Stories

The groups coming together believe that decades of bad farm policy and unchecked corporate mergers have driven independent family farmers out of business and created powerful corporate factory farms and agribusiness giants that dominate the market. But there exclusion from the antitrust workshops mean their voice will likely be muted.

The Nation has published its annual list of “Most Valuable Progressives,” and Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement made the grade.
The list, complied by Nation staffers, Washington watchdogs and grassroots activists around the country, aims to honor individuals and organizations that “may not get enough recognition but that are having a demonstrable effect — in Washington [...]

An ethics complaint against a lobbying group that was five months late in filing a disclosure report was dismissed Tuesday by the state Senate Ethics Committee.

While state Rep. Kerry Burt’s drunk driving arrest has garnered many headlines, there is a bigger scandal emerging from the lobbyist reception where his evening began, according to one activist organization.

Iowa has joined every other state in allowing consumers to sue companies for fraud under the state consumer protection law thanks to a bill signed into law Tuesday by Gov. Chet Culver.
State Attorney General Tom Miller has pushed for passage of the legislation for nearly a decade. The bill, House File 712, passed 95-1 in [...]

The House Ethics Committee will meet at 10 a.m. Monday to discuss Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement’s ethics complaint against state Rep. Dolores Mertz, D-Ottosen.

Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement has filed an ethics complaint against State Rep. Dolores Mertz (D-Ottosen) on the grounds that her personal finances are too closely tied to the industry she helps to oversee as chair of the House Agriculture Committee.

The group’s supporters say CCI stands up for progressive values and empowers citizens, but critics characterize it as a group that’s big on bluster and short on solutions.

Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (CCI) is demanding Democratic leaders in the Iowa House remove Dolores Mertz as chair of the House Agriculture Committee.
The group points to what it calls Mertz’s ties to the factory farm industry, including the fact that her son owns a 4,000-head hog factory, as motivation for House Speaker Pat Murphy, [...]

A majority of donors to candidates for state office support some kind of public financing of elections, according to a phone survey conducted for Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement.