Senate Minority Leader Paul McKinley, R-Chariton, spoke on the Senate floor Tuesday urging lawmakers to sign a petition that would allow Senate Joint Resolution 2001, which would begin the process of amending the state’s constitution to ban same-sex marriage, to be brought to the Senate floor for a vote despite not being approved by a committee.

A similar move is expected to take place Tuesday morning in the Iowa House.

All 18 Republicans signed on to the petition, but 26 signatures were needed to force a vote. McKinley said one of the chamber’s 32 Democrats also signed the petition — state Sen. Tom Hancock of Epworth.

“While our bi-partisan effort fell short of gaining the 26 votes needed to proceed, the voters this November will have an opportunity to decide if they are content with the continued Democrat obstruction and inaction,” McKinley said in a statement shortly after the effort failed.

Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, has repeatedly said he will never allow a vote on same-sex marriage.

Below is video of Senate Republicans discussing their petition Tuesday morning.

While speaking to a group of supporters Wednesday, Vander Plaats was asked about the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which says “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Vander Plaats said he’s had to address this topic a lot lately.

“When I ran for governor and lieutenant governor before, that question was never asked,” he said. “But now you’re seeing the federal government become more and more intrusive, and that question gets asked all the time [about] state sovereignty.”

Nationally, measures to stop individual mandates on health care have been introduced in more than two-thirds of states, citing the 10th Amendment as the justification. The “state sovereignty” movement is considered an outgrowth of the Tea Party movement that sprung up around issues like federal health-care reform, gun-control laws and greenhouse-gas limits.

The sovereignty rhetoric has led to some interesting reactions from conservatives around the country. A recent Daily Kos-Research 2000 poll found that 23 percent of self-identified Republicans want their states to secede from the union. In the South, it’s 33 percent.

“States more and more today understand the 10^th Amendment,” Vander Plaats said. “But you need governors who are willing to take on the federal government instead of roll over to the federal government.”

Vander Plaats also mentioned a plan to get the federal government out of Medicare and Medicaid.

“Stop taking our Medicaid and Medicare dollars to DC and just leave them here,” he said. “Let us run that program.”

Last August, one of Vander Plaats’ rivals for the GOP nomination, state Rep. Chris Rants of Sioux City, called the idea a “cure that’s worse than the cold,” saying that while President Barack Obama spells trouble for Iowa, “the Vander Plaats plan spells bankruptcy.”

Below is video of Vander Plaats discussing the 10th Amendment and state sovereignty.

The legislation was passed by the U.S. House last year and is currently being considered by the Senate. VoteVets.org, a national advocacy group, will begin airing a television ad Friday in Cedar Rapids and Des Moines that criticizes Grassley’s position on the bill. Their position is that it will help military personnel by cutting the country’s dependence on foreign oil.

U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (Photo: Lauren Victoria Burke/WDCPIX.com)

The ad, which is also being run in seven other states, features Iowa City veteran Jeff Lindaman saying Grassley is opposed to the bill while accepting campaign donations from oil companies that do business “in countries with ties to terrorism.”

The Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, the Iowa Biodiesel Board, and the Iowa Soybean Association Board released a joint statement Friday defending the veteran Republican senator, saying “there has been no bigger supporter of clean energy in the U.S Senate than Chuck Grassley.”

“Chuck Grassley has been in a position to change the energy landscape, and he has maximized every public policy opportunity for clean-producing, home-grown energy,” the groups said. “Without Chuck Grassley, there would be no clean-burning renewable energy industry in Iowa.”

In September, Grassley called cap-and-trade legislation more controversial than health care reform, saying it will ultimately cost American jobs.

The group says it paid $150,000 in Iowa for the ad, which will run through Feb. 21 in Cedar Rapids and Des Moines.

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“It seems really convenient that this would happen now,” King said. As Fang pointed out, King’s defense of O’Keefe was not entirely consistent with his multiple attacks on ACORN based on media reports of its malfeasance.

King landed in Massachusetts over the weekend to assist Brown, whose campaign initially denied connection to the Iowa Republican. But in a video posted to King’s YouTube page it appears as if he is helping build enthusiasm at one of Brown’s phone banks.

King’s speech continued on the now familiar storyline: a Brown victory Tuesday would deal a deathblow to health care reform. He said voters in Massachusetts will decide the fate of the nation.

The legislation, Senate Joint Resolution 2001, would amend the state’s constitution to say “marriage between one man and one woman shall be the only legal union valid or recognized in this state.” In order to amend the constitution, the legislature must pass the resolution in two separate General Assemblies. The measure would then go to a public vote. If advocates of a same-sex marriage ban are unsuccessful in 2010, it would likely be 2014 at the earliest before the public would weigh in.

The resolution was sponsored by all 18 Republican members of the Iowa Senate. There are 32 Democrats.

State Sen. Merlin Bartz, R-Grafton, told the Mason City Globe-Gazette that Republicans will try everything to force a vote on the issue, but it likely won’t matter due to opposition from Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs. In an interview with The Iowa Independent, Gronstal vowed to stop the amendment at every turn and block a vote on the measure.

The joint resolution has been turned over the the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, which is chaired by Grontsal.

The Iowa Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage last April in a unanimous decision. During the closing weeks of the 2009 General Assembly, Republicans attempted numerous procedural moves to force a vote on a constitutional ban on gay marriage, all of which were thwarted by Democrats.

U.S. Rep. Steve King

Reid is facing calls from Republicans to step down for his comments regarding then-candidate Barack Obama revealed in a book chronicling the 2008 campaign. According to the book, Reid said the country “was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama — a ‘light-skinned’ African American ‘with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.’”

Many Republicans point to Reid’s criticism of then Republican Senate Leader Trent Lott in 2002 as reason for Reid to resign. Lott got himself in hot water by telling a crowd that a Strom Thurmond presidency would have prevented “all these problems over all these years.” Thurmond had based his presidential campaign largely on an explicit racial segregation platform.

King said in an interview with The Talk Radio News Service that he has no problem with what Reid said, since it was the truth.

“Did anybody ask the question ‘Did he tell the truth?’ Was what he said objective truth or was it an opinion?” King said. “He essentially said that President Obama is light skinned and doesn’t have an accent unless he wants one. That seems to be true to me, although I’ve never heard him with an accent of any kind.”

His problem is that Reid called on Lott to resign, so that standard should be applied to Reid.

“He should be held accountable for hypocrisy,” King said. “But not for what he said.”

King seemed to take the most offense to statements made in Reid’s defense by the Rev. Al Sharpton, saying the Civil Rights leader was able to defend Reid and not Lott because “Harry Reid has a long record of promoting Civil Rights.”

“So therefore you couldn’t call Harry Reid a racist for making a statement that was a little out of taste,” King said. “But they would argue that Trent Lott has not jumped on all the Affirmative Action agendas apparently that Harry Reid has, so therefore you can label him a racist with a clear conscience. That’s an abhorrent philosophy to me. That you can declare someone to be a racist because somehow Al Sharpton or anyone else can divine within the words spoken or the tone or the inflection or what’s not spoken that someone is a racist.”

But as The Washington Independent’s Dave Weigel pointed out, the difference between Reid and Lott’s comments goes much deeper than King suggests.

When Lott made his remarks – unlike Reid, he did it in front of video cameras – he added that a Thurmond presidency would have prevented “all these problems over all these years.” Lott’s office was unable to explain what “all these problems” were. In the following days, two more instances of Lott waxing nostalgiac about Thurmond’s segregationist 1948 presidential bid surfaced. By comparison, Republicans like [RNC Chairman Michael] Steele have not produced more evidence of Reid racial slip-ups, focusing instead on his hypocrisy for criticizing Lott in 2002.

Here is King’s interview with The Talk Radio News Service:

The group Iowa Family Policy Center organized a rally on the western steps of the Capitol set for noon. But it also asked that people show up early to attend the governor’s Condition of the State address. The protesters, dressed in red to show their support of a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, began chanting as Culver and the seven Justices were entering the chamber for the speech.

Culver faced the same chant as he was leaving the chamber upon completion of his speech.

Also present Tuesday were supporters of same-sex marriage. One Iowa, the state’s largest gay-rights organization, asked for supporters to show up at the capitol dressed in blue to offset the opposition and to deliver 18,000 petition postcards to legislators throughout the afternoon.

Below is Iowa Independent video of Culver facing same-sex marriage opponents.

The timing of the ad buy, which was produced and paid for by One Iowa, will coincide with the launch of the “Equality: Red Blue Purple” campaign, a coalition of groups with a combined membership of nearly 150,000 Iowans that includes labor, civil rights, and faith organizations all advocating in support of same-sex marriage. The campaign will officially kick off Sunday at the Des Moines Social Club, 1408 Locust St.

“The ad illustrates Iowa’s leadership in protecting equal rights for all and builds upon the traditional Iowa values we hold dear,” said Carolyn Jenison, One Iowa’s executive director.

Republicans have promised to make same-sex marriage an issue during the 2010 legislative session, and the Iowa Family Policy Center is organizing a rally on Tuesday calling on lawmakers to pass a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. But after Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, told The Iowa Independent he would not allow a vote on marriage this year, social conservative conceded that their chances of passing a constitutional amendment are remote.

One Iowa plans to air the ad for a week but is attempting to raise $10,000 to keep it on the air longer.

Here is the ad, entitled “This Place.”