Tag: politics

There is a better way to change our politics and it has nothing to do with wave elections.

“The 87th General Assembly of Iowa will be remembered as one that made life more difficult for many Iowans, made their work worth less, and guaranteed their freedoms only if they agreed with those in power,” Rep. Chris Hall (D-Sioux City) posted on social media.

A number of legislators took to social media after adjournment sine die yesterday afternoon. My favorite was from State Senator Joe Bolkcom.

“The nightmare of the 2018 legislative session has adjourned!” he posted. “Time for an election!”

Democrats should set aside the idea of a blue wave breaking against the State of Iowa to remedy what ails us about our politics. In a time of atmospheric global warming a blue wave may well be hard to differentiate from the warmer atmosphere driving increased frequency and intensity of hurricanes, typhoons and other extreme weather events responsible for damaging our only home. A real tsunami damages communities and so it has been with the Republican wave election of 2016. A Democratic wave election would present the same sorts of issues.

Electoral politics is less about Republicans and Democrats than it is about building a coalition of voters representing 50 percent plus one of the electorate. According to the Iowa Secretary of State, current active voter registrations are 1,960,006. Democratic registrations are 590,035 (30 percent), Republican registrations 638,565 (33 percent), and everyone else 731,406 (37 percent). No one political party has a majority.

The better question than how to activate Democrats to win the 2018 midterm elections in a blue wave is how do we take our politics to a place where communities can work toward solutions to common problems? If Democrats (or Republicans for that matter) can do that, we will bring people together and win the midterms, setting the stage for a long period of governance. It seems clear  from the last general assembly Republicans have no interest in that. It’s up to the rest of us.

Community organizing is the better way. While the Iowa Senate and House debated the tax bill I did things with neighbors where politics didn’t come into view. We trimmed trees, planted shrubbery and repaired a retaining wall in our common areas. Others took trash bags and walked community roads inspecting the roadway and policing up trash. (Roads are going to require work this year). While attendance was light the action of doing something together was appealing and accomplished something positive. Because I’m active in politics, I knew the voter registrations of everyone there, Republicans and Democrats.  It brought us together as a community.

In every community organization with which I have been associated, people of all political strips have been involved. Whether it is recruiting someone into the organization, maintaining a budget, working on a campaign or project, political party affiliation has not been as important as the willingness to lend a hand. We need more of that in our politics.

If Democratic values will prevail during the midterm elections registered Democratic voters can’t do it alone. It is a faulty assumption to make that because we believe we are right, others will go along with us. We require a foundational relationship with others in the electorate to advance our common goals, no different from the group of retirees mending the wall in our commons, or gardeners donating produce to the local food bank.

Why don’t we do more of that? Democrats particularly, and Republicans increasingly, are driven by the intensity and excitement of political campaigns. We want to win. It’s a zero sum gain and I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of losers in a society we all share.

A community has shared problems requiring work and our politics in recent years moved to break down our willingness to work on them together. It used to be as easy as falling off a log. Today no one’s there to catch us and we’ve been the worse for it.

Let’s forget about the blue wave and work toward community with neighbors to repair what ails us as a society. Republican elected officials have abdicated that role. It’s up to the rest of us to step up.

I woke up dizzy on Tuesday and it delayed the start of my day for about six hours. By that I mean I didn’t get going until ten o’clock and had limited activity outside the house.

I feel better today, but sleep was broken around midnight by following the Iowa House debate on Senate File 359, “a bill for an act prohibiting certain actions regarding fetal body parts and providing penalties.”

Rep. Mary Mascher of Iowa City objected to the bill’s title after the final vote, saying it wasn’t the bill they debated. Nonetheless it passed with 51 votes after wheeling and dealing among Republicans and was immediately messaged to the Iowa Senate. Changes to the bill are reflected in S-5288. The play-by-play with role call votes on amendments and final passage is here.

What’s confusing to a lay person reading the day after House Journal is news coverage framed this debate as on the “fetal heart beat” bill which restricts abortion once a heart beat is detected in a fetus. There is much more to the bill than that.

Republican intent was to make the bill language just vague enough for the law to be challenged in the court system, hopefully taking the issue to the U.S. Supreme Court in an effort to overturn Roe vs. Wade. Whether that happened or will happen is foggy at best and beyond my pay grade.

My state representative is a “pro-life candidate” and voted for the bill. When we called him out on this position during the 2012 campaign our efforts did not move the needle in the final vote tally. At least it didn’t move it enough to win a majority of voters.

There is a lesson here about politics. The Republican Party of Iowa just passed the most extreme anti-abortion legislation in the country. There was no bipartisanship in the House vote. There was no middle ground. There was no moderate position here. Either a voter believes a woman has a right to choose an abortion in compliance with current law or they do not.

While I may have been dizzy yesterday I am not today. Last night’s vote, anticipated early in the session, brought clarity physical ailment can’t obscure. On this and many issues Democrats can run if they set aside hyperbole and focus on the fact this law was brought to us by Republicans. If we are able to do it we can flip the legislature and bring common sense and decency back to Iowa.

For the first time in years, the four Iowa Democratic District Conventions had a full compliment of delegates in attendance during a midterm election cycle according to party chair Troy Price.

Several dozen alternate delegates were not needed in Fairfield where the second, Congressman Dave Loebsack’s district, met. The routine business of the convention carried on without incident.

During the next re-districting process, after the 2020 U.S. Census, Iowa is likely to retain four congressional seats. We expect few changes in district maps when the non-partisan commission meets to adjust them to match population.

What you see is what you get — WYSIWYG.

Monitors throughout the convention hall played a continuous loop of gubernatorial campaign commercials. I skipped lunch so I could stay awake during the afternoon. Mostly I sat next to or chatted with friends with whom I’ve worked on previous political campaigns, catching up on family, and talking Iowa politics. My cohort among delegates is seasoned political veterans. Mostly they wanted to take care of business and exit toward home as soon as voting was finished. More than half of delegates were attending a district convention for the first time.

To say there was excitement in the room would not be accurate. Delegates seemed duty-bound to elect good people to the state central committee and to various state convention planning committees. There was not much appetite for a platform discussion by the time I left after the raffle drawing. Speeches by candidates and their surrogates were okay but not inspiring. Gubernatorial candidate Fred Hubbell squandered his opportunity to address delegates with an uneven, desultory performance after lunch. A sign of the times — Democrats have to win in 2018 or remain out of power for a long, long time. Everyone present seemed to know it and is ready for a long slog toward victory.

Dave Loebsack gave a speech in which he called for party unity after the June 5 primary. He gave a shout out to organizations that rose up in the wake of the 2016 general election — to Flip-It and Indivisible specifically. While such groups are positive, they are not enough. The next step is Democratic unity, although Loebsack didn’t say that specifically. It’s obvious. Without it Democratic chances in November are diminished.

Groups like Flip-It, Indivisible, Our Revolution and others are like a bandage on a wounded body politic. They have not stopped hemorrhaging of party loyalty in the wake of the divisive run-up to the 2016 general election. Democrats can’t win this cycle by only pointing out flaws in Republican governance. What do we stand for? We have to get together on that and the convention moved the needle among activists present.

Both Troy Price and IDP executive director Kevin Geiken argued the party had listened during the aftermath of 2016 and would not be a top down organization this cycle. The state party would stand in support of a grassroots effort to elect Democrats, they both said. The party recruited a record number of legislative candidates and in my view is doing the right things to correct our course as we move toward 2020. They deserve credit for that.

A labor leader called a caucus of delegates who belonged to a union and about 50 attended. The last time Democrats held the governor’s office and both chambers of the legislature, union issues did not advance. Notably Governor Chet Culver vetoed the fair share legislation passed by the legislature, ostensibly because the two largest public sector unions couldn’t agree on percent of dues non-union employees in government jobs should pay. Unions divided support between Cathy Glasson and Nate Boulton this cycle. To win in November, and advance a labor agenda, they can’t afford a repeat of 2006. They too seem to know it.

I car pooled to the convention and rode with a different group on the way home. We talked politics, farming, family, and more politics. I couldn’t help but think of work waiting for me at home as we drove past houses, farms and fields. Political work has become more important in a time of Republican governance. We must take care of ourselves and part of that is participating in the broader society where we can. The district convention served as a vehicle for that.

I support John Norris as nominee for governor in the June 5 Democratic primary and hope others will too.

Norris has the breadth and depth of experience needed to guide the state through recovery from the governance of Terry Branstad and Kim Reynolds. He helped clean up after Branstad as chief of staff for Governor Tom Vilsack. He can do it again.

What needs cleaning up? Norris will balance the budget without mid-year corrections and gimmicks, fix privatization of Medicaid services, review and eliminate excessive tax credits for businesses, fix a failed mental health regionalization that left children behind, support public employee unions, and improve our air and water quality.

The 2018 general election will be less about issues and more about leadership. Because of his skills, qualifications and experience, John Norris is ready to lead all Iowans on his first day in office. Check him out at http://www.norrisforthepeople.com/home.

Not only was Norris the only gubernatorial candidate to hold an event in the City of Solon this cycle, his campaign strategy is to build a base of support for the general election in communities like ours in rural Iowa. Electing John Norris governor means gaining support in counties the last Democratic gubernatorial candidate couldn’t.

I hope Democrats will consider voting for John Norris, a fifth generation Iowan who spent his life fighting for family farmers and rural Iowans, and is ready to lead our state as governor.

~ Published in the May 3, 2018 edition of the Solon Economist

I’m picking Democrats in the June 5 primary election.

My main political goal before early voting begins May 7 is to door knock my precinct until I make contact with everyone who might vote. It’s a tricky business this cycle.

Not only is there a six-way contest for the gubernatorial nomination, the secretary of state nomination is contested. Our state senate district has four primary candidates and the board of supervisors has three candidates for two positions. With one exception, former Iowa Democratic Party chair Andy McGuire, I like them all.

From the perspective of knocking a neighbor’s door, no one size fits all, and that changes my role to one of telling/reminding people there is a primary election and encouraging them to use voting as a way to ease the frustrations of living in Iowa in a time of Republican power. I believe it will go well since my canvass targets are mostly registered Democrats.

I’m making my own contact list and crafting my own message, as my picks are unlikely to be everyone’s picks. I won’t be parroting campaign slogans or policy points during my canvass. Outside of a couple of candidates providing their campaign literature, the message will be my own. It can become muddled if I’m not careful. The main interest is to foster good feelings and relationships among Democrats while hopefully nominating some of my candidates in the primary. I don’t know how it’s going to go, but this home-made canvass should be fun.

I support John Norris for governor. He has the breadth and depth of experience needed to guide the state through recovery from the disaster governance of Terry Branstad and Kim Reynolds. It’s going to take multiple election cycles to recover and Norris acknowledges this and has a plan to do it. Second, his policies are aligned closely with Democratic values. However, this election is less about policy and more about leadership. Norris is ready to lead.

There is an unspoken criticism that Norris is part of the old guard of Democratic governance. I view that as a positive. He understands Democrats need to win more than Johnson County and other urban areas to win the gubernatorial general election. He has been around long enough to know how it can be done. By any standard, he has been a political insider at the highest level, with his spouse, Jackie Norris, serving as Michelle Obama’s first White House chief of staff, and John serving in the U.S. Department of Agriculture under President Obama. Some view political insiders as “establishment” politicians, but that description is 1). untrue, and 2). if it were true, more asset than liability in 2018.

Perhaps adding to his primary campaign’s challenges, Norris is focusing attention on rural Iowans. While primary votes may be in more urban areas, Republican strength includes small towns and rural Iowa. Norris has a plan to make Democrats competitive there again. It’s a plan I believe and hope will work in the primary.

I support Deidre DeJear for secretary of state. While Jim Mowrer ran unsuccessfully for congress in both the third and fourth districts in recent election cycles, there is nothing to indicate anything has changed for him in a statewide race. DeJear would bring a fresh perspective and needed Democratic views regarding inclusion in voting.

I support Zach Wahls for state senate district 37. Wahls is working harder than any of the three other candidates for state senate. He is also doing the right kind of work, which during a primary election is making voter contact. If he works that hard to get elected, he will work for constituents in the legislature. From observing how he’s conducted his campaign, he’s leaving no Democrat behind and that’s what the district needs in their representative in the Iowa Senate.

I support Janelle Rettig and Mike Carberry for county supervisor. This pick was the hardest because many of my friends are picking Pat Heiden, with some bullet voting. I profiled all three candidates here, here and here. I know all three candidates better than many politicians and believe any two of them will serve the interests of voters. We have to choose.

There was never a question I would support Janelle Rettig. Some characterize her as argumentative. She does her own research from a distinct viewpoint and maintains an independent voice on the board. She is not afraid to argue for what she believes is the right course for the county. I respect and value those qualities in her and on the board, even when I disagree with her.

I came around to supporting Mike Carberry again. As I explained to another candidate’s campaign manager, Mike and I have a long relationship, I helped him get elected to his first term, and as a voice for environmental issues he is closely aligned with mine. I explained part of this history here. Why did I hesitate? There were multiple stories from credible sources complaining about Carberry. Most notable of these was at the county Planning and Zoning Commission’s April 9 public meeting during a discussion of the County Comprehensive Plan. While unconventional, and sometimes wrong on positions he has taken, he is not afraid to argue for what he believes it the right course for the county. The board of supervisors has been better with Carberry as a member and that is why I’m voting for him.

How does one parse these picks while door knocking Democrats without getting people mad? There is enough unbelievably bad stuff going on with Republican governance that any freckles on Democrats won’t matter one bit in the general election.