Like Spinal Tap’s amp that goes up to 11, Bob Vander Plaats can ratchet up the demagoguery that little bit more than the competition. While other conservatives warn against compromising the Republican Party’s core principles, Vander Plaats says Republican moderates make voters want to throw up, like Jesus when confronted with “lukewarm” followers.

While other conservatives back a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage (which would take years to adopt), Vander Plaats promises to stop gays and lesbians from getting married on his first day as governor of Iowa.

While other conservatives warn against a “government takeover” of health care, Vander Plaats isn’t just against a new public health insurance plan, he wants to protect Iowans from the tyranny of federal-run Medicare and Medicaid.  

I wasn’t living in Iowa during the 1990s, so I had never heard about this episode before reading today’s New York Times:

Hopes for co-ops may also be tempered by the experience of Iowa, home to Senator Charles E. Grassley, the senior Republican on the Finance Committee, which is trying to hash out a bipartisan health care proposal.

In the 1990s, Iowa adopted a law to encourage the development of health care co-ops. One was created, and it died within two years. Although the law is still on the books, the state does not have a co-op now, said Susan E. Voss, the Iowa insurance commissioner.

Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield collects about 70 percent of the premiums paid in the private insurance market in Iowa and South Dakota.

To become established, a new market entrant would have to offer lower prices or better services, Ms. Voss said, adding: “Wellmark has a huge advantage. They already have contracts with practically every doctor in the state.”

I am shocked, shocked to learn that senators hauling in huge money from the insurance industry want to scuttle plans for a public health insurance option in favor of cooperatives that would not provide any meaningful competition in the marketplace.

House and Senate Democrats need to stand firm against a fake public option. Contact your members of Congress, Stand With Dr. Dean or sign up with Health Care for America Now to advocate for a real public option.

{Originally posted at my blog Senate Guru.}

First thing’s first.  I’m not a doctor.  I’m not suggesting that Republican Chuck Grassley has any particular illness.  Simply, I have noticed that Chuck Grassley, over the last many months, has been making increasingly bizarre, aggressive, explicit, and violent remarks – and that such comments coincidentally happen to be early symptoms of dementia, particularly frontotemporal dementia.  It stands out to me because, as a political junkie, I have long considered Grassley to be among the most mild-mannered denizens of the Capitol.  2009 has apparently become the year that the 75-year-old Grassley (he turns 76 next month) has shed his mild-mannered image, perhaps by choice, perhaps not.

In response to the story this Spring about AIG executives receiving exorbitant bonuses after the company was rescued by a massive infusion of public dollars, Grassley said on March 16, 2009:

“I suggest, you know, obviously maybe they ought to be removed, but I would suggest that the first thing that would make me feel a little bit better towards them [is] if they would follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say I’m sorry and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide.”

Grassley added, “In the case of the Japanese, they usually commit suicide before they make any apology.”

The comment was rude, racist, and extremely aggressive, even violent.

The next day, still critical of AIG executives, but in an attempt to tone down the violent “suicide” comment from the previous day, Grassley went the more sexually explicit route:

“From my standpoint, it’s irresponsible for corporations to give bonuses at this time when they’re sucking the tit of the taxpayer,” Grassley explained.

When talking about government spending, “sucking on the teat” is not in and of itself bizarre rhetoric, but that Grassley used the more sexually explicit “tit” instead of “teat.”  In fact, such a nuanced difference might have flown under the radar entirely if not for a sexually explicit comment Grassley made at a budget hearing toward the end of the same month as his earlier comments, on March 26, 2009:

But yesterday he [Grassley] regained his bounce on the Senate floor, livening up an otherwise dull budget hearing with a joke about banging another senator’s wife. His opening came after he pressed Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad to include an amendment of his to a budget resolution by bringing up the fact that Conrad owed him a favor.

“Oh, you are good,” Conrad responded.

To which Grassley replied: “Well, your wife said the same thing.”

Sure, this comment, in a vacuum, could be one Senator good-naturedly ribbing a colleague.  But a joke intimating sex with a colleague’s wife, told, again, at a budget hearing, seems like bizarre behavior.  Further, when you add up these comments, what you have is a pattern of behavior.

Last week, Grassley’s pattern of behavior was reinforced by his take on health care reform:

We should not have a government program that determines if you’re going to pull the plug on grandma.

In fairness, this one comment has become a sick talking point of many Republicans shilling for corporate interests.  Nevertheless, it particularly stands out for Grassley given that, when he is not flying off the cuff, he is one of the GOP’s key negotiators on health care reform.  He should have had the self-control to avoid such aggressive rhetoric.  But that’s been Grassley’s pattern lately.

So what we have seen from Grassley in 2009 – and this is just in public; no telling what his comments and actions are in private – is a pattern of bizarre, rude, physically aggressive, sexually explicit, and even violent remarks.  Such a pattern even led The Iowa Independent to the headline: “Grassley: Strategic or just eccentric?”  Eccentric may be putting it mildly.

Grassley is not the first Republican Senator in recent years to have his mental health questioned.  During his 2004 re-election bid, the Kentucky media began openly questioning Jim Bunning’s mental health after a similar pattern of bizarre comments and actions.  Also, in 2006-2007, Pete Domenici’s mental health was questioned after a pattern of erratic behavior including reportedly walking around the Capitol in his pajamas.  Subsequently, in late 2007, Domenici revealed that he had a degenerative brain disease and opted against a 2008 re-election bid.  Domenici was 75-years-old at the time of his 2007 diagnosis, the same age Grassley is now.

Now for the coincidental symptoms.  If you hop over to WebMD.com, best friend of the armchair hypochondriac, you can find a page that lists symptoms of dementia.  Such symptoms include “having trouble finding the right words to express thoughts,” “having trouble exercising judgment,” and “having difficulty controlling moods or behaviors” while noting that “agitation or aggression may occur.”  What especially caught my eye was the following passage:

The first symptoms of frontotemporal dementia may be personality changes or unusual behavior. People with this condition may not express any caring for others, or they may say rude things, expose themselves, or make sexually explicit comments.

Agitation or aggression?  Check.  Personality changes or unusual behavior?  Check.  Saying rude things?  Check.  Making sexually explicit comments (again, at a budget hearing!)?  Check.  Lack of inhibition?  Check.

Again, I’m not suggesting that the 75-year-old Chuck Grassley has frontotemporal dementia.  I am, however, noting that Grassley’s pattern of behavior over the last six months coincidentally happens to match the early symptoms of frontotemporal dementia.  With Grassley turning 77-years-old before Election Day 2010, it would not be unfair or unwise for Iowans to get a clean bill of health from Grassley before signing him up for another six-year term (at the end of which he will be 83-years-old).

Senator Jay Rockefeller speculated two weeks ago that the Republicans working with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus on a health care bill were only trying to delay reform and diminish the bill as much as possible before voting against it. On Monday, “gang of six” member Senator Chuck Grassley went on MSNBC and in effect admitted Rockefeller was right:

“I am negotiating for Republicans,” he said. “If I can’t negotiate something that gets more than four Republicans, I’m not a good negotiator.”

When NBC’s Chuck Todd, in a follow-up question on the show, asked the Iowa Republican if he’d vote against what Grassley might consider to be a “good deal” — i.e., gets everything he asks for from Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D) — Grassley replied, “It isn’t a good deal if I can’t sell my product to more Republicans.”

Grassley’s problem isn’t not being a good negotiator, it’s his failure to negotiate in good faith. Remember, three months ago he was dangling the possibility of 70 to 80 Senate votes for health care reform if only Democrats would take a bipartisan approach to the bill.

Up to now, Baucus and the White House could use Grassley as cover for giving away the store to corporate interests. (Republicans conveniently insist on the same things the drug and insurance lobbies want in or out of the bill.) But if Grassley won’t even commit to voting for a bill that contains everything he wants, what is the point of continuing this charade?

Unfortunately, negotiating with Grassley has already done considerable harm. His comment at a town-hall meeting last Wednesday was telling:

“…If (Democrats) do go ahead (on their own), this is what I fear.  They get done what they want, they’re going to change our health care system forever. You understand I feel a little bit like the boy sticking his finger in the dike, trying to stop the ocean from coming in…If I had not been at the table, there would have been a bill through the (Senate Finance) Committee the week of June 22 and it would have been through the senate by now because there’s 60 Democrats so I think that I have, by sticking my finger in the dike, I’ve had an opportunity to give the grassroots of America an opportunity to speak up as you’re seeing every day on television and I think that’s a good thing.”

Iowa Republicans who can’t see how much Grassley is helping their cause amaze me.

{Originally posted at my blog Senate Guru.}

Two Democratic former state legislators, Tom Fiegen and Bob Krause, are working on 2010 Senate bids to face Republican deather Chuck “pull the plug on grandma” Grassley.  Despite Grassley’s increasingly Looney Tunes demeanor, he does have just over $3.8 million in the bank as of the end of June.

Still, the Des Moines Register ran the following:

I’m told by mostly reliable sources there is a well-known mystery candidate who’s about 75 percent ready to join the race. The mystery candidate supposedly has name recognition and money.

(continues after the jump)

Via the Iowa Senate blog, I saw this post by Amy Sullivan at Time magazine’s Swampland blog. She re-read the 2003 Medicare prescription drug bill, which passed with the votes of most Republicans, including our own Senator Chuck Grassley:

Anyone want to guess what it provided funding for? Did you say counseling for end-of-life issues and care? Ding ding ding!!

Let’s go to the bill text, shall we? “The covered services are: evaluating the beneficiary’s need for pain and symptom management, including the individual’s need for hospice care; counseling the beneficiary with respect to end-of-life issues and care options, and advising the beneficiary regarding advanced care planning.” The only difference between the 2003 provision and the infamous Section 1233 that threatens the very future and moral sanctity of the Republic is that the first applied only to terminally ill patients. Section 1233 would expand funding so that people could voluntarily receive counseling before they become terminally ill.

At his Winterset town-hall meeting on Wednesday, Grassley said this:

You shouldn’t have counseling at the end of life.  You ought to have it done 20 years before you’re going to die.  You ought to plan these things out. I don’t have any problem with things like living wills, but they ought to be done within the family. We should not have a government program that determines you’re going to pull the plug on grandma.”

Some of the current draft health care reform bills would cover counseling to help people create living wills before they ever get sick, which is what Grassley says should happen. In contrast, the 2003 bill he voted for only covered such counseling for people who were already terminally ill.

How interesting that Grassley only recently, under fire from conservative Republicans, decided that counseling on end-of-life options might allow someone “to decide grandma’s lived too long.”

By the way, Grassley convinced Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus to drop the end-of-life provisions from that committee’s draft bill. I didn’t think it was possible for Baucus to prove himself to be any more of a tool for Republicans. Talk about negotiating from a position of weakness. I hope Howard Dean is right in predicting that those provisions will be restored in the final version of the bill.

Speaking of Grassley, he now has two likely Democratic opponents. Bankruptcy attorney and former State Senator Tom Fiegen announced his candidacy today and has a campaign website here. His priority issues are full employment and health care for those without. James Lynch interviewed Fiegen for this piece in the Cedar Rapids Gazette.

Bob Krause has been exploring a Senate bid for several months. You can learn more about his campaign at KrauseforIowa.com.

Neither Fiegen nor Krause is going to beat Grassley next year, but it’s important to have Democrats committed to making the case against him. That could reduce the number of Democratic and Democratic-leaning independents who cross over to vote for the incumbent, and we need as much straight-ticket voting in 2010 as possible.

UPDATE: Dueling statements from Representative Bruce Braley (IA-01) and Grassley are after the jump.

SECOND UPDATE: I missed this story on Wednesday–Grassley was promoting Glenn Beck’s book in Winterset. Great partner in constructive bipartisan negotiations!

At yesterday’s town-hall meeting in New Hampshire, President Barack Obama had nice things to say about Senator Chuck Grassley:

“Now, I think that there are some of my Republican friends on Capitol Hill who are sincerely trying to figure out if they can find a health care bill that works – Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Mike Enzi of Wyoming, Olympia Snowe from Maine have been – yes, I got to admit I like Olympia, too. They are diligently working to see if they can come up with a plan that could get both Republican and Democratic support.”

In addition, Thomas Beaumont of the Des Moines Register noticed that Organizing for America is not mobilizing Obama’s supporters to show up at Grassley’s town-hall meetings in Iowa. Instead, Organizing for America is trying to drive turnout to events hosted by Iowa’s Democrats in Congress.

Grassley’s holding four public events today, and @iahealthreform is helpfully liveblogging them on Twitter. Look at how Grassley talks about health care reform and tell me whether Obama should praise Grassley’s efforts.

Yesterday I posted information about some of the town-hall meetings that Iowans in Congress will hold during the next two weeks. You can also find Representative Steve King’s town-hall meeting schedule here and Representative Tom Latham’s schedule here.

If you attend any of these meetings, please take detailed notes and/or record the event if you can. Although local media will cover the story, journalists may not highlight every noteworthy comment. Senator Chuck Grassley’s infamous advice to a constituent seeking affordable health care was a sensation on YouTube and various political blogs before Iowa newspapers reported the story. I noticed that Daily Kos user clammyc used part of that clip in a video about the need for health care reform:

This diary by Daily Kos user ShadowSD contains lots of good links and talking points for you to use at town-hall meetings. Whether or not you get to ask a question, please consider posting a diary here with your impressions of the event. First-person accounts are usually a good read.

In general, I’d like to see more Bleeding Heartland readers writing diaries for this blog. Pieces with news or substantive analysis may be promoted to the front page.

Final note about this month’s town-halls: Rarely do I agree with Iowa GOP chairman Matt Strawn, but it is lame that Leonard Boswell hasn’t scheduled a health care public meeting in Polk County this month, or in any town that’s part of the Des Moines media market. If any Bleeding Heartland readers do attend Boswell’s scheduled “listening post” in Sigourney on August 13, please ask some specific questions about the kind of public health insurance option he supports. You might also want to note that rural Iowans would particularly benefit from a public option.

LATE UPDATE: I was wrong to criticize Boswell for not scheduling a health care event in the Des Moines area this month. On August 13 his office announced a town-hall on health care to be held on August 23 from 3 pm to 4 pm at the AIB College of Business Activities Center, 2280 Bell Avenue in Des Moines. RSVP by calling Congressman Boswell’s Des Moines office at 515-282-1909, or emailing boswellrsvp@mail.house.gov.  

President Barack Obama signed a bill today allocating an additional $2 billion to the to the Car Allowance Rebate System, more commonly known as Cash for Clunkers. The money will come from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (the economic stimulus bill approved in February). The Senate approved the bill by a 60-37 vote on Thursday night. Senator Tom Harkin voted yes, and Senator Chuck Grassley, who criticized the program earlier this week, voted no.

I liked Harkin’s idea to put income limits on this program, but the Senate wanted to get this measure passed before the summer recess. If the Senate had approved a different bill from what cleared the House last week, the funding would have been delayed until September.

The Senate vote went mostly along party lines, but four Democrats joined 33 Republicans in voting no, and seven Republicans joined 53 Democrats in voting yes.

I’m pleased to learn that most consumers who have taken advantage of this program have traded in a “clunker” for cars that get significantly better mileage. (Click here for lists of the most popular vehicles traded in and the most popular purchased with Cash for Clunkers vouchers.) The way Congress wrote the bill, people could have traded in SUVs and trucks for similar vehicles with only minimal improvements in fuel economy.

Iowa conservatives are becoming increasingly concerned by Senator Chuck Grassley’s refusal to “just say no” to President Obama’s health care reform plans. Grassley is part of a group of six Senate Finance Committee members who are working on a compromise bill. While some Republicans are hoping that defeating health care reform will become Obama’s “Waterloo,” Grassley has warned Republicans should could pay a price for blocking reform.

Now it’s not just Bill “crazier than Steve King” Salier who is floating the idea of a primary challenge against Grassley. Craig Robinson wrote at the Iowa Republican blog on Thursday,

The longer Sen. Grassley strings along Iowa Republicans, the more difficult his re-election effort may become. At the beginning of the year, it would have been absurd to suggest that Sen. Grassley could face a legitimate primary challenge. Now, with each and every passing day that Grassley flirts with supporting some version of health care reform, the possibility of a primary challenge grows. In fact, some Republican sources have told TheIowaRepublican.com that if Sen. Grassley votes for President Obama’s healthcare proposal, Grassley will indeed face a serious primary challenge.

Republicans needn’t worry about the game Grassley is playing on health care. I’ll explain why after the jump.

The Senate confirmed Sonia Sotomayor as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court today by a vote of 68 to 31. As expected, Iowa’s senators split, with Tom Harkin voting yes and Chuck Grassley voting no.

Nine Republicans voted to confirm Sotomayor: Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, Richard Lugar of Indiana, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Mel Martinez of Florida, George Voinovich of Ohio, and Kit Bond of Missouri. Bond, Gregg, Martinez and Voinovich have already announced plans to retire in 2010.

Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey warned yesterday that the GOP will pay a political price for opposing Sotomayor.

The two independents who caucus with Democrats (Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont) supported Sotomayor, as did all Senate Democrats who were present today (Ted Kennedy was absent). That’s a blow to Republicans, who had hoped that getting the National Rifle Association to make Sotomayor’s confirmation a scorecard issue would frighten a few gun-friendly Democrats into voting no. That would have changed the media narrative into “Democrats and Republicans divided over Sotomayor as she joins the Supreme Court.”

Although Max Baucus of Montana flirted with voting no on Sotomayor, he came around fairly quickly. I liked this comment from pro-gun Democrat Mark Warner of Virginia:

“I’m very disappointed. [NRA seems] to be going beyond their Second Amendment issues, particularly when I think the judge’s positions on those issues are still fairly open,” Warner said. “I trust in her judgment and temperament. I think the NRA at some point has gone beyond its mission, and are perhaps allowing themselves to get hijacked by those who are in the extreme.”

That hijacking occurred long ago.

Share any thoughts about Justice Sotomayor or the Supreme Court in this thread. I want to again express my gratitude to Justice John Paul Stevens for staying healthy all these years and to Justice David Souter for sticking it out long after he wanted to retire.

Now that Republicans have shown that they will largely oppose even a moderate, corporate-friendly judge like Sotomayor, I would like to see Obama nominate a fire-breathing liberal the next time a Supreme Court vacancy comes up.

Jon Stewart had a go at Senator Chuck Grassley on Tuesday’s edition of The Daily Show. The “debt and deficit dragon” segment is worth watching if you missed it. I can’t embed the video here, but you can watch it at TheDailyShow.com or at Radio Iowa.

While I enjoy laughing at Grassley as much as the next person, Paul Blumenthal’s reporting on Grassley for the Sunlight Foundation blog this week is more important than mocking Grassley’s bizarre visual aids and mixed metaphors.

During the second quarter of 2009 alone, Grassley “pulled in $165,100 from health and insurance PACs.” Blumenthal posts the details here. It appears that a large chunk of that money came from two fundraisers that interest groups opposing health care reform held for Grassley in late June.

Corporations who profit from our current inefficient and immoral health care system have a lot riding on Grassley’s efforts to derail real reform with bogus bipartisan rhetoric.

By the way, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus continues to raise lots of money from foes of health care reform as well. No wonder he gutted the public health insurance option in his committee’s bill.

Senator Chuck Grassley’s office announced today that he will vote against confirming Judge Sonia Sotomayor as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. I’ve posted Grassley’s statement after the jump. The gist is, he acknowledges Sotomayor’s “credentials on paper” but has unanswered questions about her judicial philosophy. He doesn’t trust her to apply the law without regard for her “personal biases and prejudices.” He also disliked “her lack of clear and direct answers to simple questions regarding the Constitution” during her confirmation hearings. For the last 20 years, Supreme Court nominees have tried to avoid answering specific questions about issues that are likely to come before the court.

Grassley’s opening statement during Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings expressed concern about some of her speeches, including the infamous “wise Latina” remark. He had some contentious exchanges with the judge in subsequent days.

Grassley voted against confirming Judge Sotomayor for the U.S. Court of Appeals in 1998, but he said last month that he could not remember why.

Most Senate Republicans plan to vote against Sotomayor, but at least five have said they will support her confirmation: Richard Lugar of Indiana, Mel Martinez of Florida, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

UPDATE: Iowa Democratic Party chairman Michael Kiernan’s statement is also after the jump.

LATE UPDATE: The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 13-6 on Tuesday to confirm Sotomayor, sending her nomination to the full Senate.

How could former Governer and current Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack save healthcare reform? 

It's simple.  It's pretty obvious at this point that Senators Grassley and Baucus are the primary people tryng to kill all meaningful health care reform under the guise of being “centrist.”  Right now, Grassley can be as big of a jerk as he wants, despite living in a state that overwhelmingly voted for Obama, because he doesn't have any serious competitors for his Senate seat.  But, as the Research 2000 poll showed last December, Vilsack could give Grassley a run for his money.  If Vilsack jumps in, ASAP, then Grassley would have to run to the middle.  He'd have to actually legislate based on what Iowans want.  Which means, NO MORE sabotaging of Obama's health care reform!

 What do you think?

The RAGBRAI riders are enjoying some relatively cool weather this week, although last night’s rain may have been unpleasant for campers. If you’re riding and have any anecdotes to share, post them here.

Details on other events going on around the state are after the jump. As always, post a comment or send me an e-mail (desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com) if you know of something I’ve left out.

Occasionally I put a river clean-up on these event calendars, so I wanted to let the Bleeding Heartland community know about this opportunity:

The Iowa Whitewater Coalition today announced the Clean Rivers Team Stewardship Program (CRTSP) — a mini-grant program to help fund local river clean-up activities across Iowa.

Any community group or organization in Iowa is welcome to apply for a grant from the CRTSP for the purpose of paying expenses related to river clean-up activities. Grants are limited to a maximum of $500.

Details are available at www.iowawhitewater.org and a Letter of Application may be submitted at any time to Iowa Whitewater Coalition, PO Box 65453, West Des Moines, IA 50265. Questions can be addressed by Peter Komendowski at 319-269-8493.

UPDATE: Added details on the Iowa Politics forum for Republican gubernatorial candidates (July 22) after the jump.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings ended today. I hardly watched any of it on tv, but I got the highlights from David Waldman’s liveblogging at Congress Matters: Wednesday morning session, Wednesday afternoon session, Thursday morning session, and Thursday afternoon session.

On Wednesday Senator Chuck Grassley had a contentious exchange with Judge Sotomayor regarding a 1972 case on same-sex marriage. Tom Beaumont posted the transcript at the Des Moines Register site. Sotomayor read the case last night and answered more questions from Grassley about it today. I posted an excerpt from the transcript after the jump.

According to MSNBC reporter Norah O’Donnell, Grassley told her today that his constituents are “pretty unanimous against her,” referring to Sotomayor. On what basis can he make that claim? I don’t doubt that wingnuts have been working his phone lines, but I hope he doesn’t expect anyone to believe that Iowans overwhelmingly oppose the confirmation of this extremely intelligent and qualified judge.

Questioning of Sotomayor concluded this morning, and outside witnesses testified this afternoon. Republicans brought in New Haven firefighter Frank Ricci. His story has become a focal point for opponents of Sotomayor, because the Supreme Court recently found in his favor in a 5-4 decision that overruled a 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals decision involving Sotomayor. (Of course, Sotomayor’s critics don’t acknowledge the bigger picture of her rulings in race-related cases.)

It turns out that Ricci’s quite the veteran of employment lawsuits. He sued the city of New Haven in 1995, claiming that he was discriminated against because of his dyslexia, in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Ricci also went to court to fight his 1998 dismissal from Middletown’s South Fire District. TPM-DC’s Brian Beutler observed,

[Ricci’s] views on jurisprudence seem to begin and end with the proposition that legal protections against discrimination are great when they work in his favor, and unconscionable when they don’t.

I don’t have a problem with people defending their rights in court, but Ricci was hardly the reluctant litigant some conservatives have made him out to be. Also, it’s worth noting that whether or not Ricci was treated unfairly, the position Sotomayor took in the Ricci case

is an act of judicial restraint. The Second Circuit panel, which included Judge Sonia Sotomayor, deferred to a decision of the elected officials of the City of New Haven. Whether the decision was correct or incorrect, it was decidedly the opposite of judicial activism.

In fact, the five conservative Supreme Court judges who overturned the lower court ruling in Ricci were engaging in judicial activism.

Share any thoughts about the confirmation process in this thread. How many Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee will vote to confirm Sotomayor?

UPDATE: MyDD user bruh3 has a good response to Grassley’s line of questioning on that 1972 decision. and it’s just a guess, is that Grassley has been hearing from a lot of evangelicals about gay marriage in recent months. They were already mad at him last year for questioning the tax-exempt status of some televangelists. Then Grassley’s reaction to the Varnum v Brien decision was found wanting by many Iowa social conservatives. I suspect he wanted to make a show of grilling Judge Sotomayor on this issue.

I only watched a small part of Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings today. I lost patience after 10 or 15 minutes of Senator Orrin Hatch asking the same questions over and over, even though she’d answered them the first time.

David Waldman liveblogged the hearings for Congress Matters. Click here for the morning session and here for the afternoon session. Waldman provided a bonus post with video of one low point: “Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, complete with his best Foghorn Leghorn stammer, reaches astonishing new levels of asshattery.”

Talking Points Memo compared Senator Lindsey Graham’s aggressive questioning today with his “obsequious” use of his time for questioning Judge Sam Alito. In 2006,

[Graham] took his allotted time as an opportunity to apologize to Mrs. Alito, who was upset by what was perceived to be overly tough questioning of her husband […].

Click here for video clips of Graham.

I read that Senator Chuck Grassley got a laugh out of the room in a strange way. An anti-abortion heckler disrupted the hearings during Grassley’s questioning time. After the man had been escorted from the room, Grassley said, “People always say I have the ability to turn people on.” It reminded me of Grassley’s somewhat off-color remark to Senator Kent Conrad during a Budget Committee meeting in March.

This thread is for any comments about Tuesday’s hearings or Judge Sotomayor’s confirmation in general.

UPDATE: Hilarious diary by Daily Kos user Upper West on “Sotomayor’s Woody Allen/Marshall McLuhan Moment.”

Health Care for America Now, in conjunction with the Iowa Citizen Action Network, is running an online ad that links to a “job application” citizens can fill out to request a position with Senator Chuck Grassley’s office.

You may recall that Grassley told a constituent at a recent town-hall meeting to “go work for the federal government” if he wanted the same health insurance plan the senator enjoys:

Excerpt from an ICAN press release, which I have posted in full after the jump:

Senator Grassley, whose health care bills are picked up by taxpayers, pays $356.59 a month for health insurance.  The most he pays when visiting a doctor or hospital is $300. His “Let Them Eat Cake” attitude ignores the plight of working families, farmers, and small business owners in Iowa who don’t have adequate, affordable health care and are going broke trying to keep up with insurance premiums and medical costs.

“Polls show that the majority of Iowans, like the majority of people in America, want health care reform that achieves quality, affordable health care for all,” said Betty Ahrens, Executive Director, Iowa Citizen Action Network. “Senator Grassley keeps blocking progress in the Senate Finance Committee. He talks about bipartisanship but is showing no intention of compromise, and after his comments in Waukon, we know just how out of touch Senator Grassley is with the real struggles of his constituents in Iowa. Everyone here should see this video, and we will do what we can to make sure Senator Grassley knows his “Get a Job Like Mine” solution to the health care crisis is unacceptable.”

Excerpt from the “job application”:

I work hard, and I pay my taxes, but I cannot keep up with health care costs that are rising four times faster than wages if I can even get health care at all, what with all the denials of needed care that my insurance company throws in my way. Meanwhile, Members of Congress get health care that’s affordable, and nobody is going to deny care to an elected official!

Senator Grassley has so graciously offered to provide me health care as good as he has if I work for the federal government, and so I am applying for a position in Senator Grassley’s office in the hope he will make good on that promise. If he cannot, the only hope I have to obtain quality, affordable health care for me and my family is if Senator Grassley drops his opposition and supports real health care reform – reform that gives me a choice of public or private insurance, make care affordable, and delivers good benefits.

Volunteers will deliver the “job applications” to Grassley’s office next week. Although he’s not going to change his mind about a public health insurance option, we can show how out of touch he is with Iowans.

Fortunately, a group of Senate Democrats are strongly committed to the public option, dimming prospects for a bipartisan compromise on health care that would please Grassley.

I recently discussed how Iowa is fully utilizing federal stimulus funds to expand unemployment benefits, unlike many other states, which are leaving all or part of that money on the table.

The Iowa Senate highlighted steps taken during the 2009 session to extend unemployment benefits, which went into effect on July 1:

· Improving and expanding services for unemployed Iowa workers. By making reforms to Iowa’s unemployment insurance program, our state will receive $70.8 million from the federal government to extend benefits for unemployed workers in training programs. It makes sense to support Iowans who are trying to upgrade their skills by attending community college and other types of training.

· Paying unemployment claims for replacement workers who become unemployed when Iowa National Guard and Reserve members return to their local jobs after active duty. When our soldiers come home, the state should help the replacement workers without penalizing employers.

· Providing $18.9 million to workforce field offices across Iowa. Iowa has 55 workforce centers, which provide job counseling, training, placement and other assistance. These services help laid off workers move forward and help local businesses find the employees they need.

For more details, read the full text of Senate File 197 here.

Note: the $70.8 million in federal funding for expanded unemployment benefits came from the economic stimulus bill, or American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. All House Republicans, including Iowa’s Tom Latham and Steve King, voted against that bill, as did almost all Senate Republicans, including Chuck Grassley.  

UPDATE: Sotomayor discussed her judicial philosophy in her opening statement to the committee. Talking Points Memo posted excerpts from all the senators’ opening statements.

The Senate Judiciary Committee began Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings today, and Radio Iowa has Senator Chuck Grassley’s opening statement. He gave quite the lecture about “judicial restraint” as opposed to “President Obama’s ’empathy’ standard.”

An excerpt is after the jump, along with some analysis of Grassley’s selective concern about empathy and so-called activist judges.

Such as the revolving door between Congress and corporate lobbyists:

The nation’s largest insurers, hospitals and medical groups have hired more than 350 former government staff members and retired members of Congress in hopes of influencing their old bosses and colleagues, according to an analysis of lobbying disclosures and other records. […]

Nearly half of the insiders previously worked for the key committees and lawmakers, including  Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and  Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), debating whether to adopt a public insurance option opposed by major industry groups. At least 10 others have been members of Congress, such as former House majority leaders Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.) and Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.), both of whom represent a New Jersey pharmaceutical firm.

The hirings are part of a record-breaking influence campaign by the health-care industry, which is spending more than $1.4 million a day on lobbying in the current fight, according to disclosure records. And even in a city where lobbying is a part of life, the scale of the effort has drawn attention. For example, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) doubled its spending to nearly $7 million in the first quarter of 2009, followed by Pfizer, with more than $6 million.

So corporate groups are spending $1.4 million a day on lobbying to block a real public health insurance option, which most Americans want.

That’s on top of the millions of dollars the same corporate groups have donated directly to Congressional campaigns. Iowa’s Senator Chuck Grassley has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from the industries with the most at stake in health care reform.

Members of Congress claim lobbyists and campaign money don’t shape their opinions, but Grassley should know better. He understands that big money from pharmaceutical companies can influence the conclusions of medical researchers–why not elected officials?

Nate Silver has found strong evidence that special-interest money affects Democratic senators’ support for the public option in health care reform.

By the way, I wasn’t too cheered by Senator Chuck Schumer’s promise over the weekend that the health care bill will contain a public option. The current draft in the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions excludes lots of people from choosing the public option over their current health insurance. That will limit competition for the private insurers that have near-monopolies in many markets.

Back in 2003 all the Democratic presidential candidates talked a good game on health care. Now Dick “this is a moral issue” Gephardt is lobbying for a pharmaceutical company. I’ll stand with Howard Dean and hope that John Edwards was wrong about the system being rigged because corporations have too much power in Washington.

Final note: Moveon.org is organizing health care rallies this Thursday, July 9, at senators’ offices in their home states. Sign up here to attend a rally near you.

Political activity slows down a bit during the summer, but there are still plenty of things to do if you’re not spending hours a day training for RAGBRAI. Read all about it after the jump. As always, post a comment or send me an e-mail (desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com) if you know of something I’ve left out.

If you live in the first Congressional district, consider attending one of Bruce Braley’s town-hall meetings on health care reform in Dubuque,  Oelwein, Davenport and Waterloo (click “there’s more” for details). According to a statement from his office,

Braley will discuss the draft House health care reform bill, listen to constituents’ concerns, and take questions.  Braley is a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the committee in charge of authoring healthcare reform legislation.

Braley’s town hall meetings on healthcare reform are free and open to the public.

Attendees are strongly encouraged to RSVP at: http://braley.house.gov/townhall.

Speaking of health care reform, Moveon.org is looking for people to help deliver petitions this Thursday, July 9, to the Iowa offices of Senators Tom Harkin and Chuck Grassley. Click here to sign up.

UPDATE: I added information about Governor Chet Culver’s upcoming appearances in eastern Iowa to highlight I-JOBS and Rebuild Iowa projects.

Senator Chuck Grassley has been holding town-hall meetings around the state this week, and the Iowa Democratic Party highlighted a fun clip from his June 30 meeting in Waukon. A constituent wanted to know why his health insurance policy was so much more expensive than Grassley’s, despite having less generous coverage.

The senator advised the questioner to “go work for John Deere” if he wanted a better insurance policy. (Not too practical, since Deere has laid off workers in Dubuque, Ottumwa and the Quad Cities this year.) As Grassley tried to move on to the next question, the man continued to press for details about Grassley’s own coverage, and the senator advised him to go talk to the people at the Farm Services Administration about health insurance.

But the questioner followed up again: “How come I can’t have the same thing you have?”

To which Grassley replied, “You can. Go work for the federal government.”

Since there aren’t too many federal government jobs in the Waukon area, I have a better idea: why doesn’t Grassley support a real public health insurance option for all Americans?

UPDATE: Here was Grassley in Iowa City today:

Hoping that health care reform plans implode under weight of Democratic in-fighting is a bet he’s not willing to make.

“I’m not a gambler.” Grassley said. “If you go a partisan way, the Democrats have the capability of screwing up our health care system forever. If it is screwed up forever, we could get big majorities two or four years down the road, but we ain’t going to turn it around. So I’m a little more cautious than a lot of my Republican colleagues.”

The best bet for getting a bill to President Obama this year is the bipartisan work being done by the Senate Finance Committee where he is the ranking Republican, Grassley said. Whatever reform plan that comes out of the House will be highly-partisan just by the nature of the House, he predicted. Sen. Ted Kennedy’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee has rejected Republican input.

I’m supposed to believe that Grassley is worried about the public option because it would “screw up” health care so badly that Republicans couldn’t fix it even with large majorities?

First of all, Republicans aren’t going to win back the Senate majority in two or four years. It will be a longer climb.

Second, Republicans are fighting the public option because they’re afraid it would work too well, causing private insurers to lose market share to the more affordable public plan. (See here.) They are desperate to avoid that outcome because it would likely realign American politics in the Democrats’ favor for a long time. That’s what Republican messaging guru Frank Luntz is warning them against.

I sincerely hope that the House Progressive Caucus votes down a Grassley-friendly bipartisan health care bill (individual mandate to buy for-profit private insurance that doesn’t compete with any public plan). If President Obama wants to claim victory on this issue, he’ll have to get behind a bill that would be better than the status quo. Democrats would be fools to listen to Grassley on either the substance or the politics of health care reform.

Bob Krause, who is running for U.S. Senate next year against five-term incumbent Chuck Grassley, was in the news last week with some sensible comments about health care reform. He encouraged Grassley to demand higher reimbursement rates for Iowa health care providers in exchange for dropping his opposition to a public option in the Senate bill:

Iowa ranks 49th in Medicare reimbursement, Krause said. That makes it hard for the state to attract and retain health professionals, according to various state officials, including Grassley, who has long advocated for reforms in the reimbursement system.

“This has hurt the quality of medical care in Iowa as some doctors refuse Medicare patients because of the low reimbursement rate,” Krause said. “On the flip side, continuing with only private providers for health insurance coverage hurts Iowans because it locks in a monopoly.” More than 80 percent of the Iowa health insurance market in Iowa is controlled by just two companies.

A public option would provide competition for the private insurers, Krause said.

Krause is obviously right on both counts, but don’t expect Grassley to listen. He is the leading Republican voice against the public option and has an ally in Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Democrat whose health care reform plan may be worse than the insurance industry’s.

Iowa Democrats have given Grassley a pass for too many years. I appreciate Krause’s commitment to running a real race against him. I encourage you to donate to his campaign and get to know him better by checking out his website. Blog for Iowa’s three-part interview with Krause is a good read as well. Here are the links:

part 1 (a bit of personal history, Iowa Democratic Veterans’ Caucus, plus views on gay rights and progressivism)

part 2 (about Krause’s campaign strategy and views on the environment and Judge Sonia Sotomayor)

part 3 (about health care reform, media reform and RAGBRAI)

This thread is for any comments about the 2010 Senate race in Iowa. How could Krause use his campaign funds most effectively? Which issues should he emphasize in making a case against Grassley?

The Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save (CARS) Program (also known as “Cash for Clunkers”) will receive at least $1 billion in funding this year now that Congress has passed the $106 billion Iraq and Afghanistan war supplemental appropriations bill.  

After the jump I provide some legislative history and constructive criticism of Cash for Clunkers, which Representatives Bruce Braley of Iowa and Betty Sutton of Ohio championed as a reward for consumers who trade in inefficient old cars and trucks for new models.

Following up on yesterday’s post, I see that a brand-new New York Times/CBS nationwide poll shows widespread support for a real public health insurance option. The wording of the question was clear: “Would you favor or oppose the government’s offering everyone a government administered health insurance plan like Medicare that would compete with private insurance plans?”

Results: 72 percent of respondents favored the public option, including 87 percent of Democrats, 73 percent of independents, and 50 percent of Republicans.

Senator Chuck Grassley works overtime to snuff out a public option, urging President Obama to support a bipartisan bill in the Senate. But in the real world, a strong public option has bipartisan support. Even half of Republicans favor making a “government administered health insurance plan like Medicare” available to all Americans.

A public option would increase competition and give Americans more choices while driving down costs. A recent report found that one or two companies dominate the health insurance market in most parts of the country.

Obama will speak to ABC News about health care on Wednesday. I’ll be listening carefully to see whether he endorses a strong public option, which the House Democrats’ draft bill contains, or whether he remains open to a fake public option such as regional cooperatives or a “trigger”.

UPDATE: To be clear, the CBS/NYT poll is not an outlier. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released last week found, “Three in four people said a public [health insurance] plan is extremely or quite important.” A poll “bankrolled partly by previous opponents of health care reform” showed that “a majority (53%) strongly back the availability of a public plan, while another 30% ‘somewhat’ support it.”

Health Care for America Now launched television commercials in 10 key states today. Here is the Iowa version (click here to view the others):

It’s a good ad. As Jason Rosenbaum writes,

This is the vision of a public health insurance option. Contrary to Republican talking points, nothing in the proposed plans for a public health insurance option would take away your choices and your relationship with your doctor. Nothing.

If you donate at least $10 to keep this ad on the air, Health Care for America Now will send you  a “high-quality, union-made t-shirt” (view the shirt here).

I’m also looking forward to seeing the commercials Blue America has in the works, which you can support by donating here.

Even if you can’t afford to make a donation, you can express your support for the public option by signing the petition at StandWithDrDean.com and sending an e-mail to your senators.

It wouldn’t hurt to contact your House representatives to let them know we need a public option. If the final bill out of the Senate ends up looking like the latest draft circulating in the Senate Finance Committee, we’re going to need House Democrats to vote this sham reform down.

UPDATE: According to slinkerwink at Daily Kos, the House Democrats’ draft health care bill does contain a public option. Thanks to members of the Progressive Caucus, including Iowa’s Dave Loebsack, for making this happen.

Iowa State Senator Jack Hatch was in Washington yesterday to chair the first meeting of a working group on health care. According to a White House press release,

State Legislators for Health Reform includes leaders from across the country who will educate their communities on the need for health reform this year.  The legislators will host public events, author opinion pieces in local publications, and use their established networks to organize constituents in support of health reform.

The Iowa Senate Democrats issued a statement from Hatch, who said the state legislators told Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that “state-level health care reforms can only go so far.” He added that Sebelius

“stressed the need to expand choices in the health insurance market is essential.  Increased competition will lower costs and improve patient care.

“That’s why we all agreed that Americans must have a public health insurance option and now is the time to speak up.”

A public option that makes health insurance more accessible and affordable for adults is also likely to improve the health of children. Kevin Concannon of the Iowa Department of Human Services explained why in his contribution to the Reforming States Group’s May 2009 Healthy States/Healthy Nation report:

Ultimately, to achieve better health care access and better health status for children, the United States needs to cover parents as an essential, linked strategy for children. If parents have health insurance, they will better utilize the health care systems available to their children.

If you believe that real health care reform requires a public option for health insurance, you have two new and easy ways to do something about it. Neither will take more than a minute or two of your time.

Details are after the jump.

I found some unintentional comedy in this AP story on Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s one-on-one meetings with senators:

Sotomayor has managed to disarm even senators who came prepared not to like her. Sen. Charles E. Grassley, an Iowa Republican, went in thinking “she would be aggressive and maybe even a little obnoxious.”

“I would classify her as kind of much friendlier … more reserved, less aggressive,” than he expected, Grassley told reporters later.

I wonder why Grassley thought Sotomayor would be “aggressive and maybe even a little obnoxious.” Would he expect that of any high-achieving Puerto Rican woman from New York, or only one who had been on the receiving end of a hatchet job in The New Republic? Or maybe he was taken in by right-wing commentators’ caricatures of Sotomayor.

Anyway, it’s safe to say that Sotomayor’s personality wasn’t the reason Grassley voted against her confirmation to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. He’ll have to keep trying to remember why he cast that vote in 1998.

By the way, the Democrat who’s running against Grassley next year, Bob Krause, has his campaign website up and is on Twitter @KrauseForIowa. He plans to campaign hard against Grassley’s opposition to universal health care with a public option.

Senator Chuck Grassley didn’t take kindly to President Barack Obama’s weekly radio address about the need to accomplish health care reform this year. Early this morning, Grassley wrote on his Twitter feed,

Pres Obama you got nerve while u sightseeing in Paris to tell us”time to deliver” on health care. We still on skedul/even workinWKEND.

A little later, the senator Tweeted,

Pres Obama while u sightseeing in Paris u said ‘time to delivr on healthcare’ When you are a “hammer” u think evrything is NAIL I’m no NAIL

First of all, Obama recorded the weekly address before leaving for France. Second, it’s bizarre for Grassley to mock Obama’s “sightseeing in Paris,” as if that were the main purpose of his foreign visit. You can be sure that if Obama had not gone to France to commemorate the D-Day invasion, Republicans would be howling in protest.

Perhaps Grassley is venting because this week the president strongly affirmed his support for a public option in health care reform. Grassley has been working to forge a bipartisan consensus with no public option and published an op-ed in the Iowa City Press-Citizen on Friday warning against that approach. (Chase Martyn’s take on Grassley’s piece is worth reading.)

Or maybe Grassley’s just a little touchy lately. He wrote a letter to the editor of the Des Moines Register correcting a mistake from the Register’s vox-pop feature, “My 2-cents’ worth”:

In the Register’s Your 2 Cents’ Worth feature May 4, “Disgusted 50010 Woman” said I pay $40 a month for health insurance. In fact, I pay $356 a month for Blue Cross insurance coverage, a plan that is available to federal employees. This differs from health plans for state government employees in Iowa, where no portion of the premium is paid by the employee. There’s no basis for the assertion in her comments.

Fair enough, senator. But you have to admit, you’ve got a pretty good deal going. A couple half your age who purchase their own Blue Cross insurance plan could easily pay two or three times as much in premiums for comprehensive coverage. Even a bare-bones policy covering primarily catastrophic care could cost individuals more than $356 a month, and they’d have to pay out of pocket for most routine medical expenses and prescription drugs.

Natasha Chart recently looked into her health insurance options as a single 34-year-old woman. If she can afford it, she’ll pay $200 to $300 a month for less coverage than what members of Congress receive. I encourage Senator Grassley to read her post.

UPDATE: Greg Sargent received clarification from Grassley’s office about what the senator meant to convey in the hammer/NAIL tweet:

Senator Grassley has been urging the President to let the legislative process work so that health care reform legislation restructuring 17 percent of America’s economy will reflect broad consensus and garner bipartisan support from as many as 80 senators.

Still pushing the pipe dream of a large bipartisan majority for health care reform.

I got a chuckle out of Thomas Beaumont’s article in today’s Des Moines Register, “Reason for vote against judge still eludes Grassley”:

Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley said Wednesday he still cannot recall why he opposed Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation to a federal appeals court judgeship 11 years ago, even after searching the Congressional Record for answers. […]

“I want to know why myself. I probably want to know why more than you want to know why,” Grassley told reporters Wednesday when pressed to explain his past votes against Sotomayor.

“But we’ve looked in the record of the committee and the Congressional Record and there’s no statement by me. So, I don’t know why,” he added.

Grassley was one of three Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee and 29 in the Senate to vote against Sotomayor’s confirmation to the 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals in New York.

Grassley’s memory lapse prompted me to search for reports on the reasons some Senate Republicans opposed Sotomayor in 1998. I could not find any articles discussing controversial decisions she had made as a district court judge.

I also learned that Sotomayor gave a speech in 1994 containing a statement about a “wise woman” that is similar to her 2001 remark that conservative commentators have been flogging. Greg Sargent reported that “though the 1994 speech was disclosed to Republican Senators as part of her confirmation for Court of Appeals in 1998, there’s no sign that anyone objected to it in any way.”

So, why did Grassley and 28 other Republican Senators vote against Sotomayor in 1998? My hunch is that the reason Grassley didn’t enter a speech into the Congressional Record at the time is the same reason I can’t find any reporting on the grounds for opposition to her: Republicans had no legitimate beef with her qualifications or her judicial rulings.

An article by Paul West of the Baltimore Sun supports my hypothesis:

President Bill Clinton’s 1997 nomination of Sotomayor to the nation’s second highest court was held up for a year by Senate Republican blocking tactics. At the time, analysts said that Republicans did not want her confirmation to go forward because it would put her in line for a Supreme Court seat.

That’s the kind of reason I’d want to forget too if I were Grassley.

Senate Republicans used similar blocking tactics against many of Clinton’s nominees, hoping to run out the clock on his presidency. They later complained about Democratic “obstruction” of judicial appointments, but at least Democrats gave reasons for opposing the worst George W. Bush nominees (for instance, judicial philosophy or specific decisions as lower-court judges).

To his credit, Grassley told reporters on yesterday’s call that he is going into Judge Sotomayor’s upcoming confirmation hearings with an open mind. Not that it matters, because Senate Republicans already know that they don’t have the votes to block her elevation to the Supreme Court.

Senator Chuck Grassley laid out his case against a “government-run” health care plan on the Senate floor yesterday. He used some of the same arguments he’s been making in conference calls with reporters and in his guest editorial at Politico.

I don’t know whether Grassley and the insurance lobby will be able to scare Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus away from supporting a public health insurance option.

However, after reading the highlights from recent opinion research that Richard Kirsch summarized at the Health Care for America Now blog, I am confident that the American public will not buy rehashed Republican talking points from 1993. For more on this point, follow me after the jump.

Iowa Independent posted a piece by Congressional correspondent Mike Lillis today: “Grassley leaves door open for government health care plan.” Lillis was on Grassley’s conference call with reporters today and heard the senator say this about a public health insurance option:

I think right now there’s a lot of people, including me – I’d prefer it not to be in [the bill]. Then there’s a lot of people that say, well, it’s got to be in or [there’ll be] no bill. And then there’s a dozen ways to look at possible compromises. And I think before I would write [it] off completely, I would want to look at what those possible compromises are.

I do not interpret this comment as a sign that Grassley is open to a government health plan. It sounds to me like he is working with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus on a compromise that might be called a “public plan” but would not force private insurers to compete against a government plan like Medicare for All.

As Bleeding Heartland user ragbrai08 has noted, lots of things that could be characterized as a “public option” fall short of what we need.

Perhaps Americans would be allowed to buy into the health insurance program for federal employees, which is provided by various private insurance companies.

Lillis noted that during today’s conference call, Grassley suggested the federal government is not competent to “run a government-run health insurance plan in competition with the private sector […].” I read this to mean that Grassley is still working overtime to keep a public health insurance option out of the Senate’s health care legislation.

Here’s hoping Senate Democrats who understand the need for a public option are able to prevail with Baucus.

Congress is getting to work on the details of health care reform, and a major battleground will be whether to include a strong public health insurance option for all Americans.

Republicans like Senator Chuck Grassley are revving up their scare tactics about “government-run” health care. Coalitions of Democrats who back a public option are also taking shape in the House and the Senate.

The new Populist Caucus led by Congressman Bruce Braley (IA-01) has yet to weigh in on the specifics of health care reform. That needs to change soon if Braley is serious about turning this caucus into a voice for the middle class in the House.

More thoughts on this subject are after the jump.

As the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Chuck Grassley will influence the shape of health care reform. For that reason, he and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus of Montana were invited to lunch at the White House on Wednesday with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.

Grassley’s message to the president and vice president, as well as to every journalist who’ll listen, is that health care reform should be done through a bipartisan bill that can receive 70 or 80 votes in the Senate. (See also Grassley’s recent guest editorial at Politico.)

Many Democrats want to include a health care bill in the budget reconciliation process, which would prevent a Republican filibuster. Grassley warns that it would be a mistake to reform such a large part of the U.S. economy without broad support from members of Congress in both parties.

After the jump I’ll explain why Grassley is wrong, wrong, wrong about health care reform.

Survey USA recently released new polling numbers for Iowa, and it wasn’t good news for Governor Chet Culver. Senator Chuck Grassley’s approval was at a multi-year low in the same poll.

Links, numbers and some analysis are after the jump.

The Hill reported today that Senator Chuck Grassley has reached an agreement with his colleague Jeff Sessions of Alabama:

Under terms of the deal, Sessions will serve as ranking member [of the Senate Judiciary Committee] until the 112th Congress, when he will take over the ranking member post on the Senate Budget Committee. Current Budget Committee ranking member Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) is retiring at the end of the 111th Congress.

Grassley, the top Republican on the Finance Committee, will then become ranking member on the Judiciary Committee.

It’s a good deal for Grassley. Even though the Judiciary Committee will consider at least one Supreme Court nominee before 2011, the Senate Finance Committee will help write important health care and tax legislation this year.

The ranking member position at Judiciary became open when Senator Arlen Specter switched to the Democratic Party last week.

I’m not sure it’s good for the Republican Party to have Sessions as their public face during confirmation hearings. In 1986 the Senate Judiciary Committee declined to confirm him as a U.S. district court judge for various reasons. But if they want to reinforce their image as a regional party for white southerners, that’s ok by me.

UPDATE: Like Chase Martyn at Iowa Independent, I neglected to mention that Grassley faces re-election in 2010. I’m sorry to say that I see little prospect of him losing any election in Iowa. In any event, the deal he struck with Sessions removes any doubt about whether Grassley plans to retire before the next election. No chance with a crack at being ranking member of Judiciary beginning in 2011.

For a long time my money’s been on Grassley retiring in 2016, when his grandson, State Representative Pat Grassley, will be old enough to run for the U.S. Senate.

Following up on noneed4thneed’s post about Marshalltown schools closing for a week because of six probable cases of swine flu (H1N1 virus) in Marshall County, I’ve posted more news about this disease in Iowa after the jump.

Iowa Independent reports that Senator Arlen Specter’s decision to become a Democrat leaves Iowa’s own Chuck Grassley with a difficult choice. He is currently the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, but with Specter’s departure he appears to be first in line to become ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee instead. According to Iowa Independent,

GOP conference rules forbid him from serving as ranking member of both panels at the same time, a Senate aide said Tuesday. Theoretically, he could get a waiver to serve on both, but that’s unlikely, the aide said.

So very shortly, Grassley has a tough choice to make: Either he can remain the senior Republican on Finance – a powerful spot this year with comprehensive health reforms looming, but also a position he’ll have to give up at the end of 2010 because of GOP term-limit rules – or he can accept the top GOP spot on Judiciary.

Judiciary will consider many important matters this year and next, possibly including a Supreme Court nominee. However, if I were Grassley I would stay at Finance for sure.

President Barack Obama wants health care reform to happen this year and is willing to use the budget reconciliation process to make it happen. The health care reform bill may become one of the most important pieces of legislation this decade. By all accounts Grassley has a strong working relationship with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus.

I don’t think Judiciary will consider anything of comparable importance this year, and I doubt Grassley and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy would quickly develop the same kind of rapport Grassley has with Baucus.

At the end of 2010, Grassley’s term as ranking member of Finance will be up, and he can choose whether to become the ranking member of Judiciary or Budget. He has expressed a preference for Judiciary in the past.

If you were Grassley, would you take the chance to become the ranking member at Judiciary this year? If Grassley did give up his current position, it appears that Orrin Hatch would become the ranking member at Finance.

By the way, David Waldman reported yesterday at Congress Matters that Specter’s switch throws off the Judiciary Committee’s ratio of Democrats and Republicans. A new Senate organizing resolution will have to be adopted, and Democrats may use that opportunity to secure more seats on the Senate committees.

UPDATE: Grassley’s press secretary Beth Pellett Levine told me on Wednesday that the senator has not made any statement about whether he would consider becoming the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee.

President Barack Obama’s cabinet is complete just in time for his 100th day in office, now that the Senate has confirmed Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius for Health and Human Services secretary by a vote of 65 to 31. Senator Chuck Grassley joined most of his Republican colleagues in voting no, citing her ties to George Tiller, a Kansas doctor who performs late-term abortions.

When Obama picked Sebelius I didn’t expect her confirmation to become controversial, since she is a popular Democratic governor in a conservative state. (Both of the Republican senators representing Kansas voted to confirm Sebelius.) However, anti-abortion groups have been fighting the nomination because when asked how much money Dr. Tiller had donated to her, Sebelius initially reported only his contributions to her campaign funds and not his contributions to her political action committee.

For a time Republicans threatened to filibuster Sebelius’s nomination, but they never appeared to have the votes to support a filibuster. Grassley indicated last week that although he opposed Sebelius, he would not have backed a filibuster of her nomination.

Republicans did manage to hold up her confirmation vote for a while. The silver lining behind that obstructionist cloud was that Sebelius remained governor long enough to veto a bill that would have paved the way for two huge coal-burning power plants in Kansas.

Sebelius’s 31 no votes in the Senate make her the second most-controversial Obama cabinet member. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was opposed by 34 senators, including both Grassley and Tom Harkin.

Earlier this year it seemed that Republican opposition would be strongest to Obama’s choice for attorney general, but Eric Holder drew only 21 no votes in the Senate. Grassley voted to confirm Holder despite some doubts, saying he was influenced by his (then Republican) colleague Arlen Specter.

Grassley also voted for the fourth most controversial Obama nominee, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis. Seventeen Republican senators voted against her confirmation.