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.
A conservative group that has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars advocating nationally for Republican candidates for Congress has begun a new focus on Iowa legislative races.
American Future Fund, an Iowa-based nonprofit advocating “conservative and free market ideals” has opened an Iowa chapter, and with it launched a series of ads attacking Democratic candidates for the Iowa House of Representatives and praising a Republican incumbent.
More than $100,000 worth of ads began airing Wednesday in various markets. One ad praises Iowa Rep. Jamie Van Fossen, R-Davenport. Others criticize Rep. Elesha Gayman, D-Davenport, and Rep. McKinley Bailey, D-Webster City.
The ads use a loophole in campaign election law that allow nonprofit organizations to engage in election related activity as long as they don’t advocate directly for or against a candidate. The ads in question simply ask voters to call their legislator, and in the case of the Democrats, to ask them to oppose any change to the state’s collective bargaining laws.
The organization is run by a network of Iowa Republicans and Washington, D.C., media consultants who played key roles in the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads in 2004 and the Willie Horton ad in 1988. Because it is a nonprofit, it does not have to disclose its donors and is not governed by the Federal Election Commission or the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board.
It has had complaints filed against it in Minnesota and Colorado saying it has violated its tax-exempt status by spending most of its resources trying to influence elections. The Iowa Democratic Party filed a complaint against an earlier incarnation of the group, named Iowa Future Fund, after it ran a series of ads against Gov. Chet Culver earlier this year.
American Future Fund spokesman Tim Albrecht did not respond to requests for comment. But in a recent Quad-City Times story, Albrecht called the Colorado complaint, which was filed with the Internal Revenue Service, “some liberal wack job who doesn’t approve of conservative free-market ideals, so they wrote a letter.”
For more information on American Future Fund, read “Secrets of American Future Fund,” an Iowa Independent investigation that ran in August.
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