Many Iowa candidates filed their last financial disclosures before the June 5 primary on Friday. Those reports were required for anyone running for governor who raised $10,000 or more between May 15 and 29, for those seeking other statewide offices who raised at least $5,000 during the same time frame, and for state legislative candidates who raised at least $1,000.

Follow me after the jump for highlights on fundraising and spending by all the Democratic and Republican Iowa candidates for governor, state auditor, secretary of state, secretary of agriculture, attorney general, and state treasurer. Bleeding Heartland discussed the previous financial reports on the governor’s race here. Those covered campaign activity from January 1 through May 14.

A Republican activist charged this week that Jim Mowrer has broken state law by serving as treasurer of a federal political action committee while running for Iowa secretary of state.

That conduct may not be the only legal infraction related to Mowrer’s use of funds from federal committees to support his current candidacy.

Secretary of State Paul Pate amended his personal financial disclosure form on April 30 to add several previously unlisted businesses in the Cedar Rapids area. In a statement enclosed in full below, Pate said he decided to list “all of my business ventures” because “I believe transparency is a necessary component of good government.”

He asserted that his initial filing complied with Iowa law, noting that Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board executive director Megan Tooker said Pate need not provide more detail about companies that bought or developed commercial property during 2017.

Olivia Habinck is a Des Moines Area Community College student and president of the College and Young Democrats of Iowa. -promoted by desmoinesdem

On April 13 I participated in the Iowa Secretary of State’s Student Voter Engagement Summit. This was the second time in the past six months Secretary Paul Pate has invited college students to meet with his staff.

First, I would like say that I appreciate the effort to reach out to college students. It is great the people at the Secretary of State’s office want (or appear to want) to hear our feedback. We have made it clear they could be doing more to increase voter turnout in the state, especially with the new voter ID law.

But I am frustrated by top election officials’ overall lack of understanding of how this new voter ID law affects Iowans and specifically college students.

Secretary of State Paul Pate failed to list two companies he controls on his latest personal financial disclosure form, Ryan Foley reported for the Associated Press on April 17.

Instead of instructing Pate to correct his filing, Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board executive director Megan Tooker gave the incomplete form her blessing. She further suggested it would be unfair for her to require more detail from Pate after receiving a “media inquiry.”

Tooker and longtime board chair James Albert just gave every state official reason to believe they will be in the clear, even if watchdogs uncover material omissions on their personal disclosures.

Ron Corbett ended his Republican campaign for governor this morning after a Polk County District Court rejected his effort to be added to the GOP primary ballot.

Josh Hughes is a Drake University undergraduate and vice president of the I-35 school board. -promoted by desmoinesdem

There’s no question about it– 2018 is shaping up to be one of the most Democratic election years in nearly a decade. Polling and special election results all point to a significant advantage for Democrats in both voter preference and enthusiasm. It’s enough for most experts to consider the U.S. House a “tossup,” which is remarkable considering the gerrymandered playing field Democrats must compete on. Such a national political environment points to only one thing– the Iowa House of Representatives is in play too.

Secretary of State Paul Pate did not certify Theresa Greenfield’s candidacy in Iowa’s third Congressional district today, following advice from Attorney General Tom Miller. The Iowa Democratic Party’s Third District Central Committee voted on March 26 to designate Greenfield as an “additional primary election candidate.” Miller declined last week to issue a legal opinion on whether the relevant portion of Iowa code applies to Greenfield’s circumstances. But in an analysis released today, the attorney general said the statute is intended “to encourage and ensure contested primaries” and “is not a do-over provision” for candidates who failed to qualify for the ballot through ordinary means.

I’ve posted the full statement and legal analysis from the Attorney General’s office after the jump, along with a statement from Greenfield accepting Miller’s conclusion. She could have filed a lawsuit challenging Pate’s refusal to certify her, but she probably would not have succeeded for reasons Bleeding Heartland discussed here and here.

The big question mark now is where Greenfield’s prominent supporters, including major labor unions, will land. Three Democrats are competing for the chance to take on two-term Representative David Young: Cindy Axne, Pete D’Alessandro, and Eddie Mauro. Although they agree on many issues, they have been making very different cases to voters. Each has well-known advocates in Iowa Democratic circles.

Axne angered some Greenfield backers by lobbying the central committee not to invoke Iowa Code 43.23, whereas Mauro promised last week not to challenge efforts to add Greenfield to the ballot. D’Alessandro helped Greenfield during her mad dash to collect new signatures on March 16.

A state panel disqualified two prominent Republican candidates yesterday due to insufficient valid signatures on their nominating petitions. A leading Democratic contender for Congress would have suffered the same fate, had a party committee not bailed her out using a questionable legal loophole.

All of the candidates had been actively campaigning for months. Yet they failed to ensure that they could meet a straightforward, longstanding requirement to qualify for the ballot. Nothing like this should happen to another serious contender for public office in Iowa.

Members of the Iowa Democratic Party’s Third District Central Committee voted yesterday to use an obscure provision of state law to nominate Theresa Greenfield for the primary ballot. After about 30 minutes of debate, the committee narrowly supported a motion to add another candidate to the Congressional primary ballot (36 to 31, with two abstaining). A second motion, for Greenfield to be that additional candidate, passed 47 to 10, with six abstentions.

Before Greenfield’s name is added to the candidate list, an election panel consisting of Attorney General Tom Miller, Secretary of State Paul Pate, and State Auditor Mary Mosiman will likely consider an objection. Depending on the outcome, the panel’s decision may be challenged in court.

Central committee members were in an unenviable position; no matter how they voted, some activists would be upset. Unfortunately, the chosen path suggests that Iowa Democrats will abandon normal procedures if necessary to help a sympathetic candidate.

An election panel will consider tomorrow whether eight-term Representative Steve King’s campaign failed to meet the signature requirements to qualify for the GOP ballot in Iowa’s fourth Congressional district. Rival Republican candidate Cyndi Hanson filed the objection on March 23, citing two flaws with King’s nominating petitions.

The Libertarian candidate in Iowa’s third Congressional district has challenged the nomination petitions submitted by Governor Kim Reynolds and Representative David Young for the June 5 Republican primary. Bryan Jack Holder charges that Reynolds and Young collected many signatures on petitions that were not “substantially” in “the form prescribed by the state commissioner of elections.” He further claims the governor and U.S. House incumbent violated voters’ privacy rights by collecting personal information that was not redacted from petitions turned in to the Iowa Secretary of State’s office.

Although Holder is extremely unlikely to knock either Republican off the primary ballot, his objections may produce more clarity on how much Iowa candidates for state or federal offices can modify their nominating petitions.

The Iowa Democratic Party’s Third District Central Committee will meet on March 26 to consider whether to nominate Theresa Greenfield for the Congressional primary. But it’s far from a sure thing that committee members will vote to nominate Greenfield, or that such an action could withstand a legal challenge.

The Iowa Secretary of State’s office announced today that Theresa Greenfield’s campaign submitted fewer than 1,500 of the 1,790 signatures needed to qualify for the Democratic primary ballot in Iowa’s third Congressional district.

Whether you are celebrating or lamenting yesterday’s narrow defeat of a local option sales tax for Polk County, you should be worried by how many people attempting to cast ballots received inaccurate information about what Iowa’s new voter ID law requires.

In most midterm elections, the Iowa secretary of state race is a low-profile affair. Most Iowans know little about the job or the incumbent, since the secretary of state does not frequently make news.

This year may be different, as Secretary of State Paul Pate’s signature accomplishment–a law creating new barriers for eligible voters–generated tremendous controversy during and after the 2017 legislative session. Let America Vote, an organization former Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander created to fight voter suppression laws across the country, has had a staffer on the ground in Des Moines for months. Kander wrote in a guest column for the Quad-City Times in October, “Secretary Pate and Republicans in the Iowa legislature injected intense partisanship into the administration of elections. […] Their actions were wrong, which is why Let America Vote is opening an office in Iowa to make them answer for their bad choices.”

Two Democrats are competing for the chance to face Pate in November: Jim Mowrer and Deidre DeJear. Pate won by just 20,073 votes out of more than a million cast in the 2014 Republican landslide. Signs now point to strong Democratic mobilization in Iowa and nationally. So while Iowans tend to re-elect their incumbents, the electorate for this midterm could be less favorably structured for Pate than the 2014 voter universe, where Republicans had substantially higher turnout than Democrats.

Assuming both major-party nominees have the resources to get their messages out, the secretary of state race should be a close one. New disclosures on candidates’ 2017 fundraising and expenditures provide the first snapshot of each contender’s ability to run a statewide campaign.

Bleeding Heartland published 140 guest posts by 81 authors in 2016, a record since the blog’s creation in 2007.

I’m happy to report that the bar has been raised: 83 authors contributed 164 guest posts to this website during 2017. Their work covered an incredible range of local, statewide, and national topics.

Some contributors drew on their professional expertise and research, writing in a detached and analytical style. Others produced passionate and intensely personal commentaries, sometimes drawing on painful memories or family history.

Adam Kenworthy chairs the Iowa lawyer chapter of the American Constitution Society. -promoted by desmoinesdem

This post was originally supposed to be about Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate’s new FAQ page on the changes to Iowa’s voting law.

However, the Secretary of State’s Office just released a statement regarding its first round of mailings for Voter ID cards, and the more pressing issue is for all of us to be clear about what we need to do in 2018.

Remember how awful you felt on November 9, 2016, as you started to grasp what we were up against following the most devastating Iowa election in decades?

Would you believe the results could have been even worse?

Imagine Governor Terry Branstad appointing three right-wingers to the Iowa Supreme Court. It could have happened if conservative groups had targeted Chief Justice Mark Cady, Justice Brent Appel, and Justice Daryl Hecht with the resources and fervor they had applied against three justices in 2010.

“There’s not one Republican in this state that could win an election under the rules they gave us,” asserted AFSCME Council 61 President Danny Homan after the first round of public union recertification elections ended this week.

He was only slightly exaggerating.

A review of the last two general election results shows that Iowa’s capitol would be mostly devoid of office-holders if candidates for statewide and legislative races needed a majority vote among all their constituents–rather than a plurality among those who cast ballots–to be declared winners.

This afternoon’s public hearing at the Iowa Secretary of State’s office probably will not lead to any substantial revisions in the administrative rules proposed to implement Iowa’s new election law. While the bill was working its way through the legislature, neither Secretary of State Paul Pate nor Republican lawmakers acknowledged research from other states, indicating voter ID and signature verification requirements would suppress voting by some eligible citizens, especially in certain groups.

Nevertheless, the record from today’s hearing could become important in potential future court rulings on the law.

Gerry Hebert, one of the country’s top experts on voting rights law, told an audience in Des Moines last week that testimony at public hearings has sometimes been useful in litigation on other states’ voting restrictions. Speaking to Bleeding Heartland after that event, Hebert offered more specific suggestions on questions that would be helpful for citizens to ask today.

Iowans have a chance this Monday to weigh in on rules that will make it harder for some citizens to register to vote or cast a ballot, starting next year.

Iowa was among 21 states where hackers linked to the Russian government tried to obtain access to the election system during the 2016 campaign, Department of Homeland Security officials informed the Iowa Secretary of State’s office on September 22. The agency had previously declined to specify the targeted states.

Official communications from Secretary of State Paul Pate and Deputy Secretary of State Carol Olson did not mention any foreign connection and emphasized the positive, saying “bad actors” didn’t succeed in compromising the election system, and Iowa’s voter registration database remains secure.

Multiple news reports confirmed that intelligence officials had identified these 21 states in their investigation of scanning by “Russian government-linked cyber actors” last year. “Only Illinois reported that hackers had succeeded in breaching its voter systems,” according to an Associated Press story by Geoff Mulvihill and Jake Pearson. Arizona officials took that state’s registration database offline during the summer of 2016 while evaluating an attempted intrusion, believed to come from Russia. Cyber-attacks may have been connected to election-day malfunctions of e-pollbooks in a heavily Democratic county of North Carolina.

I enclose below written statements from Pate, Olson, and Jim Mowrer, one of two Democrats running for secretary of state. Mowrer asserted Pate “failed to take this threat seriously” and “has misled Iowans by claiming that no attempts were made to access Iowa’s election systems.” The other Democratic candidate, Deidre DeJear, linked to a Rachel Maddow segment about the news on her social media feeds, commenting, “This is not good, folks. There is no good reason why our current Secretary of State should neglect communicating important matters, regarding the security of our vote.”

Iowa Democrats are set to have their first competitive primary for secretary of state since 1998. Deidre DeJear launched her campaign last month on the 52nd anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, to symbolize her commitment to increasing voter participation.

DeJear spoke to Bleeding Heartland at length about her candidacy, and I’ve posted highlights from that interview after the jump, along with the audio and full transcript of her remarks to a Democratic audience in Grinnell. You can follow her campaign on the web, Facebook, and Twitter.

DeJear’s approach to the race is markedly different from that of Jim Mowrer, the other Democrat in the field. Mowrer came out swinging against Secretary of State Paul Pate, vowing “to say no to making it harder and more expensive to vote” and highlighting the failure to count nearly 6,000 votes in Dallas County last November. In contrast, DeJear says little about Pate in her campaign materials and stump speech. She didn’t bring up the Dallas County debacle in our interview either.

Pate is very unpopular among Democratic activists since pushing for new restrictions on voting that will create barriers for certain populations. Nor is the secretary of state well-liked by county auditors, some of whom have already endorsed Mowrer. I suspect many 2018 primary voters will be drawn to a candidate willing to take the fight to Pate, relentlessly.

On the other hand, DeJear’s more aspirational, positive message should resonate with Democrats who prefer candidates to talk about what they are for, not what they’re against. I look forward to following this race.

Vowing to fight for every vote to be counted and to “say no to making it harder and more expensive to vote,” Jim Mowrer launched his campaign for secretary of state on August 3. He is well-known to many Democrats as Representative Steve King’s 2014 opponent in the fourth Congressional district and Representative David Young’s challenger in the third district last year. Follow me after the jump for more on Mowrer’s case for his candidacy and against Secretary of State Paul Pate, including highlights from an interview with Bleeding Heartland.

Mowrer will have at least one competitor in the Democratic primary. Deidre DeJear launched her campaign on August 6. She’s on the web, Facebook, and Twitter. I recently spoke to DeJear about her background and goals and have a post in progress on her secretary of state campaign. Iowa Starting Line profiled her here.

State Representative Chris Hall of Sioux City has not ruled out the secretary of state race either, he told me in late July.

I’ve reached out to several county auditors who had floated the idea of challenging Pate in 2018. Polk County Auditor Jamie Fitzgerald told me he is no longer considering a run for higher office. Johnson County Auditor Travis Weipert announced on Facebook on August 3 that Mowrer “has my full backing.” UPDATE: Two more county auditors endorsed Mowrer on August 7. Scroll to the end of this post for details.

Nathan Blake, who had been thinking about this race, confirmed two weeks ago that he has decided against it.

Because I believe the most dangerous thing about the Trump Republican Party is its disdain for democracy and its corresponding voter suppression efforts, I had been planning to run for Secretary of State in 2018. However, in May Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller asked me to take on a new role as a Deputy Attorney General. I believe I can do the most good over the next few years working for AG Miller to stand up for the rule of law, keep Iowans safe, and protect consumers. While I won’t be running for anything this cycle, I’ll continue to fight for voting rights and other progressive policies and I’ll evaluate opportunities to serve in elected office in the future.

Bill Brauch likewise considered running for secretary of state but will not be a candidate for any office next year. Instead, he told me, he will continue volunteering as the Iowa Democratic Party’s Third District Chair.

How worried are Iowa Republicans about the special election in House district 82?

Worried enough to try to disqualify the Libertarian contender.

Secretary of State Paul Pate announced today that he will not share “personal voter information” with the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. Rather, his office will provide voter list data that are public records “if a request is made that complies with Iowa law.”

Democratic candidate Ray Stevens will not appear on the ballot for the June 27 special election in Iowa House district 22. He missed the deadline for filing paperwork with the Iowa Secretary of State’s office.

The episode should be a wake-up call for Democratic leaders at the county and state level.

Gary Kroeger was the Democratic nominee in Iowa House district 60 last year. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Allow me to show you a classic example of disingenuous political rhetoric. Known also as “mumbo jumbo” or more precisely as “lying.” It is language cleverly designed to appear as thoughtful, truthful, even generous. In reality, however, it is a dishonest form of communication because often a sinister objective has been disguised as compassionate, and in the best interests of all concerned.

I pause when Rep. Walt Rogers is the subject of my scorn, because he defeated me and my criticisms may appear as sour grapes. And, in fact, if that is the case, then I am guilty of the same lie that I am illuminating here. But, the simple the truth is, I don’t have that axe to grind. The statements that Rep. Rogers makes are exactly why I ran against him in the first place. His position on the following issue, and a host of others, are anathema to what I feel is the better course for our state.

Stung by criticism of his proposal to enact new voter ID and signature verification requirements, Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate accused some county auditors of pursuing a “partisan” agenda, as well as lobbing “blatant distortions,” “smears,” and “cheap shots.” Pate made the accusations during a legislative briefing for the Iowa State Association of County Auditors on March 9. Earlier that day, House Republicans had approved a version of Pate’s bill, ignoring feedback from many who warned the legislation would disenfranchise eligible voters.

At least four Democratic county auditors are considering running for secretary of state next year, largely because Pate has pushed for voter ID, Jason Noble reported for the Des Moines Register yesterday. Johnson County Auditor Travis Weipert, Polk County Auditor Jamie Fitzgerald, Clinton County Auditor Eric Van Lancker, and Scott County Auditor Roxanna Moritz will likely confer and “agree in advance on putting forward a single candidate,” they told Noble. Nathan Blake may also seek the Democratic nomination for secretary of state.

Pate didn’t call out any county auditors by name during his March 9 speech, but he sounded particularly enraged by Weipert, who has been a leading critic of the voter ID bill and testified against the proposal at a public hearing.

The Secretary of State’s Office made a recording of Pate’s remarks (which I requested on March 14) available to me only this morning. You can download the file through Dropbox. I enclose below my partial transcript. UPDATE: Embedded the video below, since the Dropbox link wasn’t working for some.

Johnson County Supervisor Kurt Friese weighs in on how the Republican voter ID bill, House File 516, will affect county budgets, and by extension property taxpayers. The bill is pending in the state House, after GOP senators passed a different version from the bill approved earlier in the lower chamber. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Voter fraud in Iowa, and more specifically voter impersonation, is so statistically insignificant that it is essentially non-existent. It has zero impact on the outcome of our elections. None. Nada. Zip. Bupkis.

Requiring voters to show ID at their polling place accomplishes exactly nothing to protect the integrity of the election. There is one thing it does accomplish, however: lower voter turnout, especially among minorities and the elderly. That is among the reasons why the Supreme Court blocked North Carolina’s version of the law ahead of last fall’s general election, and why it would likely do so with the Iowa proposal.

Before it comes to that, though, House File 516 will raise your property taxes in order to solve a non-existent problem.

The topic at hand was supposed to be Johnson County Auditor Travis Weipert announcing that he may run for Iowa secretary of state in 2018. In a March 19 press release, Weipert said, “I’ve been meeting with auditors of both parties across the state, and there’s wide agreement we need new leadership in the Secretary of State’s Office. […] We should be helping people vote, not making it harder.” Auditors are the top election administrators in Iowa’s 99 counties. Weipert has been an outspoken critic of Secretary of State Paul Pate’s proposal to enact new voter ID and signature verification requirements. The Republican-controlled Iowa House approved a version of Pate’s bill earlier this month.

Weipert has argued voter ID would disenfranchise some voters and create long lines at polling places. While working on a post about his possible challenge to Pate, I intended to include footage from the Johnson County auditor’s remarks at the March 6 public hearing on House File 516. I’d watched the whole hearing online. However, I couldn’t find Weipert anywhere in the video the Iowa House of Representatives posted on YouTube and on the legislature’s website.

Upon closer examination, I realized the official record of that hearing omitted the testimony of sixteen people, including Weipert.

Bare-knuckles partisanship is a running theme of the 2017 Iowa legislative session, so Thursday’s party-line House vote to approve new voting restrictions was unremarkable. Nor was it surprising that Republicans cut off floor debate before members discussed most of the Democratic amendments to House File 516. Before last month, House leaders hadn’t invoked the “time certain” procedural maneuver since March 2011. They’ve used it twice this year already: to destroy collective bargaining rights and now for the bill containing voter ID, signature verification, and other ways to make voting more difficult.

After listening to the March 6 public hearing and about half of the twelve hours House members debated the bill, I was struck by how Republicans stayed on the message we’ve heard from Secretary of State Paul Pate. No one will be unable to vote because of this bill, and everyone who needs a new voter ID card will get one for free.

At the hearing and on the Iowa House floor, numerous speakers offered specific examples of how the GOP proposal could prevent eligible voters from casting a ballot.

They might as well have been talking to a wall.

Elise Bauernfeind lays out one of many scenarios that could lead to a citizen’s vote not counting after Republicans enact voter ID legislation. -promoted by desmoinesdem

As a journalism and politics major at Drake University, my right to vote is extremely important to me.

That’s why I am deeply concerned about Secretary of State Paul Pate’s voter ID proposal now in play in the Iowa Legislature. If it had been in place during the elections last November, my right to vote likely would have been blocked—even though I am an eligible Iowa voter.

Pate’s bill, both as filed and as amended by the House State Government Committee, would reduce the types of ID people would be allowed to use to verify their identity prior to voting to just Iowa driver’s licenses, passports or military/veterans IDs. And that change would make it much more difficult and complicated for thousands of people—including myself—to vote.

Assistant Iowa Attorney General Nathan Blake is “seriously considering running” for Iowa secretary of state, he told Bleeding Heartland on March 6. “In the time of [President Donald] Trump, voting rights are at once more important than ever and under attack like never before,” he added. “It’s a daunting race, but Democrats need to contest it with a strong, well-funded candidate.” Blake plans to decide before this summer whether to run for the statewide office.

Earlier this evening, Blake spoke at a public hearing to oppose House File 516, which would create new barriers to voting through photo ID and signature verification requirements. He provided a copy of those comments, which I enclose below along with background on the potential candidate.

Blake ran for the Iowa Senate in 2014 but lost the Democratic primary to Tony Bisignano by an excruciating eighteen-vote margin. He has since filled a vacancy on the Des Moines School Board for part of one term and now serves on the City of Des Moines Zoning Board of Adjustment, the Polk County Democratic Central Committee, and the board of the Sherman Hill Association in his central Des Moines neighborhood.

Any comments about possible challengers to Secretary of State Paul Pate are welcome in this thread. A few county auditors in eastern Iowa are rumored to be considering the race. Someone needs to take the fight to a guy who postures about “election integrity” while his own office failed to realize that nearly 6,000 votes went uncounted in Iowa’s fastest-growing county last November.

Pate defeated Democrat Brad Anderson by about 20,000 votes (a roughly 2 percent margin) in the GOP wave of 2014.

UPDATE: A reader speculated that another possible challenger to Pate might be Bill Brauch, former director of the Consumer Protection Division in the Iowa Attorney General’s Office and the current chair of the Iowa Democratic Party’s Third District Central Committee. However, Brauch told Bleeding Heartland on March 7 that he has decided against running for secretary of state.

Republicans have already inflicted immeasurable harm on Iowans during the 2017 legislative session, taking rights away from more than 180,000 workers, slashing funding for higher education and human services, and approving the third-smallest K-12 school funding increase in four decades. The worst part is, they’re nowhere near finished.

Iowa Senate Minority Leader Rob Hogg has flagged twelve of the most destructive bills still alive in the GOP-controlled House and Senate. Any Iowan can attend public hearings scheduled for March 6 or 7 on four of those “dirty dozen” bills. Those who are unable to come to the Capitol in person can submit written comments on the legislation or contact Republican state representatives or senators directly by phone or e-mail.

Here’s what you need to know about the four bills most urgently requiring attention.

It was a busy week in Iowa politics, as state lawmakers raced the clock before the first “funnel” deadline on Friday. With few exceptions, non-appropriations bills not yet approved by at least one Iowa House or Senate committee are no longer eligible for consideration during the 2017 legislative session. For roundups of which bills are alive and dead, see James Q. Lynch’s story for the Cedar Rapids Gazette and the Des Moines Register article by William Petroski and Brianne Pfannenstiel. Bleeding Heartland covered the demise of the “personhood” bill here.

Some bills that didn’t clear the funnel may be attached to appropriations bills later. Republican State Senator Brad Zaun hopes to revive a medical cannabis proposal that way, Tony Leys reported for the Des Moines Register.

I enclose below Iowa Senate Minority Leader Rob Hogg’s post-funnel list of the “dirty dozen” bills that Democrats are most focused on blocking during the remainder of the legislative session.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome. I’d especially appreciate tips on newsworthy comments from today’s legislative forums around the state. A Democrat in Muscatine asked State Representative Gary Carlson this morning whether he had any evidence of election fraud and whether he would acknowledge that the Republican voter ID proposal is a voter suppression bill. Carlson told her, “I just want the right people to vote.” Probably more honest than he meant to be. John Deeth explained the latest disenfranchising provisions House Republicans want to attach to Secretary of State Paul Pate’s bill, now named House File 516.

Final note: although it was sunny and unseasonably warm today in Des Moines, only about 100 people showed up for the “Spirit of America” rally by the Capitol building. A much larger crowd came to the Capitol on a very cold Thursday in February to march against President Donald Trump’s “Muslim ban” and immigration executive orders. An estimated 26,000 turned out for the Iowa Women’s March at the same venue on a Saturday morning in January.

UPDATE: Added after the jump side by side photos of the Women’s March and today’s event. SECOND UPDATE: A reader sent me his photo (taken by a drone) of the crowd at the Capitol for the “Day Without Immigrants” rally on Thursday, February 16. Added below.

Zaun was the first speaker to the pro-Trump audience today, and he noted (accurately) that he was the first Iowa Republican elected official to endorse Trump for president. He didn’t mention that he had previously declared himself “110 percent behind” Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, whose campaign flamed out months before the Iowa caucuses. On caucus night, Trump finished third in the Senate district Zaun represents, behind Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.

UPDATE: Past and future presidential candidate Martin O’Malley was back in central Iowa on March 4, attending a fundraiser for State Senator Nate Boulton, among other events. O’Malley’s 2016 presidential campaign had a strong organization on the east side of Des Moines, which is part of Boulton’s district. The former governor of Maryland has visited Iowa regularly since the election, including stops in Davenport to support the special election campaigns of Jim Lykam for the Iowa Senate and Monica Kurth for the Iowa House.

To “avoid any questions about a potential conflict,” Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller will request that outside legal counsel defend the state against a public employee union’s legal challenge to Iowa’s new collective bargaining law. AFSCME, the largest labor union representing state workers, and four of its members filed suit on February 20, charging that House File 291 violates Iowa constitutional provisions on equal protection and non-interference in contracts. In a statement I enclose in full below, Miller said he will ask the Iowa Executive Council to approve other counsel for this case, because “the new collective bargaining law has the potential to existentially threaten the viability of public sector unions,” which have supported him in past campaigns.

The council is likely to approve Miller’s request. Its five members are Governor Terry Branstad, Secretary of State Paul Pate, State Treasurer Mike Fitzgerald, Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey, and State Auditor Mary Mosiman. Branstad’s spokesperson Ben Hammes told Barbara Rodriguez of the Associated Press, “[Miller] summed it up when he said that AFSCME had supported him in the past and he wants to avoid any questions about a potential conflict.”

The Attorney General’s Office defended the Branstad administration against a lawsuit challenging the closure of the Iowa Juvenile Home, for which AFSCME Iowa Council 61 President Danny Homan was a plaintiff. But outside counsel defended the state when Democratic lawmakers and Homan challenged the governor’s use of line-item vetoes to close Iowa Workforce Development offices.

Miller may need to ask outside counsel to be appointed if other labor unions and public employees file additional lawsuits challenging the collective bargaining law. Aside from the points raised by AFSCME, several other provisions may raise constitutional questions:

• The law bans automatic payroll deductions for labor union dues, while allowing such deductions to continue for professional association memberships or recurring charitable contributions.

• The law may violate free association rights by requiring unions to win a majority of all eligible voters, not just those who cast ballots, in order to stay certified.

• The law eliminates a quid pro quo contained in the first paragraph of Chapter 20, which could be seen as a due process violation.

ACLU of Iowa Policy Counsel Daniel Zeno explains why the secretary of state’s voter ID plan would disproportionately affect African-Americans. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate is pushing hard for a bill that would implement voter ID in Iowa. It’s bad enough that Secretary Pate’s proposal is discriminatory against African-American Iowans (more about that in a moment). But we also object to the manner in which he promotes his proposal by tokenizing a few prominent African-Americans, in a highly misleading way.

Voter ID laws like the one Pate proposes are part of an ongoing strategy to roll back decades of progress on voting rights. These laws deprive many voters, including many African-Americans, of their right to vote, reduce participation, and stand in direct opposition to our country’s trend of including more Americans in the democratic process. These laws create more hoops for people to jump through simply to exercise their constitutionally protected right to vote. Voter ID laws are especially tragic since the type of voter fraud they are purported to prevent – identity fraud – is all but nonexistent. And they cost states millions of dollars to implement.

Pate’s proposal would be one of the strictest in the country. It allows a voter to show only an Iowa driver’s license, passport or military ID to vote. Pate has said that voters would who don’t have one of the three IDs above will get a “free” voter ID card. But those cards would go only to those Iowans who are already registered—not all eligible Iowans.

We strongly oppose Pate’s proposal because it would deprive thousands of Iowans, including and perhaps especially, African-American Iowans, of their legal right to vote.

When I heard elections officials in Iowa’s fastest-growing county somehow failed to count 5,842 ballots from the 2016 general election, my first thought was that Dallas County Auditor Julia Helm should resign immediately, along with anyone else responsible for the “human error” that disenfranchised almost 13 percent of the county’s residents who cast ballots in the presidential election.

My second thought was that someone on Secretary of State Paul Pate’s staff should have suspected a problem much sooner when Iowa’s fastest-growing county reported only a few hundred more votes in November than in the 2012 general election.

Since Pat Rynard already covered that ground, I will focus on another concern: the Dallas County disaster could discourage Iowans from voting early in the future.