Governor Terry Branstad will be shopping for a new chief of staff for the first time since the 1990s. Jeff Boeyink announced today that he is stepping down for an unspecified private sector job, effective September 6. After many years with the conservative advocacy group Iowans for Tax Relief, Boeyink briefly served as executive director of the Republican Party of Iowa before leaving to manage Branstad’s 2010 gubernatorial campaign. After the 2010 election, Boeyink co-chaired the governor’s transition team, and he has served as chief of staff ever since.

I’ve posted the press release from the governor’s office after the jump. Note the careful mention of Branstad’s “potential” re-election bid, and the conspicuous effort to mention Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds’ name and title as often as possible. The governor’s re-election campaign has engaged in similar branding of the Branstad-Reynolds “team,” fueling rumors in some circles that Reynolds will become the last-minute gubernatorial candidate next spring.

The Des Moines Register’s Jennifer Jacobs listed some possible successors to Boeyink. The governor’s legal counsel Brenna Findley used to serve as Representative Steve King’s chief of staff before she ran for Iowa attorney general in 2010. David Roederer has long been in Branstad’s inner circle and now heads the Iowa Department of Management. Former Iowa GOP staffer Chad Olsen is currently chief of staff for Secretary of State Matt Schultz. Michael Bousselot has been advising Branstad on health care and other issues. Sara Craig was state director of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign in Iowa before the 2012 caucuses. Matt Hinch has held many political jobs and is now senior vice president of government relations and public policy for the Greater Des Moines Partnership. I can’t imagine that Doug Gross would want to go back to the job he held nearly 30 years ago. Former Iowa GOP Chair Matt Strawn is busy with his new consulting and lobbying firm.

Governor Terry Branstad doesn’t care for our state’s merit selection process for nominating judges. He would prefer to nominate whomever he wants, subject to confirmation by the Iowa Senate, instead of being forced to appoint judges from short lists drawn up by the State Judicial Nominating Commission. But changing that procedure would require amending the Iowa Constitution, a lengthy process for which there is no support in the Iowa Senate. Branstad has moved to “correct” an imbalance by appointing Republicans to the State Judicial Nominating Commission. (Conservatives have long charged that Democrats came to dominate that commission under Governors Tom Vilsack and Chet Culver.)

Putting conservatives in a position to select judges is one thing, but is it too much to ask the governor to pick people with a clue about separation of church and state? Ryan J. Foley of the Associated Press reports today that Scott Bailey, a 2012 Branstad appointee, asked Assistant Iowa Attorney General Jeanie Vaudt during a public interview, “Did you make covenant vows with your husband, and do you feel you have or that you are breaking those in this situation?” Excerpts from Foley’s report are after the jump.

Judicial Nominating Commission members aren’t supposed to inquire about applicants’ marital status at all, let alone ask whether they are adhering to a “covenant” marriage. Vaudt was one of 22 applicants for a vacancy on the Iowa Court of Appeals and made the short list of three forwarded to Branstad last week.

Traditionally, the governor’s appointees to judicial nominating commissions are non-lawyers. Branstad ought to insist on non-lawyers with some clue about how the judicial system works. Red flags were there from the beginning with Bailey, a leader of the “Christ-centered” Network of Iowa Christian Home Educators who admitted on his own application that he would like “to help identify qualified candidates who will judge without partiality and uphold both civil and natural law.” Unfortunately, Bailey has been confirmed to serve on this commission through the end of January 2018. Here’s hoping that Branstad will be more discerning next time he fills a vacancy on the commission.

UPDATE: Radio Iowa posted the audio of Vaudt’s opening statement and Bailey’s question. Bailey commented to O.Kay Henderson, “I was happy that she and her husband were unified on this and it wasn’t causing a disturbance to their marriage.” Not a factor he needs to consider.

Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey announced yesterday that he has hired Mike Naig as the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship’s new deputy secretary. In the press release I’ve posted after the jump, Northey praised Naig as a “tremendous asset” and a “natural fit” for IDALS. Naig has spent the last 13 years working for Big Ag companies or trade associations, most recently as a state lobbyist for Monsanto.

While Naig helps the agriculture department be “accessible to Iowans by traveling regularly” to meetings, and assists in managing the IDALS budget and personnel, Northey will continue to ignore some big problems facing Iowa farmers. Research has implicated Monsanto’s genetically-modified “Roundup ready” seeds and/or glyphosate, the key ingredient in Roundup herbicide, in the following trends:

• the accelerated evolution of herbicide-resistant weeds;

• “sudden death syndrome,” a crop disease affecting soybeans;

• “harmful changes in soil” and possibly a “fungal root disease” in conventional crops;

• digestive problems in hogs fed a diet of GM crops;

• other diseases and reproductive problems observed in swine and cattle fed a diet containing Roundup ready corn and soybeans.

But never mind all that.

Speaking of government officials with their heads in the sand, you won’t hear anything from the Iowa Department of Public Health about the risks of glyphosate exposure in humans. Nevertheless, research has linked the key ingredient in Roundup herbicide to breast cancer, birth defects, obesity and other “diseases and conditions associated with a Western diet.”  

Public policy has been slow to make a dent in the obesity epidemic, which turns out to be “a lot more deadly than previously thought.” But a new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control shows that Iowa is one of eighteen states where obesity among low-income preschoolers declined by a statistically significant amount from 2008 through 2011. An estimated 14.4 percent of low-income two- to four-year-olds in Iowa were obese in 2011. Iowa Department of Public Health officials credited several programs with helping to reverse the trend.

Adult obesity is still a major health problem, according to the latest “F as in Fat” report by the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Iowa had the twelfth-highest adult obesity rate in the country at 30.4 percent in 2012. The sort-of good news was that for the first time in decades, obesity rates held steady in most states. But it’s depressing to see that the adult obesity rate exceeds 20 percent in even the “healthiest” state of Colorado now. As recently as 1991, not a single state had an obesity rate that high.

Speaking to Radio Iowa about the new obesity estimates, Iowa Department of Public Health Director Mariannette Miller-Meeks had sensible advice:

“People don’t have to go out and do a programmed physical aerobics program for 30 minutes or an hour or two hours a day. […] Just eating less, a plant slant to your diet, and trying to get in 30 minutes of exercise a day.”

Mark my words: the Iowa Farm Bureau and other groups representing industrial agriculture will go nuts over Dr. Miller-Meeks encouraging Iowans to bring “a plant slant” to their diet, especially if she runs for Congress a third time in Iowa’s second district. But here’s an inconvenient truth for Big Ag: peer-reviewed research shows that “meat consumption is associated with obesity” in U.S. adults.

Here’s the second inconvenient truth: even if everyone ate responsibly and exercised regularly, Americans would be more prone to obesity because of exposure to certain chemicals, such as the endocrine disruptors Bisphenol-A (BPA) and phthalates, and some organotins used in pesticides. Long-term, low-level exposure to the prevalent herbicide atrazine can cause insulin resistance and obesity too (click here for an explanation of that research in layman’s terms).

Three years ago, a White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity called on federal and state agencies to “prioritize research into the effects of possibly obesogenic chemicals.” That won’t happen in my lifetime, at least not in Iowa.

P.S.- For anyone wondering, Iowa Department of Public Health Medical Director Dr. Patricia Quinlisk warns against ingesting a tapeworm as a weight-loss method.

Last week brought a good reminder that state boards and commissions don’t always rubber stamp the governor’s desired policies. Although Governor Terry Branstad has made clear that he wants to push back the start of the K-12 school year in Iowa, the State Board of Education on August 1 voted five to two against a Department of Education proposed rule change. Background and further details are after the jump.

Catching up on news from last Friday, Governor Terry Branstad appointed Des Moines-based attorney Sheila Tipton to fill a term on the Iowa Utilities Board that runs through April 2015. Tipton replaces Swati Dandekar, who resigned earlier this month, presumably with a view toward running for Congress. After the jump I’ve posted background on Tipton. Her law practice has primarily focused on representing “energy, telecommunications and water public utilities and other business entities” before state and federal agencies. She will be subject to Iowa Senate confirmation during the 2014 legislative session. I don’t envision her having any trouble during that process.

For decades, the Iowa Utilities Board had at least one attorney among its three members. Branstad broke with that tradition when he named Dandekar to a vacancy in 2011. Earlier this year, the governor sought to appoint another non-lawyer, former GOP State Representative Nick Wagner, to the same board. He later withdrew Wagner’s nomination, which was in trouble in the Democratic-controlled Iowa Senate. But one day after the legislature adjourned for this year, Branstad named Wagner to the Iowa Utilities Board on an interim basis. Wagner will also be subject to confirmation during the 2014 legislative session. After the jump I’ve posted Wagner’s official bio and some background on Senate Democrats’ concerns about confirming him to this position.

Any comments related to the new appointees or the work of the Iowa Utilities Board are welcome in this thread. Incidentally, there is already another Republican candidate in the Iowa House district where Democrat Daniel Lundby defeated Wagner in the 2012 general election.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? I’ve been thinking about some high-tech failures. For instance, genetically-modified seeds were supposed to solve farmers’ weed problems. Yet weeds resistant to glyphosate (the main ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide) are “gaining ground” across Iowa. The problem is worse on farms where Monsanto’s Roundup Ready seeds have been planted the longest.

Rootworms “resistant to one type of genetically engineered corn” are also a growing problem. Genetically-modified seed was supposed to make corn plants poisonous to rootworm, but now farmers are “deploying more chemical pesticides than before.” The outcome was predictable.

On a related note, research shows that nitrogen enrichment through added fertilizers can hurt plant diversity and productivity of grasslands in the long term.

Some Midwestern cities and towns “are absorbing a financial beating after betting big on an innovative coal-fired power plant” during the last decade. “Clean coal” was always a boondoggle.

Speaking of costly investments, the state of Iowa continues to shovel tax credits to Orascom for a fertilizer plant project that would have been built in Iowa anyway. But hey, what’s another $25 million?

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

Nothing says “not serious about giving Iowa kids a world-class education” than putting the needs of the tourism industry ahead of what’s best for student learning. But Governor Terry Branstad sounds ready to do just that.

Chief Deputy State Auditor Warren Jenkins will investigate Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz’s use of Help America Vote Act funding, William Petroski reported today for the Des Moines Register. Democratic State Senator Tom Courtney requested the audit immediately after Governor Terry Branstad appointed Mary Mosiman as state auditor last month. Mosiman’s predecessor, David Vaudt, did not act on Courtney’s request for an audit last year. Schultz has used federal HAVA funding to pay for a law enforcement officer charged with investigating alleged voter fraud full-time. Courtney contends that such a use falls outside federal law, which calls for HAVA funds to cover “educating voters concerning voting procedures, voting rights and voting technology.”

Mosiman delegated the audit to Jenkins because until last month, she was working as Schultz’s deputy in charge of the Secretary of State’s elections office.

Please share any relevant comments in this thread. After the jump I’ve posted reaction from Schultz and Democratic candidate for secretary of state Brad Anderson.

The Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission voted yesterday to commission a new study of Iowa’s gambling market to determine how a new casino would affect the 18 existing casinos with state licenses. In March, Linn Couty voters approved a proposed casino for Cedar Rapids, the largest city in Iowa not currently served by a casino. The study will focus on whether there is market share to support a Cedar Rapids casino, or whether that facility would mostly cannibalize business from existing casinos. Racing and Gaming Commission Chair Jeff Lamberti indicated that the study would also examine the impact of new casinos in Greene County and/or the Des Moines area. For more details, read William Petroski’s report for the Des Moines Register and Rick Smith’s story for the Cedar Rapids Gazette.

I have never been convinced that the Racing and Gaming Commission would grant new casino licenses in Iowa. In 2010, commissioners denied licenses for proposed casinos in Fort Dodge, Ottumwa, and Tama County, despite strong local support. On the other hand, the backers of the Cedar Rapids casino project have close ties to Governor Terry Branstad.

Any comments related to gambling in Iowa are welcome in this thread. In related news, the casino owner who bankrolled the “No Casino” campaign in Cedar Rapids is proposing a new casino in the Davenport area.

Recently-fired Iowa Senate GOP communications director Kirsten Anderson filed a complaint last week with the Iowa Civil Rights Commission, alleging that Senate Minority Leader Bill Dix and three staffers for the GOP Senate caucus subjected her to a sexually hostile work environment and retaliated against her for complaining about the work environment.

A pdf file of Anderson’s complaint can be viewed here. I’ve posted the two-page narrative section after the jump.

Reading the allegations, two points stood out for me. Anderson told WHO-TV’s Dave Price that legislators as well as GOP staffers made inappropriate comments to and about women on staff. But her complaint to the Iowa Civil Rights Commission does not accuse any Republican lawmakers of making such remarks. The only named respondents are Dix (for failing to provide a safe work environment) and three staffers.

Second, in her narrative about alleged retaliation, Anderson describes meetings in May 2013, during which she was told her work was “not where it needed to be.” Those meetings involved Eric Johansen, a named respondent in the complaint who is Iowa GOP Senate staff director, and Tracie Gibler, an assistant to Dix. Anderson did not accuse Gibler of creating a hostile work environment. Representative Steve King’s office just announced yesterday that Gibler will be King’s new Congressional chief of staff, as of June 10. (I’ve posted that press release below.) I can’t blame Gibler for wanting to get out of Dix’s office–or maybe the timing of her departure is a coincidence, just like named respondent Ed Failor, Jr. and Dix have claimed it was a coincidence that Anderson was fired for cause on the very same day she documented complaints about the work environment.  

Governor Terry Branstad appointed two new members of the Iowa Board of Regents yesterday. Former State Senator Larry McKibben and construction business owner Milt Dakovic will fill vacancies created when the Iowa Senate did not confirm two of the governor’s three Regents appointees this year: Craig Lang and Robert Cramer. Branstad likes to appoint former state lawmakers to boards and commissions. He encouraged McKibben to come out of retirement to run for the Iowa Senate again in 2012, but McKibben lost the GOP primary in Senate district 36. I’ve posted more background on McKibben and Dakovich after the jump. Their appointments are subject to confirmation by the Iowa Senate during the 2014 legislative session.

Lang recently finished six years of service on the Board of Regents and had been board president. Today the remaining board members chose Bruce Rastetter as the new board president. Rastetter has served as president pro-tem since the summer of 2011 and has been in frequent communication with the three state university presidents. The largest donor to Branstad’s 2010 gubernatorial campaign has also been a controversial figure as a Regent, having “blurred the line” between “his role as investor in AgriSol Energy” and his position on the board. (The Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board dismissed an ethics complaint filed against Rastetter over that proposed AgriSol land deal.) Earlier this year, Rastetter asked the University of Iowa president to arrange a meeting between ethanol industry representatives and Professor Jerald Schnoor. Democrat and Linn-Mar school district superintendent Katie Mulholland will replace Rastetter as president pro-tem of the Board of Regents.

UPDATE: Democratic State Senator Jeff Danielson has already announced that he supports Branstad’s new nominees for the Board of Regents. Earlier this year, he voted against confirming Lang and Cramer.

One – Mike understands how government can work and knows how to make it work.

Two – He works with and talks to everyone, not just a small group of his cronies.

Three – He has a real world understanding of people’s lives and thinks about the consequences of bills and laws and the impact on ordinary people.

Four – Mike has tremendous experience fighting tough political fights and has the strategic mind to develop a plan and the grit to follwo throuhg and make it work.  No on-the-job training needed here!

Five – He listens.  My own experience is that Mike is always available to listen.  He also almost never agrees with everything I ask for, but he listens and speaks honestly with me.

Governor Terry Branstad announced yesterday that he has appointed retired Col. Robert King to run the Iowa Department of Veterans Affairs. A press release with background on King is after the jump. He should have no trouble being confirmed by the Iowa Senate.

King replaces former State Representative and retired Brig. Gen. Jodi Tymeson. Earlier this month, the governor appointed Tymeson to a newly-created management position at the Iowa Veterans Home in Marshalltown.  

When news broke last week of a tax compromise skewed toward business, I wondered why Senate Democrats would agree to pass that bill without progress toward Medicaid expansion, one of their top priorities. Governor Terry Branstad was saying legislators should adjourn after approving a budget, education reform and the tax deal, returning later this year for a special session on health insurance coverage for low-income Iowans. In my opinion, Democrats would be insane to give Republicans what they want on taxes now, hoping for Medicaid expansion later.

Today several signs point toward a possible deal on Medicaid coverage before the end of the legislative session.

State Senator Tom Courtney has asked newly appointed Iowa State Auditor Mary Mosiman to conduct “a special audit of the use of HAVA (Help America Vote Act) funds by Secretary of State Matt Schultz.” Courtney has been a leading critic of Schultz’s policies to combat alleged voter fraud. He previously asked State Auditor David Vaudt and the federal Office of Inspector General to look into Schultz’s use of HAVA funds to pay for criminal investigations. Courtney points out that federal funding is intended for “educating voters concerning voting procedures, voting rights and voting technology.”

An Iowa Senate press release containing background on Courtney’s request is after the jump, along with the full text of Courtney’s letter to Mosiman. She would presumably have to assign a different staff member of the Auditor’s office to conduct any inquiry, since she’s worked for Schultz for more than two years, running the Secretary of State’s Office elections division. Mosiman has publicly defended Schultz’s policies on alleged voter fraud, including photo ID requirements that most Iowa county auditors oppose.

The criminal investigations have so far uncovered a few allegedly improper voter registrations by ex-felons and a few instances of non-citizens allegedly registering to vote or casting ballots in local or state elections. To my knowledge, those charges have not led to any convictions yet. Three cases of alleged wrongful voting by non-citizens were dropped in March because the investigating DCI agent was called up for active military duty.

Governor Terry Branstad announced this morning that Mary Mosiman will be Iowa’s new state auditor. She replaces David Vaudt, who resigned last month to become chairman of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board.

Mosiman served as Story County Auditor for ten years before Matt Schultz hired her to run the elections division of the Iowa Secretary of State’s office. She is a certified public accountant, which Branstad said was a “major requirement” as he searched for Vaudt’s successor.

After the jump I’ve posted the governor’s press release, containing more background on Mosiman. She will serve as auditor until after next year’s elections. I assume she will become the Republican nominee for state auditor in 2014 as well. I have not heard yet about any Democrat planning to run for that office. Iowa Democrats did not field a candidate against Vaudt in 2006. Jon Murphy launched his 2010 campaign less than five months before the general election.

Governor Terry Branstad has created a new position at the Iowa Veterans Home in Marshalltown for retired Brig. Gen. Jodi Tymeson, a former state legislator who currently directs the Iowa Department of Veterans Affairs.

Strangely, the governor and his staff deny having any concerns about the leadership of Iowa Veterans Home Commandant David Worley.

In a decision announced on Friday, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional for the Iowa Department of Public Health to refuse to list a non-birthing lesbian spouse on a child’s birth certificate. Details on this nearly unanimous ruling are after the jump. I was intrigued by how Governor Terry Branstad’s three appointees from 2011 handled this case.

Catching up on the week’s news at the statehouse, the Iowa Senate rejected two of Governor Terry Branstad’s nominees for the Board of Regents on Monday, and the governor withdrew two other nominees who were headed for trouble in the upper chamber. Details on the votes and thoughts about the implications are after the jump.

Governor Terry Branstad has invested a lot of political capital in education reform. His staff organized a large conference on the topic in 2011, featuring U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and other nationally-recognized speakers. Later that year, the governor rolled out an ambitious blueprint for education reform, which was a focus of his “Condition of the State” speeches to state lawmakers in 2012 and 2013. Branstad wants something bigger and better than the narrowly-focused education reform deal approved last spring. To encourage legislators to work harder on this issue, the governor has even held up K-12 school funding decisions that should have been made a year ago under Iowa law.

Iowa House and Senate members are now negotiating over education reform bills approved in each chamber on party lines. But Branstad’s past use of his line-item power is standing in the way of broad legislation.  

In an ideal world, evidence that more than half of Midwest rivers and streams can’t support aquatic life would inspire policy-makers to clean up our waterways. Rivers that are suitable for swimming, fishing, and other recreation can be a huge economic engine for Iowa communities.

We live in Iowa, where most of our lawmakers take the Patty Judge view: “Iowa is an agricultural state and anyone who doesn’t like it can leave in any of four directions.”

Yesterday the Iowa House approved a bill to relax manure storage regulations for large confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs). All of the House Republicans and two-thirds of the Democrats supported this bad legislation. Details on the bill and the House vote are below.

March 29, 2013 

The ACLU of Iowa and Iowa LULAC today restarted their lawsuit to stop the Secretary of State from an unreliable process to remove registered voters if they cannot prove their U.S. citizenship within a limited time.

The ACLU of Iowa and the Iowa League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) filed papers in Polk County District court today, renewing their lawsuit against two rules filed by the Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz that the groups say wrongly restrict voting by qualified Iowans.

One rule would have allowed unverified challenges to another voter’s qualifications. The Secretary of State eventually voluntarily withdrew that rule. The other rule, which took effect yesterday, allows the Secretary of State to run Iowa’s registered voters through numerous federal databases to attempt to generate a list of non-citizens.

The ACLU and LULAC say that the Secretary of State was never authorized by the Iowa legislature to put his Voter Removal Rule forward, and that it will erroneously deprive qualified citizens in Iowa of their right to vote. The ACLU and LULAC cite problems with running the registered voter lists through the federal SAVE system, as well as a lack of procedural checks to protect voters once they are identified.

http://www.aclu-ia.org/2013/03/29/aclu-of-iowa-restarts-its-voter-suppression-lawsuit-against-the-iowa-secretary-of-state/

<!–EndFragment–>

Bob Krause, a veterans advocate and former state representative, confirmed by e-mail today that he has filed papers creating a committee to explore a run for Iowa governor in 2014. He plans a formal announcement in the coming weeks.

Krause was the first declared Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate the last time Senator Chuck Grassley was on the ballot. He finished a distant second to Roxanne Conlin in the 2010 primary, receiving just under 13 percent of the vote. Earlier this year, Krause ruled out running for Senator Tom Harkin’s seat but said he was considering a campaign for governor or for Congress next year.

Krause knows Governor Terry Branstad well, because for six years during the 1970s, the two men represented neighboring Iowa House districts (two halves of the same Iowa Senate district).

Also today, Krause called for the resignation of Iowa Veterans Affairs Commission member Dan Gannon, a Branstad appointee who represents the Vietnam Veterans of America on that commission. I’ve posted a press release from Krause after the jump, which explains the background. In an e-mail to Veterans Affairs Commission members and staff, Gannon said that he doesn’t trust Krause or the 501(c)3 charity Krause leads, the Veterans National Recovery Center. That organization advocates for services to assist veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI).

After testing waterways at about 2,000 sites during 2008 and 2009, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has concluded that 55 percent of rivers and streams in the country are “in poor condition for aquatic life.” One of the biggest problems was nutrient pollution from excessive levels of nitrogen and phosphorus. Reduced vegetation cover near streams also contributed to poor water quality. Only 21 percent of U.S. river and stream length was judged to be in “good” condition, with another 23 percent in “fair” condition.

Compared to an EPA survey conducted in 2004, the latest data show a smaller percentage of rivers and streams in good condition and a higher percentage in poor condition.

An EPA summary of the key findings is after the jump. You can find more data on the National Aquatic Resource Surveys here, including this two-page fact sheet (pdf) and the full draft report (pdf). Iowa is part of the “temperate plains” region, discussed on pages 78 through 80 of that report. I’ve posted an excerpt below. Only 15 percent of rivers and streams in the temperate plains region were judged to be in good condition; 55 percent were in poor condition.

Iowa should reject the all-voluntary nutrient reduction strategy favored by agricultural interest groups. Given the awful state of our rivers and streams, we need some mandatory steps to reduce nutrient pollution, including numeric standards for nitrogen and phosphorus. Both EPA staff and environmental advocates in Iowa have called for strengthening the nutrient reduction strategy. Unfortunately, Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey has a firmly closed mind.  

Last night the Iowa Senate approved Senate File 296, a bill to expand Medicaid, on a strictly party-line vote of 26 to 23. You can listen to the entire Senate debate (approximately 90 minutes) at Radio Iowa. I’ve posted highlights from the debate after the jump, along with the full list of 52 organizations that have registered their support for Senate File 296. Some corporations and organizations have have registered their lobbyists as undecided on Senate File 296, but at this writing, not a single organization is registered against the Medicaid expansion.

School districts across Iowa are flying blind with less than a month left to certify their budgets for the coming fiscal year. Although Iowa’s state revenues are rising and expected to grow more next year, administrators have no idea whether K-12 district budgets may increase, and if so, by how much.

Students and teachers will pay the price for the decision by Iowa House Republicans and Governor Terry Branstad to hold school funding hostage to education reform.

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

Governor Terry Branstad didn’t draw the right lessons from Indiana’s experience when he proposed his Healthy Iowa Plan as an alternative to expanding Medicaid. Below I’ve posted excerpts from Laura Hermer’s recent commentary on the Healthy Indiana Plan.

Iowa’s top economic development official, Debi Durham, still can’t answer basic questions about why the state offered more than $100 million in tax incentives to a company that was going to build a fertilizer plant in Iowa anyway. Follow me after the jump for Durham’s non-responsive response on the Orascom deal during this week’s “Iowa Press” program.

Speaking of which, the Branstad administration is stonewalling Iowa Watchdog reporter Sheena Dooley’s efforts to obtain more information about the Orascom deal.

UPDATE: For the hundredth time, family budgets are not comparable to the federal budget. Plus, Michael Tomasky summarizes three basic principles of fiscal policy that should be conventional wisdom already: “Modest deficits are perfectly sustainable. Budget cutting, far from being ‘responsible,’ hurts the economy. And balanced budgets don’t create jobs-it’s the other way around.”

March 14 is the International Day of Action for Rivers. These stories about water pollution and the economic potential of healthy rivers are worth a read.

Contrary to what agribusiness industry lobbyists would have you believe, a majority of Iowa farmers “support expanding conservation requirements for soil erosion and the control of nitrogen and phosphorous runoff.”

Iowa’s confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs or factory livestock farms) create more untreated manure annually than the total sewage output of the U.S. population.

Aging sewer systems in urban areas also allow too much sewage to leak into watersheds. The I-JOBS infrastructure bonding initiative (signed into law by Governor Chet Culver) included some money to improve sewer systems in Iowa, but we need to do much more on this front.

Iowa Rivers Revival Executive Director Rosalyn Lehman recently published a call to revive Iowa’s rivers in the Des Moines Register. I’ve posted excerpts from her guest editorial after the jump.

The Metro Waste Authority has created an Adopt a Stream website, with “resources to help you organize a stream cleanup in the Greater Des Moines area.”

Dam removal as part of a river restoration project supports local economic activity as well as the environment.

Governor Terry Branstad traveled to Fort Madison yesterday to discuss a fertilizer plant project involving the largest tax incentive package in Iowa history. Previewing a likely theme of his re-election campaign next year, Branstad spun questions over his administration’s handling of the Orascom deal into an attack on Iowa Senate Democrats and the Koch brothers.

Yesterday the Iowa Senate unanimously confirmed eleven of Governor Terry Branstad’s appointees. You can find the full list of confirmations in the Senate Journal (pdf). The department or agency heads confirmed were:

Chuck Gipp, who has been serving as director of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources since last May, shortly after his predecessor resigned;

Steve Lukan, whom Branstad hired to run the governor’s Office of Drug Control Policy last June;

Nick Gerhart, who replaced Susan Voss as state insurance commissioner at the end of 2012;

Robert von Wolffradt, whom Branstad appointed as Iowa’s chief information officer last May.

Seven of the nominees senators confirmed yesterday will serve on state boards, councils, or commissions, including Joanne Stockdale, a former chair of the Iowa Association of Business and Industry who is one of Branstad’s appointees to the Environmental Protection Commission.

Governor Terry Branstad announced his administration’s alternative to Medicaid expansion this morning at his regular weekly press conference. The “Healthy Iowa Plan” would cover approximately 89,000 Iowans with income below the federal poverty level. In contrast, Medicaid expansion would cover up to 150,000 Iowans with income below 133 percent of the poverty level.

Details on the new plan are after the jump. Early reaction from Senate President Pam Jochum suggests that the Iowa Senate will not be inclined to approve this proposal. I also question whether the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will grant a waiver for Branstad’s plan. Federal officials have already denied requests from Branstad and other governors to allow a smaller Medicaid expansion than what the 2010 health care reform law provides.  

A Terrace Hill mystery: why doesn’t Governor Terry Branstad have more details to share about his proposed alternative to expanding Medicaid in Iowa?

Answer: Outside consultants are still working up a plan for him. CORRECTION: Branstad rolled out his “Healthy Iowa Plan” on March 4.

Governor Terry Branstad announced a long list of appointees to state boards and commissions today. I’ve posted the full press release after the jump, along with background on some of the most newsworthy nominations. The governor tapped several former state lawmakers or candidates for the legislature, as well as his younger son, Marcus Branstad.

Cutting property taxes has long been a policy goal for Governor Terry Branstad, so why is he rejecting a path to save Iowa counties tens of millions of dollars a year on mental health services? As Tony Leys reported yesterday for the Des Moines Register, the Iowa Department of Human Services has estimated that expanding Medicaid as foreseen under the 2010 federal health care reform law would save counties between $27 million and $60 million each year.

Five years ago this week, I was hospitalized with an infection that might have become life-threatening or permanently debilitating had I not had health insurance coverage, which allowed me to receive a relatively early diagnosis. Every day in this country, uninsured people hunker down, hoping their health problem will go away without an expensive doctor’s visit. That’s one of many reasons studies have shown that expanding Medicaid saves lives.

Governor Terry Branstad sounds determined not to expand Medicaid, but none of his arguments can withstand scrutiny.

UPDATE: Branstad confirmed on February 23 that he will not agree to expand Medicaid. Added details and other related news below.

Eighteen casinos currently operate in Iowa, but if backers have their way, that number will grow in the near future. Early voting is under way for the March 5 Linn County referendum on a proposed casino in Cedar Rapids.

Meanwhile, this week some people rolled out plans for a new casino in Norwalk (Warren County), just south of the Des Moines metro area. Links and details are after the jump.

Any comments related to expanding casino gambling are welcome in this thread. I tend to agree with Richard Florida, an expert on urban development who made the case against casinos in the Cedar Rapids Gazette not long ago. Florida commented this week that casinos are a good litmus test, showing which self-styled “city builders” are actually “city destroyers.”

The Egyptian company that received the largest tax incentive package in Iowa history has a subsidiary accused of defrauding the federal government out of $332 million, Ryan Foley reported yesterday in a must-read story for the Associated Press. Excerpts from Foley’s article are after the jump, but I strongly recommend reading the whole piece.

Iowa Economic Development Authority Director Debi Durham admitted that the federal lawsuit over improper contracts “did not come up in our due diligence,” which is no surprise. Durham’s negotiating strategy seems to have been not to question anything Orascom executives told Iowa officials. Although Governor Terry Branstad has claimed Iowa landed the fertilizer plant deal “by the skin of our teeth,” evidence suggests Orascom would have invested in Iowa even without generous state and local tax incentives.

State Senator Mark Chelgren celebrated his 45th birthday last week with cupcakes for fellow senators and a promise that he will try to change an obscure part of the Iowa Constitution.

Legislators often introduce bills solely to make a political statement, but even in that context, Chelgren’s effort is an impressive feat of irrelevant grandstanding.