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.
GOP gubernatorial front-runner Bob Vander Plaats has officially endorsed an independent candidate running for a seat in the Iowa House.
Independent candidate Tom Shaw
Tom Shaw, a former chair of the Pocahontas County Republican Party, announced earlier this year he was leaving the party to run for the House District 8 as an independent. Conservative Democrat Dolores Mertz has represented the western Iowa district, which includes all of Pocahontas and Humboldt Counties and portions of Webster and Kossuth Counties, since 1988.
At an event in Grimes earlier this month, Vander Plaats said he is running on the Republican ticket “many times in spite of the Republican Party.”
“What I mean by that is I think Republicans have walked away from us plenty as well,” he said. “We’ve forgotten who we are.”
Vander Plaats then praised Shaw for choosing to run as an independent and announced that he would “fully endorse and support Tom’s effort.”
As of yet, no Republican has filed to run in House District 8, and Mertz has not said publicly whether she will seek re-election. Despite holding her seat for more than 20 years and running unopposed in 2006, Mertz won in 2008 by only 42 votes over Republican Stephen Richards.
If Vander Plaats wins his party’s gubernatorial nomination next June, and if a Republican steps forward to run in HD8, it could create an unusual situation where the top of the Republican ballot campaigns against a candidate at the bottom of the party’s ballot.
Shaw says he left the Republican Party because it is willing to “abandon their conservative positions concerning social issues in order to expand the party.” He no longer wishes to be associated with a party that openly supports candidates who “ignore the party platform.”
“A platform is developed through grassroots efforts starting at the county level, and therefore, is a reflection of the voices of ‘We the People,’” Shaw says on his campaign site. “Moderating positions in order to win elections is akin to ignoring the conservative values that Iowans hold dear.”
Shaw’s campaign platform includes standard social conservative principals, including opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage. It also includes defending fair issuance of conceal and carry permits for firearms; defending Iowa’s sovereignty and asserting “state’s rights”; defending Iowa’s “English Only” laws; and fighting “unwarranted state intervention” into the matters of local school districts.
Shaw’s criticisms of the Republican Party are not isolated. Earlier this month Bryan English, spokesman for the influential social conservative group the Iowa Family Policy Center, blasted Republican wolves in “conservative sheep’s clothing.” He specifically called out the party’s 2002 gubernatorial candidate, Doug Gross, who has long argued the party needs to focus on fiscal matter if it wants to expand and reclaim a majority in the state. English said people like Gross are damaging the party by alienating social conservatives.
Mertz, a member of the so-called “six pack” of conservative House Democrats, was a co-sponsor to legislation calling for an amendment to the state’s constitution banning same-sex marriage. She has also repeatedly voted against legislation supported by organized labor.
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