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.
Top Republicans in the Iowa House and Senate told The Des Moines Register today that stoping union-backed legislative proposals will be a priority in the upcoming session, with shutting down the legislature entirely as one viable option.
Prevailing wage, expanded collective bargaining rights and Fair Share are issues loved as much by labor unions as they are loathed by groups like the Iowa Chamber Alliance. Now, they have become battle lines for Republicans in the legislature who are facing huge Democratic majorities.
Some Republican lawmakers said they intend to block union proposals by whatever methods possible, even if that means using tactics that paralyze one chamber of the Statehouse, and then the other, for days at a time.
House Minority Leader Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, said his party would do everything it could to stop bills that would undermine Iowa’s economy like Fair Share, which would charge nonunion workers “reasonable” fees to help cover costs of union representation.
Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, said that kind of talk is overblown.
The non-right-to-work states of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois have family incomes that are higher than Iowa’s, Gronstal said. In Nebraska and South Dakota, which have right-to-work protections, family incomes are lower than Iowa’s, he said.
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