By a unanimous vote, the Iowa Board of Regents today named J. Bruce Harreld as the next president of the University of Iowa. Of the four finalists for the job, only Harreld had never worked in academic administration. Up to now, his experience at universities has been limited to some adjunct teaching.

I’m going on record now: this experiment will not end well.

Two months after the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously ruled unconstitutional a proposed state ban on using telemedicine for abortions, the Iowa Board of Medicine and Governor Terry Branstad are at last ready to accept the court ruling as the final word on the subject.  

Governor Terry Branstad didn’t run for re-election last year on a plan to let private insurance companies manage health care for some 560,000 Iowans on Medicaid. He didn’t work with key state legislators to draw up his administration’s “Medicaid Modernization” plans. The governor’s draft budget, submitted in January, projected some $51 million in savings on Medicaid for the 2016 fiscal year. But key lawmakers like the chair of the Iowa Senate Health and Human Resources Appropriations subcommittee didn’t learn that four private companies would be selected to handle almost all Medicaid services until the Iowa Department of Human Services made its request for proposals public in February.

Recent accusations of bias and conflicts of interest, as well as allegedly inaccurate scoring of insurers’ proposals, have raised many questions about how the Iowa DHS selected the four companies now negotiating contracts to manage Medicaid for one-sixth of Iowans. Reports of campaign contributions by lobbyists and political action committees representing firms that sought Iowa’s Medicaid business prompted one watchdog to decry “pay to play” politics.

Those news stories point to a conclusion that isn’t getting enough attention: various insurance companies and their paid representatives knew what was coming down the pike long before the Branstad administration disclosed its plans to privatize Medicaid.

The Pella Electric Cooperative has told the Iowa Utilities Board it will no longer seek to charge some customers using solar panels a much higher “facilities fee,” Karen Uhlenhuth reported today for Midwest Energy News. The rural electric cooperative had informed members in June that customers installing new solar panels after August 15 would be charged a monthly fee of $85, which is $57.50 higher than what most of the Pella Electric customers pay. Those who had already installed solar systems would be exempt from the higher fee for five years, but would have to start paying it in 2020.

The cooperative’s action provoked an outcry from renewable energy advocates as well as from the handful of Pella Electric customers who would have been immediately affected. Uhlenhuth noted that the non-profit Environmental Law & Policy Center intervened with the Iowa Utilities Board, saying “a fee levied only on customers with distributed generation facilities ran counter to two provisions in Iowa law.” The Office of Consumer Advocate (part of the Iowa Attorney General’s office) asked the cooperative to provide data supporting a much higher monthly fee for solar users. The cooperative had refused to release its “cost of service” study last month.

To all appearances, the coop backed down once leaders realized they were on shaky legal ground, much like Alliant Energy reversed its position on net metering for some solar projects, shortly after critics had intervened with the utilities board. Uhlenhuth quoted a statement released by the Pella cooperative, which sounds like an unconvincing attempt to save face. The coop’s chief executive officer John Smith claimed it is “incorrect” to depict the higher facilities fee as “discriminatory.” He is sticking to his story that charging solar users more was merely an effort to be “fair” to other customers. While not admitting that the cooperative was wrong, the statement said it is withdrawing the proposal “until such time that we can better educate our members and the community as to the fair and equitable recovery of fixed costs.”

A press release from the Environmental Law & Policy Center, which I enclose in full below, notes that the Pella cooperative already benefits from solar panels installed by its customers, because it “buys excess solar energy at a rock bottom price” of 3.3 cents per kilowatt-hour and “sells it at a premium” price of 10.1 cents per kWh. (I’m an active supporter of the ELPC, but I have no role in drafting their public statements or legal strategy.)

The Branstad administration has justified its “Medicaid Modernization Initiative” with optimistic projections about more “efficient, coordinated and high quality healthcare” and greater “accountability in health care coordination,” delivered at a savings to taxpayers.

Jason Clayworth shared a less encouraging perspective in the August 21 Des Moines Register: all four private insurance companies now negotiating contracts to manage Medicaid in Iowa have “faced serious charges of fraud or mismanagement” related to serving Medicaid recipients in other states. Some of those violations led to “hundreds of millions of dollars in fines” against the insurers.  

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission has determined that spending $240,000 on criminal investigations of voter fraud in Iowa was an “allowable, allocable and reasonable” use of federal Help America Vote Act funds, Ryan Foley reported for the Associated Press today. I enclose the commission’s two-page memorandum of August 13 after the jump (hat tip to Foley). A spokesman for the commission told the AP “he wasn’t aware of other states using HAVA funding for similar investigations.”

Former Secretary of State Matt Schultz made battling voter fraud a major theme of his four years in office. The full-time investigator, pulled from other work at the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigations, turned up a few examples of improper registration and voting but no evidence of any large-scale voter fraud problem. Democratic State Senator Tom Courtney was among the leading critics of Schultz’s use of HAVA funds for that purpose. In October 2012, he requested state and federal audits of the matter. Deputy State Auditor Warren Jenkins announced in December 2013 that his office’s review could not determine whether criminal investigations were a proper or improper use of HAVA funds. He advised the Secretary of State’s Office to “have a plan in place” in case Iowa needed to repay the money to the federal government later.

The commission’s ruling is a lucky break for Schultz, who was elected Madison County attorney last November after losing the GOP primary in the third Congressional district. He’s keeping busy now as state chair for Senator Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign. When Schultz seeks higher office again, he can claim he was vindicated in using federal funds to investigate fraud.

For those wondering why it took federal officials so long to consider Iowa’s use of HAVA money: because Senate Republicans refused to confirm President Barack Obama’s nominees, the Election Assistance Commission didn’t have the necessary quorum to take any official actions from 2010 until January of this year, when three new commissioners were sworn in. Senators had confirmed them during the December 2014 lame-duck session of Congress as part of a large bloc of nominees approved by unanimous consent.

UPDATE: Added below a statement from Courtney urging Secretary of State Paul Pate “to formally pledge not to use federal funds for any future voter purge effort” and to make clear “that Iowa is no longer one of the states where election officials use tax dollars to suppress voter turnout.”

SECOND UPDATE: Schultz told the AP, “This was always about improving the administration of elections.” Rita Bettis, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, called it “truly troublesome for our national democracy” that Schultz’s “model of voter intimidation can now be exported to other states ahead of the 2016 General Election.”

Thousands of Iowa children went back to school today, having enjoyed an extra week or two of vacation thanks to a new state law preventing K-12 school districts from beginning the academic year before August 23. In response to lobbying from the tourism industry, most state lawmakers and Governor Terry Branstad sought to block local school administrators from starting in early or mid-August. However, as economist Dave Swenson explained here, “there is no evidence that early start dates interfere in any meaningful sense with the Iowa State Fair or with any other tourism activity in Iowa.”

If only the governor and most of our state legislators were as tuned in to how dirty water hurts Iowa tourism.  

On Monday, the Iowa Department of Human Services announced the four private insurance companies selected to manage care for almost all of the 560,000 Iowans on Medicaid. Pending successful contract negotiations, Amerigroup Iowa, AmeriHealth Caritas Iowa, UnitedHealthcare Plan of the River Valley, and WellCare of Iowa will start managing care for Iowans on January 1, 2016. It’s too early to say how the change will affect medical services. Speaking to the Des Moines Register, Democratic State Senator Amanda Ragan expressed concern “that people will fall through the cracks” and said she hopes Iowans will contact state lawmakers “if problems develop” under the new system.

Some losers have emerged from the process already: namely, two companies now managing care for some Iowans on Medicaid, which were not selected to continue in that role next year. Follow me after the jump for background on the Medicaid privatization plan and the fallout from the Iowa DHS not choosing Magellan Health Inc and Meridian Health Plan as managed care organizations for 2016.  

Refugees from Burma (Myanmar) spend an average of 10-15 years in a refugee camp before coming to America. They get 3 days head’s up before coming to the United States. They take out a government loan of several thousand dollars that they must pay back just to get here. They are then assigned a caseworker from a resettlement agency. This agency and the refugee(s) have 90 days to learn a completely new language and culture, understand school systems, public transportation, healthcare – everything from Winter clothing to brushing their teeth. After 90 days, the federal government stops supporting the refugees all together. The resettlement agency, due to overwhelming demand, must be off to assist the next incoming family. So who takes over?

People like me.

One of Iowa’s major investor-owned utilities has changed a policy that was impeding new solar power projects, Karen Uhlenhuth reported for Midwest Energy News over the weekend. Follow me after the jump for background and details on this excellent news.

Midwest Energy News, a non-profit news website supported by non-profits focused on energy policy, is launching an award to recognize “emerging leaders throughout the region and their work to accelerate America’s transition to a clean energy economy.” The site will accept nominations for the “40 Under 40” designation here “until either 250 nominations are received or 10:00 p.m. CT on Monday, August 10.” Eligible candidates include “midwest-based leaders and innovators from all sectors -industry, government, regulatory, business, academic, and advocacy.”

I learned about the 40 Under 40 competition from State Representative Chuck Isenhart, who will serve on the selection advisory committee for Midwest Energy News. Isenhart is the ranking Democrat on the Iowa House Environmental Protection Committee and has been a strong voice in the Iowa legislature on a range of environmental issues.

Through volunteering for various non-profits, I have become acquainted with several Iowans who deserve serious consideration for the new award, and I plan to encourage their colleagues to nominate them. The candidate who immediately came to my mind, though, is someone I’ve never met. Paritosh Kasotia is the founder and CEO of Unfolding Energy, a non-profit “founded on a premise that clean energy choices can safeguard the climate as well as create economic growth.” She is best known as the highly capable former leader of the Iowa Energy Office; I enclose below more background on that part of her career. Late last year, leaders of the Iowa Economic Development Authority fired Kasotia for reasons never explained to anyone’s satisfaction. Some suspected the dismissal was related to a $1 million solar power grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, which Kasotia helped land but Iowa eventually relinquished after Branstad administration officials “amended an original proposal and insisted the grant not be used to evaluate solar energy policies – a change that utility lobbyists sought,” Ryan Foley reported for the Associated Press last July.

After nearly two years on the job, Matt Hinch is resigning as Governor Terry Branstad’s chief of staff, effective August 7. The full press release from the governor’s office is after the jump.

Hinch is leaving for an unspecified “private sector” opportunity. I expect to hear soon that he is joining one of the Republican presidential campaigns. Hinch’s previous work included a stint as campaign manager for then-U.S. Representative Tom Latham. He also served as chief of staff for Iowa House Speaker Kraig Paulsen and handled government relations for the Greater Des Moines Partnership, an influential business-oriented group.

Hinch kept a low profile as the governor’s chief of staff, rarely making the news. Last year, he headed a quick (and I mean very quick) review of secret settlements with former state employees, which sidestepped allegations of political cronyism that affected the careers of some merit-based state workers. Former Iowa Workforce Development Director Teresa Wahlert has asserted that Hinch and other senior Branstad administration officials thwarted her efforts to make her department’s chief administrative law judge position a merit-based job, as the U.S. Department of Labor has demanded.

UPDATE: Another plausible theory: Hinch may go to work for the Iowa Partnership for Clean Water, an astroturf group the Iowa Farm Bureau created to lobby against any regulations to improve water quality.

Solar power made big news in Iowa today, as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke in Des Moines about ambitious goals for installing solar panels. In a forthcoming post, Bleeding Heartland will compare the Democratic presidential candidates’ proposals to combat climate change by increasing renewable energy production and decreasing carbon emissions.

Iowa has tremendous potential to generate electricity from the sun. Recognizing that fact, large bipartisan majorities in the Iowa House and Senate “triple[d] the size of Iowa’s successful solar tax incentive program” in 2014 and during this year’s session increased available solar energy tax incentive funds by another $500,000 to $5 million per year.

But some segments of the utilities sector have been slow to embrace solar power. One of Iowa’s major investor-owned utilities persuaded the Iowa Utilities Board to block certain financing arrangements that made it easier for customers to install solar panels. An appeal of that administrative decision went to the Iowa Supreme Court, which overturned the Iowa Utilities Board last year.

Rural electric cooperatives, which supply electricity to roughly 650,000 Iowans, have approached renewable energy and solar power in vastly different ways. Farmers Electric Cooperative in the Kalona area installed the largest solar farm in Iowa last year.  

But as first reported by Karen Uhlenhuth at Midwest Energy News last week, the Pella Electric Cooperative is seeking to penalize customers who choose to install new solar or other renewable technology. Lee Rood picked up the story on the front page of today’s Des Moines Register. The cooperative’s new monthly charge for a handful of consumers is brazen and probably illegal.  

Iowa’s largest public employee union and 20 Democratic state legislators filed a lawsuit today challenging the closure of mental health institutes in Mount Pleasant and Clarinda. I enclose below a press release from AFSCME Council 61, which lists the six state senators and fourteen state representatives who joined the lawsuit naming Governor Terry Branstad and Department of Human Services Director Chuck Palmer.

The Branstad administration announced plans in January to close two of Iowa’s four in-patient mental health facilities. State legislators were neither consulted nor notified in advance. The Department of Human Services started winding down operations well before the end of the 2015 fiscal year. Democrats fought to include funding for the Clarinda and Mount Pleasant institutes in the budget for the current fiscal year, but Branstad item-vetoed the appropriation. The lawsuit contends that closing the facilities violates Iowa Code, which holds that the state “shall operate” mental health institutes in Mount Pleasant and Clarinda. The governor’s communications director told KCCI that AFSCME’s leader in Iowa “is resistant to change” and that the closed “centers were not suited to offer modern mental health care.”

The Iowa legislature’s decision next year on whether to fund the Clarinda and Mount Pleasant facilities will be critically important. The Iowa Supreme Court recently dismissed the lawsuit challenging the closure of the Iowa Juvenile Home in 2014, without considering the merits of that case, on the grounds that the legislature made the issue “moot” by no longer appropriating state money to operate that facility. By refusing to include funding for the two closed mental health institutes in the budget for fiscal year 2017, Iowa House Republicans could bolster the Branstad administration’s efforts to defeat the lawsuit filed today.

UPDATE: Added more speculation about this lawsuit’s prospects below.

The apparent attempt to bury Governor Terry Branstad’s large batch of budget cuts before the July 4 holiday weekend isn’t working. Fallout from the governor’s line-item vetoes continues to make news on a daily basis. Today, Iowa Senate Democratic leaders announced that they have formally asked colleagues to request a special legislative session to override the highest-profile and largest vetoes, which affected education and mental health funding.

Meanwhile, the latest article by the Des Moines Register’s “Reader’s Watchdog” Lee Rood called attention to an item veto that flew below the radar last week: $100,000 from the health and human services budget, intended for a pilot project to serve refugees in Polk County. The amount of money was so small–far less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the $7 billion state budget–that Branstad couldn’t fall back on misleading statements about “fiscal health” to justify this item veto. Instead, he cited an equally weak pretext.

Late in the afternoon on the last day state offices were open before the long holiday weekend, Governor Terry Branstad used his veto pen to strike “all the big deals” Iowa House Republicans and Senate Democrats negotiated to end this year’s legislative session.

The budget compromise was already a much better deal for statehouse Republicans than for Democrats. House GOP leaders got the global budget targets they had demanded, which were lower than what the governor requested and Democrats proposed. Most of the concessions to Democrats came in House File 666, a $125 million collection of one-time appropriations.

While Branstad didn’t veto the entire supplemental spending bill like he did in 2014, he cut out House File 666’s largest and highest-priority items for statehouse Democrats: $55.7 million for K-12 school districts, $2.5 million for community colleges, nearly $2.9 million for the University of Iowa, $2.25 million for Iowa State University, and $1.1 million for the University of Northern Iowa.

In other words, after standing on the sidelines during most of the battle over the 2016 budget, Branstad handed House Republicans near-total victory. The fallout will be substantial.

Catching up on news from last week, Governor Terry Branstad appointed Ryan Wise to lead the Iowa Department of Education, effective July 1. I’ve enclosed below the full statement from the governor’s office, which includes more background on Wise. He should have no trouble during the Iowa Senate confirmation process, having served as deputy director at the education department since September 2013.

Wise replaces Brad Buck, who started work on July 1 as superintendent of the Cedar Rapids Community School District. It’s no surprise that he sought new opportunities after less than two years in the top state education job. Branstad instructed Buck to prioritize the tourism industry’s demands over the consensus of school district leaders on academic calendars, even though the large body of research supporting shorter summer vacations for students contrasts sharply with the lack of evidence that “early [school] start dates interfere in any meaningful sense with the Iowa State Fair or with any other tourism activity in Iowa.” During Buck’s tenure as education director, Branstad also asked lawmakers to approve miserly increases in state aid to K-12 schools. The governor’s latest draft budget included “allowable growth” for K-12 education of 1.25 percent for fiscal year 2016 and 2.45 percent for fiscal year 2017. Those levels are low by historical standards and not nearly enough to allow school districts to cover growing costs, leading to either staff and program cuts or property tax increases in many localities.

Any relevant comments are welcome in this thread. UPDATE: Added below excerpts from fifth-grade teacher Amy Moore’s editorial for the Des Moines Register, sounding the alarm about Wise’s experience with the Teach for America program.

P.S.- Almost every time I read a press release from the governor’s office, I am struck by the relentless branding of Branstad and Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds as a single unit. The communications staff have been doing this for years, supporting Branstad’s desire to make Reynolds his successor. Still, it’s jarring to read unnatural-sounding quotes mentioning the “governor and lieutenant governor” or “Governor Branstad and Lieutenant Governor Reynolds’ leadership.” Does anyone really talk the way Wise “speaks” in the enclosed press release (“I admire the Governor’s and Lieutenant Governor’s commitment to providing every child in Iowa with the world-class education they deserve”)?

Not for the first time and probably not for the last time, Governor Terry Branstad dropped a lot of line-item vetoes late in the afternoon before a holiday weekend. Early news reports are understandably focusing on the vetoes of one-time funding for K-12 education and state universities, as well as language that would have kept mental health institutions in Clarinda and Mount Pleasant open. Bleeding Heartland has a post in progress about the fallout from those actions and others, including Branstad’s decision to strike language that would have expanded child care assistance.

Democratic State Representative Sharon Steckman called attention to several other line-item vetoes that flew below the radar yesterday. One of them seems particularly important, as it could put the State of Iowa at odds with U.S. Department of Labor demands to “strengthen Iowa’s compliance with Federal law” and keep administrative law judges “free from actual or perceived intimidation.”

JULY 6 UPDATE: The vetoed language pertained to administrative law judges working for the Public Employment Relations Board, not Iowa Workforce Development; see further details below.

Nearly two weeks ago, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional the state ban on using telemedicine for abortion. The unanimous decision is the end of the line for a rule the Iowa Board of Medicine adopted in the absence of medical evidence.

Yet Governor Terry Branstad isn’t the only person reluctant to take the Iowa Supreme Court’s no, no, no, no, no, no for an answer. Tony Leys reported for the Des Moines Register on Tuesday, “The Iowa Board of Medicine has huddled three times with its lawyers since losing a key state Supreme Court case this month, but has not yet decided whether to appeal or accept the decision.”

I don’t know what’s more surprising: that after three meetings, those attorneys still haven’t persuaded board members to quit while they’re behind, or that board members who didn’t participate in making the unconstitutional rule are considering hitching their wagons to this cause.

Former Des Moines Police Department chief Judy Bradshaw will be the new director of the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy, Governor Terry Branstad announced yesterday. Bradshaw has been assistant director at the academy since last October. Before that, she broke several glass ceilings in Des Moines as the Police Department’s “first female lieutenant, captain, major and police chief.” When she started at the department in 1980, the only two women working there “both had filed harassment charges.”

I don’t understand why Branstad renominated Arlen Ciechanowski as director of the Law Enforcement Academy despite disturbing accounts over the last few years of a hostile environment for female staff and cadets. Fortunately, the Iowa Senate declined to confirm Ciechanowski during this year’s legislative session, prompting the director to retire and forcing Branstad to look for a replacement. Bradshaw will be much better positioned to change the culture.

Bradshaw said yesterday that her new position will allow her to share her experience and “perspective in what I think is good police work.” I’ve enclosed more background on her career after the jump. She should have no trouble during the Iowa Senate confirmation process.

Any relevant comments are welcome in this thread.  

A unanimous Supreme Court ruling against your position is usually a sign that your legal arguments lack merit. But Governor Terry Branstad hasn’t learned that lesson from his administration being on the wrong end of not one, not two, but three unanimous Iowa Supreme Court rulings.

Last week, the court ruled with no dissenting justices that Iowa’s ban on using telemedicine to provide abortion services is unconstitutional. Three of the justices who concurred in the decision are Branstad appointees (Chief Justice Mark Cady and Justices Edward Mansfield and Thomas Waterman). Two of them–Waterman and Mansfield–have demonstrated in previous cases that they are reluctant to substitute their judgment for that of executive branch bodies responsible for rulemaking. Yet Branstad not only rejects the reasoning underlying the telemedicine ruling, but also refuses to accept legal experts’ determination that his administration cannot appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.  

The Environmental Protection Commission voted yesterday to eviscerate a rule adopted in 2012 to reduce stormwater runoff from new construction sites. The rule previously required developers to put at least four inches of topsoil back on sites. Thanks to a lobbying campaign from home-builders, the new wording requires topsoil replacement “unless infeasible,” without defining that term. So any developer who doesn’t feel like spending money to put topsoil back can claim it would have been “infeasible” to do so. If the homeowner can’t grow anything on the impacted clay, and runoff contributes to more flash flooding in the area or downstream, too bad.

Dar Danielson reported for Radio Iowa that only two of the nine Environmental Protection Commission members voted against the rule change: Bob Sinclair and Nancy Couser. Sinclair proposed different wording, which sounded like a reasonable compromise, but other commission members did not want to adopt new wording, which would restart the lengthy public input process. The full list of EPC members is available on the Iowa Department of Natural Resources website.

One of the newest commissioners, who joined the majority yesterday in putting a few developers’ interests ahead of the environment, is former State Representative Joe Riding. Branstad named the Democrat to the EPC earlier this year. Riding’s action is disappointing but hardly surprising. He didn’t serve on committees that focused on environmental issues during his one term in the Iowa House. A former city council member in the rapidly-growing Des Moines suburb of Altoona, Riding has probably worked with lots of home-builders.

As Todd Dorman wrote earlier this year, the EPC “abandoned all sense of balance and fairness on this issue.” Expect more flooding in Iowa, more topsoil loss, and more pollution from yard chemicals making its way to our waterways.

UPDATE: Matthew Patane reported for the Des Moines Register,

Prior to voting, Couser said the rule change would mean homeowners will get “thrown under the bus” if builders don’t have to evenly distribute topsoil.

“Although it may not be the intent of the rule to protect the homeowner, the homeowner definitely, 7-to-1, is telling us that’s what they want from us. They want their soil,” she said.

Shortly before the end of this year’s legislative session, former State Representative Ed Fallon announced “political action” to stop the proposed Bakken Oil Pipeline. He warned that if the Iowa House and Senate did not approve a bill to block the use of eminent domain for the project, he would organize and fundraise “to help defeat one or two Democratic Senators and one or two Republican Representatives” who oppose the bill.

On June 5, the Iowa House and Senate adjourned for the year without passing an eminent domain bill in either chamber. Last week Fallon confirmed that he is sticking to his goal of defeating one or two majority party members in both the House and Senate, adding that he had already raised $4,500 toward the cause.

All I can say is, count me out of that political crusade.

Come to think of it, I have a few more things to say on the subject.

Iowa Utilities Board Chair Geri Huser “will help decide whether to build a major oil pipeline even though her family law firm has represented a landowner trying to block it,” Ryan Foley reported yesterday for the Associated Press. Shortly after Governor Terry Branstad named Huser to the utilities board in March, Foley reported that Huser’s brother R. Bradley Skinner “has represented farmers who oppose the $3.8 billion [Bakken] pipeline that would transport crude oil from North Dakota across Iowa.” Skinner is no longer the landowners’ legal counsel, and Huser has said she wasn’t aware of her brother’s involvement in the Bakken pipeline dispute.

The latest AP story notes that Huser’s decision not to recuse herself

means all three [Iowa Utilities] board members will vote on whether to approve the $3.8 billion underground pipeline, avoiding a possible deadlock. But legal experts say parties may request Huser’s recusal due to the appearance of bias, and if she declines, the issue could be raised during any appeals of the board’s decision.

I have a bad feeling that any appeals of the board’s decision will come from pipeline opponents rather than from Dakota Access, LLC, the subsidiary of Energy Transfer Partners that wants to build the Bakken pipeline through eighteen counties from northwest to southeast Iowa.  

Nearly four years have passed since Governor Terry Branstad and his senior staffers tried to strong-arm Iowa Workers Compensation Commissioner Chris Godfrey into resigning years before the end of his fixed term, but the lawsuit Godfrey filed in early 2012 won’t be heard in court anytime soon. Grant Rodgers reported for the Des Moines Register today that before the case goes to trial, the Iowa Supreme Court will rule on whether Godfrey “can invoke the Iowa Constitution to win monetary damages from the state in his lawsuit against Branstad, Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds and four former state officials.” Excerpts are after the jump, but you should click through to read the whole story. Godfrey’s attorney Roxanne Conlin appealed to the Iowa Supreme Court after Polk County District Court Judge Brad McCall “tossed out Godfrey’s four constitution-based claims in an April order.”

Last summer, a divided Iowa Supreme Court ruled that Godfrey could sue Branstad and five other administration officials individually for defamation, extortion and other claims, in addition to pursuing general claims and tort claims against the state of Iowa.  The governor contends that neither he nor his staffers discriminated against Godfrey, and that he was seeking to appoint a commissioner who would be more sympathetic to business owners. Depositions began in the fall of 2014, and a trial date had been set for November of this year. The Iowa Supreme Court is likely to resolve the new constitutional issue sometime in 2016.

The Iowa legislature’s 2015 session drags on amid unresolved conflict over various budget issues, especially K-12 school funding. But one aspect of the lawmakers’ work is complete for this year. The Democratic-controlled Iowa Senate has confirmed all but one of Governor Terry Branstad’s more than 200 nominees. The overwhelming majority of those votes were unanimous or nearly so.

In recent years, senators have voted against confirming one or two Branstad nominees. This year no nomination failed on the Iowa Senate floor, and only one department head was ever in real danger of not being confirmed to do his job: Department of Human Services Director Chuck Palmer.

Branstad has occasionally withdrawn nominees who didn’t have support from the necessary two-thirds majority in the Iowa Senate. This year the governor didn’t need to exercise that power, although he sidestepped a near-certain rejection by accepting Teresa Wahlert’s resignation in January, rather than reappointing her to run Iowa Workforce Development. In addition, Iowa Law Enforcement Academy Director Arlen Ciechanowski recently announced plans to retire, tacitly acknowledging the votes weren’t there to confirm him.

Follow me after the jump for background on the controversies surrounding Palmer and Ciechanowski and details on Palmer’s confirmation vote–the closest call by far for any Branstad appointee this year.

Iowa policy wonks have every reason to be discouraged lately about the frozen-in-place, do-little state legislative session. Looking on the bright side, a fantastic new resource on state administrative rules appeared this week.

The Office of the Chief Information Officer launched the Iowa Administrative Rules website on Monday. The site is easy to navigate. A FAQ page explains the basics about the rulemaking process and public comments. Rules currently open for comment are right there on the front page. Clicking on any specific rule brings up the full text, contact information for the relevant state agency, details on upcoming public hearings, and the closing date for comments on the proposal. This website should make it easier for politically-engaged Iowans to understand and participate in making state regulations. It’s a good companion to the Iowa legislature’s official website, which is user-friendly and updated frequently (though it could be more readable).

I had to laugh at a few comments in the press release announcing the new website, enclosed after the jump. Governor Terry Branstad couldn’t resist taking a swipe at “burdensome rules” and “overregulation,” a bugaboo for him. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds (yes, the relentless branding of Branstad-Reynolds as a single unit continues) pegged the website launch to other “transparency” measures, including visiting all 99 Iowa counties every year.

I strongly disagree with the governor’s general view that business groups need more power over state regulations. The new process Branstad created has allowed a small but powerful group of business owners to torpedo a rule protecting the public interest in preserving topsoil and clean water. Branstad also intervened to undermine an electrical inspections rule designed to prevent fires in farm buildings. That said, the Iowa Administrative Rules website was a great idea, well-executed. Whoever developed the site for the Office of the Chief Information Officer deserves credit.

Former state lawmaker Ed Fallon is in police custody tonight after he refused to leave Governor Terry Branstad’s office at the close of business today. Fallon went to the governor’s office this afternoon demanding a meeting to discuss “eminent domain legislation that would help landowners along the path of the Bakken Oil Pipeline.” More details are in a press release I’ve enclosed after the jump. Branstad’s legal counsel Michael Bousselot came out to talk with Fallon, who insisted on a meeting or phone conversation with the governor himself. Brianne Pfannenstiel reported for the Des Moines Register,

When the statehouse closed at 5 p.m., Iowa State Patrol troopers approached Fallon and asked if he would be willing to leave, or be arrested for criminal trespassing. Fallon declined to leave, so he was escorted out of the building and arrested outside.

A supporter posted on Facebook this evening that Fallon has a “jail support team attending to all his needs” and “will probably be released sometime tomorrow.” When Fallon served in the Iowa House from 1995 through the 2006 session, land use issues were a focal point of his legislative efforts. During and since that time, Fallon has opposed various proposals to use eminent domain to seize farmland for use in for-profit ventures. Earlier this year, he walked from the southeast corner of Iowa to the northeast corner along the proposed pipeline route to raise awareness and mobilize landowners and others who oppose the project. The No Bakken website and Facebook page represent a coalition of some two dozen non-profit groups that oppose the project.

The eminent domain bill Fallon wants Branstad to support is Senate File 506 (previously Senate Study Bill 1276), which passed the Iowa Senate Government Oversight Committee on May 6 with support from Democratic State Senators Rob Hogg, Brian Schoenjahn, and Kevin Kinney, and Republican Jack Whitver. Branstad warned state lawmakers in January not to “get politics into this” debate over the pipeline. The governor wants to leave the decision to the Iowa Utilities Board, which is considered likely to approve the pipeline. The Sierra Club Iowa chapter plans to fight the project before every state and federal agency that would be involved.

UPDATE: Fallon was released from jail the same evening he was arrested. In a press release I’ve posted below, he says he’s due in court on May 27 and hasn’t decided “what legal route to take yet.”

The Iowa Insurance Division announced today that “seven companies have applied to offer Iowans health insurance through the federal health insurance marketplace” for 2016. This year, Coventry was the sole provider selling through the exchange, following the collapse of CoOportunity Health. Although Iowa’s dominant insurance provider, Wellmark Blue Cross/Blue Shield, is staying off the exchange for another year, Coventry and Minnesota-based Medica want to sell individual plans statewide, and United Healthcare wants to sell in 76 of Iowa’s 99 counties. The Iowa Insurance Division’s full news release is after the jump. Click here (pdf) for a list of counties where each company has applied to offer coverage through the exchange.

Increased competition will not only give roughly 45,000 Iowans more options for health insurance coverage, possibly at lower cost, but will also remove the threat that Iowans could lose access to federal subsidies for lack of a provider willing to sell through our state’s partnership exchange.

Iowans could still lose access to the subsidies many need to make health insurance affordable, depending on how the U.S. Supreme Court rules in the King v Burwell case. An act of Congress could easily address a ruling that invalidated subsidies for Americans who purchase insurance through the federal website, and lawmakers have floated several ideas. But key Republicans don’t want to pass any “fix” to the hated 2010 health care reform law.

The Iowa Department of Transportation is standing behind its ruling that limited the use of traffic cameras in several large Iowa cities. The DOT adopted new rules in late 2013 to limit local governments’ ability to install traffic cameras on or near highways. Those rules required cities to demonstrate that cameras were needed to address “critical safety issues,” which could not be resolved by other means. Studies have produced conflicting data on whether cameras reduce red light or speeding infractions or vehicle accidents.

In March of this year, DOT officials ordered officials in six cities to shut off ten out of 34 traffic cameras cities had defended on safety grounds. The city of Davenport opted to comply with the DOT ruling, but five other cities asked department officials to reconsider the decision. (Although a reversal was unlikely, exhausting administrative appeals typically precedes legal action challenging a state agency’s decision.)

This week, DOT Director Paul Trombino notified city officials in Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Council Bluffs, and Muscatine that the department was rejecting their appeals, because data did not demonstrate that the disputed cameras had improved safety or reduced crashes. Click through to read copies of the letters. The fifth city to appeal, Sioux City, filed a lawsuit last year challenging the DOT rules. A Woodbury County District Court is scheduled to hear that case soon. Des Moines officials plan to challenge the DOT in court as well. Cedar Rapids officials have not yet decided whether to file a lawsuit. After the jump I’ve enclosed excerpts from Kathy Bolten’s report for the Des Moines Register and Rick Smith’s for the Cedar Rapids Gazette.

Local governments are generally responsible for enforcing traffic laws. I’ll be interested to see whether Iowa courts back up the DOT’s efforts to restrict those powers on or near major highways. According to Trombino, the Iowa Code allows the DOT to enforce limits on cameras for traffic enforcement. Whatever the courts decide, the state’s multi-pronged assault on local control remains an under-reported story of Governor Terry Branstad’s fifth and sixth terms.

Governor Terry Branstad is forging ahead with some major policies he didn’t campaign on last year, oblivious to concerns about the impact on Iowa’s Medicaid recipients and people served by two mental health institutions the governor wants to close.

According to Public Policy Polling’s latest Iowa survey, the governor’s plans are deeply unpopular.

Iowans who advocate for people with disabilities have deep concerns about Governor Terry Branstad’s plan to privatize Medicaid, shifting most recipients into managed care. Iowa Senate President Pam Jochum, who has been caregiver to a daughter with developmental disabilities, has been warning for weeks that the reorganization of Medicaid is too hasty and needs oversight from state lawmakers. Last week she discussed potential problems in more detail, citing the Kansas experience with Medicaid privatization as a cautionary tale. After the jump I’ve posted the transcript from that press conference. Supporting documents are available here on how managed care has affected Kansans with disabilities.

Meanwhile, Disability Rights Iowa Executive Director Jane Hudson shared her take on the “empty promises” in Branstad’s plan for Medicaid. You can read the full text of her April 20 guest column for the Des Moines Register at the newspaper’s website or at Disability Rights Iowa. I’ve enclosed a few passages after the jump, but you should click through to read the whole piece. Nearly 20 advocacy groups for Iowans with disabilities or mental health challenges signed on to Hudson’s editorial; the full list is below.

Iowa Workforce Development Director Beth Townsend is implementing key recommendations from the U.S. Department of Labor to resolve concerns about the previous agency director’s actions. Townsend’s actions provide a refreshing contrast to Teresa Wahlert’s management of Iowa Workforce Development, which sparked recurring controversy and not one, not two, but three lawsuits.

Annals of the absurd: Iowa’s longest-serving state legislator, who sought a ninth Senate term last year at the age of 80, is now beating the drum for term limits.

What a terrible idea, especially for a state whose governor already takes an expansive view of his own powers.  

Governor Terry Branstad made a remarkable claim at his latest press conference: because “the people of Iowa elected me to reduce the size and cost of government,” he has the authority to “make tough decisions” on closing state-run mental health facilities and reorganizing Medicaid services for more than half a million Iowans.

To justify his position, Branstad channeled President Harry Truman: “The buck stops with me.” But his view of governance reminds me more of Mel Brooks in the movie “History of the World, Part 1”: “It’s good to be the king.”

Outgoing Iowa Utilities Board member Sheila Tipton sent Governor Terry Branstad a scathing letter after not being reappointed to the three-member board last month, Ryan Foley reported yesterday for the Associated Press. Tipton defended a board decision from earlier this year, which greatly displeased MidAmerican Energy. She warned that by removing her and demoting Iowa Utilities Board Chair Libby Jacobs, Branstad was undermining state agencies’ independence “in order to appease MidAmerican Energy,” thereby doing “a disservice to the citizens of this State.”

Tipton also characterized Branstad’s recent personnel changes as  “unfair,” saying she had received verbal assurances in 2013 that she would be reappointed to a full six-year term if she accepted the governor’s offer to serve out Swati Dandekar’s unexpired term.

I enclose the full text of Tipton’s letter after the jump, along with a statement provided by the governor’s office, which defends the appointment of Geri Huser and denies that Tipton was promised a full term on the Iowa Utilities Board.

Even if Branstad or his staff did promise verbally to reappoint Tipton, the governor retains the right to change his mind. However, Tipton is unquestionably correct that the latest Iowa Utilities Board changes look like “an attempt to ‘bring the agency in line’ and to influence its future decision-making in a way that favors the utilities.”

A bill prohibiting school districts from starting the academic year before August 23 is on its way to Governor Terry Branstad, who has indicated that he can accept the compromise. UPDATE: The governor signed the bill on April 10.

The school start date issue has taken up a lot of oxygen at the statehouse this legislative session, despite a lack of evidence that the timing of the academic year affects Iowa’s tourism sector in any meaningful way. Follow me after the jump for details on Senate File 227‘s journey through the legislature, including how Iowa House and Senate members voted on different versions of the bill.

The governor’s determination to use state power to supersede decisions reached independently by more than 300 school boards and superintendents is yet another example of the Branstad administration’s disregard for local control in many policy areas. For my money, that’s one of the most under-reported Iowa politics stories of the last five years.

Geri Huser may need to recuse herself from the Iowa Utilities Board’s upcoming decisions regarding the Bakken Pipeline proposal, according to a report by Ryan Foley for the Associated Press.

New details have emerged about Governor Terry Branstad’s testimony in the lawsuit Iowa’s former Workers’ Compensation Commissioner filed three years ago, charging discrimination, defamation, and other claims. Ryan Foley of the Associated Press reported highlights from the transcript of Branstad’s deposition last November.

The next few weeks will be critically important for deciding whether Iowa keeps a statewide rule designed to preserve topsoil and reduce stormwater runoff, which carries pollution to our waterways. Bleeding Heartland discussed the 4-inch topsoil rule here and here. Todd Dorman has been on the case with several good columns for the Cedar Rapids Gazette, most recently here.

Follow me after the jump for background on the issue and details on how to weigh in. Submitting a comment takes only a few minutes, or Iowans may attend public hearings in Cedar Rapids tonight, Davenport on March 25, or Des Moines on March 27 (scroll down for times and locations).