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IA-05: More on Steve King’s VRA buffoonery

Published by

Chris Woods

June 30, 2006 in 2006 Elections, Congress, IA-05, Iowa politics, Radical Right, Republicans and Voting. 1 Comment

As I’m sure many of you know, the House is currently preparing to consider renewal of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Now, we’re hearing plenty of objections from Southern Republicans representing districts that have to pre-clear voting law changes with the Department of Justice before making the changes official and face other federally mandated requirements to protect the sanctity and the integrity of the voting system.

Lately, though, the bill has been held up (even hijacked) by a group of representatives who can simply be called anti-immigrant. We all know about Steve King’s involvement in this hold-up, as I reported last week. From that hold-up comes this interesting piece from King Watch, the Progressive Democracy Corps’ new website working to expose Rep. King’s anti-Iowa values. The piece was written by a documentary producer who has also produced this amazing piece of documentary work with Steve King and posted it on YouTube. Please go watch it. It is quite powerful and we can understand Rep. King’s quest to selectively disenfranchise via amazingly fierce restrictions on who can and how one can vote. See this post at the DCCC’s Stakeholder blog for more information on the VRA Renewal hold-up. Finally, you can learn about the producer’s full movie about voting in America from the 1950s to the present day here, it comes out on DVD in the fall.

The Voting Rights Act renewal debate is being dominated by conservatives too afraid to admit their state’s past disenfranchisement efforts (and blatant racism) and who want to pretend like it still doesn’t happen. The hold-up is also being caused by folks who think you have to be required to speak and read and write the language of Shakespeare to vote in a country with over 15% of people who speak a language other than English at home.

Support Joyce Schulte in the IA-05!

IA-SoS: Mauro on voter ID cards

Published by

Chris Woods

June 30, 2006 in 2006 Elections, Democrats, Iowa politics, Republicans and Voting. 0 Comments

From the Marshalltown Times-Republican:

“Some in the state have questioned why voters are not required to provide identification cards of some type to prove they are who they say they are. Mauro said that while showing identification may be easy for the vast majority of Iowans, some may have a harder time with it. They may be disabled or even homeless.

Mauro argued that life circumstances should not make a person a disenfranchised voter.

At the same time, he left some opening for the opportunity of a voter identification system.

However, he said he could only see such a system working if the state came up with an identification card of some sort that was available to voters at no charge.

Also, he noted there is nothing illegal about a poll worker asking for an identification card currently, though it is not required. Most poll workers in the state do not because it is not required, though some may if there is an apparent discrepancy.”

Basically, I think Mauro’s point is this: If Republicans are going to be adamant about voters having proof of ID at the polls, then we’re going to at least offer it to everyone equally and for free — which is essentially the Democratic solution to the Republican’s disenfranchisement plan. The likelihood of such a Republican plan happening before Democrats retake at least one branch of the Iowa legislature: 0%.

His other point is this: the law already allows poll workers to ask for ID if something seems fishy. But like Jerry Depew notes here, folks should be more worried about their ballot actually getting counted correctly and your vote being verified accurately instead of trying to keep folks away from the polls. And there is the difference. Most Democrats support verified paper trails when it comes to voting and protecting the integrity of a person’s vote beyond the act in the polling booth. Republicans strictly want to limit who goes in the poll booth and that’s it.

Vote Polk County Auditor Mike Mauro for Secretary of State, not the foot doctor.

IA-03: Cheney to campaign for Lamberti as well

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Chris Woods

June 30, 2006 in 2006 Elections, Boswell, Leonard, Bush Administration, Democrats, Fundraising, IA-03, Iowa politics, Lamberti, Jeff and Republicans. 0 Comments

If you’re expecting anything different from Republican Jeff Lamberti than what currently comes from most Republican congressman, then you’ve got the wrong guy. More of the same Bush-Cheney loyalty should be expected from Lamberti:

“Vice President Dick Cheney plans to campaign for Republican congressional candidates in Iowa next month, Republican sources said Wednesday.

Cheney is expected to headline a midday fundraiser for state Sen. Jeff Lamberti on July 17 at Wakonda Country Club in Des Moines. Lamberti, of Ankeny, is challenging U.S. Rep. Leonard Boswell in Iowa’s 3rd U.S. House District, which includes Des Moines. Boswell is a five-term Democrat from Des Moines.”

So, first Karl Rove and now Dick Cheney? The two are considered by some to be the masterminds of Bush’s whole presidency, not to mention our foreign oil dependence and the entire screwed-up agenda of the Bush Administration. Don’t expect anything different from a Congressman Lamberti.

Go give a bit to Leonard Boswell using my ActBlue page or my Donate to Iowa Democrats page. Today’s the last fundraising day of the Second Quarter and he needs our help!

Profile of Iowans for Tax Relief

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Chris Woods

June 30, 2006 in Iowa Legislature, Iowa politics, Radical Right, Republicans and Taxes. 2 Comments

Charlotte Eby does a nice job of profiling the conservative group Iowans for Tax Relief and their power with state Republicans in the Quad-City Times. Not only is this group pretty conservative, they’re also quite powerful (at least at the state level) and have a tendency to take out their anger on fellow Republicans who don’t march to their drumming, instead of always targetting Democrats.

Here’s an interesting bit from the piece:

““We do it differently than a lot of people. We never arm-twist up at the Statehouse. We just go out and find candidates who are really, really, really true believers,” he [Ed Failor, Jr.] said.”

Who needs to twist arms when you end the careers of Republican lawmakers who are forced to run in a tough primary with an opponently largely backed by cash from your ITR group? Honestly. Twisting and breaking arms isn’t their deal.

Nah, they’d rather just kill you after the fact and replace you with one of their own. These guys are ruthless and basically consider themselves one of the most powerful conservative interest groups in the state (probably right behind the Iowa Christian Alliance).

2008: Donate to the IDP and get access to the VAN

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Chris Woods

June 30, 2006 in 2006 Elections, 2008 Elections, Democrats, Iowa politics and Voting. 1 Comment

The Hotline reports that the IDP is offering access to its voter file (the Voter Activation Network-VAN) to possible 2008 candidates with a meager $50k contribution this year and next. After July 15, the amount for the rest of 2006 goes up to $75k. By next year, its estimated cost will be around $85k.

Let me just point out one thing that doesn’t necessarily come through in the Hotline piece: The VAN isn’t just the voter file, it is really a web-based interface that allows easy access to and updates of the voter file database. The VAN provides access, plain and simple, and isn’t THE database in and of itself. The best way to access it is using a PALM Pilot interface, which has done wonders to door-knocking and canvassing groups across the state. So, what’s the big idea with this?

Well, first of all, the IDP is looking to raise funds. Part of the reason is that Iowa is the first in the nation caucus and the VAN is a highly regarded tool for ‘08ers if they want to get a good and coordinated field strategy. It is also highly expensive for the IDP to run and coordinate caucus activities when you’ve got at least 8 competing presidential candidates who are sucking up most of the campaign cash donations that would be flying around.

Secondly, in an election year so critical this year for Iowa Democrats, they need money for the Coordinated Campaign and they want it to be successful. Democrats have an amazing chance to make this like 1964 all over again here in Iowa — Democrats keeping the governor’s mansion and retaking the State House and Senate. It has been over 40 years and we Dems here in Iowa can really taste it.

Kos has a couple of laments about the system (and had plenty more about Iowa and New Hampshire throughout yesterday). The first is this:

“Both Iowa and NH expect largess and money, lots of money, from the candidates vying to compete in those two contests. It’s a financial racket that would disappear overnight if other states muscled ahead of them.”

I honestly don’t think the bottom line is that the IDP or the NHDP expect lots of money from the candidates. I think they expect support when it comes to the retail form of politics that is still expected with the current calendar the way it is. But beyond that, it is simply to help support the costs of an amazing system that does an amazing job of keeping information on Iowa Democrats and the history of their involvement, how they have voted, etc.

To me, building the VAN is a part of the 50-state strategy of Governor Dean, at least here in Iowa. After a certain, point however, there should be an effort to reform the Democratic voter file and create an equal access to it across the country and an overall DNC one updated with reports from the states after every election. That’s where Kos gets one of his second criticisms right:

“Aside from that, see how much smarter the RNC is about its voter list. Sigh…”

What the RNC does is coordinate one massive voter file across the country that all state Republican parties have equal access to. That’s a creative strategy and one that has evidently worked quite well for them.

To cure the Democratic ills, I think it might be wise for the DNC to invest in national access to the VAN. Why? Well, I’ve seen the program in action and it truly is quite amazing and useful. It has worked in Iowa. I had friends who worked for the IDP in 2004 and were active across Iowa tracking absentee balloting and registration efforts across the state. And I know just how much work America Coming Together (ACT) put into using the VAN and even helped to make it a household name (at least in consultant and strategists households).

Currently, 22 state Democratic parties use the VAN along with the DCCC and the DSCC. The SEIU also uses the system as well as EMILY’s List. To me, this seems like the perfect time for the DNC to begin pusing for a national database, powered by state subsidiaries who help to track the data and keep the system updated. This not only helps create momentum in the states to push for more data entry and voter registration drives for information, but it also helps create a data infrastructure in states where the Democratic Party may have never had one in decades, say in a state like Mississippi. There is a future in bringing the VAN to each state as a way to access each state’s HAVA required state voter file or database, and I think that’s what the DNC could easily begin pushing for after the midterms or after 2008.

IA-Gov: Researchers find dislike for Culver ad

Published by

Chris Woods

June 29, 2006 in 2006 Governor's Race, Culver, Chet, Democrats, Iowa politics, Media, Nussle, Jim, Republicans and TV. 3 Comments

Today’s The Hilll, a newspaper about and for Congress in Washington DC, published a story today as part of the “Air War” feature about the ads used during the primary race from Secretary of State Chet Culver and US Representative Jim Nussle. The Culver ad they looked at can be viewed here, while Nussle’s can be viewed here. Evidently, according to Wilson Research Strategies, Culver’s ad didn’t do well among Democrats. From the story:

“Nussle’s ad was favored by 53 percent of Democrats, compared to Culver’s 31 percent. Nussle’s ad won overall, 58-25.

For strength of message, Democrats gave Culver’s ad a 5.6 on a 1-10 scale, while Nussle’s got a 6.5. Overall, respondents gave Nussle a 6.5 rating on his message, while Culver got a 5.0, well below the Air War average of 6.1.”

Evidently the Air War feature is predominantly about guaging who has the most memorable ad. If that’s the only standard for ads then I’m sure most ads don’t do all that well. My initial thoughts to the piece: So what? Let me explain.

First of all, there was a difference in the nature of the two ads. Nussle’s could largely be considered a general election ad, as he had no primary opponent after Bob Vander Plaats dropped out and the ad of Nussle’s they talk about didn’t appear until after BVP had joined Nussle as his Lt. Gov. candidate. Culver’s ad was meant to appeal to a broad swath of Iowa Democrats — or at least those not registered or independents — to get them to support his primary candidacy against two other fierce competitors.

Your response then, of course, is ‘well, it obviously didn’t work well with Democrats. just look at what the researchers found out.’ Again, I ask, so what? WRS set up focus groups full of Democrats and Republicans, as well as others, and then looked at their ratings. But who are these Democrats and where are they from? The WRS website doesn’t give any details about the sample and neither does the piece in The Hill. Even if you do buy everything they say, I’d take it with a grain of salt. The least they could do is provide some details about the samples. These ads were meant to appeal to Iowans, not Democrats and strategists in the DC area overall.

Even then, if the ads didn’t work, shouldn’t Mike Blouin or Ed Fallon have done better in the primary? I think Ed Fallon primarily had the most memorable ads in the entire race, and Mike Blouin had a couple that could be considered fairly memorable for the content and the heated debate the evoked. But is the purpose of campaign advertisements just making a memorable ad, or is there something more to the goal of the advertisment? Most experts agree that there is something more.

John Hazen White Distinguished Professor of Public Policy and Political Science Darell M. West of Brown University writes in Air Wars: Television and Advertising in Election Campaigns, 1952-2004:

“Consultants judge the effectiveness of ads by the ultimate results–who wins. […]

As an alternative, journalists evaluate ads by asking voters to indicate whther commercials influenced them. When asked directly whether television commercials helped them decide how to vote, most voters says ads did not influence them. […]

But this is not a meaningful way of looking at advertising. Such responses undoubtedly reflect an unwillingness to admit that external agents have any effect. […]

In studying campaign ads, one needs to emphasize the overall context in which people make decisions. […]

This idea is central to understanding campaign advertisments. Commercials cannot be explored in isolation from candidate behavior and the general flow of media information. An analysis of thirty-second spots requires a keen awareness of the structure of electoral competition, strategic candidate behavior, media coverage, and public opinion. A variety of long- and short-term factors go into voter decision-making. […]

Generally, the better known candidates are, the less ads are able to sway voter impressions.” {Air Wars, pp. 15-16}

Now, granted that the research company didn’t evaluate the ads like journalists, but by putting it to a focus group of an unknown constituency (who may not even be members of the electorate that count), they can’t really effectively gauge what kind of impact the ad had, beyond it being considered not worth remembering in the sheer context of Culver’s ad versus Nussle’s ad in an isolated focus group roundtable.

Also, take note of West’s comments about being able to sway voter impressions if you’re not that well-known. The CEO of the research firm was quoted in The Hill saying:

“For whatever reason, this ad, whereas it didn’t do all that poorly in some of the other areas, is likely to generate absolutely no buzz whatsoever,” Wilson said. “It’s just not a memorable ad. So, for a candidate who is not all that well-known running against a fairly well-known member of Congress, I would say this ad just isn’t going to get it done.”

For whatever reason, Wilson either doesn’t the numbers coming out of Iowa about name recognition or just plain doesn’t care and is a focus-group hack. The most recent Research 2000 polling (late May 2006) gave Jim Nussle only 15% No Opinion when considering favorability (the no opion answer is comparative to not recognizing the name in this poll) while Culver had a 22% No Opinion response. That’s only a 7% difference meaning that over 3/4 of those polled recognized Culver and Nussle’s names. And that should be expected. Nussle is a well-known Republican congressman with a committee chairmanship while Culver has twice run and won statewide elections, putting his name out there to the people of Iowa. Clearly, 78% name recognition doesn’t make Culver “a candidate who is not all that well-known.”

Consider me to be spinning this as much as you want, but at the very minimum you can at least take what this research firm and story says with a grain of salt. So, Krusty can make note of it here and claim that it means bad things for Democrats. Can he back it up? Nope, but I just showed you how you can entirely push aside this story, or at worst, take it with a grain of salt. Not that this even matters though for ordinary voters. I mean, honestly, how many undecided Iowans actually read The Hill or read Krusty’s blog (or mine for that matter) and will consider this story important. It is a story for geeky political folk like us to get interested in.

Senate stem cell vote today?

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Chris Woods

June 29, 2006 in Congress, Democrats, Republicans and Stem Cells. 4 Comments

Just received in the mail inbox:

“ALERT: Vote on HR 810 Today

Dear Christopher:

We just got word from the JDRF that Senator Frist may be springing a surprise vote TODAY on HR 810, the single most critical piece of stem cell legislation before Congress.

This is the one that would rescind President Bush’s draconian restrictions on stem cell research. This is the one that has (miraculously) already passed the House. If it is passed in the Senate, it either will become law — or force President Bush to issue his first veto.

On behalf of millions of people living with parkinsons, alzheimers, spinal cord injuries, and innumerable other conditions that could potentially be helped by stem cell research, we are begging you:

PLEASE EMAIL YOUR SENATORS TODAY, AND ASK THEM TO VOTE “YES” ON HR 810 — WITH NO AMENDMENTS:

http://www.stempac.com

If you can, call them too:

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

This vote is being offered as part of a unanimous consent agreement — meaning even one Senator could potentially block it. We must keep up the pressure — and we must do it today.

Stay tuned for more. The fight isn’t over — it’s just begun.

The StemPAC Team”

The Senate is currently waiting for Senators to come to the floor. I’ll report more when I know more.

Legislature special session confirmed for July 14

Published by

Chris Woods

June 29, 2006 in Democrats, Eminent domain, Iowa Legislature, Iowa politics and Republicans. 0 Comments

The Des Moines Register has the story here.

But remember, you read it here first.

WTF Moment of the Day: The Pimp Tax

Published by

Chris Woods

June 29, 2006 in Grassley, Chuck, Iowa politics, Nussle, Jim, Republicans, Taxes and WTF Moment of the Day. 2 Comments

We haven’t done one of these in a while, but thank you Chuck Grassley for bringing us a new one:

“Iowa Senator Charles Grassley has proposed a new way of cracking down on the sex trade. Some are calling it the “pimp tax.” Grassley and other members of his Senate Finance Committee have endorsed a bill that sets up a new division in the Internal Revenue Service to go after pimps who fail to pay taxes on their profits from “employees” who get paid for sex.

Grassley says there are “business people” in the “underworld of sex enslavement” who are making a buck and the I-R-S could help put them out of business. “Law enforcement people worked for decades to get Al Capone and couldn’t get anything on him,” Grassley says. “The only thing that sent him to prison was the IRS going after him.” Under current law, the I-R-S must prove that a pimp — or prostitute — earned income from the sex trade in order to prosecute.”

This is finally a tax increase the Republicans will vote for. And it is good to see that Grassley has his priorities focused on an industry that needs a lot more financial regulations (and that is already illegal for the most part, but I’m sure that’s beside the point).

I’m curious though, does the pimp tax apply to Congressional Pimps like Jimmy The Hustler?

Summer of CIETC?

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Chris Woods

June 29, 2006 in 2006 Elections, CIETC Scandal, Democrats, Iowa Legislature, Iowa politics and Republicans. 0 Comments

The Government Oversight Committee is still on its holy quest to find out more information about the greedy bastards at CIETC, even while the federal government’s investigation of the dirty deeds and dealings is still going on. And their holy quest is remaining fairly secretive too, as Dave Price notes here at his blog. At least Democrats issued a statement urging less secrecy and more openess for a committee that’s supposed to provide oversight and accountability. I mean, honestly, how accountable can it be when it goes into secret meetings?

However, it seems as if Dave Price’s call to the committee to “open the door” got them some inside access. Last night on WHO’s News at 10, Price reported that they got access to both parties’ wish-list for the next round of hearings. Republicans want to call Governor Vilsack’s Chief of Staff Cynthia Eisenhauer to testify. Republicans wanted her to testifiy back in April when all of the information began coming out, but evidently the governor’s office said she had provided them with the information they needed and essentially said no (at least according to Price).

Meanwhile, Democrats again want State Auditor Dave Vaudt to testify, mainly as a follow-up to Deb Dessert-Bargman’s testimony. If you don’t remember, Bargman is the wife of former CIETC COO John Bargman, one of the greedy bastards who made so much money milking CIETC for all it was worth. While Bargman himself was a bad guy who at least had the balls to admit that his pay was ‘unreasonable’, his wife’s work for CIETC as a consultant and in the state auditor’s office, even while her husband was COO of CIETC, has to pose just a few conflicts of interest. Not to mention the fact that she served a 5-month stint at director at Iowa Workforce Development…she might’ve gotten some idea about the CIETC mess then if it had really been going on as long as Ed Fallon has testified it had been (since the mid 1990s when he inquired about them from the statehouse). Like I’ve asked before, I think that Oversight Democrats (heck, even the whole committee) need to ask What did Dave Vaudt know and when did he know it?

I’m of the thinking, as are many other Democrats, that Dave Vaudt has become more of a political animal in his position and is working to use his audits and investigations for political purposes. I appreciate that these things are being done because, like it or not, they all need to be done. But the seemingly overt partisan targets, and at least the rhetoric coming from Vaudt and his GOP teammates is enough to make me demand that Democrats find a challenger for him in November and get that person on the ballot. He doesn’t have to be a partisan Dem, but at least someone who can keep the position from falling into a system where it becomes an overt political tool.

SCOTUS blocks use of military tribunals at Gitmo ordered by Bush

Published by

Chris Woods

June 29, 2006 in National Security, Supreme Court and Terrorism. 1 Comment

Headline at ABC News.com right now:

“SUPREME COURT RULES PRESIDENT BUSH OVERSTEPPED HIS AUTHORITY BY ORDERING MILITARY WAR CRIMES TRIALS AT GUANTANAMO BAY”

Score one for sanity. Justice Stevens wrote the opinion (which I’m sure will piss off a lot of wingnuts). AP story can be found here. Kennedy was the swing vote that came to the more liberal side of the Court.

DNC Committee votes to put new caucus between Iowa and New Hampshire

Published by

Chris Woods

June 29, 2006 in 2008 Elections, Democrats, Iowa politics and Voting. 8 Comments

Forgot to mention this the other day, but here’s how the 2008 Cacuses and Primaries can be interesting on their own without the candidates:

“According to the Manchester Union Leader, the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee voted 23 to 3 “to push New Hampshire to third place in the 2008 Presidential nominating lineup. The vote recommended that the full DNC authorize an additional caucus between Iowa’s leadoff caucus and the New Hampshire primary and an additional primary after New Hampshire’s contest but before Feb. 5, 2008.”

However, a state law gives the secretary of state the power to “jump the date of the primary ahead of any ‘similar election’ scheduled less than seven days after the primary.”"

What will New Hampshire do if the DNC votes to put a new caucus in front of them officially? Probably freak the fuck out, jump ahead of that caucus, and start frontloading everything, thus weakening the whole system overall.

John Deeth also has some thoughts on Kos’ take of the Rules and Bylaws vote and the impact on Iowa.

Where do I stand on the whole Iowa as first caucus deal? Well, personally I like it. Politically, I like it. However, I don’t think its necessarily good for the party because it causes candidates to focus on a certain constituency (Iowans) that aren’t entirely representative of the rest of the county. Will I campaign for a change in the calendary system? Probably not. Like I said above, I like the attention we get and the things that it provides my college experience, and even my post-college work experience. But overall, the system probably should change.

IA-01: Will Mike Whalen support Bush’s renewed effort to privatize Social Security?

Published by

Chris Woods

June 28, 2006 in 2006 Elections, Bush Administration, Congress, IA-01, Iowa politics, Republicans and Social Security. 5 Comments

Mike Whalen on Social Security (via a campaign site link):

“Social Security is the public housing of retirement land.”

Isn’t he just great?

So, President Bush has decided that he’s going to try and bring his privatization of Social Security effort back from the dead. We all know Bush is crazy and stupid, but I guess Karl Rove must still think this is a good idea. Why you might ask? Who the hell knows, maybe he just didn’t get the message the first time and needs us to give it again: Don’t Privatize Social Security. We know the truth, there is no crisis. You can follow my past reportage on Social Security here and here.

So, this brings me to today’s question reflected in the post title: Will Mike Whalen be the ardent supporter of privatization that he used to be?

Why used to be? Well, he’s now running for Congress instead of just running some Machine Sheds, some hotels and chairing a massively conservative thinktank. So, he’s got to be more coy with voters so he doesn’t get caught using the ‘P-word’ — PRIVATIZATION. Just look here at his site (which isn’t anything to be impressed with). Instead of writing out text on the issues, for the ones he has listed they’re videos of his positions. His video on Social Security is so vague he could’ve just save himself some hosting costs by simply saying “Social Security = good for old people but in trouble. Keep for future.” That’s the essence of what he’s saying, but even then, it isn’t what he’s said in the past and the emergency nature that he’s talked about it. But he does make sure to avoid providing any plans for what he’d like to change in the video — neglecting even mentioning privatization or the things called ‘personal retirement accounts.’

He used to be on the Board of Directors of the National Center for Policy Analysis — a conservative, excuse me free-market, think tank. He was even elected Policy Chairman. What is one of, if not the, biggest policy that the NCPA focuses on? Social Security, its crisis, and how we can privatize it. On April 28, 2005, Whalen debated Sen. Tom Harkin about the need for Social Security reform and announced his support for personal retirement accounts in the Sioux City Journal. You can find the original Journal column here, and the NCPA even has a PDF of the both articles from the debate here (The same column also appeared in the Quad-City Times and can be found here via the NCPA). Here’s what Whalen wrote:

“There is a better option: Let workers keep some of the payroll taxes they already pay, and let them voluntarily invest it in a personal retirement account. Over time, the balances in these accounts grow, offsetting part of what the government (i.e. future taxpayers) would otherwise have paid them at retirement. Gradually, we would replace our pay-as-you-go approach with a funded system, under which each generation pays its own way with personal accounts they own and control.”

So, as you can clearly see, he’s part of the pro-privatization lobby. Or at least he was. Now his position is slightly more awkward, nuanced, and generally unclear. Now that Bush has announced his intent for PRA’s or privatization or whatever you want to call it again, will Whalen support the President or keep his nuanced stance? I mean, he just had Karl Rove in campaigning for him and has Cheney on the way. He’s going to have to work hard to stay in line otherwise they might not come out for him anymore.

The task for First CD readers: Find out where Mike Whalen stands on President Bush’s renewed effort to privatize Social Security. Step two: Leave a comment here or use the contact form at the top of the page to let me know where Whalen stands.

Finally, if you want to know why privatization is such a bad idea, here are just a few of the reasons from Americans United, a new group dedicated to changing the status quo in the way we’re governed:

Privatization is a bad deal for American’s families and will weaken retirement security by imposing massive cuts in the guaranteed benefit that is a foundation for a secure retirement
Privatization will put our economy at risk by relying on trillions of dollars of new borrowing and debt, mostly held by China, Japan, and other foreign creditors, and imposed a huge new burden of taxes on your workers, their children, and grandchildren to finance this debt.
Privatization will weaken the long-term fiscal integrity of Social Security by diverting funds from the Social Security Trust Fund, at a time when we should be strengthening Social Security for the future.
Social Security is a fundamentally sound program that can be strengthened through common-sense, bipartisan approaches – not radical changes. The first step in assuring the strength of the program is to assure that the money Americans have paid in to Social Security is used for Social Security – but President Bush and the proponents of privatization won’t commit even to that.

You can read their full press release below the fold.
Continue reading ‘IA-01: Will Mike Whalen support Bush’s renewed effort to privatize Social Security?’

More on Iowa and campaign disclosures

Published by

Chris Woods

June 28, 2006 in 2006 Elections, Democrats, Ethics, Fundraising, Iowa Legislature and Iowa politics. 3 Comments

Last December, State 29, myself, and Kyle all discussed what we saw as the problems with Iowa’s political finance filing system via the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board. You can read my original post here bemoaning the lack of technological prowess used and just how crappy the overall site is. If you look at the original post, you can see that IECDB Executive Director Charlie Smithson left a comment declaring Iowa’s high placement in the rankings, but never responding to a question posed by me (nor questions I asked in a follow-up email). I think he also took a personal shot at John Deeth with his comment, but I can’t be sure about that (if so, that’s pretty sleazy and low).

Regardless, he hyped the system and passed the buck, saying that it requires state law to change and that’s got to be done by the state legislature. Well, after reviewing the disclosures made during the primary races this year, I can see what technology Smithson was trying to hype and that was the electronic submission technology that allows for PDF reports to be published on the web. Granted, they’re not the greatest to downolad and deal with, but they’re much easier to decipher and search through (using Adobe’s in-program search function) for the exact data you’re looking for. The only problem is this: the method in which you submit your reports is optional. So, here’s my big point in all of this: If Charlie Smithson and Co. are in charge of monitoring all of the lobbying in the state (which isn’t true, they only actually regulate executive lobbying) they should at least know the legislature’s lobbying and ethics regulations enough to go to their representatives and ask to have state law changed to require a better filing system, or at least they requirement that everyone should submit their financial disclosures electronically. Let’s require electronic filing. In today’s day and age, that shouldn’t be a hard or adverse requirement — should it?

This seems like it should be an easy issue for Democrats to step to the plate on, and even to bring about bipartisan support for change on. At the bare minimum, its a chance to talk about campaign reform as a basic and general issue, which is a start when talking about public financing choices and other options. It’s what we should call a start.

IA-01: VP Cheney to campaign for Whalen

Published by

Chris Woods

June 28, 2006 in 2006 Elections, IA-01, Iowa politics, Karl Rove and Republicans. 2 Comments

Looks like Republicans are really fighting hard to keep the IA-01, but I doubt it will do them much good. From KCCI:

“An aide to 1st district congressional hopeful Mike Whalen said Vice President Dick Cheney will come to eastern Iowa to campaign for the Bettendorf entrepreneur.

Whalen’s campaign manager, Russ Perisho, said the vice president will be in Davenport, but no dates for the visit have been released yet. Whalen, a Republican, is running against Democrat Bruce Braley of Waterloo to replace U.S. Rep. Jim Nussle, a Republican from Manchester who is leaving the seat to run for governor.”

If you’ll remember, Whalen had Bush advisor Karl Rove in town for him earlier this week, probably figuring out new ways to avoid indictment or something Rovian like that. I guess he loves having the people in the current administration who have taken this country to hell in the last six years come campaign for him.

If I remember correctly, in the little bit that I followed from the GOP primary race in the Iowa-01, Whalen ran as the outsider or at least claimed to not be a part of the Washington Republican establishment. Scoop from Iowa’s First seems to remember the same thing:

“The next Whalen campaign event is to feature VP Cheney.

Again, I find it interesting that the candidate in the GOP primary that ran as the “outsider” to the Washington establishment chooses to bring in people that couldn’t possibly belong any more to the Washington establishment.”

If you live in the Iowa-01, just remember that its the same old Washington Republican leadership that will come from Mike Whalen. Do yourself a favor and vote for Bruce Braley.