I expected 2009 to be a relatively quiet year in Iowa politics, but was I ever wrong.

The governor’s race heated up, state revenues melted down, key bills lived and died during the legislative session, and the Iowa Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling in Varnum v Brien became one of this state’s major events of the decade.

After the jump I’ve posted links to Bleeding Heartland’s coverage of Iowa politics from January through June 2009. Any comments about the year that passed are welcome in this thread.

Although I wrote a lot of posts last year, there were many important stories I didn’t manage to cover. I recommend reading Iowa Independent’s compilation of “Iowa’s most overlooked and under reported stories of 2009,” as well as that blog’s review of “stories that will continue to impact Iowa in 2010.”

Paul McKinley dropped out of the governor’s race today to focus on next year’s Iowa Senate elections. His move made sense, because the Iowa Senate Republican caucus has never been smaller than the current 18 members. With 19 Senate Democrats and only 6 Republicans up for re-election in 2010, the GOP is almost bound to make some gains.

My question is, why did McKinley wait so long to make this announcement? Although he promised in July to “aggressively explore” a gubernatorial campaign, McKinley failed to turn up in most places you’d expect to find potential Republican candidates. In fact, Craig Robinson wrote last month,

McKinley’s indecisiveness since announcing his gubernatorial campaign hasn’t just sunk any aspirations he may have for higher office in the future, but it might also have impacted his effectiveness as the Senate Republicans’ chief fundraiser, recruiter, and strategist. With McKinley not devoting his full attention to his gubernatorial campaign and not having communicated his progress in advancing the Republican cause in his current position, one might question if he is the right person to lead Republicans in the State Senate.

What do you think, Bleeding Heartland readers? Will some other Senate Republican (say, Merlin Bartz) challenge McKinley’s position in the upper chamber? Or will meaningless gestures like McKinley’s “state sovereignty resolution” pacify his GOP critics?

I missed this story earlier in the week, but caught it at the Huffington Post on Friday:

The Iowa Board of Pharmacy sidestepped a court ruling this week, which had ordered it to consider whether the state should reclassify marijuana as having medical value. […]

The effort to reclassify marijuana in Iowa is led by the American Civil Liberties Union and local medical marijuana users. […]

The pharmacy board was fully informed by assistant attorney general and counsel to the board Scott Galenbeck of its job. “Judge Novak’s ruling states,” Galenbeck read to the board, “‘The board must determine whether the evidence presented by petitioner is sufficient to support a finding that marijuana has accepted medical use in the United States and does not lack accepted safety for use in treatment under medical supervision.’ A couple sentences before that the judge stated if the board believes that evidence presented by petitioner was insufficient to support such a finding it should have stated such in its order.”

The board had previously rejected the ACLU effort. The civil liberties group appealed to the district court, setting up this week’s rematch.

Yet the Iowa board, instead of asking whether it has “accepted medical use in the United States,” asked whether Iowa should approve of it, which is not a question for the board but for the Iowa legislature.

A bill to legalize the medical use of marijuana was introduced in the Iowa Senate this year. More details about that are after the jump.

Last week the Iowa Senate Ethics Committee voted unanimously to dismiss Ed and Lynn Fallon’s complaint against State Senator Merlin Bartz, who used his official  website to promote this petition last month. The petition sought to pressure Iowa’s county recorders to refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The Fallons contended that Bartz failed to comply with the Senate Code of Ethics, which requires legislators to “encourage respect for the law.” They also questioned whether taxpayer money was used to support the website where Bartz promoted the petition drive and urged volunteers to send copies of their signature lists to the Iowa Family Policy Center.

The Senate Ethics Committee concluded after a few minutes’ discussion that Bartz was exercising his free speech rights.

On May 18, I’M for Iowa released a statement depicting the hearing as a “sham.” Contrary to the Iowa Senate Code of Ethics, the Senate Ethics Committee failed to inform the Fallons of the date and time of the hearing in advance. The committee also did not consider the specific questions raised in the Fallons’ complaint. I’ve posted I’M for Iowa’s statement after the jump.

It seems clear that two political realities derailed any serious inquiry into the complaint against Bartz. First, Bartz is an insider, and the complainants are outsiders. (Heck, Ed Fallon was an outsider even when he was serving in the state legislature.) Earlier this year, the Iowa House Ethics Committee dismissed with prejudice a complaint Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement filed against State Representative Dolores Mertz without seriously considering many of the issues raised by the group.

I would put very low odds on any ethics complaint filed by any citizen action group leading to disciplinary action against a state representative or senator. (Please correct me if you know of any counter-examples.)

Second, I suspect that Senate Democrats have no interest in making a martyr out of Bartz. Opponents of marriage equality are desperate to show that their rights are threatened by same-sex marriages. We don’t need Bartz to be purportedly “punished for speaking his mind” (even though that wasn’t the point of the Fallons’ complaint). Look what the National Organization for Marriage has done to make Miss California USA seem like a victim of “gay marriage activists”.

Bartz hasn’t prevented any same-sex marriages from taking place, but he has secured a reputation as the most aggressive defender of “traditional marriage” in the Iowa Senate Republican caucus. He has also helped the Iowa Family Policy Center generate lots of new leads for their next membership drive.

I’ll be interested to see whether Senate Republicans seek to replace their current leader, Paul McKinley, with Bartz next year. McKinley’s actions on the marriage front have been found wanting by some Iowa conservatives and anti-gay activists.

Charlotte Eby reported at Covering Iowa Politics that the Iowa Senate Ethics Committee

voted unanimously Tuesday to dismiss an ethics complaint against a lawmaker who had encouraged county recorders to refuse to issue licenses to same-sex couples.

Sen. Merlin Bartz, R-Grafton, has been one of the most vocal critics of the Iowa Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage. On his Web site, Bartz had encouraged Iowans who also are opposed to same-sex marriage to sign petitions asking county recorders to not issue same-sex licenses.

Members of the ethics committee said Bartz was simply exercising his First Amendment rights to free speech, and voted 6-0 to reject the complaint after a short discussion.

Last month I posted the full text of the petition along with the language Bartz used to promote the drive on his official Iowa Senate website.

Ed and Lynn Fallon of I’M for Iowa filed the ethics complaint against Bartz, saying he should not have encouraged elected county officials to fail to comply with an Iowa Supreme Court ruling.

The petition drive did not succeed in blocking same-sex marriages; so far no county recorders in Iowa have refused to issue marriage licenses. On the other hand, I read that some petitions containing some 17,000 signatures were delivered to county recorders the week of April 27.

If even a fraction of the people who collected signatures followed Bartz’s instructions to send copies to Chuck Hurley’s Iowa Family Policy Center, then the drive will turn out to be a list-building bonanza for that organization.

Ed and Lynn Fallon filed a formal ethics complaint today against Senator Merlin Bartz, according to an e-mail I received today from I’M for Iowa. Excerpt:

On a Senate Republican website, Senator Bartz posts a link to a petition appealing to county recorders to “refuse to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples on April 27th.” Senator Bartz has also spoken publicly in support of county recorders taking this action.

In their complaint, Ed and Lynn assert, “Senator Bartz’s actions appear to violate Article III, Section 32 of the Constitution of the State of Iowa and Chapter 63.10 of the Code of Iowa. Both state that duly elected officials must solemnly swear to support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Iowa. Furthermore, the Senate Code of Ethics states that every legislator must ‘encourage respect for the law,’ and the Senator’s actions appear to violate this provision.”

The complaint further states: “We have not been able to ascertain whether taxpayer money was used in the development and maintenance of the website that Senator Bartz used to promote the petition (http://www.iowasenaterepublicans.org/Bartz/Bartz.htm), but if such is the case, this suggests a misuse of taxpayer money by an elected official to promote breaking the law. We call attention to the fact that the website in question also lists Republican Caucus staff members, who are entirely funded at taxpayer expense.”

“Let me be clear that this is not personal,” said Ed Fallon. “When we served in the Legislature, Senator Bartz and I worked on several issues together. I continue to have great respect for him and find him to be intelligent and a man of integrity. This complaint is in no way intended to cast dispersions, merely to state that, in this instance, Senator Bartz’s actions appear to constitute a breach of the Senate’s ethical standards.”

I posted about this disgraceful petition drive on Tuesday. Radio Iowa posted Bartz’s response:

“I have read the formal complaint filed by Ed Fallon and find it without merit.  According to procedures set forth by Senate Rules I will submit a formal response to the Senate Ethics Committee within the next ten days.  I fully expect the Committee to dismiss this complaint, thus continuing the tradition of free speech on the floor of the Iowa Senate.  It is important that the voices of Iowans are not silenced and a vote is held to determine what constitutes marriage.”

What do you think, Bleeding Heartland readers? Will the Senate Ethics Committee dismiss this complaint against a member of the club, or will they call Bartz out for encouraging county recorders to disregard the law? The Attorney General’s Office has made clear that recorders must comply with the Iowa Supreme Court’s ruling.

Iowa Senate Republicans are using their official website to push a petition drive to pressure county recorders not to issue same-sex marriage licenses.

We already knew that prominent Iowa Republicans have trouble with the concept of judicial review, but Senator Merlin Bartz, who tried last week to give county recorders the right to ignore the law, has taken it to a new level.

Senator Bartz’s page on the Iowa Senate Republicans website is promoting a petition being circulated by Chuck Hurley’s Iowa Family Policy Center.

The disgraceful details are after the jump.

While writing about lots of other topics during the past week I got behind on Iowa marriage equality news. I did some catching up after the jump.

First things first, though. If you are planning a same-sex marriage in Iowa, please note that this will become possible on April 27, not April 24 as was widely reported after the Iowa Supreme Court announced its Varnum v Brien decision. Iowa’s marriage application forms have already been changed, but the Supreme Court needs to issue an order putting its ruling into effect. Because of furloughs related to budget cuts, the court pushed back that date from April 24 to April 27.

One Iowa wants to hear from people planning same-sex marriages in Iowa. They have some helpful resources. You can also sign up to follow One Iowa on Twitter here.

More links and a few laughs are below the fold.

No one who applies for a marriage license needs your blessing.

According to Republican State Senator Merlin Bartz, at least one of you (or perhaps several of you) may be ready to resign rather than issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. We all can think of marriages we disapprove of, but if your moral objections to marriage equality render you unable to perform the duties of your job, by all means resign. Filling a county government position with good benefits is never a problem, especially in this economy.

Rest assured, as much as you dislike the idea of gays and lesbians getting married, people like me dislike the idea of taxpayer dollars going to someone like you.  

Don’t count on Senator Bartz to bail you out with his give-recorders-a-free-pass-to-discriminate amendment either. Senate President Jack Kibbie ruled that amendment out of order on Tuesday, and Bartz won’t succeed in getting it attached to a different bill for you. You need to either process same-sex couples’ applications for marriage licenses or find some other vocation, preferably in the private sector.

Speaking of which, Bartz seems to think that he and the disgruntled county recorders swore an oath to a different constitution than the one Iowa’s Supreme Court justices were interpreting when they unanimously struck down Iowa’s Defense of Marriage Act. If Bartz doesn’t understand the concepts of checks and balances or judicial review, then like many of his fellow Republicans, he’s not well suited for a political career.  

Is there any way to arrange a remedial civics class for prominent Iowa Republicans? Here’s Bob Vander Plaats on Monday:

“If I have the opportunity to serve as your next governor,” Bob Vander Plaats told a crowd of about 350 people at a rally, “and if no leadership has been taken to that point, on my first day of office I will issue an executive order that puts a stay on same-sex marriages until the people of Iowa vote, and when we vote we can affirm and amend the Constitution.”

Another highlight from the same rally:

Co-founder of Everyday America, Bill Salier, told the crowd that state lawmakers need to thank the Supreme Court justices for their opinion but say it’s merely opinion and the law is still on the books.

Salier said: “(Lawmakers) can face down the court and say, ‘We passed DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act. You claim that it is stricken. And yet unless some magic eraser came down from the sky, it’s still in code.'”

Then there’s Republican State Representative Chris Rants, who is trying to amend the tax reform bill so that marriage would be defined as between a man and a woman. Rants failed last week to replace a huge health care bill with an amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

Meanwhile, Republican State Senator Merlin Bartz is pushing an amendment that would allow county recorders not to issue marriage licenses.

This daughter of a Rockefeller Republican is shaking her head and has a few more things to say after the jump.