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.
It may come as no surprise to those familiar with U.S. Rep. Steve King’s voting record that the Western Iowa congressman voted against a reuathorization of funding for a program to combat AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria abroad, but U.S. Rep. Tom Latham and Sen. Chuck Grassley made votes against AIDS funding this week, as well — albeit in a less public way.
Although Latham and Grassley both voted for final bills once they were put up for a vote, Latham opposed bringing the bill to the floor for consideration, and Grassley voted to strip funding from the bill before the Senate voted on it.
It is not uncommon to try to kill a bill that you know you will have to vote for if it actually comes up, because typically voters only pay attention to final votes and not the procedural mumbo-jumbo that comes first. The final bills passed by fairly large, bipartisan majorities. Only 8 Republicans in the House voted to consider the bill, but once the bill was put up for a vote, 75 Republicans jumped on board. In the Senate, 30 Republicans and 1 Democrat voted to strip funding from the bill, but after that group failed, only 16 Republicans (and 0 Democrats) voted against the final bill.
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