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.
The man who leads the Iowa Family Policy Center is no longer taking aim just at the three Iowa Supreme Court judges who are listed on the November ballot, but believes all Iowa judges that appear on the ballot should be voted down.
In a Tuesday e-mail to supporters that announced an upcoming Iowa bus tour by his organization in conjunction with the D.C.-based Family Research Council and New Jersey-based National Organization for Marriage, Chuck Hurley wrote that he will “pray for righteous judges, and will be voting ‘no’ on all of them.”
He encourages IFPC supporters to also summarily dismiss all Iowa judges for the following four reasons:
- I’ve not heard any of them repudiate what the Iowa Supreme Court judges did, and some are actively defending them.
- When we sent questionnaires to judges in the past, they’ve followed the Iowa Supreme Court’s advice to not answer them. This leaves us with what the U.S. Supreme Court has called “state-imposed voter ignorance.” Since I am being asked whether to re-hire someone with my own tax dollars, I won’t hire him or her without knowledge of motivation, experience, and philosophy; especially when, as a group, judges have refused in the past to answer our respectful questions about those issues.
- If some judges are defeated because of their ties to the Iowa Supreme Court judges, it will strengthen our ability to get them to answer future questionnaires on their judicial philosophies and methods of constitutional interpretation.
- I don’t know any of them well enough personally to be sure that they hold to the original intent of the U.S. and Iowa Constitutions.
Hurley then refers supporters with additional questions to the website of Iowa for Freedom — a group led by Bob Vander Plaats and funded by Mississippi-based American Family Association — or to the user-generated, national wiki Judgepedia. He does not mention, however, that the Iowa Judicial Branch has prepared a voter guide that provides biographical information on each of judges that appear on the 2010 ballot, nor does he provide a link to the Iowa state Bar Association where the 2010 Plebiscite results are provided.
The plebiscite, or biannual survey, is conducted by the Iowa State Bar Association and provides an opportunity for attorneys who work with judges to provide insights to the public. This year’s survey garnered responses from roughly 3,500 attorneys, and all 74 judges that appear on the November ballot received high marks on the questions for their professionalism and demeanor.
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