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.
U.S. Rep. Leonard Boswell’s idea to amend the U.S. Constitution to restrict corporations’ and labor groups’ political spending is actually an effort to restrict free speech, a D.C.-based First Amendment advocacy group said Thursday.
The Center for Competitive Politics opposes campaign spending limits. It’s communications director, Jeff Patch, compared Boswell’s amendment to the 1919 passage of the 18th Amendment prohibiting the sale, manufacture and transportation of alcohol for consumption.
“An effort by Rep. Leonard Boswell to dismantle the First Amendment rights of political speech would be the first concerted effort to limit constitutional rights — individual or associational — since Prohibition in 1919,” Patch said in a statement to The Iowa Independent. “That speaks to the desperation of some incumbents who want to censor businesses, unions and nonprofits from speaking out against them, as media corporations have done for centuries.”
Patch also took exception to statements by state legislative leaders Thursday in response to the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning years of campaign finance law. Iowa House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, D-Des Moines, said lawmakers will do “everything in our power to prevent this corporate decision from influencing our politics.” Those statements were echoed by activist group Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, which called for lawmakers to respond to the ruling by passing campaign contribution limits. Iowa is one of only 13 states without these limits.
Patch compared these efforts to those of some Iowa conservatives, namely Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats, to overturn the Iowa Supreme Court’s decision legalizing same-sex marriage by executive order.
“Does any Iowa politician understand the separation of powers?” he said. “When the U.S. or Iowa Supreme Court rules on a constitutional issue, legislators (or governors) cannot just pass bills (or executive orders) overruling the decision, as [Senate Majority Leader Mike] Gronstal and McCarthy suggest doing.”
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