I was skeptical about these rumors, but according to Craig Robinson of The Iowa Republican, Governor Terry Branstad’s legal counsel Brenna Findley “has been meeting people about a congressional run in the Third District.” Findley told the Des Moines Register “that she appreciates the encouragement, but she’s focused on her job” in the Branstad administration. That phrasing falls short of ruling out a Congressional bid.

Follow me after the jump for first thoughts on strengths and weaknesses Findley might bring to a GOP primary campaign. At the end of this post, I’ve enclosed background on the potential candidate from her 2010 campaign bio and the news release announcing her appointment as legal counsel.  

Robinson is not high on Findley, pointing out that she “wasn’t even close” to beating Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller in 2010, despite a well-financed campaign assisted by outside conservative attack ads against the incumbent. Findley outspent Miller but lost by a 55.5 percent to 44.4 percent margin in a huge Republican landslide year. During that campaign, Branstad talked up Findley at almost every campaign stop and appeared in one of her television commercials, which he didn’t do for other down-ticket GOP candidates. In fairness to Findley, she was facing a much more entrenched incumbent than Secretary of State Michael Mauro, whom Matt Schultz defeated on a shoestring budget.

Aside from Senator Chuck Grassley’s former chief of staff David Young, Findley knows more about how Congress works than anyone else running in IA-03. She held senior positions on Representative Steve King’s staff for years. Although King is too “out there” to win a general election in a swing district like this one, he’s a hero to many rank and file Republicans. I don’t expect King to endorse a candidate in the IA-03 primary, but being associated with him wouldn’t hurt Findley.

As a first-time candidate in 2010, Findley raised a decent amount of money for a statewide race. Admittedly, her campaign contributions were supplemented by huge transfers from the Republican Party of Iowa. She couldn’t count on that kind of help in an IA-03 primary.

Being the only woman in a crowded field would help Findley distinguish herself from the other conservatives running for Congress. More important, she can claim to have influenced state policy on some key issues for Republican activists.

For instance, Findley could claim credit for convincing Branstad to join a lawsuit seeking to overturn the 2010 health care reform law. Years earlier, Branstad had supported an individual mandate to purchase health insurance (see also here). Bashing Obamacare was a key part of Findley’s case for electing her attorney general.

In a gesture toward the National Rifle Association and the Second Amendment crowd, Findley seems to have orchestrated Branstad’s about-face in the summer of 2011 regarding a proposed ban on lead shot for dove-hunting. The governor spoke out against a state commission’s unanimous vote on the proposed rule, saying the state legislature should decide the issue. But after lawmakers failed to overturn the rule during the 2012 legislative session, Branstad issued an executive order to nullify the ban on lead ammunition. He had assigned Findley to explore how he might preserve Iowans’ right to use lead when hunting doves, so I assume she was the main author of that executive order.

Findley’s fingerprints are also all over an administrative rule change adopted last summer. The Iowa Board of Medicine voted to prevent Planned Parenthood of the Heartland from using telemedicine to administer medical abortions. A district court suspended the new rule, and I expect the court to reject it when it considers the merits of Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit later this year. (The Iowa Board of Medicine failed to do basic fact-finding before enacting the rule restricting doctors from providing one and only one drug to patients in remote locations.) Regardless of what happens in court, Findley’s efforts to promote the “pro-life” agenda should be a net positive with GOP primary voters.

Theoretically, a legal counsel would help steer the governor away from actions that could be challenged in court. In contrast, one of Findley’s notable actions in her current job was trying to strong-arm Iowa Workers’ Compensation Commissioner Chris Godfrey to resign four years before the end of his appointed term. Godfrey’s lawsuit challenging Branstad’s actions is still pending; he named Findley as a co-defendant. That controversy wouldn’t count against Findley with Republican activists, though.

Share any relevant thoughts in this thread.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention one weakness: if the IA-03 primary ends up being decided at a district convention, Findley may not have as many connections with the delegates as rivals who have been active in Iowa Republican politics for a long time, like Monte Shaw or Brad Zaun.

From a February 2010 press release announcing Findley’s campaign for Iowa attorney general:

Raised on a farm near Dexter in southwest Dallas County, Findley, 33, attended Drake University in Des Moines and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and History and minor in Russian with honors. After Drake, Findley attended the University of Chicago Law School. While at the University of Chicago, she served as Symposium Editor of The University of Chicago Law School Roundtable, a law journal, and worked for small business clients in the Institute for Justice Clinic on Entrepreneurship to help entrepreneurs start their own businesses. Upon graduation from law school, she worked in private practice. […]

Findley has served as Chief of Staff and senior Judiciary Committee staff member to Iowa Congressman Steve King (R-Kiron) since 2003. In her work with the Judiciary Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, she has dealt with and gained significant expertise on many of the most pressing legal issues of the day. As Chief of Staff to Congressman King, Findley serves 32 counties in western Iowa, managing six offices and staff.

From a Branstad administration press release of December 10, 2010:

“Brenna Findley has a talented, sharp legal mind and her knowledge and work ethic will be valued in my administration,” said Branstad. “Her work in private sector, combined with her extensive governmental experience at the federal level, provides a strong framework to serve as legal counsel in my administration.”

Findley, 34, is from Dexter, and a graduate of Drake University, with B.A. in Political Science and History, and a minor in Russian. From there, Findley went on to earn her law degree at the University of Chicago Law School, where she served as symposium editor of the school’s law journal. Additionally, she helped entrepreneurs on Chicago’s south side start their own businesses.

Upon graduation, she worked in private practice prior to serving as chief of staff to Congressman Steve King, R-Kiron. Findley is currently counsel in private practice with Whitaker Hagenow GBMG.