In 2011, Governor Terry Branstad played hardball to force Cedar Rapids leaders to abandon a project labor agreement for a public building. Last Friday, one of the governor’s line-item vetoes boxed in Des Moines leaders. The governor’s action may eventually push capital city officials toward unpopular ways of refunding so-called “franchise fees” to residents.

Vice President Joe Biden appeared to make news on “Meet the Press” yesterday with a clear statement backing full marriage rights for same-sex couples. Obama administration staff immediately tried to deny that Biden had said anything newsworthy.

UPDATE: Added information below about the debate over endorsing marriage equality in the Democratic Party’s national platform and the honor three ousted Iowa Supreme Court justices will receive later today.

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller was one of 16 state attorneys general to file a federal antitrust lawsuit yesterday against Apple Inc. and three major U.S. publishers. The complaint alleges that the publishers and Apple conspired to raise prices on electronic books, causing consumers to be overcharged by more than $100 million. The U.S. Department of Justice filed a similar lawsuit against Apple and two publishers in a different federal court.

A senior staffer for the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation confirmed this week that plaintiffs will appeal a Polk County District Court’s ruling dismissing their challenge to an important water quality regulation.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has affirmed a lower court’s dismissal of a lawsuit challenging Iowa’s merit selection system for judges. Follow me after the jump for background on yesterday’s ruling.

A Sioux City jury awarded Republican State Senator Rick Bertrand $231,000 over a television commercial that attacked him shortly before the 2010 general election. It is rare for a defamation case based on political advertising to succeed, for reasons explained below.

UPDATE: Governor Terry Branstad suggested on April 9 that this verdict has got him thinking about suing the Democratic Governors Association over their 2010 campaign materials. Details are at the end of this post.

LATER UPDATE: Incredibly, Bertrand is appealing this verdict in order to seek punitive damages as well as the compensatory damages the jury awarded. More comments below.

A Polk County District Court jury returned a guilty verdict this afternoon in the trespassing trial of Hugh Espey and David Goodner. According to the Des Moines Register, jurors deliberated for nine hours before reaching a verdict. It was the second prosecution of Occupy protesters arrested last October on the state capitol grounds. Last month a Polk County jury acquitted former State Representative Ed Fallon on the same trespassing charge, accepting his First Amendment defense.

Background on this week’s trial is after the jump. UPDATE: Defense attorney Sally Frank is likely to appeal. Scroll down for details.

A Polk County District Court judge rejected a lawsuit by the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation and two other industry groups seeking to invalidate the most significant water quality regulations adopted in Iowa during the past decade.

Friday marked the second anniversary of President Barack Obama signing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as health care reform or “Obamacare.” After the jump I enclose lots of news related to the milestone, including comments from Iowa elected officials and statistics on how certain provisions affect Iowans.

This morning the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to start hearing oral arguments regarding the constitutionality of the health care reform law. Governor Terry Branstad signed Iowa on to one of the lawsuits challenging the Affordable Care Act last year. Near the end of this post I’ve included some speculation about how the justices may rule (or punt).

The Iowa Supreme Court ruled unanimously today that Governor Terry Branstad impermissibly used his line-item veto to strike language about Iowa Workforce Development field offices without vetoing the money allocated to fund those offices.

UPDATE: Added Branstad’s reaction below as well as statements from Iowa House and Senate Democrats.

U.S. Attorney Stephanie Rose told members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday that she wasn’t a key decision maker regarding the May 2008 immigration raid in Postville, Iowa.

The Iowa Environmental Council is one of 11 plaintiffs in two lawsuits filed today to challenge inaction by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The legal actions are aimed at forcing the EPA “to address the nitrogen and phosphorous pollution degrading water quality in Iowa, the Mississippi River Basin, and the Gulf of Mexico, where this pollution causes the Dead Zone.”  

Governor Terry Branstad and Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller both joined a brief filed today by seven Midwestern states that oppose California’s Low Carbon-Fuel Standard. Branstad was eager to “take a stand for Iowa farmers against [an] unconstitutional California law,” as a press release put it.

It’s not every day that a governor who has praised strict constructionists and “the philosophy of judicial restraint” cheers for the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to keep an injunction on (and eventually strike down) a state law.

Last month President Barack Obama nominated Stephanie Rose, U.S. attorney for Iowa’s northern district, for a federal judgeship in Iowa’s southern district. If confirmed, Rose would become the first woman to serve as a district judge in Iowa’s southern district. Today the Des Moines Register published an opinion piece urging U.S. senators not to “rubber-stamp” Rose’s nomination.  

Two days after the Iowa Department of Public Health announced plans to appeal a court ruling on same-sex parents’ right to be listed on birth certificates, a new lawsuit challenged the department’s refusal to list a non-birthing spouse on a stillborn baby’s death certificate.

The Iowa Department of Public Health will appeal a Polk County District Court ruling on whether non-birthing same-sex parents should be listed on babies’ birth certificates.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that laws banning workplace discrimination do not apply to many employees of religious organizations. Conservatives are hailing the ruling as a victory for religious freedom. It also appears to undermine one of their arguments against marriage equality and civil rights protections for LGBT Americans.

A Polk County District Court Judge has ordered the Iowa Department of Public Health to list a birth mother’s same-sex spouse on the child’s birth certificate without requiring the non-birthing mother to go through the adoption process.

However, the ruling does not automatically apply to all Iowa same-sex couples seeking to have both parents listed on their children’s birth certificates.

Most Iowa caucus-goers head home after the presidential candidate selection, but hard-core activists stick around to elect county convention delegates and consider resolutions for the party platform. If you bring a resolution to your precinct caucus, you have a good chance of getting it approved.

Little-known fact for those who plan to exercise this option: platform resolutions are supposed to be written in a different format from other political resolutions you may have read.

Let’s review the most boneheaded moves from the year in Iowa politics.

This thread is not about wrongheaded policy choices. It may be stupid to cut early childhood education programs, kneecap the state Environmental Protection Commission, or pass an “ag gag” bill that would never survive a court challenge. Yet all of those actions carry potential political benefits, since they appeal to well-funded interest groups or a large group of voters.

My top ten list of Iowa politicians’ mistakes is after the jump.

Talk about your last-minute bombshells: Representative Michele Bachmann’s Iowa campaign chair, State Senator Kent Sorenson, just endorsed Representative Ron Paul in Des Moines this evening. Background on Sorenson’s connections to prominent Paul supporters is after the jump.

Polk County District Court Judge Brad McCall has upheld a legal challenge to Governor Terry Branstad’s veto of language intended to keep Iowa Workforce Development offices open across the state. Excerpts from the court ruling and background on the controversy are after the jump.

U.S. Senate Republicans successfully filibustered President Barack Obama’s appointee to run the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau today. It was the second time this week that Senator Chuck Grassley and his GOP colleagues blocked a presidential nominee.

The State Judicial Nominating Commission sent Governor Terry Branstad three nominees for the Iowa Court of Appeals yesterday. The governor has 30 days to select one of those three to replace Chief Judge Rosemary Sackett, a Branstad appointee from 1983 who became “the longest serving judge in the history of the Iowa Court of Appeals.”

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday upheld the Clinton administration’s “roadless rule” affecting more than 50 million acres of National Forest lands. The decision overturned a 2008 ruling by a federal court in Wyoming, which had blocked enforcement of the rule.  

The Iowa Court of Appeals held a ceremony yesterday to mark Chief Judge Rosemary Sackett’s retirement after 28 years of service. Meanwhile, Senator Tom Harkin cleared the way this week for the first woman to be named U.S. District Court judge for Iowa’s southern district.

U.S. District Court Judge John Jarvey dismissed a lawsuit yesterday challenging Governor Terry Branstad’s executive order setting aside project labor agreements for two partly state-funded projects.

One of the most surprising Iowa House Republican winners from 2010 now has a Democratic challenger. Altoona City Council member Joe Riding announced yesterday that he will run against State Representative Kim Pearson in the new House district 30, a swing seat covering much of eastern Polk County.  

Senator Chuck Grassley and Representative Steve King (IA-05) spoke out this week for preserving the 1996 federal Defense of Marriage Act, which states that the federal government recognizes only marriages between one man and one woman. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a July 20 hearing on S. 598, the Respect for Marriage Act. That bill would repeal part of the DOMA so that for purposes of federal law, “an individual shall be considered married if that individual’s marriage is valid in the state where the marriage was entered into.” Six states and the District of Columbia recognize same-sex marriages.

Grassley is the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, and his opening statement in yesterday’s hearing asserted that “George Orwell would have marveled” at calling S. 598 the “Respect for Marriage Act.” In Grassley’s view, the bill would undermine the institution of marriage. He denied that Congress passed DOMA in 1996 “to express disapproval of gay and lesbian people.” He asserted that supporters of DOMA now face threats and intimidation that amount to an “unacceptable” “chilling of First Amendment rights.”

Grassley invited King to testify before the committee, and in his statement, King asserted that recognizing same-sex marriages would devalue the institution of marriage. Saying “you can’t choose who you love” could be used to justify incestuous or polygamous unions, King told the senators. He also argued that the DOMA is consistent with the will of the American people, who have voted in 31 states to restrict legal marriage to one man and one woman. (More recent opinion polling has shown growing support for same-sex marriage rights.)

After the jump I’ve posted the full texts of Grassley’s opening remarks and King’s testimony. Both Iowa Republicans described the government’s interest in protecting marriage as an institution that promotes procreation. King cited a 1942 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said, “Marriage and procreation are fundamental to the very existence and survival of the race.” During the past decade, several state Supreme Courts have rejected that argument as a reason to deny same-sex couples the benefits of marriage.

Multiple plaintiffs have challenged the constitutionality of the federal DOMA. Click here for a brief summary of six lawsuits working their way through federal courts. In July 2010, a U.S. District Court judge hearing two of those cases in Massachusetts struck down section 3 of the DOMA. In February of this year, President Barack Obama instructed the U.S. Department of Justice not to defend “the constitutionality of Section 3 of DOMA as applied to same-sex married couples” as applied in those two court cases. This week, White House spokesman Jay Carney affirmed that the president supports repealing DOMA. King claimed in his testimony that President Obama said DOMA is unconstitutional “despite no court ever reaching that conclusion.” He may be unaware of U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Tauro’s ruling from last summer.

While I support repealing DOMA, I view the current debate over S. 598 as a somewhat cynical public relations exercise. Everyone knows that the Republican-controlled U.S. House would never approve a DOMA repeal bill. Had Democrats tried to move this legislation when they held majorities in both houses of Congress, I would give them more credit. It’s notable that Obama publicly voiced his opinion about DOMA only after its repeal was a dead letter in the House.

Any comments about marriage equality are welcome in this thread.

The U.S. Senate confirmed J. Paul Oetken as a District Court just for the Southern District of New York today, making Oetken the first openly gay person confirmed for a federal judgeship. The Senate vote was 80 to 13 (roll call), with Republicans casting all of the no votes. Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin and Republican Chuck Grassley both voted yes on Oetken’s nomination. Throughout his career, Grassley has usually voted to confirm judges nominated by presidents from either party. However, Grassley voted against confirming both of President Barack Obama’s nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. More recently, Grassley helped filibuster Goodwin Liu’s nomination for the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

Oetken was valedictorian at Regis High School in Cedar Rapids before graduating from the University of Iowa in 1988 and from Yale Law School in 1991. Here is more background on his career in law and business:

Oetken is currently the senior vice president and associate general counsel of Cablevision, a cable television company primarily serving customers on the eastern seaboard. He has a long history of federal service, previously serving as a clerk to Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun and attorney-advisor in the United States Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel. Oetken was recommended to replace Judge Denny Chin on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York by New York Senator Charles E. Schumer. […]

Schumer called Oetken a “strong advocate for the LGBT community” in his statement, citing Oetken’s support of the ACLU Lesbian Gay Bisexual & Transgender Project as well as the amicus brief he co-authored in the Supreme Court case Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down the sodomy law in Texas.

“The Texas Homosexual Conduct Law violates principles that are basic to the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,” stated the introduction to the amicus brief, which Oetken wrote with Chai R. Feldblum, a commissioner of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. “[A]nimosity toward a group of people is not a legitimate purpose for governmental discrimination against such a group.”

Speaking on the Senate floor today, Schumer said Oetken

will give hope to many talented young lawyers who, until now, thought their paths might be limited because of their sexual orientation. When Paul becomes Judge Oetken, he will be living proof to all those young lawyers that it really does get better.

Schumer also hailed Oetken’s “moderation,” which (along with his work for a major media company) may explain why Oetken won support from so many Senate Republicans.

Perhaps some Bleeding Heartland readers remember Oetken from his time in Cedar Rapids or Iowa City. Regis alums must be proud.

The Democratic-controlled Iowa Senate has rejected only two of Governor Terry Branstad’s nominees this year. One of them, former Department of Human Rights Director Isaiah McGee, started a new job Friday as education program consultant for achievement gaps and student equity at the Iowa Department of Education. Controversy surrounding McGee’s instructions to Human Rights staff and members of certain state commissions hurt the nominee with Senate Democrats. He fell a few votes short of confirmation. McGee stayed in his position at Human Rights until today; state law allows rejected nominees to keep serving for 60 days after the failed confirmation vote. State Department of Education Director Jason Glass “sought out” and offered McGee his new job as a program consultant, Branstad told journalists today. Glass commented,

“I am excited Isaiah will be joining us, because he has numerous talents and knowledge that will benefit the people of Iowa,” Glass said. “He is the exact right person for this job, as we need to continually serve the needs of all students in Iowa. Isaiah is passionate about education and will offer thoughtful solutions to the challenges we face in our educational system, and work to see those solutions through.”

Branstad hasn’t named a permanent director for the Department of Human Rights. Today he appointed Danielle Plogmann as interim director. She handled communications for the Republican Party of Iowa during the 2010 election cycle and early this year, until McGee hired her in March to be his executive assistant. Speaking to reporters today, Branstad twice described Plogmann as “loyal”:

“She has worked there, in the department, and I wanted to have somebody that I thought was loyal and somebody that I thought would work well with everybody.” […]

Branstad is interviewing candidates to take over as the director of the Department of Human Rights and he does not anticipate that Plogmann will be more than a temporary agency chief.

“I think this will be fairly short term,” Branstad said. “But I think she is somebody that I think is loyal and competant and can do the job in the short term and we will have a permanent director named in the near future.”

I’m not clear on what Plogmann’s loyalty (to the governor? to McGee’s vision? to Republican values?) has to do with managing the Department of Human Rights. I hope Branstad appoints a permanent director with a bit more relevant experience.

In related news, this week the governor named Michael Mullins to the Iowa Court of Appeals. Mullins is a registered Republican and has served as a District Court judge since 2002. He replaces Edward Mansfield, whom Branstad appointed to the Iowa Supreme Court in February. Mullins was also on the short list of Iowa Supreme Court candidates the State Judicial Nominating Commission sent to the governor.

Incidentally, one of Branstad’s appointees to the State Judicial Nominating Commission was the other person Iowa Senate Democrats declined to confirm. Branstad’s replacement pick for that position was Jim Kersten, whom the Senate unanimously confirmed last month. A Fort Dodge native, Kertsen served as a Republican member of the Iowa House and Iowa Senate and also as an assistant to Branstad during his earlier tenure as governor. Kersten currently works as Associate Vice President of Development and Government Relations at Iowa Central Community College in Fort Dodge. He recently was one of seven heavy-hitting Iowa Republicans who flew to New Jersey to encourage Governor Chris Christie to run for president.

Yesterday Senator Chuck Grassley and almost all his Senate Republican colleagues blocked a motion to end debate on the nomination of Goodwin Liu for the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals (roll call). Tom Harkin and all but one Senate Democrat voted for the cloture motion. A 40-year-old law professor at the University of California in Berkeley, Liu had strong academic and legal credentials. Conservatives opposed his liberal policy views as well as his criticism of President George W. Bush’s Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito. During his confirmation hearing in March, Liu said the conclusion of his 2006 testimony against Alito showed “poor judgment.”

Liu would have been the only Asian-American on the 9th Circuit panel, which covers territory where more 40 percent of Asian-Americans live. Some observers have suggested that Republicans wanted to keep Liu off the appeals bench to prevent him from being a future U.S. Supreme Court nominee. (Similar concerns were raised about Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor when President Bill Clinton nominated her for an appeals court judgeship in the 1990s.) President Barack Obama has drawn criticism for the “slow pace” of his judicial nominations, but he had nominated Liu three times for this post.

Liu was the second high-profile Obama appointee filibustered this month. On May 9, Grassley and most of his Senate Republican colleagues blocked a motion to end debate on the nomination of James Cole for deputy attorney general. The president had nominated Cole for the position in May 2010, naming him as one of six recess appointees in December after Republicans long delayed considering his nomination.

Cole has extensive experience in private practice and in various Justice Department positions. He is best known for being the House Ethics Committee special counsel who investigated then Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1997. Gingrich ultimately paid a $300,000 fine for breaking House ethics rules; Cole discussed that investigation at length in this 1997 interview.

Grassley didn’t mention the Gingrich investigation in his lengthy prepared floor statement opposing Cole’s nomination. Grassley cited the Justice Department’s failure to cooperate with investigations into whistleblower allegations, as well as a 2002 op-ed piece Cole wrote advocating criminal trials in U.S. civilian courts rather than military tribunals for terrorism suspects. Finally, Grassley criticized Cole’s work as an independent consultant hired in 2004 to monitor the insurance giant AIG’s compliance with a securities fraud settlement.

The least convincing part of Grassley’s statement on Cole was this: “I have been consistent in my opposition to recess appointments over the years.” Trouble is, President George W. Bush “made 171 recess appointments, of which 99 were to full-time positions.” I do not recall Grassley filibustering a Bush nominee for any position.

Grassley may have been especially upset by Obama’s December 2010 batch of recess appointees because they included Norm Eisen for U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic. The U.S. had been without an ambassador to that country for two years, and Grassley was the lone senator holding up Eisen’s nomination. He “accused Eisen of improperly firing an inspector general for partisan political reasons”; Eisen denied that claim. In January, Grassley and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Darrell Issa wrote to White House Counsel Bob Bauer, calling Eisen’s appointment “particularly inappropriate.”

UPDATE: After the jump I’ve added Grassley’s official statements on the Goodwin Liu nomination and the failed cloture vote. I also added the full prepared floor statement from Grassley on May 18, explaining his reasons for opposing Liu. These prepared remarks do not include statements Grassley made on the Senate floor that day, asking rhetorically whether Liu thinks “we’re the communist-run China.” Speaking in the chamber, Grassley suggested that by discussing how conservatives use terms like  “free enterprise” and “private ownership of property” as code words, Liu was implying that “if you get government more involved, like they do in China, it’s somehow a better place.”

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted an injunction today on federally-funded research involving embryonic stem cells. Last August a District Court judge blocked federal government funding for such research, citing a 1996 law against funding “research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed” or discarded. However, two of the three judges on the Appeals Court panel found that the injuntion would impose “certain and substantial” harm on stem cell researchers, and that plaintiffs in the case “have not shown they are likely to succeed on the merits.” Click here (pdf file) for the full text of today’s ruling.

Senator Tom Harkin and Representatives Bruce Braley and Dave Loebsack all released statements today welcoming the decision as a victory for promising medical research. (The University of Iowa’s Carver College of Medicine was among facilities adversely affected by the district court ruling.) I’ve posted those statements after the jump and will update this post if and when other Iowa elected officials comment on the ruling.  

Last week, a group of conservative Iowa House Republicans finally made good on their promise to introduce articles of impeachment against the four remaining Iowa Supreme Court justices who concurred in the 2009 Varnum v Brien decision on marriage. The impeachment bills won’t make it out of committee, let alone the Iowa House, but there may be some political fallout from the effort.

After the jump I examine the articles of impeachment, future prospects for their backers and recent news related to the 2012 judicial retention elections.

Political junkies anxiously await the Legislative Services Agency’s release of a new Iowa map at 8:15 am on March 31. To learn more about the process, check out the “Introduction to Redistricting in Iowa” from the state legislature’s official website. The Legislative Guide to Redistricting in Iowa (pdf) contains many details on the history of redistricting and legal requirements governing the process for drawing new maps. Here’s a timeline of what to expect during this process.

March 31: The Legislative Services Agency will deliver a congressional and legislative redistricting plan to both chambers of the General Assembly (the law requires this to be done by April 1).

April 4-7: The Temporary Redistricting Advisory Commission must “schedule and conduct at least three public hearings in different geographic regions of the state and to issue a report to the General Assembly summarizing the information and testimony received.” This year the commission scheduled four public hearings, one for each Congressional district. Locations and times of public hearings scheduled for April 4-7 are at the end of this post.

April 13: The commission must then report to the legislature on the input from public hearings, no later than two weeks after the Legislative Services Agency submitted the plan.

Second half of April: The Iowa House and Senate must bring a redistricting bill to a vote “expeditiously” but no sooner than three days after receiving the Temporary Redistricting Advisory Commission’s report. The map receives an up or down vote; lawmakers cannot amend it during this stage of the process.

Late May or early June: If the Iowa House or Senate rejects the first redistricting plan, or Governor Terry Branstad vetoes it, the Legislative Services Agency has 35 days to submit a second plan to the legislature. “The second plan must be prepared in accordance with the reasons cited, if any, by the Senate or the House by resolution or the Governor by veto message, for the failure to approve the first plan, as long as the reasons do not conflict with any redistricting standard provided by the Code.” No public hearings are required on the second redistricting plan. The Iowa House and Senate must wait at least seven days after it has been submitted to vote on it, and again, no amendments are allowed. Branstad would have to call a special session of the legislature for this, since the Iowa House and Senate are expected to adjourn for the year in early May.

Late summer: If either chamber of the legislature or the governor rejects the second plan, the Legislative Services Agency is required to submit a third map within 35 days of when the second plan was rejected. No public hearings are required. The legislature must wait at least seven days to vote on the third plan, which can be amended like an ordinary bill. However, the Republican-controlled Iowa House and the Democratic-controlled Iowa Senate would probably find it difficult to amend the map to a mutually agreeable form.

September: If no consensus is reached on a third map, or Branstad vetoes a map approved by the legislature, the Iowa Supreme Court would take responsibility for drawing a valid map and would have to complete the process by December 31. If the legislature enacts a plan that is successfully challenged in the Iowa Supreme Court, the seven justices would take over the process of drawing a new apportionment plan. They would have 90 days from the date of their ruling striking down the map to complete the process.

The Des Moines rumor mill says politicians in both parties are wary of letting the Iowa Supreme Court draw political lines for the next decade. In all likelihood state legislators and the governor will sign off on either the first or the second map offered by the Legislative Services Agency. UPDATE: Citing unnamed Republican and Democratic insiders, Cityview’s Civic Skinny predicts the first map will be rejected “no matter how fair and how close to perfect it is,” but legislators will “avoid a third map that could conceivably be defeated.”

After the jump I’ve posted details on many events going on around the state this week. Scroll to the bottom to find out where and when the public can comment on the new Iowa map between April 4 and 7.

Clark Kauffman has a interesting story in today’s Des Moines Register about William Gustoff, one of Governor Terry Branstad’s two recent appointees to the State Judicial Nominating commission. Apparently it is unprecedented for an Iowa governor to name an attorney to this commission. Gubernatorial appointees are typically non-lawyers, while the State Bar Association selects lawyers to serve. Kauffman noticed something else I didn’t realize about Gustoff:

Gustoff is among four lawyers representing four Iowans in a federal lawsuit against the nominating commission.

Ironically, one of the claims made by the plaintiffs in that case is that the makeup of the commission – half lawyers, half lay people – is biased against nonlawyers because they have no say in the selection of half the commission.

The lawsuit was first filed in December. In February, it was dismissed by a federal judge who said the plaintiffs failed to show a clear violation of their constitutional rights. An appeal is now pending in the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Gustoff said that although he is listed as the lead attorney for one of the plaintiffs, his involvement in the case was minimal at first and is almost nonexistent now.

“I’m not really that involved in it,” he said. “I haven’t taken any steps to remove myself from the case as the attorney of record. But I am not admitted to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, so I can’t file anything now, and I really have nothing to do with it at this point.”

Gustoff said he’s not a trial lawyer, and his practice is focused on estate planning and nonprofit law. As a result, he said, he will bring to the commission the perspective of an average citizen, rather than that of a typical lawyer.

Asked why, if he specializes in estate planning and nonprofits, he was hired to handle the lawsuit against the commission, Gustoff said he’s not sure. “They got me from somewhere,” he said, laughing. “I don’t know. I never asked them how they got my name.”

Gustoff works in the law firm of Whitaker Hagenow, which is run by Chris Hagenow, a Republican state representative who has sponsored legislation to abolish the Judicial Nominating Commission, and Matt Whitaker, a former Supreme Court applicant who has accused the commission of manipulating the selection of Supreme Court justices.

Neither Hagenow’s bill nor other proposals to change the judicial nominating system made it past the Iowa legislature’s “funnel” deadline last week.

Bleeding Heartland discussed the federal lawsuit against the judicial nominating commission here. The case seems quite weak. It’s telling that the attorneys running the show in this politically-motivated lawsuit selected Gustoff (a partner in a conservative law firm) as opposed to some Iowa attorney with experience in litigation or constitutional law.

Kauffman paraphrases Branstad spokesman Tim Albrecht as confirming that the governor picked Gustoff “because of his conservative leanings.” Branstad’s other appointee to the judicial nominating commission is a non-laywer, Helen St. Clair of Melrose. She is presumably related to Maurice St. Clair of Melrose, who donated about $45,000 to Branstad’s gubernatorial campaign. Most of the remaining members of the judicial nominating commission are registered Democrats.

UPDATE: Nathan Tucker calls Kauffman’s article “journalistic malpractice”. Excerpts from his case are after the jump.

Governor Terry Branstad today named Edward Mansfield, Thomas Waterman and Bruce Zager to fill the three Iowa Supreme Court vacancies created by last November’s judicial retention vote. Mansfield practiced law in Des Moines for many years before Governor Chet Culver appointed him to the Iowa Court of Appeals in 2009. Waterman has long been an attorney in private practice in Pleasant Valley. Zager practiced law in Waterloo before Governor Tom Vilsack named him to the First District Court in 1999. He “spent 18 years in private practice and served part time as a Black Hawk Assistant County Attorney for 12 years.”

KCCI posted Mansfield’s interview with the State Judicial Nominating Commission here, Waterman’s interview here and Zager’s interview here. Branstad privately interviewed the nine finalists for the Supreme Court vacancies last week. The governor’s official statements announcing all three appointments are after the jump.

All three appointees are registered Republicans. Waterman has made the most political contributions, primarily to Republicans, and his $7,500 donation to Branstad’s gubernatorial campaign attracted some media attention last month. (Waterman also gave $250 to the attorney general campaign of Brenna Findley, who is Branstad’s legal counsel.) Asked whether the donation to his campaign made him uncomfortable, Branstad joked, “No, I think that’s great […] Listen I wish more of them had contributed.” He added that private citizens “have a right to contribute and participate in the political process,” and that Waterman’s donation would not influence his decision.

In a statement, Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark Cady praised the three appointees as well as Branstad and members of the judicial nominating commission. I’ve posted that statement after the jump. Cady’s colleagues chose him as chief justice after voters rejected Marsha Ternus, David Baker and Michael Streit. Once Mansfield, Waterman and Zager are sworn in, all seven Iowa Supreme Court will hold a new election for chief justice.

Although all the appointees are qualified, I find it disappointing that Iowa will have an all-male Supreme Court for the first time since 1986. The only woman on the short list, University of Iowa law professor Angela Onwuachi-Willig, had many qualifications but had no chance of being appointed by Branstad, for obvious reasons I discussed here. In fact, the governor didn’t even pretend to think seriously about appointing Onwuachi-Willig. Before interviewing the finalists, he publicly expressed regret that the State Judicial Nominating Commission didn’t send him more women candidates.

I share Cris Douglass’ view that including only one woman on the short list sent to Branstad reflects poorly on the nominating process. After the jump I’ve posted excerpts from a guest column Douglass published in the Des Moines Register on February 4. She notes that the men and women who applied for Iowa Supreme Court vacancies had comparable experience and backgrounds, yet the men had a far better chance of becoming finalists. Seeing highly qualified woman applicants passed over gives the impression that either commissioners had a conscious or unconscious bias toward male applicants, or perhaps that some sought to force an embarrassing choice on Branstad. He appointed both previous women who have served on Iowa’s high court (Linda Neuman and Marsha Ternus) and likely would have appointed a woman if any politically palatable female candidate had been a finalist.

Adding three Republicans to the state Supreme Court is unlikely to end legislative efforts to reform Iowa’s judicial nominating process or restrict the Supreme Court’s powers. More on that in a post to come. Share any comments related to the Iowa Supreme Court in this thread.

UPDATE: I’ve added below the statement from former Iowa Lieutenants Governor Sally Pederson and Joy Corning on behalf of the Justice Not Politics coalition. That nonpartisan coalition supports keeping the merit selection system Iowa has used for choosing judges since 1962. Justice Not Politics leaders recently submitted more than 3,200 signatures to Iowa House and Senate leaders calling for an end to “any conversation about impeaching Supreme Court justices.” Some conservative Republicans have advocated impeaching the four remaining justices who concurred in the 2009 Varnum v Brien ruling on marriage. The effort is unlikely to clear the Iowa House Judiciary Committee.

SECOND UPDATE: The Des Moines Register notes that Iowa is now one of only three states with no women on its highest court. In an interview, Branstad “declined to answer a question about whether he’d received a satisfactory list of candidates from the commission.”

That same Des Moines Register article quotes Iowa House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rich Anderson as praising the state’s “great judicial merit selection process.”

At the bottom of this post I’ve added more reaction to the Mansfield, Waterman and Zager appointments.

Clerking for a state legislator is a great first job in politics, but here’s a warning to the young and politically involved: sharing your personal views on Facebook can get you fired. Tyler Kingkade has the story at the Iowa State Daily:

Jessica Bruning didn’t think her personal stance on political issues would jeopardize her position as a clerk with Rep. Renee Schulte, R-Linn, in the Iowa legislature. However, after a Facebook post bucked the Republican party’s stance on the impeachment of the state Supreme Court justices, she quickly found herself out of a job.

She had been told to “tone it down” after the State of the Judiciary speech by Chief Justice Mark Cady, where she took part in standing ovations along with Democrats.

During the 2010 election season, Bruning worked for the Branstad-Reynolds campaign but often shared information on Facebook about Justice Not Politics – a bipartisan group formed to advocate retention of the justices. […]

Bruning continued to share articles and information in support of the justices after the elections as House Republicans began talk of impeaching the remaining judges.

But after a Facebook post in January, the next thing Bruning knew she was let go from her position as a clerk. She said she currently cannot go into further details on the event.

Technically, the Iowa House Republican caucus isn’t committed to impeaching the four remaining justices who concurred in the Varnum v Brien ruling on marriage. In fact, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rich “we want to drive procreation” Anderson has said he doubts articles of impeachment would clear his committee. Nevertheless, I’m not surprised that Bruning got fired by criticizing the impeachment drive, especially after she stood up to applaud Chief Justice Cady. His speech wasn’t warmly received by the House Republican caucus.

To me, the most surprising thing about this story is that Bruning was hired as a clerk for Schulte despite having criticized the anti-retention drive during the campaign. To my knowledge, not a single Iowa GOP lawmaker or legislative candidate advocated voting to retain the three Supreme Court justices on the ballot. Speaking to Kingkade,

Bruning said young people are often told throughout their years in school to get involved and voice their opinion, “Then when I post a simple Facebook status, I get fired. They’re conflicting messages.”

That’s the way the cookie crumbles if your Facebook status goes against your political party’s dominant view. If Bruning had been lambasting the justices on social media, or bashing impeachment while clerking for a Democratic state representative, she’d still have a job today.

UPDATE: Schulte disputes Bruning’s account but declined to specify why the clerk was sacked:

Two weeks ago, Schulte gave The Des Moines Register a brief statement about Bruning’s assertion, deferring additional questions to House Republican leadership.

“The short answer is no,” she was not fired for supporting same-sex marriage rights, Schulte told the Register. “Basically she’s an at-will employee. It could be for any reason. It makes me sad that she thinks that that’s why.”

U.S. District Court Judge Roger Vinson struck down last year’s health insurance reform law yesterday, backing the lawsuit filed by Florida’s attorney general and joined by 25 other states. Vinson’s 78-page opinion can be read in full here. David Kopel summarized the key points at the Volokh Conspiracy blog:

1. The 26 states lose on the argument that the mandate for drastically increased state spending under Medicaid is unconstitutional. State participation in Medicaid always has been voluntary, and remains so. […]

2. The plaintiffs win on the individual mandate. The individuals plaintiffs, and the National Federation of Independent Businesses have standing to challenge the mandate. So do Utah and Idaho, at the least, because of state statutes forbidding health insurance mandates. According to original meaning, “commerce” was trade. Citation to Randy Barnett. Even the modern precedents require “activity” as a predicate for commerce clause regulation.[…]

3. Necessary & proper does not save the mandate. […]

4. The mandate is not severable from the health control act. Defendants themselves have argued forcefully that the mandate is absolutely essential to the entire regulatory scheme. There is no severability clause. The mandate is tightly integrated into the entire act. […]

6. The entire act is declared void. […] Of course the 11th Circuit might grant a stay, and Judge Vinson might also do so, but as of right now, there is no stay.

The White House immediately made clear that the federal government will continue to implement the Affordable Care Act. I would be shocked if the U.S. Court of Appeals doesn’t grant a stay of Vinson’s ruling, especially since two other U.S. district court judges ruled last year that the individual mandate is constitutional. Vinson’s ruling went further than U.S. District Court Judge Henry Hudson’s decision in December, which struck down the federal requirement that individuals purchase health insurance but let the rest of the law stand. Click here for links to numerous reactions to Vinson’s ruling. Legal analyst Ilya Somin finds the judge’s reasoning persuasive, while Orin Kerr argues that Vinson erred by going against precedent (Supreme court case law). Dave Weigel explains how Congressional Democrats failed to include a standard severability clause in this legislation. Brian Beutler notes that U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts (one of the most conservative members of the high court) recently struck down a single provision of a law that lacked a severability clause.

Representative Steve King (IA-05), a champion of efforts to repeal health insurance reform, was jubilant about yesterday’s news: “Many of us opposed ObamaCare in part because of our oath to the Constitution. Any member who had reservations should now be empowered to vote with those of us who will cut off all funding to ObamaCare starting with the continuing resolution.” The full text of King’s press release is after the jump.

Iowa State Senator Jack Hatch blasted Vinson’s “blatant judicial overreach” and expressed confidence that courts will ultimately uphold the federal law. Hatch chairs the Working Group of State Legislators for Health Reform and joined more than 70 state lawmakers who filed a “friend of the court” brief in the Florida case supporting the constitutionality of the law. The full press release from Progressive States Network and the Working Group of State Legislators for Health Reform is after the jump.

Senators Tom Harkin and Chuck Grassley didn’t release any statement on Vinson’s ruling, which surprised me, since both quickly reacted to Hudson’s ruling against the individual mandate in December. Yesterday Harkin publicized the first in a series of Senate HELP Committee hearings about “the tangible, positive impact that [health insurance] reform is having on Americans’ lives.”

Governor Terry Branstad joined the plaintiffs in the Florida lawsuit two weeks ago (disregarding Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller’s opinion). I was surprised not to see any statement from the Branstad administration on Judge Vinson’s ruling yesterday. I will update this post with further Iowa reaction as it becomes available.

UPDATE: Through the governor’s Twitter account, Branstad’s communications director Tim Albrecht said released this statement:

“This health care law is clearly not sustainable nor is it affordable for the long-term. I believe it would be appropriate for both parties to start over and advance a plan that is more workable.”

When I asked how questions about whether the law is sustainable or affordable related to the constitutional matters at hand (judge rejecting argument against Medicaid expansion but accepting case against individual mandate), Albrecht added, “The governor continues to believe the individual mandate is unconstitutional.” To my knowledge, Branstad has not publicly acknowledged that a few years ago he supported a state mandate to purchase health insurance.

After interviewing 60 applicants for the three vacancies on the Iowa Supreme Court this week, the State Judicial Nominating Commission sent Governor Terry Branstad a list of nine candidates on January 27. After the jump I’ve posted the press release naming the nine finalists. Five are lower-court judges (four district court, one appeals court), three are attorneys in private practice, and one is on the University of Iowa law school faculty. Branstad has to select three appointees within the next thirty days. Click here for information about and writing samples by all 60 applicants.

My first thought on reading the short list was that going forward, Iowa’s high court will have no women justices for the first time in many years. Twelve women applied for the Supreme Court vacancies, including District Court Judge Annette Scieszinski of Ottumwa and two assistant attorneys general, Jeanie Vaudt and Elisabeth Reynoldson. Since former Chief Justice Marsha Ternus was not retained by Iowa voters and had been the only woman on the court, I expected the commission to include at least a couple of women on the nominees list sent to Branstad. However, only University of Iowa Professor Angela Onwuachi-Willig made the short list, and I see zero chance Branstad will select her. It’s not that she is the youngest of the nine candidates; at her age (37), Branstad was governor of Iowa. The salient fact is that Onwuachi-Willig submitted a friend of the court brief in the Varnum v Brien case, supporting the plaintiffs who were seeking to have the Defense of Marriage Act struck down. I can’t imagine any scenario in which Branstad chooses a public supporter of marriage equality for a judgeship.

Nathan Tucker of the recently-formed conservative 501(c)4 group Iowa Judicial Watch posted the party affiliations and campaign donation history of all nine finalists, as well as links to their application materials and interviews with the judicial nominating commission. Eight of the finalists refused to fill out Iowa Judicial Watch’s questionnaire. Appeals Court Judge Edward Mansfield filled out most of the lengthy document but declined to answer question 26, containing some three dozen more specific questions about his “judicial ideology.” Still, Tucker took a cheap shot at Mansfield, stating, “Though a registered Republican, Mansfield’s wife has donated good and services to Planned Parenthood.” Dangling modifiers aside, donations by Mansfield’s wife don’t necessarily reflect the judge’s views and certainly don’t affect his competence to serve on the Iowa Supreme Court. Looks to me like Tucker wanted to signal to The Iowa Republican blog’s readership that they should oppose Mansfield despite his Republican affiliation.

A more extensive update on news related to the Iowa Supreme Court is in progress. Meanwhile, share any relevant thoughts in this thread.

P.S. Before the commission began interviewing candidates, Iowa House Judiciary Committee Chairman Richard Anderson withdrew his application to serve on the Iowa Supreme Court.

UPDATE: Only two women have ever served on the Iowa Supreme Court: Linda Neuman from 1986 to 2003 and Marsha Ternus from 1993 to the end of 2010. If appointed by Branstad (she won’t be), Onwuachi-Willig, who is black, would be the first ethnic minority on the Iowa Supreme Court.