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.
Only two years ago, U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley was taking heat from the Republican congressional caucus and the Bush White House for supporting legislation that would expand a program that provides health care coverage for children across the nation. Much to his own political party’s and congressional leadership’s chagrin, Grassley not only supported the measure, but he usurped leadership and negotiated only with Republicans who he believed could actually be swayed.
In late October 2007, while members of the Republican party and White House officials worked to kill an expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), Grassley instructed Senate Finance Committee aides to distribute positive talking points directly to Republican members of the House that Grassley believed could be persuaded to support the bill. In doing so, Grassley usurped Republican leadership in the House and took his case for the bill directly to rank-and-file Republicans. To add further insult to injury, it was reported that instead of presenting the talking points to Republican leadership, Grassley instead presented them to Democratic leadership before their distribution.
“It makes no sense to negotiate with members who are trying to kill the bill,” Grassley explained on the Senate floor when describing his actions in relation to SCHIP. He went on to call Republican criticisms of the legislation “a very sad mischaracterization of the bill.”
While Grassley has not forthrightly asserted his attentions toward current health care reform is to “kill the bill,” other members of his party have not been so timid.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who is rumored to be considering a presidential run, said, “The Republicans should kill the bill. It’s a bad idea.”
U.S. Rep. Dave Camp, of Michigan and the ranking Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, said that if the “health care bill wasn’t dead before, it should be now.”
Jim DeMint, a Republican senator from South Carolina, infamously told opponents of reform on a July conference call that “if we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo — it will break him.”
Grassley, who perhaps understands Congressional chess matches better than most, hasn’t gone that far. Instead he has called for the process to be slowed and reassessed, and for the opportunity for more Republicans to have input on the bill.
“It’s not about getting a lot of Republicans. It’s about getting a lot of Democrats and Republicans,” Grassley said. “We ought to be focusing on getting 80 votes.”
Facing an election that might be the most tenuous he’s seen in years and threatened with a partisan primary, Grassley further emphasized this point by saying that he would not vote for a bill that lacks significant Republican support.
What Grassley has omitted from his numerous public comments is how he will overcome what he understood to be true years ago: It makes no sense to negotiate with members who only seek to kill the bill.
Or, as U.S. Rep. Lee Terry (R-NE) said, “If they refuse to compromise, then who’s killing the bill?”
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