What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

The more I hear about “Making a Murderer,” the more tempted I am to become a Netflix subscriber so I can watch the ten-part documentary myself. The series follows the case of Steven Avery, released from prison after 18 years when DNA evidence showed he was innocent of the rape for which he had been convicted. A few years later, Avery and his teenage nephew Brendan Dassey were charged and convicted of murdering Teresa Halbach. The documentary suggests that Avery and Dassey, who are both serving life sentences, did not kill Halbach and did not receive fair trials.

Lee Rood has a front-page feature in today’s Des Moines Register about how problems highlighted in “Making a Murderer” point to the need for criminal justice reforms in Iowa, such as “uniform best practices for eyewitnesses and the mandatory recording of law enforcement interrogations.” I’ve enclosed excerpts after the jump, but I strongly recommend clicking through to read her whole story.

Avery’s wrongful conviction for rape rested primarily on eyewitness testimony. The latest edition of the New Yorker contains an excellent piece by Paul Kix on how a similar “travesty led to criminal-justice innovation in Texas.” Passages enclosed below cite Iowa State University Psychology Professor Gary Wells, who “has spent decades researching ways in which police lineups can be made more accurate.” Wells testified at a hearing seeking to exonerate a man who had died in prison, serving time for a rape he did not commit. Some of Wells’ recommendations for improving police identification practices were incorporated into a Texas law.

Those measures are different from the reforms an Iowa working group proposed and Governor Terry Branstad endorsed in his speech to state lawmakers this week. But with statehouse Republicans and Democrats deeply divided over education spending, Medicaid privatization, and Planned Parenthood funding, criminal justice reform may provide a rare opportunity for bipartisan cooperation this year. I hope members of the Iowa House and Senate who applauded Branstad’s call to reduce racial disparities will also consider some of the steps Texas has taken to prevent wrongful convictions.

Speaking recently to the Marshall Project, the rape survivor whose mistaken eyewitness testimony sent Avery to prison during the 1980s recounted how seeing a picture of her real attacker doesn’t stir up any emotion for her. In contrast, she says, “I still see Steven Avery as my assailant even though I understand he wasn’t.” I have read other accounts of traumatic memories being altered so that misremembered details evoke panic and terror. The way trauma affects the mind and body and the malleability of traumatic memories are major themes in Dr. Peter Levine’s latest book Trauma and Memory. I hadn’t heard of the book until I received a copy from a friend who found Levine’s approach to healing trauma life-changing.

A videotaped confession by Avery’s “low-functioning” nephew became a key part of the prosecution’s case in the trial that is the focus of “Making a Murderer.” Des Moines defense attorney Gary Dickey told Rood, “Set aside Avery’s innocence or guilt, the most striking thing of the whole series is the clearly coerced confession of Brendan Dassey.” It is surprisingly easy to manipulate a person to admit doing things that never happened, as shown by the New York Police Department’s ability to obtain false confessions from five teenagers accused of assaulting the “Central Park jogger” during the 1980s. Discussing that notorious crime, Saul Kassin, Psychology Professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Williams College, pointed out that “in some cases people accused of crimes, particularly kids and others who are limited intellectually, become so confused by the lies that they actually come to believe they have committed this crime they did not commit.”

A chapter in Trauma and Memory focuses on “the pitfall of false memory,” such as when therapists (either unscrupulous or well-meaning) induce patients to believe wrongly that they suffered ritual or sexual abuse as children. At the end of this post, I enclose a passage from Levine’s book addressing “malevolent police interrogation methods” used to implant inaccurate memories and thereby obtain false confessions or wrongful convictions.

Among other things, the final installment of “Making a Murderer” covers a post-script to the Avery case: the downfall of District Attorney Ken Kratz, who prosecuted Avery and Dassey. Ryan Foley, an Associated Press correspondent in Iowa, was working for the AP in Wisconsin when he reported that Kratz “sent repeated text messages trying to spark an affair with a domestic abuse victim while he was prosecuting her ex-boyfriend.” Kratz lost his job over that despicable abuse of power, which he later blamed on mental health conditions and prescription drug dependence. All journalism students should listen to Foley’s interview with Kratz before the story appeared, a fascinating example of a newsmaker trying to intimidate a reporter. In quite a show of interrogation techniques, the DA warned that a “hatchet story” on his inappropriate behavior would reveal the journalist to be a “tool” for someone else’s political agenda. Kratz modulated his voice frequently–lecturing, mocking, shouting, even whispering–hoping to throw Foley off balance and trick him into revealing his sources.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign has wisely avoided attacking Bernie Sanders these past nine months. But the front-runner’s tactics are changing as multiple Iowa polls show Sanders within striking distance or a little ahead in Iowa only a few weeks before the February 1 caucuses. Clinton would do better making the case that she is a stronger and more battle-tested general election candidate. Attacking Sanders on gun control and especially on health care reform could backfire with Democrats who are undecided or not firmly committed.

For months, Ted Cruz deliberately did not engage with Donald Trump, positioning himself well to inherit the support of voters who might lean toward the Republican front-runner. But since Cruz emerged as the primary threat to him in Iowa, Trump has hammered the Texas senator during his media appearances and at his campaign rallies. Trump has attacked on policy grounds (“Ted was in favor of amnesty”) and repeatedly raised doubts about whether Cruz, born in Canada to a U.S. citizen, is eligible to become president.

Over the last few days, Cruz finally started hitting back at Trump during public events and media availabilities. A poll in the field this week is testing numerous anti-Trump talking points with Iowa voters, and signs point to the Cruz campaign or an aligned group commissioning that survey. I enclose below Simpson College Professor Kedron Bardwell’s notes on the message-testing poll; look for Cruz to employ some of those lines during Thursday night’s presidential debate.

The Iowa Republican caucus polling average shows a tight race between the top two contenders here, with all other candidates well behind. But a closer look at the Iowa findings, particularly the latest from Selzer & Co for the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg News, suggests that Cruz could easily exceed his topline numbers on caucus night. Meanwhile, Trump seems more likely to underperform his polling numbers, hampered by a much less competent ground game.

Last year, racial disparities in Iowa’s criminal justice system were a major theme of Iowa Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark Cady’s annual Condition of the Judiciary report to state legislators. Today Cady followed up by telling Iowa House and Senate members how the judicial branch is addressing the problem through training judges and staff, pilot programs aimed at reducing school referrals to juvenile court, early steps to change the rules on pretrial release of those charged with crimes, and better jury selection procedures. I’ve posted the relevant sections of his 2016 Condition of the Judiciary speech (as prepared) below. The full text is available here. Click through to read sections focusing on what Cady has described as the justice system’s six priorities:

• Protect Iowa’s children
• Provide full-time access to justice
• Operate an efficient full-service court system
• Provide faster and less costly resolution of legal disputes
• Operate in an open and transparent way
• Provide fair and impartial justice for all

Near the end of his speech, Cady discussed the largely unknown problem of human trafficking, which “exists as a dark underworld in many communities across Iowa and is associated with some of Iowa’s most iconic places and events.” I enclose those remarks at the end of this post. For more background on what trafficking looks like in Iowa, listen to this Iowa Public Radio program from 2012 or read Annie Easker’s investigative report for Iowa Watch. Bridget Garrity’s feature on a documentary film about trafficking is another good read. After advocates for trafficking victims raised awareness of Iowa’s poor legal framework for fighting such crimes, state legislators passed and Governor Terry Branstad signed major bills on trafficking during the 2014 and 2015 legislative sessions.

UPDATE: Forgot to mention that Chief Justice Cady is a contender for all-time best appointee during Branstad’s oh-so-long tenure as governor. Who else is in his league?

Governor Terry Branstad delivered his annual Condition of the State address to members of the Iowa House and Senate and the Iowa Supreme Court justices yesterday. If you missed the speech, the full prepared text is here. Iowa Public Television posted the video and transcript here. The early part of the 30-minute address included one false or misleading assertion after another.

· “Sound budgeting practices and fiscal discipline now have us ranked as the 3rd best managed state in the nation.” Contrary to the idea that Branstad markedly improved Iowa’s operation, a major investors group also ranked Iowa the third best-managed state in 2010 under Governor Chet Culver, recognizing Iowa’s good fiscal position, high credit ratings from leading agencies, and low debt per capita compared to most other states.

· “The Iowa Economy has created 214,000 new jobs; surpassing our 2010 goal.” Sorry, no. That’s a fake statistic no economist would accept. It’s a shame the governor has instructed Iowa Workforce Development to keep cooking the books on employment.

· “If the state fails to implement managed care, the growth of Medicaid spending will consume virtually all of our revenue growth.” The Branstad administration has not been able to demonstrate that managed care will save the state money. Florida’s Medicaid privatization turned out to be more costly without improving patient care.

I was also disappointed not to hear more specifics about how Branstad envisions spending funds he would like to divert from school infrastructure to water programs. What kind of water quality programs would be prioritized, and who would administer them? Then again, details about this plan may be irrelevant, because Iowa House and Senate leaders don’t sound open to the idea.

For now, I want to focus on a much more promising part of Branstad’s address. To my surprise, the governor devoted a major section–roughly eight minutes of speaking time–to advocating for criminal justice reforms proposed by a working group he appointed in August. The group was charged with developing ideas to increase fairness and reduce racial disparities in Iowa’s criminal justice system. Click here to read the full recommendations released in November. Bleeding Heartland will discuss some of the proposals in more detail in future posts. Advocates for defendants’ rights and racial justice have generally welcomed the proposals.

Although some policies do not go far enough, and other important reforms are missing from the document, I’m encouraged to see the governor apply some political capital toward reducing systemic racism and inequities in the justice system. I enclose below the relevant portion of Branstad’s speech, with some annotations.

UPDATE: I can’t believe I forgot to mention one thing Branstad could do immediately to address a massive racial disparity in Iowa. His executive order making it extremely difficult for felons to regain their voting rights disenfranchises Iowans of all ethnic backgrounds but disproportionately affects racial minorities.

A white nationalist super-PAC is ending its telephone campaign to urge Iowa voters to support Donald Trump in the February 1 caucuses, William Johnson told Bleeding Heartland today. Johnson is both the treasurer of the American National Super-PAC and one of three speakers on the robocall, which went out this past weekend. Bleeding Heartland posted the audio and call script here.

Speaking by phone today, Johnson estimated that he had spent about $5,000 on the calls. He said the order was placed to reach some 300,000 households, starting with residents of smaller Iowa towns and building up to voters in larger cities. Johnson said the campaign targeted landlines only, in order to comply with the law. He indicated that his group will not continue to place these calls or any other pro-Trump robocall before the Iowa caucuses, saying, “I didn’t want this to be a big issue.”

Johnson declined to elaborate further. I interpreted his comment to mean he intended to encourage Iowans to caucus for Trump but did not want his own advocacy of white separatism to become a controversy distracting from that goal. I suspect the “big issue” was probably unavoidable, since I am not aware of any precedent for a white nationalist group making independent expenditures to promote a leading major-party presidential candidate among a wide audience. Then again, I have not seen the Des Moines Register or other mainstream Iowa media covering this story, so perhaps Johnson had grounds to hope the American National Super-PAC’s support for Trump could fly below the radar. UPDATE: Ed Tibbetts wrote up the calls for the Quad-City Times; the Cedar Rapids Gazette and Sioux City Journal picked up his piece.

I have not been able to confirm how much Johnson spent on the robocalls, because his super-PAC has not filed independent expenditure reports with the Federal Election Commission. Johnson’s understanding is that such disclosure is not required, he told me today. That may be accurate, assuming the super-PAC spent less than $10,000 cumulatively, as Johnson states, and the expenditure occurred before January 12.

300,000 robocalls seems like a very large number for a state with a population of around 3 million. A source with experience running statewide campaigns in Iowa told me the estimate sounded reasonable, adding that $5,000 would certainly cover calls to at least 160,000 households, depending on the vendor, service, and technology used.

Johnson and Reverend Ronald Tan, another speaker on the robocall, had recorded an hour-long radio program to advocate for Trump’s candidacy. The episode of “For God and Country” was to have aired six times between January 12 and 22 on Des Moines-based KPSZ Radio, also known as “Praise 940.” Johnson forwarded his e-mail correspondence with a sales representative for the Des Moines Radio Group, which shows the company approved the program and sent a contract to Johnson on January 7. Johnson returned the signed contract the following day, indicating that a check for $2,100 was in the mail. Also on January 8, the white nationalist American Freedom Party announced the robocall and radio persuasion campaign.

Shortly after 10 am on January 11, the same representative for the radio group e-mailed Johnson, “Unfortunately, we’ve been advised by our attorney NOT to run the For God & Country program on KPSZ. If/when we receive the check for payment, we will return it uncashed.” I was not able to obtain further details from the Des Moines Radio Group about the attorney’s legal reasoning. Johnson emphasized that the Des Moines Radio Group had listened to the show and approved the content before sending the contract.

Asked whether the pro-Trump radio program may air on another station before the caucuses, Johnson said he contacted all of Iowa’s Christian radio stations, some 40 by his estimate. He is still waiting to hear back from one, which has not ruled out running the program. Some stations did not respond or refused to sell air time, either because they do not run programming containing advertising or because they did not approve of the commercials embedded in “For God and Country.” One of the ads promotes a school run by Mormons, and another promotes the Daily Kenn website. That site describes itself as a “conservative web site with an emphasis on anti-racism,” “including anti-white racism.” Battling pervasive “cultural Marxism” in our society, writers for the Daily Kenn focus on “black-on-white crime,” among other “signature issues.”

I will update this post as needed with details on any Iowa broadcast of “For God and Country.” Asked whether the American National Super-PAC will spend money urging New Hampshire voters to support Trump, Johnson said he set aside money for New Hampshire but was not sure now if he would spend it.

P.S.- Johnson identified himself as a “farmer and white nationalist” on the robocall. He told me today that he grew up on a cotton farm in Arizona and currently owns a stone fruit farm in California.

Governor Terry Branstad wore a pink tie and many colleagues remarked on history made yesterday at the Capitol, as Linda Upmeyer became the first woman to preside over the Iowa House as speaker, as well as the first child of an Iowa legislative leader to rise to the same position. Erin Murphy’s take on the milestone is worth a read.

As in recent years, social issues were almost entirely absent from the leaders’ opening remarks to their Iowa House and Senate colleagues. State budget priorities dominated the comments relating to public policy, with Republicans emphasizing the importance of not spending too much and Democrats emphasizing the need to spend enough on education and other vital services. No one mentioned Branstad’s call to extend the penny sales tax for school infrastructure and divert part of the revenue stream to water programs.

The Iowa legislature’s 2016 session began on Monday. For the sixth year in a row, the 50 state senators include 26 Democrats and 24 Republicans. Just seven senators are women (six Democrats and a Republican), down from a high of ten women serving in the chamber during 2013 and 2014. All current senators are white. To my knowledge, the only African-American ever to serve in the Iowa Senate was Tom Mann, elected to two terms during the 1980s. No Latino has ever served in the Iowa House or Senate; Nathan Blake fell 18 votes short of becoming the first in 2014. No Asian-American has served in the state Senate since Swati Dandekar resigned in 2011.

I enclose below details on the Iowa Senate majority and minority leadership teams, along with all chairs, vice chairs, and members of standing Senate committees. Little has changed since last year, in contrast to the Iowa House, which saw some big changes in the majority Republican caucus since the legislature adjourned in June.

Term limits are a terrible idea generally but would be especially awful if applied to the Iowa Senate, as the longest-serving current senator bizarrely advocated last year. The experience gap between Democrats and Republicans is striking. As detailed below, only four of the 24 Senate Republicans have ten or more years of experience in the Iowa legislature, compared to seventeen of the 26 Democrats. No current Iowa Senate Republican has more than 20 years legislative experience, whereas six Democrats do.

Some non-political trivia: the 50 Iowa Senate members include three Marks, three Bills, three Richards (who go by Rich, Rick, and Dick), two Mikes, two Toms, two Joes, and two men named Charles (one goes by Chaz).

The Iowa House opened its 2016 session today with 57 Republicans and 43 Democrats. The 100 state representatives include 27 women (21 Democrats and six Republicans) and 73 men. Five African-Americans (all Democrats) serve in the legislature’s lower chamber; the other 95 state representatives are white. No Latino has ever been elected to the Iowa House, and there has not been an Asian member since Swati Dandekar moved up to the Iowa Senate following the 2008 election.

After the jump I’ve posted details on the Iowa House majority and minority leadership teams, along with all chairs, vice chairs, and members of standing House committees. Where relevant, I’ve noted changes since last year. All are on the Republican side, mostly following from Kraig Paulsen’s decision to step down as speaker, Chuck Soderberg’s retirement, and the passing of Jack Drake.

Some non-political trivia: the Iowa House includes two Millers (one from each party), two Taylors (one from each party), and two Moores (both Republicans). As for first names, there are six Davids (four go by Dave), four Roberts (two Robs, one Bob, and a Bobby), four Marys (one goes by Mary Ann), four Johns, and three Brians. There are two Lindas, two Elizabeths (a Beth and a Liz), and two men each named Dan, Mark, Greg, Tom, Bruce, Todd, Chris, and Charles (one goes by Chuck).

For months, white supremacist groups have been promoting Donald Trump for president on neo-Nazi websites like The Daily Stormer. Evan Osnos wrote a detailed piece on the phenomenon for The New Yorker in August. If you doubt that neo-Nazi is an appropriate label for the movement, read some of the responses Anna Merlan received from Trump’s white nationalist fans after she published about the same topic at Jezebel.

What had been mostly a stealth campaign to build support for Trump went above ground this weekend with a wave of robocalls to potential Iowa caucus-goers, paid for by the American National Super-PAC. Talking Points Memo posted the audio yesterday. I enclose the same audio clip and my transcript below, thanks to John Deeth, who received the audio file from an Iowan on January 9.

A pro-Trump radio ad campaign paid for by the same white nationalists is set to air on Des Moines Radio Group’s KPSZ-AM from January 12 through January 22. In a January 8 press release, the American Freedom Party’s presidential candidate Bob Whitaker

stated that he did not feel that his campaign is undermined by William Johnson’s efforts. “Our campaign slogan is ‘Diversity is a Code Word for White Genocide.’ Donald Trump’s campaign may help remind Americans that all genocide, even against white people, is evil. My campaign is there to help keep the candidates on point regarding race in America.”

MONDAY AFTERNOON UPDATE: The Des Moines Radio Group ultimately declined to accept this ad placement. Scroll to the end for details.

Open Secrets does not yet have any donor information about the super-PAC, but in the call script, a man identifying himself as “William Johnson, a farmer and a white nationalist” says he paid for the robocalls. A statement of organization filed last week with the Federal Election Commission lists William Johnson as the super-PAC’s treasurer. No independent expenditure reports have been posted yet on the FEC’s website; those are supposed to be filed within 48 hours of an independent expenditure supporting or opposing a candidate. I will update this post if and when more details become available on how much money this PAC is spending to promote Trump’s candidacy. At this writing, I have not yet seen any comments from Trump or his campaign about the white nationalist effort to boost his support in the Iowa caucuses.

UPDATE: The Southern Poverty Law Center’s profile of the “uninspiring but determined white separatist” Johnson is worth reading in full. I’ve posted a few excerpts below. Although Johnson called himself a farmer on the robocall to Iowans, he spent a career as a corporate attorney.

As of Monday morning, Trump has still not commented on this story. He campaigned in Ottumwa on January 9.

UPDATE: The radio ads will be hour-long editions of the “For God and Country” programs, featuring Reverend Ronald Tan and William Johnson. Added more details on the ad campaign at the end of this post.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

Lauren Whitehead’s post on political activism while parenting got me thinking about my Iowa caucus experiences as a parent of young children. I did a lot of phone banking from home while kids were napping or my husband was watching them. I never brought my kids along to knock doors, but one of my sons enjoyed coming with me in the car to deliver yard signs.

We brought our baby to the 2004 precinct caucus. A good sling or other comfortable baby carrier makes this very manageable, and I would do it again with no hesitation. Caveat: that baby was both extroverted and a night owl. A baby who needs to go to bed early or gets overwhelmed by crowds would do better at home with a baby-sitter.

We brought a toddler and a preschooler to our 2008 caucus, which was much more challenging. Mr. desmoinesdem did most of the kid-wrangling while I was doing precinct captain duties. The caucus can easily take more than an hour, even if you don’t stay for the platform resolutions. The rooms tend to be crowded, leaving no place for a little one to run around. The atmosphere can be overstimulating or too stuffy for young children. Early evening is often not the best time for kids’ behavior anyway. If I could do it over, I would arrange for a nice babysitter who wasn’t interested in politics to watch my kids on caucus night.

I’m 100 percent for bringing older kids to the caucus. It’s a fantastic way for them to learn about the process.

After the 2010 elections, I wrote a post on explaining political disagreements and election outcomes to young children. I’m interested to hear how other parents have handled similar conversations.

Good advice from a volunteer for Hillary Clinton’s campaign in Johnson County. Her tips brought back memories of being a precinct captain with a baby in 2003 and being a precinct captain with a toddler and preschooler in 2007. – promoted by desmoinesdem

One of the best pickup opportunities for Democrats in the Iowa House got better on Thursday, as three-term Republican State Representative Brian Moore told KMAQ Radio in Maquoketa that he will not run for re-election in House district 58. After an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic nomination in an Iowa Senate district, Moore switched parties, filed in a House seat where there was no Republican challenger, and pulled off one of the most shocking Iowa state legislative upsets in 2010. He won a re-match against Tom Schueller in the next election cycle and defeated challenger Kim Huckstadt by a comfortable margin in 2014.

House district 58 is among the most Democratic-leaning legislative seats currently held by a Republican. In 2012, Barack Obama received 55.6 percent of the vote here; only residents of House district 91 in the Muscatine area gave a higher percentage of their votes to the president while electing a Republican to the Iowa House. According to the latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office, House district 58 contains 6,968 active registered Democrats, 4,726 Republicans, and 9,151 no-party voters.

Moore has not always fallen in line with House Republican leaders. In late December, he told William Garbe of the Dubuque Telegraph-Herald that he may break with his caucus during this year’s session to support a larger funding increase for K-12 schools. Fellow GOP State Representatives Quentin Stanerson and Ron Jorgensen are also retiring this year and are known to have been dissatisfied with the final compromise on education funding last year. Moore’s announcement will increase speculation that State Representative Josh Byrnes may not seek a fourth term in House district 51. He challenged Linda Upmeyer for the speaker’s chair last summer. After losing that contest, Byrnes criticized excessive partisanship and the failure to meet deadlines for approving school funding. In 2013, Byrnes and Moore were the only two House Republicans to vote with Democrats to expand Medicaid as foreseen under the Affordable Care Act.

Democrat Peter Hird launched his campaign in House district 58 in October. I enclose below some background on Hird and a map of the district, which covers all of Jackson County, a large area in Jones County and two rural Dubuque County townships. Pat Rynard profiled Hird at Iowa Starting Line last month. I would not be surprised to see another Democrat file to run for this seat, since the winner of the primary will have a good chance of being elected in November.

Governor Branstad deserves credit for his proposal to provide significant resources to address water quality in Iowa. The proposal is an acknowledgment that water pollution is a serious, immediate problem that will take a major investment of resources to solve. It’s an acknowledgment that the drinking water in communities from Boone to Des Moines is at risk of being unsafe to drink because of high nitrate levels. It’s an acknowledgment that Iowans deserve better than a record number of public beach warnings caused by toxic algae and nutrient pollution. It’s an acknowledgment that while the voluntary Nutrient Reduction Strategy may provide a framework for solving our water quality problems, without the resources and urgency to implement it, the voluntary Nutrient Reduction Strategy won’t get us there.

Proposing a significant investment in water quality acknowledges the seriousness of our water quality problem and opens the door for serious discussions about how to find the resources to solve the problem. The Governor demonstrated leadership in starting the conversation, and it will take continued leadership to be open to input to improve the proposal and get buy in from legislators and the diverse constituencies that care about solving our water quality problem.

The leadership of an open mind is critical, because Governor Branstad’s proposal is not without its flaws.

Hoping to improve on my percentages from last year, I offer sixteen Iowa politics predictions for 2016. Please spin your own scenarios in this thread.

I finally gave up on trying to predict whether Governor Terry Branstad will still be in office at the end of the year. Although his close adviser David Roederer “emphatically” says Branstad will serve out his sixth term, I am convinced the governor will resign early. But I can’t decide whether that will happen shortly after the November 2016 election or shortly after the Iowa legislature’s 2017 session.

When politicians lie, opponents often echo longtime Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s famous words: You’re entitled to your opinion, but you’re not entitled to your own facts.

Politicians can get away with deception, however, when journalists present conflicting facts as opposing viewpoints in a “he said/she said” frame. So it was when Governor Terry Branstad recently touted phony job creation numbers, and reputable Iowa journalists hid behind “critics say” rather than acknowledging reality: no serious economist would recognize those statistics.

And so it was when the Des Moines Register again covered the Iowa Department of Revenue’s unprecedented attempt to rewrite tax code through the rule-making process. Statehouse reporter Brianne Pfannenstiel’s attention to the topic is welcome. The rule change has been an under-reported Iowa politics story this fall, even though it could have a huge impact on the state budget in coming years. Unfortunately, as was the case in earlier articles for the Register on the same controversy, Pfannenstiel avoided stating some important truths about the Branstad administration’s efforts, attributing such observations to “others” including “Democratic lawmakers.”

The journalist’s reflex to appear impartial by presenting factual statements as partisan opinions is part of what media critic Jay Rosen has called the View from Nowhere.

In an emotional White House address, President Barack Obama announced today new executive actions aimed at reducing gun violence, including suicides as well as homicides and other crimes.

• Background Checks: Require all gun sellers — including online and at gun shows — to have a license and perform background checks. Have the FBI overhaul the existing background-check system.
• Enforcement: Improve the use of America’s existing gun laws, and add 200 new agents to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
• Mental Health: Remove barriers that can keep states from reporting and sharing information about people barred from owning guns for mental health reasons, and spend $500 million to increase access to mental health care.
• Technology: Push for research in gun safety technology, such as “smart guns” that can only be fired by authorized users. The research would be done by the Departments of Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security. The White House notes the federal government is “the single largest purchaser of firearms in the country.”

I enclose below more details on steps the president ordered as well as Iowa political reaction. I will update this post as needed, since some of the Iowans in Congress neither released statements on this issue nor responded to my requests for comment.

graph of nitrates in the Des Moines River exceeding safe levels, taken by Steven Witmer using data from the U.S. Geological Survey

The Des Moines Water Works announced yesterday that it spent some $1.5 million during 2015 to operate its nitrate removal system “for a record 177 days, eclipsing the previous record of 106 days set in 1999.” The utility provides drinking water to about 500,000 residents of central Iowa, roughly one-sixth of the state’s population. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers 10 mg/l the maximum safe level for nitrates in drinking water. The Des Moines Water Works switches the nitrate removal system on when nitrates exceed 9 mg/l in both of its sources, the Raccoon River and the Des Moines River. I enclose below the full press release from the Water Works, as well as charts from the U.S. Geological Survey’s website showing recent nitrate levels in the Raccoon and Des Moines rivers.

Runoff from agricultural land is the primary source of nitrates in Iowa waterways. As David Osterberg wrote yesterday, “so little land in Iowa is devoted to urban uses (lawns or golf courses) that even if urban application rates of Nitrogen and Phosphorous fertilizer were much higher than that on farms, only 2 percent of the pollution from land application of fertilizer comes from lawns and golf courses.” This “nutrient pollution” not only incurs extra costs for providing safe drinking water but also creates toxic algae blooms, which caused a record number of beach advisory warnings during the summer of 2015.

Last January, the Des Moines Water Works filed a lawsuit against drainage districts in northwest Iowa’s Sac, Calhoun and Buena Vista Counties. Drake University Law Professor Neil Hamilton wrote an excellent backgrounder on this unprecedented litigation: Sixteen Things to Know About the Des Moines Water Works Proposed Lawsuit. In a guest column for the Des Moines Register last May, Hamilton debunked the “strenuous effort” to convince Iowans that “the lawsuit is unfair and unhelpful.”

Governor Terry Branstad has depicted the lawsuit as a sign that “Des Moines has declared war on rural Iowa” and repeatedly criticized the Water Works last year. Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey claims the water utility “has attempted to stand in the way of these collaborative efforts” to reduce nutrient pollution. A front group funded by the Iowa Farm Bureau and other agribusiness interests and led by Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett, among others, has also tried to turn public opinion against the lawsuit. In recent weeks, that group with the Orwellian name of Iowa Partnership for Clean Water has been running television commercials seeking to demonize Water Works CEO Bill Stowe.

Northey, Corbett, and Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds may soon become bitter rivals for the 2018 GOP nomination for governor. But those three will stand together opposing any mandatory regulations to reduce agricultural runoff. All support Iowa’s voluntary nutrient reduction strategy, shaped substantially by Big Ag and lacking numeric criteria strongly recommended by the U.S. EPA.

William Petroski and Brianne Pfannenstiel report in today’s Des Moines Register that Branstad “is exploring a legislative proposal that would provide money for water quality projects by using projected revenue growth from an existing statewide sales tax for schools.” Apparently “superintendents have been getting called to the state Capitol to discuss the proposal” with Branstad and Reynolds. Fortunately, that cynical attempt to pit clean water against school funding appears to have zero chance of becoming law. Of the ten state lawmakers or representatives of education or environmental advocacy groups quoted by Petroski and Pfannenstiel, none endorsed the half-baked idea. Their reactions ranged from noncommittal to negative. Speaking to Rod Boshart of the Cedar Rapids Gazette, Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal said of a possible Branstad proposal on water quality funding, “We certainly would be willing to look at that but we’re not going to cannibalize education or the basic social safety net so that he can put a fig leaf on his record on the environment.”

UPDATE: Erin Murphy reported more details about Branstad’s proposal: extend the 1 percent sales tax for school infrastructure, dedicate the first $10 million in annual growth to schools and allocate the rest to water programs.

SECOND UPDATE: Added below excerpts from Murphy’s report for the Cedar Rapids Gazette on Branstad’s plan. I’m disappointed to see U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack endorse this ill-conceived proposal. Of course we “need to work on [water quality] now,” but why does the money have to come out of school funds? Remember, the Branstad administration is already pushing a corporate tax break that will cost public school districts millions of dollars a year for infrastructure on top of tens of millions of dollars in lost state revenue.

THIRD UPDATE: Branstad told reporters today he does not believe there is support in the legislature to raise the sales tax. Under a constitutional amendment adopted in 2010, 3/8 of a cent of the next Iowa sales tax increase would flow into the natural resources trust fund. He also indicated that he would not support extending the penny sales tax for school infrastructure beyond 2029, when it is scheduled to expire, without lawmakers agreeing to divert some of the funding to water programs. According to incoming Iowa House Speaker Linda Upmeyer, “House Republicans have been divided on whether to extend the school infrastructure sales tax beyond 2029.”

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Dave Swenson

Elected officials are keen to flash their job creation scorecard even though local and state government officials don’t really create many jobs. The economy in the aggregate creates the overwhelming majority of jobs, and some of those jobs locate in our cities, counties, and state. For elected officials, though, if it happened on their watch, ipso facto, they’ve created jobs. Credit is always claimed.

When job “creation” (see above) becomes the measure of public service performance, however lacking in substance or result, we inevitably get phony statistics, misleading inferences, or dubious claims. Sometimes politicians cherry-pick the numbers to make the best case possible. And sometimes politicians or their willing accomplices create brand new statistics.