First-term Democratic State Representative Kerry Burt announced yesterday that he won’t run for re-election in Iowa House district 21, which comprises part of Waterloo and some rural areas in southern Black Hawk County (map here). The state Attorney General’s Office filed charges against a group of parents including Burt, who allegedly gave false addresses to avoid paying higher tuition fees for their children to attend the Price Laboratory School in Cedar Falls. Burt said in a statement, “I look forward to my day in court.  I believe I am innocent and strongly believe my name will be vindicated once all of the relevant facts come to light. […] I am extremely grateful to the citizens of Waterloo for allowing me to serve and look forward to continuing my public service in the future.”

I wish Burt the best but won’t deny that I’m one of those relieved Democrats John Deeth mentioned here. I’ve been hoping for some time that Burt would not seek re-election, not only because of the tuition scandal but because of his drunk driving arrest in February 2009.

After the jump I cover the recent electoral history of House district 21 and reasons Democrats can feel optimistic about holding the seat.

The filing deadline for statewide and state legislative offices closed at the end of business today. John Deeth has been covering the highlights at his blog. Click here to download a pdf file from the Secretary of State’s office for the full candidate list.

As I mentioned earlier, Governor Chet Culver has no primary challenger. All three remaining Republican gubernatorial candidates qualified for the ballot (Terry Branstad, Rod Roberts, Bob Vander Plaats).

There will be a three-way Democratic primary for U.S. Senate between Roxanne Conlin, Tom Fiegen and Bob Krause.

Republicans have a full slate of candidates for statewide offices. Sadly, Democrats failed to find anyone to take on Auditor David Vaudt.

Four Republicans filed against Bruce Braley in Iowa’s first Congressional district, and four Republicans filed against Dave Loebsack in the second district. All seven declared GOP candidates qualified for the ballot in Iowa’s third district. I would not be surprised if a district convention ends up selecting Leonard Boswell’s opponent.

Bill Maske is the only Democrat running against Tom Latham in Iowa’s fourth Congressional district. As expected, we will have a competitive primary in the fifth between Mike Denklau and Matt Campbell.

Most surprising statehouse district left uncontested: House district 16 in northeast Iowa. I had heard rumors that Republicans had no candidate against freshman State Representative John Beard, but I’m still shocked they left him unchallenged. That was a battleground race in 2008. Does anyone know whether a GOP district convention will be able to name a candidate for this race later?

Democrats didn’t leave any obviously competitive statehouse districts open. I’m a little disappointed we don’t have a candidate in House district 73, from which Republican Jodi Tymeson is retiring. It is a fairly strong GOP district, but I thought a candidate pounding the pavement there might help State Senator Staci Appel in her re-election campaign against Kent Sorenson (Senate district 37).

We found a candidate in House district 51 (Carroll County), which Rod Roberts is vacating to run for governor. Democrat Larry Lesle of Manning will face the winner of a three-way GOP primary.

Yesterday two-term incumbent Elesha Gayman surprised many people by announcing her retirement from House district 84 in Davenport. Gayman indicated that no one had been lined up to replace her, but today Shari Carnahan filed for that seat as a Democrat. She will face Gayman’s 2008 opponent, Ross Paustian.

Ruth Ann Gaines ended up being the only Democrat to file in Wayne Ford’s district 65 (Des Moines).

Six Democratic Iowa House incumbents have primary challengers. The people running against Dave Jacoby (district 30, Iowa City/Coralville) and Geri Huser (district 42, east side of Des Moines) appear to be backed by organized labor. A socially conservative pastor, Clair Rudison, is running against Ako Abdul-Samad in district 66 (Des Moines). Anesa Kajtazovic stepped up to the plate in House district 21 (Waterloo). Freshman Kerry Burt really should have retired from that seat. I don’t know what the deal is with Kenneth Oglesby, who is challenging Chuck Isenhart in district 27 (Dubuque). Likewise, I have no idea why Mike Petersen is running against Mary Gaskill in district 93 (Ottumwa). Please post a comment or e-mail me (desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com) if you know the backstory.

Most surprising retirement: Republican Doug Struyk in district 99. The GOP candidate for secretary of state in 2006, Mary Ann Hanusa, is running for the Council Bluffs-based seat instead. She will face Democrat Kurt Hubler, who nearly defeated Struyk in 2008. Struyk was first elected as a Democrat but switched parties several years ago. His departure will leave only one turncoat in the Iowa House. We failed to field a candidate against Dawn Pettengill (district 39), who switched to the GOP in 2007.

More posts are coming soon on some of the battleground statehouse races. Meanwhile, post any relevant comments in this thread.

UPDATE: Forgot to mention that we will see seven or eight rematches in Iowa House races. Republicans are running Josh Thurston and Stephen Burgmeier and 2009 special election winners Kirsten Running-Marquardt (district 33) and Curt Hanson (district 90). Also, in district 23 first-term Democrat Gene Ficken will face the Republican he beat in 2008, Dan Rasmussen. Republican Jane Jech is taking another shot at incumbent Mark Smith in district 43. The district 89 race may be a rematch as well if Jarad Klein wins the GOP primary to face first-term Democrat Larry Marek. In House district 60, first-term Republican Peter Cownie faces 2008 Democratic candidate Alan Koslow. Not only will Koslow be at a severe financial disadvantage, his endorsement of Jonathan Narcisse for governor won’t win him friends among the Democratic base. Democrat Pat VanZante is taking another shot at Jim Van Engelenhoven in district 71 (assuming Van Engelenhoven doesn’ lose to his GOP primary challenger). Republican Dave Heaton will face his 2008 opponent, Ron Fedler, in district 91.

SECOND UPDATE: Republicans are crowing that they are fielding candidates in 88 of the 100 Iowa House districts, while Democrats are fielding candidates in only 75 districts. I would like to challenge Republicans everywhere, but it’s only natural that Iowa Democrats are going to focus more on defense this year. We already have the majority, and it could be a tough cycle for incumbents at all levels.

Following up on my review of news from the first half of last year, I’ve posted links to Bleeding Heartland’s coverage of Iowa politics from July through December 2009 after the jump.

Hot topics on this blog during the second half of the year included the governor’s race, the special election in Iowa House district 90, candidates announcing plans to run for the state legislature next year, the growing number of Republicans ready to challenge Representative Leonard Boswell, state budget constraints, and a scandal involving the tax credit for film-making.

State Representative Kerry Burt received a year of probation and a $625 fine after pleading guilty to drunk driving, the Des Moines Register reported on August 21. He will also be required to take a class for drunk drivers. Burt released a statement apologizing for his actions and promising never to let it happen again. I’ve posted that statement after the jump. It doesn’t sound like he’s planning to resign.

I would like Democrats to find a new candidate for House district 21 next year. The Register pointed out that State Senator Robert Dvorsky was re-elected in 2006 despite a drunk driving arrest earlier that year, but Dvorsky had spent nearly two decades in the Iowa legislature at that time and represents a safe Democratic district. Burt is in his first term and defeated a Republican incumbent by a narrow margin in 2008. He is also among several people being investigated for giving false addresses in order to evade tuition payments at the University of Northern Iowa’s Malcolm Price Laboratory School.

Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement on Wednesday filed an ethics complaint against the Iowa Pharmacy Association, which entertained Governor Chet Culver and numerous state legislators in February but did not disclose the reception until after journalists started asking questions five months later. State Representative Kerry Burt, who attended the event, was arrested later that night for drunk driving. From an August 5 Iowa CCI press release:

Iowa CCI’s initial research has uncovered 26 additional late-filing disclosure violations by lobbyist groups during the 2009 legislative session.  This amount represents nearly one-third of the 90 reports that were filed in 2009.

“Today we are focusing on the Iowa Pharmacy Association because its disclosure violation is the most egregious example of abuse of the law by special-interest lobbyists, particularly because they only filed after they were caught,” [Iowa CCI’s State Policy Organizing Director Adam] Mason said.

This emerging and growing political scandal raises new questions about the ability of the House and Senate Ethics Committees to accurately monitor and regulate these types of events.

In 2005, state lawmakers voted to strip oversight powers from the nonpartisan State Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board and task the House and Senate Ethics Committees with oversight responsibilities.  Since then, the number of reported filings have gone down, as has the reported amount of money spent at lobbying events.

I called Mason today with more questions and learned that Iowa CCI filed the complaint with the secretary of the Iowa Senate and the chief clerk of the Iowa House. According to Mason, the Iowa House and Senate Ethics Committees cannot investigate this kind of disclosure violation in the absence of a complaint filed by a third party.

The trouble is, no third party would typically be in a position to set this process in motion. If not for Burt’s bad judgment and bad luck, the public would never have known that the Iowa Pharmacy Association wined and dined policy-makers in February. Iowa CCI has been comparing the disclosure reports filed against the social calendar for legislators from the 2009 session, but Mason told me that not all details about entertainment offered to state legislators are available to the public. Some industry groups provide free travel, food or drinks to lawmakers when the legislature is out of session.

More disturbing, no one on the House or Senate Ethics Committees seems to be taking responsibility for enforcing the disclosure rules. In April, Senate Ethics Committee Vice Chairman Dick Dearden admitted that no one checks the reception disclosures against the legislators’ social calendar. The Des Moines Register reported at the time that Dearden “does not recall any organization ever being punished for not filing reception disclosures properly.”

Legislators should stop pretending to care about money in politics and start addressing real problems with our current system of campaign finance and lobbying. A good start would be to give oversight powers back to the State Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board.

I’ve posted Iowa CCI’s full press release after the jump.

UPDATE: Forgot to link to Jason Hancock’s piece on this subject at Iowa Independent.

Groups that throw receptions for Iowa legislators are supposed to file a disclosure report within five business days of the event, but the Iowa Pharmacy Association filed paperwork for its February 10 reception only this week. Why now? Journalists have been asking about the event that preceded State Representative Kerry Burt’s drunk driving arrest around 2 am on February 11. Burt told an Ankeny police officer that he’d been drinking with the governor that evening.

I agree with Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement; the Iowa Pharmacy Association’s disclosure violation once again demonstrates the need for campaign finance reform. I’ve posted a press release from Iowa CCI after the jump. Excerpt:

Several years ago, state lawmakers voted to strip oversight powers from the nonpartisan State Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board and task the House and Senate Ethics Committees with oversight responsibilities.  Since then, the number of reported filings have gone down, as has the amount of money spent at lobbying events.

“What other profession in the state is allowed to regulate themselves,” asks Ed Rethman, Iowa CCI member from West Des Moines.  “Are doctors allowed to license themselves?”

The Des Moines Register reported in April that many interest groups are providing free food and drink to legislators without properly disclosing how much they spend on these events. Usually, the public never finds out about these events, because no one gets arrested afterwards.

Wining and dining legislators is only one of many ways to buy influence at the Iowa statehouse. Many interest groups hire expensive lobbyists. Some pay legislators’ expenses for out of state trips. Then there’s good old-fashioned contributions to political parties and campaign funds, which are unlimited in Iowa. These methods bury a lot of good ideas and get some bad ideas signed into law.

Meanwhile, what passes for campaign finance reform in the Iowa legislature is a joke.

Any suggestions for making progress on this issue are welcome in this thread.  

Please find us a new candidate in Iowa House district 21. State Representative Kerry Burt should not run for re-election and probably should not even serve out his term. It would be hard enough to salvage a political career in light of a state auditor’s report and criminal investigation over Burt giving a false address to evade tuition fees for his children. But this report is just as disturbing:

Rep. Kerry Burt, D-Waterloo, told Ankeny police in February that he could not be arrested because of his position as a state representative, according to the police report.

Burt also told police that it was not a question of how much he had to drink but “who he was drinking with.” Burt then whispered, “the governor,” according to police reports.

Burt apparently also mentioned that he was a firefighter and asked for some “professional courtesy” instead of arrest. His attorney says his comments are being taken out of context. I don’t know what the criminal investigation regarding the tuition fees will conclude, and I don’t know whether Burt will be convicted of the drunk driving charge, but it looks to me like his political career is over.

Governor Culver doesn’t want anything to do with defending Burt, and who can blame him?

“Obviously this is a very serious legal matter and it’s very troubling to see how dangerous this situation really was,” Culver said, later adding that he was only with Burt that night for about 30 minutes at a dinner attended by roughly 15 people.

“I have no idea what he did after I left that dinner at 8:55. I was home at 9 o’clock. He was arrested at 2 a.m. I have no idea really what he did between 9 and 2.”

Culver declined to say if he believed Burt should resign. That decision, Culver said, is for Burt to make.

The Iowa House Ethics Committee won’t take up this matter until other investigations conclude. It would be better for Burt to resign or at least announce that he doesn’t plan to run for re-election next year.

We have a lot of good Democrats in the Waterloo area. Please post a comment if you have any suggestions about good candidates for this House district in 2010, or sooner if a special election is needed.

Governor Chet Culver has set September 1 as the date for the special election in Iowa House district 90, which includes Van Buren and parts of Wapello and Jefferson counties. The seat opened up when State Representative John Whitaker decided to take a position with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

If you live within striking distance of this district, please consider volunteering for Democratic candidate Curt Hanson. His campaign website is here, and he’s also on Twitter and Facebook. This will be a low-turnout election, so a strong volunteer effort will be essential.

According to Bleeding Heartland user im4klein, the GOP will announce its candidate in House district 90 today or tomorrow. Supposedly he is a farmer who has won elections in the past. Sounds like a county supervisor to me, but we’ll find out soon enough.

UPDATE: The Republican candidate for this special election is indeed a county supervisor–to be more precise, Jefferson County supervisor Stephen Burgmeier. Click the link to read his press release. The last time Burgmeier was on my radar screen, he and his fellow supervisors had passed a resolution on April 27, 2009, asking the Iowa legislature to stop same-sex marriages. Burgmeier’s timing was either brilliant (because April 27 was the first day for legal same-sex marriages in Iowa) or stupid (because the legislature had just adjourned for the year on April 26). I expect him to make gay marriage a major issue in this special election campaign.

SECOND UPDATE: According to The Iowa Republican’s Al Swearengen,

Ed Failor Jr. and Iowans for Tax Relief are running the entire campaign effort in the [House district 90] special election…

Word is that Failor has committeed big dollars to the race and already has his ITR staff embedded in the district and running the race… […]

Anybody that questions the power and influence of Failor and ITR need to look no further than this race…they are running this race…and are in charge of all [Iowa] House and Senate elections…

Meanwhile, the Des Moines Register reports,

Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation is investigating a case that involves a state audit that indicates a representative shortchanged an Iowa school $37,000, a state spokesman confirmed today.

No charges have been filed against Rep. Kerry Burt, D-Waterloo, but if the accusations prove to be accurate, they ultimately could lead to his removal from office, according to Iowa law.

House Speaker Pat Murphy told the Register, “I think [Burt] has a very good record, and I stand behind him at this point, and I’m 100 percent with him.” I hope Murphy has a plan B in case the criminal investigation confirms the allegations in the state auditor’s report. Burt’s seat wasn’t going to be an easy hold even before this scandal, because of his arrest in February on a drunk driving charge, which has not yet gone to trial.

We have a lot of good Democrats in the Waterloo area, and I’d like to see someone else on our ballot line in House district 21 next year.

A special election will be held in Iowa House district 90 to replace State Representative John Whitaker, who is becoming Iowa State Executive Director for the Farm Service Agency at the USDA. In theory, Democrats shouldn’t have trouble holding this district, where Whitaker won re-election last year with more than 80 percent of the vote. (His only opponent was from the “4th of July Party.”)

However, John Deeth noted last month that this district has been competitive in the recent past. I want to hear from Democrats familiar with Jefferson and Van Buren counties: who should run for Whitaker’s seat? Anyone know who might run on the Republican side? (UPDATE: According to IowaPolitics.com, “community activist and educator Curt Hanson of Fairfield,” a retired teacher and Democrat, has already announced that he’s running for this seat. His campaign website is here, and he’s already on Twitter and Facebook.)

In unhappier news, State Representative Kerry Burt appears to have lied about where his children lived to avoid paying tuition fees:

The University of Northern Iowa’s Malcolm Price Laboratory School failed to collect more than $250,000 in tuition from a dozen families, including a state representative and the school’s former executive director, the state auditor said Thursday.[…]

– Burt had children enrolled in the school since 2001. He listed a home owned by Marguerite Pircer, who said Burt is her daughter’s paternal uncle, as his childrens’ address. Pircer said Burt’s children never lived in her home. Burt told state auditors that “Mr. Smith and several other staff knew my niece lived at the 1815 Franklin Street and no one questioned it.” He also said David Smith knew he had a Waterloo address.

The unpaid registration fees for Burt’s children were $37,139.

Burt declined comment Thursday, saying all questions had to be directed to his attorneys.

In an unrelated matter, the first-term lawmaker has also pleaded innocent to a drunken driving charge filed against him earlier this spring.

For once I agree with Republican Party of Iowa chairman Matt Strawn, who called for Burt to resign and repay the tuition fees his family evaded. I don’t want this guy on the ballot as a Democrat next year. I don’t want other Democrats publicly defending him. I don’t want the Iowa House Ethics Committee to settle this matter. Whatever they do to discipline Burt, they’ll be accused of going too easy on him.

It’s a real shame. Burt’s victory over Republican incumbent Tami Wiencek was a pleasant surprise last November. Iowa Democrats hadn’t targeted House district 21, but Burt won by about 200 votes. I want to hear from Democrats familiar with Black Hawk County: who should run for this seat if Burt steps down?

Districts 90 and 21 are more important holds than, say, Larry Marek’s seat in House district 89, because Whitaker and Burt weren’t part of the “six-pack” that kept us from getting 51 votes for some important bills.

P.S.- When will Strawn call for the resignation of Republican State Senator James Seymour, who pled guilty to a prostitution charge in 2002?