President Barack Obama will finally have an opportunity to sign a five-year Farm Bill into law. The U.S. House approved the conference committee report today by 251 votes to 166, and the U.S. Senate is expected to approve the deal this week. The House roll call shows an unusual partisan split. Iowa’s four representatives were all among the 162 Republicans and 89 Democrats who voted for the final deal. But 63 House Republicans and 103 Democrats voted no, a mixture of conservatives who objected to spending in the $956 billion bill and liberals who opposed cuts to nutrition programs.

Although 41 representatives and senators served on the conference committee (including Senator Tom Harkin and Representative Steve King), the four top-ranking members of House and Senate Agriculture Committees hashed out the final details. King’s controversial amendment aimed at California’s egg regulations was left on the cutting room floor.

After the jump I’ve posted several takes on the farm bill’s key provisions and comments from the Iowa delegation.  

President Barack Obama addresses both houses of Congress tonight. The big policy news will be a new executive order requiring federal contractors to pay workers hourly wages of at least $10.10. The move could affect hundreds of thousands of workers. Last year the president proposed increasing the federal minimum wage to $9.00 per hour, but Senator Tom Harkin and other liberal Democrats argued for raising the wage to $10.10. Obama indicated his support for that wage level in November.

I will update this post later with highlights from tonight’s speech and reaction from Iowa’s Congressional delegation. Meanwhile, this thread is for any comments about the substance or the politics of the State of the Union address.

On a related note, I hope Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is right about the president refusing to negotiate with Congressional Republicans over raising the debt ceiling.

UPDATE: Click here for the full transcript of the president’s speech, as prepared. I’ve added some Iowa reaction after the jump.

Yesterday the U.S. Senate easily approved the omnibus budget bill funding most of the federal government through September 30. Like all of the Democrats present, Iowa’s Tom Harkin voted for ending debate on the budget bill and for the bill itself. Both passed by 72 votes to 26 (roll call). Although quite a few Republicans supported the omnibus bill, Senator Chuck Grassley was among the 26 GOP senators who voted no on cloture and on final passage. After the jump I’ve posted Harkin’s floor statement explaining his reasons for backing the bill, along with Grassley’s comment on his no vote.

On Wednesday three of Iowa’s four representatives in the House voted for the omnibus budget bill.

The Hill’s Erik Wasson posted a good analysis of winners and losers from the deal, which eliminates any risk of a federal government shutdown before October 1. He noted,

The omnibus makes it easier for [House Agriculture Committee Chair Frank] Lucas to pass a farm bill. Western members wanted the omnibus to reinstate funding for the Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) program that sends money to local governments in areas where the federal government owns most of the land, thereby limiting property tax revenue. House leaders promised this would be taken care of in the farm bill and Lucas was all too happy to comply, knowing this adds momentum to passing the farm bill in late January.

Harkin and Representative Steve King (IA-04) both serve on the conference committee working on a long-term Farm Bill.  

Today the U.S. Senate confirmed Janet Yellen to be the first woman to chair the Federal Reserve. All of the Democrats present, including Iowa’s Tom Harkin, voted for the cloture motion on Yellen’s nomination in December. All of the Democrats present on January 6 voted to confirm her, joined by eleven Republicans. Incidentally, only 59 senators voted for cloture, which would have sunk Yellen under old Senate rules. Senate Democrats removed the 60-vote requirement for motions on presidential nominations in November.

Although a sizable group of Republicans voted to confirm Yellen, most of the Senate GOP caucus opposed her nomination, including Iowa’s Chuck Grassley. In a floor statement I’ve posted after the jump, Grassley said he could not support her nomination because he is concerned the Federal Reserve’s “easy money” policies are “misguided” and will lead to high inflation. Yellen is widely considered an “inflation dove” who is willing to balance the Fed’s longstanding concern for keeping inflation down with a focus on reducing unemployment.

UPDATE: Corrected to clarify that the cloture vote on Yellen happened before the holiday recess. Grassley was among the 26 Republicans who voted no on Yellen’s confirmation. Harkin was absent for the final vote on Yellen on January 6, as were many other senators because of the extreme winter weather.

Former State Representative Bob Krause announced on Facebook a few minutes ago that he is withdrawing from the Iowa governor’s race after exploring a candidacy for most of 2013. He has endorsed State Senator Jack Hatch in the Democratic primary and plans to “act as a surrogate speaker and policy advisor to the Hatch campaign,” specifically helping with outreach to veterans and labor unions.

Krause also announced that he plans to run against U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley in 2016. He was one of three Democrats who challenged Grassley in 2010 and finished second in the primary with just under 13 percent of the vote. He urged Iowa Democrats “to give me the same clean shot at defeating a sitting incumbent as I am giving Jack Hatch.” I’ve posted excerpts from Krause’s Facebook post after the jump.

Krause has long been an advocate for veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, and/or military sexual trauma. This weekend he is organizing a workshop in Urbandale on responding to military sexual trauma.  

In a departure from the usual brinksmanship over funding the federal government, the U.S. Senate approved yesterday the recent bipartisan budget deal. Senate Budget Committee Chair Patty Murray and House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan worked out a compromise on overall budget targets for fiscal years 2014 and 2015, replacing some of the “sequester” cuts that went into effect earlier this year. The deal passed the House last week with strong bipartisan support, including three of Iowa’s four representatives.

Senate Republicans were less supportive of the budget agreement than House GOP members, but nine Republicans crossed over to vote with the entire Democratic caucus, approving the deal by 64 votes to 36 (roll call). Iowa’s Senator Chuck Grassley was one of the 36 Republicans who voted no, along with possible future presidential candidates Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Rand Paul. I have not seen any statement from Grassley’s office explaining that vote but will update this post as needed. UPDATE: Added a few comments from Grassley.

President Barack Obama will sign off on this agreement, but Congress still needs to pass an omnibus budget bill before January 15 to avoid another government shutdown. After the jump I’ve posted a statement from Senator Tom Harkin supporting the deal, as well as details on why some conservatives oppose this deal.

Republicans are preventing the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee from conducting routine business in retaliation for last month’s rules reform that limited the Senate minority’s power to filibuster presidential nominations. Iowa’s Senator Chuck Grassley is the ranking Republican on Judiciary and a vocal critic of what he called a “power grab” that stopped Republicans from demanding a 60-vote majority on almost every Senate action. Yesterday Judiciary Committee Chair Patrick Leahy criticized “obstruction” by his Republican colleagues, who boycotted an executive meeting to consider eighteen nominations last week and “invoked procedural tactics” to scuttle a hearing on five U.S. District Court nominees, which had been scheduled for December 18. Leahy warned that he may “reconsider long-held policies that have upheld the rights of the minority party” in committee matters.

Leahy’s statement is enclosed after the jump, along with Grassley’s response. He denied that Republicans have obstructed judicial nominations and said it would inevitably be “harder to get things done” after “Democrats broke the rules to change the rules.”

An October 2013 report by the Alliance for Justice found that “‘Pervasive and surreptitious’ obstruction of President [Barack] Obama’s judicial nominees is prolonging an ‘unprecedented vacancy crisis’ in America’s federal courts.” You can find that full report here. I’ve posted a few excerpts below.

UPDATE: Added a December 19 Judiciary Committee floor statement from Grassley on “so-called obstruction.”

The U.S. Senate continued to move forward last week on more of President Barack Obama’s stalled nominees. Since Bleeding Heartland posted this update last Tuesday, four U.S. district court judge nominations and five more executive branch nominations advanced to the Senate floor under new rules that do not require 60 votes for a cloture motion. You can find links to all the roll calls here.

All of the Democrats, including Iowa’s Tom Harkin, voted for cloture every time and to confirm all of the nominees. Almost all of Republicans, including Iowa’s Chuck Grassley, voted against every cloture motion. Each judge was then confirmed by much larger majorities of at least 70 senators. Grassley voted for confirming Elizabeth A. Wolford as a judge for the Western District of New York, Landya B. McCafferty for the District of New Hampshire, and Brian Morris and Susan P. Watters, both for judgeships in the District of Montana. As a general rule, even before filibuster reform, district court judicial nominees have moved through the Senate confirmation process more easily than U.S. appeals court nominees.

The executive branch nominees considered last week were Rachel Feldblum to be a member of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Patricia M. Wald to be a member of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, Deborah Lee James to be Secretary of the Air Force, Heather Higginbottom to be deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources, and Anne W. Patterson to be an Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs. Grassley voted against the cloture motions on all of those nominations. When the Senate considered the nominations themselves, Grassley voted against confirming Feldblum and Wald but for confirming James and Higginbottom. The final vote on Patterson’s nomination will take place this week.

I didn’t see any public comments from Harkin or Grassley regarding the latest confirmation votes. Last week, Grassley again objected strongly to the Senate rules reform as a “power grab” and “erosion of the separation of powers” in order to “remove a meaningful judicial check on the executive branch of government and its agenda.”

In its first confirmation votes since changing U.S. Senate rules on the filibuster, a majority of senators voted today to confirm Patricia Millett as a judge on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Millett was one of three nominees for that court blocked by Senate Republicans this fall. Iowa’s Chuck Grassley, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has argued that the D.C. Circuit does not need more than eight judges and strongly objected to new limits on the filibuster. But he wasn’t able to stop Senate Democrats from passing a cloture motion on Millett’s nomination shortly before the Thanksgiving recess. A last-ditch effort by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to challenge the rule change failed this morning. Then Democrats and one Republican confirmed Judge Millett by 56 votes to 38.

Later today, the Senate is expected to confirm Representative Mel Watt as Federal Housing Finance Agency director. A Republican filibuster had derailed his nomination in October. Today the Senate approved by 57 votes to 40 a cloture motion “to set up eight hours of debate on his nomination.” A final confirmation vote is scheduled for this evening.

After the jump I’ve posted excerpts from a recent commentary by Iowa’s Senator Tom Harkin, a leading advocate of filibuster reform. I’ll add comments from Harkin and Grassley on today’s votes if they become available.

UPDATE: Senators confirmed Watt by 57 votes to 41, then moved on to reconsider a cloture motion on Cornelia Pillard’s nomination to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. That motion passed by 56 votes to 42. Harkin and Grassley were on opposite sides on all of these votes. Grassley had led a successful filibuster of Pillard’s nomination in November.

SECOND UPDATE: Added Grassley’s floor statement on Millett’s nomination. He repeated his case against adding any more judges to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

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

As a major cold front and a dusting of snow covered much of Iowa in recent days, birds have been relying more on feeders. I’ve refilled ours every two or three days instead of once every ten days to two weeks. Now would be a excellent time to put out thistle seed for finches or any feeder containing a mix of birdseed.

November is the peak time for deer-vehicle collisions. The other day I was on a two-lane highway near dusk and saw a doe dart across the road, narrowly escaping a deadly encounter with trucks traveling in both directions. Of course, I thought immediately of Senator Chuck Grassley.

Pheasant season opened in late October, but bird numbers are down significantly, due to weather conditions and habitat loss. The trendlines are even worse in South Dakota.

Via the Next City blog, I saw an amazing map of the “United Watershed States of America.” Land use planner John Lavey created the map after wondering, “What if all the states were configured around principal watersheds?” In Lavey’s map, “Iowa” consists of areas feeding into the Mississippi River. Western parts of our state that feed into the Missouri River are part of “Missouri” on the map.

Speaking of watersheds, the Raccoon River Watershed Association is selling a beautiful 2014 calendar as a fundraiser ($18 per calendar or $15 each if you order at least ten). Many calendars include lovely Iowa nature photos, but to my knowledge, only this one contains detailed information about Iowa phenology. Dr. Lee Searles created the calendar with birders, native plant lovers and nature enthusiasts in mind. For instance, it notes that early warblers usually start arriving on April 8. Yellow coneflower starts opening around July 3. Northern Goshawks start to come down the Raccoon River around September 15. UPDATE: Here’s a link to the calendars.

After years of trying, Senator Tom Harkin finally got a majority of his colleagues on board with Senate rules reform. Today 52 members of the Democratic caucus voted to curtail the minority’s ability to filibuster presidential nominees. The same 52 senators then rejected Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s objection to the ruling from the chair. Just like that, Reid invoked the so-called “nuclear option,” which Republicans used to call the “constitutional option” when they flirted with the same rule change in 2006. From now on, only a simple majority of 51 votes will be needed to end debate on a judicial or executive branch nomination–not the 60 votes needed for cloture before today.

A series of Republican filibusters against nominees to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals finally pushed Reid to action. Immediately following the rules change, the Senate passed by 55 votes to 43 a cloture motion on the nomination of Patricia Millett, whom Republicans filibustered last month.

Senator Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, vehemently objected to the rules change as a “blatant power grab,” while Harkin called for more limits to filibusters that block legislation. Comments from both senators are after the jump. President Barack Obama welcomed the rules change, saying, “I realize neither party has been blameless for these tactics … But today’s pattern of obstruction just isn’t normal.” But McConnell warned Democrats, “You’ll regret this, and you may regret this a lot sooner than you think.”

UPDATE: Added more comments from both Harkin and Grassley below. Grassley warned that when his party is in the majority, they will likely remove the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees as well. For the record, Senate Democrats have never filibustered a Republican president’s Supreme Court nominee.

Republicans in the U.S. Senate again blocked a vote on one of President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees yesterday. Robert Wilkins has served on the U.S. District Court for Washington, DC since his unanimous confirmation in 2010. But a cloture motion on Wilkins’ nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit failed with just 53 votes out of the 60 needed to end debate. Iowa’s Senator Chuck Grassley is the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee and has led recent filibusters on two other nominees to the D.C. Circuit, claiming the court’s workload does not justify additional judges. In a floor statement that I’ve posted after the jump, Grassley made the same assertion but added a new twist:

There is no crisis on the D.C. Circuit, because they don’t have enough work to do as it is. […]

Even though we have a very real and very serious crisis facing this country because of Obamacare, the other side is desperately trying to divert attention to anything but the Obamacare disaster.

I’ve also posted statements below from the National Women’s Law Center and the Alliance for Justice, which again called for Senate rules reform. Nothing in the U.S. Constitution says that presidential nominees need a super-majority to be confirmed by the Senate.

UPDATE: I did not realize that Judge Wilkins filed the lawsuit against the Maryland State Police “that helped popularize the term ‘driving while black'” during the 1990s.

I’ve added some clips at the end of this post on the growing momentum for changing Senate rules to end fillibusters of judicial nominees.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread. Here are a few links to get a conversation started.

A Polk County district court ruling related to one of Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz’s pet projects called attention to the fact that Schultz was in Switzerland for the American Swiss Foundation’s 24th annual Young Leaders Conference, a weeklong event. Whether the secretary of state should attend a foreign junket like this at any time is debatable. But it’s ridiculous for him to have planned to be out of town when Iowa’s 99 county auditors were gathering in Des Moines to discuss election-related issues. The Iowa Democratic Party and the only declared Democratic candidate for secretary of state blasted Schultz. I’ve posted their comments below, along with the official defense from the Iowa Secretary of State’s spokesman.

Speaking of Schultz’s pet projects, here’s some important news from last month: the federal judge who wrote a key ruling upholding Indiana’s voter ID law now believes he got that case wrong.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced on Friday that it is proposing to alter the Renewable Fuel Standard on how much ethanol must be blended into gasoline. The announcement upset Iowa elected officials from both parties. After the jump I’ve posted statements from Governor Terry Branstad, Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds, and all of the Iowans in Congress except for Representative Tom Latham (R, IA-03), who has not commented on this issue to my knowledge.

The Associated Press reported this week on how the push to produce corn-based ethanol has damaged the environment in Iowa and elsewhere.

One last outrage: Will Potter reported for Mother Jones about a case that “could make it harder for journalists and academics to keep tabs on government agencies.” The FBI is going to court to prevent its “most prolific” Freedom of Information Act requester from accessing hundreds of thousands of pages of documents.

All four Iowans in the House of Representatives voted today for the Keep Your Health Plan Act “that allows insurance companies to offer health plans that were cancelled for not meeting new requirements under ObamaCare.” Bruce Braley (IA-01) and Dave Loebsack (IA-02) were among the 39 Democrats who crossed party lines to support the bill, joining Tom Latham (IA-03), Steve King (IA-04), and almost all the Republicans present.

Braley and Loebsack both voted for the Affordable Care Act in 2010 and have opposed most of the Republican bills to repeal the health care reform law. For instance, Iowa’s representatives split on party lines when the House voted in August a bill “to prevent the IRS from enforcing any aspect of ObamaCare,” and when the House voted in July to delay the individual mandate to purchase health insurance.

However, occasionally Braley and/or Loebsack have gone along with GOP efforts to alter the Affordable Care Act. In 2012, Loebsack voted with Republicans to repeal a 2.3 percent tax on medical device manufacturers. In July of this year, Braley joined Republicans to pass a bill delaying the employer mandate to provide health insurance for one year. (President Barack Obama had already announced his decision to delay the employer mandate, despite the financial and political costs of doing so.)

Given the media firestorm over some Americans losing the health insurance plans Obama promised they could keep, I’m not surprised Braley and Loebsack ran for cover today. Both had narrow escapes in 2010 and may face tough election campaigns in 2014.

After the jump I’ve enclosed comments from some of the Iowans in Congress on today’s vote and on the president’s administrative “fix” that may allow some people to keep insurance policies that would have been cancelled for not meeting ACA requirements. (Few Iowans need this fix, because Wellmark and most other health insurance providers were already allowing Iowans to keep their individual policies for another year.) I also enclosed details on why Obama has threatened to veto the bill that passed the House today. Senator Tom Harkin is determined to prevent it from passing the U.S. Senate.

UPDATE: Added a statement from Latham below. Also, the Koch-funded group Americans for Prosperity wasted no time in signaling that they will attack Braley on “Obamacare” regardless of this vote. I doubt he’s gained any political protection for the U.S. Senate race.

SECOND UPDATE: Added new comments from Braley.

Republicans in the U.S. Senate successfully filibustered yet another judicial appointment today. President Barack Obama had nominated Cornelia Pillard to serve on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. But a cloture motion failed to gain the 60 votes necessary under Senate rules to end debate on her nomination. Two Republicans joined all of the Democrats present, including Iowa’s Tom Harkin, to vote for cloture, but the motion still failed 56 to 41 (roll call). As with Caitlin Halligan and Patricia Millett, two other Obama nominees defeated by GOP filibusters, opponents did not even try to pretend Pillard was not qualified to serve on the court. Rather, Grassley (the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee) again claimed the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals does not have a large enough caseload to justify eleven judges.  

After the jump I’ve posted Grassley’s floor statement explaining his vote against confirming Pillard. I’ve also enclosed a statement from the Alliance for Justice, which has thoroughly debunked Grassley’s arguments about the D.C. court’s caseload. Senate Democrats made a huge mistake by not embracing Harkin’s call for filibuster reform years ago.

The White House announced yesterday that President Barack Obama has nominated Kevin W. Techau for U.S. attorney in the Northern District of Iowa, based in Cedar Rapids. He would replace Stephanie Rose, whom the U.S. Senate confirmed last year as a federal judge in the Southern District of Iowa. Senator Tom Harkin had recommended Techau for the position and welcomed the nomination in a statement I’ve posted after the jump, along with the White House press release. Both contain short bios of the nominee.

Techau should have no trouble being confirmed by the Senate. He has worked as a litigator in private practice, as a federal public defender, and most recently as an in-house attorney for an insurance company. He also has extensive management experience as director of the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals and later Commissioner of the Iowa Department of Public Safety during Tom Vilsack’s administration. Techau has lived in central Iowa for many years but grew up in Marion, a suburb of Cedar Rapids.  

Ten Republicans joined all the Democrats present as the U.S. Senate approved the Employment Non-Discrimination Act by 64 votes to 32 (roll call). Ramsey Cox reported for The Hill,

Under the bill, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission would enforce the new workplace rules. Small businesses with fewer than 15 employees would be exempt.

The legislation also contains language that exempts religious organizations.

The Senate on Thursday adopted an amendment from [Republican Rob] Portman that would prevent government retaliation against religious organizations that don’t hire someone because of sexual orientation or identity.

But Democrats rejected an amendment from [Republican Pat] Toomey that would have extended the religious exemption to any employer that is partially owned or funded by a religion or has religious affiliations – including universities.

Both Portman and Toomey voted for the bill. Iowa’s Republican Senator Chuck Grassley voted against the cloture motion to end debate on ENDA as well as against the bill itself. I have not seen any statement from Grassley’s office explaining why he opposes the bill. I will update this post if I see any new comment. House Speaker John Boehner has asserted that codifying workplace protections for LGBT Americans would generate “frivolous lawsuits” against businesses.

Iowa’s Senator Tom Harkin chairs the committee that moved this bill over the summer and has been one of its staunchest advocates. At the Iowa Democratic Party’s Jefferson-Jackson Dinner last Saturday, Senator Chuck Schumer hailed Harkin for allowing first-term Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley to be lead sponsor on the ENDA. Merkley is up for re-election in Oregon next year. After the jump I’ve posted Harkin’s floor speech from Monday’s session and a statement release after today’s vote.  

Little-known fact: the deal that ended the government shutdown in mid-October did not technically involve a Congressional vote to raise the country’s debt ceiling. Rather, it allowed President Barack Obama to suspend the debt ceiling until February 7, unless both chambers of Congress passed motions disapproving of the action. The compromise enabled Republicans to put themselves on record opposing any further increase in the debt limit without pushing the U.S. into default. As Susan Davis explained in USA Today, even if a disapproval motion cleared the House and Senate, the president “would presumably veto it, putting the burden on Congress to find veto-proof majorities to override it – a near-impossible outcome […].”

Last week both chambers considered identical disapproval resolutions, drafted by Republicans. Supporters of the resolution asserted that they were not voting for default, just trying to send a message that “We have to get our debt under control.” When the Senate considered the resolution on October 29, all 45 Republicans present voted yes, including Iowa’s Chuck Grassley. But it failed to pass as all 54 members of the Democratic caucus voted no, including Iowa’s Tom Harkin.

The House took up the resolution the following day and passed it by 222 votes to 191 (roll call). Only a few representatives crossed party lines on the vote. Iowa’s House members split as one would expect: Republicans Tom Latham (IA-03) and Steve King (IA-04) went on record against “the President’s exercise of authority to suspend the debt limit,” while Bruce Braley (IA-01) and Dave Loebsack (IA-02) opposed the resolution. I have to laugh at Latham’s faux-statesmanship, voting for the deal that averted default before turning around and voting against the presidential action that averted default.

I’m with those who would make this phony “disapproval” exercise a permanent replacement for Congressional votes to raise the debt ceiling. A symbolic gesture is a small price to pay to avoid future hostage-taking scenarios.  

Senator Tom Harkin promised Iowa Democrats Saturday night that the U.S. Senate would soon approve the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) to protect the workplace rights of LGBT Americans. Today a fifth Republican senator indicated that he will vote for the ENDA. Those five plus the 55 members of the Democratic caucus (including newly sworn-in Cory Booker of New Jersey) will give supporters the 60 votes needed to break the inevitable Republican filibuster. President Barack Obama has called on Congress to pass the law.

Passing ENDA was a priority for Senator Ted Kennedy, the longtime chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pension committee Harkin now leads. In 1996, an earlier version of this legislation fell just short of passage on the Senate floor. Harkin voted yes, while Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley voted no. In recent years, most Congressional Democrats have supported a version of ENDA that protects transgender employees as well as gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. Such a bill passed the U.S. House in 2007 but died in the Senate.

More details on the current bill’s provisions are after the jump. House Speaker John Boehner opposes ENDA and would be unlikely to put it to a vote in the lower chamber.

UPDATE: On Monday night the Senate approved a motion to proceed with debating the bill by 61 votes to 30 (roll call). Grassley was one of the 30 Republicans who attempted to filibuster. After the jump I’ve posted a video of Harkin’s floor statement supporting ENDA, which he called “another step in the direction of opening America up and making our society more inclusive rather than exclusive.”

This summer, Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Senate reached an informal deal to allow presidential nominees to be confirmed more smoothly without any new limits on the minority’s filibuster powers. The deal held for a while, allowing a bunch of stalled nominations to move forward. But filibuster reform may be back on the agenda soon, because today Republicans including Iowa’s Senator Chuck Grassley blocked the confirmation of two more presidential nominees today: Patricia Millett for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, and Representative Mel Watt to be the Federal Housing Finance Agency director. All the Senate Democrats, including Iowa’s Tom Harkin, voted for the cloture motions on the Millett and Watt nominations.

Millett is highly qualified for the judgeship, so instead of pretending to have a substantive case against her, Grassley says the D.C. Circuit doesn’t have a large enough caseload to justify more judges. That didn’t stop him or other Senate Republicans from voting to confirm all of President George W. Bush’s nominees for that court, as Judith E. Schaeffer explained in this excellent background piece on the controversy. Other analysts have discussed the many problems judicial vacancies are creating in the federal court system. As the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Grassley helps set the tone for the GOP on these confirmations.

After the jump I’ve posted Grassley’s Senate floor statement on the Millett nomination, comments from the Iowa Fair Courts Coalition, and an excerpt from Schaeffer’s post on Grassley and the D.C. Circuit. I haven’t seen any comment from Grassley on the Watt nomination but will update this post if he explains why he opposed him. According to Peter Schroeder of The Hill, “GOP lawmakers argued Watt lacked the experience to oversee Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.”

Today members of the U.S. House and Senate began conference committee negotiations on the farm bill. The last five-year farm bill expired in 2012, and the latest extension of most federal farm programs (except for some related to conservation and sustainable agriculture) lapsed on September 30. Two Iowans are on the 41-member conference committee: Democratic Senator Tom Harkin and Republican Representative Steve King (IA-04).

One issue is likely to dominate the Congressional talks: funding levels for nutrition programs, especially the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps. This summer, both Harkin and Republican Senator Chuck Grassley voted for the Senate farm bill, which cut SNAP by about $4 billion over 10 years. Iowa’s four U.S. House members split along party lines when the House approved a Republican bill with $39 billion in cuts over the same time frame. Keep in mind that regardless of what happens in the farm bill talks, all SNAP recipients–including an estimated 1 million veterans and approximately 421,000 Iowans–will see their food assistance reduced as of November 1. Click here for a detailed report on those cuts, which will occur as extra funding from the 2009 federal stimulus bill runs out.

After the jump I’ve posted the latest comments about the farm bill from Iowa politicians.

UPDATE: Added King’s opening statement from the conference committee meeting below.

SECOND UPDATE: Added new comments from Harkin.

The U.S. Senate and House voted tonight to fund the federal government through mid-January 2014 and raise the debt ceiling by enough to last until early February. Here’s the bullet-point version of the deal Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid negotiated with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. In classic Congressional fashion, senators loaded this must-pass bill with a bunch of goodies. A new House and Senate conference committee will negotiate over the federal budget for fiscal year 2014, and that committee must reach some agreement by December 13. The big sticking point will be whether to fund the government at levels approved for fiscal year 2013 before the “sequester” cuts went into effect in January.

Tonight the Senate approved the deal first by 81 votes to 18. All the Democrats, including Iowa’s Tom Harkin, and most Senate Republicans supported the deal to reopen the government. Our state’s senior Senator Chuck Grassley was one of the 18 no votes.

House Speaker John Boehner reluctantly agreed to put the bipartisan Senate agreement up for a vote on the House floor. He had wanted to bring up a different bill, but a “stunning rebuke” from GOP colleagues forced him to abandon a House vote yesterday on his latest plan.

The House approved the deal by 285 votes to 144. Every Democrat present voted yes, including Bruce Braley (IA-01) and Dave Loebsack (IA-02). Tom Latham (IA-03) was among 87 Republicans who also voted yes. Steve King (IA-04) was one of the 144 House Republicans who voted no. He has long demanded that “Obamacare” be defunded as a condition of funding the federal government, and he does not believe that the U.S. faced a real risk of default if Congress failed to raise the debt ceiling by October 17.

I enclose below some Iowa reaction to today’s events. I will update this post as needed.  

Two weeks into the partial federal government shutdown, U.S. Senate leaders appear close to a deal to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling while a new joint budget committee negotiates “a replacement for the automatic spending cuts known as sequestration.” After the jump I’ve posted details on last week’s Congressional votes related to funding the federal government and preventing a possible default.

Although Iowa is reportedly the state least affected by the shutdown, because we lack national parks and have few military facilities, thousands of Iowans in the National Guard are still without paychecks. Thousands more who receive benefits through the Women, Infants and Children nutrition program will suffer if the shutdown extends into next month, because WIC is only funded through October.

The lack of a new farm bill arguably affects more Iowans directly than the shutdown does. The latest temporary extension of federal farm programs expired on September 30. At the end of this post, I’ve included some news and comments on efforts to pass a comprehensive farm bill.

The 2014 fiscal year began at midnight. Congress is ringing in the occasion with the first partial federal government shutdown since the mid-1990s. The U.S. House and Senate have been unable to agree on a continuing spending resolution, because most House Republicans insist on defunding or delaying the 2010 health care reform law as a condition of funding most government operations.

Details on Iowa Congressional votes on budget resolutions are after the jump, along with comments from all the Iowans in Congress and many of the candidates for U.S. House or Senate.

Authorization for most federal agricultural programs also expired at midnight, and it’s not clear when Congress will be able to agree on a short-term extension or a new five-year farm bill. Toward the end of this post I’ve enclosed some comments on the failure to pass a farm bill.

U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley announced on Iowa Public Television’s “Iowa Press” program today that he plans to run for re-election again in 2016.

“I like serving Iowans. I enjoy my work. I feel very good about being able to do the job and there’s a lot to accomplish.”

Iowa’s other Senator – 73-year-old Tom Harkin, a Democrat – is currently in his fifth term and no other state has more seniority in the senate. Harkin announced this past January that he would not seek a sixth term in 2014, sparking speculation that would pressure Grassley to retire as well, but Grassley told reporters Harkin’s looming exit had the opposite effect.

“You get a lot done with seniority,” Grassley said. “I think that if Iowa is going to start over two years from now with two very junior senators, that it would hurt Iowa’s opportunity to get things done in the United States Senate.”

I have to wonder whether the race for Harkin’s seat has been weighing on Grassley’s mind. The Iowa GOP has so far produced a cluttered field of Senate candidates with low name recognition. None of the early candidates raised a significant amount of money during the second quarter of the year. The fundraising potential of State Senator Joni Ernst remains to be seen, but she comes across as programmed with her “mother, soldier, and conservative” shtick. Likely candidate Mark Jacobs can self-fund but may be dead in the shark-infested GOP primary waters with his $3,000 contribution to Arlen Specter a few months after Specter gave Democrats their 60th Senate seat. The field is so uninspiring that Bob Vander Plaats of all people is thinking about the race.

If the Iowa GOP can’t field a strong Senate candidate in a midterm election year, where turnout often favors Republicans, how would they do trying to replace Grassley in a presidential year?

Iowa’s senior senator would be 89 years old by the end of his seventh term if re-elected in 2016. Grassley ran six miles on September 17 to mark his 80th birthday this week, and also possibly to pre-empt any questions about his physical health.  

Depending on how a possible diplomatic breakthrough develops, the U.S. House and Senate may not take any vote on authorizing the use of military force in Syria. However, several members of Congress and Iowa Congressional candidates have made additional comments on the situation since last week’s news roundup. I’ve posted the latest statements about military action in Syria after the jump and will update this post as needed.

UPDATE: Added reaction to President Barack Obama’s televised address on Syria this evening.

Several members of Congress from Iowa spoke out about potential U.S. intervention in Syria last week, and Bleeding Heartland sought comment on the issue from the declared Congressional candidates. News clips and the statements I’ve received so far are after the jump. I will update this post as needed. Note: most of the comments enclosed below came before President Barack Obama confirmed on August 31 that he will seek Congressional authorization for a strike on Syria. (He never sought approval for military action in Libya two years ago and he believes he has “the authority to carry out this military action [in Syria] without specific congressional authorization”.)

I am 100 percent convinced that both the House and the Senate will approve the use of force in Syria, perhaps after revising the administration’s first draft, which “is not particularly constrained.”  

Any relevant comments are welcome in this thread. I am no expert on foreign policy or the Middle East, but my gut feeling is that military intervention will not accomplish anything good in Syria. It’s a “tall order” to “mount a limited, targeted, and effective strike that will indeed deter Assad without drawing the United States deeper into the ongoing civil war, causing unacceptable unintended consequences.” By the way, former State Department official William Polk wrote the most interesting analysis I’ve read so far about the situation there.  

Congress routinely exempts itself from federal regulations, but I didn’t realize until reading Stephen Lurie’s latest piece for The Atlantic that only 35 of the 100 U.S. senators pay their interns. Neither Senator Tom Harkin nor Senator Chuck Grassley offers any financial compensation or stipend to interns.  

The Republican Party of Iowa’s State Central Committee meetings rarely make news, but two proposals approved on August 24 could affect next year’s elections.

UPDATE: Added Governor Terry Branstad’s reaction at the end of this post.

SECOND UDPATE: Added reactions from Senator Chuck Grassley and several of the GOP candidates for U.S. Senate.

The Koch Brothers-funded group, Americans for Prosperity, is conducting a series of town halls in Iowa attacking Congressman Bruce Braley who is running for senate. They call it the “Big Government Braley” tour. The first two events, yesterday in Fort Dodge, and today in Carroll, featured Congressman Steve King. The third, on Saturday in Marshalltown, will be conducted by Sen. Chuck Grassley.

The meeting today was kicked off by AFP state director Mark Lucas. He said the greatest threat to the United States is the deficit. He also talked about cap and trade and a carbon tax as threats.

Then Lucas turned the mike over to Steve King.

What King said follows: 

Bipartisan consensus allowed a group of President Barack Obama’s nominees to be confirmed easily this week, but a Republican filibuster nearly blocked the confirmation of one federal agency head. In addition, Senator Chuck Grassley again pushed back against claims that Republicans have dragged their feet on confirming federal judges during Obama’s presidency.

Details are after the jump.

Two weeks into U.S. Senate leaders’ deal to reduce filibusters against President Barack Obama’s nominees, senators have finally confirmed three members of the National Labor Relations Board. However, Iowa’s Republican Senator Chuck Grassley is not going along with the Senate’s “new normal.”

Representative Steve King’s assertion that there are 100 drug mules for every “DREAMer” who’s a valedictorian continues to reverberate across the country. National television networks and blogs have chewed over the story, and many politicians have condemned King’s statement, including House Speaker John Boehner.

King stands by his comments and claims that the intense criticism proves he has “won the debate” over immigration policy. Yet a new poll of residents in Iowa’s fourth Congressional district suggests that King is out of step even with his own constituents.

Follow me after the jump for details on that poll and a roundup of reaction to King’s words about undocumented immigrants who entered the country as children.

The U.S. Senate confirmed two cabinet nominees today who had waited since March for an up or down vote in the chamber. The nominations moved forward thanks to a deal negotiated earlier this week. Six Republicans joined the whole Democratic caucus to pass a cloture motion ending debate on the nomination of Thomas Perez for Secretary of Labor by 60 votes to 40 (roll call). Shortly thereafter, senators confirmed Perez on a straight party-line vote of 54 to 46. Mike Memoli reported that the “Senate Historian can’t find another example” of a cabinet nominee being confirmed on a strict party-line vote. Iowa’s Democratic Senator Tom Harkin voted for cloture and confirmation; Republican Chuck Grassley voted against Perez both times. He did not support the deal designed to reduce filibusters on executive branch nominations.

Later today, senators passed a cloture motion ending debate on Gina McCarthy’s nomination to lead the Environmental Protection Agency by a more comfortable 69 to 31 margin. McCarthy was then confirmed by 59 votes to 40. Again, Harkin supported McCarthy, while Grassley voted against both cloture and her confirmation.

I will update this post if I see any comment from Iowa’s senators on the new cabinet members.

One of Representative Steve King’s top priorities this year is blocking comprehensive immigration reform in the U.S. House. A few months ago, King was concerned that House GOP leaders might cut a deal including “amnesty” for  approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants. He condemned the immigration reform bill U.S. senators approved last month with bipartisan support.

News out of Washington during the last week suggests that King’s faction may be on the way to winning their battle to block any legislation outlining a path to citizenship.  

Democrats in the U.S. Senate came closer than ever this week to stopping Republicans from forcing a supermajority vote on executive branch nominees. An informal deal deterred Democrats from changing Senate rules by simple majority vote and cleared the path for a handful of President Barack Obama’s nominees to go forward. However, more struggles over confirmations seem likely in the future.

Iowa’s Senators Tom Harkin and Chuck Grassley could hardly be further apart on the process by which the Senate gives its “advice and consent.”  

The Brennan Center for Justice released a new study today in which Alicia Bannon analyzed judicial vacancies in federal district courts. Key finding: “for the first time in 20 years, judicial vacancies averaged more than 60 vacant seats for five straight years from 2009-2013, breaking historic patterns and delaying the resolution of critical legal disputes in civil and criminal trials.” You can find the whole report on “Trial Courts in Trouble” here. After the jump I’ve posted the Brennan Center’s press release and an excerpt from the report’s introduction, along with some comments by Jonathan Bernstein.

Since Barack Obama became president, Senate Republicans have increasingly delayed consideration of district court nominees, whereas previously only appeals court and Supreme Court judges could expect a politicized confirmation process.

Senator Chuck Grassley, the ranking GOP senator on the Judiciary Committee since 2011, has claimed that Republicans are voting on more judicial nominees this year than Senate Democrats did early in President George W. Bush’s second term. However, Bannon’s research confirms earlier analysis showing that Obama’s judicial nominees are waiting longer for votes than Bush’s did. Four and a half years into Bush’s presidency, the Senate had placed more of his judges on the bench. Unfortunately, Obama has also been “slower to nominate” judges than either Bush or President Bill Clinton.

Using an unusual voting procedure reserved for very important legislation, the U.S. Senate approved a comprehensive immigration reform bill yesterday by 68 votes to 32 (roll call). Every senator who caucuses with Democrats voted yes, joined by fourteen Republicans. The rest of the GOP caucus, including the entire leadership team and Senator Chuck Grassley, voted no.

In the run-up to the vote on final passage, senators considered many amendments to the immigration reform conceived by the bipartisan “Gang of Eight.” After the jump I cover how Grassley and Senator Tom Harkin voted on the significant amendments, as well as reaction to the bill’s passage from both senators and other Iowa politicians. Representative Steve King (R, IA-04) has vowed to block any comparable legislation from passing the U.S. House. He opposes any path to legal status or citizenship, even for undocumented immigrants brought to this country as young children.

U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley is sticking to his promise not to play favorites in the GOP primary for the open U.S. Senate seat. Last week news emerged that Grassley will be a “special guest” at fundraisers for his former chief of staff, David Young. This week both Matt Whitaker and Sam Clovis revealed that Iowa’s senior senator has offered to be a guest at fundraisers for their own Senate campaigns. Whitaker said in a statement that he looks forward to Grassley’s “help and his counsel”. Clovis told the Des Moines Register,

“He wanted to commend me for being in the race,” said Clovis, a Sioux City conservative radio personality and college economics professor. “He said he had to remain neutral in this primary … and he wanted to make sure everything was being played even.” […]

Clovis said he and the senator have “a great relationship” after years of animated discussions on the radio.

Grassley has repeatedly expressed concern that Representative Bruce Braley, who is unchallenged in the Democratic primary for Senate, will go into the general election with a financial advantage.

Speaking to Cameron Joseph of The Hill, The Iowa Republican blogger Craig Robinson sounded a more skeptical note: “Yes, Grassley says he’s neutral, but nearly everyone connected to him is supporting Young. Appearance and perception are two different things. The whole Grassley operation is helping Young.”

It’s time for a new discussion thread on the campaign for Iowa’s open U.S. Senate seat. I’ve pulled together lots of news on the declared and potential Republican candidates after the jump.

Some candidates who have expressed interest may back off before the filing deadline next March, but if most of them follow through, it’s plausible that no Republican will receive 35 percent of the vote in the June 2014 primary. That would allow statewide GOP convention delegates to select a nominee to face Democrat Bruce Braley in the general election.