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 states have never elected a woman to Congress or the U.S. Senate: Iowa, Vermont, Delaware and Mississippi.
In The Iowa Independent series on women in Iowa politics we've been exploring some of the possible reason for this.
But in the end, the scoreboard is what it is. And for women in Iowa, the higher-office count is a flat zero.
Which raises a question beyond Iowa, one with national import. Could Iowans, with this sexism in the voting booths (unless you believe one frequent explanation that "the right woman just hasn't come along"), derail the Hillary Clinton express?
Click the title to read more, or click here for the first part of Douglas Burns’s series.
“That’s a good question to ask,” says U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, in an interview.
Keep in mind, though, Harkin said, that Iowa is a caucus state with manty female party activists.
“They tend to be more enlightened,” Harkin said. “They tend to be more open. So I would think a woman might have a better chance in a caucus sate like Iowa, than say an open primary, for that very reason. A lot of your caucus attenders will be women.”
A few days ago we asked potential third-time Democratic congressional candidate Joyce Schulte of Creston if there any way a woman can win in the Fifth, the most conservative district in the state.
“That’s a fascinating way of putting a question, that women aren’t electable in Iowa,” Schulte said.
(Insert photo of Schulte)
Schulte, the director of Student Support Services at Southwestern Community College in Creston, said she knows the electoral history with women for top political positions in Iowa.
“Yeah, I know what the rule is at the moment,” Schulte said. “We’ve gone all the way up the ladder except moving into those top three.”
Why is that?
“It beats my five aces,” Schulte said. “You know, women are good to keep home and whatever. We brag about them in every way except. And I just don’t know whether it’s a figment of our imagination in a sense that women can’t do those top pieces in government. We do the top pieces in raising families. We do some of the top pieces in business.”
She noted that women are fighter pilots and astronauts.
“Why we can’t do it in Iowa for those congressional and senatorial pieces I’m not sure,” she said.
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