Iowa, however, isn’t a state with a high percentage of people living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Prosecutions related to this particular law are often highly publicized as much for their uniqueness as for a public’s need to know. In addition, of the statute’s 24 convictions since its inception, three have been appealed and subsequently affirmed by the Iowa Supreme Court.

Ed Fallon, a member of the Iowa legislature during the 1998 session when the HIV transmission law was nearly unanimously passed, said he voted in favor despite having some reservations at the time. Because more than a decade has passed, he can’t remember specific items of contention that may have been brought up during legislative debate, but he has a general sense of the federal government requiring such a law if the state wanted to access monies for HIV- and AIDS-related care and education.

Fallon also isn’t sure if often spirited debate surrounding the ban on same-sex marriage, passed earlier that same session, influenced debate of the criminal transmission law.

Opening a door to unintended consequences

Bob Rigg, an academic member of a legislative study committee charged with reorganizing the criminal code, believes members of the group are likely be willing to address issues surrounding this statute and others during the course of their research. That being said, he also wants advocates to understand that “once the flood gate is opened, it can’t be closed.”

“There is often this notion of ‘Boy, we are going to change it and we are going to make it all better,’ but sometimes when you open that door [you don't get the results you intended],” said Rigg, who worked as a public defender in Polk County until 1995 when he became director of a criminal defense program he developed at Drake University.

“Keep in mind that when you are talking about a legislature, a lot of them are from rural areas. They are conservative. They have notions about how things work and how they don’t work. Their understanding may be absolutely perfect, but their clarity on some other things might not be. And, you are asking these members to weigh in on a criminal act that you’re going to turn into a crime and punish someone for doing. To me, that is a very dangerous thing to do unless you know exactly where you are going with it and exactly what’s going to happen with it. … There’s no way to stop it, and there is no way to stop the amendments that would come from either one political party or the other.”

Rigg’s personal preference, because the political process can be so unpredictable, is to be extremely thoughtful when considering criminal code changes.

“When people start playing around with the criminal code or they start saying that we should amend our Constitution, I’m like, ‘No, we shouldn’t.’ I err on the side of caution,” he said. “If you think what you’ve got is bad, be careful. You just might end up with something even worse.”

Although he is familiar with and has written about Iowa’s criminal transmission of HIV law, he says he still doesn’t know enough about it to determine if it is effective policy.

“The worst policy in the world is made on an anecdotal basis,” he said. “That is, when you don’t like the result of one case out of 1,000, and you attempt to change policy to fix that one result. What happens is that you end up making the other 999 worse. That’s the worst way to make policy, and the worst way to get legislation through.”

A thorough evaluation of the transmission law, according to Rigg, would be an analysis of each case that has been prosecuted.

“You have to look at the Department of Corrections because although people have been sentence, you want to know exactly how much time they’ve served,” he said. “Just because a defendant is sentenced to 25 [years], doesn’t mean he or she is going to serve 25. Some of these individuals could be paroled in as little as two.”

While state intervention to reduce prison sentences may not be an intended consequence of the initial legislation, Rigg argues that it can have “a moderating effect” on an otherwise extreme sentence.

“It is the judge’s job to sentence them. It is the DOC’s job to evaluate them for release,” he said.

Because he hasn’t done an extensive study on the practical impacts of this particular statute, which is not currently on the committee’s radar, Rigg indicated he didn’t feel comfortable voicing an opinion as to its effectiveness.

“Is this statute something that should be discussed? Yes,” he said. “I think all laws should be evaluated periodically to see if they are accomplishing the intended goals of the legislature. Matter-of-fact, now that you called me I might bring this statute up within the subcommittee and ask what is going on with it.”

Yet even if Rigg and the rest of the committee decide to research this or other criminal statutes, such review is not likely to be quick. The last major revision of the criminal code took place in 1978, a process that began, according to Rigg, during the 1960s.

EARLIER: HIV-positive man’s prison sentence shines light on Iowa law; Iowa courts stand firm on HIV transmission law

Gov. Chet Culver discussed the state's AAA bond rating Thursday in Des Moines.

“I think its important for anyone in elected office, especially those running for governor, to be responsible and not try to scare people,” the governor said in a late afternoon press conference ahead of a three-day holiday weekend.

“I think Iowans, in part because of the political rhetoric, aren’t sure what the situation is,” Culver continued. “Unfortunately, that’s probably the intent of some of this.”

Culver was responding to attacks from Senate Minority Leader Paul McKinley and several Republican gubernatorial hopefuls who said the governor was state of denial in regards to whether the fiscal year 2009 budget can be balanced without a special session. They point to figures released Wednesday by the non-partisan Legislative Services Agency that predict a $161 million shortfall for the fiscal year that ended Tuesday.

The governor’s staff does not believe those figures are accurate. They predict a shortfall of only $58 million.

“Basically, we disagree because we believe they are making assumptions that are premature,” Culver said. “We believe they are basing that number on projections that are not accurate. What we need to do, and the appropriate thing to do, is to wait the 30 to 60 days to allow the state to close its book and have an accurate accounting of any possible shortfall.”

To prove his point, Culver pointed to a report released Thursday by Standard and Poor’s (S&P), the world’s foremost provider of independent credit analysis, praising Iowa’s fiscal management and re-affirming its AAA bond rating.

“What a timely testimonial from S&P,” Culver said. “They’ve looked at our books, they’ve looked at our debt, they’ve looked at our revenue streams and determined Iowa is one of the best managed states in America.”

State Treasurer Mike Fitzgerald, a Democrat, said S&P did a thorough review of the state’s finances before issuing Iowa its highest rating. The report specifically cited the state’s “good fiscal management,” strong reserve funds and low debt burden as the reason for the high rating. Iowa is one of only 11 states to have a AAA rating from S&P.

In addition, S&P gave high marks for the upcoming sale of I-JOBS bonds. S&P rated the I-JOBS bonds as AA. By comparison, an earlier state infrastructure program – Vision Iowa – initially received a rating of A+ from S&P. (AA is higher than A+.)

“These ratings underscore the fact that, while we are facing tough economic times as a result of this recession, Iowa remains fiscally strong and well-managed,” Culver said.

Answering his Republican critics who say government spending has increased under his watch, Culver laid out nearly $170 million in cuts his administration made starting last December, saying “it’s important to make sure we hold those people accountable who are misleading Iowans.”

“In addition to $170 million in cuts, we spent 2 ½ percent less in 2010 than 2008,” he said. “That’s $135 million less. Again, in a very partisan way, Republicans running for governor are misleading people in suggesting that we’re spending more.”

Responding to the announcement of Iowa’s bond rating, McKinley said Culver continues to be in denial about the fiscal condition of this state and specifically criticized the $830 million I-JOBS bonding program.

“The governor just put nearly $1.7 billion on the state’s credit card to create temporary government work just a few short months ago and now he is again talking about Iowa’s bond rating again at a time when our state cannot afford to borrow and spend any more of our children and grandchildren’s money,” he said in a statement. “Republicans will continue to offer responsible spending cuts, will continue to fight burdensome tax increases and will continue to work to create sustainable private sector jobs that will provide a real shot of adrenaline to Iowa’s economy without growing the size and scope of state government.”

The Iowa Constitution requires the state to balance its budget at the end of every fiscal year, and the governor can only transfer so much money out of the state’s cash reserves without approval from the legislature.

It remains unclear how large the budget deficit from fiscal year 2009 will be when the final numbers are available in September, but there is a chance that it will be too large for Culver to cover it with transfers on his own. That’s why some are predicting that he will have to call a special session, but so far, the governor has insisted that it will not be necessary.

Republicans, who are quick to accuse Democrats of spending recklessly, are clamoring for a triumphant, unscheduled return to the capitol this summer. Hoping that a special session would draw more attention to their attacks, GOP leaders have attempted to frame the debate so that if a special session becomes necessary, it will look like a Democratic admission of guilt. Culver’s emphatic resistance only serves to reinforce that perception.

Lost in the hyperbolic spin coming out of both sides in this debate is one simple fact: the budget shortfall is really neither party’s fault.

The nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency projected much higher revenue through the end of fiscal year 2009 than what the state ended up receiving. Democrats fulfilled their responsibilities in this year’s session by passing a budget that fit within official, nonpartisan estimates. That’s what they were supposed to do. At the time, the alternative would have been to assume that the experts’ revenue estimates were wrong and to make deeper cuts to state services than what might have been necessary.

That would have meant laying off state employees, closing courthouses for even more days, covering health care for fewer children, or even raising taxes. Those are things legislators should only do when they are absolutely necessary, and at the time, the numbers said they weren’t.

Bad budget estimates happen no matter which party holds the pursestrings. When former Gov. Tom Vilsack called a special session to balance the state’s budget in 2002, it had already received a stamp of approval from Republicans, who controlled the legislature.

Many of the Republicans now attacking Culver over this year’s budget were instrumental in passing the faulty budgets for fiscal years 2001 and 2002. I can only assume their press releases from back then were a little less vitriolic.

An Iowa sisterhood formed out of shared grief, has no interest in increasing its numbers. In fact, the five founding Iowa women are hard at work to decrease their prospective membership pool.

Tiffan Yamen, Kate Safris, Janet Petersen, Jan Caruthers and Kerry Biondi-Morlan discovered one another in 2003 after each had experienced the death of an infant daughter. Although the circumstances surrounding their daughter’s deaths are different, the immediate understanding they had for one another’s grief sparked a friendship. And, from that that friendship, sparked a mission.

The women, all from Des Moines, founded Healthy Birth Day, an organization devoted to preventing stillbirth and infant death through research, education and advocacy. Their latest project, Count the Kicks, launched officially in June.

Petersen, a state representative who lost her daughter Grace in July 2003 to a true knot in the umbilical cord, first met Yeman, who had lost her daughter Madeline, also to a knotted cord, just seven weeks earlier. Through mutual friends the two women were introduced to Caruthers and Biondi-Morland, whose daughters Jayden and Grace, respectively, were also stillborn, and Safris, who lost daughter Emma to congenital heart defects shortly after her birth.

The Count the Kicks awareness campaign was developed by the five Iowa women pictured above who founded the Healthy Birth Day organization. Each of the women lost a daughter to either stillbirth or infant death and don't want other parents to experience the same.

“At that point we just looked at one another and said ‘enough.’ We knew we had to start doing something about this,” Petersen said. “There are a lot of things for bereavement available, but what we wanted to do is make sure that no one had to go through the same things we had gone through.”

The Count the Kicks awareness campaign is the group’s first effort to reach out directly to pregnant women with a plan of action that can alert families to possible complications. Radio public service announcements featuring celebrities were followed by whimsical posters and brochures intended for doctor’s offices and clinics. All materials produced by the group outline the importance of counting fetal movements daily during late pregnancy.

“Counting fetal movements isn’t something we came up with it,” Biondi-Morland explained. “The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have a brochure on it, and they are the ones who set the parameters. We just noticed patients weren’t actively seeking out that information and physicians weren’t actively promoting it. It is something that’s been known for a long time, we just want to promote it and place it at the front of pregnant mother’s minds.”

The women are promoting counting fetal kicks as a pro-active task women and their families can do, something that can help create an early bond with the baby.

“This is a positive message, not a scary message,” Petersen said. “I did have someone who worried that this message might scare women, but I don’t see that. Women are encouraged to a do a monthly breast self-exam. That message is not intended to scare them, but intended to save their life. The same is true of this count the kicks message.”

It’s a message that Iowa First Lady Mari Culver is proud to help promote. She and University of Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz recorded public service announcements that have ran statewide, encouraging pregnant women to keep track of fetal movements.

“Chet and I have been so fortunate,” Culver said. “We have had two healthy pregnancies that resulted in two healthy babies. We want all Iowans to experience that. So, the when the women approached me about doing this, I could see that there was a real need to get this preventative message out. I was glad to do it.”

And, the Count the Kicks program already has someone who can speak directly to the benefits of counting kicks. Jennifer McCune, of South Sioux City, was 37 weeks into pregnancy with her son, Danny, when she noticed that he wasn’t moving as much has he had been. Three hours later, Danny was born via emergency c-section, the umbilical cord wrapped four times around his neck. She credits a magazine advertisement by First Candle for the knowledge to seek medical help and her son’s life, and has agreed to help Count the Kicks promote their message.

The initiative is first being piloted in Iowa and the Pittsburgh area, funded in part by a grant from the Heinz Family Philanthropies. Once the organization has developed a workable plan, the Iowa women hope to expand the awareness campaign nationally.

Safris admits that in the beginning, the task of launching this campaign seemed quite daunting. She also says that being a part of it, even the parts that were outside of her immediate comfort zone, has renewed her faith in what average citizens can accomplish when they set out to make a difference.

“I remember my husband and I sitting in the car just a few weeks after Emma had died, and I was just so angry,” she said. “My husband looked at me and told me that I could not go through life like that, being that angry. At that moment I realized that I couldn’t be that way, and that wasn’t who I was. The fact that I had a loss was not going to define me in a negative way. I had to make something good of it.

“At the time of that revelation, I had not yet met these women, so I didn’t know yet what that ‘good’ was going to be. Eight years ago [when we lost Emma], I had no idea that I would be here and doing this. I wouldn’t change the fact that I had her and she was a part of my life. She has made me a better person and that has had an impact on other people.”

The women are quick to point out that although stillbirth and infant death aren’t openly discussed, its likely that most people have in some way been impacted by them. Across the nation, about one out of every 150 pregnancies ends in stillbirth.

“We want to remember and honor our daughters — we are all inspired by them to be advocates,” Petersen said. “We want to raise awareness of and advocate for better understanding of why pregnancies end like this, and what can be done to prevent it. We want Iowa to be the safest place in the world for babies.”

“I think what it is is a compromise of his leadership and I think honestly he has a family in crisis,” Vander Plaats said. “I think he needs to put his attention on the family right now. If I was counseling him I would say, ‘Governor Sanford, not only for your state but I believe for you and your family I’d resign.’”

Vander Plaats said his party should be held to a higher standard, and thus, should be judged more harshly over their values. Republicans must decide whether they are going “to walk the walk or just talk the talk” when it comes to family values.

The call for Sanford’s resignation grew louder Wednesday when 14 of South Carolina’s Republican state senators joined 11 Republican members of the state House and six of the state’s biggest newspapers in calling for him to step down.

If those numbers prove accurate, Gov. Chet Culver could be forced to call a special legislative session in order to balance the state’s budget.

Gov. Chet Culver

Culver’s budget director Dick Oshlo did not agree with the LSA’s estimates, saying the state would only be facing a $58 million shortfall. Since the legislature left a $44 million balance when it adjourned, and Culver has the authority to transfer $50 million from the state’s rainy day fund, a special session will not be needed.

“While the state’s tax receipts deteriorated more than expected during the last two months of the fiscal year due to the ongoing effects of the national economic recession, this is a manageable number,” Oshlo said. “Fortunately, receipts improved during the final days of June. At this point we see no legitimate reason for a special session to balance the state’s budget.”

However, Oshlo’s figures are based on the state’s gross receipts, and “government operates on net receipts,” said David Swenson, an economist at Iowa State University.

“In effect [the Department of] Management is counting all of its deposits but, at least for the short term here, not pending obligations,” he said. “It is in my view budgetary hocus pocus. Now you see an unbalanced budget, now you don’t.”

Ultimately, the state is looking at a $161 million problem, Swenson said, because gross receipts are down $58 million, net refunds are up $72 million and there is an additional $31 million in school infrastructure payments that must come out of FY2009.

The governor’s office was quick to point out that the reason gross receipts were used was because they are the only real numbers that currently exist. The LSA’s figures are just estimates, and true net receipts won’t be known until September when the Department of Management closes the books on the fiscal year 2009 budget.

There is also revenue that will be collected within the next 90 days but allocated to the fiscal year that ended Tuesday, money that will improve the state’s financial situation and is not included in the LSA projections.

Culver Press Secretary Troy Price told the Iowa Independent last month that until accruals, expenditures and refunds are all taken into account there is no way of getting an accurate picture of the 2009 budget.

Republicans pounced on the new figures. Sen. Minority Leader Paul McKinley said Culver is violating the state’s Constitution by ending the fiscal year with an unbalanced budget.

“Republicans and independent expert economists for the past few years have consistently and continually warned Gov. Culver and legislative Democrats, who remain in a state of denial about Iowa’s budget, that Iowa’s taxpayers cannot afford the record spending, record borrowing and record deficits,” he said.

Gubernatorial hopeful Christopher Rants said Culver should stop denying there is a problem and bring the legislature back into session.

“It is time to quit worrying about the political ramifications of admitting that we have a deficit and get about the business of fixing it,” Rants said. “Gov. [Tom] Vilsack put aside partisan politics and called a special session in 2001 and 2002 to balance the budget after revenues declined. Culver needs to do the same.”

With no formal political experience, Fong’s positions on the issues are still a mystery to most voters. Unlike his GOP competition, who have endured numerous campaigns and been thoroughly vetted, Fong is a virtual unknown to those living outside his hometown of Cedar Rapids.

But over a series of months, Fong has repeatedly posted on Hawkeye Review, a blog run by Linn County GOP chair Tim Palmer. His posts there may represent the only window currently available into Fong’s political thinking, and some of his thoughts may be controversial to Iowa’s conservative Republican base.

Fong first came to the attention of GOP activists when he spoke out publicly against a Democratic tax proposal that included ending federal deductibility. Addressing a legislative committee, Fong said this “tax-on-a-tax plan will cost us jobs. Not just a handful of jobs, but hundreds of jobs, and not just in Linn County, but also across the state. A recession is the worst time imaginable to raise taxes.”

However, his position on the issue is not as cut and dried as it may appear. In a post a few days earlier, Fong said he agreed with the idea of ending federal deductibility, he simply disagreed with how Democrats would handle the influx of money that would result.

Instead, this is my income tax proposal:

Eliminate deductibility of federal taxes, and lower all marginal state income tax rates to the point that no working Iowan of any income level will see their taxes rise.

Another issue sure to be a factor in the GOP primary is the Iowa Supreme Court’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage. How to overturn that decision has already caused friction between two Republican candidates, Bob Vander Plaats and Christopher Rants.

In discussing the ruling, Fong wrote it would be “rightly be characterized as an attack on marriage, and also on Iowa’s families and Iowa’s communities.” But he warned against conservatives being “baited into a negative-toned or knee-jerk reaction by those that make their living off of single-issue politics or special-interest fundraising.” While he supports overturning the decision, he said the “frantic calls for a marriage amendment… are counter factual to the realities of how the constitutional process works.”

And, since I’m not making any friends with this paragraph, let me suggest that turning a moral issue into a political chip is both disrespectful to the people involved and trivializes an important debate. We all have deep feelings on this, which is why it is too important to be jammed through in a state of panic.

Instead of “raging against the decision,” Fong would rather see his party “advance a positive, optimistic plan that is not just pro-marriage, but pro-family,” including making family counseling tax deductible, giving community-college based job training for the unemployed and government funded catastrophic family health care coverage for those who are out of work.

After all, medical emergencies are the number one reason families face personal bankruptcy, and financial stress is one of the top causes of divorce.

Fong calls for the state to revamp the tax code to “eliminate the loopholes and special interest credits that enable some to pay none, and mind-boggling complexity that turn honest folks into tax criminals.” He said Culver’s I-JOBS program, which borrows more than $800 million to pay for infrastructure repair and flood recovery, will simply extend budgetary pain and “delay the inevitable.”

The State of Iowa must either grow by raising taxes and fees, or shrink by cutting spending.

During debate of the bonding proposal, Fong said the legislature should borrow to pay for the “fantastic, new Iowa Economy projects that are going to pay off in big ways” that are included in the I-JOBS program, as long as they are “not stapled to pork.”

Fong has blogged repeatedly about his party’s need to over come the “I’m right, you’re wrong, so there!” style of politics.

Most of us know someone who suffers from this same condition. What are the symptoms? You’ll know it by a retreat into non-sensical, single-issue ideology: Jobs lost? “Must be high taxes.” School enrollment down? “High taxes.” Uncle Ned’s business failed? “High taxes!!” Wide ties back in fashion? Softball league dropped their playoff? Fender bender on Highway 30? “A thousand times, high taxes! High taxes!!”

Come on! Life is complex. A paradigm built on issue-based politics, or sound-bite style logic, is inadequate to win in the marketplace of ideas, and a lousy way to try to win an election. If you hear a journalist, a politician, or your next door neighbor constantly harping on something as the root of all evil, you have found philosophical paralysis. It’s time to move on.

Fong’s blog posts at the Hawkeye Review have been compiled for easy access here. He also spoke Wednesday with O.Kay Henderson at Radio Iowa and answered questions about his entrance into the race, including the fact that he donated money to several Democratic legislative candidates.

Although this case was by no means the first to be prosecuted under provisions of the statute some consider archaic, its details have provided a springboard for Iowa’s launch into a larger national debate regarding whether criminal prosecutions for diseases are appropriate or constitutional.

Although those living with HIV/AIDS are more spread throughout the state prior to diagnosis, afterward they tend to gather in urban areas where there is greater access to needed services. Click this graphic to view much more statistical data on people living with HIV/AIDS in Iowa. (Source: Iowa Department of Public Health, 2008 Surveillance Report)

In the 11 years since Iowa began prosecuting behavior that could result in transmission of the HIV virus, a total of 36 individuals have faced charges. Of those, 24 have been convicted and have received sentences ranging from a few months on probation to several decades in prison.

There are currently 12 individuals — 10 men and 2 women — listed with Iowa Department of Corrections as in the state’s penal system due, at least in part, to convictions for criminal transmission of HIV, classified among the second-most serious felonies that can be committed in the state.

At least three of these convictions have made their way through the appeals process to the Iowa Supreme Court. In each instance, the state’s highest court has upheld the constitutionality of the law and affirmed the lower court’s sentencing decision.

One such appeal was launched by Justin Keene, a Dubuque County man accused of having unprotected sex in 1998 with his girlfriend, a mentally deficient McDonald’s worker. Keene, who is currently serving a 25-year sentence at the Iowa State Penitentiary, did not disclose to the woman that he was HIV-positive.

Although Keene’s attorneys argued that the law was too vaguely written to include any activities that “could” transmit the virus — the specific example used was the sharing of eating utensils — the court ruled that someone who had so obviously engaged in an activity commonly known to spread the virus could not reasonably make such a challenge.

Stating that the exact circumstance regarding the intimate contact between the two consenting adults did not matter, the court added that “any reasonably intelligent person is aware it is possible to transmit HIV during sexual intercourse, especially when it is unprotected.”

Disclosure and stigma

Rhea Van Brocklin, community relations director for the AIDS Project of Central Iowa, said transmission laws, along with overall health issues, are the primary reasons her organization counsels newly diagnosed individuals on disclosing their status.

“A lot of people, because of the stigma surrounding this disease, still believe it is a death sentence, but that is not necessarily the case,” she said. “So, for people who test positive, a lot of support is needed to help wade through issues like how to get a doctor, how to tell loved ones, how to start medication, and employment concerns. Sometimes disclosure might be the most pressing question, and sometimes it may not.

“Our responsibility as an AIDS service organization is to make sure they understand the HIV transmission law and help support them through that process.”

Some groups pressing for transmission laws to be revisited have argued that the added concern of possible criminal prosecution can add to the already imposing stigma attached to the virus and hamper testing efforts, but Van Brocklin says that such laws do not appear to be a deterrent to testing in Iowa.

“It could be hearsay within the community that people are afraid to get tested because of the law, but our agency specifically hasn’t seen that,” she said. “In fact, we doubled our testing numbers in 2008. We had a goal to test between 400 and 500 high-risk individuals and we tested about 800 last year. What we see is that people are taking HIV seriously and they want to know their status.”

Although the number of people living with HIV/AIDS in Iowa remains relatively low when compared to other states — as of Dec. 31, 2008, there were 2,045 such people in the state — Iowa has seen increasing numbers each year since statistics have been kept. In addition, the state estimates that there are an additional 500 to 625 individuals in the state who have the virus but are unaware of their status. That means that the AIDS Project and similar service groups need to work doubly hard to both educate the public and provide services to the afflicted.

“While the law may not take into account how different factors can impact probability of transmission of the virus — condom use, sexual position, intimate act, viral load, etc. — the Project does address those issues with individuals during counseling,” Van Brocklin said.

“We take a harm-reduction methodology here at the AIDS Project so we truly believe that while abstinence is a sure-fire way not to get infected with HIV, not everyone is ready for abstinence. We try to determine what each individual is willing to do to make him or herself safer in the future.”

Given that the mission of groups such as the AIDS Project are to inform and support, organizers and staff have little, if any, interest in enacting or even discussing law changes. Their role is to provide a sustainable framework within the parameters that already exist.

Ed Fallon, a former Iowa representative that supported the criminal transmission law when it passed in 1998, believes that it might be time for the state to revisit criminal transmission laws.

“It seems to me that since it is now 11, almost 12, years later, it wouldn’t be bad time to take a look at it again,” said Fallon, who admits he had some reservations before casting his affirmative vote for the bill. “I can think of so many bills we worked on that in the following year, or a few years later, we were rewriting or revisiting. … So, yes, surely the are some tweaks or changes that the legislature could consider relevant to this law, especially with all the new knowledge we have of the disease.”

There was at least one other major and peripherally related bill passed by the Iowa Legislature during the 1998 session: A ban on same-sex marriage.

“I know during that discussion that were a lot of references to ‘the homosexual lifestyle,’ and I know to a lot of people that meant promiscuity, deviant sexual behavior, exposing oneself to this disease and an inclination to spread this disease,” said Fallon, who was one of only 11 legislators who voted in February 1998 against the same-sex marriage ban deemed unconstitutional just this year by the Iowa Supreme Court.

“Certainly, in terms of that conversation, AIDS was a ‘gay disease,’ and we had to crack down on the lifestyle that helped spread the disease. So, there may have been a connection [between criminal transmission and same-sex marriage], but I honestly can’t recall if those types of sentiments continued into this debate.”

PREVIOUSLY: “HIV-positive man’s prison sentence shines light on Iowa law”

COMING FRIDAY: Changing Iowa’s HIV transmission law may make sense, but hesitation persists.

The Des Moines Register's historic downtown office building.

The paper reports cuts will come from the U.S. Community Publishing division, which consists of more than 80 local dailies, citing an anonymous source within the company. Jim Hopkins, who follows the company at GannettBlog, reported last month that layoffs were expected to take place July 8 and total 4,500 jobs in the company’s newspaper division. Hopkins now reports that the layoffs will include a mix of newsroom and business positions, and notices will be completed by the end of the month.

Last year, Gannett eliminated more than 4,000 newspaper positions, including more than 100 newsroom positions in Iowa. The Register alone eliminated nearly 70 positions. Since the layoffs, the company has instituted two rounds of weeklong furloughs in hopes of staving off another round of job cuts.

Sources inside The Register’s newsroom said there has been no formal announcment from management regarding layoffs.

Rumors of Fong’s impending candidacy had been circulating for weeks, but it was his appearance at the Republcian Party of Iowa’s “Night of the Rising Stars” event that kicked the gossip into overdrive. That night, Fong was being introduced to activists by Ed Failor Jr., president of the influential conservative organization Iowans for Tax Relief. According to Republican sources, Failor has made it no secret that he will assist Fong in raising the money needed to mount a successful primary campaign.

Fong graduated Underwood High School at age 16, received a B.S. in statistics from Creighton University and received his MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. He is managing director of capital markets at AEGON USA Reality Advisors and serves as President/CEO of Corridor Recovery, an organization charged with helping with flood recovery efforts in Eastern Iowa. He also serves as vice chair of the the Generation Iowa Commission.

At 32, he would be the youngest governor in Iowa’s history, beating former Gov. Terry Branstad, who was 35 when elected. The difference, Fong’s critics point out, is that Branstad served three terms in the Iowa House and as the state’s leutinant governor before being elected. Fong has never held elected office.

Fong’s entrance into the race makes him the only declared candidate from the Democratic leaning eastern half of the state. The other three men who have formed or announced they will form exploratory committees — Bob Vander Plaats, Christopher Rants and Rob Roberts — all hail from conservative western Iowa. However, Fong grew up in southwestern Iowa before moving to Cedar Rapid in 1997.

He is also an occasional contributor to the Hawkeye Review blog run by Linn County GOP chair Tim Palmer, who Tuesday called Fong the “the most qualified individual to stand up for the Governors race I’ve ever known.”

Fong could not be reached for comment.