Search Results for ‘u s constitution’
Steve King, who has a reputation as being one of the craziest Congressmen in the House of Representatives, (which is quite an achievement considering his competition) is back and better than ever in the 110th Congress. After previous legislative accomplishments ranging from working to keeping 600,000 American citizens from voting to registering a bold protest against the use of condoms to fight Aids in Africa. Since, obviously, condoms promote AIDS. That’s right, on June 28, 2005, Steve King gave a speech in Congress attacking the establishment of a “condom culture” in Africa. He warned that once you create this “condom culture,” it can lead to “the elimination… of abstinence until marriage and monogamy after that”
So what’s Steve doing now? Well, he’s celebrating the 100 hours by sponsoring a Constitutional Amendment. This isn’t just a run of the mill amendment banning flag burning or making English our nation’s official language, his amendment, HJ 16, would make the Federal Income Tax unconstitutional. This is the type of bold legislation that our nation needs. Most politicians would hesistate to eliminate the income tax in a time of massive budget deficits and a foreign war. They wouldn’t have the zeal or the vision that Steve King has. After all, we didn’t need an income tax the last time we fought and won a unilateral war in the Middle East. We beat the Barbary Pirates with our government funded solely by tariffs. We can beat Al Queda and the Iraqi militias the same way.
So what’s Steve King’s next step once he eliminates the income tax? The word on the street is he’s gunning to run for Senate against Tom Harkin (despite some rumors that Harkin might retire). However, it seems likely that Harkin will run and make Steve King the 6th sitting Republican Congressman he’s defeated. And even Harkin doesn’t run, almost any Democrat should beat King if he runs for Senate. Iowa may have a quirky electorate but Iowans aren’t quirky enough to elect someone who is so clearly deranged to the U.S. Senate.
January 18th, 2007
You’ve all seen the movie, but now Forbes Magazine is here to tell us what Kevin Costner knew way back in 1989: It’s Iowa. Well actually, according to Forbes’s new list, The Best States for Business, Iowa is a pretty great place to live, but maybe not so heavenly for businesses.
By the numbers Iowa was ranked the 1st in quality of life (looking at “index of schools, health, crime, cost of living and poverty rates”), but 25th overall. This is probably due to its low, low ranking of 47th in labor (”educational attainment, net migration and projected population growth”), beating out only West Virginia, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Iowa also fell below the half-way mark in economic climate and growth prospects, scoring 31 and 41, respectively.
This brings up some issues looming large in the gubernatorial campaign such as how to get people to come to Iowa and stay in Iowa once they’ve received their diplomas. This is apparent in all of the major campaign topics–education, health care, and the economy. Forbes may think that Iowa is a great place to live, but not a lot of young people stay here after graduation. Back in April I remember Andy McGuire asking me and a few other Grinnell College Democrats what it would take for us to stay here after graduation–something none of us were planning on doing. We liked the sound of bridge health insurance and, you know, good jobs. Although I think a friend of mine wanted a major league sports team as well.
The Blouin-McGuire ticket was not the only one that realized this problem, of course. Culver’s website provides this tidbit:
We can do even better by building on, rather than disinvesting in, our higher ed institutions, so that more students stay in Iowa after graduation and, along with their faculties, help to build the research and manufacturing spin-offs that higher ed has generated for economies elsewhere. My plan will expand investments in colleges across Iowa, including creating Centers of Excellence at each of our public colleges and universities so that each can become a generator of world-class new businesses and economic activity, and better integrate all facets of higher ed with business.
Nussle, on the other hand, says he wants to “empower parents to be more involved in their children’s education,” which sounds like a euphamism for school voucher, something he has consistently supported in the past for private and parochial schools. I guess Nussle isn’t too excited about public schools, or the constitution for that matter, considering he has also voted to allow prayer in schools and also voted in 1994 to only give federal aid to schools that allowed voluntary prayer. I guess that is why the NEA rated him 17% on public education.
August 30th, 2006
The Register today made its endorsements for competitive primary races. For Governor, they like Blouin:
He has the richest breadth of experience among the three, in both public and private sectors. He has a depth of understanding gained from decades of working directly with Iowa’s people and problems. He has the confidence to tell Iowans some uncomfortable truths, and the wisdom to propose responses that are both practical and promising.
For the 5th Congressional District, they pick Schulte:
She’s running again because she wants to bring change to Congress. She’s the best candidate to do that, as someone who is connected to her community and recognizes the challenges typical families face.
And for the 1st Congressional District, it’s Braley:
He is a fresh face on the political scene with a law degree, children still at home and an appreciation for the congressional responsibility to uphold the U.S. Constitution.
That was what distinguished him from other candidates during a recent meeting with Register editors and writers.
Of the endorsements, it’s only Schulte’s that gave me much pause. Not that I don’t like Schulte, but her endorsement read more like a personal narrative than a political endorsement, and I sort of saw Bob Chambers as the type of candidate the Register might get behind. I guess I was wrong.
May 28th, 2006
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani was in Iowa this week to speak at the “Get Motivated” seminar in Des Moines, raise cash for Lamberti and Nussle, and help sap 50,000 dollars of the state’s cash (what, do you think George Forman was drawing traffic?).
Of course there was another not-so-secret reason America’s mayor was in town—to work Iowa voters and donors in the initial stages of a possible run for President. When asked whether he’s planning to run, he responded:
I’ve got a lot of places to go, and a lot of people to talk to; a long process of figuring out whether it makes sense to run for president in 2008. I don’t know the answer to that yet.
As a native New Yorker and now an Iowan, let me help answer the question—don’t run. Not now, not ever.
Sure, since September 11th, Rudy Giuliani has been getting more good press than Barak Obama (a tall order), and he’s often credited with cleaning up New York and helping to make it the safe city it is today (even though serious crime began to fall drastically during the previous Democratic mayor’s term), but few outside of New York know the other side of Giuliani; the Rudy who policed morality and speech, who flouted the constitution, and who gutted funding for the city’s poor.
At a time when our civil liberties are under attack, Giuliani, who, while Mayor, won only 4 of 26 first-amendment related cases in court, is the last thing the country needs. Here’s a sample of some choice Rudy moments.
In 1999, after the Brooklyn Museum of Art displayed a controversial painting, Giuliani tried to cut the museum’s public financing and terminate its lease. He then threatened to “cut off city financing to any other publicly supported cultural institution” that similarly failed to censor itself. Soon after, he proposed starting a commission on “decency” to review all of the city’s cultural institutions and make recommendations on financing.
In order to cut drunk driving, the Mayor attempted to institute a plan that gave police officers who suspected someone had been drunk driving “the authority to seize a person’s car, sell it and funnel the proceeds to the city — even if the driver turns out to be innocent.” Sure drunk driving is a serious offense and laws against it should be enforced aggressively—but selling a person’s property for a crime they haven’t been convicted of? Maybe Rudy forgot the law part of law and order.
As for helping the city’s poor, the Giuliani administration reduced capital spending on affordable housing by 44% and cut back on the creation of apartments for homeless households by 75%.
And those are just a few of the real winners. Thankfully, he supports a woman’s right to choose, gun control, and gay rights, so he’s socially liberal enough to flop in a Republican primary.
But if some cruel twist of fate gives Rudy a legitimate shot at being President, Iowans should keep in mind who Giuliani really is– a callous bully and a culture cop.
May 4th, 2006
A judge ruled not to block the shutdown of TouchPlay machines across the state at midnight Wednesday. Pille ruled that the Legislature didn’t overstep its constitutional rights, but did note that about 3,000 businesses are getting screwed on this one:
There is little doubt the impending ban will financially devastate
plaintiffs and likely force them into invsolvency,” Pille wrote. But the
likelihood of the businesses proving that the legislative ban impairs their contractual relationships is of little consequence because the contractual relationships will no longer exist, he said.
Guiliani spoke on immigration at an event for Jeff Lamberti in Des Moines yesterday. He struck a moderate stance saying, “If you were to deal with it through either extreme” - wide-open borders or large-scale arrests - “I think you’d make a terrible mistake.” He also appeared at a Nussle event in Davenport, where he stressed his experience in dealing with immigration in New York.
The article also says that Guiliani is a moderate like John McCain. Now this is a pet peeve of mine, so let’s take this time to remember John McCain’s roots, folks. Some highlights: 0% NARAL rating, 0% ACLU rating, 100% CATO rating.
South Dakota is giving free gas to tourists, but we’re giving away Iowa-shaped air-fresheners too. Now everyone’s going to visit us instead, SD! I hope all the states start trying to one-up each other on giveaways. First state to buy me a pony wins.
May 2nd, 2006
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).
On Hannah’s question on McGuire’s donations to Republicans:
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!
April 23rd, 2006
According to the Waterloo Cedar-Falls Courier, this week doubleplusconservative Focus on the Family ran ads in Iowa newspapers claiming that Senate Democrats are preventing Iowans from voting on a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. The bill is currently deadlocked in committee. In typical Republican fashion, the ad didn’t have much to do with reality (coughcoughdannycarrollcoughcough):
Appearing under the headline, “Iraqis Have the Right to Vote, Why Don’t Iowans?” an ad in Monday’s Des Moines Register took aim at Gronstal, of Council Bluffs.
When it comes to marriage, the people of Iowa should be seen and not heard,” the ad reads. “At least that’s the way Sen. Mike Gronstal would have it, as he refuses to let the people of Iowa vote on the Iowa Marriage Amendment.”
The ad includes a black-and-white photo, apparently of an Iraqi woman, holding up a single, ink-stained index finger. The finger, which appears in color, has become synonymous with Iraqi suffrage.
To update an earlier post on the topic, an amendment to the Iowa constitution would have to be approved by 2 consecutive general assemblies and then go on the ballot in the next statewide election.
March 17th, 2006
Roll Call reports that Senator Feingold’s resolution to censure the President for his domestic wiretapping program has its first co-sponsor, Senator Tom Harkin.
It’s good to see that another Democrat has the courage to stand with Feingold. But is the censure resolution such a hot idea? The New York Times has an article detailing the energizing effect the resolution is having among the Republican Party’s base
With the Republican base demoralized by continued growth in government spending, undiminished violence in Iraq and intramural disputes over immigration, some conservative leaders had already begun rallying their supporters with speculation about a Democratic rebuke to the president even before Mr. Feingold made his proposal.
Brian Jones, a Republican spokesman, said the e-mail messages generated a higher response than anything the party had sent in several months, including bulletins about the Supreme Court confirmations.
Having won on the Dubai ports issue and with Bush’s approval on national security issues plummeting, it may seem ill advised to turn the national debate toward censure on a program that Republicans claim has widespread support. Yet, a Gallop poll has a slim majority of Americans saying that the domestic surveillance program was wrong, and Zogby reports that
Just 28% are willing to allow their telephone conversations to be monitored, and 25% favor allowing random searches of mail.
Just as Bush’s numbers have eroded on terror and National Security, so can they decline on wire tapping. But Democrats need to keep the debate on the resolution focused on the program and not the punitive nature of the resolution itself. That way, the censure resolution can keep Bush’s unconstitutional program in the media and on voters’ minds. Domestic surveillance and the Patriot Act can fit into a much broader narrative of Republican contempt for Civil liberties, and that’s more and more a winning issue with the American public. It’s a good thing we have Senators like Feingold and Harkin. But where’s the party leadership on this?
March 16th, 2006
The Advocate’s site features an AP story on the Iowa Senate’s debate on a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, and it produced this fun little quote:
“It saddens me that Republicans have resorted to playing partisan politics with hot-button social issues rather than work to find common ground solutions to move this state forward,” said Senate Democratic Leader Michael Gronstal, of Council Bluffs. Senator David Miller, R-Fairfield, countered by saying Democrats are “stonewalling” debate on same-sex marriages.
I love it when homophobes use the word “Stonewall.” Really, it suits them. Either way, the article says that the Senate is deadlocked, and that if nothing happens now the issue won’t come up again until 2010. I’m not entirely sure why that is, but that sounds good to me. Maybe in 2010 we’ll have flying cars and everyone will be accepting of others’ differences! Maybe…
March 15th, 2006
Today the New York Times endorsed a creative, yet not crazy plan to make the Electoral College a rubber stamp for the national popular vote using interstate compacts. It’s a politically viable solution that seems to be attracting a lot of attention lately:
Past attempts to abolish the Electoral College by amending the Constitution have run into difficulty. But National Popular Vote, which includes several former members of Congress, is offering an ingenious solution that would not require a constitutional amendment. It proposes that states commit to casting their electoral votes for the winner of the national popular vote. These promises would become binding only when states representing a majority of the Electoral College signed on. Then any candidate who won the popular vote would be sure to win the White House.
March 14th, 2006
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