Bob Vander Plaats, left, and Terry Branstad (file photos)

At an event originally billed as a rally to oppose same-sex marriage, Iowa Family Policy Center (IFPC) chairman Danny Carroll announced the group’s endorsement of Republican gubernatorial hopeful Bob Vander Plaats. While that news wasn’t a shock, Carroll’s announcement that the group would sit out the 2010 governor’s race if former Gov. Terry Branstad wins the party’s nomination caught many by surprise.

“[Gov. Branstad] has failed to boldly address the values that we embrace,” Carroll said Tuesday. “And even if he were to win the nomination, the Iowa Family PAC would not support him.”

The endorsement followed a similar announcement last week by state Rep. Kent Sorenson, R-Indianola, where he, too, vowed only to support the nominee if it is Vander Plaats.

One Republican said the announcements are the start of a war that could “set back the Republican Party of Iowa for decades.”

“I am stunned and mortified,” said Brent Oleson, a Republican member of the Linn County Board of Supervisors and a former member of the party’s state central committee who has endorsed Branstad. “This is absolutely a recipe for disaster.”

After years of electoral defeats in Iowa, the GOP finally has the issues on their side, Oleson said. But now a “jihadist sleeper cell of so-called GOP leaders” is “refusing to work towards post-primary unity.”

Isaiah McGee, a member of the Republican Party of Iowa’s central committee and also a supporter of Branstad, used his Twitter account to express his frustration, saying that the party is trying to “snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory.”

“While Gov. Culver’s [Condition of the State] speech flops, Republicans bicker,” he wrote.

Vander Plaats’ pledge to sign an executive order stopping same-sex marriage until a public vote on the issue could be held is one of the core reasons why social conservatives have rallied behind his campaign. Legal scholars say the idea isn’t plausible and would lead to a constitutional crisis, but Vander Plaats insists he will go forward with the order on day one of his administration even if it leads to his impeachment.

“It’s frustrating that leading Iowa Republicans do not recognize any acceptable position other than a poorly-advised executive order to somehow overturn the decision of the Iowa Supreme Court against all reason and junior high government class-level knowledge of separation of powers,” said Jeff Patch, a longtime Republican activist and former press secretary for U.S. Rep. Tom Latham.

If they truly believed in limited government they would be open to voices in their party who are skeptical of allowing politicians to decide what constitutes marriage, which is fundamentally a civil contract involving families and faith groups, Patch said.

“Instead, anyone who doesn’t support the exact agenda of some social conservative leaders is vilified as a ‘Republican In Name Only (RINO),’” he said.

In fact it is Carroll, Vander Plaats, Sorenson and the IFPC who are RINOs, Oleson said, if they refuse to support the party in the fall.

“They are not logical at all,” he said. “They are basically saying ‘If I don’t get my way I’m taking my marbles and going home.’”

Some Republicans are concerned that if Vander Plaats loses the nomination in June he will seek the state’s highest office as an independent. The Sioux City Republican re-enforced those fears last September when he endorsed an independent candidate running in state House District 8.

“Bob Vander Plaats needs to disavow this and he needs to do it soon,” Oleson said.

Ultimately, Oleson believes Branstad will be able to unify the party after the primary is over because “he’s done it before.” He’s referring to the 1994 GOP gubernatorial primary, where Branstad was able to win his fourth term in office after fending off a tough primary challenger.

“I’m glad he’s running,” Oleson said. “He’s providing adult leadership.”

But in 2002, while GOP candidate Doug Gross squeaked out a victory in a three-way primary the nearly two-thirds of Republican voters who didn’t support him never truly came home. Democratic Gov. Tom Vilsack was able to easily win a second term in office.

Patch said the party doesn’t need to change its platform position on same-sex marriage but must at least be open to those who think government has more pressing problems to handle.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. (WDCpix)

It was at once a monumental achievement, which if signed into law would represent the most expansive overhaul of the nation’s dysfunctional health care system in generations, and a disappointment to many liberals who’d hoped the reforms would go further to rein in the same medical-services industries most responsible for the skyrocketing expenses.

The tally was 60 to 39, with every member of the Democratic caucus (including two Independents) voting in favor of the measure and every Republican present voting against it.

Not surprisingly, Iowa’s senators split on the issue, with Democrat Tom Harkin in support and Republican Chuck Grassley voting against.

“This is for my friend Ted Kennedy,” 92-year-old Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) said just before his vote, a reference to the late Massachusetts Democrat and health reform champion who passed away over the summer.

Senate leaders must now combine their bill with the one passed last month by the House, which, despite broad similarities, strays on several key issues, including its creation of a controversial public insurance option.

The rare Christmas Eve vote came after months of acrimonious debate over how Congress should approach health care reform. The saga first pitted Democrats against Republicans, but later — when it became clear that no Republicans would support the bill — saw liberal Democrats and their moderate colleagues doing battle over the most contentious provisions of the 2,074-page bill. The Republicans, who said the bill represented an expensive government takeover, were effective in slowing the pace of the legislation, but were helpless to prevent passage once the Democrats united behind it.

For the Democratic faithful, that unification came at a price. To secure 60 votes, party leaders had to bow to the demands of two caucus moderates — Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Ben Nelson, D-Neb. — who were threatening to join a Republican filibuster otherwise. With no margin for desertions, Democratic leaders were forced to concede several of their legislative priorities in the process. To win Lieberman, they dropped their plans to create a government-run insurance option to compete with private companies — a program that many liberal policy experts consider vital for controlling rising premium costs — and to lower the age of Medicare eligibility to 55. For Nelson, they tacked on language restricting abortion coverage under subsidized plans operating on newly proposed insurance marketplaces, called exchanges. That provision has been roundly attacked by reproductive rights groups, who argue that it will restrict women’s access to comprehensive health services.

Both concessions set the stage for a fight with House Democrats when leaders of the chambers meet next month to marry the two bills. Already, some House liberals are claiming that Senate Democrats bent too far.

Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., the chairman of the House Rules Committee and also a leader of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus, blasted the Senate bill Wednesday as “not worthy of the historic vote that the House took a month ago.”

The Senate’s decision to eliminate the public option — combined with federal insurance subsidies and a mandate requiring most Americans to buy health insurance from private companies — is simply a gift to the insurance industry, Slaughter claimed, echoing the message coming from other liberal critics since the compromise with Lieberman was announced.

“I do not want to subsidize the private insurance market,” Slaughter wrote on CNN.com. “[T]he whole point of creating a government option is to bring prices down.”

It’s not the only wrinkle that will need ironing out. There are also significant discrepancies in how the chambers fund their separate bills; how they approach illegal immigrants; how broadly they would expand Medicaid; and what they propose to do with the Children’s Health Insurance Program, to name just a few.

Still, Democrats in the White House and the Senate cheered Thursday’s vote as a historic step toward covering the estimated 46 million Americans who currently lack health insurance. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said the bill is imperfect, but added that it nonetheless represents a giant step toward jumpstarting the “process” that is health-care reform.

“How much longer can we afford to put this off, or ask the uninsured for their patience?” Reid asked just before the vote. “Until health care costs consume not just a sixth of our economy, but a third, or a half? Until premiums consume a more than half of a family’s income? We certainly don’t have the luxury of waiting until America becomes the only developed nation on earth where you can die for lack of health insurance — we already bear that blemish.”

Republicans, meanwhile, continued to attack the legislation as a bloated government intervention that will raise taxes and steal consumer choice. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. R-Ky., said Thursday that the bill doesn’t cut costs, as Democrats claim. “It doesn’t do what it was supposed to do,” he said.

McConnell also warned supporting Democrats that they’ll get “an earful” from constituents when they go home for the holidays. “They know there is widespread opposition to this monstrosity,” McConnell said.

Neither side of the debate claims that the nation’s health care system isn’t in need of an overhaul. Indeed, health policy experts on and off of Capitol Hill have warned for years that the rising costs of health care services, which far outpace both inflation and wages, are threatening to swamp the entire economy. And the numbers support their case. This year health care spending is projected to top $2.5 trillion, representing almost 18 percent of the gross domestic product. By 2017, the figure is expected to jump to 20 percent. The question all along has been how to slow that growth without compromising either patient care or the health-services research needed to uncover new medical technologies and procedures.
Democrats are hoping to merge the House and Senate bills quickly to allow President Obama to sign the legislation into law before giving his State of the Union address, which is expected to take place late next month. That timeline, however, is far from guaranteed, considering that Senate lawmakers aren’t scheduled to be back in Washington until Jan. 19.

Even then, the debate over health care will be far from over. One of the first bills that Congress will have to take up following Obama’s speech will be one addressing the 21-percent cut in Medicare physician payments. Although lawmakers provided a two-month fix to prevent those cuts from taking effect on Jan. 1, a permanent solution was too expensive to fit into their larger health reform bills.

That, however, is for another day. Today, the Democrats are reveling over their hard-fought legislative victory.

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

The lie that stood out above all other in 2009, according to Politifact, was a Republican talking point that end-of-life planning provisions included in health care reform legislation will lead to the government deciding whether seniors and the disabled were worthy of care.

Or, as it was more commonly known, “death panels.”

U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa (Lauren Victoria Burke/WDCPIX.COM)

The claim began on the Facebook page of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, but it was quickly picked up by other GOP dignitaries, including Grassley.During a town hall forum in Winterset, Grassley told the crowd that they “have every right to fear. You shouldn’t have counseling at the end of life; you ought to have counseling 20 years before you’re going to die. You ought to plan these things out. And I don’t have any problem with things like living wills, but they ought to be done within the family. We should not have a government program that determines you’re going to pull the plug on grandma.”

Later in the day, Grassley repeated the euthanasia claim, saying the provisions lead people to believe “that someone is going to decide grandma’s lived too long.”

For the next month, Grassley and his staff took turns defending and distancing the senator from the statement.

By the end of the year, Grassley was blaming media reports for his association with the death panels meme. In a letter to a constituent forwarded to The Iowa Independent, Grassley said some “commentators” took his comments and twisted them as saying that health care reform would establish death panels.

“I said no such thing,” Grassley said. “As I said then, putting end-of-life consultations alongside cost containment and government-run health care causes legitimate concern.”

The death panel rumor and all its derivatives has been repeatedly debunked and dubbed a “Pants on Fire” lie by Politifact.

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

“Well, I think the topics of debate will probably be centered on Republican alternatives,” Grassley said on a conference call with reporters. “And we probably won’t have one comprehensive alternative. We’ll probably have a lot of different subsection amendments.”

Those amendments will likely range from adding some sort of medical malpractice reform to improving small business’ ability to pool their resources to get better insurance rates. But the GOP effort will also focus on killing provisions they feel are inappropriate, such as individual mandates, Grassley said.

“Then we will want to do away with the — the first time in the history of our country we’ve ever said — the federal government said you had to buy something,” he said. “So today you got to buy health insurance under this bill.  If you don’t buy health insurance, you’re going to pay more money to the federal government — the IRS, $1,500 per family.  And we think that that’s philosophically wrong, and we think that there’s a better way of doing it through a re-insurance program.”

Debate on the $848 billion health care plan is expected to begin next week, after Democrats united on a procedural vote allowing the bill to go to the full Senate over Republican opposition.

U.S. Rep. Tom Latham, R-Iowa, listens to question at a town hall forum in Indianola.

Health care dominated Latham’s discussion with nearly 200 people at the Warren County Administration Building just south of Des Moines, and while he was quick to point out his opposition to many of the ideas being floated to fix the nation’s health care system, he was equally quick to dismiss untrue claims being spouted of late by reform opponents.

Despite the fact that many of his fellow Republicans say otherwise, including fellow Iowan and U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, Latham said so-called “death panels” are not in the bill. The provision in question deals with funding for voluntary end-of-life planning, he said.

You also won’t find any mention of abortion, he said. An advertising campaign paid for by anti-abortion groups says a lack of specifics on abortion in the bill will end with taxpayer dollars being spent on abortions.

The bill that has been passed by the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee stipulates that the only abortion services that could be paid for with government funds would be those in which the mother’s life was endangered or in cases of rape or incest.

“There is nothing in the bill one way or another,” Latham said, later adding that while there have been amendments in committee that would specifically prohibit it, those were voted down.

In contrast to the civil discourse inside the town hall meeting was this poster, taped to the side of a truck parked just outside.

There is no question something has to be done to fix America’s health care system, Latham said, because there are too many people without access to quality health insurance.

But because any health care reform will touch the lives of every citizen, it should not be “rushed through in the middle of the night” without giving lawmakers and the American people a chance to weigh its ramifications, he said.

He opposes any government-run option, but he does think there is a lot of room for improvement.

“We’ve got to step back and work together,” Latham said, later adding: “We should be careful when we label insurance companies as ‘bad guys.’ Des Moines is the second-largest insurance city in the country. We’re talking about Iowans here.”

Latham’s solution to health care would include setting a permanent floor for Medicare payments to eliminate geographic disparity for doctors in rural states; allowing small businesses to pool together across state lines to negotiate affordable health insurance with private providers; and allowing individuals to fully deduct the cost of insurance from their taxes, regardless of whether coverage is through an employer.

“We have got to have competition in the marketplace,” he said. “And there are a lot of things we can do to make things better.”

Latham also discussed nonprofit health care cooperatives, an idea making the rounds as a possible alternative to a new government insurance plans. Until he sees how they will be structured, Latham said he cannot give an informed opinion or say whether he would vote for or against bills that supported the idea. But he did say he is not comfortable with the idea of the government providing funding for the co-ops.

Cooperatives, which can be defined as private, nonprofit, consumer-owned providers of health care, have already been attempted in Iowa with no success. As the New York Times pointed out Tuesday, Iowa adopted a law to encourage the development of health care co-ops in the 1990s. However, the extreme competitive advantage insurance companies like Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield hold in the Midwest killed the only co-op ever created in Iowa, and to this day no one has established another.

There was very little of the contentiousness that lawmakers faced in other states, as the audience was polite and respectful. That is, until the final question, asked by a woman who said she has had problems holding down a job and maintaining insurance coverage because of chronic illnesses. Before she finished her question, several audience members shouted her down, with one telling her to “Shut up, get a trade and get a job.”

Latham, who had already announced that the forum was over, left after the yelling without addressing either party.

After some prodding, Specter agreed to call Grassley today. Later, The Washington Independent’s David Weigel learned that Grassley did not answer Specter’s call, and the Pennsylvania senator who recently switched parties to become a Democrat was forced to leave a voicemail.

But it didn’t end there.

Specter decided to send a public message to Grassley via the micro-blogging site Twitter:

Called Senator Grassley to tell him to stop speading myths about health care reform and imaginary “death panels.”

Grassley has since fired back over Twitter (no word on whether he has also returned the phone call), telling Specter that he never used the term “death panel” but ignoring the larger point:

Specter got it all wrong that I ever used words “death boards”. Even liberal press never accused me of that. So change ur last Tweet Arlen

Both Grassley and Specter are up for re-election in 2010, and both have been threatened from the base of their respective parties over the health reform debate. Specter already faces a Democratic primary challenger, U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pennsylvania). Conservatives in Iowa have threatened a similar move against Grassley if he supports Democratic efforts to create a public health insurance option.

During an interview on MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Dean said Grassley’s statements that government-run health care will result in so-called “death panels” is nothing but a short-term political tactic aimed at killing reform legislation and embarrassing the president.

“Chuck Grassley is probably not going to have a vote that matters at the end of this because the Republicans aren’t going to play,” he said.

Grassley said in a statement Thursday that he and his colleagues on the Senate Finance Committee have decided to kill a provision to require Medicare to pay for end-of-life counseling sessions for anyone who would like it. Grassley said repeatedly on Wednesday that the provision could lead to government-mandated euthanasia for elderly Americans, an idea that has been thoroughly debunked by political analysts, policy experts and even several of Grassley’s fellow Republican senators.

Dean said regardless of what Iowa’s senior senator says, the provisions will be in the final bill.

“They’ll be in the bill,” he said. “This has nothing to do with ‘death panels’ or any of that stuff they’re just making that up. I think at the end of the day you’re going to have a decent bill, and that is part of it.”

No one besides “the most faithful of the far right” believe Grassley is being honest in his criticism, Dean said, which will hurt the long-term prospects of the Republican Party.

“This is not going to work,” he said. “We’re going to have to pass this thing with the big majority the American people gave us, and this vocal minority is going to have to accustom itself to the changes. And they will, because an awful lot of them are already on a government-run health care. It’s called Medicare and they like it.”

Here is the interview:

While Krause faces stiff odds in his bid to defeat Iowa’s senior senator (assuming he wins the nomination), Democratic activists who are unsure of the challenger’s readiness for prime-time may take comfort in watching the video, which I’ve posted below.

(Krause comes in about half-way through the segment, which is about Grassley’s misleading allusions to the debunked “forced euthanasia” meme.)

Krause is not the only Democrat hoping to challenge Grassley next year. Former state Sen. Tom Fiegen (D-Clarence) is expected to enter the race any day now.

Burt was arrested Feb. 11 in Ankeny after a night of drinking that began at a reception at Embassy Suites in downtown Des Moines that was paid for by the Iowa Pharmacy Association (IPA). The reception was attended by 20 lawmakers and Gov. Chet Culver.

Iowa law dictates that lobbyists file disclosure reports within five business days following the date of receptions they host during a legislative session where lawmakers are invited. The IPA only filed disclosure reports for the February event Wednesday, after reporters began asking questions.

Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, a Des Moines-based activist organization, said while the media and political observers focus on Burt’s bad behavior, the real scandal is Iowa’s lax disclosure laws.

“This lack of disclosure and transparency is clear proof that the state of Iowa needs comprehensive campaign finance reform and clean election laws to restore the credibility of our electoral process, including campaign contribution limits and public financing of elections,” said Iowa CCI Board President Barb Kalbach.

In 2005, state lawmakers voted to strip oversight powers from the nonpartisan Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board, giving the power instead to the state House and Senate ethics committees. Iowa CCI believes the direct result is a downturn in reports being filed.

There were 117 “Session Function” reports filed in 2005. That number dropped to 101 in 2006 and 104 in 2007. By this year, only 90 reports were filed concerning lobbyist-sponsored functions held during the legislative session where all lawmakers were invited.The total amount of money spent during the session on these receptions went down each of the last three years, until 2009, when it jumped from $194,848 to $235,828.

Allowing legislators to have control over parties designed to lobby them is a recipe for disaster, CCI contends.

“What other profession in the state is allowed to regulate themselves?” said Ed Rethman, Iowa CCI member from West Des Moines.  “Are doctors allowed to license themselves?”

Charlie Smithson, executive director of the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board, said before the law was changed, disclosure reports were filed directly with his office. Smithson’s staff would also check the social calendar and call groups to make sure reports were filed on time.

When the law was changed, reports were filed directly with the legislative committees.

“When I became a secondary repository and oversight responsibilities were with the House/Senate Ethics Committees we discontinued our processes of ensuring the filing of reports as we no longer had enforcement jurisdiction,” he said.

As the saying goes, once elected, a member of Congress must raise $10,000 a week to get re-elected. It sounds like hard work, but it doesn’t always have to be.

The nonprofit Sunlight Foundation, which was founded with the goal of increasing transparency in the United States Congress, has tracked down invitations to many of the exclusive get togethers that help fill a member of Congress’ campaign coffers and posted them on PoliticalPartyTime.org for the public to see. It’s surely not an exhaustive list, since the group relies on tipsters sending in their invites. But it does offer a glimpse of the D.C. lives of the Hawkeye State’s congressional team.

The most prolific party host in Iowa’s delegation, according to the Sunlight Foundation, is Fourth District Republican Rep. Tom Latham. He has started hosting his own “Supper Club” every month at different D.C. hotspots. The parties are limited to 10 attendees and feature a different special guest each month, which so far include congressmen from Kentucky, Georgia and California. To attend this months’ event, scheduled for Wednesday night at the ritzy Oceanaire Seafood Room in downtown D.C., will cost $2,500 per PAC and $1,500 for individuals. Latham will also host a golf outing to raise money for North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr and Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss on July 17.

Next up is Third District Democratic Rep. Leonard Boswell. The six-term incumbent has not always been the best fundraiser, a fact that landed him a spot on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s “Frontline Program,” which seeks to protect incumbents in potentially vulnerable districts by assisting with organizing and fundraising. Boswell has hosted two fundraising party’s this year at the National Democratic Club Townhouse in D.C., with another scheduled June 3 that could cost as much as $5,000 to attend.

First District Democratic Rep. Bruce Braley has hosted two parties this year, with the last on April 29 at Johnny’s Half Shell in D.C. The “suggested” contribution for those who attend was $1,000. Braley, who this year earned himself a leadership position in the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, helped a fellow Democrat from Oregon raise money in March as part of a fundraiser titled “Comedy Bailout: CEO’s get in Scot-free.”

Second District Democrat Dave Loebsack has hosted two parties in 2009, with a third scheduled for June 16 at the National Democratic Club Townhouse in D.C. Expected contributions range from $500 to $5,000.

Fifth District Republican Steve King hasn’t hosted a D.C. party since September. Before that it was July.