Tag: politics

You don’t need to be a political insider to understand Dave Loebsack’s days in the U.S. House of Representatives are getting numbered.

Loebsack seems likely to dispatch with power his second time opponent, Chris Peters from Coralville, this year. He could continue to run for Congress for several more terms. I think he should continue to run and would be willing to chip in to buy a wheelchair to get him to the floor to vote should he become infirm as he ages. It’s not about me.

What about when Dave decides to put away his running shoes? He reaches the Social Security Administration’s “full retirement age” later this year.

Will he start a third career? Will he run for the U.S. Senate? Will he continue to serve in the U.S. House? Will he kick back with his retirement packages from Cornell College and the House and take it easy? Any of those is possible and only Dave knows. I don’t care to speculate about his plans.

The risk Second District voters face when Dave moves on is an open seat becomes more vulnerable to a Republican takeover. Dave created a trove of institutional political knowledge about the district since first being elected in 2006. Presumably he will be willing and able to help a potential successor learn what he’s learned. As we saw in 2014, Tom Harkin’s departure from the U.S. Senate did not go well for Democrats. Harkin knew the political landscape of the state as well as anyone and that didn’t help Democrats win his seat.

Loebsack’s first election to the House was a reaction to the incumbency of Jim Leach, and a repudiation of President George W. Bush. When Bush was reelected in 2004, Democratic voters were activated for change. Leach, partly through his participation as House Banking Committee chair during the Whitewater investigation of the Clintons, caught shrapnel from the wave election that was 2006. Those of us making political telephone calls at the time heard voters ready for a change. There were enough of them to tip the scales to a Loebsack win. Those dynamics don’t exist today.

Loebsack has been able to survive the Republican resurgence during the last four cycles. That doesn’t mean a potential successor will get elected. Voters don’t change that much but political dynamics get reset in an open race. I expect the first election once Dave announces retirement will be a barn burner.

Who could replace Dave Loebsack? A few names have been suggested, but it’s been scuttlebutt, gossip and wishful thinking thus far. It makes sense for a potential candidate to have deep grassroots political experience as Loebsack did, or significant service in the Iowa legislature. However, the electorate seems to be moving out of the age of reason into darker territory. Presently, that’s not a question on the minds of many Democrats I know. We just feel Dave will always be available, regardless of reality, reason and logic.

Loebsack reaches full retirement age on Dec. 23. He may not be ready to retire from the House, and many Democrats, including the author, would like to see him seek another term in 2020. However, the day is coming and preparation to find a successor should begin if it hasn’t already. What is that process? I don’t know. If it’s an open race, anyone could run, and several probably will.

For now, the work is to reelect Dave Loebsack in 2018 and give him some help in the other Iowa Congressional Districts. That’s what many of us will be doing over the next three months with an eye toward the future.

~ First posted at Blog for Iowa

It’s no secret Rep. Bobby Kaufmann follows the Republican Party line on most major votes.

He voted like an automaton for one egregious bill after another during the 87th Iowa General Assembly. Once Republicans held majorities in the Iowa House and Senate, in addition to the Governor’s office, they had their way with legislative output. Kaufmann was right there in the gang. He is and has been a partisan Republican since being first elected.

In 2013, as soon as Kaufmann joined the legislature, he co-sponsored HJR 1, a bill to amend the Iowa Constitution to incorporate existing right to work law.

Right to work is part of who we are as Iowans. Even Governor Chet Culver couldn’t reverse right to work when he had Democratic majorities in both chambers of the legislature. We don’t need a constitutional amendment for right to work to exist in Iowa. Kaufmann and the gang went one further in the bill, prohibiting collection of union dues or deduction of union dues from a person’s pay as a prerequisite for employment. HJR 1 didn’t pass. It continued a divide between Iowa Democrats and Republicans, one that prevents bipartisanship and continues today.

Over the years, Kaufmann has seen few Republican bills he didn’t like. He voted with Republicans on radical Chapter 20 revisions regarding collective bargaining, for the embryonic heartbeat bill, and more.

This year he’s running for a fourth term. Kaufmann downplays his extremism in newspaper articles and community forums by omitting his conformance with the Republican playbook.

Last winter Kaufmann held a town hall-style meeting in Solon, Iowa. His mislead by omission approach became evident.

At the meeting he was surprisingly focused on the House, not Republicans in general. For example, a Republican asked a question about Senate passage of the embryonic heartbeat bill. It was news to Kaufmann. His take was the heartbeat bill was unlikely to get 50 votes in the House because Republican members believe when it is struck down by the courts it will be done in a way that makes it difficult to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which was their endgame. As we now know, through the sausage-making process of legislating, House Republicans were able to get 51 votes including Kaufmann’s.

Kaufmann meets with city councils, boards of supervisors, and a host of community organizations each year, such talks enabled by incumbency. He appears on the fund raising circuit with the two Republican U.S. Senators. No doubt he learned these tricks from his father, Jeff Kaufmann, the 45th president’s most devout Iowa believer.

Faced with increased Democratic activism, Kaufmann is shoring up support in precincts that went for Trump in 2016. For example, Big Grove Precinct went for Trump by four points (46 votes). A significant issue there is the ban on Lake Macbride of boat motors over 10 horse power during the summer boating season. During the 2018 session Kaufmann was able to kill the perennial bill to lift the ban. In late June, the Lake Macbride Conservancy announced Rep. Kaufmann will be touring the lake with members. It’s partly for information and experience, but also to develop relationships with key influencers in the group.

As the campaign continues through summer it is important to remind friends and neighbors Bobby Kaufmann is a Republican. Period.

~ First published in the Summer 2018 edition of The Prairie Progressive

People are excited by the prospect of flipping the Iowa House and governorship in November. I share the excitement, and note such voters are engaged in politics more than most who will show up at the polls.

I’ll be convinced a blue wave is coming when I hear people other than candidates, those hired to work in politics, or activists tell me about it. Right now it seems a big blue bubble, especially when I talk to people I’ve known for years.

Time will tell and many of us will be working it because, as Fred Hubbell suggested, “blue waves must be created.” Democrats are not there yet.

Ocean waves look pretty green to me.

“The ocean looks blue because red, orange and yellow (long wavelength light) are absorbed more strongly by water than is blue (short wavelength light),” according to Scientific American. “So when white light from the sun enters the ocean, it is mostly the blue that gets returned. Same reason the sky is blue.”

Are we Democrats seeing blue because of what we can’t see?

Media outlets glom onto the obvious. A replacement to fill Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy’s U.S. Supreme Court seat when he retires; activities of “the resistance;” the perennial non-debate over immigration reform; active discussion about overturning Roe v. Wade; and yes, new developments about Hillary Clinton’s emails.

What’s going on in the ocean of voters?

Democrats are choosing more female candidates for the U.S. Congress and down ticket.

“In many respects, the Democratic tilt toward female candidates is the logical culmination of the political dynamics since Trump’s election,” Ronald Brownstein wrote at CNN. “Coming after he bragged about sexually assaulting women in the 2005 ‘Access Hollywood’ tape, Trump’s election provoked its greatest backlash among Democratic-leaning women. That intensity was immediately apparent in the unprecedented women-led protest marches the weekend of Trump’s inauguration. The emergence of the #metoo movement and the proliferation of sexual harassment allegations against powerful men in other arenas has only added fuel to that fire.”

Democrats, men and women, are fired up about this. Will it win over non-college educated white women who favored Trump in 2016? Probably not. Will it fire up the Democratic base? It already has. The base is far from enough to win in November.

This talk has a secondary impact on voters. More influential are statements like the one made at a recent gathering of men in our neighborhood.

Regardless of the ocean of pixels spilled about a Democratic blue wave, the election will reduce itself to small gatherings of voters doing work that must be done in the community. The community water main was leaking in that hole in the ground. We had gathered, not to talk politics, but to fix the leak. So it is with many non-politically active voters, men and women.

The grunt work of winning elections is not fun. Knocking on doors, making phone calls, and networking with friends, family and neighbors to promote candidates, are part of activating voters. Cecile Richards was in Des Moines last week and captured the challenge of midterm elections.

“Millions of women who even voted in the presidential election won’t go vote this November,” Richards said. “Thousands of them here in Iowa will stay home. Thousands would be enough to determine the governor’s race or a congressional seat or taking back state house and state senate seats. But we can change that… the single most important reason people said they didn’t go out to vote is that no one asked them.”

The campaigns for which I work plan to ask men and women to make a plan to vote.

The notion of a Democratic blue wave can be a place holder for people to do nothing to influence an election outcome, even in the time of Trump. Rather than get involved in politics, people hear there’s a blue wave coming and kick back into already challenging lives, intending to ride the wave.

There is no blue wave. There will only be one if we make it between now and election day.

~ First posted at Blog for Iowa

A lot of pixels have been spilled over the primary election win of Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on June 26.

Regardless of the methods of her election or her platform — or the buzz around beating 10-term incumbent Joe Crowley in New York’s 14th Congressional District — if she wins in November she will be one of 435 members of the House of Representatives.

To get anything done, she will need help from other legislators as she attempts to carry the momentum from her district to the Congress. What help can she expect?

Establishment Democrats

“Establishment Democrats” is shorthand that rose to common usage during the 2016 primary season to serve as the whipping boy for all that was perceived to be wrong with the Democratic Party. Think of Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz or maybe John Podesta. To the extent members of congress have been categorized as part of the establishment, I believe Ocasio-Cortez will find more common ground with them than not. In any case, she could take a lesson from establishment pol in chief Hillary Clinton when it comes to legislating. Become less a personality in the Congress and more someone willing to work hard to find common ground on issues that matter as Hillary did when she was elected to the U.S. Senate from New York. If she does this, such establishment Democrats as there are will reciprocate.

Hispanic Caucus

The Hispanic caucus has been welcoming despite being more conservative than Ocasio-Cortez. One of her signature policies is abolishing ICE and she outlined a process within the caucus to legislate it.

“What we can do is — I’m unafraid to champion a really bold and strong stance in the sand, and what that does is give us an anchor, a negotiating point,” she said. “I think the abolishment of ICE makes a lot of sense, and I’m willing to have those conversations and figure out how we get that done as a caucus.”

Abolishing ICE is a lightning rod that could diminish Ocasio-Cortez’ influence. I predict regardless of the outcome of abolishing ICE, media (and not just FOX News) will paint her as either a hero or the goat soon after the 116th Congress convenes based on this sole issue. A competent legislator will find there are a lot of ways to shave ice. The Congress has been unwilling to address immigration and naturalization since the Reagan administration. If the time has come, I believe Ocasio-Cortez and the Hispanic caucus will be part of it, bringing new energy and ideas to the stale debate.

Democratic Leader

More than anyone in the U.S. House of Representatives, Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi knows how to count votes. While Ocasio-Cortez indicated she may vote for someone else as speaker/leader if elected, unseating Pelosi seems unlikely in the 116th Congress. That means Ocasio-Cortez will have to develop a relationship with her to get anything done. She would be foolish not to.

For Iowa Democrats who worked on many campaigns, it was great to see someone use the skills and techniques in the progressive activists kit bag to win big against an entrenched incumbent. Winning in November looks like a cake walk in Ocasio-Cortez’ heavily Democratic district. Assuming she wins, her real work will begin in the 116th Congress. She will find plenty of Democratic help among liberals, centrists, conservatives and everyone in between.

Adrian Carrasquillo wrote about Ocasio-Cortez’ potential relationship with the Hispanic Caucus at The Intercept here.

~ First posted on Blog for Iowa