IowaPolitics.com BlogWatch

A year ago tonight, the votes were counted and Barack Obama won the
presidency and Democrats strengthened their holds in the two federal
chambers. Republicans nationally and in Iowa licked their wounds, then
looked ahead. State Rep. Chris Rants, R-Sioux City, showing me a host
of vote totals from various statehouse races on his laptop, pointed to
where some of the statehouse elections could have turned for the GOP
with not too many more votes. Rants said Republicans needed to do the
grunt work of registering more voters to the party, then turning them
out. So are Republicans cutting into the voter registration lead of
Democrats? From the early November voter registration totals from the
Iowa Secretary of State office, Dems still are sitting on a very
substantial lead, one of well over 100,000 people.

Labels: elections

The loss that Republicans suffered in House District 90 on Tuesday was
a bitter one. Despite being a legislative district that Governor
Culver carried in 2006 and President Obama won by over 1000 votes in
the last election, Iowa Republicans were optimistic about their
chances to elect Stephen Burgmeier to the Iowa House. While hundreds
of volunteers flocked to the rural southeast Iowa district and
organizational and financial help flowed in from a number of
influential interest groups, Republicans came up short by 107 votes.
What Republicans hoped would have been a momentum builder, now has
many people wondering what Iowa Republicans need to do to win
elections. The loss is inexcusable. Never have Republicans had a
better environment to run a campaign, and the Iowa Democratic Party
has never been in more disarray.

Labels: elections, Iowa GOP

I will break my analysis of this special election into two posts. This
will serve as the first and by intention it is nothing but
complimentary. In the second piece, I may offer some critical
feedback... but in fairness to all involved, I don't subscribe to the
tenants of "Ready-Fire-Aim" journalism which some of my fellow
bloggers have been notorious for as of late. It truly requires more
information and careful study before one can and should speak with
helpful and meaningful criticism. Stephen Burgmeier is a class act.
It's as simple as that. He worked hard and was completely gracious
last night, making sure to work the room and offer his sincere thanks
to everyone present for all their hard work and dedication to this
campaign. This was a "symbolic" victory for the GOP/RPI.

Labels: elections, Iowa GOP

It's a nail-biter in Iowa House district 90. Democrat Curt Hanson
carried Jefferson County, which includes Fairfield. Republican Stephen
Burgmeier ran up a big margin in Van Buren County. ... Democrats will
retain a 56-44 majority in the Iowa House for the 2010 session. From
the Secretary of State's office: There were 8,046 total votes (I had
heard predictions that 6,000 to 7,000 people would vote in this race).
Hanson won 3,932 votes (48.9 percent), and Burgmeier 3,825 votes (47.5
percent). Click the link for the breakdown by county. Only four votes
separated the two candidates in Wapello County. Jefferson County was
the key for Hanson -- he led by more than 600 votes there, while
Burgmeier led by just over 500 votes in Van Buren County.

Labels: elections, state House

Democrats and Republicans were busy in Iowa House district 90 over the weekend, making calls and knocking on doors to GOTV for tomorrow's special election. Democrats had an early lead in terms of absentee ballots returned, and according to the field organizer for the Fairness Fund, efforts to collect outstanding absentee ballots continued. We won several Iowa House seats in 2008 through big leads in early voting. A strong absentee ballot showing will be crucial for Curt Hanson, because the national political environment for Democrats is less favorable now than it was last November, conservative interest groups are heavily invested in this race, and same-sex marriage has galvanized the Republican base in Iowa.

Labels: elections, state House

I've ranted recently about crossover voting crossover voting in
primaries. As anyone who reads a site like mine should know, Iowa is a
"closed" (sic) primary state, meaning you have to be registered in a
party to vote in a primary, and you vote only in one party's primary
at a time. You can't for example participate in a Republican primary
for governor and a Democratic courthouse primary. It's a soft version
of "closed," because you can change party on the spot, and a lot of
people do. Leaving aside my opinion on that law, let's look at how it
can impact a statewide race. In a sense, Vander Plaats and Rants and
Fong aren't just running against each other--they're running against
the interesting local Democratic contests.

Labels: elections

The first competitive state legislative special election in a few years is likely to happen soon in Jefferson and Van Buren counties, as four-term Rep. John Whitaker has reportedly been tapped for an Obama Administration appointment as State Director of the Iowa Farm Service Agency. If the weak tool of memory serves me correctly, this will be the first legislative special since December 2006, when Republican Rep. Mary Sue Freeman died before the general election. But that was a heavily GOP district; the last real fight was in the summer of 2003 when Paul Shomshor picked up a previously Republican seat in Council Bluffs. ... [Whitaker] settled into it well enough that the GOP didn't try in 2008 and his only opponent was from the "4th of July Party." But with the personally popular Whitaker out of the picture, this could get interesting.

Labels: elections

Those on the right and the left hate hearing about the middle. Whether
we are talking about issues or candidates, it is inevitable the
question comes up. Who really determines the outcome of elections?
Many will say the middle does and we need to run moderate candidates.
But they often leave the grassroots without a candidate. I've worked
in numerous campaigns for conservatives and everyday Republicans. I've
seen the phone banks filled with young and old but I've never seen
them filled with moderates. From my conversations with our friends on
the left, the same can be said for Democrats. But with campaigns, the
grassroots is only one piece of the puzzle.

Labels: elections

With marriage licenses being issued to gay couples all across Iowa,
political pundits and strategists have begun to discuss what the
political ramifications will be for candidates in 2010 and beyond.
Since the Iowa Supreme Court's decision on April 3rd, the issue of gay
marriage has been front and center in Iowa, and it is expected to
remain there for quite some time. While it is safe to say that gay
marriage will be an issue in next year's elections, the 18 months
between now and Election Day represents a lifetime in politics. In the
most recent presidential election, Sen. John McCain was able to win
the Republican nomination mainly because the surge in Iraq was
successful. McCain was the main advocate for the strategy, and thus
was rewarded for it.

Labels: elections

For some fascinating reading, take a look at the 2001 Report of the Temporary Redistricting Advisory Commission (TRAC) to the General Assembly. Four arguments dominated the public comments: population variance statistics should meet or exceed past redistricting standards. Iowans desire an urban-rural mix; (related to above) District 5 is too large; Corridors of economic/community interest should be preserved, with Johnson/Linn mentioned most frequently. The minority report dismissed these arguments, citing political theatre managed by citizen-ringers and their sponsors: During the public hearings, Commission members heard from perhaps a couple hundred individuals, many of whom were there at the request of one political party or another.

Labels: elections, U.S. House

Both Governor Chet Culver and Secretary of State Mike Mauro have now
come out against a bill that would award Iowa's electoral votes to the
winner of the nationwide popular vote. Their opposition in effect
kills any chance of the bill advancing. Although it has been voted out
of committee in the Iowa Senate, it may never come to a floor vote
there or a committee vote in the Iowa House. I don't know what so many
people have against one person, one vote for president, just like we
have for every other elected office. ... If the governor wants to buy
into Republican propaganda about this bill, fine. But let's not
pretend Iowa is bound to be a swing state forever.

Labels: Chet_Culver, elections, Mike_Mauro

There has been a lot of people up in arms over the proposal backed by
some Democrats to mandate that all of Iowa's electoral votes go to the
winner of the nation-wide popular vote. I heard a very interesting
discussion of this issue the other day on a certain local talk radio
program, you know the one... the one no one admits listening to, but
everyone does. Anyhoo, some of the callers argued that the Democratic
proposal really wouldn't change much. If we go with the new proposal,
Iowa's say in the presidential general election will be based on
population. It's really not that different from the old electoral
college system, with which Iowa's say was based on population because
our number of congressional representatives is based on population.

Labels: Chet_Culver, elections, Mike Gronstal

We know the vote broke on mostly partisan lines in the state Senate
government committee last week, but not it seems to be a matter of
party policy. ... I'm trying not to repeat myself too much, but this
just seems so fundamental: The person with the most votes should win.
It would be better if the Constitution actually said so. But National
Popular Vote is a nice stopgap. If big states want National Popular
Vote, it will pass without Iowa. The caucuses, not the electoral
votes, are what makes Iowa important. I think this is residual
Bush-defending. Just as a lot of Dems saw presidential term limits as
a slap at FDR's memory in 1947, perhaps Republicans see National
Popular Vote as retroactive revenge for the butterfly ballot.

Labels: elections

No, it's not my 2009 Humanitarian Bowl dream match up. Republicans are
giving Iowa Senate Democrats a lot of guff over proposed legislation
that would allow us to join a compact of states trying to
short-circuit the Electoral College. The bill would seek to hand
Iowa's 7 electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote,
regardless of whether that same candidate wins Iowa's vote. The change
wouldn't kick in until legislatures in a critical mass of states
approve it. Many Democrats like the idea, sensing that it's their
presidential nominees who are most likely to end up like Al Gore,
popular vote winners but Electoral College losers. They voted 8-7 to
send the bill out of the Senate State Government Committee Monday.

Labels: elections

Seems I spoke to soon on the National Popular Vote bill. The Reg says
Pam Jochum is introducing it in the Senate this session, though the
Legislature site doesn't have it posted yet. The Republican bloggers
are quickly opposing the idea and putting it in partisan light, though
at least now they acknowledge what happened in 2000. David Chung at
Hawkeye GOP: Gronstal is suggesting and end run around the
Constitution. Of course all of this is in response to the 2000
election where George W. Bush lost the popular vote but became
president after winning in the Electoral College. Not only does
Gronstal not respect the Constitution -- he also does not respect
Iowans. Electoral College reform was a nonstarter for eight years
because it required admitting to at least part of the injustice of
Bush taking office with fewer votes than Gore.

Labels: elections

According to the Des Moines Register, Democrats in the Iowa Senate are
proposing a change to Iowa law that would grant Iowa's electoral votes
to the winner of the national popular vote. Currently Iowa's electoral
votes go the winner of the vote in here Iowa. Democrat Senate majority
leader Gronstal said: "I think there's broad support for the concept
that a majority of the people in the country should elect a president.
... This is a mechanism to get there and it doesn't require a
constitutional amendment." Wow, the Democrats take control and they
think they can do anything. In this case, Gronstal is suggesting and
end run around the Constitution.

Labels: elections

The Iowa Christian Alliance (ICA) and its president, Steve Scheffler,
did not violate campaign laws by trying to influence an election, the
Federal Election Commission ruled Monday. Iowa resident Stacey Lynn
Cargill filed a complaint with the FEC alleging the group violated
campaign finance laws by allowing political activist Marlene Elwell to
use its office space and database in efforts to influence potential
Iowa voters to cast their ballots for presidential candidate Mitt
Romney. Because ICA is organized as a 501(C)4 nonprofit it is barred
from trying to directly influence elections. It can only advocate on
behalf of issues.

Labels: elections

With the 2010 campaigns currently stuck in neutral, I decided to make
a different type of prediction this year. While I certainly have my
eye on a few gubernatorial possibilities like Mark Pearson and Matt
Whitaker, neither have made any moves that would indicate that a
statewide campaign is looming. Currently the only candidate out there
is perennial candidate Bob Vander Plaats. The candidate who I was most
likely to name this year if I went that direction was Chuck Grassley.
Sure he's already an icon in this state, but I get the sense that we
will see a more engaged candidate Grassley this cycle which is very
much needed. Instead of predicting a breakout candidate, I've decided
to make an early guess in how Iowa's congressional districts will look
after the 2011 redistricting where Iowa will lose one of its seats in
Congress.

Labels: elections

It's an unspoken truth of Iowa politics that we're losing a seat in Congress in the 2010 census. (As a blogger, it's my job to say rude, uncomfortable, yet true things). That sets up the ultimate in hardball politics, since five members don't go into four districts. As a partisan, I want to come out of the carnage with a 3-1 Democratic split. We can do it, but it's a two-cycle process: 1) Take out Tom Latham in 2010. 2) Get Leonard Boswell to retire in 2012. ... simple population math indicates there will be two eastern Iowa districts, a Polk County dominated seat, and a Republican western district. ... Leonard Boswell represents an urban-dominated district (by Iowa standards), yet he votes like he's still in his old rural state senate district. I want better, and I think better can win. ... Last time Iowa lost a seat, in 1991, the Legislature accepted a "fair fight" district that paired Jim Nussle and Dave Nagle. ... Let's say we get a fair fight district again in 2011. Odds are the members who'll get paired are the two who are geographically closest together: Latham and Boswell.

Labels: elections, U.S. House

Despite a twenty-minute delay in Colorado so that an alternative
elector could be seated, the Electoral College convened across the
United States and declared Barack Obama the President of the United
States. The Des Moines Register reports Governor Chet Culver saying
the Electoral College system worked as it should, "If we were ever
going to change it we would have done it over the last eight years,"
said Culver. "You have to give small states an opportunity to be
relevant." All of Iowa's seven electors are Democratic activists who
were involved in the campaign early on and signed a formal document
declaring their official support for Obama. "They got involved very
early in the presidential selection process," said Culver. "Since the
Democrats won, these seven electors get to cast their votes."

Labels: elections

With all the votes counted, the Iowa Electronic Markets predicted the
final vote count in this year's presidential election to within a half
percentage point. Prices on the IEM's Vote Share Market predicted that
Barack Obama would receive 53.55 percent of the two-party presidential
popular vote, and John McCain would receive 46.45. After the ballots
were counted, Obama received 53.2 percent of the vote, and McCain
received 46.8 percent, leaving an average error per contract of only
.3 percent. The average absolute error by public opinion polls,
meanwhile, was 1.2 percent. But Tom Rietz, a finance professor at the
University of Iowa's Tippie College of Business and a founder of the
IEM, said the IEM traders saw Obama's win even before anyone knew who
the two parties' nominees would be.

Labels: elections, University of Iowa

Josh Goodman alerted me to this piece he wrote for Governing.com:
"Move Over Missouri, Iowa Is the New Bellwether State." John McCain
appears likely to take Missouri's 11 electoral votes, which would be
the first time since 1956 that the state did not vote for the winner
of the presidential election. However, Goodman argues that Missouri
has not been the best bellwether for the last few cycles. Even though
it voted for the winner each time through 2004, Missouri has steadily
trended more Republican in relation to the national popular vote.
Goodman then lists "the five states that have come closest to matching
the national popular vote in each election since 1988." ... Guess what
he found? "Iowa is the only state that has been one of the top five
bellwethers in four of the last five elections. The only year that it
doesn't make the list is 1996, when it was sixth -- and only off by
1.82 points."

Labels: elections

We've had ten days to decompress from the election. It's time for a little self-promotion and self-criticism. What did you predict accurately during the past presidential campaign, and what did you get completely wrong? The ground rules for this thread are as follows: 1. This is about your own forecasting skills. Do not post a comment solely to mock someone else's idiocy. 2. You are not allowed to boast about something you got right without owning up to at least one thing you got wrong. I'll get the ball rolling. Here are some of the more significant things I got wrong during the presidential campaign that just ended. I thought that since John Edwards had been in the spotlight for years, the Republicans would probably not be able to spring an "October surprise" on us if he were the Democratic nominee. Oops. ... Here are a few things I got right: I consistently predicted that Hillary would finish no better than third in the Iowa caucuses. For that I was sometimes ridiculed in MyDD comment threads during the summer and fall of 2007. I knew right away that choosing Sarah Palin was McCain's gift to Democrats on his own birthday, because it undercut his best argument against Obama: lack of experience.

Labels: elections

State Senator previously received funds from Agriprocessors CEO ... If
immigration issues were a political football in this year's state
legislative races, then Senate District 8, an area that encompasses
Howard, Chickasaw, Allamakee and Winneshiek counties in northeastern
Iowa and includes the Agriprocessors meatpacking plant, was the
50-yard line. It was in that race that Iowa Senate Minority Whip Mark
Zieman lost his re-election bid to Mary Jo Wilhelm, a relatively
unknown Democratic upstart. The defeat came amid whispers and campaign
mailers about the immigration concerns surrounding Agriprocessors in
Postville, Zieman's hometown.

Labels: elections, immigration

With a handful of Iowa legislative races within double digits or even
single digits, and three U.S. Senate races yet to be decided, the word
"recount" is buzzing in the air. While a recount may give a losing
candidate emotional satisfaction and a sense of closure, the vote
shifts tend to be very, very small. I don't mention my day job here
much, but I've worked in the Johnson County Auditor's Office for the
past 11 years (which explains why you didn't see as many of my stories
the last couple weeks before the election). In that time, I've had
hands-on experience with three recounts. In 1999, we re-fed all the
ballots from an Iowa City council race, nearly 8,000, and only one
vote shifted, narrowing a three vote lead down to two. In a
three-county recount in a 2002 state senate race, about three votes
moved.

Labels: elections

The chronology of the election returns had it backwards. Early election results showed incumbent state representatives Wes Whitead, Roger Wendt and Elesha Gayman losing their seats as the returns rolled in. A buzz of panic rippled through an Iowa City victory party: "Did we lose the House? Did we lose the House?" But the three incumbents had won re-election (assuming Whitead hold his six vote lead) before the polls even opened. When the absentee results were added in, their early vote totals overcame the Election Day leads of Republican challengers. It was like watching the second half of a ball game before seeing the score of the first half, making an early lead look like a come-from-behind win. "We won on election night, and we lost when they opened the mailbox," House Republican Leader Christopher Rants told the Des Moines Register. "Election Day is no longer 24 hours, it's 24 days." 40 days, to be exact, as state law allowed any Iowa to vote early beginning Sept. 25.

Labels: elections, state House

Swing State Project has become one of my favorite blogs this year.
They publish so much detailed information and analysis about the
Congressional races. People also cross-post some fascinating work
related to the presidential election. Swing State Project user Mark
wrote this piece about "Detailed County Predictions for the
Presidential Race." Click over to read his predictions for all 50
states. Here's his take on Iowa: "Iowa -- Even when narrowly losing
Iowa, Kerry still won 32 of Iowa's 99 counties." ... I take it as a
given that Obama will not lose any county where John Kerry beat George
W. Bush. Obama's ground game is light-years ahead of Kerry's, and the
GOP ground troops are not nearly as motivated to GOTV for McCain as
they were for Bush. Obama is likely to win a lot more swing counties
in central Iowa than Kerry did.

Labels: Barack_Obama, elections

Americans appear ready to sweep a lot of Democrats into office on
November 4. Not only does Barack Obama maintain a solid lead in the
popular vote and electoral vote estimates, several Senate races that
appeared safe Republican holds a few months ago are now considered
tossups. Polling is harder to come by in House races, but here too
there is scattered evidence of a coming Democratic tsunami. Having
already lost three special Congressional elections in red districts
this year, House Republicans are now scrambling to defend many
entrenched incumbents. In this diary, I hope to convince you of three
things: 1. Some Republicans who never saw it coming are going to be
out of a job in two weeks.

Labels: elections

When I look at liberal blogs I see something that most conservative
blogs lack. What is that you may ask? It is simple really. For the
most part, conservative blogs fail to support our local candidates
like Jamie Johnson, Jane Jech, and David Kerr just to name a few. We
tend to be more focused on the national scene. We tend to more
federally focused. Unfortunately that does not work in our favor. This
was one of the reasons that we launched the Iowa Defense Alliance. We
got tired of our local races getting the shaft. On a daily basis you
will see the liberal blogs promote their candidates. They disseminate
the liberal talking points for a day. I am serious, just watch them.
Their defense will be disorganized in the morning, but by that evening
they will be a coordinated machine spouting the same talking points
like a machine. It is kind of creepy when they do that.

Labels: elections, Iowa GOP

"I hear people say, 'There's socialists? There's actually socialist parties? I didn't think they existed.' We get no media access," presidential candidate Gloria LaRiva said over coffee in Iowa City. "We can hardly get through." Presidential candidate who? Look at your ballot. She's there, along with Obama and McCain and six others in Iowa -- Gloria LaRiva, nominee of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. She had the time to give this member of the media a 45 minute world exclusive interview -- something I failed to obtain from her Republican opponent the next day.

Labels: elections

In yesterday's thread on the race between Dave Loebsack and
Mariannette Miller-Meeks, secondtonone referred to the fact that a
right-wing Republican group put Miller-Meeks on their "Wall of Shame."
I assumed that this was related to bad blood from the hard-fought
Republican primary in Iowa's second Congressional district, but a
commenter claiming to be a member of that group posted the following:
"We would have included anyone from that race on the Wall of Shame.
There was no candidate that we could have supported in that race." ...
It's a good question, and not just a theoretical one for many of us
who follow politics closely. On several occasions I have not been
thrilled with any of the candidates in a Democratic primary. Many more
times I have volunteered for a primary campaign, only to have a
different candidate win the nomination.

Labels: elections, voting

Most of the electoral vote counters have swung in Barack Obama's favor
during the past week, but it still looks as if the presidential
election will be close. In fact, there are at least two plausible
scenarios for the candidates tying at 269 electoral votes each. That
would happen if Obama won all the states John Kerry won in 2004, plus
Iowa, New Mexico and Nevada, or if Obama won all the Kerry states
except for New Hampshire, plus Iowa, New Mexico and Colorado. The
Constitution stipulates that the House of Representatives picks the
president if no candidate wins 270 electoral votes, while the Senate
picks the vice president. But it's not a simple vote of the House
members; they vote by state delegation.

Labels: elections, Joe_Biden

With only eight weeks to go before the presidential election, Iowans
are going to the polls today for school board elections. It's the last
time that will happen in a presidential year. Changes in state law
take effect in 2009, and school board elections will be held every
other year in odd-numbered years, rather than every year. As part of
the transition, some districts will have short terms on the ballot.
For example, Clear Creek Amana voters will elect two members to three
year terms and one member to a one year term. In Urbandale, where two
candidates are running for two seats, the candidate with the most
votes gets a three-year term, and the other candidate will get a one
year term.

Labels: education, elections

McCain-Palin -- Coming off their excellent convention speeches and
spin that followed, McCain-Palin has secured a decent lead in the
polls over Obama-Biden. Palin obviously energized the base of the
Republican Party and independents across the nation. Hopefully they
will continue to put the screws to our opponents' ideology for the
next 8 weeks. Reed v. Harkin -- Reed still struggles to gain traction
in his race to unseat Iowa's favorite resident of the Bahamas. Reed is
a good conservative and with any luck at all, he will start to get the
media to at least look at him. He does have a debate scheduled for the
9th of October on IPTV. Maybe that will get his campaign the boost it
needs. I heard the Iowa delegation passed the hat for him at one of
their breakfast meetings last week, giving him a boost and ability to
make a little more progress in his uphill climb.

Labels: elections

With the time for filing now behind us the competing line ups for
control of the General Assembly are now set. No county has more impact
on the composition of the General Assembly that does Polk County, a
fact that the Democrats have well understood for years. The best news
for us in Polk County is our two senior Senators, Pat Ward (SD30) and
Brad Zaun (SD32) remained unopposed. Pat and Brad are in a position to
make a major contribution to the county and statewide effort. The only
Democrat Senator on the ballot, Dick Dearden (SD34) isn't. Scott
Strosahl is a very energetic young man who is bringing an athletic
approach to campaigning against a complacent incumbent.

Labels: elections

21 Iowa legislative candidates, including one open seat contender, can
start picking out their favorite desk trinkets for the January session
-- they've got no opposition at all. Democrats have a slight edge over
Republicans in filling places on the ballot in Iowa's 125 state
legislative races. Democrats have fielded 114 candidates, while
Republicans have 108. The two parties break nearly even on uncontested
races. 10 Democrats and 11 Republicans have no opposition in the fall.
The Democratic edge comes in the seven races where Democratic
incumbents will face only a third party opponent and no Republican.

Labels: elections

Changes in state law which kicked in on July 1 will make it harder to
challenge the qualifications of voters, a change which may affect the
efforts of Iowa Republicans to, as they've put it, "insure ballot
integrity." Ballot challenge programs are a relatively new feature to
Iowa politics. The number of challenged and provisional ballots have
risen dramatically since 2000, as the Democratic Party has ramped up
its absentee voter program to the point where some counties are now
seeing nearly half their ballots voted before Election Day. As one of
the closest states in the nation at the presidential level, and one of
only three states to switch sides between 2000 and 2004, efforts on
the margins can make the difference.

Labels: elections

If you're watching the primary returns next Tuesday night, you may
want to keep a calculator handy. Iowa law requires a candidate to win
35 percent of the vote to earn a nomination, but the percentages that
get reported aren't always the ones that matter. If no candidate gets
35 percent, the party has to hold a convention to choose a nominee,
and that's a realistic possibility in one Iowa congressional race. The
prospect of a convention was a hot topic in Democratic circles in
early 2006, and Ed Fallon's gubernatorial campaign made a big effort
to elect delegates at precinct caucuses and county conventions.

Labels: elections

Being inkognito has it advantages. During my extended time away from
the blog I was able to travel the state and get a better grasp of what
is on the hearts and mind of Iowa's konservative activists. I wish I
kould kome back here and tell you how fired up they were about the '08
elections but I kan't. Now that doesn't mean that we are hopeless when
it komes to 2008 in Iowa. Konsider the following: The words "great
depression" adequately described the konservative activist following
the 2006 general elections. Yet more Iowans voted in the Republican
kaucuses than ever before. And while we are having a little kaucus
talk, I must say I absolutely nailed my 2007 Breakout Kandidate of the
year. I was Huckabee when Huckabee wasn't kool!

Labels: elections, Iowa GOP

A spokesman in Congressman Tom Latham's office says the lawmaker voted
against incentives for election verification because the bill would be
a "costly redundant federal program." The Emergency Assistance for
Secure Elections Act of 2008 (HR 5036) encourages states to conduct
verifiable elections by converting to a paper ballot system, offering
emergency paper ballots, and conducting hand-counted audits. Two weeks
ago, the legislation passed the House Administration Committee with
unanimous and bipartisan support. "Congressman Latham believes it is
important to ensure the integrity and accuracy of our nation's
election process," said spokesman Fritz Chaleff.

Labels: elections, Tom Latham

The school election this September 9 may be the last one in a general
election year, if Governor Culver signs the election bill that passed
the Iowa Senate this week. House File 2620, which passed the House
March 24, would lengthen school board terms from three years to four,
and includes several other election items. The four year terms would
begin with the 2009 school election. Each school district must adopt a
transition plan by August 1 of this year. Districts vary between
electing members at large and by districts, and the dates of term
expiration must be settled. The bill faced some opposition from school
officials, who were concerned that a board majority could turn over at
one election.

Labels: Chet_Culver, elections

Although a few days remain before Iowans will know all the 2008 candidates for the state Legislature, retirements and switches already appear to have taken a toll on the number of women who will be seated in Des Moines when the next legislative session begins. Women currently occupy 34 of Iowa's 150 legislative seats -- 28 in the House of Representatives and six in the Senate. Five of those have announced retirements at the end of this term: Sen. Mary Lundby, R-Marion, District 18; Rep. Sandy Greiner, R-Keota, District 89; Rep. Polly Granzow, R-Eldora, District 44; Rep. Libby Jacobs, R-West Des Moines, District 60; Rep. Carmine Boal, R-Ankeny, District 70.

Labels: elections

Opposition to Third Parties and Electoral Reforms: The Third Party
"Threat." While the bickering regarding Wellmark's effort to buy a
University of Iowa college continues (see links below), the biggest
news this morning involves a baby step away from Iowa's reputation as
one of the most third-party-hostile states in the nation. Jason
Clayworth, "Iowa Voter Registration Forms to Include Third Party
Groups," Des Moines Register, July 19, 2007 editorial, "Letting Us
Register for Small Parties Good for Democracy," Iowa City
Press-Citizen, July 19, 2007, p. A9. The State had to be sued to
finally agree to do the decent thing, but at least the case is now
behind us. Professions of support for "democracy" to the contrary
notwithstanding, the two major parties have historically opposed
voting - even for their own candidates - especially by the poor. True
democracy has almost always been resisted by those in power. Most of
those said to be the fathers of our democratic system, those who
drafted the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, agreed with
John Jay that, "Those who own the country, should run it."

Labels: elections

Sen. Mike Gronstal and Rep. Kevin McCarthy were in Marshalltown this afternoon to speak about legislative accomplishments. ... Someone else asked about VOICE before I could get a chance to. ... Gronstal responded by saying that he is a fan of getting the influence of money out of politics, but the VOICE legislation had somethings in it that weren't the best. Gronstal talked about the study group created to look into the issue of clean elections. He then said that he will work with groups that are friendly, a clear shot at the incident at the State House with clean elections supporters. ... [McCarthy's issues with VOICE: ] First, the bill includes primaries. McCarthy said that if someone in his district is upset with one of his votes all they would have to do is get 100 people to donate $5 each and they would be eligible for tax payer money to run. Second, McCarthy said the VOICE legislation would make it illegal for House leaders to funnel money to other races. Right now the House leaders are able to raise unlimited amounts of money and then can dish that money out to candidates in targetted races.

Labels: campaign finance, elections, state House, state Senate

First there were the Soccer Moms sought by candidates for political office. Then, in 2004, there were the Security Moms and NASCAR Dads blocs to be turned into voters. Or were there? The Social Science Quarterly has published a study by two political science professors that claims the Soccer Moms and NASCAR Dads blocs don't actually exist. According to the study done by Steven Greene of North Carolina University and Laurel Elder of Hartwick College in New York, mothers are more concerned about social welfare than national security, and fathers as a group don't vote any differently than men without children. The professors said "the hype" about the two groups was wrong: "The NASCAR Dad stories implied that fathers were a conservative bunch, and that Democrats needed to move to the right side of political issues to have a shot at winning their votes. Security Mom stories implied that post-9/11, mothers had become more supportive of President Bush because of his stance on national security." Information on the SSQ study can be found at www.blackwellpublishing.com.

Labels: elections, voting

The Iowa General Assembly is debating a bill to adopt Clean Elections—public financing for candidates in legislative and statewide races. Clean Elections is a proven policy working in states like Connecticut, Maine, and Arizona where campaigns are now contests of ideas, not fundraising ability. There's less than two weeks left to pass Clean Elections before this year's session ends. Today is your chance to put this over the top. ... Can you imagine if Iowa's lawmakers owed nothing to corporate lobbyists and owed everything to voters? Iowa could join the cutting-edge of truly democratic elections. And if Iowa adopts public financing this year, the presidential candidates will have to go on record about this bold reform—putting the national spotlight on Clean Elections.

Labels: elections

The good folks at Iowans for Voting Integrity http://www.iowansforvotingintegrity.org/News.htm have been working hard behind the scenes to assure election integrity in Iowa. They are working with state legislators to introduce a bill that will bring paper ballots and verified voting to all Iowa elections. As you know, even the Republican Governor of Florida has decided to abandon touchscreen voting machines. ... Iowa should abandon touchscreens too. Your help is now needed. County Auditors may well be resistant to more changes in equipment; last year the Iowa's Auditors' association opposed even the modest bill SF 351, which would only have required that paper printers be added to the touchscreens. Action: Please consider calling or writing your County Auditor and ask her or him to support legislation that would replace touchscreens in Iowa. Be sure to note that you support legislation that would have the state fund the transition to paper ballots.

Labels: elections