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.
Jim Gibbons, the former wrestling coach at Iowa State University who hopes to unseat Democratic incumbent Rep. Leonard Boswell in Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District, issued a release Thursday criticizing Democratic leadership for a what he considers a light workload in 2010.
On the same day that the Republican primary field grew to three with state Sen. Brad Zaun formally entering the campaign, Gibbons said the 2010 House calendar shows only 17 days where votes are scheduled in the first two months of the year.
“At a time when Iowans are facing rising unemployment and home foreclosures, Congressman Boswell and Nancy Pelosi are wasting the first few months of next year to enrich their political war chests instead of doing the work they were sent to Washington to do,” Gibbons said.
But the liberal blog Bleeding Heartland researched Gibbons’ complaint and found the 2010 vote schedule is actually much busier than previous years.
I wondered whether 17 voting days in two months was an unusually light load for the House of Representatives, so I contacted David Waldman, who runs the outstanding Congress Matters blog. He told me that the 109th Congress, the last under GOP control, “had roll call votes on just 7 days in Jan/Feb 2006.” Waldman also noted that there were 11 days of roll call voting during the first two months of 2004, 12 days during the comparable period in 2002, 10 days in 2000, nine days in 1998, and 10 days in 1996. The Republicans controlled the House calendar during all of those years. Gibbons should step up his background research before making unfounded attacks on Boswell’s work ethic.
In addition to Gibbons and Zaun, former pilot Dave Funk is also seeking the GOP nomination.
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