# Secretary Of State



Statewide candidates deserved better from Iowa Democratic Party

Democratic candidates for U.S. House, U.S Senate, and governor were given speaking time at the Iowa Democratic Party’s annual Liberty and Justice Celebration on April 30.

But the party’s three statewide elected officials and candidates for other statewide offices were relegated to pre-recorded videos. Even worse, those videos seemed designed for comic relief, rather than as a way for candidates to connect with hundreds of activists who attended the Des Moines fundraiser.

The missed opportunity was especially regrettable for Joel Miller and Eric Van Lancker, who are competing against each other in the June 7 primary for secretary of state.

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Lopsided governor's race imperils whole Democratic ticket

The filing deadline for campaign finance disclosures is always an exciting day for political reporters. My plan for this week was to write a series of posts about fundraising and spending for each of Iowa’s statewide races: governor, attorney general, state treasurer, secretary of state, state auditor, and secretary of agriculture.

I shifted gears after reviewing the latest reports for Governor Kim Reynolds and Deidre DeJear, the only Democrat actively campaigning for governor.

Unless things change dramatically in the coming months, Reynolds will be able to use most of her war chest to help down-ballot Republicans.

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Democrat Joel Miller running for secretary of state

Linn County Auditor Joel Miller confirmed on September 16 that he will seek the Democratic nomination for secretary of state, pledging to take the fight to Republican incumbent Paul Pate in order to “bring back trust and fairness in Iowa’s elections.”

Miller has served as auditor of Iowa’s second-largest county since 2007 and was most recently re-elected in 2020. He’s been exploring a bid for statewide office since late last year; he and Pate have clashed over numerous election administration issues, from absentee ballot drop boxes to absentee ballot request forms to voter list maintenance.

The auditor’s campaign announcement highlighted one of those battles, noting that Miller “made national headlines during the 2020 election when he was sued by President Donald Trump’s campaign for expanding voter participation and health and safety measures in the wake of the deadly Covid-19 pandemic.”

That lawsuit stemmed from the decision by three county auditors to defy a directive from Pate and fill in voters’ information on absentee ballot request forms mailed to all registered voters in their jurisdiction. A District Court judge invalidated the pre-filled forms, and the Iowa Supreme Court later agreed. Asked how he would respond to Republican critics who say the courts sided with them in the dispute, Miller told Bleeding Heartland via email, “I did the right thing. I would do it again. And if I’m elected, no county auditor will ever be in this position again because as Secretary of State, I will work to make voting easy again.”

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Democrat Eric Van Lancker running for secretary of state

Iowa Democrats have their first confirmed candidate for secretary of state in 2022. Clinton County Auditor Eric Van Lancker announced on September 15 that he will seek the office, saying in a news release that he has a “passion for helping my neighbors vote, backed up by experience and an understanding of how to run elections the right way.”

Alluding to Republican incumbent Paul Pate, Van Lancker said in the statement,

“Iowans have never needed a voting advocate more than they do at this moment […]”

“Voters pay for the election system and they deserve to have leadership that builds confidence in the system instead of undermining it for short-term political points,” Van Lancker said. “It is long past time for a County Auditor to return to the Secretary of State’s office. Iowa voters deserve a state commissioner of elections who knows what it is like to be on the front lines of an election and has respect and knowledge of the work precinct election officials perform during an election.”

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Linn County auditor exploring 2022 bid for Iowa secretary of state

Linn County Auditor Joel Miller may run for secretary of state next year, the Democrat announced on his blog January 30. Miller created an exploratory committee in November with the goal of recruiting “a current or former county auditor to run for Secretary of State in 2022 or to run for Secretary of State myself.”

If Miller runs for statewide office, he’ll transfer money raised by the exploratory committee to his campaign account. He plans to transfer any unspent funds to the Iowa Democratic Party if he decides not to challenge Republican incumbent Paul Pate.

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Lessons of 2018: Ending straight-ticket voting didn't change much

Fifth in a series interpreting the results of Iowa’s 2018 state and federal elections.

Republicans ended straight-ticket voting in Iowa last year as part of a law imposing several new barriers for voters. For months, I’ve been trying to work out how eliminating that option would affect this year’s outcome.

More than 400,000 Iowans filled in the Democratic or Republican oval on their 2014 general election ballot, which worked out to roughly 37 percent of those who participated. I expected a much larger “undervote” for lower-profile statewide offices or legislative races this year, as many who would have voted straight ticket marked their ballots for governor and Congress alone.

That didn’t happen.

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Iowa and national 2018 election results thread

Polls just closed in Iowa, and I will update this thread frequently throughout the night as results come in. Separate posts on some of the statewide and Congressional races will be forthcoming once the outcome is clear. The Secretary of State’s website is compiling vote totals here. Anecdotal evidence suggests turnout far exceeded 2014 levels on election day.

Early voting already set a record for an Iowa midterm election. This post includes tables showing absentee ballots requested and returned in all four Congressional districts from October 9 through November 6. The numbers aren’t quite final; absentee ballots can be hand-delivered to county auditors today, and ballots arriving by mail later this week can be counted with a postmark dated November 5 or earlier.

What we know: at least 538,043 Iowans voted before election day this year. The total early vote in 2014 was 465,166. Iowa Democrats cast 186,269 early ballots in 2014. As of this morning, 230,294 Democrats had already voted. Republicans cast 178,653 early ballots in 2014 and were at 189,961 this morning. Turnout among no-party Iowa voters typically drops sharply in non-presidential years. Four years ago, 99,491 independents cast ballots; the comparable number today is 114,878.

Earlier today, I reviewed the nine Iowa Senate races most likely to be competitive and 20 Iowa House races that will likely decide control of the lower chamber.

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"Fight for the best of who we are": Kamala Harris rallies Iowa Democrats

Hundreds of Iowa Democrats got their first chance to hear U.S. Senator Kamala Harris on October 22. On her first major swing through the state, the senator from California had a packed schedule, including:

  • a morning gathering with the Asian and Latino Coalition;
  • an Ankeny rally organized by Des Moines Area Community College students, also featuring Iowa House district 38 candidate Heather Matson, Iowa Senate district 19 candidate Amber Gustafson, and third Congressional district nominee Cindy Axne;
  • a late afternoon event in Indianola;
  • a private fundraiser for Axne; and finally
  • a speech to a room full of Polk County Democrats in Des Moines.
  • Though Harris is widely viewed as a potential 2020 presidential candidate, she kept her focus on the election happening November 6. I enclose below the full audio and partial transcript of the evening speech, which was similar to remarks Harris delivered earlier in the day.

    Whereas some politicians tend to use convoluted, run-on sentences, Harris was striking in how she used simple sentence construction and repetition to great effect.

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    Politico calls Rob Sand a "young Robert Mueller"

    I wholeheartedly agree with Ed Fallon: grassroots activists are excited about the Democratic candidates for state auditor and secretary of state. -promoted by desmoinesdem

    The excitement around November 6 is above and beyond what we normally experience leading up to an off-year election. Coast to coast, young, progressive candidates are fueling that excitement — as is growing discontent over President Trump’s reign of error. Even conservative voters are pulling away from the Tweeter in Chief over his:

    — Escalating trade war with China,
    — Support for pipelines and fracking,
    — Belief that “eminent domain is a wonderful thing,” and
    — Lack of a moral compass.

    In Iowa, two candidates firing up voters are Rob Sand, running for state auditor, and Deidre DeJear, running for secretary of state. Check out the great story about Rob and Deidre in Politico this week — and the entertaining comparison of Rob to Robert Mueller.

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    Third-party candidates on ballot for all Iowa federal, statewide races (updated)

    For the first time, at least one third-party candidate has qualified for every Congressional or statewide office in Iowa. Although third parties haven’t traditionally fared well in Iowa, Libertarians had their best showing ever here in 2016 and have nominated a record number of candidates for this November. Since several U.S. House or statewide races could be very close, even a small percentage of the vote for candidates other than the Democratic or Republican contenders could become significant.

    With the filing period for Iowa’s general election ballot closed as of 5:00 pm on August 25, it’s time for an overview of the landscape. The full candidate list is posted on the Iowa Secretary of State’s website. UPDATE: John Deeth notes that candidates may have filed on the last day, which wouldn’t be reflected on the version currently posted online. I will update as needed; the key point is that there will be no statewide or Congressional races in Iowa this year with only Republican and Democratic options on the ballot. SECOND UPDATE: The Secretary of State’s office uploaded an amended candidate list on August 27. No new candidates filed for statewide office, but one additional person qualified for the ballot in the fourth Congressional district. Scroll down for further details.

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    Court puts four new Iowa voting restrictions on hold (updated)

    A Polk County District Court has ordered that four voting restrictions Iowa Republicans enacted in 2017 will be on hold pending resolution of a lawsuit the League of United Latin American Citizens and Iowa State University student Taylor Blair filed in May. Plaintiffs had requested the temporary injunction, noting that the new law (House File 516) could disenfranchise eligible voters in various ways and would disproportionately harm Democrats, who are more likely to cast early ballots.

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    Jason Kander: If you come for our right to vote, we're coming for your job

    “Iowa is on the front lines of this fight for voting rights in America,” Former Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander told state Democratic convention delegates on June 16. “And I’m here because a threat to democracy anywhere in America is a threat to democracy everywhere in America.”

    The founder of Let America Vote was the only non-Iowan on the convention speaker’s list. His remarks were a highlight of the morning proceedings, so I’ve enclosed below the audio clip and full transcript. Among the memorable lines: “let’s send a message to every vote-suppressing politician in Iowa and across America that if you want to attack democracy, you’ve got to go through us. And if you want to come for our right to vote, we’re coming for your job.”

    Kander has visited our state more than a dozen times in the last year and a half, raising awareness about voter suppression and headlining events for Democratic candidates or progressive organizations. Let America Vote’s executive director Abe Rakov has been based in Des Moines since last fall.

    The group will particularly target the Iowa secretary of state race; Kander told reporters yesterday that Democratic nominee Deidre DeJear is “totally awesome.” (Fact check: true.) Let America Vote will also support some state legislative candidates. Last weekend they had interns out canvassing for four Democratic challengers in the suburbs of Des Moines: Heather Matson (House district 38), Karin Derry (House district 39), Kristin Sunde (House district 42), and Jennifer Konfrst (House district 43). Kander said on June 16 that Let America Vote has more than 40 interns on the ground in Iowa and knocked more than 7,000 doors here in the last five days.

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    Deidre DeJear will be a terrific secretary of state candidate

    Watch out, Paul Pate: Deidre DeJear just won the Democratic nomination for secretary of state. She will be a terrific candidate in the general election.

    Commentary about DeJear has often focused on her potential to make history. She is the first African American nominated by a major party for a statewide office in Iowa. That is obviously significant in a state where white people have long dominated government. But DeJear brings much more to the ticket than diversity.

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    2018 Iowa primary results: Early wins for Hubbell, Finkenauer, Axne

    Good news for Iowa political junkies who value sleep: there’s no need for an all-nighter to follow this year’s primary results. In the most closely-watched races, it was clear less than an hour after polls closed that Fred Hubbell will be the Democratic nominee against Governor Kim Reynolds, Abby Finkenauer will face off against Representative Rod Blum in Iowa’s first Congressional district, and Cindy Axne will challenge Representative David Young in the third Congressional district.

    I’ll update this post frequently throughout the evening as results are reported.

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    EMILY's List more engaged in Iowa primaries than ever (updated)

    In this record-setting year for Iowa women candidates, the country’s leading political action committee seeking to elect pro-choice, Democratic women has been more involved in Iowa primaries than ever before.

    EMILY’s List has long backed female Democratic candidates for state and federal offices in Iowa. But for the first time this year, the group’s political arm has been the biggest outside spender in Iowa Congressional primaries.

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    Where Iowa's statewide candidates stand financially before primary

    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.

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    Enter Bleeding Heartland's 2018 Iowa primary election prediction contest

    Has Iowa ever had a primary season more eventful than this year’s? It’s time for politics-watchers to take a stab at predicting the results of next Tuesday’s elections.

    No cash or other prizes are at stake, just bragging rights in the Bleeding Heartland community. No doubt 2016 primary election contest winner Josh Hughes will want to defend his title. Perhaps ModerateIADem, winner of the 2010 and 2012 primary election contests, will try for a comeback.

    Anyone can enter, whether you now live or have ever lived in Iowa. Just post a comment in this thread with your answers to the following ten questions sometime before 7 am central time on Tuesday, June 5.

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    First look at fundraising for the Iowa secretary of state race

    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.

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    Russian hackers targeted Iowa's election system

    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.”

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    "We can do better": Deidre DeJear's case for secretary of state

    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.

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    First look at Jim Mowrer's campaign for Iowa secretary of state

    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.

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    Paul Pate angered by county auditors' criticism of voter ID bill

    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.

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    Iowa House censored video of public hearing on voter ID bill

    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.

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    Nathan Blake may run for Iowa secretary of state in 2018

    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.

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    2014 election results discussion thread

    Polls across Iowa close in just a few minutes, and I’ll be updating this post with results throughout the evening. Any comments about any of today’s races, in Iowa or elsewhere, are welcome in this thread.

    Many races on the east coast and in the Midwest have already been called. As expected, Republicans picked up the U.S. Senate seats in West Virginia, Arkansas, and South Dakota. Louisiana will go to a runoff in December. Jeanne Shaheen held the New Hampshire Senate seat for Democrats, but Kay Hagan may be in trouble in North Carolina, and in a potentially stunning upset, Mark Warner is behind in Virginia. He needs a strong turnout in the DC suburbs.

    As state-level results come in, these are the key Iowa Senate races to watch, and these are the key Iowa House races to watch. For the last four years, Democrats have held a 26-24 Iowa Senate majority. For the last two years, Republicans have held a 53-47 Iowa House majority.

    UPDATE: Polls are closed and further updates will be after the jump. News organizations called the governor’s race for Terry Branstad immediately.  

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    Election day links and discussion thread

    Happy election day to the Bleeding Heartland community. The weather forecast looks good for most parts of Iowa. Polls are open everywhere from 7 am to 9 pm. It’s too late to mail absentee ballots, but you can still hand-deliver completed absentee ballots to your county auditor’s office, or “surrender” you ballot at your regular polling place, then vote with an ordinary ballot.

    Three new polls of the U.S. Senate race came out on Monday. Quinnipiac found Bruce Braley and Joni Ernst tied at 47 percent. (That pollster’s previous Iowa survey had Ernst leading by 49 percent to 45 percent.) Fox News found Ernst ahead by 45 percent to 44 percent. Public Policy Polling found Ernst ahead by 48 percent to 45 percent.

    All three polls confirmed my belief that the Des Moines Register’s Iowa poll by Selzer & Co was an outlier. No other survey has found Ernst above 50 percent or ahead by such a large margin. If she does win the IA-Sen race by 7 points, I will declare Ann Selzer a polling genius.

    Incidentally, the new polls also found Governor Terry Branstad ahead of Democratic challenger Jack Hatch by a smaller margin than in the Register’s final Iowa poll. Quinnipiac found Branstad ahead by 52 percent to 41 percent. That was similar to Public Policy Polling’s finding of Branstad at 54 percent and Hatch at 43 percent. Fox News found a bigger lead for the governor: 53 percent to 36 percent.

    PPP has been the only firm to consistently poll down-ballot statewide races in Iowa this year. Its final poll found Democrat Brad Anderson ahead in the secretary of state race, with 44 percent support to 38 percent to Paul Pate and 3 percent each for Jake Porter and Spencer Highland. (Porter, a Libertarian, received about 3 percent of the statewide vote in the 2010 secretary of state race.)

    PPP found State Auditor Mary Mosiman leading her Democratic challenger by 46 percent to 41 percent. State Treasurer Mike Fitzgerald is ahead of his Republican challenger Sam Clovis by 48 percent to 38 percent, with Libertarian Keith Laube pulling 5 percent. Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey has a comfortable 51 percent to 33 percent lead over Democrat Sherrie Taha, with a minor-party candidate pulling 5 percent. Finally, Attorney General Tom Miller leads Republican Adam Gregg by 55 percent to 36 percent.

    While canvassing in Windsor Heights and Clive on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, I didn’t see any Republicans knocking on doors, nor did I see Republican campaign literature on doorknobs or front porches. Another Democratic canvasser in a different part of the state had a similar experience. I would like to hear from Bleeding Heartland readers about what you’ve seen of the Republican “ground game” during the final days. As far as I can tell, the GOP has relied mainly on robocalls and perhaps live-caller phone-banking. Republicans paid for many robocalls in the final days.

    Speaking of robocalls, many Democratic households in the third Congressional district (including mine) received a call Monday evening recorded by Senator Chuck Grassley, making the case for David Young.

    Any comments related to today’s election are welcome in this thread.

    P.S. – A testy exchange with a reporter about how President Barack Obama has handled the ebola outbreak underscored why Joni Ernst’s handlers didn’t want her sitting down with most Iowa newspaper editorial boards.

    Weekend open thread: Final Iowa polls edition (updated)

    The Des Moines Register dropped a hammer on Iowa Democrats this evening with the latest statewide poll by Selzer & Co. The Register’s new poll finds Joni Ernst ahead of Bruce Braley by 51 percent to 44 percent, leading Braley in all four Congressional districts, and winning independent voters by 12 points. The poll looks like an outlier to me, compared to most other surveys that were in the field these past two weeks. No other poll has found Ernst above 50 percent this fall, and no non-partisan poll has found her leading Braley by more than four points. Of the ten other polls in the field during the last two weeks, two found Braley ahead by one point, two found the race tied, two found Ernst ahead by one point, and four found her ahead by margins between two and four points.

    On November 5, either Ann Selzer will look like a genius, or a bunch of other pollsters (whose surveys found a close race here) will laugh.

    The problem for Democrats is that the Register’s Iowa poll always generates more media coverage than any other poll. Even if this poll turns out to be an outlier, it could depress volunteers during the final days. A good GOTV program can overcome a one-point deficit but not seven points.

    The Register’s latest poll found Governor Terry Branstad ahead of Democratic challenger Jack Hatch by 59 percent to 35 percent, one of the biggest leads any poll has found for Branstad. Selzer only polled on two other statewide races. Democratic Attorney General leads challenger Adam Gregg by 50 percent to 39 percent. The secretary of state race looks too close to call, with Republican Paul Pate ahead of Democrat Brad Anderson by 44 percent to 41 percent.

    P.S. – There’s still plenty of time to enter Bleeding Heartland’s election prediction contest.

    UPDATE: Below I’ve added excerpts from the Register’s analysis of the Selzer poll, along with the Braley campaign’s reaction, calling the Register poll an “outlier.”

    SECOND UPDATE: Added more commentary on Senate polling below.

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    Catching up on the Iowa secretary of state race

    The Iowa secretary of state campaign looks like a nail-biter. Neither Democrat Brad Anderson nor Republican Paul Pate has had a lead outside the margin of error in any public poll I’ve seen. The new Loras College statewide survey shows Anderson barely ahead of Pate by 39.9 percent to 39.0 percent. That survey did not include the other two candidates running for secretary of state, even though Libertarian Jake Porter received about 3 percent of the statewide vote in 2010.

    When Anderson and Pate appeared jointly on Iowa Public Television earlier this month (in a “job interview” that resembled a debate), major differences between the candidates were apparent. Pate would continue outgoing Secretary of State Matt Schultz’s crusade for a voter ID law, an expensive “fix” to a non-existent problem, which risks disenfranchising voters. Anderson proposes several ideas to improve the voter file and maintain security, without depressing turnout.

    During the same “Iowa Press” program, Pate hedged on whether former employees of the Secretary of State’s Office should pay back the state for salary and benefits they received for doing no work. I’ve enclosed that exchange after the jump. I would guess that 90 percent of Iowans agree with Anderson: it’s a “no-brainer” that these people should pay back the money.

    Pate’s campaign website is mostly devoid of policy ideas. His case to voters is simple: he has more experience, having served as secretary of state before, he supports voter ID requirements, and he is a “non-partisan leader,” as opposed to his “partisan political operative” opponent. Never mind that Pate once sought the position of Iowa GOP chair.

    Compared to Pate, Anderson has proposed more specific ideas for improving the work of the Secretary of State’s Office. (For that matter, so has Porter.) Anderson’s campaign website includes not only ideas to make Iowa number one in voter turnout, but also proposals to make it easier to start a business, create a new registry for veteran-owned businesses, improve the integrity of the Iowa caucuses, make it easier for overseas and military voters to cast ballots, and most recently, an address confidentiality program that would allow survivors of domestic abuse or sexual violence “to register to vote, cast a ballot, and go about daily life without fear for safety.” (Pate’s campaign quickly announced that the Republican also supports “Safe at Home” measures.)

    Anderson and Pate are still running the television and radio commercials Bleeding Heartland covered here. In addition, a group I’d never heard of called iVote has spent just under $30,000 to run a tv ad opposing Pate. Democratic strategists created the new political action committee to get involved in several secretary of state races. When I saw iVote’s spot for the first time during a lunchtime local newscast, the unorthodox style caught my attention. I’ve enclosed the video and transcript below. The Cedar Rapids Gazette’s fact-checker rated this ad “true.”

    Speaking of the Gazette, that newspaper endorsed Anderson today, saying he would offer “a clean break” from the “sorry chapter” of Schultz’s tenure as secretary of state. Click through to read the whole editorial, or scroll own to read excerpts. How embarrassing for Pate not to get the support of his hometown newspaper. He’s been a local business owner for decades as well as a former Cedar Rapids mayor and former state senator representing part of Linn County.  

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    Iowa candidate web videos need "paid for" attribution statements

    Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board Executive Director Megan Tooker has determined that state law requiring “paid for by” attribution lines for political advertising also applies to videos posted on free websites such as YouTube. David Chung, a member of the Republican Party of Iowa’s State Central Committee, had filed an ethics complaint against Brad Anderson, the Democratic candidate for secretary of state. (Chung is from Cedar Rapids, as is Anderson’s GOP opponent Paul Pate.) Anderson’s television commercial contains the standard attribution line, but some of his web videos did not. After the jump I’ve posted the relevant portion of Iowa Code.

    Tooker informed Anderson that in her opinion, campaign videos available online should also include a “paid for” statement. Anderson’s campaign immediately altered the videos to comply. Jason Noble reported for the Des Moines Register, “So long as Anderson republishes the videos with appropriate attribution statements or publishes a corrective notice in the newspaper, he will not face a fine or penalty.”

    Responding to my request for comment, the Anderson campaign noted, “Although state law is ambiguous related to requiring disclaimers on free YouTube videos, in the abundance of caution we have added disclaimers to all of our YouTube videos and will continue to moving forward.”

    In a press release yesterday, Iowa GOP Co-Chairman Cody Hoefert thundered, “we now learn that Brad Anderson either ignored Iowa’s election laws or does not believe they apply to him. Either way, this only goes to underscore the fact that he is not someone Iowans can trust to uphold the integrity of their elections.” News flash for Hoefert: the Anderson campaign was able to point to many web videos that lacked “paid for” statements while promoting the Iowa GOP and/or Republican candidates and office-holders. For instance, Governor Terry Branstad’s campaign produced a video featuring Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds in order to drum up 2014 Iowa caucus attendance. In that video, she urged supporters to help elect Republicans up and down the ticket in 2014. Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey has also promoted his candidacy through web videos without attribution statements. The Iowa GOP itself produced a video promoting State Auditor Mary Mosiman without any attribution statement.

    Obviously, Chung and the Iowa GOP were only playing out a stunt to gain an edge for Pate in what looks like a close contest for secretary of state. Nevertheless, it’s useful for Tooker to clarify that this portion of state law applies to web videos as well as to television commercials.  

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    Secretary of State race: Brad Anderson's on tv, Paul Pate's on the radio

    Both major-party candidates for Iowa secretary of state started running paid advertising within the past two days. After the jump I’ve enclosed the video and transcript of Democratic nominee Brad Anderson’s first television commercial, as well as my transcript of Republican Paul Pate’s first radio ad. Both candidates call for making it “easy to vote” but “hard to cheat” in elections. CORRECTION: Anderson’s ad was released online on October 9 but started running on television stations across Iowa on October 13.

    I’ve also enclosed below the voter ID discussion from the debate Pate and Anderson held on Iowa Public Television last weekend. Pate has embraced outgoing Secretary of State Matt Schultz’s pet project, in the absence of any evidence that voter impersonation is a real problem in Iowa (or elsewhere). Anderson explains his plan to strengthen election integrity without changing current state law on voter ID.

    Two other candidates are running for secretary of state this year. Libertarian Jake Porter is making his second attempt at the job. In 2010, he received about 3 percent of the statewide vote. To my knowledge, he has not run any paid advertising yet this year. When Iowa Public Television excluded him from the recent “Iowa Press” debate, Porter said he will consider a lawsuit and fight to reduce Iowa Public Television’s taxpayer funding. The fourth candidate on the ballot is the little-known Spencer Highland of the “New Independent Party Iowa.”

    Closer to election day, Bleeding Heartland will post a comprehensive review of the this campaign. Public Policy Polling’s Iowa survey from late September found Pate slightly ahead of Anderson by 36 percent to 33 percent, with Porter and Highland pulling 3 percent each.

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    Auditor details mismanagement by Matt Schultz and Mary Mosiman

    If you thought nothing could surprise you anymore about Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz, I recommend reading the report Chief Deputy State Auditor Warren Jenkins released yesterday. Jenkins reviewed payments to Schultz’s former chief deputy Jim Gibbons after Gibbons stopped coming to work. You can download a pdf of the audit here. I’ve posted the full text after the jump.

    Key points: Schultz told Gibbons in May 2012 that his position would be eliminated at the end of the calendar year. Gibbons stopped coming in to work regularly the following month. Normal procedure calls for at-will state employees to be paid “until the end of the pay period, up to a maximum of 2 weeks after being notified their position is to be eliminated.” After learning that state agencies are not allowed to make severance payments to at-will employees, Schultz decided to keep Gibbons on the payroll through December 2012. There are no timesheets or records of how often Gibbons came to work between June and December of that year. Former colleagues could not provide Jenkins with much information about anything Gibbons did for the Secretary of State’s Office. Gibbons reported directly to Schultz.

    The audit concluded, “Based on the lack of documentation supporting work performed by Mr. Gibbons, we cannot determine the public benefit of the Secretary of State’s Office paying Mr. Gibbons $90,738.67 in salary, vacation, and benefits for the period June 8, 2012 through December 31, 2012.” Jenkins also questioned the public benefit of paying more than $21,000 to two other at-will employees whose positions were eliminated.

    Schultz is now running for Madison County attorney. That election will be a good test of whether Madison County Republicans care more about partisan allegiance or basic competence. A statement from Schultz tried to pass off Gibbons’ work arrangement as something advised by the Department of Administrative Services. That spin is misleading, for reasons I explain after the jump.

    Current State Auditor Mary Mosiman was one of Schultz’s deputies during the period examined, and to put it mildly, this report casts an unflattering light on her. She has claimed that she warned Schultz that keeping Gibbons on the payroll was damaging to morale in the agency. But the bottom line is, she never blew the whistle on a colleague getting tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars for doing no work.

    In addition, Jenkins found that neither Mosiman nor Gibbons submitted timesheets or “leave slips” documenting approval of planned time off. As a result, Mosiman “was paid for one week of accumulated vacation she should not have received” when she left the Secretary of State’s Office for her current job. She has reportedly already returned to the state her excess payment of $2,500. No one knows whether that’s the full extent of overpayments to Schultz’s subordinates. Jenkins’ report states, “Because timesheets and leave slips were not required to be completed and were not submitted by the Deputies, we are unable to identify any additional vacation hours used but not properly recorded for the Deputies.”

    The state auditor is supposed to make sure the public’s money is well spent. How can someone do that job without understanding the need to record essential information such as time spent working and time spent on vacation? Even if Mosiman was not aware that she received too much vacation pay, she should have recognized and taken steps to correct the lack of record-keeping at the Secretary of State’s Office. She should not have stood by and let Gibbons collect month after month of salary and benefits, long after he stopped coming to work.

    After the jump I’ve posted comments from Schultz, Democratic State Senator Liz Mathis (who requested the audit), Democratic candidate for secretary of state Brad Anderson, and Democratic candidate for state auditor Jon Neiderbach.

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    Third-party and independent candidates in Iowa's 2014 elections

    The filing period for general election candidates in Iowa closed last Friday, so it’s a good time to review where candidates not representing either the Democratic or Republican Party are running for office. The full candidate list is on the Iowa Secretary of State’s website (pdf(. After the jump I discuss all the federal, statewide, and state legislative races including at least one independent or minor-party candidate. Where possible, I’ve linked to campaign websites, so you can learn more about the candidates and their priorities.

    Rarely has any Iowa election been affected by an independent or third-party candidate on the ballot. Arguably, the most recent case may have been the 2010 election in Iowa’s first Congressional district. Final results showed that Democratic incumbent Bruce Braley defeated Republican challenger Ben Lange by 4,209 votes, while conservative candidates Rob Petsche and Jason Faulkner drew 4,087 votes and 2,092 votes, respectively.

    Any comments about Iowa’s 2014 elections are welcome in this thread.

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    Helping parties verify eligible caucus-goers wouldn't make the Iowa caucuses a primary

    For years, prominent Iowa Republicans have hyped unfounded fears about “voter fraud.” So it’s ironic that yesterday, the state GOP attacked Brad Anderson’s proposal to help ensure that only eligible voters can take part in the Iowa caucuses.

    Anderson is the Democratic nominee for secretary of state. After the jump I’ve posted his “caucus integrity” plan, including this idea: “Parties should be encouraged to utilize electronic poll book technology that would provide up-to-date lists and allow Iowans to check-in electronically. I believe the next Secretary of State should work with each of the parties to develop and support an affordable, efficient and effective electronic poll book that would allow caucus participants to easily check-in and allow volunteers to immediately confirm eligibility.”

    I’ve also enclosed below an Iowa GOP press release. New Republican state party chair Jeff Kaufmann asserted, “Anderson’s plan is a problem in search of a solution. We must maintain the separation of politics and state.” Charlie Smithson, legal counsel for Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz since 2012, offered his opinion: “If government becomes involved with the caucus process, other states will argue that the caucuses have become the functional equivalent of a primary,” hurting Iowa’s efforts to remain first in the presidential nominating process.

    That’s a real stretch. Anderson’s plan says straight away, “The caucuses are, and must remain strictly a party function run independently by the Republican Party of Iowa and the Iowa Democratic Party.” He hasn’t proposed involving county auditors or the Secretary of State’s office in setting caucus rules, or in tabulating or announcing Iowa caucus results. He’s talking about working with the parties ahead of time, so that on caucus night, they have tools to verify that only eligible voters residing in the precinct take part. Republicans could still hold their straw polls early in the evening, electing county delegates later, while Democrats maintain their system of dividing into preference groups, with a 15 percent threshold for viability in every precinct. Using a poll book for check-in wouldn’t change the fact that the Iowa Democratic Party announces only how many county convention delegates each candidate won, not raw numbers of caucus-goers who supported them.

    If the Iowa caucuses ever produce another very close result, like the Republican outcome in 2012, any reports (credible or not) about ineligible voters taking part would boost the case for ditching Iowa as first in the nation. After the record-breaking Democratic caucus turnout in 2008, some people claimed that Barack Obama’s campaign had brought large numbers of supporters in from out of state. Although facts didn’t support those allegations, it would be easier to refute them if the parties had a better system for checking in caucus-goers.

    Any relevant comments are welcome in this thread. UPDATE: Having worked in elections administration and volunteered at many Iowa caucuses, John Deeth explains how Anderson’s ideas could improve the check-in process on caucus night.

    P.S.- I think Kaufmann meant to say that Anderson’s plan is a “solution in search of a problem.” Which is ironic, since he and Smithson have both lent their support to Matt Schultz’s photo ID crusade, the ultimate solution in search of a non-existent Iowa voter impersonation problem.  

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    IA-03: Matt Schultz still posturing as hero battling "voter fraud"

    Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz just can’t quit the fantasy that he has saved Iowans from a major “voter fraud” problem. A new report from the Secretary of State’s Office may serve as a welcome distraction from his record of keeping some political appointees on the payroll, but it distorts the reality of election irregularities and ignores more important factors that keep some eligible voters from having their ballots count in Iowa elections.

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    Matt Schultz spins voter fraud acquittal as success

    Most people familiar with the criminal justice system understand that a jury acquittal after less than an hour is an embarrassing loss for the prosecutor and a sign that the case should never have come to trial.

    Then there’s Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz. Having spent major political capital (not to mention hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars) to spin simple errors into grand criminal conspiracies, he managed to claim victory yesterday when a Lee County jury declared an ineligible voter not guilty of perjury.

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    IA-Gov: Terry Branstad has primary challenger, Jack Hatch does not

    Governor Terry Branstad’s Republican challenger, Tom Hoefling, has qualified for the primary ballot after submitting his nominating petitions on March 14, the final day. I don’t see any way Hoefling could win a primary, but it will be interesting to see how large the conservative protest vote is against Branstad. GOP turnout should be larger than usual on June 3, because of competitive primaries for the U.S. Senate seat and the first, second, and third Congressional districts.

    Last night the Iowa Secretary of State’s office indicated that Jonathan Narcisse filed papers to run for governor as a Democrat. However, his petitions must not have had enough valid signatures, because his name does not appear on the full candidate list (pdf). The other long-shot Democratic hopeful, Paul Dahl, apparently never filed petitions. That leaves State Senator Jack Hatch as the lone Democratic gubernatorial candidate.

    In other statewide candidate news, no Republicans stepped up to run against Attorney General Tom Miller or State Treasurer Mike Fitzgerald. By this time in 2010, Brenna Findley was already campaigning around the state against Miller, and two Republicans were running for treasurer.

    As expected, Sherrie Taha is the Democratic candidate for secretary of agriculture; she will face GOP incumbent Bill Northey. Jon Neiderbach is the Democratic candidate for state auditor; he will face GOP incumbent Mary Mosiman, whom Branstad appointed last year. The secretary of state’s race pits Democrat Brad Anderson against Republican Paul Pate. 2010 Libertarian nominee Jake Porter also plans to register for the ballot this summer.

    Matt Schultz touts more "fraud" that voter ID wouldn't prevent

    Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz announced yesterday that nine more Iowans are being charged with “voter fraud.” As you can see from the statement I’ve posted below, eight Waterloo residents face election misconduct charges (a Class D felony) because they registered to vote and cast ballots in the 2012 general election, even though they are felons whose voting rights had not been restored. One Lee County resident who is also an ex-felon is charged with registering to vote and casting a ballot in a 2013 local election.

    By my count, Schultz’s obsessive hunt for voter fraud has now yielded criminal charges in 25 cases, representing less than a thousandth of one percent of ballots cast in Iowa’s recent local, state, and federal elections. Most of the cases involve felons whose rights had not been restored, though not all of the accused cast ballots–some had merely registered to vote. No proof has emerged that any of these people knew they were committing a crime. They may have assumed that they had a right to vote, because tens of thousands of Iowa ex-felons had their voting rights restored during Governor Chet Culver’s tenure. They may have assumed they were able to vote once offered a registration form.

    Most important, none of these cases could have been averted if Schultz had accomplished his goal of forcing Iowans to show a photo ID when voting on election day. It’s likely that many of these improperly registered voters filled out a form after renewing a driver’s license. Schultz’s full-time criminal investigator has not found anyone guilty of impersonating another voter on election day, which is the only kind of fraud that a photo ID law could prevent.

    The new defendants will probably be effective poster children for Schultz’s Congressional campaign, though. Republicans love the fantasy that making it more difficult for thousands of people to vote will somehow protect “election integrity” in Iowa.  

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    Matt Schultz running in IA-03; Paul Pate running for Secretary of State

    Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz confirmed today that he will run for Congress in the open third district. He announced his decision at a press conference in Council Bluffs, where he served on the city council before winning the 2010 election for secretary of state. Council Bluffs is the second-largest city in IA-03. Schultz for Congress is on the web here and on Facebook here. The candidate’s Twitter handle is VoteMattSchultz. So far the website doesn’t contain detailed issue positions, just five section headings: “Protect against government overreach,” “Enact term limits for elected officials,” “Repeal Obamacare,” “Balance the federal government’s budget,” and “Protect our 2nd Amendment rights.”

    I’ve posted background on Schultz after the jump, along with an excerpt from today’s official press release announcing his candidacy. It doesn’t mention what I suspect are the real reasons he is running for Congress instead of for re-election.

    Meanwhile, Paul Pate announced today that he will seek the Republican nomination for secretary of state. He was elected to that statewide position in 1994 but left after one term to run for governor. Speaking to the Des Moines Register today, Pate said his experience gives him “a pretty good grasp of the office’s responsibilities,” allowing him to “hit the ground running.” He added that he can win the secretary of state’s race.

    Pate said he already has strong name-ID with voters around Iowa, and a proven record of fundraising. The successful GOP candidate will need to raise at least $250,000, he said.

    “Candidates need to recognize they won’t be able to run this on a shoestring budget,” he said.

    Pate, who said he has “great respect” for Schultz, wants to make some changes to the secretary of state position.

    “One key thing is my desire to bring more a nonpartisan approach to the office,” he said. “I think that’s something that Iowans and Americans have been clamoring for with all the gridlock going on in Washington.”

    Pate flirted with running for Congress in IA-01 last year before opting out, citing family reasons. I’m curious to see whether he can clear the Republican field. My hunch is that he will be unopposed in the primary. I am seeking comment from State Representative Mary Ann Hanusa, who was the 2006 GOP nominee for secretary of state.

    Brad Anderson is the likely Democratic nominee for this office, although former Secretary of State Michael Mauro has not ruled out running again in 2014. Mauro is currently Iowa’s labor commissioner.

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    IA-03: Young in, Schultz probably in, Whitver and Hagenow out

    State Senator Brad Zaun will have company in the Republican primary to represent Iowa’s third Congressional district. Today David Young told the Des Moines Register that he is ending his U.S. Senate campaign to run in IA-03.

    In an exclusive interview, Young said when he began pondering a run for elective office he had the 3rd in mind, assuming that Latham would run for the Senate seat opened by U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin’s retirement in 2014.

    Shifting to the Senate race made sense once Latham took himself out of that contest. As of September 30, Young had $124,052.27 cash on hand for his Senate campaign, which would go further in a Congressional district than in a statewide primary.

    Meanwhile, Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz announced today on Facebook, “I have received a lot of support and encouragement as I have considered becoming a candidate for Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District. Next week, I will be making an important and exciting announcement about this race and my future plans to fight for Iowa.” I’m no marketing guru, but I think it’s more exciting to say what you’re doing than to promise “an important and exciting annoucement” soon. I suppose the idea is to make the news twice instead of once. Zaun took the same approach.

    I agree with John Deeth’s preview of a forthcoming IA-03 Republican debate: “Mr. Schultz, explain your position on the farm bill. ‘Voter ID.’ Should we intervene in Syria? ‘Voter ID.’”

    State Senator Jack Whitver confirmed today that he will run for re-election in Iowa Senate district 19 rather than run for Congress in IA-03. Likewise, State Representative Chris Hagenow will pass on the Congressional race to seek re-election to House district 43 and as House majority whip. In a message to supporters, Hagenow wrote, “Serving in Washington D.C. at this time will not allow me to be the husband and father that I have promised to my family.  After prayerful consideration, we believe that I can best serve the people of Iowa by continuing my work in the state legislature.”

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    Bombshell in IA-03: Tom Latham not seeking re-election

    From the day I first saw Iowa’s new map of political boundaries in 2011, I had a bad feeling that Republican Tom Latham would be representing me in Congress for most of this decade. I did not see today’s news coming: in an e-mail to supporters this afternoon (full text here), the ten-term incumbent announced that he will not seek re-election to the U.S. House in 2014. Latham plans to spend more time with his family.

    The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee was already targeting Iowa’s third Congressional district, and Latham was in the National Republican Congressional Committee’s incumbent protection program. As an open seat, the race will be far more competitive than if longtime incumbent Latham were on the ballot. I am curious to see which Republicans jump in this race. I doubt Des Moines-based teacher and business owner Joe Grandanette, who had already announced a primary challenge to Latham, will be the GOP nominee. I assume several state legislators or former legislators will go for it, but probably not State Senator Brad Zaun, who couldn’t beat Leonard Boswell in the biggest Republican landslide in decades.

    Former State Senator Staci Appel has a head start in the race for the Democratic nomination, with nearly $200,000 cash on hand as of September 30 and the support of several Democratic-aligned interest groups, including EMILY’s List. Gabriel De La Cerda is the other declared Democratic candidate in IA-03. With Latham retiring, I wonder if other Democrats will jump in the race. For instance, State Senator Matt McCoy was planning to run for Congress in the third district in 2002 before Representative Boswell decided to move to Des Moines so as not to face Steve King in what was then IA-05.

    As of December 1, IA-03 contained 157,456 active registered Democrats, 164,311 Republicans, and 160,205 no-party voters, according to the Iowa Secretary of State’s office.

    UPDATE: Shortly after news broke of Latham’s retirement, Appel sent out a fundraising appeal and tweeted that her team was “thrilled to see our work holding Latham accountable has paid off.”

    SECOND UPDATE: State Senator Janet Petersen comes to mind as a potential Democratic candidate as well. On the Republican side, I wonder whether some mayors or Waukee City Council Member Isaiah McGee will go for it.

    THIRD UPDATE: Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds already ruled out running for Congress, but Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz is seriously considering it.

    I’ve added Appel’s statement on today’s news after the jump.

    FOURTH UPDATE: Added Schultz’s statement after the jump. He served as a Council Bluffs City Council member before running for Iowa secretary of state.

    Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal lives in IA-03 and could run for Congress without risking his state Senate seat, since he’s not up for re-election until 2016.

    Also added statements from Representatives Bruce Braley, Dave Loebsack, and the Iowa Democratic Party below. Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement Action released a statement calling on Latham to help move immigration reform forward, now that he “has nothing to lose.”

    Have to agree with John Deeth: “On the GOP side I expect a clown car and maybe even another convention.” State Senators Brad Zaun and Jack Whitver are both thinking about it.

    FIFTH UPDATE: Added statement from Gabriel De La Cerda, who was the first Democrat to declare in IA-03 earlier this year.

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    Weekend open thread: Outrages of the week

    What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread. Here are a few links to get a conversation started.

    A Polk County district court ruling related to one of Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz’s pet projects called attention to the fact that Schultz was in Switzerland for the American Swiss Foundation’s 24th annual Young Leaders Conference, a weeklong event. Whether the secretary of state should attend a foreign junket like this at any time is debatable. But it’s ridiculous for him to have planned to be out of town when Iowa’s 99 county auditors were gathering in Des Moines to discuss election-related issues. The Iowa Democratic Party and the only declared Democratic candidate for secretary of state blasted Schultz. I’ve posted their comments below, along with the official defense from the Iowa Secretary of State’s spokesman.

    Speaking of Schultz’s pet projects, here’s some important news from last month: the federal judge who wrote a key ruling upholding Indiana’s voter ID law now believes he got that case wrong.

    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced on Friday that it is proposing to alter the Renewable Fuel Standard on how much ethanol must be blended into gasoline. The announcement upset Iowa elected officials from both parties. After the jump I’ve posted statements from Governor Terry Branstad, Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds, and all of the Iowans in Congress except for Representative Tom Latham (R, IA-03), who has not commented on this issue to my knowledge.

    The Associated Press reported this week on how the push to produce corn-based ethanol has damaged the environment in Iowa and elsewhere.

    One last outrage: Will Potter reported for Mother Jones about a case that “could make it harder for journalists and academics to keep tabs on government agencies.” The FBI is going to court to prevent its “most prolific” Freedom of Information Act requester from accessing hundreds of thousands of pages of documents.

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    Iowa voter citizenship checks on hold pending lawsuit

    It’s time for an update on the legal conflict between Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz and voter rights advocates over Schultz’s efforts to remove “potential non-citizen registrants” from Iowa voter rolls. The American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa and the League of United Latin American Citizens of Iowa are suing to block the rule and won an important court victory yesterday. Follow me after the jump for background and details.

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    Libertarian Jake Porter running for Secretary of State again

    Catching up on news from last week, Jake Porter plans a second campaign for Iowa secretary of state on the Libertarian ticket. He received 33,854 votes (about 3 percent of votes cast) as the Libertarian nominee for that office in 2010. Porter’s campaign is on the web here, as well as on Facebook and twitter. I’ve posted his campaign announcement and official bio after the jump. He pledged not to “endorse any political candidate like [current Secretary of State] Matt Schultz did when he supported Rick Santorum for President,” and touted the fact that he is not affiliated with any major political party like Democratic candidate for secretary of state Brad Anderson.

    Porter’s bio alludes to experience with political consulting and campaign management. He elaborated by e-mail that he managed Libertarian candidate Eric Cooper’s campaign for Iowa governor in 2010, Bob Barr’s Libertarian presidential campaign in Iowa during the 2008 general election, and former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson’s presidential campaign in Iowa for part of 2011, when Johnson was running as a Republican.

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    AFSCME endorses Pat Murphy in IA-01, Staci Appel in IA-03

    The elections arm of Iowa’s largest labor union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, announced five endorsements for the 2014 elections today. I’ve posted the whole statement from the AFSCME Iowa Council 61 PEOPLE Committee after the jump. The biggest news is AFSCME coming out early for former Iowa House Speaker Pat Murphy in IA-01. Two other Democrats are already campaigning for that open seat, probably to be joined soon by State Representative Anesa Kajtazovic and former State Senator Swati Dandekar.

    In IA-03, AFSCME will back former State Senator Staci Appel, who voted for a number of pro-labor bills during her four years in the legislature. Gabriel De La Cerda is also running in the Democratic primary and was an Iowa political coordinator for the United Steel Workers Union during the 2012 general election campaign. No one will be surprised to see AFSCME supporting four-term incumbent Dave Loebsack in IA-02 or Jim Mowrer in IA-04, where no other Democrat is likely to take on Steve King.

    AFSCME hasn’t endorsed a Democratic challenger to Governor Terry Branstad yet. The only statewide candidate named in today’s release is Brad Anderson for Iowa secretary of state. He has the backing of most of Iowa’s Democratic establishment and may not face any competition in the primary, although former Secretary of State Michael Mauro hasn’t ruled out a comeback attempt.

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    State Auditor's office will examine Schultz's use of HAVA funds

    Chief Deputy State Auditor Warren Jenkins will investigate Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz’s use of Help America Vote Act funding, William Petroski reported today for the Des Moines Register. Democratic State Senator Tom Courtney requested the audit immediately after Governor Terry Branstad appointed Mary Mosiman as state auditor last month. Mosiman’s predecessor, David Vaudt, did not act on Courtney’s request for an audit last year. Schultz has used federal HAVA funding to pay for a law enforcement officer charged with investigating alleged voter fraud full-time. Courtney contends that such a use falls outside federal law, which calls for HAVA funds to cover “educating voters concerning voting procedures, voting rights and voting technology.”

    Mosiman delegated the audit to Jenkins because until last month, she was working as Schultz’s deputy in charge of the Secretary of State’s elections office.

    Please share any relevant comments in this thread. After the jump I’ve posted reaction from Schultz and Democratic candidate for secretary of state Brad Anderson.

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    Matt Schultz rules out IA-Sen, will seek re-election as secretary of state (updated)

    Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz announced on twitter this morning, “I am humbled by all of the encouragement to run for Senate, but I love serving Iowans as Secretary of State… I intend to run for SOS.” Earlier this month, Schultz traveled to Washington to speak with Republicans about the open U.S. Senate seat. I’m not surprised he decided to stay in his current office, where he will not be challenged in the GOP primary. Fundraising has never been Schultz’s strong suit, and in a Senate race he would be competing against at least two Republicans with the potential to raise big money (Matt Whitaker and David Young), plus a possible self-funding candidate in Mark Jacobs.

    Schultz’s likely opponent in the secretary of state’s race is Brad Anderson, who has been raising money and building a campaign organization with the support of many heavyweights in the Iowa Democratic establishment. Iowa Labor Commissioner Michael Mauro, who served four years as secretary of state before losing to Schultz in 2010, has not ruled out running in the Democratic primary next year.

    UPDATE: Added Brad Anderson’s comment on today’s news after the jump.

    SECOND UPDATE: Schultz’s full written statement is below as well.

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    Brad Anderson has head start in secretary of state's race

    When Brad Anderson announced plans to challenge Secretary of State Matt Schultz, many influential Iowa Democrats quickly jumped on board, noting Anderson’s skills and experience as manager of President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign in Iowa.

    While Schultz considers running for Iowa’s open U.S. Senate seat next year, Anderson has begun building what may become the largest campaign organization for a statewide office in Iowa other than governor. Last week Anderson announced raising $102,186 for his campaign since he formally launched his candidacy. That may not sound like much money for a statewide race, but Matt Schultz didn’t even raise that much during his entire 2010 candidacy. In January 2013, Schultz’s re-election campaign reported $29,505.62 cash on hand but also $17,071.34 in unpaid bills.

    Former Secretary of State Michael Mauro wasn’t a huge fundraiser even as an incumbent seeking re-election in 2010. Mauro has not ruled out running for secretary of state again. Although he did a fantastic job in that office, he would start a Democratic primary campaign against Anderson at an organizational disadvantage.

    After the jump I’ve listed Anderson’s 99 “county captains,” along with members of his campaign steering committee. Anderson commented in a press release from April 25, “The 2012 election proved a strong organization is just as important as fundraising, and I am pleased some of the best organizers in the state have joined our team and are ready to help us win this important race.”

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    Brad Anderson will challenge Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz

    Barack Obama’s 2012 Iowa campaign manager Brad Anderson confirmed yesterday that he plans to run against Secretary of State Matt Schultz in 2014. I hope there will be a competitive Democratic primary, because from where I’m sitting, Anderson looks like the wrong candidate for this race.

    UPDATE: Added details from Anderson’s formal announcement below, along with his campaign bio and a list of Democrats on his steering committee (including Senator Tom Harkin, former governors Tom Vilsack and Chet Culver, Representatives Bruce Braley and Dave Loebsack, and several former chairs of the Iowa Democratic Party). Looks like there will be no competitive primary.

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    Iowa Secretary of State not sounding too statesmanlike

    Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz gave Jon Huntsman a “lesson in Iowa politics” Monday, via a press release declaring the former Utah governor “not ready for the big dance.” Schultz ridiculed Huntsman’s excuse for skipping the Iowa caucuses before rifling off a few conservative talking points about Huntsman’s record. National and local media picked up Schultz’s comments.

    Schultz’s opinion of Huntsman wouldn’t be particularly newsworthy, but I question the wisdom of using the official Secretary of State’s website to push a political statement written in “smackdown” tone. More thoughts on who is and isn’t “ready for the big dance” are below.

    UPDATE: On June 9 the Iowa Democratic Party filed an ethics complaint against Schultz; details are at the end of this post.

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    Never mind the experts: Schultz keeps campaigning for voter ID law

    In fewer than three months on the job, Secretary of State Matt Schultz has prompted the president of the Iowa county auditors association to express concern about being “dragged into a partisan fight.” Jennifer Jacobs covered Butler County Auditor Holly Fokkena’s extraordinary comments in Sunday’s Des Moines Register. Not only is Fokkena a Republican like Schultz, she is from a county that tilts strongly to the GOP. Yet she is worried about Schultz’s push to require all voters to show photo ID.

    Background and recent developments on the photo ID controversy are after the jump.

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    Schultz sworn in as secretary of state

    Matt Schultz took the oath of office this morning in Des Moines, becoming the youngest ever Iowa secretary of state at age 31. Since winning the November election, he has been traveling from Council Bluffs to Des Moines a couple of times per week. Schultz told the Council Bluffs Daily Nonpareil recently that outgoing Secretary of State Michael Mauro has been “very good, very professional” during the transition, treating his successor “with a lot of respect.” (Too bad Schultz’s StopMauro.com website didn’t show the incumbent much respect during the campaign.)

    Schultz has hired Story County Auditor Mary Mosiman to run the Elections Division and Jim Gibbons to run the Business Services division. He’s got an extremely busy couple of months ahead, wrapping up his private legal work as his wife expects their fourth child in February.

    Schultz said that after the baby is born, he and his wife will decide whether to move the family to Des Moines or keep their home here with him renting an apartment and commuting home on weekends. Until then, he will live in the basement of his parents’ Des Moines home.

    “I’m probably the only Secretary of State living in his parents’ basement,” Schultz said.

    My unsolicited advice is to move the family to Des Moines. He’ll get to see the kids more, and his wife won’t have to be a single parent Mondays through Fridays. Commuting would make sense if he were a state legislator working in Des Moines only a few months a year, but a four-year term is a long time to keep up that schedule.

    As of today, Mauro has a position with Iowa Workforce Development. On May 1 he will become the head of the Iowa Labor Commission.

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    Mauro resolves HAVA audit, lands Branstad administration job

    Secretary of State Michael Mauro announced on December 29 that his office and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission have resolved all outstanding issues related to Iowa’s use of federal Help America Vote Act funds when Chet Culver was secretary of state. A federal audit originally questioned the use of about $2.5 million of the $30 million in HAVA funds Iowa received. By June of this year, federal officials reduced to $576,000 the amount Iowa would have to pay back.  The final agreement reached won’t cost Iowa anything.

    For three years, state elections staff have worked to correct a long list of problems in an effort to avoid a large repayment, but federal officials concluded $221,000 in “disallowed costs” couldn’t be fixed or whittled down further.

    However, the state won’t have to write a check to repay that money, said Secretary of State Michael Mauro said today.

    Mauro asked federal officials to give the state a credit for expenses that were eligible for federal voting funds, but that Mauro chose to cover with state money knowing that questionable spending would likely need to be repaid.

    Click here to view final correspondence from the EAC to the Secretary of State’s office. Governor Chet Culver’s general counsel Jim Larew emphasized in a statement that “no federal rules were broken,” and “Most of the federal rules that were interpreted to evaluate the Iowa HAVA program had not even been published by the time Iowa HAVA was completed.”

    This settlement wraps up four years of outstanding work by Mauro as secretary of state. He never should have lost his re-election bid.

    Last month, Governor-elect Terry Branstad praised Mauro’s work and said he would consider hiring him in his administration. On December 30, the Branstad/Reynolds transition announced that Branstad will nominate Mauro to head the Iowa Labor Commission. Before that term starts on May 1, 2011, Mauro will serve as deputy director at Iowa Workforce Development, beginning January 3.

    I’ll post a more extensive update on Branstad’s personnel choices and policy statements in the next few days. After the jump I’ve posted Mauro’s press release and Larew’s statement on the HAVA audit resolution, as well as the Branstad statement on Mauro’s new position, which praised “the fair and even way [Mauro] administered election laws and how he effectively managed the Iowa secretary of state’s office.” No wonder Branstad never did much to help Mauro’s opponent Matt Schultz, in stark contrast to his longstanding and highly visible advocacy for attorney general candidate Brenna Findley.

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    New Secretary of State Schultz hires Jim Gibbons, Mary Mosiman for top jobs

    Secretary of State-elect Matt Schultz has announced several important hires in the past week. Former Republican Congressional candidate Jim Gibbons will serve as Chief Deputy and Director of Business Services, while longtime Story County Auditor Mary Mosiman will run the Elections Division.

    Follow me after the jump for background and analysis on those appointments.  

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    Former legislator Struyk to advise Secretary of State Schultz

    Incoming Secretary of State Matt Schultz announced today that former State Representative Doug Struyk will serve as his policy advisor and legal counsel. Schultz has been a Council Bluffs city councilman, while Struyk represented House district 99, containing the northeast part of that city, for four terms. He was first elected to the Iowa House as a Democrat but switched to the Republican side early on.

    Before retiring from the legislature, Struyk was the top-ranking Republican on the Iowa House State Government Committee, which considers bills related to election law. In 2007, Struyk voted against HF 653, the bill enacting same-day voter registration in Iowa, as did every other House Republican. Click here for the bill history, including a long list of Republican-sponsored amendments to weaken that measure. Roll call votes on the amendments to HF 653 and the final bill are in this House Journal (pdf file).

    More concerning, Struyk was one of only six state representatives to vote against SF 2347, the 2008 bill requiring all Iowa counties to use paper ballots and optical scanner machines. The House Journal for that day (see page 806 of this pdf file) doesn’t record any debate or proposed amendments to that bill, which passed 92 to 6. I couldn’t find any record explaining why Struyk opposed that bill.

    Schultz made photo ID requirements for all voters the centerpiece of his campaign for secretary of state. I hope he won’t also try to roll back same-day registration or paper ballot requirements. Election-day registrants are already required to show photo ID and proof of address in Iowa. Anyone who claims to be worried about voter fraud should support the ban on paperless touchscreen voting machines.

    UPDATE: In the comments, Bleeding Heartland user thomasjschultz says that Matt Schultz supports the paper ballot requirement. His campaign website included this statement on same-day registration:

    The Legislature passed, the Governor signed into law, and the current Secretary of State supported Same-Day Voter Registration, which has created the potential for voter irregularities and fraud. As Secretary of State I will fight to reform Same-Day Voter Registration and require all ballots cast by voters registering on Election Day to be cast as Provisional Ballots. Requiring these ballots to be cast as Provisional Ballots will ensure that anyone attempting to cheat the system by fraudulently registering on Election Day will not be able to change the outcome of the vote.

    Secretary of State Mauro reported in 2009 that nearly 46,000 Iowans used election-day registration in the November 2008 general election: 21,553 Iowans registered to vote for the first time on that election day, and 24,376 had previously been registered to vote in a different county. Current law already requires county auditors to follow up on election-day registrants: “If the county auditor is unable to locate a voter after sending two notices, the matter is reported to the county attorney and the Secretary of State.”

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    How third-party candidates fared in Iowa's 2010 elections

    This summer, the Libertarian Party in Iowa embarked on a “10 percent strategy,” hoping to win 2 percent of the vote for governor in order to secure major-party status in 2012. Iowa lacks a tradition of strong third-party voting like our neighbor to the north, and the unofficial results indicate that no alternative to Terry Branstad and Chet Culver cleared the 2 percent threshold in the governor’s race. Iowa Party candidate Jonathan Narcisse came closer to that mark than Libertarian Eric Cooper.

    Although no third party is set up to have a larger statewide impact in 2012, minor party candidates received an unusually high share of the vote in some areas. In a few races, the votes for third-party candidates exceeded the difference between the Democrat and the Republican.

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    GOP Secretary of State candidate on tv in home region

    It’s been a while since my last post on the secretary of state race. Republican Matt Schultz is still running the radio commercial I described here, at least in the Des Moines market. I noticed today that his campaign posted a 30-second television commercial on YouTube on October 21. Schultz is a Council Bluffs City Council member, and the script of this ad sounds like it’s running only in the Omaha/Council Bluffs viewing area.

    The video and transcript are below.

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    Des Moines Register punts on down-ballot statewide offices

    The “newspaper Iowa depends upon” won’t endorse a candidate in this year’s races for attorney general, state treasurer, secretary of state, secretary of agriculture or state auditor, Des Moines Register editorial page editor Linda Fandel confirmed to me this week. Fandel told me the newspaper has been inconsistent about endorsing candidates for those offices in the past. She said limited staff time and resources lay behind the decision not to endorse this year. The Register did endorse candidates in the races for governor, U.S. Senate and all five U.S. House seats, as well as the Iowa Supreme Court retention vote, which the editors called the most important election in the state this year.

    I understand limits on resources. Compared to previous election cycles, the Register’s newsroom staff is smaller, and its editorial pages contain less content. However, a newspaper that claims to have a statewide profile shouldn’t punt on elections offering such significant contrasts to voters. More thoughts on these campaigns are after the jump.

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    Iowa GOP all in for AG candidate Findley

    The latest round of financial reports for Iowa statewide candidates are available on the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board website, and once again Republican attorney general candidate Brenna Findley has turned in strong numbers. Thanks to transfers totaling $547,500 from the Republican Party of Iowa, Findley raised $756,617 between July 15 and October 14. During the same period, Democratic incumbent Tom Miller raised $243,326. The huge support from the Iowa GOP allowed Findley to spend more than twice as much as Miller during the reporting period ($661,252 to $298,604). Most of each candidate’s spending went toward advertising: $564,000 for Findley and $225,000 for Miller. Findley has been up on statewide radio for a month and started running television commercials before Miller did. To my knowledge, Miller has not done any radio advertising. Lynn Campbell listed the largest donors to the Findley and Miller campaigns at IowaPolitics.com.

    The state party’s massive support for Findley is striking. Republicans have not run a strong challenger against Miller for ages. The party didn’t even nominate a candidate for attorney general four years ago. Also, the Iowa GOP did essentially nothing for state treasurer candidate Dave Jamison or secretary of state candidate Matt Schultz. Jamison received contributions from several of Findley’s high-dollar individual donors and some of the same political action committees backing her (including those created by potential presidential candidates), but the only direct support from the Republican Party came from some GOP county central committees. Schultz received donations from some of those presidential candidate PACs but even less than Jamison from the county central committees and “usual suspect” individual donors.

    One could argue that Findley earned the party’s backing through her strong fundraising. She reported far more donations in May and July than the other Republican challengers for statewide offices. Without any financial support from the Iowa GOP, Findley would still have been competitive with her opponent’s contributions and cash on hand totals. She has been an energetic campaigner all year, and serving as Representative Steve King’s top staffer for seven years probably opened a lot of doors for her in terms of fundraising.

    Jamison raised $60,479.25 between July 15 and October 14. That was more than the $32,070.52 State Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald raised during the same period, but Fitzgerald had $94,073.48 cash on hand as of October 14 compared to $14,608 for Jamison. Schultz raised $25,903.60 since the July disclosure reports, while Secretary of State Michael Mauro raised $52,862.51. Mauro had $64,267 on hand as of October 14, while Schultz had $7,000.94 on hand and $18,174.77 in unpaid bills to himself. If I were Jamison or Schultz, I’d be upset to be ignored by the state party that gave Findley more than half a million dollars. A hundred thousand or two for Jamison and Schultz would have been enough for a bare-bones paid advertising campaign.

    Republican gubernatorial candidate Terry Branstad has been praising Findley at just about every campaign stop for months. He makes a brief appearance in one of her tv ads too. Before the June primary, I thought perhaps Branstad was singling out Findley because there were competitive GOP primaries for the other offices. However, even after winning their primaries Jamison and Schultz haven’t received as much attention or help from Branstad as Findley has.

    Bleeding Heartland readers, share your own thoughts about the Iowa Republican establishment’s strong support for Findley in this thread.

    Final note on the attorney general’s race: Findley and Miller debated yesterday in Iowa City. You can read about the highlights at the Des Moines Register blog, WCCC.com, Radio Iowa and IowaPolitics.com. Unfortunately, the debate won’t be broadcast on Iowa Public Television, but Mediacom cable subscribers can watch it on channel 22 at 2 pm on October 26 and 11 am on October 31. In the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City market, Mediacom subscribers can watch the debate at 7 am on October 24, 8 pm on October 25 or 7 am on October 31.

    Secretary of State race: Mauro on television, Schultz on radio

    The secretary of state campaign isn’t often in the news, but both candidates are now using paid advertising to get their message to the voters. Incumbent Michael Mauro launched his first campaign television commercial this week, a spot focusing on his accomplishments and bipartisan work. Challenger Matt Schultz is running a radio ad that emphasizes his call for photo ID requirements and his Republican affiliation.

    Videos, transcripts and comments are after the jump.

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    Schultz snubbed as own county auditor backs Mauro

    Matt Schultz, the not-very-informed Republican who wants to be Iowa’s chief elections officer, has been on a tear lately. Last week he launched the Stop Mauro website, which publishes new allegations almost daily about Secretary of State Mike Mauro’s supposedly nefarious doings. A common thread in Schultz’s rhetoric, dating from the Republican primary campaign, is that Mauro engages in Chicago-style politics, which have no place in Iowa.

    On October 1 Schultz slammed Mauro for filming public-service announcements regarding new voting technology for the visually impaired. Radio Iowa’s Kay Henderson covered Schultz’s joint press conference with Republican state treasurer candidate Dave Jamison. Mauro’s office responded as well. There is an obvious public interest in educating Iowans about new voting equipment during election season. Mauro appears in the commercial, but so do a Republican county auditor and the president of the Iowa Chapter of the National Federation of the Blind. More details on the production, funding and script of the ad are here.

    Schultz’s attention-getting press conference seems to have backfired. On Monday two more Republican county auditors joined the crowd supporting Mauro for re-election. One of the new endorsers was Marilyn Jo Drake of Pottawattamie County. Schultz is well-known there, having served on the Council Bluffs City Council since 2005. But Drake said in a statement, “I’m proud to support Michael Mauro as he seeks a second term as Secretary of State. Michael Mauro has been a strong and effective partner with county auditors across Iowa. I encourage all Iowans to vote for him this fall.”

    Elected county officials rarely back statewide candidates from the other party. Schultz doesn’t have the experience to do this job, and his unfounded claims don’t inspire confidence from the county auditors who work with the Secretary of State’s office.

    Jamison’s complaints about State Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald are no more convincing. Jamison claims “taxpayers” are funding television, radio and newspaper ads featuring Fitzgerald. The ads publicize the College Savings Iowa 529 plan and the “Great Iowa Treasure Hunt,” which encourages Iowans to retrieve unclaimed property from the state. Deputy State Treasurer Karen Austin told me that unclaimed property finances the publicity for the treasure hunt, which state law requires twice a year. Those ads typically appear in May and September. The state’s general fund budget doesn’t pay for the college savings fund commercials either; those are funded by the 529 plan’s assets. Austin told Kay Henderson that many states including Iowa normally promote college savings in September. Jamison accused Fitzgerald of using public funds to promote himself, but

    Austin says, “The way that we look at it, is having a state office that does this adds credibility to the program, and that is one thing that gives people comfort in understanding and knowing who is promoting this program, and why should I invest in this program and is that state tax benefit legitimate. So we have always felt that it is very important to make sure that people understand what this program is.”

    Similarly, Schultz claimed the commercials on voting technology could have been produced without featuring Mauro. Guess what? Incumbents have some natural advantages in politics–like when Republican office-holders use taxpayer money to fund visits to all 99 Iowa counties every year.

    Share any thoughts about the secretary of state or state treasurer races in this thread.

    P.S. One point on the Stop Mauro site deserves additional comment. Schultz says Mauro “snubs the law,” citing a 2008 Polk County district court ruling. The court determined that Mauro violated Iowa’s official English law by providing and accepting voter registration forms printed in other languages. Legal scholars Evan Seite and Michael Zuckerman have analyzed this case in detail, and the issues at hand are more complicated than Schultz implies. In fact, the judge who wrote the King v Mauro opinion “suggested that the federal Voting Rights Act […] might require Iowa’s use of non-English voter registration forms” under an exception allowing for “language usage required by or necessary to secure the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of the United States.” If plaintiffs ever challenge the Iowa English Language Reaffirmation Act in federal court, Mauro’s actions may be vindicated. Zuckerman argues that English-only laws are constitutionally vulnerable as applied to voting.  

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    Bipartisan group of county auditors backing Mauro for Secretary of State

    Secretary of State Michaul Mauro’s campaign announced today that 43 county auditors–31 Democrats, 11 Republicans and one with no party affiliation–have endorsed the Democratic incumbent for re-election. One of the Republicans, Auditor Renee McClellan of Hardin County, said in a statement, “From the first day he took office, Michael Mauro has walked arm-in-arm with county auditors of both political parties and approached his job as Iowa’s commissioner of elections in a non-partisan way, choosing results over politics. I’m proud to support Secretary Mauro and encourage all Iowans to vote for him this fall.”

    It’s unusual for partisan county officials to publicly support a statewide candidate from the other party, and Mauro said the endorsements “confirm that my administration has worked effectively with both Democrats and Republicans to make the voting process accessible, safe, and secure.”

    No doubt the Republican auditors have noticed that Mauro’s GOP challenger Matt Schultz is ignorant about Iowa election procedures and casually throws around fraud allegations for political gain.

    The full list of auditors who support Mauro is after the jump.  

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    Schultz Ignorant About Voter Rolls

    (Next time Republicans should nominate someone who knows something about this job. - promoted by desmoinesdem)

    Candidate Matt Schultz went on the radio yesterday to push his “number one issue”—requiring photo identification of all voters. In the process he showed how little he knows about election laws and covered up his discomfort by laughing his way through the ten minute interview.

    Schultz portrayed the accusatory electionlawcenter.com as a “non-partisan group.” In fact it is a blog run by a highly partisan attorney. If you try to find the so-called center with a Google search, all you can find is the blog. Schultz should know this by now.

    Then he acknowledged that no actual numbers were provided in the letter threatening to sue Iowa for incorrect numbers. He admitted that the charges are unproven. Nevertheless he still features the letter at his website and he wants to use the story to push his agenda. That is indeed the real purpose of the story in the first place–to scare us into erecting barriers to voting.

    Schultz joked about dead people voting or about people moving here from Chicago to impersonate dead Iowans at the polls. Since this canard is not grounded in any facts, he offered no facts to back it up. If he ever checked the voting rolls for dead Iowans, he could see that their names are removed as part of routine list maintenance. If he had paid attention last week to Secretary Mauro's rebuttal, Schultz would even know the number of deceased removed in each county.

    He further alleged that poll workers are powerless to stop an unfamiliar voter from impersonating the dead. He's never actually read the law: Iowa Code 49.77 (3)

    A precinct election official may require of the voter
    unknown to the official, identification in the form prescribed by the state commissioner by rule. If identification is established to the satisfaction of the precinct election officials, the person may then be allowed to vote.

    In a few minutes on the radio Schultz and his interviewer managed to mention aliens, Arizona, cheating, felons, dead voters, and Chicago politics while pretending to be average citizens bewildered by the ways of election administration. I'd say that makes him a poor candidate for Secretary of State.

    Still, you got to hand it to him. When you are not constrained by any facts, a few minutes on statewide radio is all you need to plant doubts in the minds of the public. He was wildly successful at that.

    cross-posted at iowavoters.org/

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    Republican Iowa poll roundup

    It’s been months since we’ve had new public nonpartisan polling of Iowa general election matchups, but three Republican polls have come out in the last ten days. None of them hold good news for Iowa Democrats.

    After the jump I summarize results from statewide polls done by Rasmussen Reports and Voter/Consumer Research for The Iowa Republican blog, as well as a Victory Enterprises poll of Iowa’s third Congressional district race.

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    Iowa statewide candidate fundraising roundup

    The latest round of statewide and state legislative candidate financial reports are available on the website of the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board. For most candidates, these reports cover money raised and spent between June 2 and July 14. Some of the candidates didn’t file a June 4 disclosure report, and in those cases the latest filing covers the period from May 15 to July 14.

    Fundraising numbers for Democratic and Republican candidates for statewide offices are after the jump. In addition to money raised and spent and cash on hand figures, I’ve listed the largest donors for each candidate. I am working on a post about the noteworthy fundraising figures from Iowa House and Senate candidates. John Deeth hit some highlights at the Des Moines Register blog. It’s important to remember that leadership committees for both parties will also spend a lot of money in the battleground legislative districts.

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    Secretary of State candidate runs against Obama, "Chicago way"

    Republican secretary of state candidate Matt Schultz launched a second television commercial CORRECTION: web ad called “Not the Chicago Way”:

    Transcript by me:

    I’m Matt Schultz, and I’m running for Iowa secretary of state because I’m worried about the future of my children and the future of your children and grandchildren. It’s time for new leadership in Des Moines, and I’m prepared to stand up and fight for fair and honest elections. Vote early, vote often might be the Chicago way, but it’s not the Iowa way. I’m Matt Schultz, and I approved this message because I’m a conservative Republican fighting to protect the most important right of all: your right to vote.

    Like Schultz’s first ad, this commercial raises the specter of voter fraud without any evidence that this has been a problem in Iowa.

    When Schultz says, “Vote early, vote often might be the Chicago way,” the visual is a smiling Barack Obama in front of Obama/Biden campaign signs. The hint is sure to play well with Republican primary voters, many of whom may believe the 2008 election was stolen. That’s easier to accept than the reality of a Democratic presidential candidate clobbering the Republican.

    Journalists should ask Schultz if he really believes (as this commercial implies) that Barack Obama got where he is because of Chicago-style election fraud. Then they should ask him to prove that “vote early, vote often” has happened even once in Iowa during the past decade or two.

    When Schultz says “I’m Matt Schultz, and I approved this message,” the visual shows the words, “TRUST BUT VERIFY.” Schultz used the same Ronald Reagan catch phrase in his first ad, although the Republican icon’s famous words have nothing to do with voter fraud.

    Your unintentional comedy of the day comes from Polk County Republican Party chairman Ted Sporer’s blog, commenting on Schultz’s commercial:

    The only reason to oppose photo ID for voting is to perpetuate fraud. No other good faith explanation is possible. Although we are lucky to have the rarest of animals, an honest and competent Democrat, serving as Iowa’s SoS, Mike Mauro’s Democrat colleagues are your more garden variety and ethically challenged L/S/Ds.

    As I discussed here, photo ID laws threaten to disenfranchise large numbers of voters (the 12 percent of the population lacking a photo ID) in order to solve a virtually non-existent problem (impersonating another voter at a polling place). That’s why advocacy groups who work to protect “the most important right of all, your right to vote” almost universally oppose photo ID laws.

    In case you were wondering, L/S/Ds means “Labor/Socialist/Democrats” in “the real Sporer” lingo.

    Schultz may pander his way to his party’s nomination, but his rhetoric ignores a fact that even Sporer grudgingly acknowledges: Secretary of State Mike Mauro is honest and highly competent. No one active in politics today has done more to safeguard fair and honest elections in Iowa than Mauro.

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    Weekend open thread: Election prediction contest edition

    It’s time for another Bleeding Heartland election prediction contest. No prizes will be awarded, but winners will get bragging rights. Can anyone dethrone American007, overall winner of our 2008 election contest?

    Enter by answering the following questions. To qualify for the contest, your predictions must be posted as a comment in this thread by 7 am on Tuesday, June 8, 2010. This isn’t like The Price is Right; the winning answers will be closest to the final results, whether or not they were a little high or low.

    1. How many votes will be cast in the Republican primary for Iowa governor? (Hint: about 199,000 Iowans voted in the hard-fought 2002 Republican gubernatorial primary.)

    2. What percentages of the vote will Terry Branstad, Bob Vander Plaats and Rod Roberts receive in the Republican primary for governor?

    3. What percentages of the vote will Roxanne Conlin, Bob Krause and Tom Fiegen receive in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate?

    4. What percentages of the vote will Rob Gettemy, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Steve Rathje and Chris Reed receive in the Republican primary in Iowa’s second Congressional district? Remember, if you expect this nomination to be decided at a district convention, make sure your guess has the top vote-getter below 35 percent.

    5. Who will be the top four candidates in the Republican primary in Iowa’s third Congressional district, and what percentages of the vote will they receive? Again, keep the top vote-getter below 35 percent if you expect this nomination to go to a district convention. Your possible answers are Jim Gibbons, Brad Zaun, Dave Funk, Mark Rees, Scott Batcher, Jason Welch and Pat Bertroche.

    6. What percentages of the vote will Mike Denklau and Matt Campbell receive in the Democratic primary in Iowa’s fifth Congressional district?

    7. What percentages of the vote will Matt Schultz, George Eichhorn and Chris Sanger receive in the Republican primary for secretary of state? (I covered that campaign in this post.)

    8. What percentages of the vote will Dave Jamison and Jim Heavens receive in the Republican primary for state treasurer? (The Iowa Republican blog has been covering this race from time to time.)

    9. What percentages of the vote will State Representative Ako Abdul-Samad and challenger Clair Rudison receive in the Democratic primary for Iowa House district 66? (Click here for background.)

    10. What percentages of the vote will Tom Shaw, Stephen Richards and Alissa Wagner receive in the Republican primary for Iowa House district 8? (Click here and here for background. Keep in mind that although Wagner withdrew from the race and endorsed Shaw, her name will remain on the ballot.)

    Don’t be afraid to make some wild guesses. You can’t win if you don’t play!

    This is also an open thread, so share whatever’s on your mind.

    The Secretary of State race is getting interesting

    The Republican primary campaign for Iowa secretary of state has lacked the drama and publicity of the governor’s race, but it is turning into a test of strength between a “fresh face” and a veteran of Iowa Republican politics.

    The nominee challenging our outstanding Secretary of State Michael Mauro will be either Council Bluffs City Council member Matt Schultz or former State Representative George Eichhorn (“say I-Corn”).

    A third Republican qualified for the ballot in this race, but I’m focusing on Eichhorn and Schultz because Chris Sanger is not a serious contender. He has no campaign staff and has raised only about $400, all at bake sales in Stuart, where the candidate and his wife own a bakery. The only newsworthy moment in Sanger’s campaign was his involvement in a meet and greet organized by a guy who thinks killing abortion providers is justifiable homicide. In fairness to Sanger, though, he may have a place in the record books for choosing the longest campaign committee name in Iowa history: Elect Chris Sanger, He Will Vote The Way People Want. Someone should have told him the secretary of state isn’t a legislator who votes on policies.

    But I digress. Links and commentary about Schultz and Eichhorn are after the jump.  

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    New early voting numbers for the Iowa primary election

    Secretary of State Michael Mauro’s office released new numbers today for Iowans voting early in the June 8 primary election.

    As of today, 9,209 ballots have been received by county auditor offices across the state. The breakdown by political party is as follows:

    Absentee Ballots Received: 9,209

    Democrats – 2,140

    Republicans – 7,069

    Absentee Ballots Sent: 20,269

    Democrats – 5,305

    Republicans – 14,964

    To view these numbers by Congressional district, visit www.iowavotes.gov.

    The deadline to request a mailed absentee ballot is June 4 at 5:00 p.m. Absentee ballots returned by mail must be postmarked on or before June 7. Voters may still request absentee ballots in-person at their county auditor’s office until close of business on June 7, the day before Primary Day.

    On Saturday, June 5, county auditors’ offices will be open for in-person absentee voting. Voters may check with their county auditor for business hours on this day. In addition, voted absentee ballots requested by mail may be hand-delivered to the county auditor’s office until the close of the polls at 9:00 p.m. on Primary Day.

    Secretary Mauro encourages those voters who have received absentee ballots to be sure to return completed ballots to their county auditor’s office prior to the deadline.

    In order to participate in Iowa’s Primary Election on June 8, eligible voters will need to register either as a Democrat or as a Republican.

    For more information on the 2010 Primary Election, visit www.iowavotes.gov.

    Note: the number of “absentee ballots received” includes people who have voted early in person, either at a satellite voting location or at their county auditor’s office.

    The disparity between ballots requested by Republicans and Democrats is expected, since Democrats have relatively few contested primaries going on (the U.S. Senate race, the fifth Congressional district, a few Iowa House districts and Iowa Senate district 13). Republicans have a three-way primary for governor, two candidates for state treasurer, three candidates for secretary of state, crowded primaries in the first, second and third Congressional districts, and many competitive primaries in Iowa House and Senate districts.

    I am surprised there aren’t even more Republican absentee ballots outstanding. From what I’ve heard and read, Terry Branstad’s campaign is making a major push on the absentee ballot front. Supposedly Brad Zaun has been working on turning out third district Republicans to the satellite voting location in Urbandale. I would have expected more than 22,000 Republicans across the state to have voted early or requested an absentee ballot by now. (Approximately 200,000 people voted in the 2002 Iowa Republican primary.) Maybe there will be a surge of voters in the last two weeks before election day, or maybe Republicans just reject early voting on principle.

    If you are voting by mail, you can track your absentee ballot through a new feature on the Iowa Secretary of State’s website. I prefer to vote early in person; it only took me a few minutes at the Polk County Auditor’s Office.

    UPDATE: Melissa Walker posted a good story on this at IowaPolitics.com. She has numbers and return rates for several large counties. According to Polk County Auditor Jamie Fitzgerald, “many of the early ballots are from the Urbandale area,” which may favor Zaun in the third district primary.

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    Findley pulls in big money for attorney general race

    Financial reports for Iowa statewide candidates covering the period from January 1 through May 14 are now available at the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board website. John Deeth summarized the numbers for the statewide races other than the governor’s race, which I discussed earlier today.

    The biggest surprise to me was Republican Brenna Findley’s haul in the attorney general’s race. She raised $124,078 since January 1 and has $95,528 on hand. Incumbent Attorney General Tom Miller clearly wasn’t focused on raising money, bringing in just $15,748. Because he started the year with nearly $90,000 in his account, he still has more cash on hand than Findley ($105,200), but Findley has a larger donor base (more than 700 donors).

    As a long-time top staffer for Representative Steve King, Findley probably benefits from his donor contacts. It can’t hurt that Terry Branstad is talking up Findley at every campaign stop too. Deeth concludes, “We may have found our downballot sleeper race for the general election.” I don’t think Findley has a chance against Miller, who has been elected attorney general seven times. But she will be able to run a statewide campaign and raise her profile substantially. Miller will have to take this race seriously. His campaigning skills may be rusty, since Republicans gave him a pass in 2006. However, he has a strong record, and it’s worth recalling that he was returned to the attorney general’s office in 1994, an atrocious year for Iowa Democrats.

    In all the other statewide races, the incumbents have huge financial advantages over their challengers. Secretary of State Michael Mauro has raised $30,021 since the start of the year, more than his three Republican opponents combined. Mauro has just under $128,000 on hand, whereas Matt Schultz and George Eichhorn both have more outstanding bills than cash on hand, and Chris Sanger has only about $400 on hand. Deeth has more on who’s given to Schultz and Eichhorn. Speaking of this race, I learned recently that the Secretary of State Project has endorsed Mauro.

    State Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald hasn’t raised much money so far in 2010 ($4,179), but he started the year with nearly $114,000 and spent almost nothing, leaving about $117,770 cash on on hand. Two Republicans are running against Fitzgerald, and their campaigns have less than $10,000 cash on hand combined. Story County Treasurer Dave Jamison has broader support than James Heavens of Dyersville, who loaned his campaign most of the money raised.

    Republican Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey raised nearly $40,000, and even though he spent quite a lot for this early in the campaign ($53,920), he still has $247,535 on hand. Democrat Francis Thicke raised $58,439, including a $10,000 contribution from the candidate, and has an impressive number of donors (at least 300). He spent a little more than $25,000 and has $33,320 on hand. Corporate interest groups will make sure Northey has tons of money to spend. Thicke will have to run a more grassroots campaign.

    Share any thoughts about the statewide races in this thread.

    Previewing the Iowa secretary of state race

    Iowa Secretary of State Michael Mauro doesn’t make the news often, but he has done very well in his first term. I particularly appreciate his support for requiring paper ballots to be used in all Iowa counties. We had several statehouse races decided by fewer than 100 votes in 2008. Imagine what an uproar we’d have seen if touchscreen voting machines had been used in those races.

    Mauro’s campaign website recounts other achievements:

    In 2009, Mauro worked closely with the Cerro Gordo County Auditor to make electronic poll books available for use in counties across the state. The electronic poll books will enhance Iowa precinct officials’ ability to process voters effectively and consistently on election day. In addition, the poll books add an extra layer of security to the voting process.

    During the 2008 General Election, Iowa saw the fifth highest percentage turnout in the nation i and had the highest rate of young voter participation (18- to 24-year-olds) ii. Secretary Mauro’s office also took the honor of having the top elections website in the country during the 2008 election season according to a leading national election research group iii. In the fall of 2009, Iowa’s election laws and procedures implemented by Secretary Mauro gained national attention when the state ranked first in a study focusing on the ease of voting for members of the military and U.S. citizens living overseas iv. […]

    Since Mauro took office, much progress has been made in the business services division. In 2009, the development of a new corporations database is paving the way for online corporate filings beyond the biennial report. Currently, the majority of business filings are done electronically and advancements for additional filings will continue.

    The online business center allows business to be conducted 24-hours a day, seven days a week and currently provides access to over three million filed documents and a complete array of forms, applications, and searchable databases for businesses, lending institutions and interested citizens.

    I wouldn’t care to run against that record, but some Republicans seem to think they can beat Mauro. GOP establishment figures have been trying to recruit Paul Pate for this race. Pate was elected Iowa secretary of state in the 1994 landslide. He didn’t seek re-election in 1998, running unsuccessfully for governor instead.  

    Pate said in December that he was considering a run against Mauro. I thought Republican recruiters had succeeded when the Iowa Republican blog hyped a bogus poll claiming that Pate already leads the incumbent. This week Jason Hancock reported that Pate had filed papers forming a committee for a secretary of state campaign. However, Pate announced on Facebook this morning that he won’t run for secretary of state, citing “family and business demands.” (UPDATE: Apparently Pate’s parents have been having health problems.)

    That leaves two declared GOP candidates for this office. George Eichhorn lost his Iowa House seat to McKinley Bailey in 2006 and finished a close second in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate in 2008. He then co-founded an organization opposing Iowa’s public smoking ban, which never got off the ground, and unsuccessfully represented some restaurant and bar owners trying to get that smoking ban thrown out. Eichhorn announced his bid for secretary of state last month. Kathie Obradovich exposed some false and misleading statements in Eichhorn’s opening salvo, and the Iowa Progress blog also looked at his candidacy. Last week Eichhorn released a list of prominent endorsers, including Bill “wingnuttier than Steve King” Salier.

    The other Republican candidate in this race is Matt Schultz, who serves on the Council Bluffs City Council. On the issues page of his website, he says he wants to streamline corporate filings, require all voters to show photo ID at polling places, and force all citizens who register to vote on election day to cast provisional ballots. Photo ID laws are generally considered to be voter suppression techniques, and there is no evidence of any problem with voter fraud by impersonating someone at a polling place.

    Mauro hasn’t hit the campaign trail yet, but today he released a statement urging Iowans to participate in the Democratic and Republican caucuses this Saturday, January 23, at 1 pm. (Find your Democratic caucus site here.)

    VERY LATE UPDATE, March 9, 2010: Republican Chris Sanger is also running for secretary of state.

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    Open thread on Hillary Clinton and Obama's national security team

    At MyDD Todd Beeton has excerpts from this morning’s press conference:

    Obama’s introductory remarks are remarkably poetic. “America’s values are our country’s greatest export to the world.”

    He’s announced his nomination of Hillary Clinton for secretary of state (“I am proud that she will be our next secretary of state…She will help restore our reputation around the world,”) Robert Gates at defense (“responsibly ending the war in Iraq through a successful transition to Iraqi control”,) Eric Holder for Attorney General (“The Attorney General serves the American people…I have no doubt he will uphold the constitution,”) Janet Napolitano as head of Homeland Security (“she insists on competence and accountability,”) Susan Rice as Ambassador to the UN and Jim Jones as National Security Advisor.

    “We will shape our times instead of being shaped by them.” […]

    As for his choice of Clinton at state, “it was not a lightbulb moment…she shares my core values and the values of the American people. I was always interested after the primary was over in finding ways to collaborate…It occurred to me that she could potentially be an outstanding secretary of state, I offered her the position and she accepted.”

    On whether he still intends to remove troops from Iraq in 16 months: “Remember what I said during the campaign. I said that I would remove our combat troops from Iraq within 16 months keeping in mind that it might be necessary to maintain a residual force…As I said consistently, I will listen to the recommendations of my commanders.”

    Like I said last week, I have a bad feeling Gates and Jones were chosen in order to give Obama cover for breaking his campaign promises on Iraq.

    Beth Fouhy of the Associated Press has details about the deal Bill Clinton made to allow his wife to become Barack Obama’s secretary of state. Apparently, the former president agreed:

    -to disclose the names of every contributor to his foundation since its inception in 1997 and all contributors going forward.

    -to refuse donations from foreign governments to the Clinton Global Initiative, his annual charitable conference.

    -to cease holding CGI meetings overseas.

    -to volunteer to step away from day to day management of the foundation while his wife is secretary of state.

    -to submit his speaking schedule to review by the State Department and White House counsel.

    -to submit any new sources of income to a similar ethical review.

    I still think Hillary Clinton would be able to accomplish more over her lifetime as a senator from New York, but clearly she was strongly motivated to accept this position in Obama’s government.

    However, I continue to be amused by the anguished commentaries from those Obama supporters who got too wrapped up in the primary battle to deal with Hillary in her new role.

    Share any relevant thoughts in the comments.

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    Open thread on Obama's national security team

    According to ABC, Barack Obama will roll out his national security team soon after this weekend.  

    All indications suggest that Hillary Clinton will become secretary of state.

    ABC says keeping Defense Secretary Robert Gates on for at least a year is "a done deal." Others likely to be appointed include  

    Marine Gen. Jim Jones (Ret.) as National Security Adviser; Admiral Dennis Blair (Ret.) as Director of National Intelligence; and Dr. Susan Rice as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

     Todd Beeton goes over the pros and cons of keeping Gates in place.

     A lot of Obama supporters seem comfortable with this decision. If the new president keeps his promise to withdraw most of our troops from Iraq safely within 16 months, there’s an argument for sticking with someone at Defense who’s already familiar with the situation on the ground. My main concern is that Gates will strenuously argue that we need to keep a large contingent in Iraq and give Obama cover to break his campaign promise.

    Looks like no one who opposed the Iraq war from the start will be in Obama’s inner circle on foreign policy.

    In the unambiguously good news column, John Brennan withdrew his name from consideration to head the Central Intelligence Agency. Glenn Greenwald (among others) made the case against Brennan last week.

    UPDATE: Jon Soltz, co-founder of VoteVets, argues that “the Gates pick works.”

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    Yet another thread on Obama cabinet appointments (updated)

    The more I think about it, the more I think Hillary Clinton should stay in the Senate. However, most analysts are speculating she will accept Barack Obama’s offer to become Secretary of State. Here’s a roundup of recent coverage on the appointment.

    Tom Harkin thinks Hillary will be secretary of state, and he likes the idea:

    Harkin said he was confident that former President Bill Clinton would not pose conflicts, as he’s agreed to make public the donors to his foundation and clear his travel schedule and speeches with the Obama administration, should his wife become secretary of state.

    “If he’s willing to do whatever the Obama team and the president wants – and he should understand it, he’s a former president – that would be fine,” Harkin said.

    He also said Obama naming her would be a demonstration of unity to the world. Sen. Clinton and Obama waged an intense, six-month campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination this year.

    “I think it would send a good signal to the world if Hillary Clinton were secretary of state,” Harkin said. “The signal it sends to the world is we can have big fights politically here in the United States and yet after the election’s over, we pull together.”

    Where does that leave Bill Richardson? I hope he ends up in the cabinet. UPDATE: ragbrai08 has heard rumblings Richardson might become Secretary of the Interior, which would be a decent fit for him.

    Kia Franklin of the Drum Major Institute wrote an interesting piece on Eric Holder, the likely attorney general, and where he stands on civil justice issues.

    John Crabtree of the Center for Rural Affairs blog offers “A Different View of [Tom] Vilsack,” the front-runner to run the U.S. Department of Agriculture:

    It is difficult, if not impossible, to predict when, where and from whom leadership will emerge. The book on Tom Vilsack is not complete, and perhaps that is a good thing. He does not get a perfect score on my litmus tests. But, when I disagree with him in the future I will continue to engage him, just as I always have, whether he is a private citizen or the Secretary of Agriculture. And he will engage me, just as he always has.

    I hope that, at the end of the day, our next Secretary of Agriculture is the kind of leader that can help create a future for rural America with thriving family farms and ranches and vibrant rural communities. I believe Governor Vilsack can provide that leadership. Perhaps he just might get the chance.

    James L. of Swing State Project is concerned that Obama might choose either Representative Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin or Representative Collin Peterson for the USDA job. Both are from Republican-leaning districts that would be hard for a different Democrat to hold.

    Obama supposedly was leaning toward offering the Commerce Department position to uber-fundraiser Penny Pritzker, but she withdrew her name from consideration.

    Haven’t heard much about a possible secretary of transportation. Obama supports greater investment in core infrastructure as well as high-speed rail and public mass transit, so I am hopeful he will put someone with vision in charge of this department. The highway bill comes up for reauthorization in 2009 and is sure to be one of the major battlegrounds in Congress.

    Still no word on a Treasury Secretary. Matt Stoller remembered another reason why Larry Summers is wrong for the job.

    Most people seem to think Robert Gates will stay on as Defense Secretary. I don’t see why Obama can’t appoint a Democrat for that position. We have plenty of qualified people in our party. Keeping the Republicans in charge of defense supports their propaganda that the GOP is best for defending the country.

    The Mayor of Miami, Manny Diaz, is being considered either for Transportation or for Housing and Urban Development. Representative Jim Clyburn of South Carolina is not interested in the HUD appointment.

    Share your opinions or predictions in the comments.

    UPDATE: Why does Obama want to reinforce Republican stereotypes about how they’re the only ones who can handle national security? Now General Jim Jones, a supporter of the Iraq War and John McCain, is tipped to run the National Security Agency. That is just crazy. Put some Democrats in charge, please. It’s not as if we don’t have people who could do this job well. I would not be surprised if Jones undermines Obama in this position.

    UPDATE 2: The New York Times says Hillary Clinton will take the Secretary of State job.

    Several news outlets are saying Timothy Geithner, about whom I know nothing, will be Obama’s Treasury Secretary nominee. Geithner is president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

    NBC News says Bill Richardson will be Commerce Secretary. I don’t like him nearly so much for that job as I would like him for Secretary of State, Transportation, or Interior. Richardson’s a corporate Democrat, judging from his record in the 1990s. He ran the whip to get NAFTA through the House during Bill Clinton’s first term.

    Still no progressives in Obama’s cabinet.

    UPDATE 3: My brother, who works in the investment field and is much more of a moderate Democrat than I am, is “sick” about the prospect of Geithner running Treasury. His other comment about Geithner is not printable at this blog.

    UPDATE 4: This is from a speech Geithner gave in May 2006:

    Credit derivatives have contributed to dramatic changes in the process of credit intermediation, and the benefits of these changes seem compelling. They have made possible substantial improvements in the way credit risk is managed and facilitated a broad distribution of risk outside the banking system. By spreading risk more widely, by making it easier to purchase and sell protection against credit risk and to actively trade credit risk, and by facilitating the participation of a large and very diverse pool of non-bank financial institutions in the business of credit, these changes probably improve the overall efficiency and resiliency of financial markets.

    With the advent of credit derivatives, concentrations of credit risk are made easier to mitigate, and diversification made easier to achieve. Credit losses, whether from specific, individual defaults or the more widespread distress that accompanies economic recessions, will be diffused more broadly across institutions with different risk appetite and tolerance, and across geographic borders. Our experience since the introduction of these new instruments-a period that includes a major asset price shock and a global recession-seems to justify the essentially positive judgment we have about the likely benefits of ongoing growth in these markets.

    Despite the benefits to financial resilience, the changes in the credit markets that are the subject of your conference have also provoked some concerns and unease, even among those on the frontier of innovation and the most active participants in these markets.

    These concerns are based in part on uncertainty-a candid acknowledgment that there is a lot we do not yet know about how these instruments and the increased role of nonbank institutions in these markets will affect how the financial markets are likely to function in conditions of stress.  […]

    Let me conclude by reiterating the fundamental view that the wave of innovation underway in credit derivatives offers substantial benefits to both the efficiency and stability of our financial system.

    Hmmm, he didn’t seem to have seen any of the current problems coming. Also, he apparently was involved in the bailout negotiations. So it seems like this is a very status quo pick for Obama.

    On an even less encouraging note, Obama’s leading candidate to run the CIA is a “Bush-Cheney apologist.”

    That’s not exactly “change we can believe in.”

    UPDATE 5: Two people on Obama’s short list would both be highly competent and celebrated by progressives: Representative Raul Grijalva for Interior (he heads the House Progressive Caucus) and former Representative David Bonior for Labor (he has close ties to organized labor).

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    New thread on real and rumored Obama cabinet appointments

    Looks like the Guardian jumped the gun; Hillary Clinton has not accepted the Secretary of State position and is reportedly still weighing Barack Obama’s offer.

    Apparently Senator Ted Kennedy wants Hillary to lead the efforts to get health care reform through Congress. That’s where I’d like to see her as well, though the cynic in me wonders whether Kennedy is primarily trying to clear the path for his friend Senator John Kerry to become secretary of state.

    I would be happy with either Kerry or Bill Richardson for that job, but my dream is still Richardson as transportation secretary.

    Roll Call reports that former Senate Majority leader Tom Daschle, an early Obama backer, has accepted Obama’s offer to run the Health and Human Services department. Daschle will also be the White House “health care czar,” and I’m with Matt Stoller:

    isn’t it weird that cabinet appointments are basically subordinate to White House staff positions?  It’s like, when did ‘czar’ become a laudable title?

    Obama is said to have decided on Eric Holder for attorney general. Holder was deputy attorney general under President Bill Clinton but supported Obama during the Democratic primaries. He also helped lead Obama’s vice-presidential search team. He is still being vetted, but if selected and confirmed, Holder would become the first black U.S. attorney general.

    The Ethicurean gets real about who might become secretary of agriculture.

    It’s notable that no hero of Obama’s progressive supporters seems to be in the running for any job. I admit that part of me is amused to watch heads explode among those who really believed Obama would bring transformational change. It’s been clear for many months that there was little daylight between Hillary and Obama on policy. Some people bought into the Clinton demonization project a bit too much in the winter and spring.

    On the other hand, Pat Buchanan’s stopped clock is right about this: Obama should make at least one appointment that will please the “Daily Kos crowd,” which did so much for Obama during the primaries. It would be ironic if “the change we need” turned out to be a bunch of former Clinton officials and centrist Congressional leaders, with a few Republicans mixed in.

    This is an open thread for any thoughts or predictions about Obama’s cabinet appointments.

    UPDATE: Ezra Klein is excited by the news about Daschle:

    This is huge news, and the clearest evidence yet that Obama means to pursue comprehensive health reform. You don’t tap the former Senate Majority Leader to run your health care bureaucracy. That’s not his skill set. You tap him to get your health care plan through Congress. You tap him because he understands the parliamentary tricks and has a deep knowledge of the ideologies and incentives of the relevant players. You tap him because you understand that health care reform runs through the Senate. And he accepts because he has been assured that you mean to attempt health care reform.

    UPDATE 2: CNN reports that Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, an early Obama backer, will be named Homeland Security secretary. I want her to run against John McCain for Senate in 2010.

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    British paper says Hillary will become Secretary of State

    If this report is accurate, shame on the Beltway press corps for getting scooped by the Guardian’s Washington correspondent.

    Hillary Clinton plans to accept the job of secretary of state offered by Barack Obama, who is reaching out to former rivals to build a broad coalition administration, the Guardian has learned.

    Obama’s advisers have begun looking into Bill Clinton’s foundation, which distributes millions of dollars to Africa to help with development, to ensure that there is no conflict of interest. But Democrats do not believe that the vetting is likely to be a problem.

    Back in June, Bleeding Heartland user American007 speculated about who might replace Clinton as the junior senator from New York if Obama chose Hillary as his running mate.

    Swing State Project spun some more scenarios today.

    UPDATE: Major American media are not picking up this story, so perhaps the Guardian jumped the gun.

    Meanwhile, Digby comments on an amusing double-standard emerging from the Washington pundits. It’s terrible for Obama to be considering Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State,

    because he promised change and this is so not it. He’s destroying his mandate before our very eyes.

    In other news, Obama is also known to be considering keeping Bush administration cabinet member Robert Gates as secretary of defense, and former secretary of State and war architect Colin Powell is breathlessly mentioned being on the short list for a number of posts. This strikes everyone as being a perfect example of how Obama is bringing change to Washington.

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    Should Hillary Clinton accept Obama's offer to become Secretary of State?

    By now you’ve probably heard the rumors that Barack Obama offered Hillary Clinton the position of Secretary of State in his administration.

    Should she take this job?

    If I were Hillary, I would say no thanks. She can be a senator for life, and probably will be in the majority party for most of that time. She could be the next Ted Kennedy.

    At most she could run Obama’s State Department for eight years, and probably not even that long. He could replace her at any time.

    It’s great for both of them to have this news leaked, however. It shows he is not holding grudges from the primaries and respects her skills. She obviously has the contacts with foreign leaders and the experience to do this job well.

    What do you think?

    UPDATE: Mr. desmoinesdem thinks that if she hopes to run for president again in 2016, she should definitely take this job. If she has given up all hope of becoming president and wants primarily to influence policy during the coming years, she should stay in the Senate. That sounds right to me.

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