Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs (file photo)

Republicans may try to force a vote on an amendment, the Democrat from Council Bluffs said, but he will not allow any bill banning same-sex marriage to come to the floor.

“I will not write discrimination into the constitution of the State of Iowa,” Gronstal said. “I’m going to block that at every opportunity. There will be no vote on the constitutional amendment.”

Republican legislative leaders have said repeatedly that they will work to ensure a vote on same-sex marriage takes place during the session. Republican state Sen. Merlin Bartz of Grafton, who garnered headlines earlier this year when he called for local officials to ignore the state Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage, told the Mason City Globe-Gazette that he will sponsor the marriage amendment in the Senate.

In the closing days of the 2009 legislative session, Republicans in both the House and Senate attempted numerous procedural moves in the hopes of forcing a vote on an amendment, including attaching it to a tax proposal and the state’s Health and Human Services budget. Democrats successfully blocked the efforts.

But now Republicans will have an entire legislative session to work with, causing some to fear progress on other issues, such as fixing the state’s ballooning budget deficit, will come to a screeching halt.

Gronstal said he can’t control what his Republican colleagues do. But on this issue and many others the General Assembly will be faced with that could slow down the process, his message remains the same: the session will end in 80 days.

“It doesn’t get any easier to say ‘no’ to people the fourth time,” Gronstal said. “Why not say ‘no’ to them right off the bat, say it once and mean it.”

In order to become a constitutional amendment, a bill must pass two General Assemblies and then be put on the ballot for the public. If Republicans are unable to pass a ban this year, the earliest it could go before the public would likely be 2014.

In 2004, the Senate barely rejected a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage on a 25-24 vote, with four Republicans joining all 21 Democrats to kill the measure. The next year, the Republican controlled Iowa House passed a gay marriage ban, but an evenly divided Senate never took up the bill.

Now, Democrats have a commanding 32-18 edge in the Senate, making the chances of Republicans succeeding in passing a marriage ban very unlikely.

“I think Iowans want us to focus on the budget and what we can do to create good-paying jobs. So that’s what we’re going to focus on,” Gronstal said. “This is one of those issues that is generational. Overall, if you look at the public’s reaction to the decision, if you’re under the age of 35 you probably don’t care that much about the issue. I think people fighting this are on the wrong side of history.”

Gronstal said the issue comes down to whether the state should recognize two people who “simply want to profess their love for each other. It’s hard for me to get worked up about something like that.”

Burt was arrested at 1:51a.m. on Feb. 11 apparently after a reception at the Embassy Suites in downtown Des Moines attended by Gov. Chet Culver and “several dozen politicians and others,” according to a representative of the governor’s staff. The governor was back home at Terrace Hill by 8:55 p.m. that night, nearly five hours before Burt was arrested, his staff said.

While being held by police, Burt called House Speaker Pat Murphy (D-Dubuque), who did not answer, and Department of Public Safety Communications Director Courtney Greene. Murphy has repeatedly stood behind Burt, saying recently that he was “100 percent with him.”

When arrested, Burt had a blood-alcohol level of .131, higher than the .08 legal limit in Iowa. His trial has been delayed until August to give a judge time to consider a motion to suppress evidence.

The video and acompanying story, by WHO-TV’s Dave Price, is below.

The ads attack all four of the major bills being pushed by labor this session: Fair Share, open scope bargaining, prevailing wage and choice of doctor.

Here is a transcript of the ad:

Once upon a time, a band of union bosses roamed the Iowa countryside, threatening hardworking people while claiming to do good deeds.

Union bosses in Iowa are writing a very scary fairy tale. They want to make you pay union dues even if you’re not a union member. The unions want to fix the cost on every public construction project and strip our local school boards of their authority. And the unions want to control health care for Iowa workers. Their greed will cost you hundreds of dollars out of your paycheck. It will force local governments deeper in debt and raise our property taxes. It will drive up our health care costs.

Please call your legislator today at 515-281-3221 and tell them this is no fairy tale. Tell them in this story hard working Iowans will not live happily ever after.

The radio ads follow a television campaign launched by a group called Protect Our Local Wages which argued in favor of prevailing wage legislation scheduled to be debated Thursday.

Pfizer, the world’s largest pharmaceutical company, plans to begin disclosing payments early next year that it has made to medical professionals who can write prescriptions — doctors, nurse-practitioners and physician assistants — when such compensation exceeds $500 per year. The news follows similar transparency announcements by Eli Lilly & Co., GlaxoSmithKline PLC and Merck.

Grassley, who has been investigating conflicts of interest between drug makers and physicians as well as between drug makers and researchers, expressed pleasure with the expanding list of companies opting to make the process more transparent.

“Shedding light on industry payments to physicians would be good for the system,” Grassley said in a prepared statement. “Transparency fosters accountability, and the public has a right to know about financial relationships.”

Although the drug companies are currently setting their own rules in relation to what is disclosed, Grassley is hopeful the process will be standarized. Grassley, a Republican, and Sen. Herb Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat, introduced the Physician Payments Sunshine Act of 2009 last month. If the bill becomes law all pharmaceutical and biotechnical companies would be required to publicly disclose compensation to medical professionals or face a $1 million fine. And, unlike Pfizer’s self-imposed $500 yearly cap for disclosures, the Sunshine Act would require payments in excess of $100 to be reported.

Although Grassley pushed a similar bill last year, it never gained the necessary momentum. This new version — along with its reduced cap on disclosures — has at least one advantage the earlier bill did not: an administration that campaigned and won on call for transparency.

In addition to its vow to disclose compensation made to medical professionals, Pfizer has also vowed to disclose payments made during clinical research trials. It is the first drug maker to do so.

Sinatra died in 1998, and we’ve made it a decade with the philosopher-king of love and loss, the crooner with spot-on instincts in the world of handling a punch in the gut and make it to work the next day.

Now, thanks to Mother Culver and the lawmaking picknoses in Des Moines, today we’re mourning the passing of Sinatra’s defiant prop, the cigarette, as a statewide smoking ban faces its first night.

“What would Frank do?”

I think we know.An under-appreciated part of our culture died last night. Small-town bars are supposed to be a bit irreverent, dimly lit places to escape the bully boss, pending divorce, or the drudgery of a working Joe life. Smoking is an essential part of this for many Iowans – 15 out of the 19 people I counted in Kerp’s Tavern just before 6 p.m. Monday.

At one time, but not so much anymore, the rural Iowa bar took our social ranks, our vanities and high-hatting of others, and crushed them like so much ice in a blender.
The farmer with his Pall Malls eased up to the bar with the banker and his Camels – and argued with the newspaperman who smokes American Spirits. They wondered about things like why Magic Johnson hasn’t died of AIDS yet or what’s the deal with the city council on the parks  building or is it a fair bet on the golf tournament to take Tiger Woods against the field.

We are in increasingly cocooned lives, an Internet-connected self-isolation, in which differences, someone’s bad habit or annoying trait, are to be treated as nothing short of bubonic.

That considered, you may not have been to one of west-central Iowa’s homespun haunts for a while.

But in your mind’s eye you can picture the bartender, a 50-something weary wise woman who dishes salty comments as naturally as she ladles gravy from the crock pot in the back on your chicken fried steak. She smokes and has for 30 or 40 years.

It’s just what she does. No real explanation. Shouldn’t do it. Tried to quit, once or twice. Just didn’t take. Maybe it was the divorce.

She’s seen it all, heard tales in her tiny town taller than the scrapers of the cities she planned to visit, someday, when she can get someone to cover the bar. Yes, she’ll still be there today. But she’s not the same without those Marlboro Menthol 100s. And don’t try to tell her she’s better sans smokes because she’s not looking to turn 95. She just wants to get through the day.

And she knows that’s the mindset of the customer in what until today had been a last refuge for the convivial smoker.

What she understands that the Nanny Staters at the Iowa Department of Public Health, and the Johnny Hall Monitors in the Iowa Senate don’t is that life isn’t supposed to be fair, that clean living isn’t a sure ticket to longevity and plenty of sinners outlive their Puritan friends.

In the mid-1970s, when I was around 7 years old, my parents, not understanding the depth of my sports obsession, imposed a Monday Night Football rule of epic cruelty. I could watch the games only until halftime – about 9:30.

Did I ever miss some endings. I remember thinking then that when I was all grown up one of the best things about life surely would be the privilege of watching Monday Night Football all the way to the end, and even into overtime.

I smoked a few cigarettes after work Monday at Kerp’s – my last legal cigarette in an Iowa bar, I guess you could say.

But at some point in the night I heard my name.

It must be halftime.

And Mother Culver is calling with his condescending new law in hand.

Put out the cigarette, Doug. You are 7 years old again, he says.

(Photo: The author enjoys a final American Spirit cigarette in Kerp’s Tavern in Carroll,a place next door the newspaper that he’s frequented for 20 years.)

If no candidate gets 35 percent, the party has to hold a convention to choose a nominee, and that’s a realistic possibility in one Iowa congressional race.The prospect of a convention was a hot topic in Democratic circles in early 2006, and Ed Fallon’s gubernatorial campaign made a big effort to elect delegates at precinct caucuses and county conventions. But the convention talk cooled after Patty Judge left the race to form a ticket with eventual nominee Chet Culver, who won a four-way race (don’t forget Sal Mohamed) with 39.1 percent.

Even in a three-way race, a convention is a possibility if the math breaks just right. The Republicans came within 1 percent of a statewide convention for governor in 2002, when the three candidates all bunched up in the 30 percentile. Doug Gross emerged as the nominee, with only 35.6 percent.

That same year, Republicans actually went to a convention for the 5th Congressional District. Four strong candidates competed in the brand-new, solidly Republican district, and they landed between 21 and 31 percent each. Steve King landed at the top of that heap, and then turned that lead into a convention win. The rest is history.

Who attends a convention depends on what level of office is involved. For legislative seats, it’s county central committee members, with votes weighted by the size and party strength of each precinct. County offices are nominated by a county convention, made up of the precinct delegates elected at the Jan. 3 caucuses. Congressional district and state conventions are made up of delegates elected at the March county conventions.

The likeliest prospect for a convention is the Democratic race in the 4th Congressional District, with four candidates seeking the nomination. Republicans have two major three-candidate races: the U.S. Senate race and the 2nd Congressional District.

Prospects also exist for conventions in local contests. The definition of percentage is less than straightforward in elections for more than one seat, such as at-large county supervisor contests. To determine the 35 percent threshold in these races, the Code of Iowa specifies a “percentage of votes” method. To get at this number add up all the votes cast for all the candidates, including write-ins. Then divide it by the number of seats available.

For example, look at the 2004 Democratic supervisor race in Johnson County. Eight candidates were running for three seats, and a total of 20,905 votes were cast. Divide that by three, and the baseline for calculating percentage is 6,969.

Johnson County Supervisors, 2004 Democratic Primary	votes	percentage of votes	percentage of voters	TV Percentage
Terrence Neuzil	5,060	72.6%	54.4%	24.2%
Pat Harney	4,627	66.4%	49.7%	22.1%
Rod Sullivan	3,187	45.7%	34.3%	15.2%
Mike O’Donnell	3,060	43.9%	32.9%	14.6%
Rick Dvorak	1,998	28.7%	21.5%	9.6%
John Schneider	1,339	19.2%	14.4%	6.4%
Julie Gilmere	1,134	16.3%	12.2%	5.4%
James Knapp	446	6.4%	4.8%	2.1%
write in	54	0.8%	0.6%	0.3%

This formula does not factor in the common dynamic of under-voting or “bullet voting,” in which supporters of one candidate don’t use all their votes in a vote for two or vote for three race. Instead, bullet voters vote only for their favorite candidate. You can’t use both, or all three, of your votes on that candidate, but you don’t have to use all of your votes. It’s a common campaign tactic, but one that’s usually done sotto voce so as not to alienate supporters of other candidates. If you want to crunch some math, add up the total votes cast for all candidates plus write-ins, then divide it by the number of voters. This will give you a “votes per candidate” number, illustrating how many people cast some sort of bullet vote. In our 2004 sample race, the 20,905 votes were cast by 9,305 voters, meaning the average voter only cast 2.25 votes for supervisor out of a possible three.

Calculating percentage of voters, by dividing the candidate’s results by the total number of voters, produces a lower percentage but provides a more reliable assessment of how many people supported a candidate. Another common, misleading method in a vote in a two-or-three race is to add up all the votes and divide each candidate’s vote by the grand total. This is often seen on local TV and produces seeming paradoxes like candidates winning with 17 percent.

Another seeming paradox happens in a race where four candidates are competing for three seats. It’s possible for a candidate to win support from a majority of voters, yet finish in last place, as in this 2001 Coralville contest. Over half of the voters supported Bream, yet he drew the least support and lost.

Coralville City Council, 2001	votes	percentage of votes	percentage of voters	TV Percentage
Henry Herwig	744	80.0%	70.4%	26.7%
Dave Jacoby	732	78.7%	69.3%	26.2%
Tom Gill	682	73.3%	64.5%	24.5%
Bob Bream	614	66.0%	58.1%	22.0%
write in	17	1.8%	1.6%	0.6%

]]> http://iowaindependent.com/2383/primaries-by-the-percentages/feed 0 http://iowaindependent.com/1727/rural-counties-fewer-caucus-goers-per-delegate http://iowaindependent.com/1727/rural-counties-fewer-caucus-goers-per-delegate#comments Sun, 30 Dec 2007 14:06:47 +0000 John Deeth http://iowaindependent.com/1727/rural-counties-fewer-caucus-goers-per-delegate Since the Iowa Democratic caucuses are a representative democracy, not a straight one person one vote, not every caucus goer carries equal weight.  Presidential candidates are spending a lot of time in small courthouse towns, because the way the results are counted, the small counties weigh in disproportionately.

An analysis of 2004 caucus attendance shows that, on average statewide, it took just under 41 caucus goers to elect a state delegate equivalent.  The easiest county to elect a delegate was Fremont County, where 22.3 caucus goers translated into a state delegate.

The hardest places to elect delegates, in contrast, were college counties, with Johnson County far ahead of the rest.  In Johnson County, it took 79.2 people to elect a delegate, nearly twice the state average and almost four times the level of Fremont County.Poweshiek County, home of Grinnell, and Story County, site of Iowa State, ranked second and fourth hardest.  Squeezed in at third was Jefferson County, where the meditator community centered around Maharishi International University  led Dennis Kucinich to a near-win, his strongest showing in the nation.  Luther College’s Winneshiek County was also in the top ten.

Those statistics are likely to shift in 2008 with the caucuses occurring over collegiate breaks.  But even the calendar shift doesn’t change the underlying fact: some counties are full of go-to-meeting activists while others have more rank and file voters.

The caucuses take place in a mythical, projected version of a general election voting population, because caucus apportionment is based on votes for the top of the ticket.  In 2004 the counts were based on votes for Al Gore in 2000 and Tom Vilsack in 2002; likewise this year’s counts are based on John Kerry and Chet Culver.  In all four of those contests, Johnson County had the top Democratic percentages in the state.  While those Johnson County voters are the most likely to vote Democratic, they’re also the most likely to spend two or three hours at a meeting.

Another factor that skews caucus representation toward rural counties is the state’s shifting population.  Joining the college counties in the top ten list of hardest counties to elect delegates are high-growth areas in central Iowa — Dallas, Madison, Polk and Warren counties, four of the six fastest growing counties in the state from July 2000 to July 2003 (the Census estimates closest to caucus dates).  Dallas County grew 13.2% in those three years.  But a voter who moved to Dallas County three years before the caucuses won’t count in the county’s presidential vote totals used to calculate delegates, because they voted somewhere else.  A voter who moved in after the gubernatorial election wouldn’t count at all toward the delegate count.

The other high growth counties hurt in caucus apportionment are Johnson County again, plus Benton County.  But Benton’s exurban commuters to  Cedar Rapids and Waterloo were less likely to caucus, as the county ranked 63rd in attendees per delegate.

In contrast, Fremont County, the easiest place to win a delegate, lost 2.3% of its population over the same period.  Yet voters who were no longer in the county still helped its delegate count.  Sac County, the fasted shrinking county in 2000-2003 (-5.1%), ranked number 83 on the caucus goers per delegate list.

This helps explain dynamics like three Democrats showing up within 20 hours in Carroll.  It also means candidates can’t run up the score with big wins in big counties.  But paradoxically, it also mutes the impact of the holiday break in college towns — whether 30 students or 300 show up in Iowa City Precinct 5 (all dorms and frat houses), the same six delegates are at stake.  It also helps a candidate with isolated hotspots of support (like Kucinich in 2004) and hurts candidates with low but evenly spread backing.

Ultimately, the apportionment rules mean candidates have to carefully allocate their resources and fight on all fronts at once, and part of that allocation is making the effort where the most bang for the buck is available — the small towns.

align="right">552

Rank	County	Attendance (2004)	State Delegate Equivalent (2004)	Attendees per delegate (2004)
1	Johnson	11169	141	79.21
2	Poweshiek	1396	20	69.80
3	Jefferson	890	13	68.46
4	Story	5674	86	65.98
5	Decatur	437	8	54.63
6	Warren	2453	47	52.19
7	Polk	21821	430	50.75
8	Winneshiek	992	20	49.60
9	Dallas	2111	43	49.09
10	Madison	681	15	45.40
11	Cedar	766	18	42.56
12	Jasper	1868	44	42.45
13	Marshall	1696	40	42.40
14	Davis	330	8	41.25
15	Mahaska	648	16	40.50
16	Woodbury	3255	81	40.19
17	Muscatine	1404	35	40.11
18	Boone	1240	31	40.00
18	Marion	1120	28	40.00
20	Buchanan	908	23	39.48
21	Iowa	592	15	39.47
22	Greene	473	12	39.42
23	Wapello	1615	41	39.39
24	Clay	590	15	39.33
25	Adair	351	9	39.00
26	Bremer	889	23	38.65
27	Palo Alto	424	11	38.55
28	Linn	8716	228	38.23
29	Wayne	228	6	38.00
30	Monroe	303	8	37.88
31	Hardin	715	19	37.63
32	Webster	1531	41	37.34
33	Hamilton	634	17	37.29
34	Louisa	371	10	37.10
35	Washington	701	19	36.89
36	Des Moines	1879	51	36.84
37	Buena Vista	589	16	36.81
38	Appanoose	478	13	36.77
39	Sioux	398	11	36.18
40	Union	464	13	35.69
41	Dubuque	3739	105	35.61
42	Adams	177	5	35.40
43	Kossuth	698	20	34.90
44	Scott	5566	161	34.57
45	Harrison	414	12	34.50
45	Monona	345	10	34.50
47	Keokuk	344	10	34.40
48	Pottawattamie	2331	68	34.28
49	Jackson	718	21	34.19
50	Mills	333	10	33.30
51	Tama	632	19	33.26
52	Clayton	663	20	33.15
53	Ringgold	197	6	32.83
54	Black Hawk	4450	136	32.72
55	Guthrie	392	12	32.67
56	Plymouth	17	32.47
57	Van Buren	194	6	32.33
58	Fayette	708	22	32.18
59	Shelby	289	9	32.11
60	Ida	224	7	32.00
61	Henry	605	19	31.84
62	Cass	381	12	31.75
63	Benton	857	27	31.74
64	Chickasaw	504	16	31.50
65	Page	306	10	30.60
66	Carroll	635	21	30.24
67	Audubon	241	8	30.13
68	Howard	330	11	30.00
69	Franklin	328	11	29.82
70	Grundy	298	10	29.80
71	Wright	386	13	29.69
72	Crawford	355	12	29.58
73	Floyd	525	18	29.17
74	Cerro Gordo	1586	55	28.84
75	Lucas	256	9	28.44
76	O’Brien	281	10	28.10
77	Jones	617	22	28.05
78	Clarke	308	11	28.00
79	Allamakee	360	13	27.69
80	Butler	354	13	27.23
81	Delaware	489	18	27.17
82	Winnebago	323	12	26.92
83	Sac	268	10	26.80
84	Lee	1193	45	26.51
85	Dickinson	477	18	26.50
85	Humboldt	265	10	26.50
85	Pocahontas	212	8	26.50
88	Lyon	158	6	26.33
89	Calhoun	287	11	26.09
90	Osceola	103	4	25.75
91	Montgomery	203	8	25.38
92	Taylor	149	6	24.83
93	Worth	248	10	24.80
94	Mitchell	278	12	23.17
95	Hancock	254	11	23.09
96	Emmet	230	10	23.00
97	Cherokee	295	13	22.69
98	Clinton	1326	59	22.47
99	Fremont	156	7	22.29
	Statewide	122193	3000	40.73

]]> http://iowaindependent.com/1727/rural-counties-fewer-caucus-goers-per-delegate/feed 12 http://iowaindependent.com/1648/clinton-avoiding-students http://iowaindependent.com/1648/clinton-avoiding-students#comments Sun, 16 Dec 2007 13:00:00 +0000 John Deeth http://iowaindependent.com/1648/clinton-avoiding-students [Commentary] With University of Iowa finals starting this week, it doesn’t seem like students in Iowa City will get a face to face chance to ask Hillary Clinton about her campaign’s contention that maybe they shouldn’t be caucusing if their parents live in Schaumburg.  But the lack of a campus event seems to fit a Clinton campaign pattern for the People’s Republic of Johnson County.

Saturday, the Clinton campaign announced their first Johnson County visit in two months: a 7:30 p.m. Monday stop in Coralville.  That’s the Monday night of finals week.  Last weekend, she held events in two neighboring small counties, Iowa and Washington… without an Iowa City event.

Clinton’s last Johnson County appearance was as the closing act at the Johnson County Democrats’ fall barbecue on Oct. 6.  None of the five candidates at the event took questions from the stage.  Clinton, who appeared with 1972 Democratic nominee George McGovern, was the last speaker and spent close to 45 minutes greeting the crowd afterward. 

Iowa City caucus goers expect to ask the candidate a question, and usually not a soft one.  Clinton has sent top-level surrogates to campus to take questions, including her husband Monday and former Secretary of State Madeline Albright.  But those are very different experiences than asking the candidate herself a question.

Senator Clinton’s only University of Iowa stop was in July, with the former president.  The event was attended by thousands, but she did not take questions.  This is only one campus, and we Iowans may set high expectations.  But compare this to the other leading candidates.  Virtually every John Edwards event, including several on campus, includes questions and answers.  He most recently spoke in Iowa City on Wednesday, at the close to campus public library.  And, while there was some grumbling from backers of other candidates that he hadn’t done it earlier, Barack Obama did a Q & A on the U of I campus on Oct. 3.  Obama also visited campus at a student-oriented Dec. 4 rally, bud did not take questions.  Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, and Bill Richardson have also, with varying frequency, done events with questions on campus or in downtown Iowa City at student-friendly times.

The last Iowa City event at which Hillary Clinton took a public question was on April 3, at a mid-day event at a hotel on the edge of town, attended largely by people who already supported her.

Perhaps students don’t fit the working mom and senior women target groups the Clinton campaign seems to be aiming for. Or perhaps there’s another concern.

“If the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or has said his vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose from.” — Hillary Clinton, February 17, 2007

That’s a general election statement, meant to make Clinton look tough like a Commander in Chief.  The vision of a woman taking the salute as she gets off the Marine One chopper is not yet battle-tested at the ballot box.  But the statement is classic Clinton 42 triangulation, and positions her between the Peace Freaks and Bush.

The University of Iowa is well-known as a peace-movement stronghold, and among the Democratic candidates, Clinton has drawn particular vitriol from the peace movement.  The Des Moines-based “Seasons of our Discontent: a Presidential Occupation Project” (SODaPOP) group, with only enough willing to get arrested bodies to occupy two presidential campaign offices, chose Clinton and Rudy Giuliani.  Clinton might argue, as she has in debates, that she’s attacked because she’s ahead, at least nationally.  But a look at the schedule begs the question: is Hillary avoiding the bleeding heart of the People’s Republic of Johnson County?  Does she want to steer clear of a confrontational question or a raucous student protest?

Probably.  And from her campaign’s perspective, that’s not dumb.  Witness the robot who’s still mad about Sister Souljah who bothered Bill last week.  But the difference from other campaigns, and from John Edwards’ apology for his war vote, certainly needs to be pointed out.  The anti-war left, already mad that Congress hasn’t shut off war funding and started impeachment hearings, is not a sure thing for the “any Democrat is better than any Republican” argument.  Observers will note Green Candidate Cynthia McKinney making the rounds, and stopping where else but Iowa City.  Democrats needs a two to one win out of Johnson County to win statewide, and a few thousand peace protest votes could swing the state, and the nation.