Industry-funded groups have recently spent more than a million dollars on television and online advertising in Iowa opposing Democratic plans to expand access to health insurance.

Some ads primarily focus on single-payer plans (often known as Medicare for All), which more than half a dozen presidential candidates are supporting. But Partnership for America’s Health Care Future has used its hundreds of thousands of dollars in the Des Moines market targeting more modest proposals to offer a “public option” on exchanges selling private health insurance policies.

Many central Iowa Democratic activists were surprised and upset to see Loretta Sieman, a longtime West Des Moines city council member, in one of the partnership’s commercials. Sieman spoke to Bleeding Heartland on September 11 about why she opposes the public option and why she agreed to appear in the ad, now in heavy rotation on YouTube as well as Des Moines broadcast and cable stations.

First disclaimer: I don’t agree with the Democratic National Committee’s debate criteria and encourage Iowans to keep listening to all the presidential candidates.

Second disclaimer: I doubt anything that happens more than four months before anyone votes will significantly affect the battle for the Democratic nomination. As Dan Guild has shown, history tells us more than half of Iowa Democrats who participated in the 2004 and 2008 caucuses decided in the final month.

That said, here are my thoughts on last night’s three-hour debate at Texas Southern University in Houston.

Four Democrats recently ended their presidential bids, after it became clear they would not qualify for tonight’s televised debate from Houston.

But more than half a dozen candidates who weren’t on stage tonight continue to actively campaign in Iowa. Several prominent Iowa Democrats are encouraging them to stay in the race and not let the Democratic National Committee narrow the field by default.

North Carolina Republican lawmakers have a history of behaving like “banana republic” autocrats, canceling primary elections they couldn’t rig and attempting to limit the authority of the governor and Supreme Court after GOP candidates lost last year’s elections for those offices.

Today Republican leaders of the North Carolina House pulled something new out of their bag of reprehensible tricks. They called a surprise vote to override Governor Roy Cooper’s veto of the state budget while many Democratic colleagues were absent from the chamber for a 9/11 remembrance event or committee hearings.

I doubt Iowa House Speaker Linda Upmeyer would stoop so low. But even if she wanted to, she could not attempt this gambit here.

Art Small is an economist and data scientist who grew up in Iowa and is currently based in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is volunteering through Tech for Campaigns on a state legislative race in Virginia. -promoted by Laura Belin

Knowledgeable observers increasingly see the Iowa House as a likely battleground in the 2020 election cycle. In yet another sign that control of the chamber will be in play next year, Tech for Campaigns, a national group that funnels volunteers with digital skills to support Democratic candidates, today announced that the effort to flip the Iowa House has made it on the group’s “priority list” for the 2020 election cycle.

Following gains last November and Andy McKean’s party switch in April, Democrats need a net pick-up of just four seats to flip the chamber blue.

In a departure from past practice, the Republican National Committee no longer shares information about President Donald Trump’s standing in states or Congressional districts with other Republican committees or candidates, ProPublica and the Texas Monthly reported today.

That could become a problem for down-ballot GOP candidates, especially the contenders hoping to flip three Democratic-held Congressional districts in Iowa.

Former State Senator Jack Hatch appears to be seriously considering a campaign for mayor of Des Moines.

In recent days, numerous Democrats living in the capital city have received a lengthy telephone poll testing positive messages about Hatch and mostly negative messages about Mayor Frank Cownie, a four-term incumbent who has held the position since 2004.

Hatch did not immediately respond to a phone call and e-mail seeking comment on his plans and whether he commissioned the poll. I’ve paraphrased the questions below, based on detailed notes from a source who took the survey on September 9, and will update this post as needed when Hatch makes his intentions clear.

“Our 2020 caucus plans remain unchanged,” Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Jeff Kaufmann confirmed on September 6, amid news that state parties in South Carolina, Nevada, Arizona, and Kansas will not hold presidential primaries or caucuses next year.

I wouldn’t bet the farm on the traditional straw poll happening at GOP precinct caucuses on February 3, 2020.

Urbandale Mayor Bob Andeweg recently changed his party registration and will manage Democratic State Representative John Forbes’ 2020 campaign in Iowa House district 40.

Speaking at a fundraiser for Forbes in Lions Park on September 7, Andeweg said he’s “been a Republican my whole life.” Because he believes in nonpartisan local government, he has rarely spoken publicly about his party affiliation as mayor since 2005 or on the city council prior to that. Regarding his party switch, Andeweg said, “I truly believe this is where I need to be at this point in time.”

He and Forbes have been friendly since the early 1990s, and Forbes managed Andeweg’s first campaign for city council in 1999. He fell short in that effort but was later appointed to fill a vacancy, then won his next city council race and subsequently four terms as mayor. The two men “worked well together” when Forbes served on the city council, and Andeweg praised Forbes’ ability to get things done in a Republican-controlled chamber.

For decades, Iowa Democratic Party leaders have avoided any meaningful reforms to make the Iowa caucuses more accessible, so as not to trigger objections from New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner.

The plan to expand participation in 2020 through a call-in “virtual caucus” was carefully crafted to avoid pushing any of Gardner’s buttons.

Now that the virtual caucus is officially dead, party leaders must choose one of two paths: fight for Iowans who have historically had no voice in selecting our party’s presidential nominee, or continue to put keeping the peace with New Hampshire at the top of their priority list.

A three-way Democratic primary is shaping up in what should be one of next year’s most competitive Iowa Senate races.

Kevin Warth announced his candidacy on September 4, joining a field that also includes Tom Courtney and Rex Troute.

Tom Witosky is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and was a longtime investigative reporter for the Des Moines Register. -promoted by Laura Belin

Much has been written about U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren and her most recent apology about her Native American heritage claim.

The Massachusetts senator opened her presentation at last month’s Native American presidential forum in Sioux City by acknowledging that the controversy over her claims of Cherokee heritage had caused harm.

Service cuts to Iowans with disabilities under privatized Medicaid prompted a 2017 lawsuit, became a central theme of the 2018 governor’s race, and were a featured problem in an annual report from the state ombudsman.

Yet in a meeting with advocates last week, Governor Kim Reynolds’ health policy adviser said she is unaware of major problems for patients trying to obtain essential services.

Jon Muller: The Trump administration’s two stated goals “are incompatible to the point of being mutually exclusive in a peaceful world.” -promoted by Laura Belin

There is a consensus in the U.S. that China is a bad actor. It is not so much my goal to destroy that consensus, though most of its underpinnings are based in fantasy, nationalism, and the convenient politics of fear.

Rather, this essay is a critique of current U.S. policy, and the absurdity of the disconnect between what we say we want versus what we’re asking for.

Every election cycle brings at least one or two huge upsets in an Iowa House or Senate race. The most shocking result from a 2016 Iowa legislative race was four-term incumbent State Senator Tom Courtney losing to Thomas Greene in Senate district 44. Like the five other Iowa Senate Democrats who lost their re-election bids that year, Courtney represented constituents who had favored President Barack Obama in 2012 but voted for Donald Trump four years later.

Courtney announced on August 30 that he will try to win his old job back in 2020. He’ll be heavily favored to win the Democratic nomination, but he’ll have at least one competitor in the primary: Rex Troute.

Labor Day should be about celebrating the many successes of the labor movement. The Economic Policy Institute has found, “On average, a worker covered by a union contract earns 13.2 percent more in wages than a peer with similar education, occupation, and experience in a nonunionized workplace in the same sector.20 This pay boost was even greater in earlier decades when more American workers were unionized.”

The percentage of U.S. workers represented by a labor union is lower now than at any point since World War II. That trend is among the factors contributing to income inequality not seen in this country since the 1920s.

Labor Day traditionally marks the beginning of the most intense phase of campaigning in election years. This holiday is also a good time to review the state of play in races for federal offices in odd-numbered years. Though new candidates could emerge at any time before Iowa’s March 2020 filing deadline–Patty Judge was a late arrival to the Democratic U.S. Senate field in 2016–it’s more typical for federal candidates here to kick off their campaigns by the end of summer the year before the election.

Thanks to Iowa’s non-partisan redistricting system, all four U.S. House races here could be competitive in 2020, and our Senate race is on the map–in contrast to 2016, when Senator Chuck Grassley’s re-election was almost a foregone conclusion.

Former Iowa Department of Human Services Director Jerry Foxhoven has filed claims of “wrongful discharge in violation of public policy” against the state of Iowa as well as against Governor Kim Reynolds, the governor’s chief of staff Sara Craig Gongol, and the governor’s senior legal counsel Sam Langholz. I enclose below the documents Foxhoven’s attorney Thomas Duff submitted to the State Appeal Board on August 29. They are consistent with Foxhoven’s earlier remarks to the media about events preceding his resignation in June.

Gwen Hope examines propaganda and media bias surrounding the El Paso and Dayton shootings as case studies that illuminate a common trend. -promoted by Laura Belin

Nearly a month has passed since the country and world was yet again shaken by news of mass shootings in the United States. The shootings were so chronologically close to each other that our survival instincts want to forever link them in our memories.

Yet the two incidents are much more different than our evolutionary psychology would have us believe. While the wounds have hardly begun healing, these recent tragedies, now twins in our social consciousness, provide perfect case studies into propaganda and the social reaction to these events.

Ninety-nine years ago this week, U.S. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified that the required three-quarters of states had ratified the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, giving women the right to vote nationwide. The date of his pronouncement, August 26, is now celebrated as Women’s Equality Day, even though suffrage was limited to white women in parts of the country for many years after 1920.

One day after the Nineteenth Amendment took effect, 77 women were among 214 residents of Black Hawk and Grundy counties who cast ballots in a local referendum on school consolidation. One of the first women to exercise their right to vote in that election was Ruth Corwin Grassley, U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley’s mother.

Some sobering facts about the bloodbath that was the 2016 election in Iowa:

Donald Trump carried eighteen state Senate districts that had voted for President Barack Obama in 2012.*

Eleven of those eighteen were even-numbered districts, which are on the Iowa ballot in presidential election years.

The four Republicans who already represented Obama/Trump districts all easily won another term in the Iowa Senate.**

But six of the seven Democratic senators up for re-election in Obama/Trump districts lost: Majority Leader Mike Gronstal (Senate district 8), Mary Jo Wilhelm (Senate district 26), Brian Schoenjahn (Senate district 32), Steve Sodders (Senate district 36), Tom Courtney (Senate district 44), and Chris Brase (Senate district 46).

With Republicans now enjoying a 32-18 majority in the upper chamber, Democrats need to win back at least a few Obama/Trump seats next year to have a realistic chance of regaining Iowa Senate control after the next round of redistricting.

Democrats have been actively campaigning in Senate districts 8 and 44 for some time. Now GOP State Senator Jeff Edler has a strong challenger in Senate district 36.

Leaders of the Hy-Vee corporation told local Democrats on August 26 that the grocery store chain’s political action committee will donate $25,000 to the Iowa Democratic Party, according to Polk County Democrats chair Sean Bagniewski.

A fourth Democrat officially entered the U.S. Senate primary this morning. Retired three-star Admiral Mike Franken introduced himself to voters by recalling his opposition to the Iraq War nearly seventeen years ago.

All three Democrats representing Iowa in the U.S. House are now among 204 co-sponsors of a bill that would ban numerous forms of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

H.R. 1296 is modeled on the assault weapons ban that was in effect from 1994 to 2004. It would prohibit the sale, manufacture, transfer, or possession of a wide range of semiautomatic weapons, including AK, AR, Thompson, and Uzi models, which have been used in various mass shootings. The bill would apply to shotguns with revolving cylinders or grenade launchers, as well as to any “semiautomatic pistol with a fixed magazine that has the capacity to accept more than 10 rounds.”

The bill would grandfather in any assault weapons lawfully possessed prior to its date of enactment.

The Iowa Democratic Party’s plan to allow Iowans to participate in the 2020 caucuses by phone is in doubt, due to concerns hackers could compromise the system.

Josh Putnam, who runs the Frontloading HQ website, was first to report on Twitter that the Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee did not find Iowa’s proposed rules package to be in conditional compliance during an August 22 meeting. Putnam tweeted on August 23 that “cybersecurity concerns” prompted the delay for Iowa, as well as for Alaska and Nevada, which also have proposed “online components” for their 2020 caucuses.

Bloomberg’s Tyler Pager shed more light on the subject in an August 24 scoop:

Governor Kim Reynolds promised during last year’s campaign to resume weekly press conferences if elected. But 34 weeks into 2019, the governor has held only fourteen press conferences this year.

In addition, the governor’s office has not posted video of Reynolds answering questions from journalists on any publicly accessible platform since December. That’s a departure from past practice.

Hy-Vee executives decided not to sponsor one of this year’s largest Iowa Democratic events, a few months after the grocery store chain’s political action committee made a $25,000 donation to the Republican Party of Iowa in connection with a fundraiser headlined by President Donald Trump.

Republicans have recruited a strong candidate for what should be one of the top-targeted Iowa House races in 2020.

Before State Representative Andy McKean switched parties in April, he had served in the Iowa legislature for 27 sessions as a Republican. Now House district 58 is the reddest Iowa House seat currently represented by a Democrat.

GOP officials hope Dr. Steve Bradley, a dentist in the area, will prevail among Iowans who heavily favored Donald Trump and Governor Kim Reynolds in the last two elections. Next year’s race in House district 58 will be a fascinating test of whether voters’ growing affinity to Republicans matters more than their longtime support for McKean.

Randy Richardson found that Iowa teacher pay is lagging further behind salaries for principals and superintendents. The growing disparity “should be a cause for concern,” he argues. -promoted by Laura Belin

The Economic Policy Institute released a report on August 14 detailing the huge wage gap between CEOs and their employees. That report focused on private sector workers and their bosses.

Since local school districts are among the largest employers in Iowa, I thought it would be worthwhile to compare the salaries of school district administrators and teachers.

Local government elections in the western suburbs of Des Moines have often been sleepy affairs, with (mostly Republican) incumbents repeatedly coasting to re-election.

But big change is coming in two large suburbs, as every Republican city council member in Urbandale and West Des Moines has decided not to seek another term this November.

When U.S. Representative Steve King thinks out loud, national headlines often follow.

The Des Moines Register’s Robin Opsahl was first to report on King’s musings at the August 14 Westside Conservative Club breakfast in Urbandale.

“What if we went back through all the family trees and just pulled those people out that were products of rape and incest? Would there be any population of the world left if we did that?” […]

“Considering all the wars and all the rapes and pillages taken place and whatever happened to culture after society? I know I can’t certify that I’m not a part of a product of that.”

To many, the comments seem indefensible. But I suspect many conservative Republicans in Iowa approve of King’s uncompromising stance on abortion, even if they don’t like how he talked about the issue.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee put up a billboard on a busy Des Moines street this week, seeming to attack Democrat Kimberly Graham. It’s part of a strategy to elevate the profiles of “lower-tier candidates” for U.S. Senate in states including North Carolina, Maine, Colorado, and Georgia, Nathan Gonzales reported for Roll Call on August 14.

Governor Kim Reynolds’ office requested and received a $200,000 budget increase for the current fiscal year, telling key Republican lawmakers the funding would cover health and tax policy analysts. Both positions have now been filled.

Fifteen months before the 2020 election, Democrats have at least one declared candidate in each of the four most vulnerable Republican-held Iowa Senate districts. That’s good news for a party that needs to start making up ground in the upper chamber, where Republicans hold 32 of the 50 seats.

Bleeding Heartland will publish a fuller review of the Iowa Senate landscape (comparable to this first look at 2020 state House races) when the field is set in more competitive districts. For now, here’s where things stand in the top Democratic targets:

“Now these are shirts!”, Governor Kim Reynolds posted on her political Facebook page on August 12, next to a picture of herself with two Iowa State Fair-goers.

The shirts she found appealing sent a clear message: real Americans and military service members are Christians.

Twenty Democratic presidential contenders and Congressional candidate J.D. Scholten spoke to an excited, beyond-capacity crowd at the Iowa Democratic Wing Ding on August 9. I love everything about this annual fundraiser in Clear Lake’s historic Surf Ballroom, except for the lack of Wi-Fi service.

C-SPAN posted all of the five-minute presidential candidate speeches with closed captioning transcripts, and the complete video from the evening is available on the Fox 10 Phoenix YouTube page. Mike Dec of the Blog4President website published photo galleries of all the speakers.

I left the Wing Ding with the same takeaways that have crossed my mind after almost every political event I’ve attended this year.

Eight weeks ago, two voting rights organizations warned Secretary of State Paul Pate that “Iowa’s voter list maintenance practices are arbitrary and unlawful.” They offered to work with his staff to bring Iowa into compliance with federal and state law, Jason Clayworth reported for the Des Moines Register on August 7.

Pate didn’t even acknowledge their letter.

Linn County Supervisor Stacey Walker has ruled out running for U.S. Senate in 2020, he announced in a post published on his website on August 8. He made the “quite difficult decision” mainly because the Democratic primary “was already heavily skewed in favor of one candidate.”

I’ve read a lot of statements by politicians bowing out of a campaign. Few have spoken as frankly about their reasons as Walker.

Dale Alison was managing editor at The Hawk Eye for 27 years before being laid off in 2017, shortly after GateHouse Media bought the Burlington newspaper. -promoted by Laura Belin

Iowans should be concerned that Gannett, owner of the newspaper they’re supposed to depend upon, has been swallowed by the smaller, lesser-known GateHouse Media.

Though the new company will adopt the Gannett brand (let’s call it new Gannett, compared to old Gannett), its DNA is certain to be GateHouse through and through. Despite what’s stated in company press releases, the company’s lineage is littered with bankruptcies, antiquated technology and deep staff cuts, particularly on the news side. The old Gannett had its own reputation for cost-cutting, but it was founded by a newspaperman, Frank Gannett, interested in covering his Upstate New York community. GateHouse was created by a Wall Street private equity fund only to make money.

The Libertarian Party of Iowa and its prospective candidate for U.S. Senate in 2020 have filed a federal lawsuit charging that a new law violates their “violates fundamental voting and associational rights,” as well as equal protection guarantees, by requiring candidates from minor political parties to file nominating papers in mid-March, when Democratic or Republican candidates could qualify for the general election ballot as late as August.

Previous court rulings indicate they have a strong case.