# IA-01



IA-01: A closer look at Ben Lange's case against Bruce Braley

Last night in Cedar Rapids, Republican Ben Lange formally announced his 2012 campaign to represent Iowa’s first Congressional district. The candidate who narrowly lost IA-01 in 2010 is not a lock for the GOP nomination. Unlike two years ago, Lange faces a primary rival with extensive business experience and a decent amount of money in the bank. For now, he is ignoring the Republican competition in IA-01 and taking aim at three-term incumbent Bruce Braley. Lange’s talking points merit a closer look.

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Brian Schoenjahn still lacks a GOP challenger in Iowa Senate district 32

MARCH 16 UPDATE: Republican Elliott Henderson of Independence qualified for the ballot on the last day of the filing period. Bleeding Heartland will discuss his campaign in a future post.

State Senator Brian Schoenjahn confirmed today that he is running for re-election in the new Senate district 32. This politically balanced seat is a must-win for Democrats hoping to retain their majority in the upper chamber. With barely a month to go before the filing deadline for state legislative candidates, Republicans do not yet have a challenger in this district.

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Iowans divided as House passes "legislative line-item veto" bill

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.

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Braley, Loebsack, and Boswell vote with Republicans to extend federal worker pay freeze

Candidates love to empathize with struggling middle-class Americans, but middle-income government employees are an easy target for politicians trying to earn their deficit warrior stripes. Today more than a third of U.S. House Democrats voted with nearly all the House Republicans to keep most civilian federal employees’ salaries frozen through 2013. All five Iowans voted for the legislation, even though Democrats Bruce Braley (IA-01), Dave Loebsack (IA-02), and Leonard Boswell (IA-03) have repeatedly said they oppose balancing the budget on the backs of the middle class.

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IA-01, IA-02: Braley and Loebsack vow to fight for Rock Island Arsenal

Yesterday U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta revealed some proposed cuts to the military budget, part of a plan to save $487 billion over the next decade. Click here or here for details on the reductions, which will slow the rate of growth in defense spending but are far from the “massive cuts” opponents decry.

Representatives Bruce Braley (IA-01) and Dave Loebsack (IA-02) responded to yesterday’s news by promising to fight for defense-related jobs at the Rock Island Arsenal, a major employer in the Quad Cities area.

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Obama in Cedar Rapids links and discussion thread

President Barack Obama hits the road today through Friday to promote proposals from last night’s State of the Union address. Cedar Rapids is the first stop on his itinerary, which also includes Phoenix, Las Vegas, Denver, and Detroit. All cities are in states Obama hopes to win or at least put in play this November.

Follow me after the jump for links on the president’s Cedar Rapids visit. I will update this post later with highlights and reaction.

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Iowa House district 64 preview: Dan Rasmussen vs Bruce Bearinger

MARCH 16 UPDATE: Rasmussen did not file for re-election. The Republican candidate in this district is Jim Givant; Bleeding Heartland will cover his campaign in a future post.

Iowa’s new map of political boundaries created a large number of competitive House and Senate districts in the northeast part of the state. Yesterday Democrat Bruce Bearinger announced his candidacy in the new House district 64, now represented by Republican Dan Rasmussen. A district map and background on both candidates are after the jump.

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IA-01, IA-02: Debt ceiling hike to be campaign issue

Last week, the U.S. House passed a resolution to disapprove President Barack Obama’s latest request to raise the debt limit. The mostly party-line vote was also mostly symbolic and consequently received little media attention. However, Republican challengers in Iowa’s first and second Congressional districts are likely to highlight this vote in their campaigns against Representatives Bruce Braley and Dave Loebsack.

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Where the Iowans in Congress stand on SOPA and PIPA

Wikipedia, Reddit and many other websites are dark today to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), now pending in the U.S. House and Senate. Momentum appears to have shifted against this legislation in its current form, but a modified bill might still pose a threat to freedom of information. I sought comment on this legislation from all members of Iowa’s Congressional delegation.

UPDATE: Added Representative Bruce Braley’s statement opposing SOPA below, along with a comment from Representative Steve King’s office.

LATER UPDATE: A statement from Representative Leonard Boswell is now below as well.

THURSDAY UPDATE: Added a YouTube video about SOPA, released by Braley’s re-election campaign.

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2012 Iowa caucus results thread

This thread is for sharing stories from your precinct caucus meetings as well as for discussing the results once they have been reported.

Iowa Republicans and Democrats, I’m particularly interested to know how many candidates for Congress or the state legislature addressed your caucus, or had a campaign representative greet caucus-goers and speak on their behalf. GOP Congressional challenger Rod Blum is planning to meet Republicans in two IA-01 counties instead of caucusing in his home town of Dubuque. GOP Representative Tom Latham, who is running against Leonard Boswell next year in IA-03, claims to have lined up leaders in all 384 precincts across the district. Steve King’s challenger, Christie Vilsack, is speaking to all Democratic caucus-goers in Story County’s sole caucus location, Ames High School.

UPDATE: Adding results after the jump.

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IA-01: Blum and Lange actively campaigning

Although the presidential campaign is the center of attention in Iowa for obvious reasons, caucus season also provides opportunities for down-ticket candidates. Large groups of politically-active conservatives gather at campaign events all over the state. Local and county GOP activists are planning for all the 2012 elections, not just the caucuses.

Two Republicans are likely to run against three-term Representative Bruce Braley in Iowa’s new first Congressional district. Both have been busy touring northeast Iowa this fall, speaking to various county central committees and conservative groups.  

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Iowans split on party lines as House rejects Senate payroll tax cut bill

The payroll tax cut, extended unemployment benefits, and a “doc fix” affecting Medicare reimbursements look more likely to expire on December 31 after today’s votes in the U.S. House. Republicans voted to go to conference to resolve differences between their approach to extending the payroll tax cut and the bill the U.S. Senate approved on Saturday.  However, Democrats don’t plan to appoint anyone to the conference committee.

Details on today’s votes and reaction from members of Iowa’s House delegation are after the jump.

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Iowa reaction to the official end of the Iraq war

The U.S. officially ended the war in Iraq today “with an understated ceremony in Baghdad” to lower the American flag of command. In a sense, Representative Ron Paul is correct to say that we’re “pretending” to bring all our troops home while putting 17,000 military contractors in Iraq. If the war is well and truly over, I wonder why two-thirds of U.S. senators recently voted against repealing the Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002. Senator Tom Harkin supported that effort to repeal the war authorization, while Senator Chuck Grassley opposed it. The proposed amendment to the 2012 defense authorization bill “would have forced the president to return to Congress and seek additional authority to send more troops” to Iraq.

In any event, today is a milestone in the war that began in March 2003. After the jump I’ve posted reaction from some members of Iowa’s Congressional delegation. I will update this post as more comments appear.

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Iowa Democrats support GOP payroll tax extension in House

Only ten Democrats in the U.S. House supported a bill approved last night to extend the payroll tax cut and some unemployment benefits. All three Iowa Democrats crossed party lines to vote for this legislation, which has drawn a rare veto threat from the White House.

UPDATE: Scroll down for Representative Dave Loebsack’s statement on this vote.

SECOND UPDATE: I’ve added a statement from Representative Steve King.

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Braley, Boswell, Loebsack vote with House Republicans on farm dust bill

Some bills are designed to solve real problems, some bills are designed to create the appearance of solving real problems, and some bills are designed to solve non-existent problems. The U.S. House passed that third kind of bill yesterday, seeking to block rules the Environmental Protection Agency has not even proposed.

Bruce Braley (IA-01), Dave Loebsack (IA-02), and Leonard Boswell (IA-03) were among the 33 Democrats who voted with Republicans to pass the H.R. 1633, the Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act of 2011. The Iowa Democrats weren’t all equally supportive during the floor debate, however.

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House votes to block union election rules; Iowans split on party lines

Yesterday the U.S. House approved H.R. 3094, the Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act. The bill seeks to reverse proposed National Labor Relations Board actions that could make it easier for organized labor to win union elections. Although the bill has no chance of clearing the U.S. Senate, yesterday’s vote could reverberate in some of next year’s Congressional races in Iowa.

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Iowa Senate district 26 preview: Mary Jo Wilhelm vs Merlin Bartz

Only one Iowa Senate race in 2012 will pit Republican and Democratic incumbents against each other. First-term Democrat Mary Jo Wilhelm confirmed this week that she will seek re-election in the new Senate district 26. Her likely opponent is four-term Republican Senator Merlin Bartz. Follow me after the jump for a district map and first take on this matchup.

As a bonus, this post also covers the strangest failure to do basic damage control I’ve seen from a political veteran.  

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IA-01: Braley running against post office closures

Three-term Representative Bruce Braley has three potential Republican challengers for 2012, but a different adversary has been the Democrat’s prime target in public statements and many appearances around Iowa’s new first Congressional district.

Braley’s top punching bag of late has been the proposed restructuring of the U.S. Postal Service. The plan could close 178 mostly rural post offices in Iowa, many of them in the new IA-01. Braley has warned that shuttering post offices would hurt local economies. As a member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, he has also highlighted the impact of post office closures on veterans and deployed military personnel.

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Iowa Congressional 3Q fundraising news roundup

October 15 was the deadline for Congressional candidates to file reports on their third-quarter fundraising with the Federal Election Commission. Follow me after the jump for highlights from the filings for incumbents and challengers in Iowa’s four new Congressional districts.

I’m covering the districts in reverse order today, because based on second-quarter filings, political junkies are most closely watching the money race in IA-04 and IA-03.

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Weekend open thread and news from Iowa's Congressional delegation

All five Iowans in the U.S. House are co-sponsoring a bill that would require the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers “to revise the Missouri River Master Manual to increase the total amount of storage space within the Missouri River Reservoir System that is allocated for flood control.” After the jump I’ve posted more details on that bill and other news about the Iowans in Congress.

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Iowa Congressional 2Q fundraising thread

Iowa’s third and fourth Congressional districts are on track to have high-spending races in 2012, judging from the latest campaign finance reports.

Details from all the Federal Election Commission filings by Iowa Congressional candidates are after the jump. The big news comes from IA-03, where Republican Representative Tom Latham is building a huge money edge over Democratic Representative Leonard Boswell, and IA-04, where former First Lady Christie Vilsack out-raised Republican Steve King for the quarter.

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IA-02 update: Loebsack moving, Republicans declaring

Representative Dave Loebsack has closed on a new house in Iowa City, a move that will enable him to run for re-election next year in Iowa’s second Congressional district. The new map of political boundaries put Loebsack’s longtime Linn County home in the first district, represented by fellow Democrat Bruce Braley. Loebsack announced plans to move into IA-02 the first day Iowa’s map was proposed.

Loebsack said he chose Iowa City in order to be close to his son, daughter-in-law and grandchild. Johnson County has the second-largest population in the new IA-02 and is Iowa’s most Democratic-leaning county by far, with more than twice as many Democrats as Republicans. As of July 2011, the county dominated by Iowa City and its suburbs contained 40,177 registered Democrats, 18,275 Republicans and 31,927 no-party voters.

Since winning the 2006 election, Loebsack has represented Iowa’s current IA-02, which has a partisan voting index of D+7. In other words, in last two presidential elections, the current IA-02 voted about seven points more Democratic than the national average. Loebsack won re-election in 2008 by more than a 20-point margin against Mariannette Miller-Meeks, but he was sweating it last fall. Both his campaign and the and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee put up negative television commercials against repeat GOP nominee Miller-Meeks (see here, here and here). Loebsack ended up winning by a 51.0 percent to 45.9 percent margin.

The new IA-02 has a partisan voting index of about D+4. According to the Iowa Secretary of State’s office, the Congressional district contained 503,218 active registered voters as of July 2011: 178,562 registered Democrats, 139,359 Republicans, and 184,692 no-party voters.

Not only does Loebsack’s new district lean slightly less Democratic, the incumbent has never represented its most populous county. Scott County includes the Iowa side of the Quad Cities. As of July 2011, it contained 36,303 registered Democrats, 30,305 Republicans and 46,914 no-party voters. Braley lost Scott County in his narrow 2010 win over Republican Ben Lange in IA-01. Lange said in May that he will not move to IA-02 to challenge Loebsack. He has not ruled out a rematch against Braley in the new IA-01.

On July 6, Republican John Archer announced that he has filed paperwork to run for Congress in IA-02. Archer lives in Bettendorf, one of the Quad Cities, and is senior legal counsel for the John Deere company. He also serves on the Pleasant Valley school board. So far Archer’s campaign website has only buttons for donors and volunteers and a link to the candidate’s Facebook page. After the jump I’ve posted the full text of his campaign announcement.

Last month another Scott County Republican, Dan Dolan of Blue Grass, said he would challenge Loebsack in 2012.

Dolan, who has operated Dan Dolan Homes in Davenport for 20 years, said his decision to run is motivated by frustration with what he describes as “professional politicians.” […] Dolan is upset with the nation’s accumulation of debt and what he sees as an unwillingness by those already in office to do anything about it. […]

Dolan said the recent congressional redistricting in Iowa helped motivate him to consider running for office. He noted that the new district boundaries comprise a large portion of the areas where his company has a presence with housing developments.

According to dandolanhomes.com, Dolan’s company has housing developments in Davenport, Muscatine, Blue Grass, Clinton, LeClaire and Iowa City.

Democratic-leaning Clinton County is the third most-populous in the new IA-02, and Loebsack has not represented that county before either. Braley carried Clinton against Lange in 2010.

UPDATE: Tea party activist Richard Gates announced plans last month to run for the Republican nomination in IA-02. He is a veteran and machinist from Keokuk (Lee County), and also midwest administrator for the conservative group 912 Patriots for Action. Inspired by Glenn Beck, he became active in politics in early 2009. He supports replacing all income and corporate taxes with a consumption tax (the so-called “fair tax” reform). During the last election cycle, Gates endorsed Chris Reed, who finished third out of four candidates in the IA-02 primary.

Lee County leans Democratic, but it has one of the highest unemployment rates in Iowa. Loebsack barely led Miller-Meeks there in 2010.

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IA-01: Rathje exploring race against Braley

Cedar Rapids business owner Steve Rathje announced yesterday that he is exploring a race against three-term Democratic Representative Bruce Braley in Iowa’s first Congressional district. Rathje noted that “only one quarter of the American people believe our country is headed in the right direction.” With high rates of unemployment and underemployment bringing the country to “a tipping point economically,” Rathje touted his experience in creating or preserving manufacturing jobs in the U.S.  The full text of his press release is after the jump.

If Rathje runs against Braley, it would be his third attempt to win a seat in Congress. He finished a close third in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate in 2008, behind Christopher Reed and George Eichhorn. Rathje finished a distant second to Mariannette Miller-Meeks in the Republican primary for the second Congressional district in 2010.

The economy will be the central issue in the next election, and Rathje may be well-positioned to talk about job creation. Click here to view one of his television commercials from last year’s IA-02 race. In addition, Republicans would be wise to run a candidate from Linn County against Braley. The Cedar Rapids metro area is the largest population center in the new IA-01, and Braley has not represented Linn before. I posted Iowa’s new Congressional map after the jump.

I’m not convinced Rathje has a strong enough Linn County base to make this race competitive, though. He carried Linn in the 2008 Senate primary but finished behind Ottumwa-based ophthalmologist Miller-Meeks in his home county in 2010. In fact, some Linn County GOP movers and shakers recruited Rob Gettemy to the IA-02 primary last year because they weren’t satisfied with the declared field against Democrat Dave Loebsack.

Rathje may also be too conservative to give Braley a tough challenge in a district with a partisan voting index of D+5, especially in a presidential election year. The 20 counties in the new IA-01 voted for Barack Obama over John McCain by a 58 to 40 percent margin in 2008, and for John Kerry over George W. Bush by a 53 to 46 percent margin in 2004.  

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No organized case against Iowa maps at public hearings (updated)

A pathetically small crowd of about a dozen people turned up for the final public hearings on the first redistricting plan for Iowa last night. As was the case at the previous hearings, few people stood up to criticize the plan, and the complaints raised were not cohesive.

The low turnout and lack of consistent talking points suggest that neither political party mobilized supporters to pack these hearings. That in turn suggests neither Democratic nor Republican leaders believe this map clearly puts them at a disadvantage. More details about the hearings and the next steps in the redistricting process are after the jump.  

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Iowa redistricting news and discussion thread

Minutes ago the Legislative Services Agency released a new map of Iowa political boundaries, containing four Congressional districts, 50 state Senate districts and 100 state House districts. I don’t see the map on the state legislature’s official site yet but will update this post as more information becomes available today.

This thread is for any comments related to Iowa redistricting. I posted a timeline of upcoming events in the process after the jump.

I liked one veteran Republican lawmaker’s advice:

If the map is good to you, stay quiet, advises Rep. Stewart Iverson, R-Clarion, who was Senate majority during redistricting leader 10 years ago. If it’s not, stay quieter.

On the other hand, Kathie Obradovich’s counsel to legislators in today’s column baffled me:

Redistricting will be painful. Do it fast. [….] Hurt feelings and simmering resentment over redistricting can pollute the caucus and spill over into discussion of other bills. Best to get it over with as soon as humanly possible.

We’re talking about a map that will affect Iowa elections for a decade. If the Legislative Services Agency doesn’t produce a map that seems fair to both parties the first time, have them do it again. There is no perfect redistricting plan, but improving a mediocre map is more important than wrapping things up fast at the capitol.

UPDATE: The Des Moines Register reports that the map throws Republican Representatives Tom Latham and Steve King together in the new fourth Congressional district. Democratic Representatives Bruce Braley and Dave Loebsack are both in the new first district. Representative Leonard Boswell has the third district to himself, and the second district (which conveniently contains Christie Vilsack’s home town of Mount Pleasant) is open. Presumably Loebsack would move to the second district if this map were accepted.

Iowa Public Radio’s Jeneane Beck tweets, “If new map approved – 14 State Senate districts with more than one incumbent and seven with no incumbent.” In that case, I doubt this map will be approved.

SECOND UPDATE: The maps are now up on the legislature’s website, along with the proposed redistricting plan report.

THIRD UPDATE: Although Leonard Boswell has the new IA-03 to himself, it’s not a good map for him, with the district stretching to the south and west of Polk County. That reminds me of the IA-04 map from the 1990s, which helped bury Neal Smith.

I suspect Iowa House Republicans won’t be happy to see nine new districts where GOP incumbents would face each other. Three incumbents–Majority Leader Linda Upmeyer, Stew Iverson and Henry Rayhons–all reside in the new House district 8. Only three House districts are home to more than one Democratic incumbent. The new district 13 in Sioux City would pit first-term Republican Jeremy Taylor against first-term Democrat Chris Hall.

FOURTH UPDATE: After the jump I’ve added some highlights from the Legislative Services Agency’s report. The districts don’t look very compact to me, but they are fairly close in population.

IA-01 has 761,548 people, -41 from ideal

IA-02 has 761,624 people, +35 from ideal

IA-03 has 761,612 people, +23 from ideal

IA-04 has 761,571 people, -18 from ideal

I also posted reaction comments from Representatives Braley and Boswell, Iowa House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and Iowa Democratic Party Chair Sue Dvorsky.

You can find the maps for individual Iowa House and Senate districts here and here. As a Windsor Heights Democrat, I don’t like the looks of my new House district 43 or Senate district 22.

FIFTH UPDATE: Swing State Project helpfully provides the presidential results for each new Congressional district.

IA-01 went 58 percent Obama, 40.1 percent McCain in 2008, and 53.1 percent Kerry, 46.1 percent Bush in 2004.

IA-02 went 56.6 percent Obama, 41.2 percent McCain in 2008, and 52.5 percent Kerry, 46.5 percent Bush in 2004.

IA-03 went 51.9 percent Obama, 45.8 percent McCain in 2008, and 47.1 percent Kerry, 52.1 percent Bush in 2004.

IA-04 went 48.1 percent Obama, 49.8 percent McCain in 2008, and 44.2 percent Kerry, 55.0 percent Bush in 2004.

FINAL UPDATE: Added Loebsack’s statement after the jump, which makes clear he would move into IA-02 if this map is adopted.

Bleeding Heartland will continue to cover the implications of the first redistricting plan next week. I’ll be curious to see what arguments people make at the public hearings, aside from complaints about communities of interest being divided. Not only are Linn and Johnson counties separated, but the Des Moines metro area is split among three districts.

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