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.
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The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley has no aprehension going into a full day of town hall forums scheduled for Wednesday, despite reports of rowdy crowds at forums across the country.
Grassley will be in Winterset, Afton, Panora and Adel Wednesday to meet with his constituents. The August recess has been marked by protesters repeatedly disrupting town hall events in the hopes of killing proposed health care reform legislation. Critics of the protests describe them as “astroturf, ” or fake grassroots efforts, motivated by the insurance industry and its lobbyists.
Iowa’s senior senator has been taking heat for his work on the health care bill, with many Republicans saying it could cause him to face a primary in 2010. At least two organizations are calling on reform opponents to attend Grassley’s town halls and demand that he abandon his efforts to craft a bipartisan bill.
Conservative non-profit American Future Fund, based in Des Moines, is asking its members to call out Grassley at the town halls for “looking at the health care debate with visions of polls and politics in his head, not with the patients in mind.” As evidence, the group’s spokesman, Tim Albrecht, points to a recent quote from Grassley saying Republicans will get punished by voters if something isn’t done to reform health care.
Another group, The Des Moines Tea Party, is looking directly at Grassley’s event in Adel, his closest to Des Moines, and asking members to attend. The Tea Party movement has long been criticized as a faux grassroots uprising sponsored by conservative organizations like former Republican U.S. House Majority Leader Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks.
Grassley said the calls for him to abandon the process of crafting a bipartisan bill are silly.
“I think they need to appreciate the fact that my being at the table is going to make sure that we don’t end up with more of a government-run health care system,” he said.
Without Republicans getting involved in the process, any reform legislation could be damaging to the health care system, he said.
“My view is that America’s health care system has real problems that need to be fixed, but Congress could make things a whole lot worse rather than better if we don’t handle it responsibly,” he said. “I’ve been working this year to make sure that government-run takeover of health care doesn’t become law.”
He has held more than 2,800 town hall forums during his time in office, Grassley said, so he has no apprehension meeting with voters Wednesday.
“I’ve found town meetings, whether people agree or disagree with me, are very, very important instruments of representative government,” he said.
In addition to conservative opponents of health care reform, Democratic-leaning organizations are also encouraging supporters to attend Grassley’s events.
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