In a unanimous vote Wednesday, the Iowa House passed a one-year transportation department budget, joining with Democrats in the Senate that passed the bill earlier in the day. It now heads to Gov. Terry Branstad, who has repeatedly said he will veto any budget that doesn’t span two years.

The original version of the roughly $350 million budget bill included a second year, but Democrats stripped it out of the bill when it arrived to the Senate.

At a fundraiser over the weekend, Branstad said of the idea of a one-year budget, “I’ll veto it and I’ll veto it and I’ll veto it until we get a two-year budget.” At his weekly press conference Monday, he toned down his rhetoric but still maintained his position that he would only sign a two-year budget.

State Sen. Robert Dvorsky (D-Coralville) told The Des Moines Register that Iowa hasn’t passed a two-year budget since 1983, and the Senate wouldn’t do so this year.

Senate Democrats vowed Monday to pass a one-year budget, despite a promise from Gov. Terry Branstad to veto it if they do.

“I’ve said it very loud and clear that I intend to enforce a biennial budget, a budget where we spend less than we take in each year with a five-year projection in terms of revenue and keeping the expenses below that so what we have is sustainable for the long term,” Branstad told reporters Monday.

The statement comes after an appearance at a Republican Party of Iowa fundraiser over the weekend where Branstad declared in regard to a one-year budget: “I’ll veto it and I’ll veto it and I’ll veto it until we get a two-year budget.”

State Sen. Robert Dvorsky (D-Coralville) told The Des Moines Register that Iowa hasn’t passed a two-year budget since 1983, and the Senate wouldn’t do so this year.

Research on various state budgeting practices shows there are no clear benefits to designing a two-year budget over a one-year budget. In fact, a biennial budget would require officials to predict state revenues and expenditures as far as 30 months in the future, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. If the economy turns sour again, for instance, the state would find itself with fewer tax dollars than anticipated, making a biennial budget obsolete.

Cedar Rapids Gazette columnist Todd Dorman points out that predicting the state’s future revenue is hard enough to do months in advance, “let alone years.” Ultimately, he says, the move puts much more power in the hands of the governor, who has broad transfer authority and “can move money around in the budget while the legislature sits on the sidelines.”

“Even if Branstad says he won’t overuse transfer authority, the authority remains, and his promise won’t stop future executives,” Dorman said. “Handing the governor a two-year budget would also leave the Legislature in a much weaker bargaining position on other issues.”

Science is still unclear how much humans contribute to global climate change, but the consensus seems to be “it’s a modest amount,” former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty said Friday in an interview with WHO-AM’s Jan Mickelson.

“I think climate change occurs, but the bulk of it is natural, historic trends in the climate,” Pawlenty said. “There is some suggestion that humans have caused some of it, but the answer is not a government, top-down scheme.”

Pawlenty was responding to a question about his previous support of cap-and-trade legislation, including participating in a radio advertisement in 2007 with then-Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano urging Congress to tackle climate change.

Also in 2007, Pawlenty signed legislation in Minnesota that required the state to reduce its emissions 15 percent by 2015 and 80 percent in 2050. The bill also endorsed the Minnesota Climate Change Advisory Group, a panel charged with drafting a comprehensive greenhouse gas emission reduction plan to meet those goals.

The Pulitzer Prize winning website Politifact found Pawlenty to have completely flipped his long-held position on cap and trade in recent years, going from an adamant supporter to full-throated critic.

All the big-name potential presidential candidates have embraced climate change at one point or another, Pawlenty said Friday, but supporting cap-and-trade was a mistake.

Instead of a “a ham-fisted, unhelpful” approach to breaking the country’s addiction to foreign oil, Pawlenty said it is time to “Americanize our energy sources.”

“I’m tired of having our energy future tied to places and people and leaders who don’t share our values and don’t like the United States,” he said.

As president, Pawlenty said he would push for development of all forms of energy, including coal, natural gas, nuclear, and renewables.  Several times during the interview he singled out natural gas as one of America’s best options, saying it “burns cleaner than coal and is less controversial than nuclear.”

Pawlenty’s assertions that humans play only a minor role in climate change came the same week that noted climate-change skeptics at The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project went before Congress to report that while they had set out to challenge the scientific consensus on global warming, they had in fact ended up with results “very similar to that reported by the prior groups.”

The global scientific community is overwhelmingly unified in the belief that the climate is warming as a result of human actions, among them the release of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.

IowaPolitics.com, a subscriber-based service for political news in the Hawkeye State, has been acquired by the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, a conservative nonprofit based in North Dakota and Virginia.

“We are honored to be working with the terrific staff at IowaPolitics. Their dedication to uncovering the truth and keeping their elected officials accountable has made them a truly remarkable news organization,” said Jason Stverak, president of the Franklin Center and former executive director of the North Dakota Republican Party.

The Franklin Center maintains news operations in more than 40 states, including the Watchdog.org network of local political news sites that Laura McGann of The Washington Monthly called “the clearest illustration of the promise and peril of the new breed of conservative muckraking.” However, the organization maintains all of its sites hold reporters to the highest journalistic standards as laid out by the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists.

“IowaPolitics.com is in good hands. I’m confident from what I’ve seen at the Franklin Center’s Wisconsin operation that IowaPolitics.com will provide robust, independent coverage of news events,” said Jeff Mayers, president of WisPolitics Publishing, the company that sold IowaPolitics to the Franklin Center.

The Franklin Center says IowaPolitics will “continue to provide regular coverage of the Iowa legislative, judicial, and executive branches of government, including agencies and other governmental entities, from the state capital of Des Moines.” In an interview with the Washington Examiner last year, Stverak said his organization and its affiliate news sites can’t be dismissed as “right-wing media.”

“With any news organization, you have to judge them on the news content,” he said. “Any organization that puts out content, that’s how the organization should be judged. We only have one bias here and that’s for a more open government. We don’t care if there’s a Republican or a Democrat in office. We care about the people.”

Three new members of the Iowa Supreme Court joined with the four remaining justices Thursday to re-elect Mark Cady as chief justice.

Cady is the most senior member of the court, having served as a judge for 28 years, and was appointed by Gov. Terry Branstad to the Iowa Supreme Court 13 years ago. He began serving as chief justice in January following the ouster of three of his former colleagues — including former Chief Justice Marsha Ternus — by voters in November.

“I am honored by my colleagues’ confidence in me,” Cady said in a statement. “I pledge to do everything in my power to ensure that Iowans continue to have a high-caliber court system that provides fair and impartial justice, according to law, and equally to all.”

Cady wrote the landmark decision in Varnum v. Brien, which concluded that the state’s defense of marriage act violated the equal protection clause of the constitution. The unanimous ruling legalized same-sex marriage in Iowa. Cady defended the decision during the annual State of the Judiciary address to legislators earlier this year, saying the court was obligated to serve the law, “not the electorate’s reaction to a particular decision. By serving the rule of law, courts protect the civil, political, economic and social rights of all citizens.”

In addition to judicial duties, the chief justice sets the court’s oral argument schedule, assigns cases and administrative duties to each justice, delivers the State of the Judiciary address to the legislature each January and presides over the judicial council.

Following his re-election as chief justice, Cady said the state must increase the public’s access to justice.

“To increase access to justice we must rebuild the judicial branch workforce so we have enough judges and staff to meet the public’s demand for court services throughout the state,” he said. “To ensure that Iowa continues to have a fair and impartial court system, we must preserve Iowa’s merit system for selecting judges. Merit selection is the best way to provide citizens with a fair and highly competent judiciary. Merit selection has served Iowans well for nearly 50 years.”

The Legislative Services Agency released the first proposal for new congressional and legislative districts Thursday morning, and Republican U.S. Reps. Tom Latham and Steve King are both in the new fourth district. Democratic U.S. Reps. Bruce Braley and Dave Loebsack are now both in the new first district, leaving only Democrat Leonard Boswell in the third district, which now stretches to Iowa’s western border.

Loebsack currently lives in Linn County, which was placed in Braley’s first district on this map. It has long been assumed if this were to happen that Loebsack would simply move to Johnson County to avoid facing off with another incumbent Democrat. After the districts were redrawn in 2001, Boswell moved to Des Moines to represent the district Greg Ganske left behind when he ran for Senate. That same year, Latham moved to Ames to avoid being placed in King’s fifth district.

If the LSA’s first plan is rejected by the legislature, the second plan must be delivered within 35 days. The legislature cannot consider the second plan until at least seven days after its delivery, which could lengthen the legislative session or even push lawmakers to hold a special session later this year.

If that plan is rejected, a third will be offered. If the legislature then rejects that proposal, lawmakers will then get to tinker directly with the districts. But if they fail to pass any redistricting map by Sept. 1, the Iowa Supreme Court will be given responsibility for establishing a plan.

The likelihood that this particular map will survive is small, as most observers predict it will ultimately be rejected. However, lawmakers did approve the first plan back in 1991. In 2001, the LSA’s second plan was enacted.

Iowa Proposed Redistricting Plan 1 Report

Iowa Congressional Districts, Plan 1 (Proposed)

Iowa Senate Districts, Plan One (Proposed

Iowa House Districts, Plan One (Proposed)

Legislation that could could pave the way for construction of a new nuclear power plant in Iowa will go before the state Senate Commerce Committee on Thursday, just two days after a consumer research group called the idea “not worth the risk.”

The bill – Senate File 390 — would allow MidAmerican Energy Co. and its partners to recover costs associated with obtaining permits and licenses and to construct a proposed 540 megawatt nuclear power plant in an as-of-yet unspecified site. MidAmerican Energy officials have said customers would see their electric bills rise 10 percent over a decade to pay for the plant.

At a subcommittee hearing on the bill last week, MidAmerican CEO Bill Fehrman tried to soothe concerns about nuclear energy following the crisis that continues to unfold in Japan. And Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds voiced her support for expanding nuclear energy in Iowa, telling reporters earlier this month, “You need to do it in a systematic, thoughtful manner, but it’s a form of alternative energy that we need to look at to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.”

But a report released Tuesday by the Iowa Public Interest Research Group concluded that a history of safety problems at nuclear reactors in the U.S. illustrate that nuclear power carries with it risks that are simply not worth taking.

“Nuclear power is simply too risky – both financially and to our health”, said Sonia Ashe, an advocate with Iowa PIRG. “Even the best new technology, like the small nuclear plants under consideration by MidAmerican Energy, can’t control everything Mother Nature throws our way.”

Since 1979, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has rated 17 instances at domestic nuclear power plants as a “significant precursor” of core damage, meaning a dramatic increase in the risk of a serious accident.

Iowa PIRG is calling on legislators in the House and Senate to dismiss a proposal that would incentivize investment in nuclear power by passing the costs and the safety risks onto consumers. They are also encouraging the Obama administration to put a freeze on the construction of new nuclear reactors and to suspend re-licensing of the oldest plants in the country until all safety concerns have been addressed.

Nine Democratic state Senators have signed an open letter asking their colleagues to shelve the proposal, pointing to cost concerns and safety issues.

The Senate Commerce Committee will consider the bill Thursday at 10 a.m. in Room 22 of the Iowa Capitol.

Christians should remain skeptical of Gov. Terry Branstad because of his association with veteran political strategist Doug Gross, former radio personality Steve Deace said on his daily video blog Tuesday.

Doug Gross

Gross, who served as Branstad’s chief of staff in the 1990s and was the Republican candidate for governor in 2002, has became a polarizing figure in Iowa GOP politics in recent years. Following the 2008 election, which saw Republicans continue to lose power in statehouse politics, Gross embarked on a media tour to give his prescription to fix the party. Gross called on the GOP to be more inclusive and focus less on social issues that are turning off a younger generation of voters.

Some worried if the close association with Gross could hurt Branstad during the 2010 GOP primary, when he was facing off with the darling of evangelical conservatives, Bob Vander Plaats. Despite having no formal role in the campaign or in Branstad’s current administration, Gross is widely believed to still hold considerable influence in Terrace Hill.

Gross has also repeatedly warned that the dominance of social and evangelical conservatives in the Iowa Caucuses could cause some Republican presidential hopefuls to skip the state. In an interview with The New York Times, Gross sharpened his argument.

From the Times:

“We look like Camp Christian out here,” said Doug Gross, a Republican activist and former nominee for governor. “If Iowa becomes some extraneous right-wing outpost, you have to question whether it is going to be a good place to vet your presidential candidates.”

It was this interview that caused Deace to once again speak out against Gross, saying that if liberals had said this, Christians would be outraged. But when it comes from a Republican insider, Deace noted, no one says a word.

“I really don’t care what Chris Mathews or Rachel Maddow or Bill Maher think of what I believe,” Deace said. “But I certainly care what those who claim to be with me on the issues and try to rally me to vote for their candidates, what they think about what I believe.”

And because of Gross’ influence on Branstad, the five-term Republican governor must be held accountable.

“Anybody who puts a guy like Doug Gross on his team or in his inner circle shouldn’t be trusted. Period,” Deace said. “Do you perpetuate the ambitions, careers and beliefs of people you don’t agree with? Well you would if you were bipolar. Normal people, however, don’t.

“As the great Will Rogers said, ‘You can tell a lot about a man by the friends he has and the company he keeps.’ And when someone keeps the company of Doug Gross in their inner circle, and they yearn to have him be supportive and influential, then those of you who take the Bible very seriously probably shouldn’t take that candidate very seriously any longer.”

Deace, who hosted the drive-time show on Iowa’s largest radio station until stepping down from the position in February, has long been a critic of both Gross and Branstad, endorsing and publicly advocating for Vander Plaats in the run up to the 2010 gubernatorial primary.

Legislation that would cap interest rates on payday loans at 36 percent is unlikely to become law in Iowa this legislative session. But a coalition of groups advocating for the bill hope Senate Democrats, who have a majority in their chamber, will pass the bill before the next funnel deadline in order to keep it alive for next year.

Friday’s deadline is one of several legislative “funnels” to weed out bills that aren’t advancing. It requires most policy bills to have cleared either the House or the Senate and a committee of the other chamber to remain eligible for consideration. Earlier this month the Iowa Senate Human Resources Committee advanced a version of the payday loan bill, now known as Senate File 388, on a 9 to 3 vote. However, instead of moving to the full Senate, the bill was placed in the Iowa Senate Commerce Committee, where it remains.

Mike McCarthy, a member of one of the coalition’s member organizations — Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement – called the failure of the Senate to act disappointing.

“I believe never before has there been so much support for payday lending reform, both inside and outside of the Statehouse,” he said.

The bill has the support of an unusual coalition of groups, ranging from social conservative organizations like The Family Leader and the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition to labor unions like the Iowa Federation of Labor AFL-CIO. A poll released last month by Iowa CCI found 69 percent of respondents in support of lowering the maximum annual interest rates payday lenders could charge.

In general, a payday loan is a low, single payment loan customers repay when a paycheck is received. Payday loan amounts typically range from $100 to $500. The Iowa Division of Banking reported that in 2009, the average annual interest rate on a payday loan was 292 percent.

The proposed cap of 36 percent on interest rates is the same maximum banks and credit unions are allowed to charge.

Supporters are calling on Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal (D-Council Bluffs) to push hard for the bill to pass.

“The fact that Senate leadership is scuttling this bill is unconscionable,” said Matthew Covington of Iowa CCI. “Why they would choose to serve these corporate interests over everyday Iowans doesn’t make sense.  I hope it’s not because of campaign contributions from the payday loan industry, because it isn’t even that much money.”

Gronstal’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

While the Republican controlled Iowa House is unlikely to pass the bill, Democrats did unite in that chamber to push for an amendment to a banking bill capping interest rates on payday loans. It was defeated on a 56-40 party-line vote.

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) told the Louisville Courier-Journal Thursday that he is interested in seeking his party’s presidential nomination, but he would only run if his father, U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) decides to sit the campaign out.

From the Courier-Journal:

“Really, the biggest decision for me is whether my father runs or not,” the Kentucky Republican said in an interview after a speech to the Rotary Club of Louisville.

He has said that he would not run against his father, a Republican congressman from Texas. But it could be another story if his father doesn’t run a third time, his previous campaigns coming in 2008 and 1988.

Whatever the case, the younger Paul said it is likely that either he or his father will seek the Republican presidential nomination.

Ron Paul has made several trips to Iowa in the past year, most recently addressing a gathering of home schoolers this week. Rand Paul will make his first Iowa trip next month, when he will headline the Republican Party of Iowa’s annual “Night of the Rising Stars” fundraiser in Des Moines.

In addition to his father’s past and potential future presidential aspirations, Rand Paul has another connection to Iowa politics. The Des Moines-based nonprofit American Future Fund spent heavily in the Kentucky senatorial primary in the hopes of defeating Paul. The group ran numerous TV and radio ads, and even launched a website hoping to discredit the tea party favorite.