Jonathan Narcisse (photo courtesy of NarcisseForIowa.com)

The “Narcisse for Iowa” committee declares its purpose as “to explore an opportunity to run for governor and run the subsequent campaign for governor in 2010.” Marketing consultant Darren Douglas of Madrid is named as the committee’s treasurer.

Narcisse has hinted at his desire to run for governor for months but has refused to say definitively if he would challenge incumbent Gov. Chet Culver in the Democratic primary or run as an independent in November.

A registered Democrat who campaigned for Culver in 2006, Narcisse served one contentious term on the board of the Des Moines School District. He owns and publishes several publications, including the Iowa Bystander.

Vander Plaats supporter and Christian radio host Steve Deace lobbed the first volley in an e-mail to conservative activists. He pointed to portions of Branstad’s record — such as tax increases during his tenure, earning an endorsement from teacher’s unions and his appointment of a lieutenant governor who supports same-sex marriage and abortion rights — and asked if they would ever consider supporting a “hypothetical candidate” with that kind of platform.

Deace got responses from numerious individuals, including former and current GOP candidates and the leaders of several of the state’s most influential conservative organizations.

Blogger and former Republican Party of Iowa Political Director Craig Robinson, a regular guest on Deace’s program who calls the radio host a “good man” and genuine friend, quickly fired back with a hypothetical of his own that criticized Vander Plaats’ record. He then took Vander Plaats supporters to task for blasting Branstad for doing things similar to another governor many of them once defended, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

I also would remind you, and a number of people on this e-mail chain (and my wife for that matter), that you guys voted for a candidate who was in favor of higher income taxes, higher sales taxes, higher gas taxes, higher grocery taxes, higher tobacco taxes, higher beer taxes, higher Internet taxes, and higher nursing home bed taxes.

You voted for a candidate who was the ONLY Republican to speak to the [National Education Association] and later receive their endorsement.

You voted for a candidate who called No Child Left Behind “the greatest education reform effort by the federal government in my lifetime.”

You voted for a candidate who supported amnesty and taxpayer-financed welfare and health care for illegal aliens.

What’s so ironic about your hypothetical question is that almost everything you take issue with in Branstad’s record are things that you either didn’t care about or chose to overlook in regards to Mike Huckabee. It looks like you have flip-flopped on these issues quicker than Mitt Romney ever could have.

Vander Plaats was Huckabee’s Iowa campaign director during the 2008 presidential caucus season, and Huckabee endorsed his gubernatorial bid last May. Many of the same groups and individuals who were active in the Huckabee presidential campaign are now supporting Vander Plaats. By the same token, many of Branstad’s supporters, including one-time chief of staff Doug Gross, were active in the campaign of Huckabee’s chief rival, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

Branstad has been drawing fire from social and religious conservatives from the moment he announced he was interested in re-entering politics. A meeting with several social conservative leaders aimed at soothing their concerns ended up bolstering them, as details of a disappointed group ended up on several blogs. The back-and-forth culminated last month with state Rep. Kent Sorenson, R-Indianola, and the Iowa Family Policy Center announced that not only would they be endorsing Vander Plaats but that they would never support a Branstad candidacy.

In the aftermath, Vander Plaats refused to sign on to a loyalty oath passed by the Linn County Republican Party and also would not rule out a third-party run for governor should he be defeated in the primary.

The bill, which passed the state Senate unanimously and the state House 93 to 3, ended the law banning some sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or day care and replaced it with exclusionary zones where registered sex offenders would be prohibited from working or visiting without permission. Do to the nature of the bill, and the political difficulty in tinkering with laws regarding sex offenders, the bill was negotiated behind closed doors and out of the public eye. This, Rants said, along with the quickness with which it was passed, is why the loophole wasn’t caught last year.

From The Register:

Rants contends the flaw could have been caught if the process had been more open.

“We warned folks there were going to be problems with their rush to get it down without a thorough discussion,” Rants said. “They just expected everyone to be quiet and go along with it with no public scrutiny.”

Rants, who is currently one of four men running for the GOP gubernatorial nomination, was one of three lawmakers who voted against the changes, along with Reps. Dawn Pettengill and Doug Struyk.

As tough as the upper-chamber debate promises to be, many of the thorniest conflicts will likely be re-contested when Democratic leaders in both chambers meet, probably in January, to iron out the differences between their bills. The legislative disparities revolve around such high-profile topics as the public option and coverage of abortion, but also include lesser-noticed issues, like whether to honor a White House deal with the pharmaceutical industry and how to approach the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Senate Republicans are also eyeing many of these hot-button issues, with hopes of using them to divide the Democrats in order to kill the larger bill. But with the considerable House-versus-Senate discrepancies awaiting conference negotiators, fending off opposition from Senate Republicans in the meantime could prove to be the least of the Democrats’ troubles as they attempt to pass the most consequential health-care reforms in generations.

Who Pays?

Chief among the differences between the Democrats’ bills is how each chamber has proposed to pay the considerable cost of covering tens-of-millions of uninsured Americans. The House pays the freight largely with a 5.4 percent tax on the nation’s highest earners — individuals making more than $500,000 per year, and families pulling in more than $1 million.

The Senate, on the other hand, has proposed an excise tax on the highest-cost insurance plans — those exceeding $8,500 for individual coverage and $23,000 for families. The Senate bill would also apply a 0.5 percent Medicare payroll tax to individuals earning more than $200,000 and families earning more than $250,000.

Liberals and labor unions have supported the House approach, arguing that an unprecedented tax on insurance plans would erode decades of work to secure comprehensive, employer-sponsored health-care coverage for workers. Conservatives, meanwhile, are warning that higher taxes on the wealthy will only exacerbate the nation’s economic troubles in the middle of an employment crisis.

Coverage vs. Care

Both the House and Senate bills rely heavily on a Medicaid expansion to cover the country’s poorest uninsured residents. The House would extend eligibility to 150 percent of the federal poverty level (net income), while Senate eligibility would expand to 133 percent of poverty (gross income).

The more significant difference, though, revolves around Medicaid reimbursement, which is so low in some states that many doctors and dentists now refuse to see Medicaid patients. The House bill recognizes the problem, bumping up Medicaid payments for primary care services to 100 percent of Medicare rates by 2012. Despite an effort to get similar language into the Senate legislation, a controversial funding proposal kept the provision out of the final bill.

The reimbursement increase doesn’t come cheap. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the provision would cost $28.7 billion over the next five years and $57 billion over the next 10.

Abortion

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) lit a firestorm earlier in the month when he amended the House bill to prohibit abortion coverage under subsidized exchange plans. The Senate bill would also ban federal funding of abortions, but would allow women receiving exchange-plan subsidies to segregate their premiums and co-payments in order to access abortion services. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) has already said that he’ll offer the Stupak provision on the floor, though supporters will have the difficult task of rallying 60 votes to pass the measure.

Indeed, the Stupak provision is poised to cause more havoc in the House than the Senate, with some House liberals vowing to oppose the larger bill if the language survives the conference negotiations, while Stupak and other anti-abortion Democrats are hinging their support on the provision remaining intact. Satisfying both camps for the sake of the bill’s passage will likely require some delicate wording from Democratic leaders.

Illegal Immigrants

Both chambers propose to screen exchange-plan applicants to ensure that illegal immigrants don’t receive the federal subsidies available to those living below 400 percent of poverty. The Senate bill, however, goes a giant step further, proposing to exclude illegals from purchasing even unsubsidized insurance coverage on the exchange. That provision has riled a number of lawmakers and immigration advocates, who are wondering how allowing folks to buy insurance coverage from private companies with U.S. dollars could harm the country, fiscally or otherwise.

“It makes no sense for anybody,” said Jonathan Blazer, public policy attorney with the National Immigration Law Center. “Nobody’s willing to defend it on policy grounds.”

If the Senate language emerges from the conference negotiations, it will likely lead to a showdown with House members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, who early in the debate had threatened to vote against the House bill if it excluded illegal aliens from unsubsidized exchange coverage.

CHIP

Though largely unmentioned throughout the health reform debate, the House bill would terminate the Children’s Health Insurance Program at the end of 2013, shifting those kids into Medicaid or private plans on the exchange. House leaders — who had championed CHIP for the past 12 years — say their proposal will expand coverage by getting kids and parents under the same plan.

But some children’s health-care advocates have raised alarms over that strategy, arguing that the private plans will likely be more expensive, thereby discouraging low-income parents from getting their kids any coverage at all. And Sen. Jay Rockefeller agrees. The West Virginia Democrat — who successfully amended the Senate bill to reauthorize CHIP through 2019 — is vowing to fight to keep the program intact.

“Health care reform should improve the coverage children have,” he said, “not take their coverage away.”

Rockefeller, though, has been a lonely voice in support of preserving CHIP, leaving the ultimate fate of his amendment in question.

The Big Deal with Big Pharma

In June, Democratic leaders in the White House and Senate caused a stir when they announced a deal with the pharmaceutical lobby. Under that bargain, the drug companies promised $80 billion over the next decade to close Medicare’s drug-coverage gap (partially) if the lawmakers agreed to oppose efforts to empower states to negotiate drug prices for residents enrolled in both Medicare and Medicaid. The Senate bill keeps that agreement intact, with Finance Committee members shooting down an amendment allowing such price haggling for the sake of closing Medicare’s donut hole altogether.

House Democrats, on the other hand, have said all along that they weren’t a part of the discussions with the drug makers, and they don’t feel bound to any deal they never agreed to. As evidence, the House bill allows states to negotiate drug prices on behalf of their lowest-income seniors — a provision the CBO estimates would save more than $42 billion over the next decade.

The Public Option

At the heart of the debate over health-care reform this year has been the public option — a strategy, popular among liberals and consumer advocates, to create a public, non-profit insurance plan to compete with private companies. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) surprised many political observers last month when he proposed to create such state-based plans in the bill he weaved together from the different proposals passed by the Finance and health committees. Reid’s bill would empower the plans’ administrators to haggle directly with doctors, hospitals and other health-care providers over reimbursement rates, but it would also leave states the option not to participate.

The House bill is similar, but creates a national insurance option rather than numerous state-based plans. Additionally, the House bill doesn’t include the state opt-out language.

Unlike the other topics mentioned here, the toughest fight over the public option seems destined to occur on the Senate floor, rather than in conference. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) has repeatedly vowed to filibuster any bill that includes a public plan, whether it’s opt-out, opt-in, trigger-based, or any other configuration. Meanwhile, some upper-chamber liberals — including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Roland Burris (D-Ill.) — are hinging their vote for the health reform package on the inclusion of a strong public option.

“This legislation cannot simply be a huge subsidy to private insurance companies that will get millions of new customers and be able to raise their rates as high as they want,” Sanders said in a statement last week. “I strongly suspect that there are number of senators, including myself, who would not support final passage without a strong public option.”

All of this, of course, could change. Although the House passed its health-care reform bill earlier in the month, the Senate proposal is just hitting the chamber floor today. The upper-chamber is expected to debate the measure through most of December, with hundreds of amendments likely to be offered from both sides of the aisle.

Democratic leaders hope to pass the bill out of the Senate before the holiday recess, pushing the conference negotiations to sometime in January. That 2010 is an election year won’t make those discussions any smoother.

Mike Lillis covers congress for The Washington Independent, a Center for Independent Media site.

Huckabee, who won the 2008 Iowa Caucuses and remains popular among Hawkeye State Republicans, said he would rather continue doing his Fox News program as opposed to re-entering the political world.

From Politico:

“The reason I wouldn’t is that this Fox gig I’ve got is really wonderful, ” he said, talking about whether or not he would get in the race given that he is a GOP front runner according to most recent polls.  “Jumping into the pool, you gottta make sure there is some water in it.”

Huckabee’s three trips to Iowa since the 2008 presidential election have stoked speculation that he is interested in another run. Two were to promote books and a third was to speak at the Iowa Association of Business and Industry’s annual convention before holding a fundraiser for GOP gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats. Huckabee endorsed Vander Plaats earlier this year.

Now, throw former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee into the mix.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in Des Moines last year promoting another book (Jason Hancock/Iowa Independent).

The winner of the 2008 Iowa Caucuses make three stops in Iowa Sunday, Nov. 8, to promote his latest book, “A Simple Christmas: Twelve Stories That Celebrate the True Holiday Spirit.” Huckabee will be in Davenport at 2:30 p.m.,  Cedar Rapids at 5 p.m., and Des Moines at 8 p.m., a day after Pawlenty gives the keynote speech at a Republican Party of Iowa event in Des Moines.

It will be Huckabee’s second appearance in Iowa this year. In May, he spoke at the Iowa Association of Business and Industry’s annual convention before holding a fundraiser for GOP gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats.

After Pawlenty and Huckabee leave town, Republican U.S. Rep. Ron Paul will return to Iowa for the first time since the 2008 Caucuses, where the Texas lawmaker finished fifth. Paul is scheduled to speak at Iowa State University in Ames on Nov. 13 at 7 p.m. The next morning he will headline a fundraiser for state Rep. Kent Sorenson’s Iowa Senate campaign at the Des Moines Airport Holiday Inn.

That’s because the trips were paid for by Latham’s political action committee and touted as fundraising events, a practice that is legal but that government reform advocates contend turns the PAC into little more than a slush fund designed to skirt campaign finance law.

U.S. Rep. Tom Latham, R-Ames.

And an Iowa Independent investigation found similar trips to prestigious golf resorts around the country throughout 2008, all paid for with PAC money.

These types of political action committees, known as “Leadership PACs,” are designed as a way for lawmakers to raise money to be passed along to other members of their party for their campaigns. By making donations to members of their party, lawmakers can use their leadership PACs to gain clout and boost their bids for leadership posts or committee chairmanships.

But a joint investigation by the nonprofit news site ProPublica, ABC News and the Washington Post found that a majority of the money raised by leadership PACs goes to entertainment, administrative costs, fundraising and other categories that “are so vague that it’s impossible to know for sure how the money was spent.”

ProPublica found lawmakers used money from their PACs to pay for trips to places like Churchill Downs, Disney World and the Country Music Hall of Fame. They found that Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., used nearly $65,000 to commission a portrait of himself.

All five of Iowa’s congressmen and both senators have leadership PACs (Sen. Tom Harkin has two). But Latham’s organization, dubbed For America’s Republican Majority (FARM PAC) is getting the lion’s share of attention.

Latham, along with House Minority Leader John Boehner, Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss and North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr, held a golf outing touted as a fundraiser for their leadership PACs at the Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia in July.

In June, Latham hosted an Atlantic City weekend to benefit his PAC. Lodging at the Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort cost FARM PAC $1,377.36.

Disclosure reports filed in 2008 with the Federal Election Commission show FARM PAC paid for hotel accommodations at prestigious golf resorts around the country, including the Greenbriar Resort in September;  The St. Regis Hotel-Monarch Beach in Dana Point, Calif. in August; and the LaQuinta Resort & Club near Palm Springs, Calif., in January.

Since returning to the capitol from the August recess, Latham has held two D.C. fundraisers for FARM PAC, with a third scheduled for Oct. 27.

FARM PAC has raised more than $75,000 this year. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the largest donors to FARM PAC in 2009 include Altria Group (formerly Philip Morris), AT&T, California Dairies Inc. and Latham for Congress. The PAC raised $205,447 during the 2008 election cycle, with almost all of it coming from lobbyists, PACs and corporate leaders.

For some reason, ProPublica did not include Latham’s PAC in their breakdown of more than 400 leadership PACs. The site did, however, look at rest of Iowa’s congressional delegation and found that they have not followed down a similar path as Latham.

More than 80 percent of money spent during the 2008 election cycle by Democratic Rep. Bruce Braley’s leadership PAC, Bringing Leadership Back PAC, was spent on campaign contributions to fellow Democrats.

Republican Rep. Steve King’s Conservative Principals PAC spent nearly 50 percent of its money on what ProPublica classifies as “entertainment, events and travel,” mostly on payments to the fundraising telecommunications company Liberty Phone Center.

Democratic Rep. Dave Loebsack’s I-PAC and Democratic Rep. Leonard Boswell’s BOSPAC spent almost all of the very small amount of money raised in 2008 on campaign contributions.

A little more than 70 percent of the money spent by Harkin’s Independent Action Inc. during the 2008 election cycle went for administrative costs. As for his To Organize a Majority PAC, more than 57 percent of its expenditures went to campaign contributions for Harkin’s senate colleagues, with 25 percent going to “fundraising consultants.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley’s Hawkeye PAC spent nearly 78 percent of its money on campaign contributions.

Responding to a request for comment, Latham’s spokesman, Fred Love, said in an e-mail to the Iowa Independent that the congressman’s official office does not work with or speak on behalf of any campaign committees. Phone calls to the number listed for the Alexandria, Va., offices of FARM PAC were not answered.

For more background on the controversy surrounding leadership PACs, read ProPublica’s report here.

A Moving Video of the Daughter of Sholom Rubashkin from Zalman Tevel on Vimeo.

The video, along with a link to a donation page run by the National Committee for Furtherance of Jewish Education, reminds members of the Jewish community that “Pidyon Shvuyim is one of the greatest mitzvos possible.” Pidyon Shvuyim is the doctrine that commands Jews to redeem captives, which, according to the Jewish law called the Mishneh Torah, “takes precedence over supporting the poor or clothing them.”  This belief is further explained in the Yoreh Dei’ah, Chapter 252, which states: “Ransoming Captives takes precedence over feeding and clothing the poor, and no mitzvah is as great as ransoming captives. Therefore, any money which is collected, even for a religious purpose, may be diverted to ransom captives even if it is raised for the purpose of building a synagogue…”

While non-Jewish readers may not understand the significance of “ransoming captives,” it has been a very real and unfortunate part of Jewish history. The first likely incident was highlighted in the Bible when Lot, nephew of Abraham, was taken captive during the battle between Mesopotamian and Canaanite kings. Enemies and rogues learned that taking Jews captive could be very lucrative since the community was mandated and bound by law to pay the ransom. Historically, then, Pidyon Shvuyim has been used to gather or collect funds for the release of prisoners of war or others being held hostage against their will.

According to information published by Shmarya Rosenberg at Failed Messiah, the pledge drive for the legal fund appears to be a continuance of a prayer vigil and other activities for the benefit of the Rubashkin family. Rosenberg notes that there is no way to designate specific purposes of Pidyon Shvuyim funds donated via the site, and that all donated funds will be placed in the Rubashkin legal defense fund.

“It has been a very challenging year for us,” Weiss notes in the video as photos of her father in custody are shown. She also notes that the situation has been an opportunity for the family to renew their faith.

“Now, a few days before Yom Kippur, I ask you to please open your hearts and help my father who never turned anyone down,” she says. “The lawyers estimate that from now until the end of trial it cost about $500,000.”

Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, begins at sundown on Sunday, Sept. 27, and ends at nightfall on Monday, Sept. 28. It is considered the holiest of holy days of the Jewish year.

Sholom Rubashkin served as the day-to-day manager at the Agriprocessors plant in Postville at the time of a massive immigration raid that resulted in 389 plant workers, most Guatemalan or Mexican, being detained by federal authorities. He was taken into custody by federal authorities in the fall of 2008, and is currently facing a litany of charges ranging from bank fraud to immigration-related offenses. Chief Judge Linda R. Reade ruled last month that due to negative media, Rubashkin could not receive a fair trial in Iowa and moved the proceedings to Sioux Falls, S.D. The trial is set to begin on Oct. 10.

Rubashkin and his legal team have launched a law suit against the federal government, citing that officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not provide a response to a Freedom of Information Act request. Rubashkin asked the government to provide any and all documentation in relation to the May 2008 raid in Postville, which led to the 163 charges he now faces.

Rubashkin and several other members of plant management, including his father, A. Aaron Rubashkin, who resides in Brooklyn, N.Y. and founded the company, also face several thousand state charges of alleged child-labor law violations.

The plant, which has emerged from bankruptcy proceedings, is now organized with a new name, Agri-Star, and is under new management. It continues to operate in Postville.

The 2008 winner of the GOP Iowa Caucuses raised $304,673 during the first six months of 2009 for his PAC and disbursed $336,589, donating only $17,500 to candidates across the country. On the last day of the filing period, Huck PAC gave $2,500 to Team Vander Plaats. (The PAC paid out $131,000 in payroll and benefits for its employees, and it spent $72,100 for fundraising-related expenses.)

Huckabee endorsed Vander Plaats’ candidacy in June, keynoting a fundraiser for the Sioux City businessman that the campaign said brought in around $80,000 (gubernatorial candidates won’t file financial disclosure with the state until January). Vander Plaats was Huckabee’s Iowa campaign director during the 2007-2008 presidential caucus season.

Free and Strong America PAC, the political action committee of Huckabee’s caucus rival, Mitt Romney, contributed no money to Iowa campaigns so far this year.

Most legislation that was passed during the 2009 General Assembly takes effect July 1, at the start of the 2010 fiscal year.

Iowa House Democratic staff sent out a list of the major new regulation set to be made official:

- Foreclosure protection – Iowans will see expanded services when facing foreclosure, more accurate information from mortgage brokers or bankers and active duty reservists and national guard members will have new protections from foreclosure while serving (House File 706, Senate File 355 and Senate File 364 all passed both chambers unanimously).

- Historic tax credits — $30 million in Historic Tax Credits will be available for communities (Senate File 481 passed the Senate unanimously and the House 89-3).

- Sex Offenders – Sex offenders will be prohibited from being within 300 feet of schools, parks or other places kids gather. The state will also enhance tracking of the most dangerous sex offenders. (Senate File 340 passed unanimously in Senate and 93-3 in House).

- Children’s health care – Health care will be expanded to an additional 30,000 uninsured kids, more low-income women will be eligible for health care during pregnancy and it will be easier for parents to keep their adult children under 25 on their insurance plan (Senate File 389 passed 39-9 in Senate and unanimously in House).

- Wind energy – Schools, hospitals, universities, private colleges and community colleges will be eligible to apply for wind energy tax credits (Senate File 456 passed unanimously in Senate and 94-2 in House).

- Manure application during winter – Animal confinement operations are banned from surface application of liquid manure on snow covered ground from Dec. 21 to April 1, and on frozen ground from Feb. 1 to April 1, unless there is an emergency (Senate File 432 passed 41-7 in Senate and 87-9 in House).

- Electronic logs for pseudoephedrine – Pharmacies will now use electronic logbooks to track pseudoephedrine sales and stop meth makers from “pharmacy shopping” to get enough of the drug to make meth (Senate File 237 passed 44-6 in Senate and unanimously in House).

- Job protection for volunteer emergency providers – Volunteer emergency service providers, like fire fighters and first responders, will have new protections from being fired if they are late or absent due to an emergency (House File 671 passed unanimously in Senate and House).

- Nursing home safety –Nursing homes will face higher fines for incidents resulting in death or severe injury (Senate File 433 passed unanimously in Senate and House).

- Consumer fraud protections – Iowa consumers who are defrauded will have new rights to sue the business that defrauded them, with several exceptions (House File 712 passed unanimously in Senate and 96-1 in House).