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.
You will not find the word “lobbying” in most of the other media reports of this story, but that’s essentially what former U.S. Rep. Jim Nussle (R-Manchester) is now doing.
The congressman-turned-failed gubernatorial candidate, who headed former President George W. Bush’s Office of Management and Budget at the end of his second term, has founded The Nussle Group, a lobbying firm. Or, if you prefer the Des Moines Register’s terminology, it’s a “policy consulting firm” that “focuses on guiding groups and individuals through the maze of the federal government.”
Nussle told Ed Tibbets of the Quad City Times that he did not plan to register as a lobbyist himself, but it sounds like at least some of his employees will likely be required to by federal law.
This sort of work is typically lucrative for former members of Congress (when they can get it), but were it not for Nussle’s high-profile OMB appointment after he lost the 2006 gubernatorial election in Iowa, he probably would not have had the star power to strike it out on his own.
Asked by Tom Beaumont of the Register about his own political future, Nussle said that he had no plans to seek elected office (though there was no Shermanesque statement). Given the political toxicity of lobbyists these days, if Nussle was planning to run for something, he probably would have moved back to Manchester by now.
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