Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
Senate Republicans voted Tuesday to abandon the use of budget earmarks that direct money to favored projects, a direct response to the rising influence of tea party conservatives in the Senate.
“The grassroots made it clear that the overspending in Washington must stop,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told The Quad-City Times Tuesday. “Earmarks have become a symbol of that overspending. Ultimately, that’s what this is all about.”
Democrats in Washington are catching on to the idea that they can’t capitulate to an extension of Bush-era tax rates for the rich without at least demanding something in return, and an extension of federal unemployment benefits, set to expire at the end of the month, is increasingly looking like it will be a part of the bargain.
Both parties have legal teams on call, but the Republican National Lawyers Association’s success in training over 1,000 volunteer lawyers is unprecedented.
A lot of pundits have drawn comparisons between the current midterm election cycle and the GOP wave year of 1994, but the University of Minnesota’s politics blog argues that an equally apt comparison could be made with the year 1934.
Interesting new development in the shadowy world of 501(c)4 spending. Forbes is reporting that a Los Angeles tax lawyer is advising clients that their contributions to 501(c)4 groups, like Des Moines-based American Future Fund, could be subject to a weighty 35 percent “federal gift tax.”
Tuesday’s fundraising numbers indicate that just three Republican women have together raised over $20 million for their political committees in the last quarter alone. Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle’s $14 million shatters the record for a candidate in that state, while U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., raised $5.4 million, more than any Minnesota congressional candidate [...]
The New York Times on Tuesday profied Des Moines-based American Future Fund, which does not disclose its donors but was revealed in interviews last week to have been founded with seed money from Iowa businessman Bruce Rastetter, a co-founder and chief executive of Hawkeye Energy Holdings, one of the nation’s larger ethanol companies. From the [...]
After a spate of requests by Democrats and campaign finance groups for an IRS investigation of a number of section 501(c) organizations accused of abusing their status by engaging primarily in political advocacy, some Senate Republicans are pushing back. Such a review threatens to “chill the legitimate exercise of First Amendment rights,” wrote two Republican [...]
U.S. Sen. Max Baucus’ letter requesting that the IRS investigate a number of Section 501 nonprofit organizations — accused of abusing their tax-exempt status by devoting the majority of their energies to election activities — is getting a lot of approval from campaign finance advocacy groups, but also a friendly suggestion: Just do it yourself! [...]
When the Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint with the IRS Tuesday against the 501(c)4 group Crossroads GPS alleging that it was abusing its tax-exempt status because its “primary purpose” was election related, GPS spokesman Jonathan Collegio dismissed the complaint as politically motivated. “This is a baseless complaint, filed by a partisan group that fundraises [...]
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