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.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Leonard Boswell, who represents Iowa’s Third Congressional District and who last week voted to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA), received $10,000 in campaign contributions from the nation’s largest telecommunications companies this year.The telecommunication industry was a huge supporter of the bill, which includes a provision that could grant telecom companies that cooperated with the government’s warrantless electronic surveillance program retroactive legal immunity. In March, the House passed an amendment that rejected retroactive immunity. But last week, 94 Democratic lawmakers, including Boswell, switched their positions and the bill which included immunity passed.
An analysis by Maplight.org, a nonprofit campaign-finance watchdog group, found that Democratic lawmakers who switched and voted in support of the bill averaged roughly twice the donations from the nation’s leading telecommunication companies as those voting against it.
The 94 Democrats who changed their position averaged $8,359 in donations from the three leading telecom companies, Verizon Communications, Sprint Nextel Corp. and AT&T Inc.
Iowa’s congressional delegation split on the bill, with Democrat Boswell joining Republicans Steve King and Tom Latham to support the bill and Democrats Dave Loebsack and Bruce Braley voting against.
According to documents filed with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC), this year Boswell received $5,000 from Verizon and $5,000 from AT&T. Braley received $1,000 in 2007 from Verizon and $2,000 from AT&T in 2007. Loebsack received no donations from PACs representing the three companies.
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