House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Creative Commons photo by Cosmic Smudge via Flickr)

WASHINGTON — How effectively will the U.S. House health care bill cover children? Turns out, it depends on where they live.

The $894 billion health reform bill working its way toward a House vote this week would repeal the Children’s Health Insurance Program, shifting some low-income kids into Medicaid and others into private plans that would both cost more and guarantee fewer benefits. Which program the youngsters tumble into hinges, not on need, but on the state where they live — a design some advocates call “the lottery of geography.”

Read more at The Iowa Independent’s sister site, The Washington Independent.

On a vote of 30-19, lawmakers gave approval to Senate File 477, which would allow the state to issue bonds totaling $100 million for vertical infrastructure improvements and $5 million for alternative energy projects.

The bill is expected to be debated by the Iowa House today.

The measure is one of several bonding bills passed last night. Both the House and Senate passed a $115 million to help University of Iowa rebuild flood-ravaged areas of the Iowa City campus, and the House passed an amended version of a $545 million bonding bill passed by the Senate last month.

All told, legislators are expected to approve more than $800 million in bonding bills this weekend with the hopes of adjourning early next week.

Huckabee’s recorded voice is used on the call, which is a phone survey that, based on the questions asked, seeks to identify politically active opponents of abortion and to request contributions.

Call recipients are asked if they have ever voted, if they agreed with President-elect Barack Obama and if they ever contributed to a political campaign or candidate. The call goes on to discuss the U.S. Supreme Court ban on so-called partial birth abortion, then brings up the Freedom of Choice Act, legislation designed to codify reproductive rights. Huckabee’s voice goes on to inform callers that if this proposed legislation passes that there will be no limits on abortion.  Then Huckabee requests a donation.

Iowans who received the phone survey said the funds were to go to the National Right to Life Council.

The call reportedly appeared on recipients’ caller identification screens as “Call Center, VA – (703) 263-1658.” This same information has been connected to calls received by Georgia residents, which have been described as push-polls against Jim Martin, the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate in that state who will face Republican Saxby Chambliss in a Dec. 2 runoff. In Georgia the calls were paid for by the Americans in Contact PAC, a group which lists its mission as being identification of social and fiscal conservatives throughout America and engaging them at the grassroots level in the political process of elections and legislation at all levels of government.

This particular PAC also conducted calls during the month of October that attacked Obama’s economy stance. According to a press release on the group’s Web site, the PAC kicked off a “grassroots campaign in the state of California to identify hundreds of thousands of supporters of traditional marriage who will help protect Proposition Eight,” the recently passed ballot initiative that outlawed same-sex marriage in California.

The Harkin campaign has conducted a vote by email contest in which the top five winners in state House and Senate races each get $2,000, and Harkin gets lots of email addresses as he seeks re-election. The grand prize winners will get another $5,000.
House finalists are incumbents Elesha Gayman, Eric Palmer, Mark Smith and Andrew Wenthe, and open seat candidate Gretchen Lawyer. On the Senate side, the leaders are incumbents Jeff Danielson, Tom Reilly, and Mike Gronstal, House member Swati Dandekar running in an open Senate seat, and challenger Sharon Savage.

Some of the districts overlap. Palmer’s House district is half of Reilly’s Senate turf, and Lawyer is running in Dandekar’s open House seat.

The initial vote included all candidates, except multi-way primaries and challengers to incumbent Democrats (the incumbents were included). In round two, the field was narrowed to the top 20 in the House and top 10 in the Senate.

The semifinalists included some odd, long-shot races, most notably James Van Bruggen, challenging House District 4 incumbent Dwayne Alons in overwhelmingly Republican Lyon and Sioux counties. But the winners are all in races that seem to be targeted, and are likely to share Harkin’s generosity if their own prospects look solid late in the game.

“The bill helps give our soldiers a sense of security that things will be the same when they return,” Sen. Steve Warnstadt, D-Sioux City, told the Iowa Independent. Warnstadt, a current member of the Iowa National Guard who served in Operation Desert Storm as part of his active-duty commitment, knows that a lot of things can change during deployment that soldiers can’t control. He wants to ensure they aren’t forced to give up authority when it comes to the things they should have some control over.

Warnstadt also said the bill will help provide soldiers faced with the prospect of deployment a sense of security with regard to maintaining custody of their children. “I have received some e-mails from people who served in the Guards or Reserves but quit out of fear as to what may happen to their custodial rights if they were deployed,” Warnstadt said.

The bill also stipulates that once the parent returns from service, the court would have to reinstate the custody order that was in place just before active duty. Moreover, a parent’s absence due to active duty could not be used against him or her in future custody proceedings.

“I’m concerned that we’re putting people in situation where they are choosing between serving their country and keeping their kids,” Warnstadt said. “There’s a lot of uncertainty involved with being deployed, and I’m also concerned that some service members will be distracted, which may cause a life-threatening situation for themselves and those around them.”Warnstadt also said the bill will help provide soldiers faced with the prospect of deployment a sense of security with regard to maintaining custody of their children. “I have received some e-mails from people who served in the Guards or Reserves but quit out of fear as to what may happen to their custodial rights if they were deployed,” Warnstadt said.

The bill also stipulates that once the parent returns from service, the court would have to reinstate the custody order that was in place just before active duty. Moreover, a parent’s absence due to active duty could not be used against him or her in future custody proceedings.

“I’m concerned that we’re putting people in situation where they are choosing between serving their country and keeping their kids,” Warnstadt said. “There’s a lot of uncertainty involved with being deployed, and I’m also concerned that some service members will be distracted, which may cause a life-threatening situation for themselves and those around them.”

The bill, highlighted by a case in Iowa, was drafted in response to cases across the country that have prompted a few states such as California, Kentucky and Michigan to amend their laws to stipulate that soldiers’ deployments cannot be used against them in child-custody disputes.

Military and family law experts don’t know how big the problem is, but 5.4 percent of active duty members — more than 74,000 — are single parents, the Department of Defense reports. More than 68,000 Guard and Reserve members are also single parents. Divorce among military men and women has also risen in recent years, with more than 23,000 enlisted members and officers divorcing in 2005.

The Iowa case involves Iowa National Guardsman Michael Grantham, of Clarksville, who lost primary physical custody of his two children when he was called to duty in 2002. He arranged to have his daughter, who was 8, and his son, who was 13, live with his mother while he was on active duty.

But while Grantham was ordered to active duty stationed at Fort Knox, Ky., his ex-wife, Tammara, asked a judge to grant her custody of the kids and won. Upon returning from active duty, the court’s ruling prevented him from stepping back into his previous role as the primary parent for his children, and he lost an appeal of the case.

However, the new bill may have not made a difference for Grantham, whose attorney requested a stay of proceedings until he returned to civilian status, citing the Soldiers and Sailors Civil Relief Act (SSCRA). The Iowa Supreme Court rejected his plea, noting that the SSCRA does not mandate a stay in every case involving a parent who is called to active military duty. “To warrant a stay under this legislation, it must be determined that substantial rights of the absent serviceman will be prejudiced if the effort to postpone the proceedings is denied,” the Court observed in its opinion.

Moreover, the Iowa Supreme Court upheld the district court’s finding that Grantham concealed the arrangement for his mother’s custody of the children pursuant to a military family care plan until it was too late for Tammara to seek judicial relief before he was called to active duty.

“Grantham’s case had some idiosyncrasies that I’m not sure about. Apparently he didn’t abide by his family-care plan and didn’t do all the things required on his end,” Warnstadt said. “The bill is not a carte blanche for service members. They have certain responsibilities and obligations they need to fulfill in order to be protected. It provides the certainty for soldiers and their families that, if they follow all the proper procedures on their end, they are going to return home and retain custody of their kids.”

Barack Obama holds the lead in endorsements from Iowa newspapers with a total of nine.  But measured by total readership, Hillary Clinton has the advantage with the backing of the state’s largest paper, the Des Moines Register.

On the Republican side, John McCain leads both in numbers and in total circulation.  Fred Thompson gains his first endorsement, from the Ottumwa Courier.

Papers and numbers below the fold.

Dem	Total	Daily	Weekly	Readership
Obama	9	6	3	247132
Clinton	4	3	1	464370
Biden	3	0	3	23190
Edwards	2	2	0	36636
Dodd	0	0	0
Richardson	0	0	0
total	18	11	7