The Iowa Senate Ethics Committee convened for less than five minutes on December 20 to consider a complaint filed against Democratic State Senator Nate Boulton. Speaking on behalf of the six committee members (three from each party), Republican Chair Jerry Behn said the committee had not attempted to verify the facts underlying Sharon Wegner’s allegations of sexual misconduct. Rather, they determined the panel had no jurisdiction over matters that occurred before Boulton was elected in November 2016.

Boulton had made that point on the first page of his written response to the complaint. He didn’t need to say anything else to achieve the desired outcome at yesterday’s committee meeting. Instead, he submitted more than 30 pages of written material seeking to discredit his accuser. That was a huge mistake.

A message for the holiday season from Ed Fallon. -promoted by desmoinesdem

I’ve gotta tell you this crazy dream I had last night about beer and baseball. I was playing major league baseball (yeah, only in my dreams). I came to the plate and struck out four times (ok, that part’s realistic). After my last strikeout, I sauntered out to center field where I was surprised to find my rocking chair. I sat down and prepared to watch the rest of the game.

The other team’s leading slugger stepped up to the plate. Suddenly, the fans rose to their feet while children poured onto the field. Led by a seven-year-old girl standing at the pitcher’s mound, everyone raised a beer to toast the slugger, singing, “We like beer, yes we like our beer.” The girl and other under-age kids raised cans and bottles of soda pop instead.

Let’s start with the good news: Democrat Royceann Porter made history by winning the December 18 special election for Johnson County supervisor. The longtime community activist and labor organizer gained 5,444 votes (56 percent) to 4,167 votes (43 percent) for Republican Phil Hemingway, a member of the Iowa City school board. Porter is the first African American to win a county-wide office in Johnson County and will be one of four women on a five-member board that never had more than two women serving at the same time before this November’s election.

John Deeth took a granular look at the county’s urban and rural voting patterns in his preview of this election and his analysis of the unofficial results. He sees signs of a possible “watershed moment in county politics.”

While a Democrat winning in “the People’s Republic of Johnson County” might not seem newsworthy, Porter’s victory was not a foregone conclusion. A Republican won a low-turnout special election for a county supervisor seat in 2013. The compressed time frame for the special election gave Porter only four weeks to build up her name recognition. Her opponent was better-known, having already won local office. The Farm Bureau chapter drummed up support for Hemingway with a mass mailing, which was unprecedented for a county race, according to longtime area politics-watchers.

Porter also had to contend with a tremendous amount of implicit bias among voters who probably would not consider themselves racist.

Both Senator Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst voted for a criminal justice reform bill that cleared the U.S. Senate on December 18 by a resounding 87 votes to 12 (roll call). Iowa’s senators were also part of the bipartisan majority that rejected three Republican amendments, described by one advocacy group as poison pills “aimed at gutting the substance and intent of the bill.”

Grassley wasn’t an early advocate of criminal justice reform, especially sentencing reform. As recently as March 2015, he slammed what he called the “leniency industrial complex,” which favored reducing long mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug offenses. But he came around about three years ago and helped build Republican support for the current bill, commonly known as the First Step Act.

In one of his final acts as Senate Judiciary Committee chair, Grassley pushed Majority Leader Mitch McConnell publicly and privately to bring the legislation to the Senate floor. After yesterday’s votes, New York Times photographer Sarah Silbiger captured images of Grassley celebrating with Democratic Senator Cory Booker, who has helped lead the charge on this issue.

Bruce Lear discusses some of the biggest challenges facing public school teachers today. Earlier this year, Randy Richardson identified some of the same problems as leading reasons educators leave the profession. -promoted by desmoinesdem

It was the first day of school of 1979 in rural Iowa. The air was heavy with the sweat of 20 high school students and one mustached first year teacher. Air conditioning was for larger schools with money.

Since Alden was neither large nor rich, the bulletin board so carefully glued was coming a part in a windowless classroom recently converted from a storage room.

The Office of Congressional Ethics found “substantial reason to believe” Representative Rod Blum failed to accurately report all of his business interests on his disclosure forms, and also “substantial reason to believe” the internet company Tin Moon misused Blum’s official photo and “utilized deceptive, false, or unsubstantiated endorsements.”

In a referral approved in July and first published today, the non-partisan office asked the U.S. House Ethics Committee to further investigate possible violations of “federal law, House rules, and standards of conduct.” The report further recommended that the House committee subpoena Blum and top associates, who refused to cooperate with the OCE review. But don’t expect any more shoes to drop: having lost his re-election bid, Blum will not be subject to the committee’s jurisdiction in a couple of weeks.

The full report and supporting exhibits are well worth reading. I’ve enclosed those documents at the end of this post, along with Blum’s combative response to the findings. Some noteworthy highlights:

Julie Stauch has handled strategy, tactics, and management for many campaigns. -promoted by desmoinesdem

This piece reflects the compilation of observations from working closely with Democratic candidates, as well as observing patterns of candidate behaviors. The goal here is to address some real problems that exist and provide insights into what can aid our candidates and improve our electoral outcomes.

The most important variable in winning back any legislative or administrative seat is the candidate who chooses to run, because if no one runs, we definitely won’t win. No matter what motivates each reader to want to see change in our various governments, we are united in the fact that we have to support our candidates.

There is an assumption out there that “candidates have to run twice to win.” Do they? Let’s review the common mistakes and consequences, look at what can be done to prevent those mistakes, and then come back to the question, “Do candidates have to run twice to win?”

I know the Soviet Union had rule by gerontocracy. But this is ridiculous.

Yes, yes, it’s fourteen months before the Iowa Caucuses, and so much can happen during that time. But the new Iowa Poll by Selzer & Co for the Des Moines Register, CNN, and Mediacom had me reeling. It concluded that most caucus-intensive Democrats prefer as their favorite 2020 presidential candidates Joe Biden and Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren — with a combined age of 222.

Quipped former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, “It appears we’re going to have an old-folks’ home.”

A little more than a year before Iowa Democrats will start the process of selecting a challenger to face President Donald Trump, Selzer & Co has polled likely Democratic caucus-goers for the Des Moines Register, CNN, and Mediacom. Brianne Pfannenstiel wrote up the key findings from the survey of 455 Iowans “who say they will definitely or probably participate in the 2020 Democratic caucuses.”

The toplines were not surprising, but I was baffled by some of the choices on which candidates to include.

Second in a series of post-election commentaries by Amber Gustafson, who was the Democratic candidate in Iowa Senate district 19. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Remember the Hippos – A Parable

Once a non-profit organization decided to “help” a poor, rural village in a country in Africa. When the fresh-faced, idealistic, young European aid workers arrived, they noticed many things right away. They noticed that the people in the village were malnourished. They also noticed that the village had no fields, no vineyards, and no orchards.

The aid workers, full of compassion, saw that what the people of the village needed was food; and more than that, they needed to be taught how to farm.

All sixteen current members of the State Judicial Nominating Commission will be able to participate in selecting finalists for the Iowa Supreme Court and Iowa Court of Appeals in early 2019, the judicial branch announced today.

Republican attorney Bill Gustoff had argued that three of the commission’s eight attorneys need to be replaced, as their six-year terms expire on December 31. That would have given the eight political appointees (all Republicans named by Governors Terry Branstad or Kim Reynolds) the votes to control the short list of candidates for the high court vacancies.

The first woman elected to our state’s highest office has picked the third woman to serve as an Iowa governor’s chief of staff.

Sara Craig Gongol will replace Governor Kim Reynolds’ current chief of staff Ryan Koopmans, effective December 15. Craig Gongol was a leading campaign strategist for Reynolds this year and has been “a key member of my team” since 2014, the governor said in a December 11 press release.

The appointment inspired me to look into which women have held the top staff position for governors or members of Congress from Iowa. Like Craig Gongol, who ran Mitt Romney’s 2012 Iowa caucus campaign, several women who managed high-level Iowa campaigns went on to serve as chiefs of staff.

All four Iowans voted yes as the U.S. House sent a new five-year Farm Bill to President Donald Trump on December 12. A day after passing the U.S. Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support, the conference committee agreement sailed through the lower chamber by 369 votes to 47 (roll call).

Farm Bills have typically received strong support from both parties, thanks to a grand bargain struck decades ago, putting food assistance and agriculture-related subsidies and programs in the same legislation. This year’s initial House bill was an exception, as Republicans tried to impose work requirements on Americans in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, more commonly known as food stamps. House and Senate negotiators wisely removed that language from the final version.

State Senator Nate Boulton responded this week to the misconduct allegations now standing in the way of his full participation in Iowa Senate business next year.

Two of the points he raised would likely have been sufficient to convince Iowa Senate Ethics Committee members to dismiss the complaint against him when they consider the matter on December 20.

Unfortunately, Boulton chose not to leave it there. Most of his written response supports a third argument, seeking to discredit his accuser. The victim-blaming was not only unnecessary, but harmful.

The U.S. Senate approved a new five-year Farm Bill today by 87 votes to 13, sending the conference committee compromise to the U.S. House. The final version rejected efforts to undermine food assistance programs, which House Republicans had approved this summer. Provisions affecting conservation, the environment, and rural communities were a mixed bag; the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition and Center for Rural Affairs summarized the key points.

Iowa’s senators have rarely voted differently in the past four years, especially on major legislation. But today Senator Chuck Grassley was among the thirteen Republicans to oppose the new Farm Bill. Though he acknowledged some positive features, Grassley could not get past the failure to impose “hard caps on what any one farmer can get,” a reform he’s advocated for many years. He also blasted a “new gimmick” that “makes more subsidies available to the wealthiest farmers and many non-farmers.”

In contrast, Senator Joni Ernst hailed a “farmer-focused” bill containing several bipartisan provisions she co-sponsored.

I enclose below a video and transcript of Grassley’s speech explaining his vote, as well as Ernst’s full written statement on the bill.

Tyler Higgs reflects on the Waukee school board’s latest meeting, four days after a state audit identified some $130,000 in disbursements that were either improper or “not in the best interests of taxpayers.” -promoted by desmoinesdem

Passion flared at the Waukee School Board meeting last night in what was the latest display of outrage. Civil uprisings seem to be par for the course these days, from the “Indivisible” movement of the last two years to the “Tea Party” before that. These uprisings are an American tradition going back to the civil rights movement and the Declaration of Independence. Heck, angry constituents demanding to be heard is practically an American pastime. It’s what people do in a democracy when they feel they have no other way of being heard. When politicians ignore the People, open dialogue turns into pitchforks.

Our elected officials are flawed human beings — some more than others. They make mistakes, sometimes big ones, and it’s our job to call them out — to demand them to be “more perfect”. When they mess up, as we all do, elected officials sometimes look at the high standards we have for them and think, “I can’t own up to this. They’ll bring out the pitchforks.” It’s this thought process, I think, that creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. By denying the problem or doubling down on a cover-up, they make it worse.

For weeks this fall, the Iowa Department of Human Services stonewalled a journalist’s request for easily accessible public records that would have cast an unflattering light on management of the state’s Medicaid program.

Three days after Governor Kim Reynolds won the election, the department sent a copy of one key document to Ryan Foley of the Associated Press. DHS released other relevant files on December 6, allowing Foley to confirm Director Jerry Foxhoven had cut a deal in April allowing UnityPoint Health affiliates to keep nearly $2.4 million they had been overpaid for services provided to Medicaid patients.

The settlement agreement came shortly after UnityPoint agreed to remain part of the network for Amerigroup, one of the private companies DHS picked to manage care for Medicaid recipients.

Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker met with President Donald Trump and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner on the morning of December 7, hours before federal prosecutors released three briefs recounting crimes and misconduct by Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort and personal attorney Michael Cohen.

Cameron Joseph of Talking Points Memo saw Kushner and Whitaker boarding Marine One, the helicopter carrying the president, around 9:00 am. The meeting was improper because Whitaker will continue to oversee special counsel Robert Mueller for at least another month.

Iowa Senate Minority Leader Janet Petersen has not assigned State Senator Nate Boulton to serve on any committees during the 2019 legislative session. In a written statement released on December 7, Petersen said, “I will defer making any committee assignments for Senator Boulton until the Senate Ethics Committee completes its ongoing investigation into the complaint filed against him.” In that complaint, filed last month, Sharon Wegner alleged sexual misconduct occurring in 2015, when Boulton was a candidate for the legislature.

Much of the legislature’s work happens in committees, so Petersen’s action will significantly limit Boulton’s ability to influence bills next year.

The move also indicates that Democratic leaders are unlikely to ask Boulton to lead the opposition to high-profile Republican bills during Senate floor debate, as happened several times in 2017 and 2018.

Tyler Higgs is an activist in Clive and a former candidate for Waukee school board. -promoted by desmoinesdem

The audit report of Waukee School District has been released, exposing more incidents of corrupt and/or inept management at the highest levels of the district. The full report is enclosed below, along with a summary of key findings.

I previously discussed some of these issues, but for those unfamiliar with the ongoing saga, here’s a refresher: