I don’t write many posts in the “wacky and mean-spirited things conservative say” genre, but I’m making an exception today.
Continue Reading...Of all the things to worry about
- Tuesday, May 22 2012
- desmoinesdem
- 10 Comments
I don’t write many posts in the “wacky and mean-spirited things conservative say” genre, but I’m making an exception today.
Continue Reading...The Iowa Senate and House approved a conference committee agreement on education reform yesterday with bipartisan support in both chambers.
Continue Reading...“Local control” has long been a rallying cry for conservatives who oppose taking governing decisions away from school districts, city officials, or county supervisors. However, Iowa Senate action this week rejecting a ban on traffic cameras is the latest sign that Iowa Democratic lawmakers are more likely than Republicans to respect this principle over centralized standards.
Continue Reading...Approximately 44 percent of Iowa workers earning less than $10 per hour have at least some college education, according to data compiled by Janelle Jones and John Schmitt of the Center for Economic Policy Research.
Continue Reading...A senior staffer for the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation confirmed this week that plaintiffs will appeal a Polk County District Court’s ruling dismissing their challenge to an important water quality regulation.
Continue Reading...The Iowa Senate approved a broad education reform bill yesterday on a party-line vote of 26 to 24. Details on Senate File 2284 and the floor debate in the upper chamber are after the jump.
I’ve also included the latest news on efforts to stop Iowa school districts from starting the academic year before September 1. If state lawmakers don’t act on that proposal, Governor Terry Branstad may try to force the issue.
Continue Reading...Governor Terry Branstad doubled down today in support of lean finely textured beef. Not only is he urging schools to keep using the product, he wants Congress to investigate the “smear campaign” by critics of so-called “pink slime.”
Follow me after the jump for the governor’s latest comments and Senator Chuck Grassley’s more measured defense of lean finely textured beef.
Continue Reading...Iowa politicians from both parties are speaking out today in defense of finely textured beef product, now commonly known as “pink slime.” The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced earlier this month that it will give schools the option of buying ground beef that does not contain the product. Several grocery store chains have recently announced that they will stop carrying ground beef containing the product, prompting Beef Products Inc. to suspend production of finely textured beef product at three plants for 60 days. One of the closed plants is in Waterloo. BPI is leaving its plant in South Sioux City, Nebraska running for now.
Iowa political reaction to the controversy is after the jump.
Continue Reading...The nice thing about a large majority, like the 60 to 40 Republican advantage in the Iowa House, is not needing every vote in your caucus for every bill. Members can oppose the party line when local interests are threatened without derailing the legislative process. Retiring State Representative Steve Lukan showed how it’s done when he voted against the Rebuild Iowa Infrastructure Fund budget in the House Appropriations Committee last week, because that bill left out $5 million in funding for a major project in Lukan’s district.
This basic concept of representing your constituents is apparently lost on Walt Rogers. The first-term Republican from a district covering parts of Cedar Falls and Waterloo just voted for an education budget that slashes funding for the University of Northern Iowa.
UPDATE: Scroll down for Rogers’ weekly newsletter, which discusses his vote on the education budget.
Continue Reading...The Iowa legislature’s second “funnel” deadline passed on Friday, which means that most non-appropriations bills are dead unless they have been approved in one chamber and in at least one committee in the other chamber. It’s time to catch up on the most significant bills being debated in the Iowa House and Senate.
Continue Reading...The U.S. House voted yesterday to repeal two regulations enacted by the Obama administration’s Department of Education. Bruce Braley (IA-01), Dave Loebsack (IA-02), and Leonard Boswell (IA-03) were among 69 House Democrats who joined a united House GOP caucus in supporting this bill.
Continue Reading...The number of Iowa children living in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty more than doubled over the last decade, according to a new report.
Continue Reading...Northeast Iowa contains a large number of potentially competitive Iowa House and Senate seats. The field is now set in the new House district 56, where a first-term Republican will face a Democratic challenger with a similar background.
Continue Reading...The Des Moines Register’s latest statewide poll conducted by Selzer & Co included more than a dozen questions about issues Iowa legislators are considering this session. Proposals to raise the gasoline tax and allow a large utility company to bill its customers up front for a nuclear power plant were among the most unpopular ideas polled.
Continue Reading...A recent DMR article highlighted the growing scam of for-profit corporations using tax dollars to provide substandard education via online learning.
Two companies are advertising on television in Iowa to have parents sign up their children for “free” online education (at public expense.) The companies, K12 Inc, and the Iowa Connections Academy, are exploiting a loophole in Iowa's open enrollment law. Two small school districts have signed agreements with the companies. Parents from anywhere in the state can open-enroll their children to one of those districts. The districts then will turn in their enrollment to the state and receive state money as if the students were enrolled full time in the district. Ninety-seven percent of the state money is then passed along to the companies. The students will receive 100% of their “education” online.
Continue Reading...Barely a month after being on a winning team, Bob Vander Plaats appears determined not to let anyone forget that he’s the biggest loser in Iowa politics.
Continue Reading...Anyone else in the Bleeding Heartland community not planning to watch the Superbowl tonight?
Jobs are on my mind this weekend. On Friday the Bureau of Labor Statistics released some encouraging employment numbers. On the same day, news broke about proposed Air Force cuts that could eliminate around 500 jobs in the Des Moines area.
Continue Reading...After a few months of exploring a second run for Congress in Iowa’s first district, Republican Ben Lange has confirmed that he will soon make his candidacy official.
Continue Reading...Last week the Des Moines-based Child & Family Policy Center released “Iowa Kids Count 2010: Trends in the Well-Being of Iowa Children.” Highlights from the report are after the jump. While several indicators showed improvement in children’s health between 2000 and 2010, the economic circumstances of Iowa children and families deteriorated significantly.
Continue Reading...Governor Terry Branstad delivers his “Condition of the State” address to the Iowa House and Senate this morning. Iowa Public Television will livestream the speech here, and I’ll update this post later with highlights. The governor’s commercial property tax reform plan will be a centerpiece of the address. As part of that plan, Branstad indicated yesterday that he will seek unprecedented limits on local government taxing authority in Iowa.
UPDATE: A few details from the governor’s proposed budget are now below, along with some reaction from Democratic lawmakers. Branstad is asking for a significant spending increase in the 2013 fiscal year.
Continue Reading...Leaders representing both parties in the Iowa House and Senate outlined their priorities in their opening remarks to this 2012 legislative session. Even the Republicans said next to nothing about social issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage or promoting religious education.
Continue Reading...The Iowa legislature’s 2012 session begins today with several major policy reforms on the agenda. Making progress on even one of those issues would be daunting under any circumstances, but particularly during an election year when different parties control the Iowa House and Senate. Lots of links are after the jump.
Continue Reading...It’s the most list-making time of the year. Let’s start talking about Iowa political highlights of 2011.
This thread is devoted to master strokes. I don’t mean our elected officials’ wisest actions, or the policy choices that affected the greatest number of Iowans. I mean acts of such skill that even opponents had to grudgingly acknowledge their brilliance.
My top picks are after the jump. Tomorrow Bleeding Heartland will review the year’s most bewildering acts of incompetence. On Thursday we’ll look at the events that are likely to have the greatest long-term impact on Iowa politics.
Continue Reading...It’s the season of giving, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency just delivered an outstanding present to Americans who breathe air.
Continue Reading...Newt Gingrich’s surprise trip back to political relevance got me thinking about other old-fashioned (or vintage, if you prefer a more positive spin) American topics.
Continue Reading...There will be a competitive Democratic primary in Iowa Senate district 49. Attorney and small business owner Dorothy O’Brien announced her candidacy today, less than a week after Rita Hart became the first Democrat to declare in this district.
Continue Reading...Delegates to the Iowa Farm Bureau’s state convention in Des Moines voted Craig Lang out as president of the organization yesterday.
Continue Reading...Iowa Senate Democrats announced today that a former teacher and community volunteer, Rita Hart, will run in the new Senate district 49 in 2012. The district is a must-win if Democrats are to retain their slim Senate majority. A map and background on Hart are after the jump.
Continue Reading...Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the Bleeding Heartland community. I’ve posted a few holiday-related links below.
Continue Reading...The Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board on Thursday dismissed ethics complaints filed against Environmental Protection Commission member Brent Rastetter and Iowa Department of Education Director Jason Glass. Rastetter had been accused of a conflict of interest related to his factory farm construction business. The complaint against Glass focused on an all-expenses-paid trip to Brazil, which he took in September.
Continue Reading...Governor Terry Branstad will not ask state legislators to raise the gasoline tax in 2012, he confirmed yesterday. The comments will disappoint road-builders and members of a transportation commission the governor appointed earlier this year.
Continue Reading...When State Department of Education Director Jason Glass and Governor Terry Branstad’s senior education adviser Linda Fandel rolled out an education reform blueprint last month, I had a feeling the proposals wouldn’t sit well with many Republicans. A new “report card” for a conservative advocacy organization gives the reform plan a barely passing grade.
Continue Reading...The public policy organization representing the Catholic Church in Iowa released its list of 2012 legislative priorities this week, along with a statement on “Labor and the Common Good.”
Continue Reading...This Halloween weekend seemed like a good time to highlight some tricks and treats from the news headlines.
Continue Reading...UPDATE: More recent absentee ballot numbers are here, and a precinct-level analysis of the early voting is here.
Democrat Liz Mathis and Republican Cindy Golding debated two nights in a row this week. Highlights from their encounters are after the jump, along with updated absentee ballot numbers for the Senate district 18 special election.
Continue Reading...Iowa Department of Education Director Jason Glass and Governor Terry Branstad’s senior education adviser Linda Fandel rolled out a blueprint for reforming Iowa schools yesterday. The plan didn’t include any big ideas not mentioned by Glass and Fandel a few weeks ago. It also didn’t estimate how much state government and/or school districts would need to spend to make the blueprint a reality.
Continue Reading...Democratic delegates in Iowa Senate district 18 nominated former television news anchor Liz Mathis last night for the November 8 special election. No other candidate sought the nomination. Republicans picked businesswoman and Linn County GOP co-chair Cindy Golding in a three-way nominating contest last week.
Both Mathis and Golding indicated yesterday that they will focus on jobs and the economy rather than social issues during the short campaign.
Continue Reading...Voters across Iowa elected school board members today. I discuss some of the Polk County results after the jump, and I hope Bleeding Heartland readers will share anything interesting that happened in their neck of the woods.
Continue Reading...New Iowa teachers would no longer receive automatic raises based on years of experience or post-graduate degrees under an education reform proposal to be revealed in the coming weeks. Iowa Department of Education Director Jason Glass and Governor Terry Branstad’s special adviser on education, Linda Fandel, shared the outlines of the proposed changes with journalists yesterday.
Continue Reading...Iowa House Assistant Majority Leader Renee Schulte confirmed yesterday that she will seek a third term in the state legislature in 2012. Her announcement sets up a likely rematch with former State Representative Art Staed, the Democrat Schulte defeated by 13 votes in 2008.
Continue Reading...