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Archive for March, 2006

IA-Ag: Candidate forum on Sunday

Published by

Chris Woods

March 31, 2006 in Agriculture, Blogs, Democrats, Iowa politics and Republicans. 1 Comment

Just out from the Dusky Terry for Secretary of Agriculture campaign:

“Dusky Terry will participate in a Secretary of Agriculture Candidate Forum in Boone on Sunday, April 2, 2006.

The forum is being hosted by the Boone County Democrats and is being held in conjunction with their County Party Fundraiser.

The public and press are encouraged to attend.

WHEN: Sunday, April 2, 2006
TIME: 5:00 – 7:00 PM
WHERE: Boone Historical Building
602 Story Street
Boone, IA”

Any readers up in Boone County who’d like to become a guest-correspondent for the forum, please let me know. I think it’d be good to record and hear just what all of the candidates are saying when it comes to Iowa’s agriculture future.

For some better discussion on one issue that many of the seems to be focusing on a bit, check out this back and forth between Krusty and Bacon over the merits of local food systems (focusing on development) and their emphasis in the SoA race. I really enjoy Bacon’s post and I think he gets the nail on the head about the importance of local food systems as an issue that should get attention. Krusty seems to think its getting too much attention when compared to issues like renewable energy but, like Bacon, I think he makes the issue a one-or-the-other type of thing that it doesn’t need to be. Anyway, I’m sure most of the Ag candidates know the importance of renewable fules and their focus in the race. I know Dusky does, at least, after hearing him speak here at Drake.

On the IECDB’s toothlessness

Published by

Chris Woods

March 31, 2006 in 2006 Governor's Race, Democrats, Ethics, Fundraising, Iowa politics and Republicans. 6 Comments

So, Kyle responded to my post below about the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board’s decision to ‘investigate’ the allegations against Jim Nussle and rightly notes:

“People who have focused on politics for longer than I have often fall into this hole. This isn’t “doing something,” this is “investigating.” This is the IECDB saying “I’ll look.” When they do something, then I’ll take back what I said.”

The perception of toothlessness will stick around until they can legitimately do something as a punishment or reprimand. While there is nothing potentially criminal about Nussle’s acts, you’d still think a nice stiff punishment would come about should he be found to have violated state campaign laws.

However, today’s Register reports that the possible penalties against Nussle will essentially mount to nothing of significance:

“Smithson said he would collect the information and present it to the board by June. A finding that the campaign violated campaign rules could bring any of a range of responses, from a letter of reprimand to a $2,000 fine. Nussle is unopposed in the June 6 primary.”

Honestly, what the fuck is going on here? First of all, how the hell is it going to take two months — about 40 business days — to check Nussle’s federal finance records and his state reports. Is Smithson going to be doing the work himself while the IECDB staffers are on a two-month vacation? And secondly, I know I shouldn’t expect a stiff penalty, but what the fuck is a $2k fine to a guy who raised over $2 million just last year? I understand that the perception of being unethical and, perhaps, the image of breaking the rules and being a cheater might leave a negative impact on your campaign and get you some negative press. The image that could come from a $2k fine — and the resulting IDP spinning because of all the GOP ethics lapses in recent history — would be a great boost to Democratic efforts in the state, but its still a marginal punishment at best.

In other news of IECDB punishments and lack of teeth, they sent two letters to two former Des Moines school board candidates for their infractions, which were, in my eyes at least, pretty minimal.

I think my biggest point is that if we’re going to have this board to keep politicians and their campaigns honest, shouldn’t they have powers of punishment or reprimand far more significant than letters or $2k fines? I always thought that the IECDB was just being perceived as being thoothless because people weren’t giving them a chance. I think I might’ve been wrong. Maybe I’m just being naive, but I think there’s a place for stiffer penalties for purposely or accidently screwing over the electorate. Any ideas?

Immigration protests come to Iowa…bringing bigotry

Published by

Chris Woods

March 30, 2006 in Blogs, Democrats, Drake University, Immigration, Iowa politics, Radical Right and Republicans. 5 Comments

According to the Register, a small protest of sorts took place yesterday in Marshalltown, Iowa, with Hispanic students leaving class in the morning and protesting from their schools to the county courthouse. From their report:

“About 150 Hispanic Marshalltown middle and high school students protested federal legislation that would make it a crime to be in the United States illegally or to offer aid to illegal immigrants.

Marshalltown school district officials said about 70 high school students came to class Wednesday but left about 9:45 a.m. between classes.

“It seemed like there was some kind of organization about it because they left the school at passing time, and they left peacefully,” said Donna Walker, the school district’s communications director. “Whatever the punishment is for skipping school, they’ll be subjected to that.”"

While its not the size of the ones in LA and Phoenix, I’m quite impressed to see that things like this are still happening in Iowa — we usually don’t catch on to these movements right away. I hope that these protests will come to Des Moines soon — or at least to the Drake area.

Already, Drake’s facing a racist and bigoted student group “Citizen for Tight Borders.” You can find their website here and if the damn campus newspaper’s website would work, I’d get you all the stories on their controversy. You can visit their website here — from what I can understand, one of their co-founders (Frank Beard) spent part of his spring break down south with the Minutemen. Real fine fellow, this guy…. Oh, and make sure to check out their posters. They’re the really offensive ones that created the first controversy here at Drake.

There’ve been a lot of complaints against them from both the Drake Democrats and the Drake College Republicans and I was proud to see that extremism isn’t exactly endorsed by all conservatives.

It looks like the blogosphere in Iowa has at least one guy who’s basically been given an honorary membership into CTB: the blogger from Iowa’s First, Scoop Iowa, with his post entitled “INVASION!!!!!!!!!!” Go there, read it, and be amazed.

IA-Gov: Iowa Campaign Ethics Board to Investigate Jim Nussle

Published by

Chris Woods

March 30, 2006 in 2006 Governor's Race, Democrats, Ethics, Fundraising, Iowa politics, Nussle, Jim and Republicans. 6 Comments

Press release from the IDP just out:

“The Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board voted today to investigate gubernatorial candidate Jim Nussle’s campaign for potentially violating state campaign finance compliance laws.

“We applaud the Ethics Board’s decision to investigate the campaign filings of Jim Nussle. The board has confirmed our belief that the Nussle campaign engaged in potentially unscrupulous financial activities that misled Iowans. Iowa’s campaign finance reporting laws were established to shine a light on the financial activities of candidates for public office, and this investigation will do just that,” said Iowa Democratic Party Executive Director Mike Milligan.

Last month, the Iowa Democratic Party filed a formal ethics complaint against the Nussle campaign with the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board. There are three areas of concern that warrant an investigation into ethics violations:

1. Mr. Nussle’s state finance report fails to show any in-kind donations from the federal “Nussle for Congress Committee,” while six individuals were simultaneously paid out of both accounts.

2. The development costs of Nussle’s gubernatorial campaign website may have been paid for by the congressional campaign account, with no record of an in- kind donation to the gubernatorial campaign account.

3. Three congressional campaign expenditures, totaling $33,839.69 for media-production, were made to McCarthy Marcus Hennings in 2005. The official announcement tour of his bid for Governor was accompanied by a video. However, in the gubernatorial campaign state report there is no report of video or media production expenses to McCarthy Marcus Hennings until two months after his announcement.”

You can find the full text of the original letter of complaint below the fold (my original post on the filing of the complaint is here). I’m glad to see the IECDB is taking this seriously and has now moved to investigate Nussle. This definitely isn’t the type of the publicity the Nussle campaign’s been looking for — since, as Bacon notes, they’ve been relatively invisible the last month or so.

And I hope to hear Kyle’s thoughts on the IECDB’s decision to investigate — he wasn’t too optimistic when the IDP filed their original complaint, but maybe this means that the IECDB is serious about enforcing campaign finance laws and will be willing to push for or adopt changes (if, of course, they can get the legislature to issue the changes).
Continue reading ‘IA-Gov: Iowa Campaign Ethics Board to Investigate Jim Nussle’

Harkin-Pederson Press Conference on Nussle Budget Today

Published by

Chris Woods

March 30, 2006 in Budget, Democrats, Harkin, Tom, Iowa politics and Nussle, Jim. 0 Comments

From a media advisory provided by the Iowa Democratic Party:

“Iowa Democratic Party Chair Sally Pederson and Senator Tom Harkin will discuss the impact of Congressman Jim Nussle’s devastating FY2007 budget bill today, March 30th, at the Iowa Democratic Party headquarters at 2:00 PM.

Congressman Nussle, Chair of the House Budget Committee, announced the details of the House FY2007 budget bill today. The bill includes $6.8 billion in cuts to vital services that benefit thousands of Iowans. While Nussle’s budget attempts to balance budgets on the backs of Iowa’s working families, he continues to supports extending President Bush’s tax cuts, adding $226 billion to the soaring federal deficit.

WHO: Senator Tom Harkin and IDP Chair Sally Pederson
WHAT: Press conference on the Nussle budget bill’s misplaced priorities
WHEN: March 30, 2006 at 2:00 PM
WHERE: Iowa Democratic Party Headquarters
5661 Fleur Dr.
Des Moines, IA 50321″

Should be interesting to see the coverage of this. I’ll be in class, if anyone goes, drop a comment.

Iowa Senate Dems fundraiser tonight

Published by

Chris Woods

March 28, 2006 in 2006 Elections, Democrats, Fundraising, Iowa Legislature and Iowa politics. 0 Comments

From an email I just received from the Polk County Democrats:

“Let’s make a majority!

Help the Iowa Senate Democrats break the tie at the Statehouse as we work for 26 in 2006!

Join the Iowa Senate Democrats for the 3rd Annual Cub Club Event
Tuesday March 28th from 5:00-7:00 pm
Cub Club at Principal Park
(formerly Sec Taylor Stadium)
350 SW 1st Street
Des Moines, IA

Please join the Senate Democratic Caucus with Special Guests Gov. Tom Vilsack and our 2006 Candidates for State Senate

Every dollar we raise will help elect a Democratic Majority to the Iowa Senate!”

Looks to be a good event. I won’t be able to be there, but I’m sure a lot of interesting folks will be there and its a good time to schmooze and get to know Iowa’s Democratic Senate candidates.

IA-Gov: Blouin gets IFL nod ‘unanimously’

Published by

Chris Woods

March 27, 2006 in 2006 Governor's Race, Blouin, Mike, Democrats, Iowa politics and Labor. 11 Comments

This weekend, the Iowa Federation of Labor endorsed Mike Blouin for governor. You can find the Register story here, where it claims the vote was unanimous.

However, that isn’t what I’m hearing. I have heard that there some very contentious debate and some backroom wheeling and dealing that ultimately led to the vote to endorse Blouin. Moreover, procedurally, there might have been a move that was taken to stifle opposition in order to make the vote appear unanimous, when in fact, it wasn’t.

At the present, all of this is just speculation, but what I’d like to hear is a report from someone who was at the IFL meeting to let me know just what exactly happened. I’m also currently searching for documents outlining the procedure used by the IFL when it comes to endorsing candidates. If anyone could help me out with details of what went on this weekend, leave a comment or use the contact link on the top of the page to leave some information. Anonymity is guaranteed if requested.

With regards to the IFL endorsement, don’t look for any significant help to the Blouin campaign any time soon. State law prohibits the union from giving any money until 30 days after the legislative session ends, making it likely that Blouin won’t see any large help until May — a month before the primary.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to diminish the power of the endorsement. What I’m saying is that while it looks good on paper and to talk about, Iowa labor is highly divided. Part of that lies in the breakaway unions that have left the AFL-CIO to join the Change to Win coalition. Additionally, the competition between Blouin and Culver for labor endorsements has been quite fierce, with Blouin’s ties to legislators and other government executives possibly helping him garner some of the bigger state unions. Essentially, the competitiveness of the race goes beyond a simple ‘unanimous’ vote of support by the IFL — especially if there was as much disagreement as I’ve heard there has been.

The other thing that is beneficial for Blouin from the endorsement is the ability to pick up some much needed name ID. When seemingly half of most registered Democrats in Iowa don’t have an opinion on you less than 75 days before the primary, the need to get your name and issues out there becomes critical.

IA-02: Loesback gets more labor endorsements

Published by

Chris Woods

March 24, 2006 in 2006 Elections, Democrats, IA-02, Iowa politics and Labor. 1 Comment

Via Century of the Common Iowan, here’e more word on some hefty labor endorsements for Jim Leach’s challenger, Dave Loesback. He’s even being recommended to receive the IFL’s endorsement at this Saturday’s labor convention, which I’m pretty sure will happen. Now, some of you may be a bit worried about Loesback after the whole getting-on-the-primary-ballot SNAFU. Fortunately, he can still be nominated at the IA-02 Democratic District Convention and have his name placed on the ballot, which is surely to happen.

Maybe with some significant help from the IFL for the next month or two, maybe we can see Loesback get some momentum over in the 02. That is assuming, of course, that the IFL decides not to endorse a gubernatorial candidate tomorrow. Right now, that doesn’t seem likely to happen.

IA-Gov: New KCCI poll puts Culver in the lead

Published by

Chris Woods

March 23, 2006 in 2006 Governor's Race, Blouin, Mike, Culver, Chet, Democrats, Fallon, Ed, Iowa politics, Nussle, Jim and Polls. 10 Comments

The new KCCI-Research 2000 poll was just released tonight and here is a breakdown of the results:

Primary election match-up:
Culver 33%
Blouin 16%
Fallon 13%

General election match-up:
Culver 44%
Nussle 43%

Nussle 43%
Blouin 37%

Nussle 44%
Fallon 34%

The biggest thing worth noticing is that when it comes to the primary, 38% of Democrats are still undecided. That’s a large number. As KCCI says:

“However, Democrats remain undecided on a frontrunner, the poll showed. A whopping 38 percent were undecided about which Democratic nominee they would vote for in the primary and the top candidate was Culver at 33 percent.”

With over a third of Democrats still undecided that leaves the primary situation in June quite up in arms. Clearly, Culver’s the front-runner and looks to be the favorite to pick up the nomination. But with a large number of undecideds, there’s still a lot of work to do come June. Advertising and favorable name recognition is going to be a large benefit to the campaigns. Right now, it looks like Fallon and Blouin are in need of some help because, as Drew points out here, they both score at 50% or higher for “No opinion.”

The primary polling, however, was only done among 400 likely voters (not registered voters) with a 5% margin of error. Would it really have cost that much more to survery a couple hundred more folks? Oh well. Rasmussen Reports should have their next batch of polling for late February or early March and that should provide more general election match-up polling. I just want to see some more primary polling really bad though.

CityView on campaign finance reform in Iowa

Published by

Chris Woods

March 23, 2006 in 2006 Governor's Race, Blouin, Mike, Culver, Chet, Democrats, Fallon, Ed, Fundraising, Iowa politics, Nussle, Jim and Republicans. 17 Comments

I just finished CityView’s cover story this week on money in Iowa politics and have to say I was pleasantly surprised. After reading the first few paragraph’s, I was wondering if this was going to be an Ed Fallon love piece or a legitimate article on the influence of money in politics. While the piece offered a lot of pats on the back and positive words for Fallon (along with a pulpit with which to speak about the issue), it wasn’t what I thought it would be after the first few paragraphs. Clearly, it demonstrates that if you’re going to be a single-issue voter on the issue of campaign finance reform, then Ed Fallon is your guy. But it also highlights a lot of the issues and problems facing Iowa’s political system with the dangers that money can provide.

I think the biggest thing that I’d like to point out is that Chris Rants appears to be against reform because of Supreme Court decisions in Buckley and McConnell that basically affirm that belief that money — and donating it to campaigns — is an act protected under the First Amendment’s freedom of speech. That just seems silly to me, and like Jon Stewart said on TDS last night, it’d be wise for the court to pull back that affirmation and compel congress and even state legislatures to begin to enact meaningful reforms. Maybe that’s idealistic, but I think that’s an approach that should be taken.

However, I realize how unlikely that is to happen in the near future, so I think with the help of folks like Pam Jochum, Ed Fallon, Pat Murphy, and other legislature Democrats the state can begin to take steps to overhaul the state’s campaign finance statutes and institute some substantial changes. Ed Fallon thinks that Democrats have lost sight of reform on this issue. While I think that may be true for some, its still highly cynical. I think that what Democrats recognize is that to make changes they’ve got to win. And not every Democrat can run on campaign finance reform — for many, I’d argue that its not an issue they can run on and win on, partially because of how complex of an issue it is and partially because not all voters are activists who care about the issue. Granted, we should make them care about the issue and tell them why its important, but I don’t think that’s how Democrats win elections.

Once Democrats retake the State Senate — and even make gains or take over the House — then I think we can see campaign finance reform becoming a big issue. If Pat Murphy supports it, then its got some decent momentum in the House. Then all it takes is a Senate Democrat to get movement going in the upper chamber. Reform is possible, we’ve just got to win first. Unfortunately, in the governor’s race, with Jim Nussle’s warchest and the massive amounts of money he can raise out of state and from other national Republicans, money is going to be a factor in this race (along with issues and everything else critical to an election). No one can legitimately fault Chet Culver or Mike Blouin for wanting to raise a lot of money to take on Nussle. And I’m not going to fault Fallon for his election strategy. Sometimes change is needed and Fallon’s position in the race might be that necessary change.

For Professor Sanders’ report, click here to visit the Voter-Owned Iowa site and then click around the site for more information.

Feingold on The Daily Show

Published by

Chris Woods

March 23, 2006 in 2008 Elections, Bush Administration, Democrats and NSA Wiretaps. 2 Comments

Last night, Wisconsin’s junior Democratic Senator Russ Feingold was on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to discuss his censure resolution. I just watched the interview on Crooks and Liars and I must say I was very impressed. Go check it out. And if you’re interested in seeing the entirety of last night’s episode, it replays again at 6 PM CST on Comedy Central.

And if you’re in Ames and are a Feingold supporter, make sure to stop by a meet-up they’re having this weekend. Check here for more details.

What’s up at the Iowa Statehouse?

Published by

Chris Woods

March 23, 2006 in Democrats, Iowa Legislature, Iowa politics and Republicans. 8 Comments

Today I had planned on going up to the Capitol to have lunch with a friend and then talk with my state representatives, but thanks to a stomach bug that’s going around, that’s not going to happen. Anyway, I decided I’d do a little reporting from the comfort of my own room about what’s going on down at the statehouse as we approach the end of funnel number two.

If you’re looking for a quick run-down of what is expected to die and what’s expected to live, this Register report sums things up nicely.

John Deeth and Sousy over at Iowa Underground Blog both have great posts about a bill that passed the House yesterday requiring all individuals to provide ID when the show up to vote on election day (Register story here). On face, this doesn’t seem like a problem but as Sousy notes is merely an electioneering tactic. Now, some are going to argue that its a way to make the voting process secure but that’s not true at all. The problem is that in America, the burden of identifying one’s self to the goverment rests on the individual not the state. But when it comes time to vote, the burden lies on the state to provide the most accessible and open ways to vote to all citizens. So, you now have competing burdens, and until the state decides to give everyone an ID or some other system like this, we’ve got a problem. The government shouldn’t be blackmailing citizens into getting a goverment-issued ID solely to engage in a democratic act. And now that I’m off of my civil libertarian rant, John’s hearing rumors that this is how the Republicans are getting back at the state for requiring paper trails. What a bunch of sleazy, sons of…

In other news, it looks like a bill that would increase the penalties on sex offenders also died in today’s funnel, but is expected to revived somewhere along the line when its provisions get attached to a bill it has nothing to do with. Democracy at its finest.

And this has nothing to do with the statehouse, but I pray that someone gets a picture of Ankeny High School teacher Greg Lage in a dress next Monday! He was the debate coach at Ankeny when I was in high school and he’s a great guy — and I am not at all surprised that he would wear a dress.

IA-Gov: James and the Giant Deficit

Published by

Chris Woods

March 23, 2006 in 2006 Governor's Race, Budget, Democrats, Iowa politics and Nussle, Jim. 1 Comment

Props to the Iowa Democratic Party for this beauty of a website: James and the Giant Deficit.

From an IDP press release:

“Today, the Iowa Democratic Party released the “James and the Giant Deficit” website at www.nussledeficit.org. The website contains information about Jim Nussle’s disastrous record as House Budget Chair, turning a $236 billion surplus into a $412 billion deficit.

“We launched this website to provide Iowans with information about the Republican gubernatorial candidate’s record of creating the largest deficits in America’s history,” said Iowa Democratic Party Executive Director Mike Milligan. “Iowa has a strong tradition of balanced budgets and fiscal discipline, and Nussle’s record is unacceptable. Nussle has failed every year as House Budget Chair to successfully balance a budget.”

The RPI made their “Travelling Tom” website a long time ago to poke fun at Tom Vilsack’s cross-country travels, but I have to say it, their web design is quite shitty. The IDP’s website for James and the Giant Deficit is quite nice…I hope that maybe they’ll carry over their design skills and invest in some improvement of the IDP’s overall website which I just don’t like for some reason.

IA-Gov: Bush to meet his clone here in Iowa

Published by

Chris Woods

March 21, 2006 in 2006 Governor's Race, Bush Administration, Democrats, Fundraising, Iowa politics and Republicans. 17 Comments

Jane Norman of the Register has the story on President Bush’s impending April visit on behalf of Jim Nussle. As we all know, it’ll add a massive fundraising capability for Nussle, possibly garnering him $500k-$750k in just the one night. That’s a hell of a lot of cash for a guy with a decent-sized warchest already.

How much of a help will it be to Nussle? Well, beyond the quick influx of cash, it’ll just energize and motivate the base 7 months out from election day. It’ll also give him the appearance of strength prior to the primary election of June 6th where Democrats will finally pick a nominee. Overall, I don’t think it will do much directly for Nussle beyond the cash. Indirectly, it gives him the necessary money to begin ad buys and to begin introducing himself, and possibly Bob Vander Plaats, to the folks who don’t know them well — essentially those in Central and Southwest Iowa. That’ll buy him a decent amount of name recognition and at least put his face out there. And with Bush’s low poll numbers, don’t expect to see the visit garner any independent undecideds — if you look at the most recent polling, independents are overwhelmingly disapproving of Bush.

Note to the Iowa Democratic Party: Better get a fundraiser/event ready for late June or early July with Howard Dean or another big name Democrat. Whoever the nominee is, they’re going to need a lot of help from the state party and the national party. This is a race that Iowa Democrats cannot afford to lose.

Reactions from John Edwards’ Iowa visits last weekend

Published by

Chris Woods

March 21, 2006 in 2008 Elections, Bush Administration, Democrats, Iowa politics, Labor and Republicans. 0 Comments

Last Saturday night, John Edwards attended an Ankeny-area Democrats Fundraiser and then proceeded to make a stop at a fundraiser in Story County. Drew’s got the write-up and reaction from the Story County event and it looks like Edward’s was just as impressive there as he was at his stop in in Polk County and the Register’s got the write-up of the Ankeny stop here.

Beyond speaking about labor issues — something that he’s been doing more and more on lately on the stump — Edwards also decided to harp on the key line that a lot of liberal bloggers and other commentators are noting: George W. Bush is the worst president ever. Harry Reid has said so. Atrios has emphasized it over and over again thanks to polling. Mark Schmitt talks about it here. And Josh Marshall does here. It seems like its a worthwhile question for debate…just unlikely to really mean anything politically until we make it a meme.

On the issue of labor discussion, a Des Moines-area diarist at MyDD wrote up this bit about Edwards’ talks about labor. And you can trust me–the diarist is not the same as this Des Moines Democrat.

And by the way, anyone who doubts that Edwards is planning on running again is out of their mind. His visit this last weekend was his 6th one since the 2004 loss. And he’s got at least two more visits planned in early April. The Cedar Rapids Gazette has the info here.