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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.
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The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
The ask for support in Tuesday’s primary, while no doubt sincere, appeared to be little more than a formality for attorney Roxanne Conlin, who spent the vast majority of her time with Cedar Rapids voters Sunday discussing the difference between herself and Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley.
Roxanne Conlin, right, speaks with voters at an event Sunday in Cedar Rapids (photo by Lynda Waddington/The Iowa Independent).
“My record will be completely different than that of Sen. Grassley,” Conlin told supporters gathered at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union hall.
Conlin, who served as the Iowa’s first female U.S. Attorney and who made an unsuccessful gubernatorial bid in1982, appears on the primary ballot along with Democrats Tom Fiegen and Bob Krause, who are both former state legislators. All polling has predicted that Conlin will win the nomination without difficulty and, more importantly, recent polling has indicated that the general election gap between Grassley and Conlin is decreasing.
Initial polls indicated Grassley led Conlin by nearly 30 percentage points. Due to a “pure grassroots, person-to-person effort,” Conlin told supporters Sunday, the gap is now only 8 percentage points.
While it is no surprise that Conlin views a rising anti-incumbent sentiment as working in her favor come November, she also believes that the current environment “is a wonderful time for Democrats generally.”
“People are angry. They think Washington is broke. I do too,” Conlin said.
Citing such incidents as the regulation failure of Wall Street, the continuing BP oil leak, defects with Toyota vehicles and the presence of metal in Johnson & Johnson children’s products, Conlin said Washington — and specifically the administration of former President George W. Bush — had not lived up to its responsibilities to citizens.
“This has been because we had an administration that really hated government. … First of all they tried to deregulate everything in government, and then they put people in charge of agencies who did not believe in the mission of the agency,” she said.
Grassley, she charged, is also part of the inside game that has been played with corporations and special interests because he accepts campaign donations from those institutions.
“Unlike Sen. Grassley, I won’t think about what is good for my oil company contributors or what is good for my Wall Street contributors. I will think only about what is good for Iowa,” Conlin said.
“I don’t think many people in Iowa know that [Grassley] supported privatizing Social Security. Imagine what would have happened if our Social Security funds would have been invested in the stock market when it collapsed.”
Conlin added that she will not vote for tax breaks for corporations who send American jobs overseas, noting that Grassley has done so five times.
“One of the things I’ve spent my life doing is trying to ensure that people have equality opportunity without regard to race, sex, condition of disability and [other factors],” she said. “So one of the things that I think everyone should agree with is if a woman is doing the same job as a man in the same company and during the same hours and under the same conditions that she ought to get the same wage.
“Sen. Grassley has voted twice against the Lilly Ledbetter bill. Twice he has voted against equal pay for equal work. [That is] unforgivable in my opinion … unexplainable in my opinion.”
Although Grassley has served five terms in the U.S. Senate, Conlin said it is time for a change because Grassley has changed and has “lost touch” with Iowa and Iowans.
“I had really not given much thought into going back into public office or trying [to go back into public office] until last summer,” Conlin said.
In the summer of 2009, Grassley was considered a key Republican negotiator in then potential health care reform legislation. As a member of the Senate Finance Committee, Grassley appeared to be paving a way for bipartisan support of a bill that would be introduced by U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who leads the committee.
As closed door meetings between the “Gang of Six“continued to break down, and recess town hall meetings morphed into shouting matches, some speculated that Grassley’s primary intent was to slow the legislation to provide an opportunity for special interests to stir public outrage based on misinformation and, ultimately, kill the bill.
“When he came back here, he started talking about pulling the plug on grandma. He made a lot of people mad when he did that. He made me mad enough to run against him,” she said.
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