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

In a step forward for small-scale wind power in Iowa, the Iowa Utilities Board designated Johnson County and Floyd County as our state’s first Small Wind Innovation Zones last week.

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

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

The Iowa Senate voted to confirm former Senator Swati Dandekar to the Iowa Utilities Board this evening by 43 votes to 6 (pdf).  

NOTE: A third Democrat, Nick Volk, filed nominating papers in this district on March 15.

Shelley Parbs announced today that she will run for Iowa Senate district 38. She is the second declared Democratic candidate in this district; the winner of the June primary will face first-term Republican Tim Kapucian, a Senate minority leader and ranking member of the Transportation Committee. Background on Parbs is after the jump, along with election-related developments in the two Iowa House seats that make up Senate district 38.

The Iowa Supreme Court held an unusual evening session on February 21 to hear oral arguments in Governor Terry Branstad’s appeal of a district court ruling that declared two of his line-item vetoes illegal.

Barely a month after being on a winning team, Bob Vander Plaats appears determined not to let anyone forget that he’s the biggest loser in Iowa politics.

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

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

Iowa Rivers Revival announced today that Charles City won its 2011 “Iowa River Town of the Year” award. The non-profit organization, created to advocate for protecting Iowa rivers and streams, honored the Floyd County seat because city leaders “responded to record floods in 1999 and 2008 by embracing the Cedar River with new ideas and bold projects, such as transforming a low-head dam into Iowa’s first whitewater kayak course and installing the state’s largest permeable paving system.” A press release describing Charles City’s river projects in more detail is after the jump. UPDATE: Click here for more information about Charles City Whitewater at Riverfront Park.

Iowa Rivers Revival previously recognized Webster City (2007), Elkader (2008), Coon Rapids (2009) and Cedar Falls (2010) as River Town of the Year. Bleeding Heartland summarized those cities’ river programs here. Click here to download the full applications submitted by Charles City and the past winners.  

Iowa Workers’ Compensation Commissioner Chris Godfrey filed suit against the state, Governor Terry Branstad, and several other officials yesterday over attempts to remove Godfrey from office and cut his pay between December 2010 and July 2011. The lawsuit also accuses several state employees of defaming Godfrey by publicly claiming that his poor job performance motivated attempts to replace him.

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

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

Delegates to the Iowa Farm Bureau’s state convention in Des Moines voted Craig Lang out as president of the organization yesterday.

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

When an elected official wants a certain phrase or point of view to be transmitted in a news story, a spokesperson often has to do the heavy lifting. Governor Terry Branstad’s communications director Tim Albrecht showed this week how pros get the job done while explaining an apparent contradiction in the governor’s stance on the federal health insurance reform law.

The state agency Iowa Workforce Development has replaced 36 field offices with hundreds of new “enhanced access” computer terminals this year.

Although the shuttered offices are unlikely ever to reopen, they may live on as talking points in many competitive Iowa House and Senate races next fall.

The Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board on Thursday dismissed ethics complaints filed against Environmental Protection Commission member Brent Rastetter and Iowa Department of Education Director Jason Glass. Rastetter had been accused of a conflict of interest related to his factory farm construction business. The complaint against Glass focused on an all-expenses-paid trip to Brazil, which he took in September.

Governor Terry Branstad will not ask state legislators to raise the gasoline tax in 2012, he confirmed yesterday. The comments will disappoint road-builders and members of a transportation commission the governor appointed earlier this year.

When State Department of Education Director Jason Glass and Governor Terry Branstad’s senior education adviser Linda Fandel rolled out an education reform blueprint last month, I had a feeling the proposals wouldn’t sit well with many Republicans. A new “report card” for a conservative advocacy organization gives the reform plan a barely passing grade.

Governor Terry Branstad promised during last year’s campaign to transform the Iowa Department of Economic Development into a public-private partnership. Yesterday he named 18 leaders of Iowa companies to two new state economic development boards.

The list of appointed board members are after the jump, along with background and the full text of Branstad’s executive order creating the Iowa Partnership for Economic Progress board.

This Halloween weekend seemed like a good time to highlight some tricks and treats from the news headlines.

A general assembly of the Occupy Iowa movement decided Friday evening to move their 24-hour protest to a Des Moines city park rather than risk another round of arrests on state Capitol grounds.

The Iowa Department of Administrative Services approved a permit for Occupy Iowa today, allowing protesters to stay on the Capitol grounds in Des Moines until 11 pm on Friday, October 14.  

Clark Kauffman published a must-read story in today’s Des Moines Register about the advocacy group Disability Rights Iowa firing its longtime executive director, Sylvia Piper. About six weeks ago, Piper published a harsh open letter to Governor Terry Branstad about his administration’s policy on inspecting Iowa nursing homes.

Background and more details are after the jump.

Iowa Department of Education Director Jason Glass and Governor Terry Branstad’s senior education adviser Linda Fandel rolled out a blueprint for reforming Iowa schools yesterday. The plan didn’t include any big ideas not mentioned by Glass and Fandel a few weeks ago. It also didn’t estimate how much state government and/or school districts would need to spend to make the blueprint a reality.

The Des Moines Register’s editorial board called out Iowa legislators on Sunday for using schemes to inflate their wages and pensions while minimizing taxes. The editors also pointed out that lawmakers are not held accountable for how they spend money intended to reimburse job-related expenses.

At the Moving Planet climate change event in Des Moines on Saturday, I heard a few activists talk about organizing against former State Senator Swati Dandekar’s confirmation to the Iowa Utilities Board. The Iowa Senate will consider her nomination during the 2012 legislative session.

I would advise environmentalists not to waste their time on that particular hopeless cause. Senate Democrats may be unhappy that Governor Terry Branstad jeopardized their control of the chamber by nominating Dandekar, but they are not going to block her confirmation.

Democratic State Senator Swati Dandekar is stepping down from the legislature in order to accept an appointment to the Iowa Utilities Board, the Des Moines Register reported today. Her resignation forces a special election this fall in Iowa Senate district 18, which covers suburban and rural areas in Linn County.

Democrats currently hold a 26-24 Iowa Senate majority, so a Republican victory in the special election would deadlock the upper chamber for the 2012 legislative session. Follow me after the jump for a district map and first take on the race to replace Dandekar.

Iowa Department of Transportation officials have asked the Federal Railroad Administration to separate the $230 million federal grant intended to support passenger rail service from Chicago to Iowa City. Separating the funds would allow the Illinois Department of Transportation to move ahead with the Chicago to Moline (Quad Cities) portion of the rail line. Meanwhile, the Iowa DOT will study a potential passenger rail link all the way to Omaha, Nebraska.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is demanding that the Iowa Department of Natural Resources take steps to reduce fine particulate matter statewide and especially in the Muscatine area, which has long had some of Iowa’s worst air quality.

Particulates contribute to premature deaths and serious heart and lung diseases, not to mention acid rain and other environmental problems. So it’s disappointing to see state officials react to the EPA message with more concern about the polluters than the public’s health.  

New Iowa teachers would no longer receive automatic raises based on years of experience or post-graduate degrees under an education reform proposal to be revealed in the coming weeks. Iowa Department of Education Director Jason Glass and Governor Terry Branstad’s special adviser on education, Linda Fandel, shared the outlines of the proposed changes with journalists yesterday.

I’ve seen a lot of hippie-punching by professional Democrats, but the Iowa Democratic Party’s attack on Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement yesterday was a particularly cynical example.  

Former State Representative Geri Huser, one of Iowa’s surprise losers in November 2010, has landed a senior position in state government with the Iowa Finance Authority.

Four Democratic state legislators and the leader of Iowa’s largest public employee union filed a lawsuit yesterday challenging Governor Terry Branstad’s line-item veto of a provision barring Iowa Workforce Development from closing 36 of its 55 field offices around the state.

UPDATE: Further details are at the end of this post.

Governor Terry Branstad said Monday that a controversy over requiring non-toxic shot for hunting mourning doves in Iowa “should have been handled better” by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources’ Natural Resource Commission. He also denied that he had expressed support for a lead shot ban in a telephone conversation with one of the commissioners.

Three non-profit organizations may sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for “unreasonable delay” in responding to a 2007 petition seeking to revoke the state of Iowa’s authority to regulate pollution from CAFOs.  

Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement members filed an ethics complaint yesterday against Brent Rastetter, one of Governor Terry Branstad’s appointees to the state Environmental Protection Commission.

The Iowa legislature’s Administrative Rules Review Committee lived up to its unofficial nickname today: “Where good rules go to die.” Nine of the ten lawmakers on the panel voted to delay a proposed ban on lead shot for dove hunting until after next year’s legislative session. It’s a safe bet that before then, legislators will pass a bill allowing hunters to use any kind of ammunition to kill doves.

The Iowa Environmental Council charged yesterday that Iowa Farm Bureau is misusing the court system to “intimidate us and keep us from our work.” The allegation relates to a lawsuit Farm Bureau filed last year to block new water quality rules.

Iowa Department of Public Health Director Mariannette Miller-Meeks on Friday reversed plans to eliminate the top administrator’s position at the Division of Tobacco Use Prevention and Control. Her comments came several hours after Democratic State Senator Jack Hatch predicted “legal action” to challenge the way IDPH downsized its smoking prevention programs.