Iowa’s five representatives all voted no intended to vote no as the U.S. House approved the conference committee report on the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act today. UPDATE: Steve King meant to vote no but mistakenly voted yes. Details below.

The Iowans split on party lines over a bill designed to replace the “sequester” scheduled for early next year with deep spending cuts in non-defense domestic programs.

Meanwhile, Republican leaders retreated from a planned vote on House Speaker John Boehner’s “Plan B” to avert the so-called “fiscal cliff” at the end of the calendar year.

Follow me after the jump for details on all of the above.

U.S. House Agriculture Committee Chair Frank Lucas announced today that Representative Steve King (IA-04 in the new Congress) will chair the Subcommittee on Department Operations, Oversight, and Nutrition. King has been one of the loudest critics of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in recent years. His new position will give him a more visible platform to battle policies championed by U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack–the husband of King’s most recent Congressional challenger, Christie Vilsack.

King opposed the USDA’s settlement in the Pigford case, which involved longstanding government discrimination against African-American farmers. He also objected to the hiring of a claimant in the Pigford settlement to a prominent USDA position. Though King has tried and failed to block spending on the Pigford settlement, chairing a subcommittee may allow him to investigate what he describes as “fraud” in USDA payments to African-Americans.

Regarding the USDA’s nutrition programs, King wants to spend less on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (commonly known as food stamps) than the Obama administration. He wants to overhaul the USDA’s new school lunch standards and has sponsored a bill to overturn restrictions on calories and portion sizes for children in public schools. In King’s view, “nutrition Nannies” at the USDA, led by Vilsack, have “put every kid on a diet.” Vilsack announced earlier this month that school districts will have more time to adapt to the new rules, but he defended the standards as an important weapon against the childhood obesity epidemic. I expect King to hold hearings on this issue in early 2013.

After the jump I’ve posted King’s press release about his new position. He vowed to make sure tax dollars are spent wisely in USDA programs.

Following the 2010 elections, King was expected to become chairman of the House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on immigration issues, but House leaders feared he was too much of a lightning rod for that job.

After reportedly ruling out an increase in the Medicare eligibility age, President Barack Obama has offered House Speaker John Boehner a new deal to avoid a combination of spending cuts and tax increases scheduled to go into effect at year-end.

Obama’s latest offer involves painful Social Security cuts for the poor and middle class but tax increases only for people who won’t notice the difference, because they make more than $400,000 per year. This kind of bargain is exactly what Senator Tom Harkin has been warning against when he’s said “no deal is better than a bad deal.”  

Last week Iowa Governor Terry Branstad confirmed that Iowa will pursue a “partnership” health insurance exchange next year, rather than setting up its own insurance exchange for implementing the 2010 health care reform law, or letting the federal government set up an exchange for Iowa.

In addition, the governor again signaled that he is against the now-optional Medicaid expansion for states, because he believes it would become too expensive for Iowa in the future.

Links and recent news about health care reform in Iowa are after the jump.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is paying for robocalls in Iowa’s third and fourth Congressional districts accusing Republicans Tom Latham and Steve King of “holding the middle class hostage.”

Earlier this week, the U.S. Senate approved its version of a National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2013, outlining $631 billion in spending and setting policy in several other areas. The vote on final passage was unanimous, 98 to 0, but during five days of floor debate the Senate considered many amendments. After the jump I’ve summarized the important provisions of the NDAA and how Iowa’s Senators Chuck Grassley and Tom Harkin voted on the most contentious amendments.

A conference committee will work out differences between the Senate’s bill and the defense authorization act the U.S. House approved in May. More details on those differences are below.

UPDATE: Added a statement from Senator Grassley.

President Barack Obama’s 50-point edge over Mitt Romney among Asian American voters was one of the most surprising election results for me. Growing up during the 1980s, it seemed like all of my Asian American friends’ parents were Republicans. Bill Clinton received an estimated 31 percent of the Asian American vote in 1992, compared to 62 percent for Obama in 2008 and 73 percent for Obama this year.

Since the election, I’ve read several attempts to explain this trend. The most interesting links are after the jump.

Senator Tom Harkin and several other Congressional Democrats spoke out today against cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits as part of any broad deficit-reduction agreement.

I planned to write several posts this fall about the third Congressional district race between Representatives Tom Latham and Leonard Boswell. Instead, every time I sat down to write about the campaign, I found myself turning to other topics. Central Iowa radio and television stations have been so over-saturated with cookie-cutter attack ads against both candidates. If a political junkie like me finds it off-putting, I can’t imagine how disengaged other people feel when they hear the beginning of yet another negative commercial.

Neither Latham nor Boswell has offered a compelling case for re-election, but after the jump I review the main messages from both campaigns and from various outside groups that have been advertising in Des Moines and Omaha.

Going into election day two years ago, Representative Dave Loebsack appeared to be in real danger of losing his seat in Congress. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee was running attack ads against Republican challenger Mariannette Miller-Meeks, who had loaned her campaign about a half-million dollars in the absence of major financial support from the National Republican Congressional Committee. The American Future Fund was bashing Loebsack on television. Loebsack ended up winning re-election by only about 11,500 votes in what should have been a safe Democratic district. If not for the Iowa Democrats’ early voting program, Loebsack might have been swept up by the wave.

This year’s campaign in Iowa’s second Congressional district is winding up without the suspense of 2010. A final review of Loebsack’s race against Republican John Archer is after the jump.

Shortly before election day 2010, Representative Bruce Braley and his staff were sweating it. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spent significant funds to help Braley fend off a ton of attack ads funded by conservative groups. Braley defeated Ben Lange by just 4,209 votes. If not for Iowa Democrats’ early vote program and the presence of two minor-party candidates on the ballot, Lange might be in Congress today.

This year, Iowa’s first Congressional district looks far less competitive. A final review of Braley’s rematch against Lange is after the jump, including some fireworks from the candidates’ Iowa Public Television debate last week.  

Among the Iowans in Congress, Senator Tom Harkin has the strongest voting record on sustainable farming and food practices, according to the new National Food Policy Scorecard. Representative Steve King, U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley, and Representative Tom Latham had the lowest scores in the Iowa delegation.

Medicare and alleged “job-killing” policies are the focus of the latest television commercials from Representative Dave Loebsack and his GOP challenger John Archer. Meanwhile, the National Republican Congressional Committee is taking cheap shots over a committee hearing Loebsack attended three and a half years ago.

Videos and transcripts of the latest television commercials in Iowa’s second Congressional district are after the jump. Bleeding Heartland covered previous ads from this race here, here, and here.

It’s time to catch up on news from the first Congressional district campaign between three-term Democratic Representative Bruce Braley and his two-time Republican challenger Ben Lange. After the jump I’ve posted my take on yesterday’s debate on Iowa Public Radio, along with videos and transcripts of the latest television commercials by the campaigns and outside groups. (Bleeding Heartland covered earlier tv ads in the IA-01 race here, here, and here.)  

Fewer than 30 days remain until the presidential election. Any comments about the race in Iowa or nationally are welcome in this thread. I’ve compiled recent news, analysis, and advertising after the jump. I will update as needed, especially if any new Iowa poll comes out today. Gallup’s national tracking poll shows Mitt Romney gaining ground since last Wednesday’s presidential debate.

UPDATE: Rasmussen Reports has President Barack Obama leading Romney in Iowa by 49 percent to 47 percent, based on a survey of 500 likely voters conducted on October 7 (margin of error plus or minus 4.5 percent). Rasmussen’s previous Iowa poll had Romney leading 47 percent to 44 percent.

SECOND UPDATE: Added latest national polling data at the end of this post.

I thought Mitt Romney made a strategic error in choosing Paul Ryan as a running mate. However, after listening to clips from Ryan’s campaign stops in eastern Iowa Monday and yesterday, I can see why many consider Ryan an asset to the Republican ticket.

Following a month-long summer recess, members of the U.S. House and Senate worked for less than three weeks before adjourning in late September until after the general election. Congress will hold only “pro-forma” sessions for the next month, presumably to prevent President Barack Obama from making recess appointments.

Follow me after the jump for a review of how the Iowans voted (or did not vote) on the most significant legislation that came up during the past few weeks.  

Republican candidate John Archer is running his first television commercial since the primary in Iowa’s second Congressional district. It’s mostly a positive spot introducing the candidate and doesn’t mention incumbent Representative Dave Loebsack by name. (The National Republican Congressional Committee went up on tv earlier this month with an attack ad on Loebsack.) The video and annotated transcript of Archer’s commercial are after the jump.

The air war in Iowa’s first Congressional district is fully engaged, with four new television commercials in the last week alone. Three-term Democratic incumbent Bruce Braley started running a spot about veterans last week and went up on the air yesterday with a response to a new ad about Medicare, paid for by the National Republican Congressional Committee. Last week Republican challenger Ben Lange launched his second tv spot, which depicts the national debt as unfair to the next generation.

More details on the new commercials, including videos and transcripts, are after the jump. Bleeding Heartland covered Braley’s opening tv spot here and Lange’s here.  

One of Republican Mitt Romney’s latest television commercials in Iowa asserts that cutting government spending and eliminating the federal deficit will create 130,000 jobs in Iowa. Meanwhile, in states with more military bases and defense sector industry, Romney campaign advertising promises to create hundreds of thousands of jobs by reversing planned cuts in defense spending.

The two major-party presidential candidates held rallies yesterday in Iowa’s key Republican and Democratic strongholds. Mitt Romney was in Sioux County, which has voted more than 80 percent Republican in past presidential elections. Barack Obama and Joe Biden were in Johnson County, which has delivered big margins to Democrats who won close statewide elections in the past.

Republican Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan just wrapped up his event at Kirkwood College in Cedar Rapids, the first stop in a two-day swing through Iowa.

WEDNESDAY UPDATE: Added clips from Ryan’s rally in Adel.

Voting for the so-called “failed stimulus” has become a stock phrase in Republican attack ads against Congressional Democrats. But as Bleeding Heartland has discussed many times before, the “Great Recession” would have been more devastating without the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

State budget cuts are a huge drag on the economy. Follow me after the jump for a picture that’s worth a thousand words on how a favorite conservative punching bag helped soften the recession’s impact in Iowa.

Republican candidate Ben Lange launched his first television commercial of the 2012 campaign today. Like incumbent Democrat Bruce Braley’s opening ad in the first Congressional district, the 30-second spot emphasizes values the candidate learned growing up in a small Iowa town.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney announced his running mate this morning: Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the chair of the U.S. House Budget Committee. The two men are launching a four-day bus tour today. I don’t know what surprises me more: Romney not choosing Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, or Ryan’s willingness to give up his committee chairmanship for a shot at the vice presidency.

Democratic House incumbents and challengers have already been running against the Ryan budget. Iowa’s representatives split on party lines when the House approved this plan in April 2011, and Representative Leonard Boswell was eager to draw this contrast between himself and IA-03 opponent Representative Tom Latham. Having Ryan on the Republican ticket ensures that tax and budget issues will be at the center of the presidential campaign discourse this fall. Ryan’s approach to solving the long-term deficit problem asks virtually nothing of wealthy people but would devastate Medicaid, not to mention the Medicare program for future retirees. After the jump I’ve posted excerpts from a new report on the Ryan plan’s impact on state budgets, along the Iowa Policy Project’s comment on how the Ryan budget would affect Iowa in particular.

Any relevant comments are welcome in this thread. I will update this post with Iowa reaction and more news and links after the jump. Representative Steve King was enthusiastic about the pick.

When is a vote for extending the Bush tax cuts at all income levels “protecting the middle class”? Apparently, only when Representative Dave Loebsack (IA-02) does it.

A report compiled by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee has uncovered huge waste of taxpayer money and poor educational outcomes at for-profit colleges across the country. Senator Tom Harkin led a two-year investigation of the for-profit higher education industry and has been publicizing the report this week.

The U.S. House approved a defense budget for fiscal year 2013 yesterday by 326 votes to 90 (roll call). Four of the five members of Iowa’s delegation supported the bill. After the jump I’ve posted details about how the Iowans voted on key defense budget amendments as well as on final passage. Statements released by each of the representatives are at the end of this post.

Catching up on news from last week, the U.S. House approved the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2013. Details on how Iowa’s five representatives vote on that bill and on important amendments are after the jump.

I also enclose the statements released by members of Iowa’s Congressional delegation. Not surprisingly, several self-styled deficit hawks bragged about supporting a bill that prohibits various cost-saving measures and mandates spending on some items the military doesn’t even want.

Some bad public policy ideas take hold because decision-makers become convinced they will work. Other times, bad ideas gain momentum because politicians who should know better are too scared or lazy to make the case against them.

In what looks like a textbook example of the second scenario, all three Democrats representing Iowa in the U.S. House are now on record supporting some form of constitutional amendment to require a balanced federal budget.

Crossroads GPS, the super-PAC headed by Republican strategist Karl Rove, is going up on the air today in Iowa and nine other states as part of a $25 million advertising campaign over the next month. The 60-second negative spot about President Barack Obama is after the jump, along with an annotated transcript.

Speaking in Des Moines this afternoon, Mitt Romney promised to lead the country “out of this debt and spending inferno” by reducing federal government spending from 24.3 percent of the country’s gross domestic product to 20 percent of GDP within four years. Romney would address what he called a “prairie fire of debt” by moving some federal programs to the state level or the private sector, repealing “Obamacare,” reforming Medicare and Social Security, and reducing “redundancy and waste” in government programs.

I’ve posted the full prepared text of Romney’s remarks after the jump, along with a few comments.

In the final days of the 2011 Iowa legislative session, funding for passenger rail was one of the last disputes House Republican and Senate Democratic negotiators resolved. The final deal called for no passenger rail money in the state budget for fiscal year 2012, but left “intent” language describing future state funding to match federal grants for a train route between Iowa City and Chicago. At that time, news reports indicated that legislators would need to allocate $6.5 million toward passenger rail in fiscal year 2013 to keep this project alive, plus $10 million total in subsequent years.

Before the Iowa House and Senate adjourned last week, I saw no mention of passenger rail funding in any reports about the infrastructure budget for fiscal year 2013, which begins on July 1. Wondering whether no news was bad news, I started asking around. What I learned is after the jump, along with new links on the potential for passenger rail across Iowa.

The U.S. House approved a bill yesterday to cut taxes by 20 percent for one year for companies with fewer than 500 employees. All the Iowans present voted for the legislation: Republicans Tom Latham (IA-04) and Steve King (IA-05) and Democrats Dave Loebsack (IA-02) and Leonard Boswell (IA-03). Bruce Braley (IA-01) was absent. His staff have not responded to my request for comment on how he would have voted.

The roll call shows that only 18 House Democrats supported this bill. Once again, Progressive Caucus member Loebsack joined Republicans and a small group of primarily Blue Dog Democrats. Bleeding Heartland has discussed this pattern in the context of Loebsack’s votes for a balanced budget constitutional amendment, to block non-existent EPA regulations on farm dust, to make it more difficult for the federal government to regulate small business, and to extend a pay freeze for mostly middle-class federal workers.

After the jump I enclose a statement from King and more details on the Congressional debate over small business tax cuts.

All federal transportation programs are at risk of shutting down if Congress does not pass a new authorization bill by March 31.  House Speaker John Boehner has failed to find 218 votes in his chamber for his preferred five-year highway bill. Last month the House passed the first part of Boehner’s three-pronged approach, expanding offshore oil drilling as a way to fund federal transportation programs. However, many House conservatives believe the rest of Boehner’s bill is too expensive, and the lack of earmarks gives members nothing to sell in their districts. Yesterday Boehner told reporters that he plans to “see what the Senate can produce and to bring their bill up” in the House.

Boehner’s failure put the ball in the Senate’s court. In theory, passing a transportation bill should be straightforward, because portions of the bill already passed Senate committees with unanimous bipartisan support. But for the past month the Senate has been bogged down in disputes over how many amendments will be voted on when the chamber takes up the highway bill on the floor. This week the Senate moved toward resolution; after the jump I discuss how Iowa’s two senators voted on key procedural motions and amendments related to the transportation bill.

The Air Force confirmed yesterday that its proposed budget for fiscal year 2013 would eliminate 459 positions from the 132nd Fighter Wing based in Des Moines as 21 F-16s are retired. The total number of Air Force jobs in Des Moines would drop by 39 percent to 758 positions, KCCI-TV reported.

Governor Terry Branstad and most all members of Iowa’s Congressional delegation promised to keep fighting the uphill battle to overturn that decision. I’ve posted all of their statements after the jump.  

Tonight the four remaining Republican candidates for president take the stage in Mesa, Arizona, for the final debate before super Tuesday. CNN will broadcast the debate starting at 7 pm central time. Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are under the most pressure to dent Rick Santorum’s momentum. Based on the last few debates, I expect Ron Paul to take more shots at Gingrich and Santorum than at Romney.

Any comments about the GOP presidential race are welcome in this thread. I’ll update the post later.

UPDATE: That debate wasn’t very interesting. Romney seemed to do a little better than Santorum, but I didn’t think anyone was on top form. Paul went after Santorum and mostly left Romney alone. Gingrich absurdly promised $2.50/gallon gasoline. I posted some excerpts from the CNN transcript after the jump.

Both houses of Congress approved a deal today to extend a payroll tax cut through the end of this year. It was only the second time I can remember that Senator Tom Harkin and Representative Steve King (IA-05) voted against a bill that the rest of Iowa’s Congressional delegation supported.

President Barack Obama released his draft budget for the 2013 fiscal year yesterday. Details on the president’s proposed spending and tax rates are after the jump, along with reaction from the Iowans in Congress and some of their challengers.  

Most governors have the power to veto specific line items in appropriations bills, and many deficit hawks believe bills passed by Congress should be subject to the same kind of scrutiny. However, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1998 that it is unconstitutional to give the president line-item veto power over appropriations bills. Seeking a way around that problem, the House approved a bill yesterday that would allow the president to recommend budget rescissions for Congress to consider. The legislation attracted an unusually bipartisan group of supporters and opponents.