congress involved some drama within the Democratic caucus, but Iowans did not rock the boat.

The U.S. House approved a five-year farm bill on June 21 by 213 votes to 211, with support from Iowa GOP Representatives Rod Blum (IA-01), David Young (IA-03), and Steve King (IA-04). Every Democrat present, including Representative Dave Loebsack (IA-02), voted against the bill, as did 20 Republicans (roll call).

A conservative bloc had voted down the same legislation in May, seeking to force House Speaker Paul Ryan to schedule a vote on an immigration bill drafted by Robert Goodlatte. The tactic worked, in the sense that House leaders brought Goodlatte’s bill to the floor shortly before the farm bill. However, the immigration measure lacked the votes to pass the chamber.

According to Politico’s Catherine Boudreau, the legislation was “the first farm bill to pass either chamber with only one-party support,” because “Democrats revolted over its proposed changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, more commonly known as food stamps.”

The deal to keep the federal government open until March 23 revealed unusual fissures among Republicans who represent Iowa in Congress.

Eighty-one percent of Iowans consider it a “worthy goal” to provide a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants brought to this country as children, according to the latest statewide poll by Selzer & Co. for the Des Moines Register and Mediacom. The same survey indicates that 65 percent of Iowans support a path to citizenship for all undocumented immigrants.

An estimated 800,000 DREAMers (including 2,681 Iowans) are protected under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which President Barack Obama enacted in 2012. Some 11 million immigrants are thought to be living in the U.S. without legal authorization, including about 40,000 in Iowa.

All Iowans in Congress approved a resolution today to fund the federal government through February 8, with a six-year extension of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. President Donald Trump signed the legislation this evening, ending the partial government shutdown after three days. Senators Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley were part of the bipartisan majority that approved the deal by 81 votes to 18 (two Republicans and sixteen Democrats opposed). The U.S. House vote was not quite as lopsided: 266 votes in favor (241 Republicans and 25 Democrats) and 150 against (six Republicans and 144 Democrats). Representatives Rod Blum (IA-01), David Young (IA-03), and Steve King (IA-04) all voted for the bill.

The lone Democrat in Iowa’s delegation, Representative Dave Loebsack (IA-02), opposed last week’s short-term funding bill, saying “it is now past time for gimmicks that will only lead to another manufactured crisis in February. I remain prepared to stay in Washington and work until a long-term plan is in place.” Following today’s vote, he said in a statement enclosed in full below, “While I remain deeply skeptical that today’s agreement will actually lead to the change that is needed, it at least provides a framework to begin dealing with issues Iowans tell me they want addressed. I will support the effort in hopes that Congress can somehow do better.”

Congress failed to agree on a spending deal before midnight on January 20, setting a federal government shutdown in motion for the first time since October 2013.

House Republicans had approved a four-week continuing spending resolution on January 18, which met one of the key Democratic demands (a six-year reauthorization of the Children’s Health Insurance Program). However, that bill did not include a fix for the DREAMers facing possible deportation after the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program ends on March 5. It passed on a mostly party-line vote, with support from Iowa Republicans Rod Blum (IA-01), David Young (IA-03), and Steve King (IA-04). Democratic Representative Dave Loebsack (IA-02) voted for short-term spending resolutions in December but drew the line this week, explaining in a written statement,

While many Americans enjoy a peaceful Christmas with loved ones, hundreds of thousands of “DREAMers” who have lived in this country since childhood risk losing everything unless Congress acts before March 2018.

Democrats in the U.S. House and Senate, including Iowa’s Representative Dave Loebsack, just blew their best chance to provide some form of permanent legal status to these victims of a broken immigration system.

Promising to offer voters “a Republican alternative that is truly reflective of Iowa and the values we cherish,” Cyndi Hanson announced on December 5 that she will seek the GOP nomination in the fourth Congressional district.

U.S. Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst joined all but one of their Republican colleagues to approve a $1.5 trillion tax cut and health care policy overhaul late last night. Whereas Ernst had told Iowans, “I look forward to carefully reviewing tax reform legislation in the Senate,” the final vote “came after Senate Republicans frantically rewrote the multi-trillion dollar legislation behind closed doors to win over several final holdouts,” Politico reported.

Responding to Iowans who have contacted their offices about tax policy, U.S. Senate Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst have misrepresented how the latest Republican bill would affect lower and middle-income taxpayers.

Representatives Rod Blum (IA-01), David Young (IA-03), and Steve King (IA-04) joined most of their Republican colleagues in the U.S. House today to pass a tax bill that would greatly increase the federal deficit, conferring most of the benefits on corporations and people far wealthier than most Iowans. Tens of millions of low to moderate-income Americans would pay more in federal taxes if its provisions became law, because a number of tax credits and deductions would be scrapped or scaled back.

To cite just one example: ending a tax break for out-of-pocket medical expenses would have a “catastrophic effect on disabled people” as well as anyone who spends a substantial amount on chronic health conditions or fertility treatments.

Meanwhile, an estimated 203,000 Iowa children would be either fully or partially left out of the expanded Child Tax Credit included in the House bill. Repealing the estate tax, which applies “only to the value of an estate that exceeds $5.5 million per person ($11 million per couple),” would benefit about 70 Iowa families in 2018, some 0.2 percent of all estates.

House Republicans know their tax plan will cost many Americans more. For that reason, before bringing the bill to the floor–with no hearings–they waived a rule that “had been put in place to make it difficult to increase taxes.”

Representative Rod Blum (IA-01) was among 69 Republicans in the U.S. House who voted against a disaster relief bill today. Every Democrat present including Representative Dave Loebsack (IA-02) supported the legislation, as did most of the GOP caucus, including Representatives David Young (IA-03) and Steve King (IA-04). Niv Elis and Cristina Marcos reported for The Hill,

The package includes $18.7 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) disaster relief fund — including $4.9 billion for a disaster relief loan account — $16 billion to address national flood insurance program debt and $576.5 million for wildfire recovery efforts. It also provided $1.27 billion for disaster food assistance for Puerto Rico.

Congress will likely vote on more disaster relief funds later this fall, as costs pile up due to Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria, as well as wildfires in California and Oregon. According to Congressional reporter Jamie Dupree, “Florida lawmakers have already requested $27 billion in specific funding for the state; officials from Texas have asked for almost $19 billion.”

Blum’s district includes Cedar Rapids, which received substantial federal assistance after being devastated by flooding in 2008. At this writing, he has not explained his reasons for opposing today’s bill. Some Republicans were upset about the process, which did not allow for any votes on budget cuts to offset the new spending. Others wanted additional funding for the National Flood Insurance Program to come with strings attached. I will update this post as needed with comments from Blum, if any appear on his official website or his social media feeds.

All four Iowans in the U.S. House voted for a Hurricane Harvey aid package last month.

The U.S. House easily approved legislation on Friday to keep the Federal Emergency Management Agency from running out of Hurricane Harvey disaster relief money over the weekend. The same bill included a short-term debt ceiling hike and language to fund the federal government through December 8.

I was surprised to see all four of Iowa’s House members in the yes column (roll call). Both of our senators had voted against the Harvey aid package in the upper chamber. I expected Representative Steve King (IA-04) and possibly Representative Rod Blum (IA-01) to follow suit.

With only a few days left before the Federal Emergency Management Agency runs out of disaster relief funds, the U.S. Senate approved $15.25 billion in funding for those affected by Hurricane Harvey today. Eighty senators voted for the legislation, even though GOP lawmakers were said to be “furious” when President Donald Trump agreed yesterday to a Democratic proposal linking Harvey aid to a short-term debt ceiling hike and language to fund the federal government through December 8.

Iowa’s Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst were among the seventeen Republican senators who voted against today’s bill (roll call). In a statement enclosed in full below, Ernst said she supported a “clean” Hurricane Harvey relief bill, like the one U.S. House members approved on September 6 by 419 votes to 3. All four Iowans supported that bill: Republicans Rod Blum (IA-01), David Young (IA-03), and Steve King (IA-04), and Democrat Dave Loebsack (IA-02).

Carefully avoiding direct criticism of Trump, Ernst added in her statement, “Unfortunately a final deal was cut and while it includes initial relief funding, it also raises the debt limit and kicks the can down the road once again on our overall government spending levels. This is not the right way to legislate, and quite frankly, it is exactly what the American people are sick and tired of.”

I assume Grassley opposed the Harvey aid bill for similar reasons. At this writing, his office has not released a statement; I will update this post as needed with any public comment.

The Senate bill goes back to the House, where Democratic support is assured but a large number of Republicans will bolt over the debt ceiling hike and short-term spending resolution. I’ll be surprised if King or Blum votes for the bill; Young could go either way. UPDATE: All four Iowans voted for the revised bill in the U.S. House. I posted statements from King and Blum here.

It’s not abstract anymore.

We knew eliminating state funding for Planned Parenthood’s family planning services would cause thousands to lose access to basic health care.

We knew deep cuts to state funding for victims assistance would affect thousands of sexual assault and domestic abuse survivors.

Now we are starting to see which Iowans will be the first to suffer from Republican choices on how to spend the public’s money.

A federal government shutdown before October appears unlikely now that the U.S. House has approved a $1.1 trillion deal to fund the government through the current fiscal year. The roll call for the May 3 vote shows that Iowa’s Representatives David Young (IA-03) and Dave Loebsack (IA-02) were among the 131 Republicans and 178 Democrats to support the funding measure. Representatives Rod Blum (IA-01) and Steve King (IA-04) voted against it. Cristina Marcos reported for The Hill,

Democrats claimed victory over what the spending bill lacked: funding for the U.S.-Mexico border wall promised by President Trump, restrictions on federal grants for so-called “sanctuary cities” that shield immigrants from deportation and steep cuts to domestic programs proposed by the White House. […]

The legislation also includes an extension of health benefits for retired coal miners and $1.1 billion in disaster assistance. Funding for Planned Parenthood remains untouched.

Republicans, unable to otherwise advance many conservative policy priorities in the bill, touted the $15 billion increase for defense spending. That’s approximately half of the $30 billion in supplemental military spending requested by the Trump administration earlier this year.

It’s still a break from the Obama era, when Democrats insisted that any hike in defense spending had to be matched by an increase in non-defense programs.

Assuming the U.S. Senate passes the spending bill tomorrow, President Donald Trump can sign it before current funding expires on May 5. Trump seems to be itching for a government shutdown, but not just yet.

The other big news from the House is that Republican leaders now believe they have the votes to pass a health care reform bill on May 4. Young is among the high-profile flip-floppers on the American Health Care Act. In March, he opposed the bill, saying health care fixes must be “done in the right way, for the right reasons, and in the right amount of time it takes to ensure we avoid the mistakes of the past. We need to be thoughtful and deliberate and get this right to achieve accessible, affordable quality healthcare.” Over the past week, his staff have told hundreds of constituent callers (some as recently as today) that he opposed the bill.

But this afternoon, Young agreed to co-sponsor an amendment providing a pitiful extra $8 billion over five years–spread across an unknown number of states–to cover people with pre-existing conditions. Get this: the $8 billion would go to states that “apply for waivers allowing insurers to charge higher rates based on a person’s ‘health status’”–that is, states that let insurance companies gouge people with pre-existing conditions. Young has previously stated, “no one should be denied access to affordable healthcare because of a pre-existing condition.” He repeated that commitment in a recent meeting with Indivisible activists.

Aviva Aron-Dine of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities explained that “the $8 billion would restore less than 1 percent of the nearly $1 trillion the House bill cuts from programs that help people afford coverage.” Furthermore, “the House bill creates major problems for people with pre-existing conditions that the new funding doesn’t even purport to solve.”

Bleeding Heartland will have more to say on health care reform in a forthcoming post. For now, read Sarah Kliff on the absurdity of House Republicans voting for a bill that will affect millions of people and a huge portion of the U.S. economy, “without knowing how many people it covers or how much it would cost.” Nothing supports Young’s press release asserting that the new GOP proposal “will help make healthcare coverage less expensive than under current law […] and accessible for patients who need it most.”

Blum has not commented publicly on his plans, but Congress-watchers expect him to follow Young’s path, voting for a bill he claimed to oppose on principle six weeks ago.

First-person accounts of meetings with elected officials are always a good read. Thanks, Matt Chapman. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Friday afternoon, leaders of the Indivisible Central Iowa Leadership had a 30 minute meeting with Representative David Young. Tyler Higgs, Jess McCord, Bill Ekhardt, Jordan Hobfoll, Marie Herring, Mark Brooks and myself attended.

The topics scheduled for discussion were the repeal of the Affordable Care Act and its replacement with the American Health Care Act as well as the border wall with Mexico, two of the new president’s signature campaign promises during the election.

There is a transcript below with most of the Q & A. David Young is very approachable and easy to have discussions with. Like most political animals, getting some of the more controversial positions pinned down before a vote is taken can be difficult. If the goal is not to obfuscate but more a testing of which way the political wind is blowing, I think that’s a sign that positions can be moved. It is up to us then, either by having discussions or by just showing up to vote to get what we want and expect from our elected leaders.

Thanks to Stefanie Running for talking with Iowans who had hoped to question Senator Joni Ernst yesterday. -promoted by desmoinesdem

It was unusually warm for St. Patrick’s Day in Des Moines. Despite being spring break week for Drake University, the campus where Senator Joni Ernst chose to hold her town hall had remarkably little available parking. I arrived about 4:45 p.m., fifteen minutes prior to the start of the event, but was unable to join the throng inside; Sheslow Auditorium had reached capacity.

There were about 200 of us still outside, unsurprised but still disappointed. We were given the opportunity to fill out the question cards, the same as our comrades who made it inside. It was a consolation prize of sorts, knowing the questions wouldn’t be asked. A few people wrote their names and their questions, the rest either left or milled about. A few groups crowded around those who were playing live-streams the discussion on their phones.

I was able to speak to a handful of folks who had come to hear Ernst address their concerns, ask their own questions, or see if she actually engaged honestly.

Tom Witosky follows up on recent correspondence with his U.S. House representative. -promoted by desmoinesdem

March 13, 2017
Dear Congressman Young,

I am writing this open letter to you because the time is fast approaching when your words will be put to the test with your vote on the proposed American Health Care Act.

Make no mistake, the Republican majorities’ decision to amend key portions of the Affordable Care Act will change coverage for millions of us who have obtained insurance through federal or state exchanges.

In your Feb. 21 letter to me, you outlined your concerns about the current law and what you believed needed to be corrected with new legislation. Those concerns included:

“We need a healthcare law that works for all Iowans, the facts are that the current healthcare law works for some but it does not work for others.”

Analysis of this proposal by a variety of experts and expert groups – conservative and liberal — indicates strongly that the House proposal does nothing to provide a law “that works for all Iowans.”

A guest commentary by a committed activist who served on the Iowa Democratic Party Platform and Rules Committees and currently serves on a county central committee. -promoted by desmoinesdem

I believe in obeying the Constitution. The 14th Amendment says that debts of the USA shall not be questioned. Steve King–and most Republicans–voted to not raise the debt ceiling which would have put the government in default. That vote led to the downgrading of the government’s credit rating. The 14th amendment also guarantees equal protection under the law. But Republicans don’t think the Constitution applies to same sex couples who wish to marry. George W. Bush violated the constitutional rights of Americans by spying on them without a warrant. Democrats objected; Republicans didn’t. President Barack Obama nominated a replacement for the late Justice Scalia. Republicans senators refuse to do their duty and vote to confirm—or not—that nominee.

I don’t believe judges should legislate from the bench, but I do believe they must strike down laws that violate the Constitution. Republicans applauded the U.S. Supreme Court for striking down the Washington D.C. handgun law, but went nuts when the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously struck down the law banning gay marriage. Republicans agreed when activist justices on the U.S. Supreme Court created a new right for corporations to spend unlimited secret money to try to buy our elections with misleading TV ads; Democrats want that decision overturned.

Originalists, who claim that the Constitution must be interpreted as the Founding Fathers meant it, are contradicted by the Founding Fathers themselves.

Well, it looks like our own (your own?) Senator Joni Ernst has been spotlighted by Glen Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill and writer Jordan Smith at The Intercept: “Senator Joni Ernst Puts Planned Parenthood–and Access to Birth Control–on the Chopping Block.”

Looks like she’s set to be the face of the ‘defund Planned Parenthood’ contingent. I may be mistaken but I think she’s going to be facing a firestorm over this and Vander Plaats et.al. won’t be able to save her. Between this and Terry Branstad’s local destabilization of Medicaid, I seriously wonder how her rural constituents are going to take this.

Gary Kroeger explains why he’s not watching and waiting before speaking out against President Donald Trump. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Several times in the past few days people have said to me: “Give the guy a chance.”

They are annoyed that I jumped out of the box to criticize President Trump only one day after his inauguration. They have pointed out that I am usually more open-minded, and that I did, in fact, say that I would wait and watch before making judgments.

And I didn’t. Nope. When huge crowds gathered around the world to stand up for women’s rights because they felt diminished and threatened by the sexist, objectifying comments of an admitted “celebrity” predator, who became President of the United States of America, I felt the obligation to join the discordant chorus.

Governor Terry Branstad and Republican leaders in the Iowa House and Senate are finally poised to eliminate Planned Parenthood’s state funding, a cherished goal Democrats had repeatedly blocked in recent years.

Branstad said during his Condition of the State address on Tuesday that his budget “redirects family planning money to organizations that focus on providing health care for women and eliminates taxpayer funding for organizations that perform abortions.” House and Senate leaders likewise depict their plan as a simple change to reimburse different health care providers, creating “better options for more women.”

What Iowa Republicans don’t broadcast: they are setting the state up to spend ten times more on family planning services, without a reliable funding stream.

Howard County Democratic Party chair Laura Hubka is ready to fight. Who’s with her? -promoted by desmoinesdem

Does everyone else feel like they are in a dream? Not a nice cream filled donut dream but a jalapeno pepper, hot sauce and gasoline filled tart, a terrifying joke of a dream. One where you feel like you know all the players and the places but something is just off. Totally ridiculous and confusing. Its like we all went to bed after way too much to drink and are having a really bad nightmare. Up is down, down is up.

U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley announced on December 21 that he will continue to chair the Senate Judiciary Committee in the new Congress. In doing that job, his priorities will be “the hearings and confirmation process on executive branch nominations to the Department of Justice, starting with United States Attorney General nominee Jeff Sessions. The committee will also receive and process the nomination of a new Supreme Court justice. Grassley plans to focus on reforming the federal criminal justice system, conducting rigorous oversight of the FBI and Justice Department, ensuring the immigration laws are enforced, working to keep competition in the prescription drug market, reining in excessive government regulations, and protecting whistleblowers and the tools used to root out fraud against the federal government.”

Sessions can expect a less than “rigorous” vetting when Grassley’s committee takes up his nomination next month.

Austin Frerick, an Iowa native and economist who has worked at the Institute for Research on Poverty and the Congressional Research Service, examines state assistance to poor children 20 years after federal welfare reform. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Nine-year-old Kaylie moved into a cheap motel after her mother got evicted. They have no refrigerator. Kaylie retrieves ice from the ice machine and fills the sink with it to keep the milk cold. When they have milk. Kaylie is just one of the approximately 110,000 Iowa children living in poverty, up 44 percent since 2000. Frontline profiled Kaylie and several other poor Iowa children in the acclaimed episode “Poor Kids.”

This year marks the 20th anniversary of President Clinton’s Welfare Reform. Prior to the reform, any poor mother and child in this country received a monthly subsistence check. This law changed that. It destroyed that safety net. It removed this promise and left states free to almost eliminate welfare. Politicians promised innovation by devolving power to states on the premise that they would come up with new ways address poverty but that never happened (Iowa’s last innovation meeting occurred in 1996). They promised it would get poor mothers back to work, but the programs proved ineffective (Iowa allocates less than 6% of funding to job assistance).

Most welfare dollars don’t even go directly to poor children anymore. Most states, including Iowa, use this money to supplement funding elsewhere. Twenty years later, there are now more poor kids receiving less support. We have let the bottom fall even further for our most vulnerable.

Iowa should abandon its current failed welfare system and instead enact a Social Security program for all of its children. This idea builds on the simple notion that parents know what is best for their children, and it would remove layers of ineffective bureaucracy.

U.S. House and Senate members returned to work Tuesday, no better equipped to handle basic tasks of governance than they were before their unusually long summer recess.

You might think funding to combat a public health emergency would be easy to pass even in a hyper-partisan, election-year atmosphere. But you would be wrong, because legislation to pay for a Zika virus response remains tied up over “poison pills.”

Libertarian presidential candidate and former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson made his first Iowa campaign stop this year over the holiday weekend. His September 3 rally in Des Moines attracted hundreds of people, making it possibly the largest Libertarian event in Iowa history. You can watch his full speech at C-SPAN or Caffeinated Thoughts.

Johnson will qualify for the ballot in all 50 states and is consistently polling far better than the Green Party’s Jill Stein, the only other minor-party candidate routinely included in public opinion surveys. I continue to hear the Libertarian’s radio ads on various Des Moines-based stations and have seen pro-Johnson television commercials by the Purple PAC on some cable networks.

The four most recent Iowa polls measured Johnson’s support at 8 percent (Emerson College), 12 percent (Quinnipiac), 6 percent (Suffolk), and 12 percent (Marist). Polls have historically overstated support for third-party candidates. Nevertheless, if the competition between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump remains very close here, even a 2-3 percent showing for Johnson could determine who wins Iowa’s six electoral votes.

Though I wasn’t able to attend Saturday’s rally, listening to Johnson’s stump speech reinforced my view that he is on track to outperform all previous Libertarian presidential candidates in Iowa by a considerable margin.

The two most recent national polls of the presidential race showed unusually high levels of support for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson. In the NBC/Wall Street Journal survey conducted between June 19 and 23, presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton was backed by 39 percent of respondents, to 38 percent for presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, 10 percent for Johnson and 6 percent for Green Party candidate Jill Stein. An ABC/Washington Post poll in the field between June 20 and 23 found 47 percent of respondents for Clinton, 37 percent for Trump, 7 percent for Johnson, and 3 percent for Stein.

Even taking into account the reality that support for third-party candidates “usually diminishes over the course of the [U.S. presidential] campaign,” and third-party candidates have often received less than half as much support on election day as they did in nationwide surveys from June, Johnson has potential to shatter previous records for Libertarians. A former Republican governor of New Mexico, Johnson received 1,275,821 popular votes as the Libertarian presidential nominee in 2012, just under 1 percent of the nationwide vote. The best showing for a Libertarian ticket in terms of vote share was 1.06 percent (921,128 votes) in 1980 for Ed Clark and his running mate David Koch, better known as one half of the Koch brothers.

I haven’t seen any Iowa polls yet that gave respondents the option of choosing Stein or Johnson as alternatives to Clinton and Trump, but now seems like a good time to examine Libertarian presidential performance in Iowa over the last four decades and Johnson’s chances to improve on his 2012 results.

Dozens of U.S. House Democrats staged a protest in the House chamber yesterday, demanding a vote on gun control legislation. Shouting ensued when Speaker Paul Ryan gaveled the House back in for late-night votes after a recess that had lasted most of the day. The “#NoBillNoBreak” sit-in kept going overnight and continues this morning, even though House Republicans voted to adjourn until July 5 shortly after a 3 am vote on a Zika virus funding bill. UPDATE: Democrats ended the protest early Thursday afternoon.

Iowa’s Representative Dave Loebsack joined the sit-in late yesterday morning and stayed for much of the day. He returned to the House floor Wednesday evening, giving a short speech around 10 pm central time. O.Kay Henderson posted the full audio clip at Radio Iowa. My partial transcript is below.

I would prefer for the sit-in to be about legislation such as stronger background checks or an assault weapons ban, rather than the “no fly, no buy” bill that has grabbed the most attention since the Orlando massacre. But it is symbolically important for Democrats to stand up to the National Rifle Association and expose Republican cowardice on this issue. Eric Boehlert observed last night that in 1999, “31 Senate Republicans voted in favor of mandating background checks at gun shows,” and in 1994, “42 House Republicans voted for President Bill Clinton’s crime bill, which included a ban on assault weapons.” Now hardly any Congressional Republicans will back even the most popular gun control measures. Large majorities of Republicans and many gun owners support universal background checks, including for private gun sales.

Representative Steve King showed up in the House chamber Wednesday evening, around the time Loebsack spoke. Unlike his GOP colleague Louis Gohmert, King didn’t mix it up with Democrats. But a little before 2 am, he vented on Twitter, “I’ve had it with the gun grabbing Democrats and their sit in anti 2nd amendment jihad. I’m going to go home and buy a new gun.”

Apparently he is under the impression that Democrats get upset when someone buys a gun. As long as the purchase happens with an appropriate background check, I couldn’t care less if King prefers to spend money on additional firearms. I trust the congressman will store his new weapon appropriately, so his young grandchildren can’t get hold of it and hurt someone.