On Wednesday, Tom Latham joined 177 other House Republicans to vote against H. Res 1113, a resolution “That the House of Representatives celebrates the role of mothers in the United States and supports the goals and ideals of Mother’s Day.” This was part of an attempt of House Republicans to make an attempt to make some sort of statement about their disapproval of Democratic procedural tactics. So, how did Tom Latham show his contempt for such tactics? He did so by taking a stand against such radical statements as “we honor ourselves and mothers in the United States when we revere and emphasize the importance of the role of the home and family as the true foundation of the Nation.” It’s long been clear that Latham is out of touch with Iowa’s working families. This vote against motherhood only reinforces Latham’s continued contempt for Iowa’s working families.
Today was a big day in the Iowa House, where Representatives voted 59-37 to pass Senate File 427, which updates Iowa’s civil rights law to outlaw discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation (and perceived sexual orientation).
Until yesterday, few people expected the bill to make it to the floor of the House at all, even though it passed the Iowa Senate last month. Without a guarantee that the bill would pass (or even a guarantee that all of the Democrats would sign on), the leadership was reluctant to force its members to make a vote that could hurt them in their reelection campaigns. Ex-Speaker and current Minority Leader Chris Rants was doing everything he possibly could to prevent any Republican members from supporting the bill (even though some Republicans were definitely interested), and it looked like he might succeed in forcing a stalemate through the end of the legislative session.
In the end, though, the Democratic leadership put civil rights ahead of political concerns, and put the bill up to a vote. The result was a resounding victory. And, although Murphy and McCarthy have been getting a lot of grief about VOICE and a few other issues that have worked up our blogging community, this should earn them back some street cred.
More from Mark’s diary over at BleedingHeartland (partially cross-posted with permission):
Senate File 427 updates Iowa’s Civil Rights Act to prohibit discrimination in employment, public accommodation, housing, education, or credit practices based on age, race, creed, color, sex, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, or disability.
The discussion on various blogs throughout the state over the past few months has focused on what the Iowa Legislature has FAILED to accomplish - rather than the victories. This bill is truly a victory for progressives and for everyone who would like to call Iowa home. Leadership in both chambers made this bill a priority throughout the session - and now we can separate ourselves from the 33 other states where it’s OK to dismiss employees because of their real or perceived sexual orientation.
In particular, it was leadership from Democrats in cooperation with Iowa businesses and civil rights leaders who pushed this bill through to final passage. Corporate America is rapidly realizing that creating a tolerant atmosphere for everyone to work is an important part of growing a business - and a state. According to an article in Fortune Magazine:
So it’s clear where big business is going. What’s interesting is to watch it pull the rest of the country along. It turns out that the most important factor shaping people’s feelings about gay issues is not their age or even their religion - although those do matter - but whether they have relatives, friends or co-workers who are gay.
“The more out and open people are, the more changed the straight people are all around them,” says Joe Solmonese, the Human Rights Campaign president. HRC began organizing workplaces to secure benefits for gay employees. This has inadvertently become a shrewd political strategy as well. “To move the mindset of the American people, we need to find the places where they congregate,” Solmonese says. “Priority one is corporate America.”
Empty suit Jeff Lamberti, heir to the Casey’s General Store petroleum-and-stale-pizza fortune, endorsed John McCain today. McCain couldn’t have been more thrilled:
Senator John McCain expressed his appreciation for Lamberti’s support. “During his career in public service, Jeff has been a tireless advocate for our shared common sense conservative values,” said Senator McCain. “Jeff is a respected Iowa leader and I’m proud to have his support as we continue to build our grassroots organization.”
You might remember empty suit Jeff Lamberti’s particular brand of “common sense conservatism” from his deceptive hit pieces against Leonard Boswell, who beat him pretty resoundingly last November. I particularly like the grainy pictures he used when he talked about the Boz:
I don’t know what Lamberti was trying to do there, but doesn’t that photo make Leonard Boswell look a little like Elvis? Maybe that’s why the millions of hit pieces that got mailed out by the RPI and 527 groups to hurt Boswell ended up failing so miserably.
This is all to say, of course, that John McCain has obviously switched gears since the last time he ran for president, back when he thought that you could win the Republican primaries by placing importance on authenticity and “straight talk.” Now that he knows that Republicans don’t care about those things, he and Jeff Lamberti can have a wonderful friendship.
I suppose the only real question left, then, is whether Lamberti should’ve shaved the handlebar mustache or not. (I vote no.)
A few days ago, The Register wrote an article documenting State Representative Dawn Pettengill’s dissatisfaction with the Democratic leadership in the State House. Here’s a snippet:
“I’m just trying to get through this term as a Democrat,” said Pettengill, the former mayor of her hometown of Mount Auburn who is now in her third year in the Iowa House. “People elected me as a Democrat, and I would not change during a term, that’s for sure.”
Her indecision leaves Democratic leaders questioning whether they should recruit a replacement candidate for the 2008 primary, and Republican leaders wondering if she might be on their team by the general election.
Will she defect? Well, she says she won’t during this term. In general, though, I’m not too worried about it. Pettengill has always seemed concerned with her ability to get elected in a district that she perceives as leaning more Republican than Democrat. She has developed a reputation (partly, but not wholly, deserved) for being emotionally volatile. Although she has condemned other legislators’ pet projects and voted against them, she is somewhat famous for her own pet projects: last year, she sponsored legislation to ban stores from selling sex toys to minors, and this year, she was the main proponent of the bill that recently passed preventing Iowa from having any business dealings with businesses supporting the genocide in Darfur. (I don’t mean to claim that either of these bills is bad policy, but neither is exactly in the front of most Iowans’ minds.)
The Register notes a few key places where Pettengill differs from the Democratic leadership in the House, but none of them are cut and dry reasons for a defection to the Republicans (or even to the Independent ticket):
But the strain of the last month has taken a serious toll as she struggled with her dislike of bills dear to many Democrats — raising the minimum wage (she voted yes after some reluctance), upping the cigarette tax (she voted no), campaign finance reform (she may vote no), and allowing public employee unions to charge nonunion members a “fair share” fee (she firmly intends to vote no).
On raising the minimum wage, she did end up voting yes, and the political realities in her district meant that “some reluctance” on the vote was smart. On voting against the cigarette tax, she justifies her decision for liberal (dare I say Democratic) reasons:
During a caucus meeting on the cigarette tax two weeks ago, Pettengill wept as she explained that when she was 19 years old, she found herself living on her own with a baby, balancing college classes and a job. She couldn’t afford cigarettes, but they were such a critical source of comfort that she sacrificed food to buy them.
She objects to a cigarette tax because it is increcibly regressive — it takes money disproportionately from the poor, and, because it is a flat fee, it takes a greater percentage of the disposable income of a poor person than it does a rich person. Yes, it internalizes an externality, yadda yadda yadda; but there is a principled, liberal argument to be made against it. Frankly, I was surprised more members didn’t express that opinion. Maybe only a small minority of the party holds this view, but it isn’t because they are the more conservative members of the party.
On campaign finance reform, it really isn’t clear that all of the Democratic leadership are fully supporting the VOICE bill. Good liberals generally like it (despite the short-term strategic disadvantages it may present to parties currently in the majority of the legislature), but this isn’t exactly an issue that everyone is closely aligned over.
And finally, on FairShare, it disappoints many labor activists that Pettengill does not support it, but again, there is a fair amount of diversity among Democrats on this subject. Some have more union shops in their districts than others, and some have different opinions of labor unions than others. Our Democratic State Senator, Tom Reilly, voted against FairShare, and he isn’t leaving the party anytime soon. Again, it’s an issue where some people within the labor movement are doubting policies like this, so it isn’t’ only conservatives who oppose it.
So is it really just the House leadership’s fault that Pettengill is disgruntled, as others have claimed? No. The House leadership is doing its job. Their job is to push a Democratic agenda in the legislature, and they have to keep their members in line whenever they can. They’re getting results, and, unless Pettengill does end up defecting, no one will even remember this story in six months.
There has been quite a hullabaloo about Alberto Gonzalez and the US Justice Dept. of late. If you haven’t heard about it, check here for a good primer. Here in Iowa, we are dealing with a different scandal involving our US Attorney, but David Yepsen thinks it might be connected to the national scandal.
When (gay) Democratic State Senator Matt McCoy was indicted for allegedly using his elected position to “extort” a $2,000 consulting fee from a company he was working for, it made us look pretty bad. But Yepsen digs deeper and actually comes up with something interesting: it turns out that Matt Whitaker, the US Attorney prosecuting McCoy, is a homophobic Republican crony. Quoth Yepsen:
Whitaker is a Republican. And not just any Republican, but a socially conservative one who ran unsuccessfully for state treasurer in 2002 and could well be a candidate for office again.
He recently was in the news when he was scheduled to emcee an event for the Iowa Christian Alliance, a successor group to the Iowa Christian Coalition.
After first granting him permission to host the event, Whitaker said the Justice Department revoked it after objections from liberal groups. Instead, he just attended the meeting.
So he’s a Republican with ties to the Christian Coalition, which is basically the group that controls the Republican Party of Iowa. US Attorneys are, in a sense, political appointees, so that isn’t surprising. But Whittaker’s partisanship is unusual. Continuing:
Active involvement in ideological political action groups like that is rare for U.S. attorneys in Iowa — and even the Justice Department higher-ups seemed to think better of it. For good reason. McCoy is a Democrat. And not just any Democrat but an openly gay one.
So we now have the specter of a politically ambitious, evangelical Republican with ties to the religious right going after a gay Democrat.
Well, good. If anyone wants an example of the politically charged ‘duties’ of a US Attorney in the Bush administration, this should serve well.
I suppose the “hearts Huckabee” line is going to catch on soon and then become very, very uncool, so I’m sorry about that.
Today, though, Republican Presidential Candidate and Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee announced endorsements from Blue Bunny Bob Vanderplaats, best known for losing a statewide election a few months back, and Danny Carroll, former President Pro Tem of the Iowa House representing Grinnell. He lost last November, too.
But more importantly, recall the story we broke last October, detailing how Danny Carroll is implicated in a scandal that made its way to the Iowa Supreme Court and resulted in the suspension of a lawyer’s license to practice. Basically, he helped the lawyer steal over $40,000 (and a free trip to Vegas) from a struggling old lady in Grinnell.
Well, I guess we can always trust Danny Carroll to “stick to his principles,” eh? We can if you believe Mike Huckabee himself:
Danny Carroll earned great respect during 12 years in the General Assembly as a conservative leader who always held true and firm true to his principles yet worked so successfully with people from across the political spectrum to accomplish meaningful results in health care, tax policy, education and economic development. Iowa ’s social conservatives know that Danny Carroll has always been a clear, strong voice on the issues that matter most to them.
It sounds like, not only is Mike Huckabee talking out of the side of his mouth, but Crooked Danny Carroll might be positioning himself to run for something again. We will be watching him.
Tuesday, Danny Carroll is hosting a fundraiser in a private room on Grinnell College’s campus with John McCain. It’s no secret that McCain has run to the right (Exhibit A), but he has never quite been the hero everyone thinks he is (Exhibit B).
But for anyone who is still attached to the idea of John McCain the “straight-talker” (and the “straight talk” motif kind of outlives its purpose when the attribution is plastered all over his PAC web site, straighttalkamerica.com), know that the candidate he’s shilling for is very much not a straight talker. Here are some of the very un-straight claims Danny Carroll has made:
Grinnell College students should not have the right to vote for their state representative (in this 2004 mailing).
He was the reason why Newton — about 15 minutes away from his house district — got its new speedway and stadium (in the 2006 “Carroll Chronicle”, which Danny sent out in the newspaper in Oskaloosa and Grinnell).
John McCain became popular when he ran against George W. Bush, because he was the Republican everyone wanted to win the primary. Then Bush smeared him, and McCain fell into line. Now it’s McCain’s turn to be front-runner, and he won’t be outflanked (or out-Roved) by anyone this time. For a campaign based on “straight talk,” he seems to spend a little too much time raising money for people like Danny Carroll.
There’s been a fairly heated debate raging today over at Political Forecast about whether Culver has placed undo stress on choice during the campaign, and it seems people in the Iowa blogosphere aren’t the only ones to have noted how the navigation of this sticky issue has changed in state races.
The New York Times highlights our very own gubernatorial race as an example of how South Dakota has changed choice in state races. Instead of questions about how to regulate abortions, candidates are now faced with a binary choice: ban or no? This places candidates like Blouin, who are personally pro-life but oppose a ban, in an awkward position. How does one articulate a nuanced position on a hot-button issue without committing an “I supported abortion before I was against it” misstep? (That was meant to be rhetorical, but I reckon picking a pro-choice female doctor as a running mate and letting her answer the question is one method of assuaging people’s fears!)
The article also points out that no one really knows how this issue will play out. Some pro-lifers are against ban proposals because they don’t see them as a pragmatic approach to eliminating abortion, and worry that they will call pro-choicers to action (well duh!). Perhaps the Nussle folks are worried about this too, as Nussle declined an interview with the Times, and his spokesperson noted that he has not publicly stated whether he would support a ban. On the other hand, he may just be standing aside to let the Dems pick each other apart—a strategy that has obviously been working.
Tonight at 7, Mike Blouin sat down to chat with Grinnell students for about an hour in the Loose dorm lounge. It had a smaller attendance than yesterday’s Fallon event, but that made for a more personal atmosphere. We formed a circle in Loose lounge’s mismatched, anachronistic armchairs and spoke pretty candidly about politics and college antics. (Thankfully, Hannah and I got to Loose early enough to tuck away the empty 30 racks of Natty Light before Mike arrived…) Read more after the jump.
Blouin was the candidate you’d least suspect would command the interest of an audience of college kids. Of the three candidates, he’s the oldest, and he has been cast — perhaps undeservedly — as an “establishment candidate”; so that’s not quite Grinnell material.
But Blouin engaged us. His demeanor was something between professorial and “quirky uncle,” and it worked. I know my opinion of him changed because of the event. Here are some interesting morsels:
Blouin began his speech with a very strong position in favor of a clean elections law. His language was surprisingly firm and insistent. Money, he said, was his biggest complaint about what has changed in Iowa since he got involved in politics.
He also gave us a brief biography. He went to Loras (at age 16), decided to settle in Iowa, got married, became a teacher (as did his wife), got elected to the legislature and was fired for it, had a child with his wife who had been fired for getting pregnant, had to live on a legislator’s salary alone, and worked his way up to being in charge of economic growth (and job creation) in Iowa. He resigned from his job working for Vilsack to run for governor, and he did it early so that there wouldn’t be any question of his objectivity.
Blouin also talked about his plan for government-sponsored health insurance. No one asked him to clarify, but it sounded a lot like Kerry’s plan (something short of “universal,” but still “universally accessible”). Andy McGuire has been the point-person on this, and she has served both with doctors (as a medical expert and researcher) and insurance companies, so she really knows the health insurance system, etc.
The second half is critical of Nussle:
He criticizes Nussle’s oversight of our deficit, but he drives it home by relating it to government services (education and health care).
Q&A:
On giving companies tax breaks to draw them to Iowa:
“I’d be a hypocrite if I said we should never do it. In the ideal, I wouldn’t do it ever. In the ideal world, you wouldn’t have to. In the ideal world, states wouldn’t be giving away their tax breaks in competition with each other… The trouble is we live in a very real world… And until the courts — I say the courts because Congress will never do this — find a way to stop it, we’ve gotta compete…we’ll lose the opportunity to keep our young people.”
He then talks about how our education is great, but people come here for education and then leave, and that’s something he wants to discourage.
He then talks about how the jobs he brought to Iowa had a lot of benefits. The tax breaks he gave businesses came with a lot of requirements, including pay that was above average per capita income in the state, guarantees that they’d stay, etc. In the cases when we didn’t keep businesses here, it was because other states (e.g., South Carolina) gave away unreasonably huge rewards to companies. So Blouin is in favor of tax breaks with guarantees like that.
Eric asked about Iowa’s food deficit (we import 85% of our food):
Blouin deconstructs the statistic and said that it involved seasons, etc. He also said that promoting organic farming (which is mostly for human consumption) will improve that situation.
On my question about abortion:
He states his position (here on his web site) pretty persuasively. I usually get annoyed by the “I’m pro-life personally but not politically” politicians but Blouin wasn’t annoying. He gives concrete examples of the (strategically) liberal programs he’d support to reduce abortions while still honoring his promise to maintain the right to choose. And, finally, he deflects potential criticism for his 1970s votes for a ban on abortion by explaining, “Now it’s taken me years to get to [this] point, but I’m comfortable.”
So then I asked if he’d support laws like the requirements that abortion clinics provide information to pregnant women about the pain their fetus will feel or about adoption services, and he said, unequivocally, that he will not sign any bill that would affect abortion on either side of the issue. He claims, to explain why his pro-life position is actually more effective than Nussle’s, “Republicans want an issue. I want a solution.”
On Alec’s question about the “WalMart laws”:
He likes them, but he needs a democratic legislature.
“I think there’s something seriously wrong with a corporate mindset that hires people at low wages, condemns government giveaways, and calls their employees together to explain how they, as employees of WalMart, can go get Medicaid services. Yeah, it oughta be illegal.”
And he says Eric Palmer is a great candidate who could help change the balance in the legislature.
On Alec’s question about requiring health insurance by law (like Massachusetts):
“To mandate people to buy something they can’t afford to pay for, in itself doesn’t work. You’ve gotta make sure that you’ve got a product — a basic product — that’s affordable for everyone. I want to see how it works in Massachusetts, and I think we can get a pretty good read in a couple of years.”
He goes on to talk about Andy McGuire’s medical qualifications. And then he gives a pretty detailed account of what improvements he wants to make. And he proposes “bridge health insurance” for recent college graduates if they are looking for jobs in Iowa.
He also talks about how he wants to bring down pharmaceutical costs. He wants transparency in drug pricing, but it’ll take creativity to make it constitutional. He thinks he has a solution (by asking for transparency only for drugs that the state buys directly).
Greg Ganske, who unseated Neal Smith, was also McGuire’s neighbor, which explains her donation.
Jim Nussle was her brother’s neighbor, so she donated to one of his early congressional campaigns. But,
“When he abandoned the value system he said he had, she and [her husband] dropped him. 35% of Iowans are Democrats. You’ve got to get to 51%. You’ve gotta reach out to Independents and progressive Republicans who are scared to death of the Nussle/Vanderplaats ticket, and Andy can do it.”
Then a jab at Ed Fallon (although not mentioned by name):
“You know we’ve got another candidate in this race who publicly endorsed Ralph Nader in the 2000 general election against Al Gore. Helped bring us George Bush. And who, through his organization, endorsed a couple of incumbent Republicans in the legislature. That’s what he did. That was then. This is today. And he’s a very competent guy, and he’s got a right to run. I don’t think you can bash him for it… He probably wished he hadn’t done it back then…”
On Eric’s question on whether Blouin would raise taxes to increase teacher pay:
“I don’t think we have to raise taxes to do it.”
He talks about the need to improve pay for teachers, nurses, and day care providers.
All in all, it was an interesting event. I wish more students had made it out.
Oh! And, on his way out, he made a joke about how blogs can be scary. Boo!
Bacon posted about this yesterday. Former Register columnist Chuck Offenburger, a pro-life-but-kinda-liberal Republican, criticized Blouin for wavering on abortion during his primary campaign. Apparently, Blouin’s ambiguously pro-life position seemed to have been a big reason why Offenburger came out publicly in support of Blouin’s candidacy, and now he’s unhappy.
This raises a question about Blouin’s ability to get elected governor, doesn’t it? I think conventional wisdom might say that a pro-life democratic gubernatorial candidate would have a good shot at beating Nussle in November, but it looks like Blouin’s “wishy-washiness” might just be hurting him on both sides.
And this quote from Offenburger is probably something the Blouin campaign wouldn’t like circulating, but it’s food for thought:
I find myself wondering whether we’re getting the real Blouin position on abortion in this primary campaign. I mean, the guy has a 25-year record of being anti-abortion, and he is an ordained deacon in the Catholic Church. And yet he is “clumsily” handling this issue that is core to so many Catholics?
And I’m curious about his running mate McGuire’s pro-choice credentials. I do not know her, but all I read makes her seem a good, involved citizen. She’s also the mother of seven children, six of whom are in Catholic schools. She’s been a leading fundraiser for Saint Augustin School and Dowling Catholic High School in the Des Moines area. And she was elected president last year of the National Alumni Board of Creighton University, a Catholic university in Omaha. She may well think pro-choice, she certainly talks pro-choice, but it would appear she lives pro-life.
I don’t know what grounds, exactly, Offenburger has to question McGuire’s honesty on the issue besides the fact that she has a big family and kids in Catholic school, but it is interesting that Offenburger feels inclined to question it.
On a sidenote, though, Mike Blouin and Andy McGuire are going to be in Grinnell this Sunday, first stopping in town before coming to Loose Lounge at 7PM to answer students’ questions.
Empty suit Jeff Lamberti, heir to the Casey’s General Store petroleum-and-stale-pizza fortune, 
