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.
In a unanimous vote Wednesday, the Iowa House passed a one-year transportation department budget, joining with Democrats in the Senate that passed the bill earlier in the day. It now heads to Gov. Terry Branstad, who has repeatedly said he will veto any budget that doesn’t span two years.
The original version of the roughly $350 million budget bill included a second year, but Democrats stripped it out of the bill when it arrived to the Senate.
At a fundraiser over the weekend, Branstad said of the idea of a one-year budget, “I’ll veto it and I’ll veto it and I’ll veto it until we get a two-year budget.” At his weekly press conference Monday, he toned down his rhetoric but still maintained his position that he would only sign a two-year budget.
State Sen. Robert Dvorsky (D-Coralville) told The Des Moines Register that Iowa hasn’t passed a two-year budget since 1983, and the Senate wouldn’t do so this year.
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