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.
Iowa House Republicans plan to use a procedural move to force a vote on same-sex marriage Tuesday morning,
House Joint Resolution 6, sponsored by state Reps. Dwayne Alons, R-Hull, and Delores Mertz, D-Ottosen, would begin the process of amending the state’s constitution to declare marriage as only between one man and one woman.
Normally, the legislation would have to be approved by a committee in order to be considered on the House floor. But lawmakers will attempt to invoke House Rule 60, a procedural move that allows a majority vote on the floor of the House to pull a bill out of a committee even if the committee has not approved it.
Republicans have 44 seats in the House, meaning seven Democrats would have to join them in order to force a vote. Brad Clark, campaign director for One Iowa, told The Iowa Independent last week that Democrats could avoid the situation by simply not voting, thus denying Republicans their majority without taking a stand on the issue.
In the closing days of the 2009 legislative session, Republicans in both the House and Senate made numerous attempts to force a vote on a constitutional ban on gay marriage, including attaching it to a tax proposal and the state’s Health and Human Services budget. Democrats successfully blocked the efforts.
This would mark the first formal attempt to overturn the Iowa Supreme Court’s ruling of the 2010 legislative session. Last April, the Court legalized same-sex marriage.
Demcoratic legislative leaders have vowed that same-sex marriage would not be debated this year.
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