Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
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.
State Rep. Chris Rants (R-Sioux City) had a promising political career ahead of him only a few years ago, when he was Speaker of the Republican-controlled Iowa House and then Minority Leader after Democrats took the reigns.
Even his harshest critics admitted he was a talented parliamentarian and a savvy political strategist. He has even been mentioned recently as a possible Republican gubernatorial candidate in 2010.
But today, Rants’s odds of ever getting elected statewide may have worsened dramatically, as he cast one of only three votes against a bill to alter Iowa’s restrictions on sex offenders once they are released from prison.
The law enforcement community, 49 state senators, and 93 state representatives all agreed that the status quo was unworkable and that the bill, Senate File 340, would strengthen the government’s ability to protect children from predators. Rants disagreed, pledging to vote “no” on the bill unless an amendment sponsored by current House Minority Leader Kraig Paulsen (R-Hiawatha) was attached.
When Paulsen’s amendment failed, even Paulsen voted for the bill. But Rants voted “no” along with State Reps. Dawn Pettengill (R-Mt. Auburn) and Doug Struyk (R-Council Bluffs), two names that will probably never be mentioned in the same sentence as the phrase “for governor.”
Should Rants run for governor, he should expect to be hit by mailings like this one. (He might even get hit in his reelection bid as a state legislator if he decides not to run statewide.)
It would be premature to conclude that Rants could not survive the attacks, but his vote today could make his life more difficult than it needed to be. In a crowded field of candidates seeking the GOP nomination for governor, it could certainly make a difference.
(Earlier: Sex offender politics requires strength in numbers)
Update: Rants wrote a long post to explain his “no” vote on his blog.
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