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 an interview with the Sioux City Journal, state Rep. Christopher Rants, who was recently ousted from his position as House Minority Leader, said that as the Republican Party of Iowa tries to craft its message in the future it must work to become more inclusive.
“You have to enlarge the pie and the voting bloc,” he said.
Rants served as leader of state House Republicans since 2002. But three straight elections that saw the GOP not only lose seats but lose control of the chamber to the Democrats caused his party to select Kraig Paulsen to replace him last week. Rants told the paper that new leadership must work hard to register more voters to try and overcome the Democrats widening margin. He also said the party needs to do a better job of promoting early voting.
“When they are voting early, they are voting straight ticket,” he said.
However, Rants isn’t opptimistic.
Rants said he doubts the Republican Party of Iowa will quickly respond. The state party doesn’t recognize the problem, he said, and further doesn’t have much money. He said the state party relies too heavily on the national party for funding.
“My little project for the future is to see if I can’t find people of a similar mindset — that agree with me that this is a problem and that this is the way to fix the party — and see if I can’t enlist their aid in trying to deal with this,” Rants said.
In a separate story, the Journal reports that Rants is still mulling a run for governor in 2010.
Rants said the leadership demotion won’t hasten his departure from the House. He’s mulled a run for governor previously, but said Thursday he hasn’t made any decisions on running for governor in 2010 or another position like Congress.
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