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.
U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, officially neutral in the Democratic presidential race, this morning said superdelegates at his party’s convention should be stripped of their potential kingmaking status.
He plans to be involved in an effort to do that.
“I’m very uncomfortable with this whole idea of superdelegates,” Harkin said on a conference call. “The reason it hasn’t bothered anybody is because it hasn’t meant anything.”
What Harkin is concerned about is the nearly 800 superdelegates at the Democratic Convention in August deciding the nominee — perhaps even overriding the will of people who voted in hotly contested caucuses and primary battles between U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.
“I just don’t think it’s right,” said Harkin, a superdelegate like other senators, members of Congress and certain powerful party leaders, all of whom have votes that count just as much as pledged delegates earned through campaigning.
About 4,000 delegates will attend the convention in Denver. Around 3,200 of those emerged through a competitive process in primaries and caucuses. But one fifth, or the 800, are simply there based on their insider status.
Conceivably, if Obama wins the elected delegates, as is widely expected, the Clinton campaign could pull more superdelegates and take the nomination.
“It’s just not right to give us that much power,” Harkin said.
Harkin said he plans to support a new system in which superdelegates are given alternate status and floor privileges. They should only be allowed to vote as alternates for elected delegates who could not make it to the convention, Harkin added.
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