Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
Four Republicans broke ranks Friday and voted with the Democrats in the U.S. Senate to limit debate and move forward with the 2007 Farm Bill. But presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was not among them.
McCain was absent and did not vote on the motion.
The motion failed to meet the required 60-vote threshold and was rejected on a vote of 55-42.
Democrats had sought to break an impasse on the $288 billion bill by passing the cloture motion, which would have limited debate to 30 hours and allowed only relevant amendments to the bill. Nearly 250 amendments had been introduced to the bill, many of which had nothing to do with agriculture policy.
Iowa's Chuck Grassley was among the Republicans who voted with the Democrats on the Farm Bill cloture motion. The other Republicans who joined Grassley were Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., and Sen. John Thune, R-S.D. Independent Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., also voted with the Democrats.
The full tally of votes is below:
|
YEAs —55 |
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|
Akaka (D-HI) |
Feinstein (D-CA) |
Nelson (D-FL) |
|
NAYs —42 |
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|
Alexander (R-TN) |
Crapo (R-ID) |
Lugar (R-IN) |
|
Not Voting - 3 |
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|
Cornyn (R-TX) |
Lott (R-MS) |
McCain (R-AZ) |
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