A bill to encourage consumers to purchase new and more fuel-efficient vehicles, co-sponsored by Congressman Bruce Braley (IA-01), passed the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday by a wide margin of 298 to 119, with two members voting “present.”

The roll call shows 59 yes votes from Republicans, including Iowa’s Tom Latham (IA-04) and Steve King (IA-05). Leonard Boswell (IA-03) also voted for the bill. Braley and Dave Loebsack (IA-02) were not present for the roll call, but it’s safe to assume that Loebsack would have voted for it, since only a handful of the most conservative House Democrats voted no.

Braley said in a statement,

“The passage of Cash for Clunkers legislation will help boost our economy, save families money, and reduce our dependence on foreign oil,” Braley said.  “Cash for Clunkers is a common-sense idea that can have a big impact on the economy, reducing emissions and saving American jobs by jumpstarting the auto industry.  I hope the passage of this bill today is a sign that this program will start benefiting families and American workers as soon as possible.”

In my opinion, this bill has much more potential to spur new car purchases and save jobs than it does to reduce emissions or our dependence on foreign oil. The increased fuel-efficiency requirements are quite modest (presumably because American car manufacturers have done a poor job of increasing fuel efficiency).

The original draft of the bill set more ambitious mileage requirements, but that changed during negotiations over the Waxman-Markey climate-change bill, to which this measure was attached:

The compromise also waters down the so-called cash-for-clunkers program*, which ostensibly encourages drivers to turn in their gas guzzlers in exchange for a federal subsidy on more fuel efficient models. Yet under the compromise proposal, the new fuel efficiencies are hardly dramatic. For example, drivers trading in trucks between 6,000 and 8,500 pounds would be eligible for a $3,500 voucher for purchasing the same-sized vehicle that’s more efficient by just 1 mile per gallon.

Daniel Becker, director of the Safe Climate Campaign, said the program does much more to help struggling automakers sell large, unpopular models than it does to reduce greenhouse emissions.

“It’s a $4 billion giveaway to move gas guzzling vehicles that nobody wants off the lots,” Becker said.

After the jump I’ve posted the press release from Braley’s office and the information from an accompanying fact sheet on how this bill would work.

Former Iowa GOP chairman Mike Mahaffey told CQ Politics that he is thinking about running against Representative Leonard Boswell in Iowa’s third Congressional district next year. (Hat tip to WHO’s Dave Price.) Boswell barely defeated Mahaffey in his first bid for Congress in 1996.

CQ Politics highlights a big obstacle for Mahaffey if he runs:

A Boswell-Mahaffey rematch after a 14-year hiatus would also take place on quite different turf from their first race. The 3rd District in 1996 was located mainly in southern Iowa and was heavily rural; Boswell was aided in that race by the fact that he had spent his life outside of politics in farming. But redistricting, performed in a non-partisan procedure in Iowa, move the district’s boundaries north and east to take in the state capital of Des Moines, to which Boswell relocated from his rural hometown.

It will take a lot to convince me that Mahaffey, a small-town lawyer and part-time Poweshiek County attorney, poses a serious threat to Boswell in a district dominated by Polk County. So far IA-03 doesn’t seem to be on anyone’s list of competitive U.S. House districts.

Please post a comment if you know of any other Republicans thinking about getting in this race.

As you’ve probably heard, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was in Des Moines Saturday to raise money for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (minimum donation $2,500). She also tacked on a public event to discuss stimulus spending on education in Iowa.

The occasion gave us a glimpse of cutting-edge Republican strategery.

First, there was the obligatory cheap shot comment to the press:

Republican Party of Iowa Executive Director Jeff Boeyink said he’s surprised any Iowa congressional Democrats would want to appear with her. […]

“We don’t think her values are Iowa values,” Boeyink said.

True to state party chairman Matt Strawn’s promise to get the Republican message out using social media, the Iowa GOP highlighted the report with Boeyink’s quote on their Twitter feed.

Trouble is, Democrats still have a wide lead on the generic Congressional ballot. Since Iowa votes fairly closely to the national average, I’ll bet the Republican House leadership is more out of touch with Iowa values than Pelosi.

On Saturday, GOP chairman Strawn claimed Pelosi is for a “national energy tax”, which would have a “devastating impact” on farmers. Not surprisingly, this sound bite doesn’t reflect the content of the American Clean Energy and Security Act. (Click here for detailed bullet points on the draft bill to address climate change.) But who cares, if scare-mongering about tax hikes can lead Iowa Republicans out of the wilderness?

Meanwhile, the National Republican Congressional Committee paid for robocalls bashing Pelosi in the three Democratic-held Congressional districts in Iowa. Scroll to the bottom of this post at Iowa Defense Alliance to listen to all three versions of the call. Or, you can read the transcript that Blog for Iowa’s Trish Nelson posted after receiving the Loebsack version on Friday night. Its warnings about taxes, Pelosi’s “liberal agenda” and “San Francisco values” give it a “back to the future” flavor.

Wake me up when the Party of No comes up with some message that’s not 25 years old.

Yesterday Taniel at the Campaign Diaries blog posted about 68 Democratic-held U.S. House seats that could potentially be competitive in 2010. Iowa’s third Congressional district is not on that list.

IA-03 did not make Stuart Rothenberg’s list of competitive House seats for 2010 either.

The National Republican Congressional Committee released a list of 51 targeted Democratic-held House districts in January. Lo and behold, IA-03 is not on that list either.

I realize that Boswell only won the district with 56.3 percent of the vote in 2008, but I don’t hear any chatter from Iowa Republicans about recruiting a candidate to run against him. The focus is on the governor’s race and the Iowa House.

I bring this up because the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has kept Boswell on its list of “Frontline Democrats” for 2010. John Deeth recently noticed that Boswell is “by far the senior member” of the 41 Frontline candidates. Almost all of them were first elected to Congress in 2006 or 2008. The others with more terms under their belt represent districts significantly more conservative than IA-03 with its partisan voter index of D+1.

For Deeth, this is yet another sign that IA-03 deserves better than Boswell. I view it as a sign that the DCCC is wrong. Boswell definitely needed to be in the Frontline program the first five times he ran for re-election, but he was a safe six-term incumbent in 2008, and there’s no reason to believe he won’t be a safe seven-term incumbent in 2010.

According to the Iowa Secretary of State’s office, Iowa’s third district had about 433,000 registered voters as of May 1, 2009. Of those, about 399,000 were “active voters.” More than 156,000 of the active voters in IA-03 are registered Democrats. Only about 118,000 are registered Republicans, and about 124,000 are registered no-party voters.

Why should you care if the DCCC erroneously classifies Boswell as vulnerable? Frontline Democrats are exempt from paying DCCC dues, which are used to support Democrats in competitive races across the country.

Look, I would still prefer to elect a new Democrat to IA-03 in order to avoid a potential matchup of Boswell and Tom Latham in 2012. But since Boswell has no plans to retire, let him pay his DCCC dues just like every other House incumbent whose seat is not threatened next year.  

On a related note, Deeth recently cited Progressive Punch lifetime ratings as an argument for replacing Boswell. It’s worth noting that Boswell’s voting record in the current Congress is much better than his lifetime Progressive Punch score suggests. (For instance, he was not among the Blue Dogs who voted against President Barack Obama’s budget blueprint.) Yes, IA-03 should be represented by a more progressive Democrat than Boswell, but I’m cutting him slack as long as he’s not casting egregious votes in the current Congress.  

I see no reason to keep him in the Frontline program, though. We will genuinely be playing defense in dozens of House districts next year. Until there is some sign that Republicans are making a serious play for IA-03, Boswell should pay his DCCC dues.

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.

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.

Congress will begin making important decisions on health care policy very soon. The Senate Finance Committee began drafting a health care bill a few days ago.

I was glad to see two Iowans among the representatives and senators who urged colleagues this week to include a strong public option in any health care reform plan.

After the jump I have more on where Congressman Dave Loebsack and Senator Tom Harkin stand on health care, as well as the benefits of creating a public health insurance option.

UPDATE: Thanks to Populista for reminding me that all Iowa Democrats in Congress (Bruce Braley, Dave Loebsack, Leonard Boswell and Tom Harkin) have signed on to support Health Care for America Now’s core principles for health care reform.

Something jumped out at me in Jonathan Singer’s thread on Senator Arlen Specter’s press conference announcing his party switch:

Update [2009-4-28 14:32:44 by Jonathan Singer]: Specter says that he and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have agreed to respect his seniority as if he had been elected as a Democrat in 1980.

Update [2009-4-28 14:37:18 by Jonathan Singer]: On follow up, Specter indicates how this seniority issue plays out, specifically in terms of subcommittee chairmanships — though from the grin on his face you have to get the sense that he is not coming to the Democratic caucus without the possibility of retaining some power.

Update [2009-4-28 14:43:50 by Todd Beeton]:Specter: “I’d be ahead of Senator Harkin.” Implying that he would take over the chairmanship of the Health Sub-committee of Appropriations. Bullshit.

Harkin was first elected to the Senate in 1984. I have a call in to Harkin’s office to find out what assurances he has received regarding his committee and subcommittee positions. As John Deeth wrote recently,

Senority, while not as all-important as it was before the 1970s, is still a big deal, determining committee assignments. Day of swearing in rules over all […]

I find it hard to believe that Reid would strike a deal with Specter putting him ahead of Harkin, but this bears watching until we know for sure what Specter will get as a member of the Democratic caucus. I’ll update this post when I hear more on this front.

Incidentally, Reid did the heavy lifting to talk Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont into leaving the Republican caucus in 2001. He spent considerable time lobbying Jeffords,

And when no other Democrat would offer up a committee chairmanship to Jeffords should he leave the Republicans, it was Reid who gave up what would have been a job helming the Environment and Public Works Committee.

That was a more earth-shattering switch, because it shifted control of the U.S. Senate from Republicans to Democrats.

The blogosphere is full of reaction to Specter’s move today. Todd Beeton’s review of some conservative blog commentaries was entertaining.

UPDATE: Harkin interviewed by MSNBC’s David Shuster, “indicated that he’d spoken to Specter before he made the switch, said, ‘Welcome, Arlen.’”

From NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell:

NO CHAIRMANSHIP ON THE TABLE: Sources say Specter will not be given a chairmanship during this Congress, the 111th. For now, “chairmanships were not on the table” as a part of the party switch negotiations.

Last October, Representative Michele “Crazy as Steve King” Bachmann (MN-06) disgraced herself on “Hardball” and sparked a ridiculously successful fundraising drive for her Democratic opponent, El Tinklenberg. I was impressed by the enthusiasm and kicked in a few bucks for Tinklenberg myself, but I was dismayed to see bloggers continue to help him raise money even after he’d raised more than $750,000 and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had promised to spend an additional $1 million in his district. Within a few days of Bachmann’s notorious comments, Tinklenberg had more money than he needed to run a solid media and GOTV campaign during the final two weeks before the election.

Since most Congressional races against incumbents are longshots, I wanted to see the netroots expand the field by raising $50,000 or more for a large number of unheralded challengers.

A fellow Iowa blogger sent me this piece from CQ Politics about how Tinklenberg’s campaign committee was the largest donor to the DCCC in March, giving a total of $250,000:

You may recall that his Republican opponent was Rep. Michele Bachmann, whose mid-October comment that Obama “may have anti-American views” angered Democrats nationwide and spawned an avalanche of contributions to Tinklenberg in the waning days of a campaign that Bachmann won by 46 percent to 43 percent, with a third-party candidate taking 10 percent.

Apparently the money was coming in too fast for Tinklenberg to spend completely: he raised $3 million for his campaign, of which $1.9 million came in after October 15, and had $453,000 in leftover campaign funds at the end of 2008 and $184,000 at the end of March.

I’m not saying it wasn’t worth getting behind Tinklenberg. Bachmann is among the worst Republicans in Congress, and this district rightly seemed winnable. However, the netroots clearly funneled way more money to Tinklenberg than he could spend effectively.

What if a million of the dollars we sent to the MN-06 race had been spread around 10 or 20 other districts? A bunch of the candidates I wanted to support as part of an expanded field got blown out by large margins, but an extra $50,000 could have made the difference for Josh Segall in AL-03, or for several candidates who weren’t on my radar, such as Bill Hedrick in CA-44.

The netroots rally for Tinklenberg started out as a good cause but took on a momentum of its own. It didn’t help that Tinklenberg sent fundraising e-mails to his new donors every day or two during the home stretch, even after he had more than enough money to close out the campaign.

Maybe the majority of blog readers who gave $10 or $20 or $50 to Tinklenberg wouldn’t have given to some other longshot Congressional challenger. Maybe people need an emotional trigger before they are willing to open their wallets. But in future election cycles, we need to be smarter about how we focus our energy and our fundraising efforts during the final weeks of a campaign. There’s no shortage of wingnuts worth targeting. Also, a fair number of good incumbent Democrats will probably need our help in 2010, depending on how the economy looks 18 months from now.

Any ideas or suggestions on how to raise money effectively during the next cycle would be welcome in this thread.

For at least the last three months, Norm Coleman has had no realistic hope of winning Minnesota’s U.S. Senate election, but that hasn’t stopped him from fighting the inevitable in court. It’s obvious that Coleman’s legal maneuvering has no goal other than to keep Al Franken out of the Senate for as long as possible.

That has collateral benefits for Republicans on a national scale, making it harder for Senate Democrats to win 60 votes to break a filibuster. Barack Obama may have been able to get his economic stimulus bill through the Senate with fewer concessions if he had needed only two Republicans to sign on (instead of three).

Unfortunately for our neighbors to the north, Coleman’s obstruction has done significant and lasting harm to Minnesota. John Deeth explains why in this great post about seniority rules in the U.S. Senate. Had Franken been sworn in with the rest of the class elected last November, he would now rank 94th in seniority, but instead he’s going to rank 100th (click the link for the full explanation, which is worth your time).

Making matters worse for Minnesota: all six of the senators Franken should outrank, but doesn’t, are fellow Democrats.

How much this matters in the long run depends on the longevity of the six senators who leapfrogged over Franken. […]

Michael Bennet and Kirsten Gillibrand will probably face primaries, too, but after a first electoral test they, and Merkley and Begich, could last awhile (particularly Gillibrand, who at 42 is the youngest Senator). Franken, at age 57, could be around long enough that those lost months of seniority will make a difference between him and let’s say Gillibrand getting a chairmanship sometime around 2018.

If you want to make Republicans pay for Coleman’s sore-loserdom, support the campaign Senate Guru wrote about over the weekend: “A Dollar a Day to Make Norm Go Away.”  

Angry social conservatives are speculating that Senator Chuck Grassley could face a primary challenge in 2010. The religious right has been dissatisfied with Grassley for a long time (see here and here).

After the Iowa Supreme Court announced the Varnum v Brien decision, Grassley issued a statement saying he supported “traditional marriage” and had backed federal legislation and a federal constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. But when hundreds of marriage equality opponents rallied at the state capitol last Thursday, and Republicans tried to bring a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage to the Iowa House floor, Grassley refused to say whether he supported their efforts to change Iowa’s constitution:

“You better ask me in a month, after I’ve had a chance to think,” Grassley, the state’s senior Republican official, said after a health care forum in Mason City.

Grassley has supported legislation in the past decade to establish marriage as between a man and a woman, and to enact an amendment to the U.S. Constitution banning same-sex marriage. […]

“But it doesn’t have to be marriage,” he added. “There’s things like civil unions.”

Grassley said the amendment he supported left the issue of government acknowledgment of same-sex relationships, such as civil unions, up to states

to allow or ban.

Wingnut Bill Salier, who almost won the Republican primary for U.S. Senate in 2002, says conservatives are becoming “more and more incensed [the] more they start to pay attention to how far [Grassley] has drifted.”

Iowa GOP chairman Matt Strawn denies that party activists are unhappy with Grassley. I hope Salier is right and Grassley gets a primary challenge, for reasons I’ll explain after the jump.  

Congressman Steve King is still “royally ticked” about the “unanimous decision on the part of seven unelected Iowa judges who decided to take the law into their own hands and usurp the legitimate authority of the Iowa Legislature […].” He doesn’t seem real clear on the concept of judicial review, whereby courts can strike down laws that violate citizens’ constitutional rights.

Then again, maybe King does understand that legislators can’t pass unconstitutional laws. As David Waldman pointed out, last month King complained that a bill to restrict bonus payments to executives from bailed-out financial institutions was “a dangerous and unconstitutional disruption of America’s free-market system.”

In any event, King is bringing his crusade against marriage equality to a telephone near you. Several Bleeding Heartland readers in different parts of the state have told me that they received the robocall corncam diaried here. Paid for by the National Organization for Marriage, the call features King asking if you are a registered voter in Iowa. If you say yes, King asks if you believe marriage should be between one man and one woman. If you say no, King thanks you and says good-bye.

We need someone to say yes, take detailed notes about the rest of this robocall, and post a diary here about it. Obviously it’s a voter ID call for a group that will be campaigning to overturn the Varnum v Brien ruling, but what talking points are they using, and what information are they collecting from sympathetic respondents?

Some people have wondered whether King recorded this call in order to raise his profile for a future statewide campaign. Last week King told the Omaha World-Herald that he would be more likely to run for governor in 2010 if Chet Culver did not work hard to overturn the Iowa Supreme Court’s decision in Varnum v Brien. Although I’d love for King to leave Congress, I agree with Iowa Senate Democratic leader Mike Gronstal, who says “Steve King’s too chicken to run for governor because he knows he’d get his butt beat.”

King responded by accusing Gronstal of being “afraid to allow a vote on marriage,” which made me laugh. If Gronstal were afraid of backlash on this issue, he would be making cautious statements that grudgingly accept the Supreme Court ruling while emphasizing his own belief in “traditional marriage.” Instead, Gronstal has made clear that he welcomes marriage equality and will not “insert discrimination into our state constitution.”

The Steve Kings of the world are scared because they know Iowans and Americans increasingly support legal recognition of committed relationships, regardless of sexual orientation.  

Speaking of campaigns, Politico reported on April 3 that the Federal Election Commission has questioned why King’s campaign committee paid the Congressman’s son Jeff King $156,000 during the past five years. An attorney for the campaign committee responded that Jeff King is the sole full-time employee of the campaign, and that he was paid a “fair market value” salary for “bona fide campaign-related services.”

King isn’t the most energetic campaigner, so I find it surprising that he employs a full-time year-round campaign staffer, but to me this is a non-issue. Many politicians employ close relatives on their campaigns. If King’s contributors don’t mind his paying his son $30,000 a year, then who am I to argue?

What bothers me are the elected officials who hire close relatives to do taxpayer-funded work–especially when those officials pretend to care about allegedly unethical campaign payments.

A few days ago Chris Bowers reported welcome news from the progressive wing of the Democratic delegation in the U.S. House of Representatives. He posted a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from the co-chairs of the Progressive Caucus:

Dear Madam Speaker and Majority Leader,

Regarding the upcoming health care reform debate, we believe it is important for you to know that virtually the entire 77-Member Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) prefers a single-payer approach to healthcare reform.  Therefore, it will come as no surprise as you work to craft comprehensive health care reform legislation, that we urge the inclusion of a public plan option, at a minimum, in the final legislation.  We have polled CPC Members and a strong majority will not support legislation that does not include a public plan option that is supported on a level playing field with private health insurance plans.

We look forward to working with you to ensure inclusion of a public plan option and the successful passage of healthcare legislation that will provide a choice of  quality healthcare for all Americans

Sincerely,

Lynn Woolsey, Co-Chair, Congressional Progressive Caucus

Raul Grijalva, Co-Chair, Congressional Progressive Caucus

Many arguments lie ahead regarding what kind of public option would be acceptable as a compromise. Like most members of the Progressive Caucus, I would prefer an option for Americans to buy into an existing government-run program such as Medicare. Presumably corporate Democrats will be pushing for no public option or at best for allowing Americans to buy into the federal employees’ health insurance plan, which is provided by various private insurers.

I am glad to see progressive leaders warn that they will not support a Massachusetts-style health care reform, with a mandate for individuals to purchase private health insurance. There must be a public option.

Congressman Dave Loebsack is the only Iowan in the House Progressive Caucus and the only Iowan among the co-sponsors of HR 676, the single-payer health care bill. I am seeking comment from his office about whether he would reject any health care reform bill that does not include a public option.

Although Congressman Bruce Braley is not a co-sponsor of HR 676, I would think that fighting for a strong public option on health insurance would be a natural position for his Populist Caucus to take. I will seek comment from his office on this matter and write a follow-up post later this week.

The U.S. House of Representatives approved President Barack Obama’s proposed $3.55 trillion 2010 budget on Thursday by a vote of 233 to 196. As you can see from the roll call, all three Democrats representing Iowa voted for the budget: Bruce Braley (IA-01), Dave Loebsack (IA-02), and Leonard Boswell (IA-03). Every House Republican voted against Obama’s budget, including Tom Latham (IA-04) and Steve King (IA-05).

Twenty House Democrats joined Republicans in voting against the budget (Dennis Kucinich plus a minority of the Blue Dog caucus). But it’s notable that most Blue Dogs, like Boswell, supported this budget. Obama has met twice with the Blue Dog caucus this year, most recently on March 30.

House Republicans offered an alternative budget proposal with all kinds of crazy ideas in it, like privatizing Medicare, giving the wealthy more tax cuts, and freezing most non-defense discretionary federal spending. As you can see from the roll call, Tom Latham was among the 28 Republicans who joined House Democrats in voting down the GOP budget alternative. Steve King was among the 137 Republicans who voted yes.

White House officials were right to mock the GOP’s budget alternative as a “joke.” Freezing federal spending is a good way to turn a severe economic recession into a depression.

Soon after the House budget vote, I received press releases from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee slamming Latham and King for voting against a wide range of tax cuts contained in the budget resolution. I’ve posted those after the jump.

I suspect that the the DCCC is not putting out statements attacking the House Democrats who voted against the budget, and I’m seeking a comment from their communications staff about whether my hunch is correct. DCCC chair Chris Van Hollen warned on Thursday that liberal groups supporting primary challengers against unreliable House Democrats could cost the party seats in 2010. I wonder why we are supposed to look the other way when members of our own party take positions that the DCCC finds atrocious in House Republicans.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate approved a 2010 budget resolution late on Thursday after a nearly 12-hour marathon of votes on various amendments. David Waldman (formerly known as Kagro X) gives you the play-by-play from yesterday’s Senate action at Congress Matters. The final vote in the Senate was 55-43 (roll call here). Iowa’s Tom Harkin voted yes, along with all Senate Democrats except for Evan Bayh of Indiana and Ben Nelson of Nebraska, who voted with Republicans, and Robert Byrd of West Virginia, who did not vote. The 41 Senate Republicans, including Iowa’s Chuck Grassley, voted no.

CNN went over the key similarities and differences between the House and Senate budget resolutions. Most important difference, in my opinion:

[House Democrats] also included language that allows for the controversial procedure called “budget reconciliation” for health care, a tool that would limit debate on major policy legislation.

Senate Democrats did not include reconciliation in their version of the budget. The matter is guaranteed to be a major partisan sticking point when the two chambers meet to hammer out a final version of next year’s spending plan. If it passes, it would allow the Senate to pass Obama’s proposed health care reform without the threat of a Republican-led Senate filibuster.

Notably, both the House and Senate budget bills “do away with Obama’s request for an additional $250 billion, if needed, in financial-sector bailout money.” Thank goodness for that.

Any comments or speculation regarding federal tax or spending policies are welcome in this thread.

President Obama is bravely captaining our economic ship. Where the last president balked at an aggregate demand-increasing stimulus and a meaningful overhaul of the automobile industry, Obama steered a $787 billion stimulus through Congress and threw car industry veteran Rick Wagoner overboard. Obama’s paradigm-shifting budget is likely to sail, relatively unscathed, through Congress in the next week. Meanwhile, Congress has filled in some rather important details, taking responsibility for successfully expanding children’s health insurance and strengthening safeguards for fair pay.

But TheMiddleClass.org’s 2008 Middle-Class Scorecard, a congressional accountability project sponsored by the Drum Major Institute, shows that several of the more basic protections for middle-class Americans – what I would like to call “low-hanging fruit” – are still unresolved, even as Congress takes on large-scale reform projects like a health care overhaul and climate change legislation.

In 2008, legislation imposing stricter regulations on credit card companiesallowing bankruptcy judges to modify the terms of primary mortgages in bankruptcy stalled in Congress, while legislators resisted including improvements to food safety regulations in a bill strengthening the Consumer Product Safety Commission. These legislative failures have had serious consequences for middle-class Americans: interest rate hikes that the Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights would have prohibited are instead proliferating; the 800,000 homes that would have been saved from foreclosure by the bankruptcy provision are still in danger; and Salmonella-tainted peanut butter has killed nine people and infected almost 700.

Congress is, indeed, addressing each of these issues. Markups of legislation strengthening credit card regulations are scheduled for this week in both the House and the Senate, the House passed a bill including the mortgage modification provision earlier this month, and proposals for food safety reform are solidifying.

Yet, the TheMiddleClass.org Scorecard urges caution. Only 38% of the Senate – and no Senate Republicans – voted in favor of bankruptcy modification; 74% of the House (only 43% of House Republicans) voted for the Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights’, but the legislation was left to die by the Senate. Other measures that would have benefitted the middle class were subject to similarly chilly receptions, with important legislation to bail out the auto industry receiving support just above 20% from Senate and House Republicans. Only 60% of all House members voted in favor of legislation that extended unemployment insurance and established a new GI Bill.

The complexity of the economic and financial crisis Americans are now experiencing does not make commonsense protections for consumers and homeowners any less important. In fact, as the crisis deepens, such protections become even more important as struggling companies try to squeeze the last pennies from vulnerable consumers. But as TheMiddleClass.org Scorecard demonstrates, protections for middle-class Americans are often talked about in Congress, but never fully addressed. Lawmakers should use the current crisis as an opportunity to usher in a new era of middle-class American rule. Next year’s Scorecard should show all legislators voting in favor of strengthened credit card regulations, bankruptcy modification for primary residences, and a food safety overhaul.

{First, a cheap plug for my blog Senate Guru.}

While I typically focus on Senate races, the special election in New York’s 20th Congressional district is an excellent opportunity to stick it to the Republican Party.

NY-20 is a Republican leaning district in voter registration, but has been recently represented by now-Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and even narrowly supported now-President Barack Obama over John McCain.

The Democratic nominee, Scott Murphy, has turned a deficit in the polls into a narrow four-point lead over Republican Jim Tedisco.  Momentum is on our side!  A victory in this special election wouldn’t just be a nice Democratic hold, but, since it is a Republican-leaning district, it would also be a major embarrassment for Republicans, particularly new RNC Chair Michael Steele.

How desperate are Republicans in this race?  Well, they’re very literally reduced to going with a noun, a verb, and 9-11 in flailingly attacking Murphy.  And how loathsome is the Republican nominee?  Even the Libertarian candidate, who was booted from the race after – it would appear – Republicans made a concerted effort to get enough Libertarian ballot signatures overturned, has endorsed Scott Murphy.  (And it’s one hell of an endorsement.)

The special election is this Tuesday!  So what can you do to help?

Phone bank for Scott Murphy!

This is a special election, so GOTV is everything.  On Monday or Tuesday, if you can spend literally one single hour making calls, that could be the difference in a Republican pick-up versus a Republican embarrassment.

The U.S. House of Representatives approved by 328 to 93 a bill that would put a 90 percent tax on bonuses over $250,000 that any financial institution receiving bailout money pays to employees. The bill is not limited to AIG, which sparked public outcry by paying at least 73 employees bonuses of more than $1 million.

Here is the roll call. All three Democrats representing Iowa in the U.S. House (Bruce Braley, Dave Loebsack, and Leonard Boswell) voted yes on retrieving most of the taxpayer dollars being squandered on excessive Wall Street bonuses.

Steve King was among the 87 House Republicans who voted no. It would be interesting to hear his reasoning. House Republican leader John Boehner claimed to be against the bill because the excessive bonuses were to be taxed at 90 percent rather than 100 percent. Riiiight.

Tom Latham, who voted against the Wall Street bailouts last fall, was one of 85 Republicans who joined the Democratic majority in voting yes today. I am curious to know when Latham cast his vote. According to Chris Bowers, “Republicans were running 2-1 against the bill for a while, but are now changing their votes in the face of overwhelming passage.”

UPDATE: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee put out a press release slamming King for this vote. I’ve posted it after the jump.

Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana announced plans in December to form an equivalent of the Blue Dog caucus in the Senate. Today his office rolled out the Moderate Dems Working Group.

Should Democrats be worried, or is this a non-story? A few thoughts are after the jump.

Yesterday I posted here that Representative Tom Latham (IA-04) has been taking credit for earmarks in the 2009 omnibus spending bill that he voted against.

Alert Bleeding Heartland user frogmanjim informed me that Representative Steve King (IA-05) has been playing the same game. King’s office issued an upbeat statement about $570,000 included in the economic stimulus bill that will go toward widening U.S. Highway 20 in a rural area of northwest Iowa. Of course, the statement did not mention that King voted against the stimulus. Nor did the brief news item in the Sioux City Journal.

I had a feeling that King would take credit for stimulus spending. During last year’s campaign he repeatedly misled voters about his role in securing money to widen Highway 20 (see here and here).

Time for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to add Steve King’s name to the Republican Hypocrisy Hall of Fame. More than 30 House Republicans have already been inducted.

Remember when I asked Bleeding Heartland readers to let me know if Representatives Tom Latham or Steve King tried to take credit for infrastructure projects funded by the stimulus bill they opposed?

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee noticed that Latham has been sending out press releases touting earmarks in the 2009 omnibus spending bill that he and nearly every other House Republican voted against. That’s right, Latham has been bragging about earmarks he inserted in a bill he didn’t support on the House floor. This is from the DCCC’s press release of March 12:

In a striking example of hypocrisy, after voting against the recently enacted FY 2009 Omnibus Appropriations, Congressman Tom Latham is taking credit for millions of dollars included in the legislation that will help local community colleges, health care clinics, and renewable energy producers in  Iowa ‘s 4th Congressional District.

“Congressman Latham keeps telling people he ‘secured’ millions of dollars in funding for Iowa, but the truth is he voted against these investments,” said Gabby Adler, the Midwestern Regional Press Secretary for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.  “Congressman Latham can’t hide from his voting record, no matter how hard he tries.  Counter to what Congressman Latham would have you believe, these millions of dollars aren’t coming to Iowa because of his hard work, these investments are being made in spite of Congressman Latham’s efforts to defeat this bill and the funding for Iowa.”

In every single press release sent out by Congressman Latham announcing investments for Iowa included in the FY 2009 Appropriations, he not only hid the fact he voted against the legislation but he led people to believe he championed its passage.  One release read Congressman Latham “once again this past week demonstrated his commitment to community colleges,” another one discussed his role as a “long-time supporter” of new health care technologies.  In a third release, Congressman Latham even referred to his support of Iowa’s renewable energy industry as “steadfast” despite his vote against $1.4 million for a cutting edge wind energy project in Iowa.

After the jump I’ve posted the rest of the DCCC’s release, which contains further details about the earmarks Latham voted against but is now taking credit for.

The two-faced Republican position on earmarks is truly sickening.

Latham may feel secure in IA-04 for 2010, but in 2012 he will probably have to run in a redrawn third district, which may not be as friendly as his current turf. For that reason, I have wondered whether voting for some of President Barack Obama’s policies would be in Latham’s political interest, or whether he would be better off rejecting every significant White House proposal, like most House Republicans.

Apparently Latham plans to have it both ways and hope Iowans don’t notice.

Let me know if you see any news reports in the fourth district that tell the whole truth about Latham’s position on the omnibus spending bill. My hunch is that most journalists will pass along the information from Latham’s press releases without mentioning that he didn’t vote for the final package.

President Barack Obama proposed reforms to the Congressional earmarking process on Wednesday:

• Members’ earmark requests should be posted on their Web sites.

• There should be public hearings on earmark requests “where members will have to justify their expense to the taxpayer.”

• Any earmark for a for-profit company would have to be competitively bid.

The reforms are intended to deflect criticism after Obama signed the $410 billion 2009 omnibus spending bill, which included about $7.7 billion in earmarks.

I have no time for the Republican Party’s blatant hypocrisy on what is really a “phantom problem”. Republican members of Congress secure plenty of earmarks for their own states even as they posture against “pork.” They don’t seem to care about sweetheart deals and no-bid contracts awarded by executive agencies, which cost taxpayers much more than all earmarks combined.

Beltway journalists have been following the Republican script, focusing way too much on earmarks, even though they are “inconsequential”:

Not only do they represent less than one percent of the federal budget, eliminating them wouldn’t even reduce federal spending by even that tiny amount, or any amount at all, since earmarks by definition simply tag the spending in an already established pot of money, such as the Community Development Block Grant. The only question is whether decisions about funding individual projects should be made by Congress — through earmarks — or by a supposedly apolitical administrative process.

Furthermore, Jonathan Singer points out, earmarks simply don’t register when Americans are asked an open-ended question about their concerns.

I’m all for the reforms Obama announced yesterday, but let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that they will make a dent in government spending.

Although I think concerns about earmarks are exaggerated, I do want to examine the origin of Senator Tom Harkin’s $1.8 million earmark for studying odors from large hog confinements (CAFOs) in Iowa. It has become the poster child for Republican taunts about useless earmarks, prompting Harkin to defend himself (see here and here).

Follow me after the jump for more on why the federal government is funding this study. The earmark has its roots in unfortunate decisions that Iowa Democratic leaders made last year–with the enthusiastic support of statehouse Republicans and corporate ag groups.

There seems to be some confusion about the potential map for Iowa’s Congressional districts that Nathaniel90 posted here yesterday, so I’d like to clarify a few points after the jump.

UPDATE: Nathaniel responds to Krusty in the comments.  

Congressman Tom Latham is one of 34 Republicans who represent U.S. House districts carried by Barack Obama, according to analysis by CQ Politics.

Jonathan Singer was struck by the fact that Obama won nearly twice as many Republican-held districts as John Kerry did, even though far fewer Republicans won House elections in 2008 compared to 2004. Singer believes that as the next elections draw closer, these Republicans from Obama-districts will eventually feel pressure to support the president on some issues.

I don’t accept Singer’s premise that Obama will remain popular in all of the districts he carried in 2008. We don’t know what the economy will look like 18 months from now or whether Republicans will pay any political price for obstructing Obama’s agenda.

Still, Singer’s post got me thinking–is there any reason for Latham to cooperate with Obama?

After the jump I’ll try to answer this question.

That’s the mission of the Accountability Now PAC:

“We need members of Congress to leave the bubble of Washington, D.C. and stand with their constituents,” said Jane Hamsher, founder of Firedoglake.com and co-founder of Accountability Now. “We need members of Congress to ask the tough questions about continued Wall Street bailouts that reward the donor class, two wars without seeming end, the ceaseless assault on our civil liberties, and other issues that separate the citizenry from the DC cocoon.”

“Accountability Now is an organization built around a single guiding principle: challenging the institutional power structures that make it so easy, so consequence-free for Congress to open up the government coffers for looting by corporate America while people across the country are losing their jobs and their basic constitutional rights while unable to afford basic health care,” said Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com and co-founder of Accountability Now. “Accountability Now believes that members of Congress in both parties need to hear from their constituents, and that nothing focuses the mind of a politician on listening to citizens better than a primary.”

“Accountability Now PAC will recruit, coordinate, and support primary challenges against vulnerable Congressional incumbents who have become more responsive to corporate America than to their constituents,” said Accountability Now’s new Executive Director, Jeff Hauser. “By empowering the grassroots, Accountability Now will help create the political space needed to enable President Obama to make good on the many progressive policies he campaigned on – such as getting out of Iraq, ensuring access to affordable health care for every man, woman and child, restoring our constitutional liberties and ending torture.”

In 2007, grassroots activists banded together to oust Al Wynn out of office, and it shook House Democrats to their core. Similarly, we learned in 2006 how even a primary challenge that does not win could change behavior, as Jane Harman has been more accountable to the concerns of her constituents after a tough primary race against Marcy Winograd.

Out of these recent lessons, diverse and politically powerful groups have decided to support Accountability Now’s efforts, such as MoveOn, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), DailyKos, ColorOfChange.org, and Democracy for America, 21st Century Democrats and BlogPAC.

On principle, I agree with the goals of this PAC. Like some guy once said, “the system in Washington is rigged and our government is broken. It’s rigged by greedy corporate powers to protect corporate profits. […] We cannot replace a group of corporate Republicans with a group of corporate Democrats […]”

However, I won’t get excited about the Accountability Now PAC until I learn more about the criteria it will use to determine which Democratic incumbents are “bad enough” to be primaried, and which primary challengers are “good enough” to be endorsed.

To my knowledge, Democracy for America was the only organization in the Accountability Now PAC that helped Ed Fallon in last year’s primary in Iowa’s third district (a D+1 district represented by Blue Dog Leonard Boswell).

How would someone thinking about a primary challenge know whether he or she is likely to get full support, like Donna Edwards in MD-04, or almost nothing, like Fallon?

Speaking of Democracy for America, it’s not too late to RSVP for their training academy in Des Moines on February 28 and March 1. Come meet noneed4thneed while you learn to be a more effective grassroots activist.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced that 40 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives will be in the “Frontline Program,” which seeks to protect incumbents in potentially vulnerable districts. Once again, Leonard Boswell of Iowa’s third district will be a Frontline Democrat. Here’s what the designation means:

The Frontline Program is a partnership between the DCCC and Members which lays the ground work for the 2010 cycle by supporting and expanding their fundraising and outreach operations. Frontline Members must sign a memorandum of understanding, strengthened this cycle to reflect the challenging political environment, that requires Members to meet aggressive fundraising goals, accelerate volunteer and recruitment efforts, and increase their online networking.

The DCCC’s Frontline Program is a proven success. Frontline Members and the DCCC did its work effectively and early in the 2008 cycle.  As a result, the DCCC’s independent expenditure campaign made a significant investment in only 10 of 34 Frontline districts – approximately 15 percent of the IE’s budget.

I’ve put the DCCC’s press release after the jump. Most of the others named to the Frontline list appear to be in more vulnerable districts than Boswell. Republicans targeted Boswell during his first five re-election campaigns but did not make a serious challenge in IA-03 in 2008. Boswell defeated Kim Schmett by 56 percent to 42 percent in November.

Here’s an interesting fact from the DCCC’s statement, which underscores how the Republican Party has become increasingly uncompetitive in large parts of the country:

There are 83 Democrats in districts that President [George] Bush won in 2004, while there are only six (6) Republicans in seats that Senator [John] Kerry won.

Presumably a significant number of those 83 districts swung to Barack Obama in the 2008 election, as Iowa’s third district did. But the final presidential election results by Congressional district have not been calculated everywhere in the country.

I would be very surprised if the DCCC had to spend resources defending Boswell in the next election. Many House Democrats are in a more precarious position. Unfortunately, the irony is that re-electing Boswell in 2010 could make IA-03 a very tough hold for Democrats in 2012.

The DCCC is staying on offense as well, launching robocalls this week in the districts of 12 potentially vulnerable House Republicans. A few weeks ago the DCCC ran radio ads in 28 Republican-held House districts, including Iowa’s fourth district. Tom Latham is not being targeted in the current robocall effort, however. It’s just as well, since IA-04 does not appear to be among the top Democratic pickup opportunities for the next cycle.

One year ago today I was battling an ear infection that turned bad enough to put me in the hospital for a week.

What I went through then was among the worst experiences of my life. Yet looking back on the experience, I realize how lucky I was.

The rest of the story is after the jump.

Progressive Punch has added a new and incredibly useful layer of analysis to its rankings of members of Congress by voting record.

The “Select by Score” pages now indicate how progressive representatives and senators are compared to the districts and states they represent.

Select by Score Senate rankings

Select by Score House rankings

As before, you see members of the House and Senate ranked from most progressive to least progressive, based on all votes as well as on certain “crucial votes.” Calculating a separate score for “crucial votes” reveals which Democrats are not reliable when the chips are down. This helps prevent gaming of the system, as when Joe Lieberman voted against filibustering Samuel Alito’s nomination for the Supreme Court, then turned around and voted against confirming him.

For the new feature, Progressive Punch has placed every state and Congressional district into one of five categories: strong D, lean D, swing, lean R, and strong R. Each Congress-critter’s “crucial vote” score is then compared to the political lean of the district or state. In the right-hand column on the “Select by Score” pages, every member of Congress now has a rating from 1 to 5, with 5 being the most progressive. Progressive Punch explains:

The “%” and “Rating” columns underneath the “Progressive Score vs. State Tilt” are two different ways of measuring the same thing. They both measure how naughty or nice a member of Congress’ voting record has been in relation to his/her district. We’re grading on a curve. Five stars in the “Rating” column indicate members of Congress who are doing the best in terms of voting MORE progressively than could necessarily be expected given their states or districts. Those with one star are performing the worst in relation to their districts.

For more details on the methodology behind this analysis, click here for House ratings and here for Senate ratings.

Why is this useful? It’s now much easier to see which Democrats in Congress are voting about as well as could be expected, and which ones should be doing a lot better.  

Here are a few examples. Senators Dianne Feinstein and Harry Reid have identical lifetime progressive scores on crucial votes. However, since Feinstein represents a strong Democratic state (CA) and Reid represents a swing state (NV), Feinstein gets a 1 while Reid gets a 3.

Ron Wyden (OR), Barbara Mikulski (MD) and Amy Klobuchar (MN) have very similar lifetime scores, but Wyden and Klobuchar get 4s because they represent lean-Democrat states. Mikulski gets a 3 when graded on a curve that takes into account Maryland’s solid Democratic profile.

Similarly, Daniel Inouye (HI) gets a 1, while Jon Tester (MT) gets a 3 for almost the same “crucial vote” score, because Montana leans Republican.

Jeff Bingaman (NM), Jim Webb (VA) and Byron Dorgan (ND) have very similar progressive lifetime scores, but Bingaman gets a 2 for representing a lean-Democrat state, Webb gets a 3 for representing a swing state, and Dorgan gets a 4 for representing a lean-Republican state.

Scanning down the Select by Score House page, a few Democrats stand out. There’s Timothy Bishop (NY-01) with a 5 rating for how he represents his swing district, while most of the House members with similar lifetime scores get 3s, because they represent strong Democratic districts.

Dave Obey (WI-07) and Peter DeFazio (OR-04) get 4s because they represent lean-Democrat districts. Most of the House members with similar lifetime progressive scores get 3s.

Amid a large group of House Democrats who get a 2 when their crucial vote score is compared to how strongly Democratic their districts are, James Oberstar (MN-08) gets a 4 for a similar progressive score because he represents a swing district, while Michael Michaud (ME-02) and Paul Hodes (NH-02) get a 3 because their districts lean Democratic.

How can progressives use this information? One way would be to determine which incumbents in safe Democratic seats should face more pressure from the left. In extreme cases, this pressure could include a primary challenge.

Also, these rankings reveal which Democratic primaries should become top priorities for progressives when incumbents retire. For example, John Murtha (PA-12) and Henry Cuellar (TX-28) represent strongly Democratic districts but vote like Democrats representing swing or Republican districts.

For Bleeding Heartland readers who want to know how Iowa’s representatives are doing, Senator Tom Harkin was among the 22 Senate Democrats whose lifetime score earned a 5 (good work!). He’s only slightly more progressive than the average Senate Democrat; his lifetime score on crucial votes ranks 19th in the caucus.

Chuck Grassley’s lifetime progressive score is very low, around 5 percent. Amazingly, 28 Senate Republicans are even less progressive than he is.

Iowa’s House Democrats didn’t fare so well when graded on Progressive Punch’s curve. Dave Loebsack (IA-02) gets a 2 for having the 118th most progressive score on crucial votes (just over 80 percent) while representing a strongly Democratic district.

Bruce Braley (IA-01) gets a 1 for having the 147th most progressive score on crucial votes (just over 75 percent) while representing a strongly Democratic district.

Both Braley and Loebsack have progressive scores around 95 percent if you look at all votes, but given how safe their seats are, they could certainly improve on their voting records “when the chips are down.”

Leonard Boswell (IA-03) also gets a 1 for having the 189th most progressive score on crucial votes (only 64 percent) while representing a lean-Democratic district. (On the plus side, his overall score for the current session is a lot better than his lifetime score.) Many House Democrats with voting records like Boswell’s represent swing or Republican-leaning districts. When this becomes an open seat, the Democratic primary should be a top target for progressives.

You will not be surprised to learn that Tom Latham (IA-04) and Steve King (IA-05) are in a large group of House Republicans who hardly ever vote for the progressive side of any issue.  

Chris Bowers wrote a good post on where Representative Bruce Braley’s new Populist Caucus fits in among House Democrats. The whole piece is worth reading, but here’s an excerpt:

Clearly, there is a strong tendency toward the Progressive caucus among the Populists, even though they were organized by a New Democrat. Further, Progressive punch puts the median lifetime score on “crucial votes” for this group at 55.5 of 256 (between [Joe] Courtney at 54 and [Dave] Loebsack at 57) in the Democratic caucus, placing it decidedly in the left-wing of the party.

[…]

Notably, the Populists are also heavy on the class of 2006, as 14 of the 20 members listed by the Huffington Post were first elected to Congress that year (and Massa came within an inch of being a 15th that year). Only Boswell, DeFazio, Filner Sanchez and Schakowsky were first elected to Congress before 2006. As such, while it displayed the same fractured tendencies of all ideological caucuses across the three bailout votes, the Populist Caucus appears to be primarily a caucus of progressive sophomore Representatives. This is particularly interesting since the class of 2006 was supposed to be a conservative dominated class ushered in by then -DCCC chair Rahm Emanuel. Now, the progressive members of that class appear to have organized a new caucus for themselves.

I didn’t realize until I read this page on Braley’s website that Tom Harkin chaired a House Populist Caucus during the 1980s:

In February of 1983, a group of 14 Midwest Democratic members of Congress founded the first known “Populist Caucus” with the goal to “fight for such economic goals as fairer taxes, lower interest rates and cheaper energy.”

The original Populist Caucus was chaired by then-Rep. Tom Harkin (D-IA).  The other members in the caucus were Berkley Bedell (D-IA); Lane Evans (D-IL); Tom Daschle (D-SD); Al Gore (D-TN); Timothy Penny (D-MN); Jim Weaver (D-OR); Byron Dorgan (D-ND); Harold Volkmer (D-MO); James Oberstar (D-MN); Bob Wise (D-WV); Frank McCloskey (D-IN); Bill Richardson (D-NM); Gerry Sikorski (D-MN); and Mike Synar (D-OK).

The first Populist Caucus dissolved by the mid-1990’s.

Several members of that original Populist Caucus had been elected to the U.S. Senate or had left the House for other reasons by the early 1990s.

Side note: Bill Richardson once identified himself as a populist? Wow.

The new Populist Caucus platform is on Braley’s website:

  1. Fighting for working families and the middle class by creating and retaining good-paying jobs in America, providing fair wages, proper benefits, a level playing field at the negotiating table, and ensuring American workers have secure, solvent retirement plans.

  2. Cutting taxes for the middle class and establishing an equitable tax structure.

  3. Providing affordable, accessible, quality health care for all Americans.

  4. Ensuring quality primary education for all American children, and affordable college education for all who want it.

  5. Defending American competiveness by fighting for fair trade principles.

  6. Protecting consumers, so that Americans can have faith in the safety and effectiveness of the products they purchase

I will be interested to see how the Populist Caucus weighs in on the coming debates over health care, workers’ rights and tax policy.

A full list of the 23 founding Populist Caucus members is after the jump.  

Although GOP leaders are boasting that zero House Republicans voted for the stimulus bill, I have a sneaking suspicion that once this so-called “wasteful spending” starts working its way through the economy, Republican members of Congress will find a way to take credit for it.

We saw last fall that Steve “10 worst” King used his first television commercial to take credit for progress toward widening Iowa Highway 20. The TIME-21 plan approved by the state legislature last spring–not King’s work in Congress–made that project possible. Nevertheless, King continued to mislead voters about his role in moving the Highway 20 project forward.

At least two House Republicans are already playing this game with respect to the stimulus. David Waldman/Kagro X predicts,

Standard operating procedure, of course. Oppose the bill viciously, vote against it, then show up at every ribbon cutting in the district paid for by federal funds, and cry “Politicization!” if they’re not invited.

Paul Rosenberg’s take on this story is also worth a read.

Democrats need to be on the lookout for this kind of weaselry over the next couple of years. Help from Iowans living in the fourth and fifth Congressional districts would be most appreciated.

If you see Steve King or Tom Latham taking credit for stimulus spending they voted against, either in an official press release or in a local newspaper, radio or television news story, please post a diary about it at Bleeding Heartland, or e-mail me with the details (desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com).

UPDATE: More Republicans are touting wonderful provisions in the stimulus bill they voted against.

President Barack Obama will have a very large bill to sign on Monday. Yesterday the U.S. House of Representatives passed the $787 billion economic stimulus bill by 246 to 183. As expected, no Republicans voted for the bill. Iowa’s three Democrats in the House voted for it. Looking at the roll call, I was surprised to see that only seven House Democrats voted against this bill (one voted “present” and one did not vote). I did not expect that much support from the 50-odd Blue Dog Democrats. Good for them!

In the Senate, supporters of the stimulus managed exactly 60 votes after Senator Sherrod Brown flew back from Ohio, where he was attending his mother’s wake. All Democrats, two independents, and three Republicans (Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins and Arlen Specter) voted for it. According to Specter, at least a few other Senate Republicans supported the bill but were afraid to vote for it (fearing a challenge from the right in the next GOP primary). I’m no fan of Specter, but I give him credit for casting a tough vote today. As brownsox explains, conservative Republicans in Pennsylvania are eager to take Specter out in the 2010 primary, having apparently forgotten how badly right-wing Senator Rick Santorum got beaten in 2006.

Daily Kos diarist thereisnospoon, a self-described “hack” who conducts focus groups for a living, is giddy about the potential to make Republicans pay in 2010 for voting against “the biggest middle-class tax cut in history.”

On the whole, this bill is more good than bad, but I agree 100 percent with Tom Harkin’s comments to the New York Times:

Even before the last touches were put to the bill, some angry Democrats said that Mr. Obama and Congressional leaders had been too quick to give up on Democratic priorities. “I am not happy with it,” said Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa. “You are not looking at a happy camper. I mean they took a lot of stuff out of education. They took it out of health, school construction and they put it more into tax issues.”

Mr. Harkin said he was particularly frustrated by the money being spent on fixing the alternative minimum tax. “It’s about 9 percent of the whole bill,” he said, “Why is it in there? It has nothing to do with stimulus. It has nothing to do with recovery.”

The $70 billion spent on fixing the alternative minimum tax will produce little “stimulus bang for the buck” compared to most forms of spending. The upper middle class and upper class earners who will benefit are likely to save rather than spend the money they get back.

As exciting as it is to see increased funding for high-speed rail, I fear that the bulk of the much larger sum appropriated for roads will go toward new highway construction rather than maintaining our existing infrastructure.

But I’ve buried the lede: what will the stimulus bill do for Iowa?

Iowa Politics linked to two White House documents about the impact in terms of spending and jobs created. This pdf file estimates the number of jobs created in each state and in each Congressional district within that state. It estimates 37,000 jobs created in Iowa: 6,600 in the first district, 7,000 in each of the second and third districts, 6,700 in the fourth district and 6,200 in the fifth district.

Prediction: Tom Latham and Steve King will take credit for infrastructure projects in their districts during the next election campaign, even though both voted against the stimulus bill.

This pdf file shows how much money Iowa will receive under different line items in the stimulus bill. Even more helpful, it also shows the figures for the original House and Senate bills, so you can get a sense of which cuts were made. The bill that first passed the House would have directed $2.27 billion to Iowa. The first Senate version reduced that number to $1.8 billion. The final bill that came out of conference directs about $1.9 billion to Iowa.

If you delve into the details of this document you’ll understand why Harkin isn’t thrilled with the bill he voted for. They took out school construction funds and extra money for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), for crying out loud.

“Bizarro Stimulus” indeed.

Iowa Independent reports that Harkin and Chuck Grassley “agree that the newly conceived formula used to distribute the $87 billion Medicaid portion of the bill shortchanges Iowa.”

After the jump I’ve posted statements from Representatives Dave Loebsack and Bruce Braley on the stimulus bill. Both talk about the jobs that will be created in Iowa. Loebsack emphasizes the tax cuts that 95 percent of American families will receive as a result of this bill. However, he also expresses his concern about what he views as inadequate funding for modernizing schools in the final bill.

Braley’s statement highlights an amendment he wrote providing low-interest loans for biofuels producers.

I would have been happy to post a statement from Leonard Boswell too, but his office has repeatedly refused my requests to be added to its distribution list for press releases. Hillary Clinton may have a prestigious job in Barack Obama’s cabinet and Joe Lieberman may be welcome in the Democratic Senate caucus, but Boswell’s press secretary seems ready to hold a grudge forever against the blogger who supported Ed Fallon.  

In remarkable parallel to the climate crisis, there is no single solution to reviving our economy – it will take a combination of innovative thinking and bold actions to face both challenges. The American Recovery and Investment Act (of which Jesse provides a great summary of energy-related features) illustrates that.

I want to take a moment to talk about one feature in the stimulus bill that occupied one sentence in his summary: high-speed passenger rail.

The American Recovery and Investment Act included a total of $9.3 billion for passenger rail: $8 billion for construction of high speed passenger rail and intercity passenger rail service and $1.3 billion for Amtrak (the National Railroad Passenger Corporation) rail investments. As I was talking about this today, the number of atrocious puns that came up was amazing:

• “High speed passenger rail can get the economy back on track”
• “Everyone’s getting on board with passenger rail”
• “Trains can be a model for environomics*”
• “The little stimulus package that could”

*environomics refers to developing a sustainable global economy

I could continue with the jokes, but you get the picture. However, I think it is worth noting that not only is there substantial support for high speed passenger rail in Congress (the original amount was $3 billion in the House and $2.25 billion in the Senate – apparently somebody in the conference committee likes us), but there is broad support among the public. Out here in the Midwest, we have been working to gain support and funding for a high speed passenger rail network, with its hub in Chicago. This system would provide high speed service to St. Louis, Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, Madison, the Twin Cities and Omaha. For a little context, the trip from Omaha to Detroit is approximately a quarter of the width of the continental 48 states.

What is even more impressive to me is how rail can really be a model for how to actually engage diverse players in building a sustainable economy. Here in Iowa, we are building a coalition of labor, business and youth organizations (in addition to the traditional environmental groups) to work together on getting high speed passenger rail approved this year. And we’re not just talking liberal groups either. For example Jan Michaelson, a local conservative talk show host, had nothing but good things to say about rail when Andrew Snow from Iowa Global Warming joined his show this week. Talk about finally moving past partisanship – rail is one of the clearest vehicles to make this a reality (no apologies for the pun).

There are plenty of issues that can build a diverse base of support, but the thing is, high speed rail visibly makes lots of people’s lives easier. Upgrading building efficiency largely goes unnoticed except for electricity bills; people don’t see the wind energy powering their homes. But talk about saving yourself the hassle of driving several hours, not having to drive through traffic, and oh, did I mention that rail is about 3 times as efficient as driving and 6 times as efficient as flying. Oh, and hundreds to thousands of jobs will be created through construction and operation.

Rail has broad support, has a significant improvement in the ease of travel and will save countless vehicle miles traveled (well, you probably could count them, but it would keep you very busy). We can use rail as a way to build successful and diverse coalitions which we can then continue to work with to advance the less visible, less sexy aspects of sustainability. These relationships will be crucial to mobilizing society-wide action.

All aboard!

Originally posted on It’s Getting Hot In Here

Representative Steve King bragged about his 11th-grade research project in the Thursday edition of the Des Moines Register:

As a junior at Denison High School, I wrote a term paper on President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal. I began working on the paper with the intention of confirming what I had been taught in school – that FDR’s government recovery programs brought America out of the Great Depression.

I started my research believing in the success of Roosevelt’s economic-recovery programs. To support this claim, I spent hours at the Carnegie Library in Denison reading past editions of the local, biweekly newspaper.

My reading began with the 1929 stock-market crash, and I examined every issue through the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Those stacks of old papers turned upside down everything I had been taught in history and government class about the New Deal. As I searched for information proving the New Deal stabilized the American economy, I instead found the exact opposite: high unemployment, a struggling stock market and continued hard times.

Later statistical findings confirm my 11th-grade research. Throughout the 1930s, the unemployment rate never dipped below 14 percent. FDR’s tinkering with the free market frustrated investors, and the 1929 high point for the Dow Jones industrial average was not reached again until 1954.

Roosevelt possessed tremendous leadership skills and inspired many Americans, including my hard-hit family. Charisma aside, historians often inflate the true economic record of the New Deal. Roosevelt tried one big government program after another, with poor results. Many of Roosevelt’s programs and initiatives led the government to compete directly with the private sector for capital and workers, with Washington making the rules.

Massive government spending did not lift the United States out of recession. Instead, FDR’s big-government programs prolonged the Great Depression. The best we can say about the New Deal is that it may have blunted the depths of the Depression, but the trade-off was it delayed economic recovery until World War II and our post-war industrial advantage brought America out of the Depression.

Ah yes, the “poor results” of big-government programs introduced by FDR. Programs like Social Security, which dramatically reduced poverty among the elderly, and the Fair Labor Standards Act, which “set maximum hours and minimum wages for most categories of workers.”

But never mind the safety net for seniors and regulations that improved the quality of life for workers. What about King’s central claim, that the New Deal prolonged the Great Depression? This is now a key right-wing talking point against government spending in Barack Obama’s stimulus package.

It is wrong to say that no economic recovery occurred during the New Deal. On the contrary,

The economy had hit rock bottom in March 1933 and then started to expand. As historian Broadus Mitchell notes, “Most indexes worsened until the summer of 1932, which may be called the low point of the depression economically and psychologically.”[18] Economic indicators show the economy reached nadir in the first days of March, then began a steady, sharp upward recovery. Thus the Federal Reserve Index of Industrial Production hit its lowest point of 52.8 in July 1930 (with 1935-39 = 100) and was practically unchanged at 54.3 in March 1933; however by July 1933, it reached 85.5, a dramatic rebound of 57% in four months. Recovery was steady and strong until 1937. Except for unemployment, the economy by 1937 surpassed the levels of the late 1920s. The Recession of 1937 was a temporary downturn. Private sector employment, especially in manufacturing, recovered to the level of the 1920s but failed to advance further until the war.

Unemployment continued to be high by today’s standards throughout the 1930s, but King ignores the sharp reduction in unemployment following the introduction of New Deal policies.

The bottom line is this: the unemployment rate dropped by 9 percent during the pre-World War II FDR era, and the absolute number of unemployed people dropped by 36.7 percent (from 12.8 million unemployed in 1932 to 8.1 million unemployed in 1940).

World War II significantly reduced the number of unemployed Americans, but again, it is false to claim that the New Deal programs accomplished little on the employment front.

By way of comparison, under King’s hero Ronald Reagan, the unemployment rate only dropped by 2.1 percent, and the absolute number of unemployed people dropped by 19.0 percent (from 8.2 million in 1981 to 6.7 million in 1988).

The U.S. population was a lot bigger during Reagan’s presidency than it was in FDR’s day. If Reagan’s policies were so much better for putting people to work, why did we not see a larger decrease in the total number of unemployed Americans during the 1980s? Why did we see such marginal improvement in the unemployment rate during Reagan’s presidency?

If we look at employment figures under every president since FDR, King’s nemesis Bill Clinton comes out ahead. During his presidency, the unemployment rate declined by 2.9 percent, and the total number of unemployed dropped by 36.3 percent (from 8.9 million in 1993 to 5.6 million in 2000).

Note: Chase Martyn had a go at King at Iowa Independent, but he was too kind in my opinion. The facts do not support King’s assertion that the New Deal delayed economic recovery and failed to address high unemployment.

Someone please talk King into running for governor in 2010 so we can get a less odious Republican representing Iowa’s fifth district.

Representative Bruce Braley (IA-01) announced plans to form a Populist Caucus in December. According to the Huffington Post, Braley plans to roll out the new caucus this week. (Hat tip David Sirota.)

Huffington Post lists most of the 21 founding members, who come from all over the country. There are moderates like Leonard Boswell (IA-03) and Phil Hare (IL-17), progressives like Keith Ellison (MN-05) and Jan Schakowsky (IL-09), and netroots heroes like Eric Massa (NY-29) and Pete DeFazio (OR-04). According to Huffington Post, Braley would be open to having Republicans join the caucus, although only Democrats have signed up so far.

Braley’s letter inviting colleagues to join the caucus listed these key points of the Populist Caucus agenda:

1. Fighting for working families and the middle class through the establishment of an equitable tax structure, fair wages, proper benefits, a level playing field at the negotiating table, and secure, solvent retirement plans.

2. Providing affordable, accessible, quality health care to all Americans.

3. Ensuring accessible, quality primary education for all American children, and affordable college education for all who want it.

4. Protecting consumers, so that Americans can once again have faith in the safety and effectiveness of the products they purchase.

5. Defending American competitiveness by fighting for fair trade principles.

6. Creating and retaining good-paying jobs in America.

Huffington Post also had this encouraging news:

The Populist Caucus will make its first major play by advocating for the inclusion of a “Buy American” provision in the stimulus package.

Bring it on. The “Buy American” provision is important if we want the stimulus to create jobs in the U.S. rather than taxpayer-funded outsourcing.

Though only starting his second term in Congress, Braley is rising fast. He landed a seat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee after aggressively advocating for Henry Waxman to replace John Dingell as its chairman. He is also one of three vice-chairs of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

The Senate is on track to pass the deeply flawed compromise stimulus bill Tuesday after a motion to invoke cloture passed by a 61-36 vote today. (To overcome a filibuster in the Senate, 60 votes are needed for a cloture motion.)

All Senate Democrats, including Tom Harkin, voted yes, joined by Republicans Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins and Arlen Specter. Two Senate Republicans did not vote on the cloture motion, and all the rest, including Chuck Grassley, voted no.

Last week Grassley said he would vote for the stimulus bill if it included a provision on low-cost mortgages. Looking here I couldn’t find any sign that the amendment Grassley supported made it into the Senate version, so I assume it did not. I will call the senator’s office tomorrow to double-check.

According to Kagro X, a great side-by-side comparison of the House and Senate stimulus bills is here, but I couldn’t make that work on my browser.

The stimulus was the main topic of Barack Obama’s first prime-time news conference as president tonight. Click that link for some highlights.

I learned at Iowa Independent that Senator Chuck Grassley told reporters on Wednesday that he would vote for the economic stimulus “regardless of what else is in the bill” if the Senate approved an amendment providing for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages at 4 percent interest.

He remained critical of the spending in the bill:

“People at the grassroots see it as a lot of spending and not very much stimulus,” Grassley said. “Somebody thinks they’re fooling the people of this country with this package, but they aren’t.”

Senator Tom Harkin’s office put out a statement on Tuesday listing some of the proposed spending that would benefit Iowans:

February 3, 2009

HARKIN: $1.5 BILLION INCLUDED FOR IOWA IN SENATE STIMULUS PACKAGE

Washington,  D.C. – U.S. Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) today announced that there are more than $1.5 billion in critical investments for  Iowa included in the Senate version of The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. These investments will create and save jobs; help with budget shortfalls to prevent deep cuts in basic services such as health, education, and law enforcement; cut taxes for working families and invest in the long-term health of our economy.

“The economy is now shedding an average of 17,000 jobs a day, and new foreclosures average 9,000 a day.  We are facing what could be the deepest, longest recession since the Great Depression.  We must act quickly and boldly,”  said Harkin.  “This bill will create jobs now while also laying the foundation for a stronger economy that works for all Americans in the future.”

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provides $888 billion in investments and tax cuts.  Of this total, $694 billion will enter the economy by the end of Fiscal year 2010, meaning that 78 percent of the monies allocated will reach the American people by September 30, 2010, providing an immediate boost to the overall economy and creating an estimated four million jobs nationwide.

Below are the approximate investments Iowa could see if the Senate bill is passed and signed into law by the president.  These amounts only include major accounts that are allocated by formula, and do not include the considerable funds that will be allocated competitively by the executive branch.

Nutrition Programs

·         $2.3 million for School Lunch Programs

·         $109 million for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program

·         $776,000 for the Emergency Food Assistance Program

Homeland Security Programs

·         $639,000 for the Emergency Food and Shelter Program

Clean Water Programs

·         $24 million for the Drinking Water Fund

·         $54 million for the Clean Water Fund

Transportation Funding

·         $389 million for  Iowa ‘s Highway fund

·         $46 million for Transit Funding

Housing Programs

·         $7.6 million for public housing capital

·         $14.8 million for HOME funding

·         $16.8 million for homelessness prevention

Law Enforcement / Crime funding

·         $14 million for Byrne/JAG funding

·         $978,000 for crime victim programs

·         $1 million to protect children against internet crimes

·         $3.2 million to assist women who are victims of violence

Energy Programs

·         $6.6 million for  Iowa ‘s energy program

·         $48.6 million for weatherization programs

Labor, Health and Human Service and Education Programs

·         $18.1 million for Child Care and Development Block Grants

·         $5.2 million for Head Start

·         $625.6 million for the state stabilization fund

·         $65.4 million for Title 1 programs

·         $140.1 million for Special Education Part B Grants

·         $46.1 million for Higher Education Facilities

·         $1.6 million for Adult Employment and Training

·         $78.7 million for School modernization

·         $5 million for education technology

·         $2.2 million for Community Service Block Grants

·         $441,000 for Senior Meals

·         $3.9 million for Employment Service Grants

·         $5 million for Dislocated Worker Grants

·         $5.4 million for vocational rehabilitation programs

·         $7.2 million for immunization programs

 

Some of these programs yield more “bang for the buck” than others, and there’s an argument to be made that the stimulus bill has too much of a grab-bag quality. Yesterday Daily Kos user TocqueDeville lamented the fact that Democrats put together a spending bill instead of “a big, unifying vision for the future – a Rebuilding America Act.” I agree with much of the critique and would have liked to see some different spending priorities.

That said, even an imperfect spending bill will do more to stimulate the economy than the tax cuts favored by Republicans.

I don’t know the specifics of the amendment Grassley supports, but in general making low-rate mortgages more accessible would be good. It was stupid as well as unethical for Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and other wise men of Wall Street to encourage so many Americans to buy adjustable-rate mortgages.

I was surprised to see Grassley say that the low-rate mortgage provision would be enough to win his vote for the stimulus. Senator Judd Gregg got a post in Barack Obama’s cabinet and still won’t vote for the bill.

If Grassley ends up voting yes on the stimulus, the wingnuts will go ballistic, but what can they do other than add a line to Grassley’s entry on the Iowa Defense Alliance “Wall of Shame”?

In other stimulus-related news, Obama published an op-ed in the Washington Post making the case for this package. Excerpt:

This plan is more than a prescription for short-term spending — it’s a strategy for America’s long-term growth and opportunity in areas such as renewable energy, health care and education. And it’s a strategy that will be implemented with unprecedented transparency and accountability, so Americans know where their tax dollars are going and how they are being spent.

In recent days, there have been misguided criticisms of this plan that echo the failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis — the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems; that we can meet our enormous tests with half-steps and piecemeal measures; that we can ignore fundamental challenges such as energy independence and the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our country to thrive.

I reject these theories, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change. They know that we have tried it those ways for too long. And because we have, our health-care costs still rise faster than inflation. Our dependence on foreign oil still threatens our economy and our security. Our children still study in schools that put them at a disadvantage. We’ve seen the tragic consequences when our bridges crumble and our levees fail.

It’s a start, but I agree with early Obama supporter Theda Skocpol. Obama mishandled this effort by making bipartisanship (instead of saving the economy) his measure of success. He can undo some of the damage by going directly to the people to make the case for the stimulus. But unfortunately, the Republicans still have the upper hand if they vote against the bill and blame the president for not giving them enough input.

Didn’t see this one coming. I learned via Iowa Politics that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is running radio ads in 28 Congressional districts held by Republicans, including Iowa’s fourth district:

The ads focus on the Republicans out of step priorities by putting bank bail outs and building schools in Iraq before the needs of the Americans in the struggling economy. The Putting Families First ads begin airing on Tuesday morning during drive time and will run for a week.

In addition to the strategic radio ads in 28 Republican districts, the DCCC will also begin a grassroots initiative which includes targeted e-mails to 3 million voters and nearly 100,000 person-to-person telephone calls.

House Republicans just don’t get it.  They celebrate being the party of no and status quo, while more than 2.6 million Americans have lost their jobs, the stock market has plummeted wiping out nearly $7 trillion stock market wealth and endangering thousands of investors’ nest eggs, and one in 10 homeowners was delinquent on mortgage payments or in foreclosure this fall.

“These are serious times, hard working families are worried about keeping their jobs, health care and homes – they want action, not House Republicans cheering about doing nothing,” said Brian Wolff, Executive Director of the DCCC. “Republicans’ champagne wishes and caviar dreams simply don’t connect with middle class families struggling to make ends meet and furious that their tax dollars are going to bail out banks, build schools in Iraq, or send American jobs overseas.  The Putting Families First campaign is only the first step, we will continue to go district by district to hold Republicans who continue to vote in lockstep with party leaders and against the folks in their districts accountable.”

There are several versions of the ad (click here for transcripts). This transcript of an ad running in a Michigan representative’s district is apparently comparable to what the DCCC is running in Tom Latham’s district:

Did you know Congressman Thad McCotter opposed over $526 million to modernize crumbling Michigan schools, but supported building new schools in Iraq?  Times are tough, tell Thad McCotter to put American jobs first.

If you’ve heard any of these radio ads, please post a comment or send me an e-mail (desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com) to let me know what issue it covered.

There is a lot of overlap between the 28 districts where DCCC ads are running and this list of the 20 most vulnerable House Republicans going into 2010, which Crisitunity compiled at Swing State Project last month. However, there are a handful of Republicans on Crisitunity’s list who are not (yet) being targeted by the DCCC’s ad campaign.

Conversely, the ads are running in some districts where the incumbents may not seem vulnerable at first glance. Latham did not make Crisitunity’s list after he won re-election by more than 20 points in November, despite the fact that Barack Obama carried IA-04. However, the DCCC clearly has not ruled out making a serious play for this district in 2010.

Remember, Iowa’s Bruce Braley is now the DCCC’s vice chair responsible for “offensive efforts including recruitment, money, and training.”

Taking out Latham in 2010 would make it highly likely for Iowa Democrats to hold three out of the four Congressional districts we will have after the next census. Even if we don’t beat him in 2010, running a strong campaign against Latham could bring down his favorables and improve our chances of holding IA-03 if that district includes Story County in 2012.

UPDATE: Brownsox demolishes Fred Hiatt’s criticism of this ad campaign.

The Senate confirmed Eric Holder as attorney general today by a vote of 75-21. Both Tom Harkin and Chuck Grassley voted yes, as expected. I always thought Holder would be confirmed, but I am pleasantly surprised that he was approved by a larger majority than Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. I believe Holder will turn out to be one of President Barack Obama’s better cabinet appointments.

For reasons I cannot fathom, Obama appears ready to appoint Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, a conservative Republican, as Secretary of Commerce. Chris Bowers concisely explains why this is an awful choice:

So, for some reason, in the wake of total Republican intransigence on the stimulus bill, the Obama administration will respond by putting a Republican in charge of one the federal departments overseeing the economy. Judd Gregg himself has said he will oppose the stimulus package. That is certainly an, um, interesting way for the Obama administration to incentivize Republican opposition. Oppose President Obama, and he will reward you by giving you a cabinet position.

It is worth noting what sort of ideas Judd Gregg has for the economy: a commission of center-right insiders operating in secret and circumventing Congress in order to destroy Social Security and Medicare.

Senate Republicans continue to hold up Hilda Solis’s confirmation as Labor Secretary, and Obama responds by appointing Gregg to the cabinet?

Democrats won’t even get a Senate seat out of the deal, because the Democratic governor of New Hampshire has promised to appoint a Republican to serve out Gregg’s term. The only upside is that the appointee may be easier to beat in 2010 than longtime incumbent Gregg would have been. But that’s not worth handing over control of the Commerce Department to a conservative, in my opinion.

All I can say is, Gregg better not screw around with the Census Bureau and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

In a dispatch from bizarro world, Politico’s David Rogers still isn’t convinced that Obama is serious about bipartisanship, even though Gregg will become the third Republican in his cabinet and will be replaced by a Republican in the Senate:

Obama, while talking a good game about bipartisanship, is draining the Senate of the very talent he needs to achieve this goal.

If only Obama were merely “talking a good game about bipartisanship.”

Speaking of Senate Republicans, Kagro X put up a good post on prospects for a filibuster of the economic stimulus bill, and Chris Bowers posted a “whip count” here, concluding that

Overall, it seems highly likely that the stimulus will pass without Republicans forcing major changes. However, given the narrow margins, this is not a guarantee.

The Senate will likely vote on the bill on Wednesday. Grassley has already spoken out against what he calls the “stimulus/porkulus bill.”

The U.S. Senate voted 66-32 yesterday to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). All of the no votes were Republicans, including Iowa’s own Chuck Grassley. He was ready to sign every blank check for George W. Bush, but when it comes to expanding the safety net for families lacking health insurance, he’s Mr. Deficit Hawk.

Senator Tom Harkin issued this statement about the bill:

Renewal of the program will allow Iowa’s HAWK-I program to enroll 11,000 more Iowa kids

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) today released the following statement after the Senate passed legislation that will allow states to continue to provide basic health insurance to kids whose parents cannot afford private insurance, but who do not qualify for Medicaid. The State’s Children’s Health Insurance (SCHIP) Act, known as HAWK-I in Iowa, passed the Senate by a vote of 66-32.

“Hundreds of thousands of Americans are losing their jobs each month, which means more working-family kids are at risk of losing health care coverage. The passage of this bill means more of those parents won’t have to worry about whether they will be able to afford their son or daughter’s next doctor’s appointment,” said Harkin. “Extending health insurance to 11 million children from working families is not about ideology, and it is not about left or right. In a humane society, no child should go uninsured. I am proud that this is one of the first bills that we will pass in the new Congress because it is a great example of what we can do when we work together.”

Talk to anyone who works in the office of a pediatrician or family doctor. During a recession, families cut back even on checkups and other doctors’ visits for their kids.

Thousands of people are losing jobs (and in many cases health insurance) every month. Unemployed people rarely can afford to pay into COBRA plans:

The cost of buying health insurance for unemployed Americans who try to purchase coverage through a former employer consumes 30 percent to 84 percent of standard unemployment benefits, according to a report released yesterday.

Because few people can afford that, the authors say, the result is a growing number of people being hit with the double whammy of no job and no health coverage.

In 1985, Congress passed legislation enabling newly unemployed Americans to extend their employer-based health insurance for up to 18 months. But under the program, known as COBRA, the individual must pay 102 percent of the policy’s full cost.

“COBRA health coverage is great in theory and lousy in reality,” said Ron Pollack, whose liberal advocacy group, Families USA, published the analysis. “For the vast majority of workers who are laid off, they and their families are likely to join the ranks of the uninsured.”

The good news is that despite the misguided ideology of Republicans like Chuck Grassley (and Tom Latham and Steve King), thousands more Iowa families will be able to gain coverage for their kids through HAWK-I. We’re a long way from the universal health care reform we need, but this is a step in the right direction.

Senator Tom Harkin was right to warn in a conference call with reporters today that the economic stimulus bill may be too small.

He is also right to be concerned about the tax-cut provisions. Tax cuts that put more money into the hands of people in high income brackets (such as fixing the alternative minimum tax) will not necessarily boost consumer spending.

He is right about this too:

Harkin said the bill must be seen as more than an immediate jump-start for the ailing economy, and therefore lawmakers should not be timid about its potential.

“This is not just a stimulus bill to put someone to work right now,” Harkin said. “That’s important and we will do that. But we are also going to do things that lay the groundwork for a solid recovery in the future.”

Harkin wants the bill to put more money into renewable fuels and less money into so-called “clean coal”:

“We’re putting money into clean coal technology,” he said. “There’s no such thing.”

You said it, senator.

Speaking of how there’s no such thing as clean coal, if you click here you’ll find another clever ad from the Reality Coalition.

Speaking of senators who are right about things, Here’s John Kerry on the stimulus:

Reacting to Wednesday night’s vote in the House – where not a single GOP member supported the stimulus package – Kerry told Politico that “if Republicans aren’t prepared to vote for it, I don’t think we should be giving up things, where I think the money can be spent more effectively.”

“If they’re not going to vote for it, let’s go with a plan that we think is going to work.”

The Massachusetts Democrat and 2004 presidential candidate suggested tossing some of the tax provisions in the stimulus that the GOP requested. “Those aren’t job creators immediately, and even in the longer term they’re not necessarily. We’ve seen that policy for the last eight years,” he said.

What was that thing Americans voted for in November? Oh yeah, change.