Jennifer Jacobs reported for Bloomberg last night that Governor Terry Branstad has accepted President-elect Donald Trump’s offer to become the next U.S. ambassador to China. Jacobs cited three unnamed sources, and an unnamed member of Trump’s transition team confirmed the news to the Washington Post this morning. I expect Trump to make the official announcement during his Thursday “thank you” rally in downtown Des Moines. (By the way, many central Iowa Democrats as well as Republicans received a robocall invitation to that rally, featuring Donald Trump, Jr.)

I wish Branstad well in his new adventure. He’ll have a lot to contend with: the president-elect’s recent overture to Taiwan was destabilizing; Trump’s threats to punish China for supposedly unfair trade and currency practices could spark a trade war; and horrific air pollution has made Beijing “almost uninhabitable.”

Kim Reynolds is the fifth woman to hold the office of Iowa lieutenant governor and will soon become the first woman governor in our state’s history. Branstad has been saying for years he wanted her to succeed him, and many Democrats expected him to step down before the end of his sixth term, to give her the advantages of incumbency going into the 2018 campaign. The domain KimReynoldsforgovernor.com has been registered since 2012, Mark Langgin pointed out today.

Reynolds will select the next lieutenant governor, and she may use that power to neutralize a potential rival, such as Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey. (Why Northey would agree to that arrangement is a mystery to me.) I don’t expect Reynolds to clear the field for the 2018 Republican primary, but as governor, she will be able to raise more money and possibly deter some ambitious people. Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett has been laying the groundwork for a gubernatorial campaign for years. I don’t know how many major donors would back him now that Reynolds will be the incumbent, though. Running a credible campaign against her would require millions of dollars.

Many Democrats were delighted to read this morning that Representative Steve King told The Hill’s Scott Wong he is thinking about running for governor himself. I suspect this will play out like the early months of 2013, when King attracted a lot of attention by saying he might run for U.S. Senate. I never believed then and don’t believe now that King will run for higher office. However, two recent developments may have changed the equation for him.

First, Iowa’s sharp turn to the right this November may have convinced King he has a chance to win a statewide election, which didn’t appear to be the case a few years ago. Second, he and Branstad are not on good terms. King was a leading surrogate for presidential candidate Ted Cruz, whom Branstad attacked shortly before the Iowa caucuses. Reynolds and many other prominent Iowa Republicans endorsed King before this year’s GOP primary in the fourth Congressional district, but Branstad didn’t join them. Adding to the insult, soon after King defeated State Senator Rick Bertrand in that primary, the governor’s son Eric Branstad hired some of Bertrand’s former staffer to work on Trump’s campaign.

Any thoughts about Branstad’s prospects in China or the 2018 campaign are welcome in this thread.

UPDATE: The Des Moines rumor mill sees State Representative Peter Cownie as a likely lieutenant governor choice for Reynolds. Further updates are after the jump.

Guest Post by Derek Eadon, Candidate for Iowa Democratic Party Chair

I have recently announced that I am seeking the position of Iowa Democratic Party Chair. The past few weeks have been filled with hundreds of conversations on what went wrong in 2016 and what we need to do moving forward. I think it is a good thing that we are having these conversations. The problems we saw this cycle were not unique to this election, many of them were years in the making. I have felt the same frustrations that many people are sharing about how our party has operated the last two cycles. And even though sometimes the conversations that have been had since November 8 are uncomfortable, and although we know more conversations will be coming that force us to self-reflect, it is important we have this discussion. We can do better.

Tactics, message, candidates, and operations can always be improved. There are great ideas being discussed and some past best practices we have chosen to ignore. There is one factor that will be harder to change, and it is one that we cannot lump in with the others: our party is not accessible enough to the people that we need the most.

As hard as it is for me to believe Governor Terry Branstad would move halfway around the world from his grandchildren, news reports and rumors in Iowa Republican circles point to Branstad being President-elect Donald Trump’s choice as ambassador to China.

Since election day, I’ve spoken with many Iowa Democrats and have observed many conversations and debates on social media. People process grief in different ways. Some Democrats are still bogged down in arguments over who is to blame (e.g. centrist or “establishment” Democrats, the FBI director, political journalists). Some are despairing over how Republicans will use total control over state government to destroy safety net programs and erode civil rights. Some have already moved on to pondering how we can create a stronger statewide party, and how Democrats could mitigate the harm Congressional Republicans will be able to inflict on Americans.

I applaud the forward-thinking people who are preparing for the tasks ahead. At the same time, I’m concerned that many Democrats haven’t absorbed the long-term consequences of what happened here on November 8.

For decades, politically-engaged Iowans have enjoyed the attention that comes with being first in the nominating process and a swing state later in the year. Our popular vote tracked closely to the national popular vote margin in six straight presidential elections. Both major-party nominees campaigned here and paid for field networks to get out the vote, with collateral benefits for down-ticket candidates.

We need to recognize that during the next couple of election cycles, we will likely be on our own.

Thanks to susaniniowa for stating it so clearly: “This is the first moment of the election of 2018. If we blow it, we can expect to lose.” -promoted by desmoinesdem

I have been reading a lot of social media comments from Bernie Sanders supporters who think he “sold out” because he said Clinton would remain an important voice in the party. I think they are profoundly wrong about Bernie, and about how to respond to what we face now. We cannot confront the coming threats to the well-being of our fellow citizens and the planet itself if we allow ourselves to be divided. Our first and biggest fight may come as soon as January. We cannot afford to lose it.

For years, I’ve predicted Governor Terry Branstad would step down before the end of this term in order to allow his chosen successor Kim Reynolds to run for governor as an incumbent in 2018. My thinking was influenced by political reality: the lieutenant governor has neither a strong ideological or geographical base nor the stature in Iowa Republican circles to win a statewide primary from her current position.

I saw two likely windows for a Branstad resignation: soon after the 2016 general election, or immediately following the 2017 legislative session. Either time frame would give Reynolds a boost on fundraising and other incumbency advantages going into a gubernatorial primary against rivals such as Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett and Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey.

In recent months, I’ve become convinced Branstad would serve out his sixth term after all. At least a dozen sources have independently indicated that the governor sounds open to running for re-election again in 2018. The resounding Republican victories in this year’s Iowa House and Senate races give Branstad another reason to stick around: the chance to work with a GOP-controlled legislature for the first time since 1998.

Yet President-elect Donald Trump has hinted Branstad might be his pick to serve as U.S. ambassador to China. Speaking to reporters before his birthday party/fundraiser last night, Branstad said, “I’m not ruling anything out.”

I don’t see it happening.

Unofficial results from Tuesday’s election show Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson received 58,796 votes in Iowa, about 3.8 percent of ballots cast.

Before this year, the most successful Libertarian ticket in Iowa gained 1 percent of the vote, way back in 1980. Although Johnson wasn’t able to maintain his much higher polling numbers from the late summer, he more than quadrupled his 2012 raw vote total and share of the vote here.

The result gives the Libertarian Party full “political party status” in Iowa. What does that mean in practical terms?

Zach Whiting, a staffer for U.S. Representative Steve King, will run for the Iowa Senate in 2018 against Republican State Senator David Johnson, Tom Lawrence reported today for nwestiowa.com. Whiting told Lawrence, “David Johnson’s decision to leave the Republican Party has left his constituents without a representative, without an effective representative.” Johnson announced on June 7 that he was changing his registration to no-party because of Donald Trump’s “racist remarks and judicial jihad.” I assume he will rejoin the GOP soon after the November election, though he has not promised to do so.

Lawrence’s article did not mention another likely motivation for Whiting’s bid: Johnson supported and donated to Iowa Senate colleague Rick Bertrand’s challenge to King in the fourth Congressional district this year. King won just under 65 percent of the Republican primary vote. Johnson later told the Sioux City Journal he would support Bertrand for Congress again, adding, “There is too much blind loyalty to Steve King.”

Follow me after the jump for more about the political make-up of Iowa Senate district 1, background on both candidates, and first thoughts on Whiting’s chances.

So much for an “unofficial” role: Governor Terry Branstad, Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey, and Republican power-broker Bruce Rastetter are among more than 60 people named this morning to Donald Trump’s “Agricultural Advisory Committee.” Its “executive board members will convene on a regular basis,” according to a news release I’ve posted after the jump. Note that the campaign statement misspells Northey’s name and describes Rastetter as having hosted the “first Republican Presidential debate.” Actually, Rastetter organized an Iowa Ag Summit at which nine presidential contenders (not including Trump) appeared in March 2015. New Jersey journalist Claude Brodesser-Akner was the first to report Branstad’s and Rastetter’s involvement as Trump advisers last week.

The other Iowans on the list released today are:

• Sam Clovis, who traded in his conservative and religious principles last summer to become Trump’s “national chief policy advisor”;

• former State Representative Annette Sweeney, a friend of Rastetter’s since childhood who chaired the Iowa House Agriculture Committee until redistricting forced her into a losing primary battle against fellow House Republican Pat Grassley. She was a key player in passing Iowa’s unconstitutional “ag gag bill,” the first of its kind in the country. Soon after finishing her legislative service, Sweeney became president of a public policy group called Iowa Agri-Women.

• Ron Heck, identified as an Iowa farmer and past president of the American Soybean Association.

Any comments about the presidential race are welcome in this thread. Northey is widely expected to run for governor in 2018 rather than seek a fourth term as secretary of agriculture. His likely opponents in a GOP gubernatorial primary include Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds and Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett. While the lieutenant governor has repeatedly urged Iowans to vote for Trump at public events, Corbett has wisely kept some distance between himself and the presidential nominee. He steered clear of Trump’s rally in Cedar Rapids on July 28.

A week ago today, four Iowa Supreme Court justices upheld the lifetime ban on voting for Iowans convicted of all felonies, which are defined as “infamous crimes” under a 1994 state law. Chief Justice Mark Cady’s opinion in Griffin v. Pate and three dissents are available here; Bleeding Heartland posted key excerpts here.

A decision in Kelli Jo Griffin’s favor could have made tens of thousands of Iowans newly eligible to vote in this year’s presidential election. Instead, Iowa will likely retain its place as one of the most restrictive states on felon voting for years.

In theory, those who have completed sentences can apply to have Governor Terry Branstad restore their voting rights. Griffin plans to do so, and I expect Branstad to make a big show of approving her application. In practice, though, that option will be available only to a small minority of those affected by the governor’s January 2011 executive order. During the first five years the new policy was in effect, less than two-tenths of 1 percent of disenfranchised felons managed to regain the right to vote, an average of fewer than 20 people per year.

I am awaiting information from the governor’s office on restoration numbers since the latest “streamlining” of the official form in April, but I don’t expect the number of applicants ever to become more than a trickle. The financial and other barriers will remain too great.

Even if Branstad started receiving substantially more applications and approved them at a rate of 20 per week–unlikely since this work already occupies “meaningful amounts of time every day” for the governor’s staff–only about 1,000 people annually would be able to regain their voting rights. That’s less than 2 percent of the estimated 57,000 Iowans who have been disenfranchised since January 2011. Thousands more join their ranks every year. So much for an “efficient and convenient” restoration process.

Three paths are available to bring Iowa in line with how most states approach voting rights for people with felony convictions.

If the Iowa politics rumor mill can be believed, State Senator Rick Bertrand has been telling constituents for some time that he will not seek a third term in the legislature. Less than two weeks after losing the fourth Congressional district primary to Representative Steve King by a two to one margin, Bertrand told the Sioux City Journal’s Bret Hayworth that he is more likely to run for Congress or some other office in 2018 than for re-election.

I am skeptical.

Before digging into posts about the Iowa elections that just happened, I want note for the record that State Senator Rob Hogg would be an excellent candidate for Iowa attorney general in 2018. Though incumbent Tom Miller has not disclosed his plans, he has reportedly told many Iowa Democrats privately that he does not plan to seek a tenth (!) term. An open race for attorney general would likely bring out several Democratic candidates, possibly including Solicitor General Jeffrey Thompson and First Assistant Attorney General Kevin McCarthy, a former Iowa House majority leader. Hogg has a strong legal and public policy background, having clerked for two federal judges, practiced law in Cedar Rapids since 2000, and served in the Iowa legislature since 2003. He can speak knowledgeably about a wide range of issues, and he now has experience running a statewide campaign.

Hogg was gracious in conceding the U.S. Senate primary race to former Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge this evening. He lost by about 8 percent of the vote against a candidate who started with much higher name recognition and was able to run television commercials during the final two weeks of the race. He was only half a percentage point behind the front-runner in Polk County.

Hogg will be up for re-election in Iowa Senate district 33 in 2018, so unlike this year, he would have to give up his seat in the legislature in order to seek higher office. I hope he will consider it. I enclose below the official bio from his Senate campaign website.

UPDATE: Several readers have suggested Hogg should run for governor in 2018. He would be a strong contender for the position too. I assume a number of Democratic state senators (Janet Petersen, Liz Mathis, Pam Jochum) will be looking at that race as well.

SECOND UPDATE: Multiple sources have contacted me to say Miller shows all signs of running for re-election in 2018. So either he has changed his mind, or sources who heard last year he was planning to retire were misinformed. In that case, many Democrats will be urging Hogg to run for governor in 2018.

I feared the worst when Governor Terry Branstad waited until the Friday before Memorial Day weekend to sign the last 30 bills from the Iowa legislature’s 2016 session. Announcing vetoes of state funding late in the week has become a hallmark of Branstad’s leadership style. If he can dump the news just before a holiday weekend, so much the better.

Republican State Senator Mark Chelgren confirmed today that he has decided not to run for Congress in Iowa’s second district. Chelgren launched his campaign against five-term Representative Dave Loebsack last October but never filed a year-end report on fundraising and expenditures with the Federal Election Commission. I sought comment after Iowa Starting Line’s Pat Rynard reported rumors that Chelgren planned to end his Congressional bid.

Speaking by phone, Chelgren said “I do believe it is a winnable race,” but he felt the timing was wrong for his family, since his daughter is 10 years old and his son 15. “While they’re still young, I didn’t want to spend my full time fundraising and campaigning,” he explained. Based on conversations with members of Congress and other candidates, he became convinced that those activities would dominate his life if he were elected. “It’s not a question of whether or not I’m afraid to lose, at this point in my life, it’s more, what do I do if I win.” Chelgren added that he is only 48 years old and has time to think about running for Congress in the future, when his daughter is older.

Chelgren is not aware of any other Republican ready to challenge Loebsack. To appear on the GOP primary ballot this June as a candidate in IA-02, a Republican would need to submit nominating petitions with at least 1,562 signatures from a minimum of twelve counties in the district by Friday, March 18. Chelgren suggested that a candidate may be nominated at the upcoming second district Republican convention in April.

The 24 counties in IA-02 contain 160,118 active registered Democrats, 139,960 Republicans, and 180,519 no-party voters, according to the latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office. The district has a partisan voter index of D+4, meaning that voters here skewed about 4 percentage points more Democratic than voters nationally in the last two general elections. In a presidential election year, any Republican would face an uphill battle against Loebsack.

Having won his second four-year term in the Iowa Senate in 2014, Chelgren will be up for re-election to the state legislature in 2018. His seat will surely be a top target for Democrats, who have a voter registration advantage in the district that includes Ottumwa and Fairfield (map enclosed below).

MARCH 11 UPDATE: A libertarian-oriented candidate is rumored to be collecting signatures to file for the Republican primary in the second Congressional district. I do not yet have a name.

Chelgren told me yesterday that he did not have another candidate in mind but he would support any “conservative” Republican running for Congress.

Bret Hayworth had a great scoop in the Sioux City Journal this weekend: Republican State Senator Rick Bertrand is “strongly, strongly considering” a primary challenge to seven-term Representative Steve King in Iowa’s fourth Congressional district.

Part of me wants him to go for it. Part of me hopes Bertrand will put his ambition for higher office on hold until 2018.

Five-term State Representative Pat Grassley announced on Twitter this morning that he will chair the Iowa House Appropriations Committee. The previous chair, Chuck Soderberg, retired from the legislature last month. I don’t know who else lobbied Speaker-Select Linda Upmeyer for this prize committee assignment, but I will update this post if I learn more.

The grandson of U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley, Pat Grassley was first elected to the Iowa House in 2006. He chaired the House Economic Growth and Rebuild Iowa committee in 2011 and 2012 and has chaired the House Agriculture Committee since the 2013 legislative session. He represents a safe Republican district covering Grundy County and parts of Hardin and Butler counties. Grassley’s most competitive re-election bid was the 2012 Republican primary in House district 50, after redistricting pitted him against then-colleague, State Representative Annette Sweeney.

Many Iowa politics watchers expect Grassley to run for secretary of agriculture in 2018, assuming the current incumbent Bill Northey seeks the Republican nomination for governor.

OCTOBER UPDATE: Upmeyer selected three-term State Representative Lee Hein to chair the House Agriculture Committee for the 2016 legislative session. Hein had previously been one of four assistant majority leaders.  

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

All five Democratic presidential candidates appeared at the Iowa Democratic Party’s Hall of Fame dinner in Cedar Rapids on Friday night. I’ve posted below my impressions from the speeches; you can watch the videos on C-SPAN. It’s a shame the venue couldn’t accommodate more people, because lots of interested Iowa Democrats were unable to get tickets for the event.

Before the Hall of Fame dinner, I spent some time with an old friend who’s a huge Hillary Clinton supporter. Huge, as in, she didn’t take down her Hillary yard sign until the grass was long enough to need mowing in the spring of 2008. She mentioned to me that she’s relieved to see Clinton working hard this year instead of “ignoring” Iowa like last time. When I told my friend that Hillary visited Iowa more than 30 times in 2007, spending all or part of 70 days in the state, she was surprised. I’m amazed by how many Iowans have bought into the media-constructed narrative that Clinton “bombed” in the caucuses because she took the state for granted.

Ten Republican presidential candidates came to Ames on Saturday for the Family Leadership Summit organized by Bob Vander Plaats’ FAMiLY Leader organization. C-SPAN posted all of those speeches here. As usual, Donald Trump sucked up most of the oxygen in the room by questioning whether Senator John McCain had been a hero during the Vietnam War. O.Kay Henderson posted the audio at Radio Iowa. Rival presidential candidates with the exception of Ted Cruz rushed to condemn Trump’s remarks. Some of the Family Leadership Summit attendees may have been more upset by Trump’s comments about his three marriages and his admission that when he’s done something wrong, “I don’t bring God into that picture.”

Sources in northeast Iowa continue to report that former Iowa House Speaker Pat Murphy plans to announce a new campaign in the first Congressional district soon, despite signals that prominent Democrats in Iowa and Washington want Cedar Rapids City Council member Monica Vernon to be the 2016 nominee against first-term Republican Rod Blum.

UPDATE: This morning Secretary Northey unblocked me and said the blocking had been unintentional. Glad to hear it.

Pulling together some links for a future post about how Iowans have responded to a new Environmental Protection Agency clean water rule, I checked Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey’s Twitter feed yesterday and saw this:

Northey may be the first Iowa Republican elected official to block me. Certainly he is the only statewide official ever to do so. A guy who is likely to run for governor in a couple of years might want to grow a thicker skin.

UPDATE: I learned this morning that I am unable to view Iowa House Judiciary Committee Chair Chip Baltimore’s Twitter feed. That was not the case a few months ago. He may have deleted that account; the old @ChipBaltimoreIA feed has no new tweets since 2013. I haven’t mentioned Baltimore at Bleeding Heartland in a while, but in April I did tweet a link to an unflattering story about him.

SECOND UPDATE: It seems Baltimore deleted that @chipbaltimore Twitter account.

Governor Terry Branstad is forging ahead with some major policies he didn’t campaign on last year, oblivious to concerns about the impact on Iowa’s Medicaid recipients and people served by two mental health institutions the governor wants to close.

According to Public Policy Polling’s latest Iowa survey, the governor’s plans are deeply unpopular.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack plans to move back to Iowa after President Barack Obama’s term ends, according to Radio Iowa’s summary of his remarks on Iowa Public Television’s “Iowa Press” program. Vilsack has served in Obama’s cabinet from the beginning and said he’s not interested in continuing to lead the U.S. Department of Agriculture if Hillary Clinton is elected president in 2016. He wants to move back to Iowa and might teach at a university, but he doesn’t want to become the University of Iowa’s next president. O.Kay Henderson reports that Vilsack is open to running for office again someday.

“You know, you never want to say never,” Vilsack said. After disappointing losses in 2014, the Iowa Democratic Party is in the midst of a rebuilding process and Vilsack seems personally committed to the effort. “It’s going to require a lot of work and it’s going to require all hands on deck,” Vilsack says. “And it’s going to require making sure that we are competitive and getting the message out and working in all 99 counties.”

How many Iowa Democrats would like to travel back in time two years and talk Vilsack into running for Tom Harkin’s Senate seat? There’s no doubt in my mind that even in a Republican landslide year, Vilsack could have beaten Joni Ernst. If he agreed to take her on in 2020 (a potentially tougher race because Ernst will be the incumbent), Vilsack would be nearly 70 years old.

Governor Terry Branstad came back to his old job after twelve years–would Vilsack run for governor in 2018? He would be well positioned beat Kim Reynolds or Bill Northey (who appear to be the two most likely GOP nominees), but I don’t see Vilsack going back to that job.

If Representative David Young wins re-election to Iowa’s third Congressional district in 2016, some Democrats would probaby try to recruit Vilsack to run against him in 2018. But a U.S. House seat in the minority caucus probably wouldn’t sound appealing. My best guess is that Iowans will not see Tom Vilsack’s name on a ballot again. What do you think, Bleeding Heartland readers?

While in central Iowa to cover New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s event with Dallas County Republicans this evening, Robert Costa of the Washington Post interviewed Governor Terry Branstad today. Here’s what passes for breaking news: Branstad told Costa that he is not likely to seek a seventh term in 2018 and is “grooming” Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds to succeed him.

“I’ve had the great honor and opportunity to serve the people of Iowa, and I want to do this job and do it well,” Branstad said. “Kim Reynolds would be the best choice to be the next governor.”

If Branstad serves through the end of this year, he will become the longest-serving governor in U.S. history, eclipsing George Clinton, who served 21 years as governor of New York during and after the Revolutionary War.

“I need to serve through December 14 or 15 of this year to break his record, so I’m on the way already, I just have to continue to serve one year into this term,” he said.

Branstad has been saying for a long time that he is determined to make Reynolds the next governor. Breaking with Iowa tradition of sending the lieutenant governor to events the governor can’t attend in person, he continues to bring Reynolds along to most of his public appearances. Press releases from the governor’s office continue to refer to the governor and lieutenant governor as a single unit consistently in what appears to be a branding effort to associate Reynolds’ name with Branstad’s.

I am 100 percent convinced that Branstad will resign well before his term ends in order to allow Reynolds to run for governor in 2018 as an incumbent. (I see two likely windows for the resignation, either shortly after the 2016 general election or shortly after the 2017 Iowa legislative session.) Reynolds would struggle to win a statewide Republican primary if she were not the incumbent, because she didn’t have a strong constituency within the GOP base before holding her current position. On the contrary, hardly anyone outside her Iowa Senate district had heard of Reynolds when Branstad picked her to be his running mate.

Even if Reynolds becomes governor before 2018, I doubt she will have smooth sailing in the GOP primary. Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey is likely to run for governor and will be well-funded. I expect some candidate to emerge from the social conservative wing as well.

Any relevant comments are welcome in this thread.

Governor Terry Branstad’s office announced on Thursday that Brenna Bird (whose maiden name was Findley) is stepping down as the governor’s legal counsel “to pursue opportunities in the private sector.” Her LinkedIn profile hasn’t been updated yet, so it’s not clear whether Bird is returning to the Des Moines-based Whitaker Hagenow law firm. She joined that firm in 2010 after leaving Representative Steve King’s staff, but did not practice much law, since she was running for Iowa attorney general full-time.

Branstad named Bird as his legal counsel shortly after the 2010 election. She appears to have influenced several of the governor’s policy choices. At one time, Branstad had supported a mandate to purchase health insurance, but soon after being inaugurated in 2011, he joined a lawsuit to overturn the federal health care reform law (a key issue in Bird’s unsuccessful attorney general campaign). Branstad’s legal counsel also appears to have helped convince Branstad to change his position on banning lead shot for hunting mourning doves in Iowa. When the state legislature refused to overturn a rule mandating non-toxic ammunition, Bird worked several angles to overturn a rule adopted by the state Natural Resource Commission.

Bird’s work as legal counsel has also gotten the Branstad administration involved in some major litigation. In 2011, she participated in efforts to pressure Iowa’s Workers Compensation Commissioner to resign before the end of his fixed term. As a result, she and the governor, along with other former staffers, are co-defendants in a lawsuit filed by the former workers’ compensation commissioner.

In 2013, Bird was a key contact for Iowans seeking to ban the use of telemedicine for providing medical abortions in Planned Parenthood clinics. As the Iowa Board of Medicine considered a new rule containing verbatim wording from anti-abortion activists, the state Attorney General’s Office “cautioned the board against moving so quickly.” But as the governor’s counsel, Bird encouraged board members to adopt the telemedicine abortion ban immediately. Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit challenging that rule is pending with the Iowa Supreme Court.

Bird may be leaving the public sector for now, but I suspect Iowans will see her name on a ballot before too long. She reportedly considered running for Congress last year in Iowa’s third district and has served on the Republican Party of Iowa’s State Central Committee since last June. I could easily see Bird running for a Republican-leaning Iowa House or Senate seat if one were to open up in central Iowa. Alternatively, she and 2014 attorney general nominee Adam Gregg (now Iowa’s state public defender) are likely GOP candidates for attorney general in 2018.

Any relevant comments are welcome in this thread. After the jump I’ve enclosed a press release on Bird’s departure from the governor’s staff, with background on Michael Bousselot, her successor as legal counsel.  

Earlier today the Iowa Democratic Party’s State Central Committee selected Dr. Andy McGuire to lead the party for the next two years. McGuire was the favorite going into the election and won on the third ballot against Kurt Meyer. Another candidate for state chair, former Congressional candidate Jim Mowrer, then ran for first vice chair and was elected on the first ballot.

Dr. McGuire has been active in Iowa Democratic politics for more than 20 years, since working on her sister-in-law Sheila McGuire’s 1994 Congressional campaign in Iowa’s fifth district. (Sheila McGuire later served as state party chair for a term.) In the political world, Andy McGuire is best-known for being Mike Blouin’s running mate during the 2006 Democratic primary for governor. The pro-choice mother of seven helped balance the ticket, as many Democratic activists were concerned about Blouin’s stance on abortion rights.

In recent years, McGuire has often been mentioned as a possible Congressional candidate, but she ruled out running in Iowa’s third district in 2016 if elected to lead the party. Many central Iowa Democrats expect her to run for governor in 2018.

Although I favored one of the other candidates, McGuire brings a lot to the table as a state party leader. My first thoughts on the pros and cons of her election are after the jump.  

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

Did anyone get any noteworthy holiday greetings from politicians this year? It was bittersweet to open Tom Harkin’s final holiday card as a U.S. senator. My family also received a card with a lovely photo of Monica Vernon, her husband, and their three daughters. A Cedar Rapids City Council member, Vernon accepted this year’s Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor shortly after being runner-up in the first Congressional district primary. I assume her holiday greeting went out to everyone who donated to Jack Hatch’s campaign for governor, since I did not contribute to Vernon’s Congressional effort. I expect Vernon to run for Congress again in 2016, although she might be angling to run for governor in 2018 instead. First-term Representative Rod Blum should be vulnerable in IA-01 when he has to face a presidential-year electorate.

Earlier this month, President Barack Obama turned a typical holiday photo-op into a teaching moment when he and First Lady Michelle Obama delivered gifts to the U.S. Marine Corps’ Toys for Tots campaign.

The President started putting the sports and the science toys into the ‘girls’ bin.  Placing a basketball into the bin, Obama says:

“I just wanna make sure some girls play some ball.”

A person from the crowd queries his decision to put legos in the girls, rather than the boys collection – because they might not like them.  The President responds:

“Girls don’t like toys?”

As he continues to sort, he comes across a T-Ball set.

“T-Ball? Girls like T-Ball” and nodding, puts the set in the girls’ bin.  The crowd is snapping photos, with some looking a little confused and he adds. “I’m just trying to break down these gender stereotypes.”

I love it. Girls shouldn’t be limited to the toys specially marketed to them and their parents (dolls, beauty products, and legos in pink and purple hues).

Obama caused a stir in the White House press corps when he called on eight women and no men at his final press conference this year. The move was not a coincidence:

“The fact is, there are many women from a variety of news organizations who day-in and day-out do the hard work of covering the president of the United States,” [White House press secretary Josh] Earnest said. “As the questioner list started to come together, we realized that we had a unique opportunity to highlight the fact at the president’s closely watched, end-of-the-year news conference.”

Governor Terry Branstad has often appointed unsuccessful Republican candidates to state positions, and this week he named Adam Gregg, the GOP nominee for Iowa attorney general, to be Iowa State Public Defender. I’ve enclosed the press release after the jump. It contains background on Gregg, who worked as a staffer in the governor’s office before running against longtime Democratic incumbent Tom Miller. I don’t anticipate Gregg having any trouble being confirmed by the Iowa Senate.

The Des Moines rumor mill says Miller will retire at the end of his ninth term as attorney general. An race for that position would likely attract many candidates in both parties. I expect Gregg to seek the office in 2018, along with Branstad’s legal counsel Brenna Findley, who was the GOP challenger to Miller in 2010. Several Republicans in the Iowa House or Senate might give this race a look, especially if there are no open Congressional seats on the horizon.

For those wondering whether Gregg or Findley performed better against Miller, the answer depends on how you look at it. Both of the challengers raised quite a bit of money for first-time candidates seeking a statewide office. Gregg raised $191,359 in his first month and a half as a candidate, then nearly another $200,000 before the election; see here and here. Findley also raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for her 2010 race; see here, here, and here.

Both Gregg and Findley campaigned energetically around the state, visiting all 99 counties and attending hundreds of public events. In 2010, when total turnout was 1,133,429 for the midterm election, Miller received 607,779 votes to 486,057 for Findley (there were a smattering of write-ins and 38,605 “under votes,” meaning voters left that part of the ballot blank).

This year total turnout was a bit higher at 1,142,226, and Miller received 616,711 votes to 481,046 for Gregg (there were more write-ins and 43,016 under votes).

So Findley received a slightly higher share of the two-party vote, but she also had way more help. Branstad talked up her campaign all year and appeared in one of her television commercials. She was able to run far more radio and tv ads statewide, thanks to more than half a million dollars in transfers from the Republican Party of Iowa. Gregg didn’t get anything like that kind of assistance or exposure, so arguably he got more bang for his campaign bucks.

I’m intrigued that an ambitious young conservative politician wanted to serve as the state public defender. It’s an important job, and I hope Gregg does it well. Some of my favorite people have worked as public defenders. But there’s no getting around the fact that his office will be defending some unsavory characters. The job is risky in that next time Gregg is a candidate for public office, rivals could run “Willie Horton” ads against him highlighting onetime clients who committed horrible crimes.

All topics are welcome in this open thread. I’d like to hear from Bleeding Heartland readers about the next race for Iowa governor. Winning that election needs to be a top priority for Iowa Democrats.

I remain 100 percent convinced that Terry Branstad will not serve out his entire sixth term. By the end of 2015, he will have set a record as the longest-serving governor in U.S. history. He is committed to “grooming” Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds to be the next governor. But Reynolds was almost unknown when Branstad selected her as his running mate. She had only two years of experience in the state legislature, all of it in the Iowa Senate minority. Before that, she had a long tenure as the Clarke County treasurer, a job that doesn’t allow politicians to build up a profile outside their home county.

Since Reynolds has no constituency in the Republican base, I find it hard to imagine she could win the nomination for governor campaigning from her current job. However, if she has a year or more under her belt as governor by the spring of 2018, she might have a fighting chance in the GOP primary. Even then, I don’t think other Republicans would give her a pass. Plenty of people have ambitions to succeed Branstad. I’ll be surprised if Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey doesn’t run for governor during the next cycle.

On the Democratic side, several state lawmakers could be credible candidates for governor. Iowa Senate President Pam Jochum considered it this past cycle but opted out for family reasons. I hope Jochum will take the plunge in 2018, as she would be a great candidate and a fantastic governor. State Senators Janet Petersen and Rob Hogg would also be excellent leaders and will probably also give this race a look.

UPDATE: Two-time candidate for secretary of state Jake Porter is considering a gubernatorial bid on the Libertarian ticket and sees both outgoing Secretary of State Matt Schultz and newly-elected Secretary of State Paul Pate as likely Republican candidates. Pate sought the GOP nomination for governor in 1998 after one term in the secretary of state’s office, so he could easily do that again. I find it hard to believe that the Madison County attorney position will give Schultz a good launching pad for a gubernatorial campaign, but anything is possible.

Porter also mentioned State Treasurer Mike Fitzgerald as a possible Democratic candidate. Fitzgerald considered running for governor in 2013.

SECOND UPDATE: Lots of names being floated in the comments: Bob Vander Plaats, Iowa House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, State Representative Peter Cownie, and State Senator Amy Sinclair on the Republican side; newly elected State Senator Chaz Allen or State Representative Nancy Dunkel on the Democratic side.

Erin Murphy, who covers Iowa politics for Lee Enterprises newspapers, has predicted a matchup between Jochum and Reynolds in 2018. I like Jochum’s odds there, a lot.

Associated Press reporter Ryan Foley reports that Republican strategists are “keeping a close eye” on Chaz Allen. I wonder whether that may be wishful thinking on their part, as they appear to have no chance of winning Iowa Senate district 15 as long as Allen is around. I think 2018 would be a little early for him to run for governor.

I should also mention that incoming U.S. Senator Joni Ernst will probably go all-in for Reynolds in the 2018 primary. Reynolds helped to recruit Ernst for the Iowa Senate and later for the U.S. Senate race.

THIRD UPDATE: Some Iowa politics-watchers expect State Senator Liz Mathis to run for governor in 2018. I don’t think she would run against Petersen or Jochum in a primary, though, and I consider either of them more likely to run than Mathis.

Governor Terry Branstad’s legal counsel Brenna Findley told the Des Moines Register yesterday that she has decided not to run for Congress in the open third district. She indicated that she plans to continue her work in the governor’s office and teach a course at the University of Iowa law school.

I would guess that the early conservative endorsements for Matt Schultz were in part intended to deter Findley from entering the GOP primary in IA-03. Not only was she seriously considering the race, the National Republican Congressional Committee had reserved the domain name BrennaFindleyforCongress.com. Findley has strong conservative credentials as a product of homeschooling and a longtime staffer for Representative Steve King before running for Iowa attorney general in 2010. She has repeatedly spoken out against illegal immigration and the mandate to purchase individual health insurance. She has arguably helped steer the Branstad administration’s policies to the right on abortion and gun-related issues.

Although Findley won’t run for Congress or statewide office this year, I expect Iowans will see her name on a ballot again sometime before the end of this decade. We may have an open race for attorney general in 2018 if Tom Miller decides to call it quits after nine terms.  

Governor Terry Branstad confirmed on Iowa Public Television this weekend that he wants Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds to succeed him in office.

Although he added that it’s “his intention” to serve an entire sixth term if re-elected this year, his comments are not likely to persuade skeptics (including me) who believe that he would resign early to give Reynolds a chance to run as an incumbent governor in 2018. I explain why after the jump, following a video clip and partial transcript of Branstad’s remarks.