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A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
Conservatives in Iowa would be “incensed” if they were paying more attention to how far to the left U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley has drifted, a leading voice in the state’s social conservative movement told Radio Iowa’s O.Kay Henderson.
Bill Salier, who ran unsuccessfully for the right to challenge U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin in 2002 and later chaired Tom Tancredo’s Iowa Caucus campaign, told Henderson that Grassley “isn’t even close to the same conservative” he was when he was first elected. When asked if Grassley would face a primary, Salier said that while that’s unlikely it isn’t a completely ridiculous notion.
Do you think he’ll face a primary?
“There is a certain amount of angst for folks when they look at running against somebody who is an icon in Iowa, having been there so long and, you know, he wins by tremendous percentages in the general,” Salier replied. “But if anybody was ever vulnerable to a primary who is an icon, itwould be Chuck Grassley now…People become more and more and more incensed the more they start to pay attention to how far he has drifted.”
Salier said Grassley’s tepid response to the recent Supreme Court ruling overturning Iowa’s ban on same-sex marriage could be the tipping point for social conservatives.
In an interview with the Des Moines Register, Grassley declined to comment on whether he believes the Legislature should pass a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
“You better ask me in a month, after I’ve had a chance to think,” Grassley, the state’s senior Republican official, said after a health care forum in Mason City.
The anger at Grassley has slipped onto the conservative blog TheIowaRepublican.com, which is run by former Republican Party of Iowa Political Director Craig Robinson. In a post Friday, former state House candidate and conservative radio personality Jamie Johnson pointed to an incident last year to show anger brewing at Grassley.
Last fall, after voting for President Bush’s $850 billion bank bailout, Grassley received an icy reception at the Iowa Republican Convention. It was especially noticeable because he spoke after U.S. Reps. Tom Latham and Steve King, both of whom had voted against the bailout, and both of whom received standing ovations.
“It was apparent to everyone,” said a middle aged delegate from Linn County. “Chuck’s not used to that. He’s usually the star, but I’m afraid his star is fading.”
While the scene Johnson depicts may have taken place, some of his facts are confusing. If he is referring to the Republican Party of Iowa’s convention, it was held July 12, nearly three months before the bailout vote.
Grassley is up for re-election in 2010. A recent Des Moines Register poll shows him with a still healthy 66 percent approval rating, down from 75 percent in January.
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