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.
While several provisions of Iowa’s campaign finance laws were clearly overturned when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that corporations and labor unions can not be prohibited from spending their money advocating for candidates, state election officials are still not certain how broadly the decision will impact Iowa.
“In my opinion the law in Iowa prohibiting corporate contributions is probably unconstitutional and it means that a lot more money and campaign advertising will be pouring into Iowa elections,” said Charlie Smithson, director and legal counsel for the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board.
However, in a memo to legislative leaders of both parties, Smithson made it clear that the full extent of the changes are still unknown.
Smithson’s memo:
After looking at the decision and talking with legal experts on campaign finance around the country I think this is where we are at as far as Iowa Code section 68A.503:
1. Corporations are PERMITTED to engage in independent expenditures from their treasury funds. Independent expenditures are disclosed to the Ethics Board under Iowa Code section 68A.404. This means that a corporation could spend its money to tell people to vote for or against a clearly identified candidate. THIS POINT IS INARGUABLE.
2. There are arguments that this decision did NOT reach DIRECT contributions to candidates, PACs, and political parties. So I believe we can argue that direct contributions are still NOT PERMITTED. My guess is that will be challenged next, but as of today I think that can still be enforced.
3. So what we are left with is a confusing situation for the regulated community and the public that corporations can do certain things and not other things.
So I would suggest the following:
1. Instruct your members to NOT accept corporate contributions at this time.
2. We need to think about what, if anything, to do with this situation. At a minimum, we will need to amend Iowa Code section 68A.503 to make it clear that independent expenditures are permitted.
3. If there are other issues you would like to explore in dealing with this, I am certainly open to those discussions.
Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said his office is also studying the 183-page decision.
“The decision relates specifically to independent expenditures by corporations and makes it unconstitutional to ban such expenditures,” Miller said in a statement. “The portion of Iowa’s statute that prohibits corporations from making independent expenditures that expressly advocate that voters should vote for or against a specific candidate is unconstitutional under the Supreme Court’s decision. The Court’s decision does not specifically address direct corporate contributions to candidates’ campaign committees, but the rationale of today’s decision raises questions in that realm, and we will review those questions over the next few days.”
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