A 2008 amendment to the Iowa Constitution became a matter of debate in Griffin v Pate, the major voting rights case before the Iowa Supreme Court. The amendment changed Article II, Section 5, which as adopted in 1857 read, “No idiot, or insane person, or person convicted of any infamous crime, shall be entitled to the privilege of an elector.” The same section now reads, “A person adjudged mentally incompetent to vote or a person convicted of any infamous crime shall not be entitled to the privilege of an elector.”

Two of the seven Supreme Court justices have previously held that when approving the 2008 constitutional amendment, the legislature “ratified its own existing interpretation of that provision under which infamous crime meant a felony.” In its brief for the Iowa Supreme Court on behalf of defendants in Griffin, the Iowa Attorney General’s Office carried forward that claim: “By failing to alter the Infamous Crime Clause when other portions of Article II, section 5 were amended, the Legislature and the public ratified the definition of infamous crime as all felonies under state and federal law.” During the March 30 Supreme Court hearing on Griffin v. Pate, Solicitor General Jeffrey Thompson likewise argued “the simple answer here” is the 2008 constitutional amendment was “passed twice by the General Assembly, adopted by the people of Iowa, in the context of a legal system and historical cases and practices that said felonies are the line.”

My curiosity piqued, I decided to look into the legislative intent behind the 2008 constitutional amendment. What I found does not support the view that Iowa lawmakers envisioned “infamous crime” as synonymous with “felony” or intended to ratify such an interpretation when voting to remove offensive language from the state constitution.

A bill that would expand the legal uses of cannabis oil remains stuck in the Iowa House Ways & Means Committee, more than six weeks after Republicans on the House Commerce Committee significantly reduced its scope. But Governor Terry Branstad said yesterday he is “open” to further action on the issue before state lawmakers adjourn for the year.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

On April 1, three months later than originally planned, Iowa officially switched to a managed-care model for the Medicaid program. Erin Murphy explained here how privatization will affect almost all of our state’s roughly 560,000 Medicaid recipients.

Many Iowans on Medicaid are learning that their current health care providers are now out of network, a particular concern for those who have special medical needs. The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota has not signed contracts with any of the three insurance companies selected to be managed-care providers in Iowa. KCRG’s Katie Wiedemannn reported on March 31 about a 9-year-old cancer patient whose scheduled treatment at Mayo has been delayed because of the new policy. I am aware of other families whose children on Medicaid have relied on out-of-state medical specialists to treat their children’s rare genetic or chronic conditions.

Iowa House Republican leaders have refused to act on an extensive Medicaid oversight bill that cleared the Senate with bipartisan support. However, they promise to unveil their own Medicaid oversight proposal soon. Senate Democrats will seek to add many oversight provisions to the human services budget, which is often one of the last bills to be resolved before lawmakers adjourn for the year.

One major red flag: Iowa hired only “two ombudsmen to investigate and work as advocates for the 560,000 poor or disabled people” on Medicaid. As Jason Clayworth reported for the Des Moines Register in January, a working group that studied the issue recommended hiring 134 more ombudsmen at a possible cost of $17 million annually.

Rhonda Shouse has been among the most vocal opponents of Medicaid privatization. She shared with Bleeding Heartland some resources for recipients who run into problems with their new managed-care providers. I enclose those below.

Some good public health news: state lawmakers recently approved a bill that would allow “First responders, emergency medical service providers, police, firefighters and licensed health care professionals” to maintain a supply of the drug Naloxone (also known as Narcan). The medication can prevent death after an overdose of heroin or prescription opioid pain-killers, both of which have become more prevalent in Iowa, as in many other states. Senate File 2218 passed the upper chamber the Senate unanimously and cleared the House by 93 votes to 2 (the dissenters were Republicans Stan Gustafson and Mike Sexton). Several groups representing law enforcement or medical professionals lobbied for this bill. At this writing, Governor Terry Branstad has not yet signed it.

UPDATE: Branstad signed the bill about the overdose drug on April 6.

Yesterday Governor Terry Branstad signed a bill requiring a statewide inventory of untested rape kits. The Iowa Attorney General’s Office pushed for House File 2420, which passed the Iowa House and Senate unanimously with the support of various groups representing law enforcement, crime victims, and attorneys.

I enclose below background on the provisions, benefits and limitations of the bill State Public Defender Adam Gregg described as a “significant step toward justice in Iowa.”

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Leaders in the Democratic-controlled Iowa Senate agreed early in the 2015 legislative session to pass two major tax bills backed by top Iowa House Republicans. The moves left Democrats no leverage to obtain concessions from Republicans on state spending for vital services, especially education. After months of negotiations, the final deal struck after Memorial Day gave House Republicans what they wanted on global budget targets and acceded to their demand for “allowable growth” of only 1.25 percent for K-12 education budgets.

As a gesture toward compromise, Republicans agreed last year to a supplemental spending bill, which included one-time funding for K-12 school districts, community colleges, and state universities. But once lawmakers had adjourned, Governor Terry Branstad item-vetoed some $56 million for education from that bill. The governor pleaded fiscal responsibility in his veto message, though such concerns hadn’t stopped him from signing $99 million in tax cuts into law months earlier.

I had high hopes for a better outcome this year when I saw Senate Democrats balk at passing a $97.6 million “tax coupling” bill much like the one that sailed through the upper chamber in 2015.

But during the past two weeks, Democrats approved harmonizing the state and federal tax codes as part of compromise legislation that was not linked to education spending. Then they agreed to school funding levels very close to the House Republicans’ initial offer for fiscal year 2017, which begins on July 1 and runs through next June. Lower projected state revenues forced Democrats to accept insufficient allowable growth for K-12 school budgets, lawmakers told disappointed students and educators. As usual, budget constraints never seem to be a reason for the Iowa legislature to say no to constituencies seeking expensive tax breaks.

Hope some Democrats will step up to run in these districts, especially against first-term Republican Dennis Guth in Senate district 4. He didn’t win by a huge margin in 2012. If Donald Trump at the top of the ticket causes a meltdown, Democrats could win some unexpected Iowa House and Senate races–but only where a candidate is on the ballot. -promoted by desmoinesdem

The general election is coming up in November. But before we get carried away with the 2016 presidential race, we need to examine our state politics. On March 18, a press release by Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pates noted that 7 of the 25 Iowa Senate races in the June primary have no Democratic candidate. Among these races is Iowa Senate District 4, made up of Emmet, Hancock, Kossuth, Winnebago, and Wright counties.

When a bill passes by an overwhelming bipartisan vote, like the turtle harvesting bill did in both the Iowa House and Senate, one might assume it was easy to persuade lawmakers and the governor to act. Not necessarily. Thanks to Mike Delaney for an in-depth look at how one good idea became state law. Delaney is a founder of the non-profit Raccoon River Watershed Association. Turtle graphic produced by the non-profit Iowa Rivers Revival. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Over the years I have noticed a decline in the number of Soft-shelled turtles on my sandbars along the Raccoon River in Dallas County. When I first bought my farm in 1988 12” and 14” Soft-shells would regularly slide into the river off the sand where they were warming their cold-blooded bodies. A few seconds later you could see their noses and foreheads pop up to look around. When my son and daughter were little I showed them (as my older brothers had shown me as a child) how to walk along the shore at night, focus a flashlight at the water’s edge and spot the heads of baby Softshells sticking out of the sand. However, we have not seen these little guys for many years.

I asked around about what happened to the turtles. County conservation folks told me that the commercial turtle trappers were selling them to China. I asked some “environmentally concerned” friends. One said that the DNR was worried about Iowa’s turtles and had proposed rules to limit turtle “harvest” during egg laying season and limits on the numbers that could be taken. Iowa had no rules preventing over-harvest of turtles. I was told that the rules were being held up in the governor’s office.

I decided to act on the matter.

Two bills to address the impending privatization of Medicaid died in the Iowa House this week. Effective April 1, some 560,000 Iowans on Medicaid will have their health care services managed by one of three private insurance companies. Last month, three Republicans joined Iowa Senate Democrats to pass approved Senate File 2125, which would terminate the state’s contracts with the managed care companies. Last week, six GOP senators voted with their Democratic colleagues for Senate File 2213, which would strengthen oversight of Medicaid by the Iowa Department of Human Services and the state legislature.

To stay alive after the Iowa legislature’s second “funnel” deadline today, non-appropriations bills must have been passed by one chamber and by a committee in the other chamber. However, the bill to end privatization and the oversight bill both died in House Human Resources subcommittees. To my knowledge, the only bill related to Medicaid privatization that remains alive is Senate File 2260, which would prohibit the Iowa DHS from releasing to managed care organizations certain information about board members of non-profits that provide Medicaid services in Iowa.

Speaking to journalists yesterday, Iowa Senate President Pam Jochum described the House failure to act on the oversight and termination bills as a “disappointment” but added, “I can assure you the fight over Medicaid is not done. You will see the human services budget bill contain many of the measures that we believe are needed to protect Iowa’s most vulnerable citizens.” Click here for a detailed summary of the oversight bill’s provisions. Maridith Morris described here how privatization will affect services available for her nephew on Medicaid.

House Speaker Linda Upmeyer told statehouse reporter Erin Murphy that Senate Democrats spent too long “working on killing the Medicaid modernization plan,” while passing the oversight bill too close to the funnel deadline: “That’s an 80-page bill that arrived very late last week. So we will look at oversight. We will work on oversight. But that bill just could not be managed in the time frame we were given. So we’ll look at opportunities.”

For the last five years of divided control at the statehouse, the human services budget has been one of the last bills to be resolved before lawmakers adjourn. Count on history to repeat itself this spring, because negotiations could drag on for months over Medicaid oversight and the near-certain Republican effort to eliminate Planned Parenthood funding for contraception services. A Bleeding Heartland post in progress will cover the family planning funding debate, as well as the fate of abortion-related legislation in the Iowa House and Senate this year.

The Iowa Senate voted today to add protections for transgender people to Iowa’s hate crimes law. Currently, hate crimes are defined as offenses “committed against a person or a person’s property because of the person’s race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, political affiliation, sex, sexual orientation, age, or disability, or the person’s association with a person of a certain race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, political affiliation, gender identity, gender expression, sex, sexual orientation, age, or disability.” Senate File 2284 would add the words “gender identity” and “gender expression” to that list. The full bill text is after the jump.

Democratic State Senator Matt McCoy has championed this bill and addressed his colleagues yesterday about last week’s horrific murder of Kedarie Johnson, a 16-year-old high school student in Burlington who was transitioning from female to male. I enclose the video of that speech below.

During today’s floor debate, Republican State Senator Mark Chelgren, who is also running for Congress in Iowa’s second district, offered an amendment that would have removed all individual classes from the state code on hate crimes. McCoy countered that such an amendment would “destroy the point of a hate crimes statute.” Senators rejected Chelgren’s amendment by 30 votes to 18, with Republicans Bill Dix, Mike Breitbach, Charles Schneider, and Jack Whitver joining all 26 Democrats to vote no. Chelgren then withdrew another amendment he had proposed, which would have added “military veteran or military personnel status” to the list of protected classes.

Republican Senator Jake Chapman offered an amendment to add “unborn status” to the hate crimes bill, but as he was speaking in its favor (and graphically describing abortion procedures), Democratic Senator Tony Bisignano questioned whether the remarks were relevant. McCoy then formally objected that the amendment was not germane, and Senate President Pam Jochum ruled the objection “well-taken” and Chapman’s amendment out of order.

Schneider was the only Republican to join all 26 Democrats in approving the bill on final passage. Republicans Rick Bertrand and Brad Zaun were absent, and the 21 other GOP senators voted no. Schneider represents my own district in the western suburbs of Des Moines, and I’m proud to see him continue a tradition of Republicans from this area supporting protections for LGBT Iowans. The same was true when the Iowa House and Senate added sexual orientation and gender identity to the state’s Civil Rights Code in 2007, and when lawmakers approved an anti-bullying bill the same year.

I don’t expect Iowa House Republican leaders to bring up Senate File 2284 this year, but I hope to be proven wrong.

UPDATE: The video from today’s debate is up on the Iowa legislature’s website. Chapman went on for several minutes, starting around the 1:38 mark. Jochum repeatedly asked him to confine his remarks to why “unborn status” should be included in the hate crimes statute, but Chapman kept talking about abortion procedures.

Since Terry Branstad returned to the governor’s office, the overwhelming majority of Iowa Senate votes on contentious political issues have fallen along strict party lines: 26 Democrats one way and 24 Republicans the opposite. However, the Branstad administration’s rush to privatize Medicaid has created space for bipartisanship, as a growing number of Republicans acknowledge the dangers of shifting to managed care for a program through which one in six Iowans access health services.

Last month, three GOP senators joined their Democratic colleagues to vote for a bill that would have halted Iowa’s Medicaid privatization. That legislation is going nowhere in the Republican-controlled state House, and federal officials recently approved waivers to allow the Iowa Department of Human Services to implement the managed care policy as of April 1.

Yesterday a quarter of the GOP state senators voted with all 26 Democrats for a Medicaid oversight bill that had cleared the Senate Human Resources Committee unanimously. In her remarks to open floor debate on Senate File 2213, Human Resources Committee Chair Amanda Ragan said the bill was designed “to safeguard the interests of Medicaid members, encourage the participation of Medicaid providers, and protect Iowa taxpayers.” She told colleagues, “we must require DHS and the managed care companies to protect consumers, preserve provider networks, address the unique needs of children and assure accountability.”

I enclose below highlights from the debate on SF 2213, the roll call on final passage, and Ragan’s full remarks, along with a Democratic staff analysis summarizing the bill’s key points.

Iowa’s Medicaid program will shift to managed care for some 560,000 recipients on April 1, in accordance with waivers granted by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. CMS had previously denied the request from Governor Terry Branstad’s administration to privatize Medicaid by January 1, citing numerous signs that the state was not ready. In a letter the Branstad administration released today, Vikki Wachino of CMS noted “significant improvement” in several areas: the provider networks of three insurance companies picked to manage care for Medicaid recipients; plans for reimbursing out-of-network providers for services; better communication between state officials and Medicaid providers and recipients; and training of case managers to assist Medicaid beneficiaries during the transition.

I enclose below reaction to today’s news from the governor, key state lawmakers, and other stakeholders, as well as the full five-page letter from CMS to Mikki Stier, director for Medicaid in the Iowa Department of Human Services. Federal officials set several conditions on their approval of Iowa’s plans, such as monitoring the actions of the three managed-care organizations, making sure call centers are running their helplines competently, and preserving some “continuity of care” for Medicaid recipients.

Although the delay until April 1 will allow more time to prepare for the transition, the policy’s likely impact remains the same: more money for insurance company overhead and profit and less for health care services; a deterioration in care for disabled people, as seen in Kansas and other states; and less access to health care providers (a key issue for the three Iowa Senate Republicans who recently voted with Democrats to terminate Medicaid privatization).

Senate Democrats continue to push for “tough, bipartisan oversight and accountability protections.” Chelsea Keenan reported for the Cedar Rapids Gazette that the Senate Human Resources Committee will consider that bill (Senate File 2213) on February 24. I don’t expect that legislation to go anywhere. All I’ve heard from Iowa House Republicans is happy talk, backed up by no evidence, that privatizing Medicaid will save the state money and improve patient care.

Iowa House Republicans have substantially altered a bill that would expand the legal uses of cannabis derivatives to treat certain illnesses. State Representative Peter Cownie introduced the bill last week, but an amended version was presented at a subcommittee hearing today without explanation. Follow me after the jump for background and details.

This morning the Iowa Senate passed Senate File 2125, which would terminate contracts the state has signed with insurance companies picked to manage care for Iowans on Medicaid. Governor Terry Branstad announced his administration’s “modernization” plans early last year and selected four managed care providers in August, with a view to fully privatizing Medicaid by January 1, 2016. The state later terminated a contract with one of those four companies, and the federal government refused to grant the necessary waivers, saying Iowa would not be ready to shift to managed care until March 1 at the earliest.

Iowa Senate leaders made clear on day one of this year’s legislative session that Medicaid privatization would be a pressing concern. Senate President Pam Jochum has been sounding the alarm since last year, worried about how privatization would affect her developmentally disabled adult daughter and other Iowans with special needs. Jochum gave the opening and closing remarks in support of Senate File 2125 today. She repeatedly warned that the Branstad administration has tried to do too much, too fast, without input from state lawmakers or other stakeholders with expertise in the area. Fellow Democrats Chris Brase, Liz Mathis, Mary Jo Wilhelm, Rich Taylor, and Amanda Ragan echoed many of those concerns in their speeches.

During the floor debate, Republican State Senator David Johnson explained why he would vote for the bill. He read e-mails from numerous constituents expressing concern about access to health services for their loved ones on Medicaid. He pointed out that Minnesota took 20 years to transition to managed care, while Iowa is trying to implement the same changes over just one year. “It’s moving too fast. That’s the issue here. We need to put a dagger in this.”

Last week Johnson became the first GOP lawmaker to come out in favor of terminating the privatization program; I enclose below excerpts from Jason Clayworth’s report for the Des Moines Register. Johnson’s fears about “children at risk of losing services” stem from the failure of the managed care companies to sign contracts with thousands of providers who have been treating Iowans on Medicaid, including children on HAWK-I (Iowa’s version of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program). Scroll to the end of this post for more details on that access problem, based on data from the Iowa Department of Human Services.

Republicans who spoke against the bill today included Senators Jason Schultz and Mark Chelgren. Schultz claimed Democrats took “ownership” of managed care by putting assumptions about Medicaid savings into the health and human services budget for the current fiscal year. During her concluding remarks, Jochum pushed back hard against the idea that a vote for last year’s health and human services budget was a vote for managed care. Rarely do I ever agree with Schultz, but I think Senate Democrats walked into a trap there. The Branstad administration’s estimates on reduced Medicaid costs after privatization were never grounded in reality, but Democrats accepted those assumptions in the budget they passed–not because they supported the Branstad effort, but likely because doing so gave them an extra $51 million to spend on other health-related priorities.

Chelgren argued that lawmakers should keep their word after voting for a budget that assumed Medicaid would shift to managed care. He likened the situation to Congressional Republicans voting to repeal the 2010 Affordable Care Act without having a plan ready to replace “Obamacare.” The analogy fails because terminating Medicaid privatization that hasn’t been fully implemented would not be like repealing Obamacare after several years of operation. The status quo is an available and less disruptive alternative to serving the 560,000 Iowans on Medicaid. Chelgren claimed that halting Medicaid privatization and starting the process over would “betray” those who signed up as providers under the new system. That argument made no sense; public comments from Iowans on Medicaid and health care stakeholders have overwhelmingly opposed the Branstad policy.

During her concluding remarks, Jochum refuted claims that 39 other states have put Medicaid in managed care. In reality, only four states have fully privatized the system, as the governor is doing.

Shortly after the floor debate, senators voted 29 to 19 to approve SF 2125. Republicans Jake Chapman and Tom Shipley joined Johnson and all 26 Senate Democrats. Notably, those three Republicans all represent strongly GOP districts, not marginal seats.

The bill now goes to the Iowa House, where Speaker Linda Upmeyer has indicated she does not plan to bring the measure up for debate. For a nurse practitioner by training, Upmeyer is remarkably insensitive to ordinary people’s health care needs–not only those on Medicaid, but also chronically ill Iowans who could benefit from medical cannabis. A post in progress will catch up on the state of play for medical marijuana in the Iowa legislature.

UPDATE: Added more links and comments on the Medicaid debate below. According to Erin Murphy, Upmeyer confirmed today that the House will not take up SF 2125, because the governor would certainly veto it. Given how unpopular Medicaid privatization is, the public would likely support a legislative override of that veto. But at least five more Republican senators would have to change their stands to override a veto in the upper chamber. In the House, at least 24 GOP state representatives would need to support an override, assuming all 43 House Democrats voted in favor.

When Nate Boulton announced his Iowa Senate campaign in September, he subtly indicated he would be a different kind of legislator than State Senator Dick Dearden, the longtime Democratic incumbent who is retiring this year. Boulton promised to “be an active and engaged representative of district interests” and to “bring bold progressive ideas and a fresh, energetic style of leadership to the Iowa Senate.”

Just a few months into his primary race against Pam Dearden Conner, the retiring senator’s daughter, Boulton sent a strong signal that he will be a more “active and engaged” candidate as well. Campaign finance disclosure forms show that Boulton raised $75,383 during the last four months of the year, a phenomenal total for a non-incumbent, first-time state legislative candidate in Iowa. Not only did Boulton out-raise his primary rival, he raised more than Dearden (a 22-year incumbent) has brought in cumulatively since 2008.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

Many politically active Iowans have been decompressing from the build up to the Iowa caucuses and their aftermath. A few posts on the presidential race are still in my head, waiting to be written soon, and I am not done advocating for reforms to make the caucuses more inclusive and representative. But whereas fellow blogger Pat Rynard will continue to focus substantial energy on national politics in the coming months, I am eager to bring this site back to the state-level news I am most passionate about covering. So much has happened that I didn’t manage to write during the last couple of months, and new stories are breaking all the time. My writing plans include:

• Iowa campaigns and elections. Thanks to our non-partisan redistricting process, our state is blessed with an unusual number of potentially competitive state legislative districts. Many more close looks at Iowa House and Iowa Senate races are in the works, as well as posts about the Congressional races.

• Legislative and state government news. GOP State Senator David Johnson has just become the first statehouse Republican on record for lawmakers reversing the Branstad administration’s Medicaid privatization. (Johnson knows the policy put “children at risk of losing services” because so few providers have signed contracts with the private insurance companies picked to manage Medicaid.) Criminal justice reform, education funding, and water quality programs are other areas I’ll be following as the legislature continues its work.

• Iowa Congressional voting. Unfortunately, very few votes in the U.S. House or Senate receive any attention in the mainstream media. As I’ve said before, if a member of Congress didn’t brag about it in a press release, conference call, or social media post, Iowans are not likely ever to learn that it happened. Catching up on important votes by our four U.S. representatives and two senators is on my to-do list.

• Significant Iowa court rulings. A post in progress will highly key points from a federal court ruling David Pitt covered for the Associated Press, which determined “Iowa State University administrators violated the constitutional free speech rights of student members of a pro-marijuana group by barring them from using the university logos on T-shirts.”

• Throwback Thursday. These looks back at Iowa political history have been so much fun, I wish I’d started writing them years ago. Several more are in the works, including one relating to a 2010 law on access to firearms by people subject to protective orders. Ryan Foley reported yesterday for the Associated Press, “More than a dozen states have strengthened laws over the past two years to keep firearms out of the hands of domestic abusers, a rare area of consensus in the nation’s highly polarized debate over guns.” Iowa lawmakers adopted and Governor Chet Culver signed our state’s version of this legislation in 2010–but getting it through the state House and Senate took some heavy lifting.

• Iowa political journalism. Media issues are close to my heart, having been one of my main beats as during my decade as an analyst of Russian politics. How the Iowa media are covering (or not covering) important political news will continue to be an occasional focus at Bleeding Heartland. Some posts will be short, others long.

As always, guest pieces about any subject related to Iowa politics are welcome here. There is no need to clear ideas or content with me ahead of time. Anyone can register for an account, and I approve all non-spam, substantive posts. Bleeding Heartland has no minimum or maximum word length or restrictions on format. Looking through the posts by all guest authors in 2015, you will find a wide variety of topics and writing styles.

I also appreciate tips and story ideas. Readers can contact me at the e-mail address near the lower right corner of this page or through Twitter.

They say that converts are often more zealous than people who have grown up with a belief system. So it fell to Republican State Senator Mark Chelgren, who was raised and educated in California before settling in Iowa as an adult, to push for economic sanctions over the Stanford band’s halftime performance at the Rose Bowl.

When Congress finally passed a bill establishing a federal holiday named after the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1983, national public opinion was split down the middle on whether the civil rights leader should be honored in this way. The holiday is no longer controversial, and members of Congress who voted against it, such as Senator Chuck Grassley, are quick to explain that they admire King’s work. Bleeding Heartland has compiled links related to Dr. King’s legacy and the long slog to establish this national holiday here, here, here, here, here.

I’ve been predicting for months that this year’s legislative session would mostly be a giant waste of many people’s time. I hope Iowa lawmakers and Governor Terry Branstad will prove me wrong by enacting not only the criminal justice reforms Branstad advocated in his Condition of the State speech last week, but also legislation to reduce mandatory minimum sentences, and improve police identification and interrogation procedures as well as police use of body cameras. The NAACP is pushing for a bill to ban racial profiling by law enforcement, which should not be controversial but probably will be a very heavy lift at the Capitol.

Branstad could act unilaterally to reduce one of Iowa’s massive racial disparities by revoking his 2011 executive order that has disenfranchised thousands of people, disproportionately racial minorities. (The procedure the governor established for regaining voting rights is “just about impossible” for felons to navigate.)

Any relevant comments are welcome in this thread. All three Democratic presidential candidates mentioned Dr. King during their opening statements during last night’s debate in South Carolina, and I’ve enclosed the videos and transcript below. I also included the part of the transcript containing Hillary Clinton’s and Bernie Sanders’ remarks on criminal justice reform.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

The more I hear about “Making a Murderer,” the more tempted I am to become a Netflix subscriber so I can watch the ten-part documentary myself. The series follows the case of Steven Avery, released from prison after 18 years when DNA evidence showed he was innocent of the rape for which he had been convicted. A few years later, Avery and his teenage nephew Brendan Dassey were charged and convicted of murdering Teresa Halbach. The documentary suggests that Avery and Dassey, who are both serving life sentences, did not kill Halbach and did not receive fair trials.

Lee Rood has a front-page feature in today’s Des Moines Register about how problems highlighted in “Making a Murderer” point to the need for criminal justice reforms in Iowa, such as “uniform best practices for eyewitnesses and the mandatory recording of law enforcement interrogations.” I’ve enclosed excerpts after the jump, but I strongly recommend clicking through to read her whole story.

Avery’s wrongful conviction for rape rested primarily on eyewitness testimony. The latest edition of the New Yorker contains an excellent piece by Paul Kix on how a similar “travesty led to criminal-justice innovation in Texas.” Passages enclosed below cite Iowa State University Psychology Professor Gary Wells, who “has spent decades researching ways in which police lineups can be made more accurate.” Wells testified at a hearing seeking to exonerate a man who had died in prison, serving time for a rape he did not commit. Some of Wells’ recommendations for improving police identification practices were incorporated into a Texas law.

Those measures are different from the reforms an Iowa working group proposed and Governor Terry Branstad endorsed in his speech to state lawmakers this week. But with statehouse Republicans and Democrats deeply divided over education spending, Medicaid privatization, and Planned Parenthood funding, criminal justice reform may provide a rare opportunity for bipartisan cooperation this year. I hope members of the Iowa House and Senate who applauded Branstad’s call to reduce racial disparities will also consider some of the steps Texas has taken to prevent wrongful convictions.

Speaking recently to the Marshall Project, the rape survivor whose mistaken eyewitness testimony sent Avery to prison during the 1980s recounted how seeing a picture of her real attacker doesn’t stir up any emotion for her. In contrast, she says, “I still see Steven Avery as my assailant even though I understand he wasn’t.” I have read other accounts of traumatic memories being altered so that misremembered details evoke panic and terror. The way trauma affects the mind and body and the malleability of traumatic memories are major themes in Dr. Peter Levine’s latest book Trauma and Memory. I hadn’t heard of the book until I received a copy from a friend who found Levine’s approach to healing trauma life-changing.

A videotaped confession by Avery’s “low-functioning” nephew became a key part of the prosecution’s case in the trial that is the focus of “Making a Murderer.” Des Moines defense attorney Gary Dickey told Rood, “Set aside Avery’s innocence or guilt, the most striking thing of the whole series is the clearly coerced confession of Brendan Dassey.” It is surprisingly easy to manipulate a person to admit doing things that never happened, as shown by the New York Police Department’s ability to obtain false confessions from five teenagers accused of assaulting the “Central Park jogger” during the 1980s. Discussing that notorious crime, Saul Kassin, Psychology Professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Williams College, pointed out that “in some cases people accused of crimes, particularly kids and others who are limited intellectually, become so confused by the lies that they actually come to believe they have committed this crime they did not commit.”

A chapter in Trauma and Memory focuses on “the pitfall of false memory,” such as when therapists (either unscrupulous or well-meaning) induce patients to believe wrongly that they suffered ritual or sexual abuse as children. At the end of this post, I enclose a passage from Levine’s book addressing “malevolent police interrogation methods” used to implant inaccurate memories and thereby obtain false confessions or wrongful convictions.

Among other things, the final installment of “Making a Murderer” covers a post-script to the Avery case: the downfall of District Attorney Ken Kratz, who prosecuted Avery and Dassey. Ryan Foley, an Associated Press correspondent in Iowa, was working for the AP in Wisconsin when he reported that Kratz “sent repeated text messages trying to spark an affair with a domestic abuse victim while he was prosecuting her ex-boyfriend.” Kratz lost his job over that despicable abuse of power, which he later blamed on mental health conditions and prescription drug dependence. All journalism students should listen to Foley’s interview with Kratz before the story appeared, a fascinating example of a newsmaker trying to intimidate a reporter. In quite a show of interrogation techniques, the DA warned that a “hatchet story” on his inappropriate behavior would reveal the journalist to be a “tool” for someone else’s political agenda. Kratz modulated his voice frequently–lecturing, mocking, shouting, even whispering–hoping to throw Foley off balance and trick him into revealing his sources.

Governor Terry Branstad delivered his annual Condition of the State address to members of the Iowa House and Senate and the Iowa Supreme Court justices yesterday. If you missed the speech, the full prepared text is here. Iowa Public Television posted the video and transcript here. The early part of the 30-minute address included one false or misleading assertion after another.

· “Sound budgeting practices and fiscal discipline now have us ranked as the 3rd best managed state in the nation.” Contrary to the idea that Branstad markedly improved Iowa’s operation, a major investors group also ranked Iowa the third best-managed state in 2010 under Governor Chet Culver, recognizing Iowa’s good fiscal position, high credit ratings from leading agencies, and low debt per capita compared to most other states.

· “The Iowa Economy has created 214,000 new jobs; surpassing our 2010 goal.” Sorry, no. That’s a fake statistic no economist would accept. It’s a shame the governor has instructed Iowa Workforce Development to keep cooking the books on employment.

· “If the state fails to implement managed care, the growth of Medicaid spending will consume virtually all of our revenue growth.” The Branstad administration has not been able to demonstrate that managed care will save the state money. Florida’s Medicaid privatization turned out to be more costly without improving patient care.

I was also disappointed not to hear more specifics about how Branstad envisions spending funds he would like to divert from school infrastructure to water programs. What kind of water quality programs would be prioritized, and who would administer them? Then again, details about this plan may be irrelevant, because Iowa House and Senate leaders don’t sound open to the idea.

For now, I want to focus on a much more promising part of Branstad’s address. To my surprise, the governor devoted a major section–roughly eight minutes of speaking time–to advocating for criminal justice reforms proposed by a working group he appointed in August. The group was charged with developing ideas to increase fairness and reduce racial disparities in Iowa’s criminal justice system. Click here to read the full recommendations released in November. Bleeding Heartland will discuss some of the proposals in more detail in future posts. Advocates for defendants’ rights and racial justice have generally welcomed the proposals.

Although some policies do not go far enough, and other important reforms are missing from the document, I’m encouraged to see the governor apply some political capital toward reducing systemic racism and inequities in the justice system. I enclose below the relevant portion of Branstad’s speech, with some annotations.

UPDATE: I can’t believe I forgot to mention one thing Branstad could do immediately to address a massive racial disparity in Iowa. His executive order making it extremely difficult for felons to regain their voting rights disenfranchises Iowans of all ethnic backgrounds but disproportionately affects racial minorities.

The Iowa legislature’s 2016 session began on Monday. For the sixth year in a row, the 50 state senators include 26 Democrats and 24 Republicans. Just seven senators are women (six Democrats and a Republican), down from a high of ten women serving in the chamber during 2013 and 2014. All current senators are white. To my knowledge, the only African-American ever to serve in the Iowa Senate was Tom Mann, elected to two terms during the 1980s. No Latino has ever served in the Iowa House or Senate; Nathan Blake fell 18 votes short of becoming the first in 2014. No Asian-American has served in the state Senate since Swati Dandekar resigned in 2011.

I enclose below details on the Iowa Senate majority and minority leadership teams, along with all chairs, vice chairs, and members of standing Senate committees. Little has changed since last year, in contrast to the Iowa House, which saw some big changes in the majority Republican caucus since the legislature adjourned in June.

Term limits are a terrible idea generally but would be especially awful if applied to the Iowa Senate, as the longest-serving current senator bizarrely advocated last year. The experience gap between Democrats and Republicans is striking. As detailed below, only four of the 24 Senate Republicans have ten or more years of experience in the Iowa legislature, compared to seventeen of the 26 Democrats. No current Iowa Senate Republican has more than 20 years legislative experience, whereas six Democrats do.

Some non-political trivia: the 50 Iowa Senate members include three Marks, three Bills, three Richards (who go by Rich, Rick, and Dick), two Mikes, two Toms, two Joes, and two men named Charles (one goes by Chaz).

Governor Branstad deserves credit for his proposal to provide significant resources to address water quality in Iowa. The proposal is an acknowledgment that water pollution is a serious, immediate problem that will take a major investment of resources to solve. It’s an acknowledgment that the drinking water in communities from Boone to Des Moines is at risk of being unsafe to drink because of high nitrate levels. It’s an acknowledgment that Iowans deserve better than a record number of public beach warnings caused by toxic algae and nutrient pollution. It’s an acknowledgment that while the voluntary Nutrient Reduction Strategy may provide a framework for solving our water quality problems, without the resources and urgency to implement it, the voluntary Nutrient Reduction Strategy won’t get us there.

Proposing a significant investment in water quality acknowledges the seriousness of our water quality problem and opens the door for serious discussions about how to find the resources to solve the problem. The Governor demonstrated leadership in starting the conversation, and it will take continued leadership to be open to input to improve the proposal and get buy in from legislators and the diverse constituencies that care about solving our water quality problem.

The leadership of an open mind is critical, because Governor Branstad’s proposal is not without its flaws.

Hoping to improve on my percentages from last year, I offer sixteen Iowa politics predictions for 2016. Please spin your own scenarios in this thread.

I finally gave up on trying to predict whether Governor Terry Branstad will still be in office at the end of the year. Although his close adviser David Roederer “emphatically” says Branstad will serve out his sixth term, I am convinced the governor will resign early. But I can’t decide whether that will happen shortly after the November 2016 election or shortly after the Iowa legislature’s 2017 session.

graph of nitrates in the Des Moines River exceeding safe levels, taken by Steven Witmer using data from the U.S. Geological Survey

The Des Moines Water Works announced yesterday that it spent some $1.5 million during 2015 to operate its nitrate removal system “for a record 177 days, eclipsing the previous record of 106 days set in 1999.” The utility provides drinking water to about 500,000 residents of central Iowa, roughly one-sixth of the state’s population. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers 10 mg/l the maximum safe level for nitrates in drinking water. The Des Moines Water Works switches the nitrate removal system on when nitrates exceed 9 mg/l in both of its sources, the Raccoon River and the Des Moines River. I enclose below the full press release from the Water Works, as well as charts from the U.S. Geological Survey’s website showing recent nitrate levels in the Raccoon and Des Moines rivers.

Runoff from agricultural land is the primary source of nitrates in Iowa waterways. As David Osterberg wrote yesterday, “so little land in Iowa is devoted to urban uses (lawns or golf courses) that even if urban application rates of Nitrogen and Phosphorous fertilizer were much higher than that on farms, only 2 percent of the pollution from land application of fertilizer comes from lawns and golf courses.” This “nutrient pollution” not only incurs extra costs for providing safe drinking water but also creates toxic algae blooms, which caused a record number of beach advisory warnings during the summer of 2015.

Last January, the Des Moines Water Works filed a lawsuit against drainage districts in northwest Iowa’s Sac, Calhoun and Buena Vista Counties. Drake University Law Professor Neil Hamilton wrote an excellent backgrounder on this unprecedented litigation: Sixteen Things to Know About the Des Moines Water Works Proposed Lawsuit. In a guest column for the Des Moines Register last May, Hamilton debunked the “strenuous effort” to convince Iowans that “the lawsuit is unfair and unhelpful.”

Governor Terry Branstad has depicted the lawsuit as a sign that “Des Moines has declared war on rural Iowa” and repeatedly criticized the Water Works last year. Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey claims the water utility “has attempted to stand in the way of these collaborative efforts” to reduce nutrient pollution. A front group funded by the Iowa Farm Bureau and other agribusiness interests and led by Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett, among others, has also tried to turn public opinion against the lawsuit. In recent weeks, that group with the Orwellian name of Iowa Partnership for Clean Water has been running television commercials seeking to demonize Water Works CEO Bill Stowe.

Northey, Corbett, and Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds may soon become bitter rivals for the 2018 GOP nomination for governor. But those three will stand together opposing any mandatory regulations to reduce agricultural runoff. All support Iowa’s voluntary nutrient reduction strategy, shaped substantially by Big Ag and lacking numeric criteria strongly recommended by the U.S. EPA.

William Petroski and Brianne Pfannenstiel report in today’s Des Moines Register that Branstad “is exploring a legislative proposal that would provide money for water quality projects by using projected revenue growth from an existing statewide sales tax for schools.” Apparently “superintendents have been getting called to the state Capitol to discuss the proposal” with Branstad and Reynolds. Fortunately, that cynical attempt to pit clean water against school funding appears to have zero chance of becoming law. Of the ten state lawmakers or representatives of education or environmental advocacy groups quoted by Petroski and Pfannenstiel, none endorsed the half-baked idea. Their reactions ranged from noncommittal to negative. Speaking to Rod Boshart of the Cedar Rapids Gazette, Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal said of a possible Branstad proposal on water quality funding, “We certainly would be willing to look at that but we’re not going to cannibalize education or the basic social safety net so that he can put a fig leaf on his record on the environment.”

UPDATE: Erin Murphy reported more details about Branstad’s proposal: extend the 1 percent sales tax for school infrastructure, dedicate the first $10 million in annual growth to schools and allocate the rest to water programs.

SECOND UPDATE: Added below excerpts from Murphy’s report for the Cedar Rapids Gazette on Branstad’s plan. I’m disappointed to see U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack endorse this ill-conceived proposal. Of course we “need to work on [water quality] now,” but why does the money have to come out of school funds? Remember, the Branstad administration is already pushing a corporate tax break that will cost public school districts millions of dollars a year for infrastructure on top of tens of millions of dollars in lost state revenue.

THIRD UPDATE: Branstad told reporters today he does not believe there is support in the legislature to raise the sales tax. Under a constitutional amendment adopted in 2010, 3/8 of a cent of the next Iowa sales tax increase would flow into the natural resources trust fund. He also indicated that he would not support extending the penny sales tax for school infrastructure beyond 2029, when it is scheduled to expire, without lawmakers agreeing to divert some of the funding to water programs. According to incoming Iowa House Speaker Linda Upmeyer, “House Republicans have been divided on whether to extend the school infrastructure sales tax beyond 2029.”

No matter how closely you follow current events, some days the news will shock you. I enclose below the biggest Iowa political stories I never saw coming last year.

Please share your own thoughts on this subject in the comments.

Happy new year, Bleeding Heartland readers! Here’s an open thread: all topics welcome.

I am grateful to everyone who contributed guest posts during 2015: Dave Swenson, Jon Muller, fladem, 2laneIA, ahawby, Julie Stauch, Susan Staed, Mike Owen, natewithglasses, sarased, frankly, Jane Kersch, aleand67, Matt Hauge, ModerateIADem, Leland Searles, Eileen Miller, Tracy Leone, Pari Kasotia, Roger Pedactor, Stacey Walker, Mike Draper, cocinero, AbramsMom, mrtyryn, desmoinesiowa15, moderatepachy, Joe Stutler, Zach Wahls, and State Representative Chuck Isenhart.

Guest authors can write about any political topic of state, local, or national importance. Pieces can be short or long, funny or serious. You do not need to contact me ahead of time with your story idea. Just register for a user account, log in, write a post, edit as needed, and hit publish when you are ready. The piece will be “pending” until I approve it for publication, to prevent spammers from using the site to sell their wares.

I also want to thank everyone who participates here by commenting on posts. If you’ve never done so, feel free to register for a user account and share your views. If you used to comment occasionally but have not done so since this blog relaunched on a different software platform in October, you will need to reset your password. E-mail me with any problems registering for an account, logging in, or changing a password; my address is near the lower right-hand corner of this page.

I wish everyone success in sticking to your new year’s resolutions. Keep in mind that new habits typically take a few months to establish. I’m still working on my list of Iowa politics predictions for 2016, but now seems like the right time to hold myself accountable for last year’s effort. Follow me after the jump to see how I did.

As I mentioned on Tuesday, writing is a labor of love for me. Some posts are much more labor-intensive than others.

All of the pieces linked below took at least a couple of days to put together. Some were in progress for weeks before I was ready to hit the publish button. (No editor, deadlines, or word limits can be a dangerous combination.) A few of the particularly time-consuming posts required additional research or interviews. More often, the challenge was figuring out the best way to present the material.

Several pieces that would have qualified for this list are not included, because they are still unfinished. Assuming I can get those posts where they need to be, I plan to publish them during the first quarter of 2016.

The Iowa legislature’s 2016 session opens two weeks from today. Last year’s session extended more than a month past the scheduled date for adjournment, largely because House Republican leaders refused to compromise on education spending. Lawmakers finally approved a budget deal in early June, only to watch Governor Terry Branstad strike out the key concessions to Democrats on funding for K-12 schools, state universities, and community colleges.

Legislators from both parties sound determined not to let history repeat itself.

For months, Governor Terry Branstad has dismissed warnings from patients, advocates, doctors, hospitals, editorial boards, and lawmakers that the state’s rush to privatize Medicaid would disrupt health care for some 560,000 Iowans. Today the governor finally got the message in a form he can’t ignore. Director Vikki Wachino of the federal government’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services wrote to Iowa Medicaid Director Mikki Stier,

Based on our review last week of Iowa’s progress, as well as the information you have provided, CMS expects that we will ultimately be able to approve Iowa’s managed care waivers. However, we do not believe that Iowa is ready to make this transition Jan. 1. CMS previously outlined the requirements to provide high quality, accessible care to Medicaid beneficiaries, and Iowa has not yet met those requirements, meaning that a transition on January 1 would risk serious disruptions in care for Medicaid beneficiaries. While you have made progress in some areas of readiness, our review also identified significant gaps that need to be addressed before CMS can authorize your waiver requests. For that reason, CMS will work with you toward approval of your request effective March 1, 2016, provided that the state demonstrates progress toward readiness consistent with the actions in the attachment to this letter.

Click through to read the full four-page letter and four-page attachment from Wachino to Stier, which the Des Moines Register posted online. CMS officials found that “significant areas of the state did not have many provider types within a reasonable distance,” and that “Relying too heavily on out-of-network providers is likely to create confusion among beneficiaries and providers, result in access issues for beneficiaries, and disrupt continuity of care for beneficiaries.” Many of the points raised echo concerns three Democratic state senators expressed during meetings with CMS officials in Washington last month.

The CMS readiness review also showed that nearly half of Medicaid recipients who tried to call the state’s call centers earlier this month could not get through. Many Iowans who did reach a staffer on the phone were not able to find out whether any of their current doctors had signed contracts with the four managed care providers approved to run Medicaid. The CMS findings are consistent with what I’ve been hearing from acquaintances: the enrollment packets sent to Medicaid recipients did not include basic details they would need to make an informed choice of managed care provider (such as where their family’s current doctors will be in-network).

I enclose below reaction to today’s news from Branstad, who struck an upbeat tone, and key Democratic lawmakers, who vowed to keep fighting to improve legislative oversight of the Medicaid privatization. The Democratic-controlled Iowa Senate approved such a bill during the 2015 session, but the Republican-controlled Iowa House declined to take it up. Oversight is the very least state lawmakers could do to prevent the transition to managed care from becoming a pretext for denying services to vulnerable Iowans.

David Pitt noted in his report for the Associated Press,

Two legal challenges continue including one from the Iowa Hospital Association, a trade group for the state’s hospitals. It sued the state claiming the privatization plan is illegal because it takes millions of dollars from a dedicated hospital trust fund and gives it to the four managed care companies.

Any relevant comments are welcome in this thread. I am grateful that so many Iowans took the time to contact federal officials about Branstad’s disastrous policy. Bleeding Heartland reader Rhonda Shouse has been one of the superstar organizers in that fight.

UPDATE: Added below reaction from Representative Dave Loebsack (D, IA-02). I expect that during next year’s re-election campaign, Loebsack will highlight his efforts to shield constituents from the negative consequences of shifting Medicaid to managed care. His only declared Republican opponent is State Senator Mark Chelgren, who like his GOP colleagues in the upper chamber has done nothing to slow down the privatization or strengthen legislative oversight of the process.

SECOND UPDATE: Added more news and commentary related to this issue.

A Republican challenger to three-term State Senator Jeff Danielson in Iowa Senate district 30 emerged last week. Bonnie Sadler is on Facebook here and on Twitter here. Danielson has a campaign website as well as a Facebook page and Twitter feed.

Danielson was the Iowa legislative incumbent re-elected by the narrowest margin in 2008, beating Walt Rogers by just 22 votes out of more than 32,000 cast. Although Danielson won his third term by a somewhat larger margin in 2012, Republicans are still likely to target this race as one of their top two or three pickup opportunities. The Republican State Leadership Committee has committed to play for the Iowa Senate majority in 2016. Democrats currently control the chamber by 26 votes to 24.

I enclose below a map of Senate district 30, a review of its voter registration numbers and recent voting history, background on both candidates, and first thoughts on what should be a central issue during next year’s campaign.

Incoming Iowa House Speaker Linda Upmeyer says the majority House Republican caucus will handle education spending early during the 2016 legislative session, and will likely not approve funding for Planned Parenthood clinics in Iowa. I recommend reading Erin Murphy’s whole interview with Upmeyer, which appeared in the Quad-City Times on Sunday. Follow me after the jump for more thoughts on Upmeyer’s comments and how state support for public school districts and Planned Parenthood’s family planning programs may play out next year.

After several months of recruiting efforts, Republicans finally have a candidate willing to run against two-term State Senator Mary Jo Wilhelm in Iowa Senate district 26. This race is among a half-dozen or so contests that will determine control of the upper chamber after the 2016 elections. Since Iowans elected Governor Terry Branstad and a GOP-controlled state House in 2010, the 26 to 24 Democratic majority in the state Senate has spared Iowa from various disastrous policies adopted in states like Kansas, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Of the senators who make up that one-seat majority caucus, Wilhelm was re-elected by the narrowest margin: 126 votes out of nearly 31,000 cast in 2012.

I enclose below a map of Senate district 26, a review of its voter registration numbers and recent voting history, and background on Wilhelm and challenger Waylon Brown. Cautionary note: although Brown is the establishment’s pick here, he is not guaranteed to win the nomination. “Tea party” candidates won some upset victories in the 2012 Iowa Senate Republican primaries, notably Jane Jech against former State Senator Larry McKibben in Senate district 36 and Dennis Guth against former State Senator James Black in Senate district 4.

A U.S. District Court ruling in August inspired today’s edition of Throwback Thursday. That ruling struck down an Idaho law making it a crime to lie to obtain employment at an agricultural facility, among other things. Iowa was the first state to adopt what critics call an “ag gag” law, aimed at making it harder for animal rights or food safety activists to obtain undercover recordings at farms or slaughterhouses. Idaho’s law went further than the bill Governor Terry Branstad signed in 2012; for instance, the Idaho statute also banned unauthorized audio or video recordings at a livestock farm or processing facility. Still, to this non-lawyer, some passages of federal Judge Lyn Winmill’s ruling (pdf) suggested that Iowa’s prohibition on “agricultural production facility fraud” might also violate the U.S. Constitution, specifically the First Amendment’s free speech clause and the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause.

Bleeding Heartland posted relevant excerpts from the Idaho ruling here, along with a brief legislative history of House File 589.

I sought Governor Terry Branstad’s comment on the court ruling and whether Iowa lawmakers should amend or rescind the language in Iowa Code about “agricultural production facility fraud.” In response, the governor’s communications director Jimmy Centers provided this statement on August 6:

House File 589 passed with bipartisan support and under the advice and counsel of the Attorney General’s office. The governor has not had the opportunity to review the ruling from the federal court in Idaho and, as such, does not have a comment on the case.

“Under the advice and counsel of the Attorney General’s office” didn’t sound right to me. When I looked further into the story, I learned that the Iowa Attorney General’s office neither recommended passage of this law nor signed off on its contents.

Iowa’s social conservatives have suffered several setbacks lately in their crusade against Planned Parenthood. The Iowa Supreme Court unanimously struck down an administrative rule that would have banned the use of telemedicine for medical abortions in several Planned Parenthood clinics. Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller informed a large group of Republican lawmakers that his office has neither “jurisdiction over transfers of fetal tissue” nor the “authority to investigate or demand information about the transfer of fetal tissue.” (Not that it mattered, since Planned Parenthood clinics in Iowa have never participated in fetal tissue donation programs.)

Governor Terry Branstad, who has always opposed abortion rights, acknowledged two weeks ago that “we cannot defund Planned Parenthood,” because a review of Planned Parenthood’s contracts with the state revealed that the health care provider has not “violated their responsibilities under the grants that they have received” for family planning services. An official review also confirmed no taxpayer money goes toward abortion services at Planned Parenthood clinics in Iowa.

During this year’s legislative session, Republicans successfully pushed for ultrasound requirements for women seeking abortions, but the final adopted language on ultrasounds did not add any new roadblocks or delays to the process of getting an abortion in Iowa.

Advocacy groups like Bob Vander Plaats’ FAMiLY Leader organization continue to pressure Branstad to keep his 2010 campaign promise to end Planned Parenthood’s state funding. Last week, Iowa House Republicans indicated that they plan to continue their “deliberate and unwavering battle” for the “pro-life” agenda.

Here’s how efforts to defund Planned Parenthood are likely to play out during next year’s Iowa legislative session. What happens after that depends mostly on whether the 2016 general election changes the balance of power at the statehouse.

Among the many examples of corporate cronyism Governor Terry Branstad’s administration has provided these past five years, getting the Iowa Department of Revenue and Finance to rewrite tax code without legislative approval “on behalf of the Iowa Taxpayers Association” is among the most brazen.

Not only does this unprecedented use of the rule making process usurp legislative authority, it may end up being more expensive than “the worst economic development deal in state history.” At least tax incentives benefiting Orascom (for a fertilizer plant the company would have built anyway) have an end point. The Iowa Department of Revenue’s proposed sales tax cut for manufacturers will cost the state of Iowa tens of millions of dollars in revenue every year, indefinitely.

Democratic state lawmakers weren’t happy that the Branstad administration unilaterally decided to let private insurance companies manage the state’s Medicaid program, especially since some corporate representatives were briefed on that managed care plan long before state officials informed lawmakers or the general public. But state lawmakers didn’t have a way to block the Medicaid privatization.

In contrast, the Iowa House and Senate could stop the Iowa Department of Revenue’s proposed rule and thereby assert the authority of the legislative branch to approve tax code changes. Alas, signs from Tuesday’s meeting of the legislature’s Administrative Rules Review Committee (ARRC) point to House Republicans going along with the Branstad administration’s ”serious overreach of executive power.”

The Iowa Department of Revenue and Finance (IDORF) has proposed new administrative rules, effectively providing a tax cut worth tens of millions of dollars for Iowa manufacturers.  Absent a legislative response, the rule goes into effect January 1, 2016.

https://rules.iowa.gov/Notice/…

This is a serious overreach of executive power. The complexity of the issue, coupled with the unquenchable desire by the party in power to reduce taxes on business, provide the perfect climate to give a tax cut to manufacturers of some amount between $35 million to $80 million, perhaps more. This is an ongoing tax cut of increasing value. This action should be weighed against the Governor’s veto of $55.6 million of education funding….one-time education funding….because the State of Iowa ostensibly could not afford it.

And what is the stated purpose of this rule change? According to the notice, the rules are the “subject of a substantial confusion and controversy.” Furthermore, the change will eliminate “administratively burdensome distinctions…”

Periodically, a taxpayer will contest a ruling and win in court. When that happens, the Department provides a rule change that brings its practices in harmony with current law. That is not what is happening here. The Department is not losing cases in defense of the law. It simply finds the effort administratively burdensome.

How burdensome? The Department has identified 1,500 hours costing $85,000 that is required to enforce the Code of Iowa. That represents 0.24% of the revenue the Department claims to collect from this tax, and probably a lower percentage than that, for reasons discussed below. Interestingly, the Department’s budget is $17.8 million. They collect $8.4 billion in taxes. Their entire budget is 0.21% of each dollar collected. The Department should be commended for the efficiency with which it collects these complicated sales taxes owed by businesses to the State of Iowa.

A little historical context is in order. Generally speaking, manufacturers do not pay sales tax on machinery and equipment, supplies, and replacement parts that are part of the “value-added” process. Machinery and equipment was removed from the property tax roles in the late 1990s, a tax benefit of over $200 million, primarily to manufacturers. Most of this equipment is already exempt from sales tax. This latest administrative action continues the drip drip drip of the erosion of the tax base.

Normally, when the Governor wants to provide a tax cut to businesses or individuals, he makes a recommendation to the Legislature. The Senate and the House work out the details, and send a bill to the Governor to sign. That’s how it worked when they cut property taxes for commercial property owners by $200 million two years ago. That’s how it worked when they cut $200 million in property taxes for business in the late 1990s. That’s how it worked when they cut the sales tax on bailing twine, computers purchased by insurance companies with more than 50 employees, supplies purchased by greenhouses, or my personal favorite, the tax on sales of “tangible personal property sold to a nonprofit organization which was organized for the purpose of lending the tangible personal property to the general public for use by them for nonprofit purpose.”

The issues related to the tax itself are complicated. And the roles of the three branches of government in the execution of the sales tax are complicated as well. This combination makes it difficult to engage in a widespread public policy debate with anything beyond the soundbites. Soundbites, which in this case, are true. Namely, the Governor’s actions demonstrate that the State has enough money to give business a $365 million tax cut over the next ten years, but doesn’t have $55.6 million for schools, one time.

For those requiring a little more Inside Baseball, three factors need to be explored. First, do we really know how much this exemption will cost? Second, an explanation of why this rule is beyond the scope of the Department’s administrative authority. Third, a discussion of the process by which this rule will be implemented or overturned.

The Des Moines metro area has made plenty of “best places” lists during the last five years, but Chamber of Commerce types won’t be bragging about the top ten ranking that appeared last week. After examining “the disparities between white and black Americans in several economic and social measures” across the country, Thomas C. Frohlich and Sam Stebbins of the 24/7 Wall St. website “identified the 10 worst cities for black Americans.” The authors noted, “Four of the cities with the worst racial inequality are in Illinois, two are in Iowa, and all are in the Midwest.”

Follow me after the jump to learn why the Des Moines metro area ranked ninth and the Waterloo/Cedar Falls metro area tenth on this list.

After dropping some unsubtle hints in recent days, Republican State Senator Mark Chelgren confirmed today that he will run for Congress in Iowa’s second district, William Petroski reported for the Des Moines Register. He will launch the campaign in Iowa City this afternoon on October 6 before appearing at the Scott County Republican Party Ronald Reagan Dinner in Bettendorf. Scott County has the largest population and Johnson County (containing Iowa City) the second-largest among the 24 counties in IA-02.

Speaking to the Register, Chelgren said he doesn’t dislike five-term Democratic incumbent Dave Loebsack, but “This is a question of who is better suited to change Washington, D.C. […] you are not going to do it by following party lines and doing what you are told.” In reality, Loebsack has not blindly followed the lead of his fellow House Democrats. The Progressive Punch database of Congressional voting indicates that Loebsack is only the 157th most progressive current member of the House. He has also voted with Republicans rather than with most of his own caucus on more than 30 percent of the “crucial votes” tallied by Progressive Punch since 2007.

A business owner in Ottumwa, Chelgren told the Register he is running to represent the people of southeast Iowa and hopes to bring to Washington his experience creating jobs at the local level. Speaking to Bleeding Heartland in July, Chelgren outlined other key themes of his potential Congressional campaign: changing our trade policy, upgrading our infrastructure, fixing a “massively broken” education system, and bringing more long-range planning to the federal government.

Chelgren’s ten-vote victory in a 2010 Iowa Senate race neither party had its eye on still evokes unprintable words from many Democrats. Despite being the most vulnerable GOP Iowa Senate incumbent going into the 2014 election cycle, Chelgren managed to win re-election by 374 votes after calling attention to some unforced errors by the Democratic candidate. So no one should count him out.

That said, IA-02 would be a long-shot prospect for any Republican candidate in 2016. The district leans Democratic with a partisan voter index of D+4. According to the latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office, the 24 counties in the district contain 160,325 active registered Democrats, 136,237 Republicans, and 183,235 no-party voters. The last time Loebsack was on the ballot in a presidential election year, he defeated John Archer by a comfortable margin of 55.6 percent to 42.5 percent.

UPDATE: Added below Chelgren’s press release announcing his candidacy.

(Author note: Thanks to DesMoines Dem for permitting this cross-post originally published on Medium.) 

At its annual policy conference in August, the Iowa Corn Growers Association joined the Iowa Soybean Association in supporting Iowa’s Water and Land Legacy (IWLL), a sales tax increase that would provide in excess of $150 million annually to environmental protection and natural resources in Iowa.

Official support for IWLL from both the corn and soybean organizations is significant because a bill in this year’s legislative session to enact the tax increase, SSB1272 (succeeded by SF504), drew opposition from the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation, the state’s agribusiness lobbying powerhouse.

While it received very little attention in the media, this action by the Corn Growers — just maybe — is a sign that something is changing in a good way for clean water in Iowa.

Even if not, at least the Corn Growers’ decision presents a good opportunity to look at what’s going on as Iowa struggles for better conservation performance of its globally significant soil and water resources.

A generational battle is shaping up in the Democratic primary to replace State Senator Dick Dearden, who has represented parts of Des Moines in the legislature since 1995. Dearden recently disclosed plans to retire in 2016. Like last year’s campaign to replace Jack Hatch in Iowa Senate district 17 on the south side of Des Moines, the June primary will determine Dearden’s successor.

Senate district 16 covers heavily Democratic neighborhoods on the east side of Des Moines, and also the growing suburb of Pleasant Hill. A detailed map is after the jump. The latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office indicate that the district contains 14,624 active registered Democrats, 6,978 Republicans, and 10,106 no-party voters. Dearden was unopposed in 2004 and defeated his Republican challengers by wide margins in 2008 and in 2012.

More candidates may enter the race later, but for now the primary will pit the incumbent’s daughter Pam Dearden Conner against labor attorney Nate Boulton. Iowa Labor Commissioner and former Secretary of State Michael Mauro endorsed Conner on Facebook this past weekend. She is his administrative assistant and also worked for him in the Polk County Election Office and the Secretary of State’s Office. Many other longtime friends and backers of Senator Dearden have expressed their support for Conner’s campaign on social media.

Nate Boulton is a partner in a law firm that has represented Iowa’s largest pubic employee union (AFSCME) in several high-profile cases against Governor Terry Branstad’s administration. Since last Friday, many Democratic activists in their 20s and 30s have promoted his candidacy on social media. Bouton’s on Twitter here, and his campaign is on Facebook here.

I enclose below press releases from each candidate, containing short biographies and statements of values. Both Conner and Boulton have strong pro-labor credentials and are pledging to support consensus Democratic priorities like education. Boulton’s statement hints at the case he will make in the primary, promising to “be an active and engaged representative of district interests” and to “bring bold progressive ideas and a fresh, energetic style of leadership to the Iowa Senate.” Such phrases allude to the fact that Dearden, while a solid vote in the legislature, has never been at the forefront of progressive fights. In fact, I’m hard-pressed to think of a cause he has led on, besides bringing back dove hunting, which isn’t a partisan issue. Dearden didn’t accomplish that longstanding goal until Governor Terry Branstad was back in office.

Two (or perhaps more) committed candidates working hard to identify and turn out supporters next June can only help Democratic GOTV in the general election. Here’s hoping for a competitive race that doesn’t turn bitter and negative, as happened in Senate district 17 last spring.

BACKGROUND FOR THE BLEEDING HEARTLAND READER

Malcolm Price Laboratory School was a small K-12 school attached to and operated by the University of Northern Iowa.  MPLS was primarily used by the teacher education program to train teachers.  It was a critical part of UNI, “the teacher’s college”.  Year after year, however, with mounting budget pressures at UNI, talk would take place about closing MPLS.  Tired of this annual worry, supporters of MPLS through the help of their local legislatures, pushed for and obtained legislation creating the Iowa Research & Development School at MPLS.  This group thought the days of threats of closure were over since their existence was now statutory.  In 2012 they found out they were wrong.

In light of the recent events at the University of Iowa regarding the president selection process, I think it appropriate to share a narrative I drafted back in 2012 when UNI closed MPLS and other programs.  It was the fruit of an open records request for email.  The intended audience was the parents and supporters of MPLS.