Search Results for ‘dawn pettengill’
Cross-posted at Iowa Independent
As the Iowa legislative session came to a close early Sunday, House Democrats marveled that they had passed all but one of the items on their legislative agenda. The next day, they learned that they were short one more thing: a caucus member. The two issues were not unrelated.
On Monday, Rep. Dawn Pettengill, a Democrat from Mount Auburn, announced that she was becoming a Republican. Over the session, Pettengill had become increasingly estranged from the Democratic Party. When Iowa House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a Democrat from Des Moines learned of the news—after the press—he was “disappointed, not surprised,” he said in a phone interview yesterday. “It was more of a shift on paper. We tended not count on her to be a team player, even on procedural matters.” Pettengill did not return calls for comment.
While Pettengill clashed with her former party on a variety of issues, perhaps the most significant one was the proposed Fair Share bill, which would have allowed public employee unions to charge fees for services given to nonunion workers. “In the end, it was a pretty scaled down, reasonable proposal,” McCarthy said. It would ensure that workers “kick in their fair share of those services.”
Fair Share, despite being passed in the Iowa Senate, never came to a vote in the House because, McCarthy said, “We just didn’t have the votes to get it done.” McCarthy said that the proposal had the support of 50 Democrats in the caucus but lacked that crucial 51st. “We don’t have that large a majority.” One Democratic representative, Ray Zirkelbach of Monticello is currently serving in Iraq, and in addition to Pettengill, two other members of the Democratic caucus refused to support the bill. McCarthy declined to name those representatives.
McCarthy said that on the way to regaining the majority in the 2006 elections, some conservative Democrats ran, or were recruited, to defeat Republican incumbents. Keeping them on board for certain issues, he said was “challenging.” In the interview, McCarthy did not seem angry that the bill failed to pass; he simply stated matter-of-factly that “the answer is to continue to try to educate [reluctant members] and to pick up a few more seats” in order to make up for deserters.
According to the Des Moines Register, the Democratic leadership spent four hours trying to convince its caucus members to support the bill, and that Pettengill emerged with “tears on her face when she left the room where Democrats were meeting in private.”
McCarthy bristled at the suggestion that he had tried to strong-arm people for support. “I definitely didn’t,” he said. “We used tough arguments trying to convince people… We did that through civil and respectful conversation.” McCarthy said, “The argument that we were strong-arming people was coming from right wing Republican propaganda.” The charge, he said, was “a falsehood, a lie.”
In the end, McCarthy, said that he was not sure whether Pettengill’s defection could have been prevented. “She’s gone through a fairly significant emotional journey this session,” he said. “She was formerly a close person friend with me. That friendship had withered away, and she became more distant with members of her caucus.”
He also questioned the logic of Pettengill’s decision. Not only had she joined a party that, according to McCarthy, sent 27 negative mailings against her in the last election—“some of the most vicious, vile, mean spirited negative campaigning I’ve ever seen”—but that the party she joined was out of power. “We can’t find anybody within the last 30 years that leaves the majority party and the power to deliver to her constituents,” he said. “If I were a constituent, I would be shocked and outraged that she gave up the ability to deliver in exchange for feeling good.”
McCarthy agreed with the idea that Pettengill was reading her district wrong, that it is not as conservative as she believes. “I think,” he said with resignation, “she’s confused.”
May 3rd, 2007
State Representative Dawn Pettengill left the Democratic caucus for the Republican caucus today. The Register has the story from Chris Rants’s press conference, which just happened:
The change cuts the Democratic majority in the House to 53 seats and gives minority Republicans 47 seats. It takes 51 votes to pass legislation.
Pettengill had battled publicly with the House Democratic caucus this year over issues such as labor union fees and the cigarette tax increase. She had indicated publicly she might consider leaving the caucus, although she had suggested she was more likely to become an independent.
“The House Democratic leadership pursued an agenda which veered far from the principles for which my constituents and I stand,” she said in a statement. “My decision gives me the best opportunity to represent the values of my constituents.”
This is going to make progressives — particularly the ones I know who knocked doors for her during the last campaign — pretty unhappy. Pettengill is known for her emotional outbursts, and my sense is that she perceives her district to be more conservative than it actually is.
I posted a while back about why I didn’t think Pettengill was going to defect. It turns out I was wrong. This kind of transition, from the majority to the minority (particularly when it looks like the Republicans will likely remain in the minority through next campaign cycle) is surprising, but Pettengill planted the seed for a defection months ago.
As an aside, this comes as a double-disappointment for many progressives, who were hoping that Rants planned to announce his resignation today. Rumors that he will resign have been circulating for months, and there is no word yet on whether Pettengill’s switch will influence his decision on that one way or the other.
April 30th, 2007
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.
March 31st, 2007
I guess the “worst form of child abuse” bit was taken to heart by some. Others are just nutty.
Check out these sweet LTEs from City View:
Three wishes
My first wish would be to provide free Kum & Go milk coupons to all mothers with young children who play the Lottery’s TouchPlay machines at their neighborhood convenience stores. And even better would be free childcare at new Kum & Go/Iowa Lottery daycare centers for Gold Card TouchPlay members. My second wish is install the new Lottery TouchPlay machines at all I-235 & I-80 rest stops. Each player would receive a free Iowa road map or visitors guide. The state of Iowa could put the new TouchPlay machines on the front of their 2007 Iowa visitors guide as a new activity for the entire family. The new Iowa road maps would have decals noting all TouchPlay locations on I-235 and I-80 rest stops. My third and last wish is to draft Bill Krause (owner of Kum & Go) and Ed Stanek (Iowa Lottery czar) as independent candidates for Iowa governor. All net revenues from TouchPlay could fund their campaigns. Just think of a new Grant Wood painting with Bill and Ed. A great utopia and we would all prosper. God, I’m glad I live in Iowa.
Mitchell Henry
Des Moines
Kids playing with themselves
Rep. Dawn Pettengill is taking the wrong tack sponsoring a bill to ban the sale of sex toys to children (”Bad Vibrations,” Feb. 9). She doesn’t want minors to see or have certain devices designed for sexual stimulation. If sexual stimulation is Pettengill’s concern, a better solution would be to pass a law requiring minors to wear mittens at all times when they are in their bedrooms or bathrooms. That should effectively prevent sexual stimulation and would alienate only minors who don’t vote, while Pettengill’s bill would alienate shop owners who do vote and who also pay much-needed taxes.
David Leonard
Adel
March 14th, 2006
