Governor Terry Branstad begrudges the working poor a little extra money and wants to cut total compensation for thousands of state employees, whom he considers overpaid. But where his favorite appointees are concerned, Branstad uses bonuses or a housing allowance to evade salary caps on senior positions in state government.

Erin Jordan has the details in two must-read articles for the Cedar Rapids Gazette. Highlights are after the jump.

One day after a special election confirmed there will be 26 Democrats and 24 Republicans in the Iowa Senate next year, Senate Democrats released updated committee assignments. After the jump I’ve posted the full list of committee chairs as well as the leadership team chosen a few weeks ago. Most committees have the same leaders as in 2012, but where relevant I’ve noted changes.

On one level, yesterday’s special election in Iowa Senate district 22 was no surprise. One would expect a Republican victory in a district with a large GOP voter registration advantage, where Republicans spent far more money and only the Republican candidate ran television commercials.

On the other hand, the special election loss is a big red flag that Iowa Democrats have failed to communicate how crucial it is to hold their narrow Senate majority.

Voters in Clive, Windsor Heights, Waukee, and about half of West Des Moines will elect a successor to State Senator Pat Ward today in Iowa Senate district 22. Ward’s untimely death in October forced this special election between Republican Charles Schneider and Democrat Desmund Adams. Follow me after the jump for early vote numbers and news from the campaign trail.

UPDATE: Unofficial results from Polk County show Schneider won 2865 votes and Adams 2712 votes. The Dallas County precincts have not reported yet, but they are more Republican-leaning, so it’s safe to say Schneider won this special election.

SECOND UPDATE: Schneider won by 5,371 votes to 4,117 (56.56 percent to 43.36 percent). Huge opportunity for Iowa Democrats lost here.  

State Senator Kent Sorenson announced last week that he will file a bill to reinstate the death penalty. However, neither Democratic leaders in the Iowa Senate nor Republican leaders in the Iowa House have taken up the call.

As Iowa’s economy has improved this year, the unemployment rate has dropped slightly, and state tax revenues have increased. But a recent report on children’s well-being in Iowa shows that child poverty rose significantly over the past decade. Highlights from the “Iowa Kids Count 2011” report by the Des Moines-based Child & Family Policy Center are after the jump.

Governor Terry Branstad wants to use much of Iowa’s projected budget surplus for corporate tax cuts; he would also use part of the money to fund proposed changes to teacher pay. When state lawmakers consider how to use surplus funds, they should remember the Iowans most adversely affected by the “Great Recession,” who are least able to help themselves. The Child & Family Policy Center’s Every Child Counts project endorses specific legislative action that would improve the well-being of children and families. Those priorities are identical to policies advocated before the 2012 legislative session. Let’s hope lawmakers are paying more attention this year.

Former New Hampton Tribune newspaper publisher Dan Feuling is the first declared Republican candidate for the January 22 special election in Iowa House district 52 (hat tip to John Deeth). Feuling told the New Hampton Tribune that Governor Terry Branstad “called me to ask me to run.” It’s not clear whether any other Republican will step forward before a special district nominating convention.

Feuling’s likely Democratic opponent is Tom Sauser, a retired teacher and coach recruited by outgoing State Representative Brian Quirk.

A district map and the latest voter registration numbers in Iowa House district 52 are after the jump.

A few days ago, the final recounts ended in Iowa legislative races, and the last Congressional campaign was resolved. It’s time to reveal the winner of Bleeding Heartland’s general election prediction contest.

Democratic candidate Susan Judkins halted the recount and conceded defeat in Iowa House district 43 today: “Questions about whether all absentee ballots were counted have been satisfactorily answered and I believe my narrow loss would likely stand even if all ballots were considered.” After the official canvass, Republican incumbent Chris Hagenow led by 22 votes out of nearly 17,500 cast.

A recount of the open-seat race in Iowa House district 63 concluded yesterday. Republican Sandy Salmon defeated Democrat Bill Heckroth by a little more than 100 votes out of nearly 16,500 cast.

And in a final disappointment for Iowa Democrats, Republican Mike Breitbach held onto a narrow lead over John Beard after a recount in the open Senate district 28. I’ve heard conflicting reports about the final margin, which is probably either 17 or 22 votes out of nearly 30,000 cast.

Both parties have won some close statehouse races in Iowa over the years, but this year Democrats lost most of the heartbreakers.

Republicans have a 53 to 46 Iowa House majority, with a special election in House district 52 coming up soon. Democrats have a 26 to 23 Iowa Senate majority, with a special election in Senate district 22 set for December 11.

Tom Sauser, a retired middle school teacher and New Hampton High School coach, declared his candidacy yesterday in Iowa House district 52. A special election to replace Democratic State Representative Brian Quirk will take place in early 2013. Bleeding Heartland posted a district map and voter registration numbers here.

After the jump I’ve posted Sauser’s campaign announcement, which includes a short bio. He was Quirk’s high school football coach. A lot of Iowa House members are current or retired teachers. They can be good candidates, because hundreds or thousands of potential constituents are former students or relatives of students.

I’ll be interested to see whether any Democrat from Floyd County seeks the nomination in this race. Both parties will hold choose candidates for House district 52 in special district nominating conventions.

UPDATE: Quirk confirms that he recruited Sauser, and Craig Clark of Floyd County says he will run in the special election, probably as an independent. Clark received about 29 percent of the vote as an independent candidate against Quirk this year. No Republican ran for the seat.

SECOND UPDATE: Governor Terry Branstad set the special election for Tuesday, January 22. That’s the week after the 2013 legislative session begins.

Yesterday the Iowa House Democrats announced ranking members for all the standing and appropriations committees for the 2013 legislative session. Below I’ve posted the full list of House minority leaders and ranking members. Where relevant, I’ve noted changes since last year. House Democrats will start the session with 46 caucus members, because State Representative Brian Quirk just resigned his seat.

House Republicans named all the committee chairs earlier this week.

Talk about a bolt from the blue: State Representative Brian Quirk announced today that he is resigning from the Iowa House. His decision forces a special election in House district 52, where voters just elected the Democrat to his seventh term.

UPDATE: Added details on Quirk’s new job below.

More than 1,100 people attended the Governor’s Bullying Prevention Summit in Des Moines yesterday. To his credit, Governor Terry Branstad stayed all day to listen to speakers like Sioux City Superintendent of Schools Paul Gausman and Rosalind Wiseman, author of the book “Queen Bees and Wannabes.” The governor also announced a new hotline and website designed to help young people targeted by bullies.

I was unable to watch the livestream from what sounds like a fantastic event. After the jump I’ve posted a bunch of news and links about the summit as well as background on Iowa’s anti-bullying policies.  

Iowa House Speaker Kraig Paulsen has announced who will lead all the standing and appropriations committees for the 2013 legislative session. Below I’ve posted the full list of Republican House leaders and committee chairs. Where relevant, I’ve noted changes since last year.

Democrats will hold a slim majority in the next Iowa Senate: most likely 26-24 or 27-23, depending on the outcome of one recount and one special election in December. But the experience gap between the two parties’ caucuses is wider than I’ve ever seen, and perhaps unprecedented.

Only five Republicans who will serve in the next Iowa Senate have more than four years experience in the legislature’s upper chamber. Most of the old hands aren’t on the GOP leadership team. By comparison, eighteen Senate Democrats have held that office for more than four years. Thirteen of those have served in the upper chamber for at least a decade.

Many newcomers to the Iowa Senate have helped oversee public-sector budgets and programs as county supervisors, mayors, or members of city councils and school boards. Nevertheless, new legislators have a steep learning curve because state government is more complex than local government, and Iowa House and Senate members consider a wider range of issues during a typical legislative session. Whereas eleven Senate Democrats previously served in the Iowa House, only three sitting Republicans came to the Senate with that background. If the GOP had gained control of the upper chamber in this year’s elections, they would have been forced to put quite a few rookies in charge of standing committees.

After the jump I’ve posted details on the tenure of all incoming Iowa Senate members, indicating members of each party’s leadership team and past service in the Iowa House.

Yesterday Democratic candidate Susan Judkins formally requested a recount in Iowa House district 43, where she trails Republican incumbent Chris Hagenow by 22 votes out of 17,477 cast (approximately 0.1 percent). The recount will take place sometime before December 3.

Unofficial vote counts for Hagenow and Judkins in each of the 13 precincts are available on the Polk County Auditor’s website. Judkins carried the three Windsor Heights precincts. Each candidate won three West Des Moines precincts and two Clive precincts.

If Hagenow’s lead holds, Republicans will have a 53 to 47 majority in the Iowa House for the next two years.

After another disappointing election cycle, Iowa Senate Republicans chose Bill Dix to be the new leader of their caucus yesterday.

Democratic candidate John Beard will ask for a recount in Iowa Senate district 28, where he trails Republican Mike Breitbach by 36 votes after the official canvass this week.

The Polk County supervisors canvassed election results from Iowa House district 43 today and found Republican incumbent Chris Hagenow leading Susan Judkins by 22 votes: 8,741 to 8,719 with 17 write-ins. Judkins has until 5 pm on Monday, November 19 to request a recount. She would be crazy not to do so, in my opinion. Although recounts have rarely changed the outcome in Iowa legislative races, optical scanner machines do make mistakes when reading ballots, and Judkins trails by approximately 0.1 percent of all votes cast.

Iowa House Republicans are confident that Hagenow’s lead will hold–so confident that they elected Hagenow House majority whip today. He replaces Erik Helland, who was defeated in this year’s GOP primary to represent Iowa House district 39. The rest of the House leadership team includes Speaker Kraig Paulsen, Majority Leader Linda Upmeyer, Speaker Pro Tem Steve Olson, and assistant majority leaders Walt Rogers, Jeff Smith, Matt Windschitl, and Joel Fry. Republicans will have a 53-47 majority if Hagenow wins, and a 52-48 majority if a recount shows Judkins the winner.

Incidentally, the number of residents who voted for one of the candidates in House district 43 this year was substantially higher than the votes cast for Hagenow or his Democratic opponent in 2008. That year Hagenow defeated Jerry Sullivan in the old House district 59 by 8,240 votes to 8,147.

Catching up on some news from last week, Iowa House Speaker Kraig Paulsen hired Carmine Boal to be chief clerk in the Iowa House. She replaces Charlie Smithson, who will be the new legal counsel for Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz.

Longtime Pottawattamie County Auditor Marilyn Jo Drake disclosed last week that an unknown group attempted “voter caging” in her county for the first time ever, to her knowledge.

West Des Moines City Council member Charles Schneider will face Democrat Desmund Adams in the December 11 special election to fill Iowa Senate district 22. Six Republicans sought the nomination at a special district convention last night: Schneider, former West Des Moines School Board president John Ward (the widower of Senator Pat Ward), Clive Mayor Scott Cirksena, longtime GOP activist Connie Schmett, high school teacher Greg Hudson, and former Waukee City Council member Isaiah McGee, who now works for the Iowa Department of Education. About 60 Republican delegates from the district elected Schneider on the second ballot using a convoluted procedure for allocating votes to each candidate. McGee placed second, Ward third.

Senate district 22 covers the Des Moines suburbs of Clive, Windsor Heights, Waukee, and parts of West Des Moines. The latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office indicate that 12,633 registered Democrats, 17,184 Republicans, and 15,097 no-party voters live in the district. Those totals do not include any voters who registered on election day.

Americans elected record numbers of women to Congress on Tuesday. Beginning in January, 20 women will serve in the U.S. Senate, and 78 women will serve in the U.S. House. During the past two years, seventeen U.S. senators and 73 U.S. representatives were women.

Although Iowans continued our streak of not sending women to Congress, we did elect some new women to the state legislature, producing a slight gain in the total number of female lawmakers.  

Preliminary results from the Iowa Secretary of State’s website show that President Barack Obama defeated Mitt Romney in Iowa by 807,146 votes to 720,323 (51.89 percent to 46.31 percent) amid record participation of 1,555,570 voters statewide.

As expected, the president won a plurality of the vote in fewer Iowa counties this year than in 2008, but he did pick up one county that was a big surprise for me. Some thoughts about the presidential vote in Iowa are after the jump, along with maps showing which counties Obama, Romney, and John McCain carried. You can find vote totals for every county on the Iowa Secretary of State’s website.

Democrats are assured of maintaining their majority in the Iowa Senate, with one race headed for a recount and another to be decided in a December 11 special election.

Supporters of LGBT equality are celebrating yesterday’s votes for same-sex marriage rights in Maine, Maryland, and Washington, as well as Minnesotans rejecting a constitutional amendment designed to restrict marriage rights to heterosexuals.

The election also slammed the door on any prospect of overturning marriage equality in Iowa.

Whatever happens in tonight’s Iowa legislative races, one mystery will remain: why couldn’t Republicans recruit a stronger candidate to run against Mike Gronstal in Iowa Senate district 8?  

Given how much money Democratic and Republican leaders are spending on advertising in the Iowa Senate races, it’s unfortunate that so few of the television and radio commercials are available online. Both of the candidates in the battleground Senate district 30 (Cedar Falls/Waterloo) continue to set a good example for transparency, though.

The final tv ads supporting Senator Jeff Danielson and his Republican challenger Matt Reisetter are after the jump, along with other recent news from the campaign. Bleeding Heartland discussed these candidates’ previous ads here and here.

Democratic candidates for the state Senate haven’t fared well in western Iowa lately, so the new Senate district 6 hasn’t been on my radar, even though it’s an open seat. However, campaign finance reports indicate that Democrats are not conceding this district, so I decided to post a profile of the race. Background on both candidates is below, along with a district map and some of the campaign rhetoric voters have been hearing.

Many candidates for the Iowa House and Senate tout endorsements by outside groups in their campaign communications. Some of those groups pay for direct mail, phone calls, or even advertising supporting their endorsed candidates.

Iowa’s influential political action committees and advocacy groups have very different ways of getting involved in the state legislative campaign. Follow me after the jump for examples of four distinct strategies.

Three-time candidate for Iowa governor Bob Vander Plaats has made news this fall primarily on the “No Wiggins” campaign trail. However, the social conservative group he runs is supporting some Republican Iowa Senate candidates as well.

Last week the FAMiLY Leader launched radio advertising campaigns in two competitive Senate races–but notably, not in the district where Vander Plaats’ longtime right-hand man Matt Reisetter is running.  

To enter Bleeding Heartland’s election prediction contest, post your guesses as comments in this thread before 7 am on November 6. Predictions submitted by e-mail will not be considered. It’s ok to change your mind, as long as you post your revised predictions as an additional comment in this thread before the deadline.

No money’s at stake here, just bragging rights like those enjoyed by Bleeding Heartland users ModerateIADem (twice), American007, Johannes, and tietack. This isn’t “The Price is Right”; the winning answers will be closest to the final results, whether they were a little high or low. Even if you have no idea, please try to take a guess on every question.

Minor-party or independent candidates are on the ballot for some races, so the percentages of the vote for Democratic and Republican nominees need not add up to 100. You can view the complete list of candidates for federal and state offices in Iowa here (pdf).

Good luck, and remember: you can’t win if you don’t play.

In a sure sign that Republicans consider House district 43 competitive, State Representative Chris Hagenow’s campaign is spending tens of thousands of dollars on television commercials attacking his Democratic challenger Susan Judkins. The ads repeat several messages a Republican push-poll used against Judkins earlier this fall. My transcript and description of the commercial is after the jump. Bleeding Heartland previewed the House district 43 race here.

Repeat Democratic candidate Scott Ourth appears well-positioned to win Iowa House district 26, a seat left open by freshman State Representative Glen Massie’s retirement. Ourth takes a fundraising lead into the home stretch and has gained the support of one of Warren County’s best-known GOP activists. Meanwhile, the Iowa House Republican advertising machine seems to have left Steve McCoy behind.

In a surprising turn of events, Republican challengers are putting an obscure vote on water bottles at the center of their attacks on Iowa Senate Democrats. Follow me after the jump for background on this year’s equivalent to the non-existent “heated sidewalks” of 2010.

Iowans have requested a record number of early ballots for the general election with more than a week left to vote by mail or early in person. As of October 24, 565,986 Iowans had requested absentee ballots–more than the number of Iowans who cast early votes in the 2008 general election (545,739).  

Iowa Democrats have requested about 75,000 more absentee ballots than Republicans and lead in ballot requests in three of the four Congressional districts. On October 23, Republicans finally overtook Democrats in absentee ballot requests in IA-04, where the GOP’s voter registration advantage is more than 50,000.

After the jump I’ve posted early voting numbers from the last three presidential elections in Iowa, along with the latest tables showing absentee ballots requested by voters and returned to county auditors. I’m updating the absentee ballot totals every weekday here, using data posted on the Iowa Secretary of State’s website.

Adrian Gray, a veteran of the 2004 Bush/Cheney campaign, has been commenting on early voting trends in various states on twitter. I disagree with some of his Iowa observations and explain why below.  

The I-JOBS infrastructure bonding initiative helped fund more than 1,600 infrastructure projects around Iowa during the “Great Recession.” From the beginning, Republicans have used misleading rhetoric to make their case against I-JOBS. Terry Branstad and GOP lawmakers exaggerated the initiative’s costs and understated its benefits repeatedly during the 2010 campaign.

Now some Iowa Senate candidates are putting lies about I-JOBS at the center of their radio advertising.

Although Iowa’s unemployment rate is below the national average, and state government closed out the 2012 fiscal year with a record surplus, a growing number of Iowa children live in poverty and are hungry or malnourished at least some of the time. The Des Moines Register recently launched a series of reports on “unprecedented challenges for Iowa kids.” Follow me after the jump for some depressing highlights.

Medicaid coverage of abortion has been a contentious issue in the Iowa legislature since 2011 and will be on lawmakers’ agenda during next year’s session. I was surprised to learn that Iowa is already more restrictive than most other states when it comes to Medicaid coverage of abortion in cases of rape.

In a striking contrast to the $16 trillion federal debt so frequently mentioned in political advertising, the state of Iowa “officially closed the fiscal 2012 ledger with a $688.1 million budget surplus after its cash reserve and economic emergency funds were filled to the statutory maximum of nearly $596 million.” That’s the largest surplus in state history, according to David Reynolds, a fiscal analyst with the Legislative Services Agency.

Governor Terry Branstad (who wrongly claimed Iowa could not afford to give public employees a 3 percent raise) is already using the surplus to justify deep income tax cuts for corporations and wealthy individuals, in addition to a major commercial property tax cut. An earned income tax credit that would benefit hundreds of thousands of low-income workers will be a bargaining chip again.

Meanwhile, children in thousands of Iowa public schools have been dealing with larger classroom sizes and program cuts, because the governor and Republican state legislators insisted the state couldn’t afford any allowable growth for K-12 budgets in the 2012 fiscal year, and just 2 percent allowable growth in the current year. (In past decades, Iowa legislators routinely agreed on 4 percent allowable growth for school district budgets.) For statehouse Democrats, the record surplus shows that Iowa doesn’t need to “starve” state programs, especially education and human services.

This is an open thread. All topics are welcome, particularly any comments on state budget priorities.

UPDATE: Rest in peace, George McGovern. After the jump I’ve enclosed a famous passage from his book, What It Means to Be A Democrat. John Deeth recalls meeting and interviewing McGovern in Iowa. SECOND UPDATE: Added statements from Senator Tom Harkin and Iowa Democratic Party Chair Sue Dvorsky below.