Creative Commons photo by jimmywayne via Flick

House Republicans attempted to invoke House Rule 60, a procedural move that allows a majority vote on the floor of the House to pull a bill out of a committee even if the committee has not approved it. The hope was that seven Democrats would join the 44 Republicans in the House and force a vote on House Joint Resolution 6, sponsored by state Reps. Dwayne Alons, R-Hull, and Delores Mertz, D-Ottosen. The bill would begin the process of amending the state’s constitution to declare marriage as only between one man and one woman.

Only Mertz joined with the GOP, causing the effort to fail. House Minority Leader Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, told reporters that the issue is likely dead this session.

“This is it,” he said. “Either there’s 51 people who want to do it or there’s not.”

Paulsen said afterward that the outcome did not come as a shock.

“I’m not surprised by the result of today’s vote,” he said. “Gov. Culver and the Democrat leaders have made it clear they do not want Iowans to have an opportunity to vote on defending traditional marriage. The likelihood of the vote count changing this session is highly unlikely,”

In the Iowa Senate, Minority Leader Paul McKinley, R-Chariton, attempted to bring a similar bill, Senate Joint Resolution 2001, to the floor by getting a majority of lawmakers to sign a petition pulling it out of committee. All 18 Republicans signed on but only one of the chamber’s 32 Democrats — Tom Hancock of Epworth — joined them, causing their effort to fail as well.

McKinley said the fate of marriage will now be left to voters in the fall legislative elections.

“Iowans are tired of senators saying back home that they support allowing Iowans a vote and then not keep their word when they get to Des Moines,” McKinley said. “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”

Hancock told The Des Moines Register that he voted with Republicans because he lives “in a highly Catholic area” and his constituents want to vote on the marriage issue.

Gay-rights advocates applauded the defeat of the procedural moves, saying Republicans are out of touch with mainstream Iowans. A recent Des Moines Register Iowa Poll found that 62 percent of Iowans believe lawmakers should focus on other things besides gay marriage.

“Republicans once again pursued an agenda that is out of touch and irresponsible,” said Brad Clark, campaign director for One Iowa, the state’s largest gay-rights organization. “We applaud House Democrats who demonstrated their commitment to a responsible agenda to balance the budget and their commitment to freedom for all Iowans.”

Before the 2010 legislative session was underway, Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, made his opinion clear on the issue.

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

With Gronstal’s adamant support of same-sex marriage, along with House Speaker Pat Murphy, D-Dubuque, social conservative leaders conceded that the likelihood that a ban could ever be passed in 2010 was very remote. The best they could hope for was to attempt to get Democrats on the record in support of same-sex marriage and use the issue during the 2010 legislative elections.

Supporters of marriage equity are taking nothing for granted, though. During the 2009 session House Republicans also failed to force a vote on marriage using House Rule 60. But a constitutional amendment was tacked on to several other bills. State Rep. Chris Rants, R-Sioux City, first attempted to attach a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage to the state’s Health and Human Services budget, but the move was ruled out of order.

He then attempted to insert language in a Democratic tax proposal that would have defined a married couple as “a man and a woman” for the purposes of the state’s tax code. That effort also failed.

In the Senate, less effort was put into getting a ban passed, causing Christian radio host Steve Deace to criticize McKinley during his drive-time program on Iowa’s largest radio station for “feeding constituents a line of bull” about doing everything possible to stop same-sex marriage.

Anti-McKinley fliers were reportedly being distributed in Pella, paid for by a Virginia-based conservative group called Public Advocate of the United States, that called McKinley a “chicken” for not pushing harder to force a vote.

McKinley made one attempt at forcing a vote on a constitutional amendment in 2009, requesting that Gronstal join him in crafting legislation to begin the process. Gronstal refused and the matter was dead.

King, a Kiron Republican who represents Iowa’s 5th District, is the voice on the call, which is reportedly being made on behalf of Iowans for Tax Relief, a conservative group led by Ed Failor Jr. Recipients said the call begins with a brief introductory monologue by King that is followed by a keypad response question on federal deductibility, which includes jabs at state Democrats and Gov. Chet Culver.

Following the financial question, however, recipients are then asked for their positions on same-sex marriage and abortion. Those who answer that they support a ban on marriage equality and abortion are then asked to make a donation by phone. If that request is refused, King states that more information will be sent to the recipient by mail.

Recipients report that caller ID shows either “202-461-3661″ or “Washington DC 202-461-3661.” Calls identified by this number were most recently received during the Massachusetts special U.S. Senate election, where recipients reportedly were asked if their preference was to use U.S. taxpayer dollars to help the people of Israel or Africa. Locally the call has been received on both land lines and cellular phones.

As Congress weighs its plans for tackling the nation’s enduring jobs crisis, the National Employment Law Project today laid out the stakes of inaction: Nearly 1.2 million Americans would lose their unemployment benefits next month unless Congress steps in to extend the filing deadline. By July, that number jumps to almost 5 million.

Under current law, unemployed folks have access to 26 weeks of state-sponsored insurance benefits before four separate tiers of emergency federal benefits kicks in. Confusing the arrangement, recipients must exhaust their current benefits before filing for the next tier. Trouble is, the filing deadline for all tiers is at the end of February.

The result? Roughly 380,000 workers currently receiving state benefits will miss the chance to apply for federal help, NELP estimates, while another 814,000 currently getting federal help wouldn’t be able to enter the next tier.

“Congress must swiftly act to maintain the lifeline for millions of jobless Americans caught in the undertow of record long-term unemployment in this ongoing downturn,” Christine Owens, NELP’s executive director, said in a statement.

There’s every indication that lawmakers will do just that. In December, the House passed a $154 billion jobs bill, including $41 billion to extend the UI filing window by six months. More recently, President Obama unveiled a budget proposal that includes $49 billion (roughly a seven-month extension) for the same purpose. “The Administration will propose legislation for later transmittal to extend the Emergency Unemployment Compensation and Extended Benefits programs,” the budget states.

And Senate leaders on Thursday outlined their plan to tackle the jobs crisis, which included mentions (but no specifics) of a UI extension.

Bob Vander Plaats speaks to supporters Wednesday night in Ames (photo by Dave Davidson, www.davedavidson.com).

“Governor after governor after governor… you do the math about how many governors that is,” he said.

The not-so-veiled shot was directed at Vander Plaats’ chief rival for his party’s nomination, former Gov. Terry Branstad.

While both Branstad and Vander Plaats have avoided directly attacking the other, their rivalry has nonetheless boiled over in recent weeks. Last month, several lawmakers and the influential social conservative group Iowa Family Policy Center endorsed Vander Plaats’s campaign and vowed to sit out the fall election if Branstad were the party’s nominee. The move sparked outrage in many Republican circles and motivated the Linn County Republican Party pass a resolution demanding candidates support the eventual nominee if they want the county party’s support.

Vander Plaats was the only candidate not to sign on to the pledge, causing many to surmise he would run as an independent if he loses in the primary.

In an exclusive interview with The Iowa Independent, Vander Plaats said he would never sign on to “blind loyalty pledges,” saying the idea “just doesn’t sell to the general voter.”

“But I do know after running for this office a couple times that whoever the nominee is of the party carries a huge responsibility,” he said. “That responsibility is to genuinely and authentically earn the support and endorsement of your peers in the race and their supporters. They don’t want to be taken for granted. They don’t want to be, ‘OK, I guess we’re Republicans so we’ll hold our nose and get behind Vander Plaats.’  They want you to earn their support and endorsement as well. “

For many, the primary campaign between Branstad and Vander Plaats is a battle for the soul of a party. Branstad, a four-term governor who left office in 1998, has had difficulty winning over social and religious conservatives since entering the campaign last year. Those voters, who make up the base of the party, point to his appointment of a lieutenant governor who supports abortion rights and a Supreme Court Justice who penned the decision legalizing same-sex marriage as proof that his conservative credentials are in doubt. They also question his association with Doug Gross, a Des Moines attorney and longtime adviser to Branstad who has angered many social conservatives for calling for the party to be more accepting of differing ideas.

Vander Plaats said the primary will decide whether Republicans truly believe in conservative principles or not.

“I think what Iowans want is they want to see someone who’s principled and someone who can cast a compelling vision,” he said, adding: “The danger is when we try to be all things to all people. The people of Iowa will think, ‘well, you really don’t stand for anything.’ So, whether I’m left of you or right of you is irrelevant because I don’t trust you because you’re all over the place.”

While Vander Plaats said he wants to stay away from attacking Branstad personally, saying candidates should “give people reason to vote for you, not vote against your opponent,” he does plan to draw sharp contrasts with his rival, whom he characterized as the “establishment” candidate.

“The environment today may be against the establishment that’s in charge right now, but they really don’t want to go back to another establishment,” he said. Voters want someone to speak up for all of Iowa, “not just a part of Iowa or a sect of Iowa or just those with access.”

The majority of Vander Plaats’ remarks Wednesday night focused on the economy and the size of state government. He said the bureaucracy that has grown over years is not only hurting Iowa business but also education. Things were already bad before Gov. Chet Culver took office, he said, but they quickly got worse.

“He decided to be a Hillary Clinton Christmas tree on steroids,” Vander Plaats said.

One of the first things he hopes to do in office is shrink that bureaucracy and find ways for the private sector to take on many of the jobs currently performed by the state.

It took more than an hour for Vander Plaats to address same-sex marriage, an issue that has long been the centerpiece of his campaign. Vander Plaats believes he can stop the Iowa Supreme Court’s decision legalizing gay marriage with an executive order, pointing to language in the state’s constitution that calls the governor “chief magistrate of the state.”

This interpretation doesn’t bode well with constitutional scholars or Vander Plaats’ fellow Republican gubernatorial hopefuls. They say the governor does not possess that type of authority and issuing an executive order like that could result in a constitutional crisis, pitting branches of government against each other.

Conservative blogger and former Republican Party of Iowa political director Craig Robinson pointed out the flaw in Vander Plaats’ logic, saying the use of “chief magistrate” in the constitution “is just another name for governor, just like the constitution refers to voters as electors. This provision simply gives the office of governor its name, nothing more.”

“In fact, the historical analysis that I’ve found argues that the lack of any description of gubernatorial duties in the Iowa Constitution shows that the drafters constructed the governorship to be a relatively weak office,” Robinson said.

But those critics won’t deter Vander Plaats.

“I see this as a great civics lesson,” he said. “That’s the former teacher in me, I guess. The Supreme Court doesn’t make law. And this goes beyond just marriage. This will impact private property rights, free enterprise, education, health care, free speech, you name it.”

The legislation, which would set minimum pay and benefit standards for workers of public projects, failed to gain passage in 2009 despite House Speaker Pat Murphy, D-Dubuque, keeping the chamber in session throughout a weekend and voting machines open for nearly 70 hours in order to attempt to persuade a “no” vote to change their mind.

Culver told the Gazette legislators should “push forward” on the bill. House Labor Committee Chairman Rick Olson, D-Des Moines, said he has drafted a compromise bill that could be easier to pass this year.

“It’s what you might call a softer bill,” Olson said, explaining it would require the state, regents and community colleges to pay prevailing wage on projects of $100,000 or more. However, local government – cities, counties and school districts – could opt-out of paying prevailing wage on a project-by-project basis, Olson said.

The changes were made to appeal to the “six pack” of conservative Democrats who typically do not support labor legislation — Reps. McKinley Bailey, Geri Huser, Doris Kelley, Larry Marek, Dolores Mertz and Brian Quirk. Democrats hold a 56-44 majority in the House, meaning at least one of the six has to be persuaded to support labor measures in order to win passage.

But it’s still a good day for organized labor.

U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley gets a new Republican challenger.

Iowa Democrats beat out GOP in fundraising, registered voters.

Alcohol laws lead to bad local policy.

Liberal blogger asks, “Is Chuck Grassley an embarrassment to Iowa?“

Just before a recent New York Times report on the use of ammonia in beef processing published, a Seattle-based food safety law firm formally requested Iowa State provide all public records related to research completed by a professor on the safety of the process. Although university officials gathered 1,650 documents and received more than $2,000 from the firm to pay for the copies, the records were never sent to the Marler Clark law firm. Beef Products Inc. filed an injunction in Iowa District Court for Story County, asserting that release of the documents could disclose trade secrets.

According to Michael Moss, author of The Times’ report, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service relied on research generated by the Iowa State professor, showing that the process was an effective killer of pathogens such as E. coli.

“Frankly, I thought the public should know what BPI, the USDA/FSIS and the beef industry were relying on to serve us the ammonia ‘fatty trimmings the industry once relegated to pet food and cooking oil,’” wrote attorney Bill Marler on the company’s blog while referring to the Times’ report. “I would have assumed BPI, the USDA/FSIS and the beef industry would feel the same way? Well, BPI did not.”

BPI, which is being represented by the Shuttleworth & Ingersoll law firm in Cedar Rapids, is arguing that the services of James S. Dickson, an Iowa State professor, were purchased directly from Dickson as a private contractor and not as a representative of the university, and that Dickson remains under a non-disclosure agreement. The company further argues that since Dickson worked as an independent contractor of the company, all of the documents related to his research are the property of BPI and not of Iowa State.

The disclosure of said information would disclose and divulge confidential trade secrets of BPI and would cause irreparable injury to BPI for which BPI has not adequate remedy at law. Such disclosure is prohibited by Chapter 22, Code of Iowa.

Even if the court determines that the information is not the property of BPI, the injunction states, it must still prohibit disclosure of such confidential records to third parties by virtue of the same statute, which is the state’s public records law. The fourth subsection of the statute, named “exceptions,” refers to Chapter 550, which deals specifically with trade secrets, and quotes a 1980 opinion by the Iowa Attorney General that “if an agency has reasonable grounds for concluding that an item is a trade secret, it need not make the item available for inspection and copying.”  The Code states overall that any public records deemed confidential “shall be kept confidential unless otherwise ordered by a court, the lawful custodian, or another person duly authorized to release information.”

In a letter to Iowa State University, Marler questions whether or not Dickson’s research and subsequent documentation is confidential under Iowa law.

“Just because BPI filed a petition claiming that some records we seek contain trade secrets, or relate to work that Dr. Dickson did as an ‘independent contractor,’ that does not mean there is a reasonable basis for refusing to disclose the already-gathered documents,” he wrote. “We are also troubled by the fact of Dr. Dickson having published an article in the Journal of Food Protection that extensively discusses allegedly ‘confidential’ research on behalf of BPI, that the research was also supported by Hatch Act and State of Iowa funds, and that his consulting work for BPI would have needed approval by the University to avoid conflicts of interest.”

Marler also notes that he does not believe it is his firm’s place to intervene in the action against ISU since his firm does not know the content of the information in question.

“Indeed, if the university allows a default judgment to be entered, and an injunction to issue, when it knows that BPI is not otherwise entitled to such relief, the the University’s failure to act could be construed as causing the denial of rights under the public records law,” he said.

The firm has amended its prior public records request to include “all records related to Dickson’s consulting work for BPI; how such work was approved and monitored; disclosure of any conflicts of interest; whether federal, USDA, or Iowa state funds were used to support the work; other grants sponsored or funded by BPI at the University; research notes, data, article-drafts, related papers, and other documents that relate to Dr. Dickson’s Research Note published in the 2003 Journal of Food Protection, vol. 66, pages 847-877.”

BPI links to a report from Iowa State University on its Web site; however, that report, labeled as a “brief statement of the use of ammonium compounds in food processing,” was written by Sam Beattie and not Dickson.

Mitt Romney’s PAC is burning through money — the PAC reported a 78 percent overall burn rate as of Dec. 31 — but he has plenty of cash to spare. Romney’s PAC reported $1,125,375 cash on hand as of Dec. 31, beating out both Sarah Palin’s SarahPAC and Tim Pawlenty’s Freedom First PAC in cash available, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney

Romney has raised a total of $3,565,311 and spent $2,777,912, since he first formed his PAC months after exiting the presidential race in 2008.

Pawlenty only formed his PAC in October 2009, so his totals were expected to be less robust than the those of Palin and Romney (who recently vied for vice president and president, respectively). Pawlenty’s burn rate was just about 31 percent overall and he reported $884,075 on hand. He raised $1,279,906 and spent $395,831 total through Dec. 31.

Since SarahPAC was first formed in Jan. 2009, the committee has raised $2,132,119, spent $1,203,782 and reported $928,337 on hand as of Dec. 31.

While most of SarahPAC’s money was spent on consulting, fundraising and other typical campaign expenditures, the committee reported spending tens of thousands on photographs, books and trinkets in the last half of the year. SarahPAC spent $13,668 on photos, $63,498 on books, $6,455 on t-shirt design and printing and nearly $3,000 on pens and rubber bracelets in the latter six months of 2009. These and other items contributed to SarahPAC’s overall burn rate of 56 percent.

Julissa Treviño contributed research to this post. ]]> http://iowaindependent.com/26860/romney-pac-has-highest-burn-rate-but-leads-palin-and-pawlenty-in-cash/feed 0 http://iowaindependent.com/26851/huckabee-returning-to-iowa-to-stump-for-vander-plaats http://iowaindependent.com/26851/huckabee-returning-to-iowa-to-stump-for-vander-plaats#comments Mon, 01 Feb 2010 21:41:33 +0000 Jason Hancock http://iowaindependent.com/?p=26851 Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee will be in Iowa Feb. 24 to campaign for Republican gubernatorial hopeful Bob Vander Plaats.

The details of the trip have not yet been made public, but Vander Plaats campaign manager Eric Woolsen told The Iowa Independent they will be released Monday night.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in Des Moines in 2008 promoting a book.

According to Team Huck Iowa, the 2008 Iowa Caucus winner will visit Cedar Rapids and Des Moines.

The trip will mark the third Iowa visit for Huckabee since the 2008 caucuses and the second to campaign for Vander Plaats, who served as his Iowa campaign’s state chair. His visit should also once again stoke more presidential chatter, as Huckabee is considered by many to be a likely candidate in 2012.

A November Des Moines Register Iowa Poll found Huckabee with the highest favorability ratings among Hawkeye State Republicans of any rumored presidential aspirant.

However, Sporer says he was unaware that the term he used was considered an anti-gay slur.

On his Twitter account, Sporer called the protesters “pillow biters” who don’t live up to the legacy of British leadership.

The pillowbiters protesting the great Tony Blair aren’t fit to cumber the streets walked by either of the Churchills (John or Winston).

According to Urban Dictionary, the phrase “pillow biter” is “a slang and highly derogatory term for gay males. It was likely inspired by the notion that a male engaged in anal sex would be face-down into a pillow, biting into it.”

Sporer said he was not familiar with that definition of the phrase. He said he used the term to mean “one who cowers in their bed, chewing their pillow in the grip of mortal terror, rather than confront the intruder at the door. Put another way, it describes those who cannot choose fight over flight no matter how dire the threat or noble the cause.”

Those who take exception to his use of the term are further examples of “the thought police’s latest application of ‘Rules for Radicals’ and the suppression of competing thought,” he said.

Sporer served as chairman of the Polk County Republican Party from 2001 to 2009 and on the Republican Party of Iowa State Central Committee from 2002 to 2008. He is a regular guest on Steve Deace’s drive-time radio program and is occasionally still active in political campaigns, most recently as a public supporter of 3rd District Republican Congressional candidate Brad Zaun. He ran an unsuccessful campaign to become chairman of the Republican Party of Iowa in late 2008.

“Thank you for the opportunity to exercise my First Amendment rights so as to prevent an erroneous mis-attribution of poor motives or taste to my earlier description of the cowardly British anti-war movement,” Sporer said.