Chet Culver (Photo: Flickr Creative Commons /iowademocrats.org)

Executive Order 22 requires all state departments and agencies to consider using Project Labor Agreements (PLA) on large-scale construction projects over $25 million. Those agreements would define the terms and conditions of employment on a state-funded project, such as wages and dispute resolution.

A decision last month by the Iowa Board of Regents to use a PLA for an upcoming project at the University of Iowa has rekindled a fight over labor issues, starting with attacks by the Iowa chapter of Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC). The group sent out a release that claimed PLAs are “blatantly discriminatory,” and accused the Board of Regents of partisanship and acting under direct pressure from Culver.

“This is blatant discrimination and the Culver cronies on the Board of Regents took this partisan action under direct pressure from Gov. Culver,” Greg Spenner, president and CEO of Iowa’s ABC chapter, said in the release. “Iowans deserve leaders who do not make decisions simply meant to reward political donors. In this case, Big Labor is the winner, at the expense of the majority of Iowa workers – - hard working, taxpaying citizens who have chosen not to join a union.”

Jim Flansburg, Culver’s communications director, refuted ABC’s claim, noting that workers do not have to be union members, nor do they have to belong to a union or pay union dues, which is explicitly stated in the executive order.

“The fact is that PLAs are good public policy,” Flansburg told The Iowa Independent in a phone interview. “We’re talking about tax dollars here and the goal is to ensure that projects are completed on time, with the highest quality and paying the workers a livable wage. If you delay a public project’s completion, it ends up costing more money and this is not being good stewards of the taxpayers’ money.”

The primary purpose of PLAs is to ensure smooth completion of projects by getting the participants — project manager, the contractors and workers — to agree to certain ground rules, thus expediting the project with minimal disruptions. Provisions within a PLA standardize and stabilize wages and benefits, starting and ending times for employees and requires workers to agree not to disrupt the project if labor disputes arise, but rather submit disputes to fast and binding arbitration so the project can move forward.

Regarding the ABC’s accusations of blatant discrimination and cronyism, Flansburg noted an Iowa Supreme Court 6-1 decision in 2002 that PLA’s are not discriminatory, nor do they promote favoritism. The Iowa Supreme Court examined this issue on the Iowa Events Center project in Des Moines and found that the PLA applied to all bidders and did not discriminate based on union or nonunion affiliation.

Moreover, Flansburg took issue with the ABC’s partisan finger pointing at the Board of Regents, which passed the agreement along party lines.

“To accuse members of the Board of Regents who support this sound approach to public policy of cronyism is as misguided as it is unfortunate,” Flansburg told the Press-Citizen. “It is disappointing that some have chosen to resort to personal attacks and have tried to politicize this issue rather than to recognize it for what it is: a step forward for Iowa.”

This is not the first time Culver’s executive order regarding PLAs has come under fire. Two days before Executive Order 22 was signed, Branstad’s campaign released a statement attacking the order, making similar cronyism claims as the ABC.

“This is a covert, back-door way to usurp the legislative process and give payback to those whose support Culver desperately needs: The labor unions,” Branstad’s campaign manager, Jeff Boeyink, said in the February release.

Moreover, Boeyink made the claim that Executive Order 22 will result in higher costs for projects, inevitably resulting in higher taxes for Iowa taxpayers. The Iowa Independent contacted Branstad’s campaign several times to help clarify and help substantiate these assertions but received no response.

Since Executive Order 22 is still in its infantile stage, there hasn’t been any in-depth cost analysis of whether PLA’s used for government projects will end up costing more in the long run. However, the nonpartisan think tank Iowa Policy Project analyzed the role of PLAs in public construction and released a report in October 2004. Using the 2002 Iowa Events Center PLA as a test case, the IPP concluded that a PLA would inevitably cost less.

“…The county’s [Polk] construction manager estimated that both with and without the PLA, the percentage of union workers on the project would be about 90 percent to 95 percent of the workforce. However, with the PLA, the 5 percent to 10 percent of the workforce that would be nonunion in either case would probably be somewhat better paid. Its overall conclusion, however, was that the gross dollar savings from using the PLA was going to be greater than that wage differential, and the PLA would produce a worthwhile positive net benefit.”

Two days after Culver signed the order, Branstad referenced PLAs at a town hall meeting in Greenfield to draw distinctions between himself and his Democratic rival. IowaPolitics.com reported that Branstad talked about his support for Iowa’s right-to-work law and said he opposes a prevailing wage.

“These things all send the wrong signal to potential business and industry,” Branstad said.

The Culver campaign responded to Branstad’s claims on Monday regarding PLAs.

“If Terry Branstad can’t understand the benefit to Project Labor Agreements then perhaps fellow Republicans like Ron Corbett and Brent Oleson can explain it to him,” Ali Glisson, communication director for the Culver/Judge campaign, told The Iowa Independent in an e-mail. “Throughout the course of the campaign, he’s made false or misleading attacks on Gov. Chet Culver without providing any background or citations for his accusations.”

Moreover, Glisson wanted to set the record straight on PLAs regarding the use of union and nonunion workers.

“The truth is that Project Labor Agreements don’t mean that the contract is always fulfilled by union workers,” she said. “Just look at the Iowa Events Center Project Labor Agreement. Bidding is open to all qualified bidders — both union and nonunion contractors. That was the same case regarding the Boston Harbor project, where, in the end, 102 of 257 subcontractors were nonunion.”

Branstad and labor have had a contentious relationship in the past. During his tenure as governor, Branstad was sued by the public employees union over a contract dispute. And earlier this year, while addressing the Iowa Association of Business and Industry’s annual convention, Branstad listed off the bills organized labor unions have been fighting in favor of for several years, then concluded, “All of those ideas are dead when I become governor.”

Gov. Chet Culver

“With my signature today, Iowa becomes the first state in the country to take action on all 10 the priorities,” Gov. Culver said in a release. “From unemployment to housing, to family services, and legal protections for service members, these common-sense proposals are becoming law because Iowans will always support those who defend our freedoms.”

When the Iowa Legislature convened in January, Culver made it clear that he wanted lawmakers to address the 10 priority issues identified by the Department of Defense before this year’s historic deployment to Afghanistan, which will be the largest call-up of a single unit for an overseas deployment since World War II.

“By enacting these measures, we are keeping our promise to all who are serving and have served,” Culver said. “To our veterans, I say a heart-felt thanks for your legacy of service in the name of freedom here in America and abroad. To the brave men and women serving today, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan – you embody Iowa’s spirit of service. These bills are a symbol of the gratitude we all have for our brave service members and their families.”

Although most of the bills passed through the Iowa General Assembly with relative ease and unanimous bipartisan support, there were a few speed bumps along the way.

House File 2110, a bill that will expand unemployment benefits for spouses who are forced to leave their jobs when service members receive a military reassignment or deployment,ran into a partisan roadblock when it was initially brought up for debate on the House floor in January.

Opponents of the bill argued that the state’s unemployment trust fund was already in a downward spiral and expanding these costs would contribute higher costs to all businesses. The bill’s supporters, however, argued that the initiative would only affect a small population and would not trigger a tax-rate change for businesses.

State Rep. McKinley Bailey, D-Webster City, a member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee who served in the U.S. Army in Iraq and Afghanistan, was surprised by the tone established during the debate by Republican opponents of the bill.  “This bill has little effect in Iowa, since we don’t have any military bases, which is why the visceral opposition to this bill is unfounded,” Bailey told The Iowa Independent during a phone interview in February.

The bill eventually passed in the House along party lines, 56-44, and moved on to the Senate where it passed with the help of three Republicans.

The only other measure that drew opposition on either side was HF 2197, a bill that will pave the way for veterans to seek holiday time off on Veterans Day. Some lawmakers were concerned the bill could present an economic hardship to smaller businesses.

“My concern is in our effort to try to do something in the benefit for veterans there are some unintended consequences here we need to think about,” state Rep. Ralph Watts, R-Adel, told The Des Moines Register.

The bill went on to pass in the House 97-2 and passed along party lines in the Senate (except three Republicans who voted “yes”). With Culver’s signature, the new law became the first bill of its kind in the nation.

Culver signed the following four bills at the Sioux City ceremony on Tuesday:

Senate File 2226 relates to parents’ rights for child custody when the parent is deployed, to ensure due process rights are protected while parents are deployed, and also allows service members to designate a relative of the child to exercise visitation rights in place of the service member. This bill addresses one of the Department of Defense recommendations.

Senate File 2274 provides education-related benefits to military spouses, including a new protection for spouses who must withdraw from school because of a family deployment, the development of a study relating to the educational needs of veterans and their dependent children, and the creation of a work group to enhance foreign language proficiency. This bill addresses two of the Department of Defense recommendations.

Senate File 2297 opens up state and local government facilities for military events, provides for additional administrative protection in the event of the death of a service member, addresses “non-professional” firearms permits by allowing the permit to be valid up to 90 days after a deployment, and prohibits utilities from disconnecting service to families while a family member is deployed. This bill addresses one of the Department of Defense recommendations.

Senate File 2318 establishes programs to inform state employees who are military members of their rights and benefits while deployed. Among other benefits, it provides for a study to determine how military training can substitute for professional licensing requirements, and it states that payday lenders must obey strict limits on interest rates when lending to military personnel. This bill addresses three of the Department of Defense recommendations.

Culver signed the following three bills Tuesday:

House File 2414 adds the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary to the list of military organizations or veterans groups that are allowed to perform honor guard service on public property.

House File 2197 directs employers to allow holiday time off for veterans on Veterans Day.

House File 2454 directs the Department of Administrative Services to develop programs to inform, train, and hire qualified disabled veterans for job opportunities in state government, including a noncompetitive hiring program for disabled veterans who successfully completed a federal non-pay work experience program.

Culver signed two other bills into law earlier this year:

House File 755 expands eligibility under the Injured Veterans Grant Program to include any veteran who has suffered an injury in the line of duty requiring at least 30 consecutive days of hospitalization at a military hospital but who wasn’t evacuated from the operational theater in which the veteran was injured.

House File 2137 is a recommendation by the Military Division of the Department of Public Defense concerning state military service and the Iowa Code of Military Justice (ICMJ).  It states that the Adjutant General, a Deputy Adjutant General and the State Quartermaster are not considered state employees while performing state military service except for purposes of the Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System and state employee health, dental and other benefit plans. It strengthens punitive provisions relating to wrongful use, possession, distribution or manufacture of certain controlled substances to put Iowa in line with the federal Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).

More than 700 protesters showed up in Cedar Rapids in January to counter the message of the Westboro Bapitist Church, which never showed up (photo courtesy of Joe Stuler).

The WBC’s “God hates Fags!” signs will come face-to-face with a group of peaceful counter-protesters donning t-shirts that read “There is no hate in Iowa” and “Whatever hate can do, love can do better.”

The group organizing the counter-protest plans on selling these t-shirts to raise money they will donate to One Iowa, the state’s largest LGBT-right groups, an organization that deals with HIV/AIDS, and to the family of a Marine killed in Iraq who sued Phelp’s church for picketing the funeral and was ordered to pay the protesters’ court costs. Protesters will also be encouraged to donate a dollar every time church members “use hate speech, and/or for every sign they have using hate-speech.”

The WBC targeted Drake because the university’s Law School is hosting a symposium, “The Same-Sex Marriage Divide,” with an inter-disciplinary group of experts will debate various issues, such as whether same-sex marriage should be legalized, the appropriate role for courts, the constitutionality of the Federal Defense of Marriage Act and the economics of same-sex marriage.

“I wanted to get involved and organize a counter-protest to show that Drake won’t tolerate or adhere to the WBC’s hate,” said Kelsey Wells, a member of the Drake Rainbow Union and one of the protest organizers. “We wanted to overpower their hate with our love. The idea for donations came when some students realized that simply counter-protesting would do no good, and just give the WBC the attention they want. We decided to use this visit to raise money and change their negativity into a positive thing for the LGBT community and Drake.”

In anticipation of WBC’s pending arrival, Drake University President David Maxwell sent out a memorandum to faculty and students on the how to handle the group while simultaneously practicing and respecting freedom of speech. “Our response as a university community to the WBC’s presence on Saturday morning must be consistent with our core values—it is likely that the WBC’s hateful words will be one of the most powerful tests of our commitment to freedom of speech and civil debate in your time at Drake University,” Maxwell said in the memo.

“Freedom of speech is ultimately one of our messiest freedoms—it means that on occasion we will be subjected to words and ideas that we find morally repugnant, offensive and disheartening,” he said. “The way in which we react to those words and ideas ultimately defines who we are. We cannot—when confronted by them—give in to emotion and allow ourselves to abandon our values, allow ourselves to become like those whom we find offensive.”

Maxwell said he respects the counter-protesters’ grassroots efforts and also respects those who choose to do nothing and ignore the groups presence on campus, which is precisely what other targeted groups plan on doing, including the Tifereth Israel Synagogue in Des Moines. After their picket at Drake, the WBC plans on taking their anti-Semitic messages of hate to the synagogue, telling the congregation, according to the group’s Web site that “God Hates You for killing Jesus Christ, your Messiah.”

Rabbi Steven Edelman-Blank told The Iowa Independent that they’re not planning any response to the Westboro visit and plan on going through their usual program and service Saturday.

The WBC also plans on picket another Des Moines synagogue, the Temple B’nai Jeshurun.

WBC takes aim at fallen soldiers

The WBC recently garnered national attention when their organization, comprised of 71 confirmed members, 60 of whom are related to Phelps, won an appeal against the family of a Marine, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, killed in Iraq. The WBC picketed the dead Marine’s funeral in 2006 in Westminster, Md., carrying signs reading “God hates you” and “Thank God for Dead Soldiers.” Snyder’s family filed the initial suit against the church for invasion of privacy in 2007 and was awarded $10.9 million in damages. The ruling was overturned last month and the judge order Snyder family to also pay the $16,500 in court costs to WBC, which Snyder’s father, Albert, called “a slap in the face.” Since then, conservative Fox News host Bill O’Reilly has offered to pick up the entire legal tab and several others have vowed to donate money to appeal the case.

In light of the recent ruling, news of the WBC’s return did not bode well with P.J. Sesker-Green, whose nephew’s, Iowa National Guardsman Sgt. Daniel Sesker, 22, was killed in Iraq and whose funeral was picketed by the group in April 2006.

“I know what it feels like to have these slugs there when you bury a loved one,” Sesker-Green told The Iowa Independent in an e-mail. “These parasites were there with their signs and fortunately Gov. [Tom] Vilsack signed a bill the day before that kept these belly-sliders in the ditch where they belong.”

News of the planned picket of Sekser’s funeral prompted Iowa lawmakers to quickly pass a bill that would keep the protesters at least 500 feet from away from any funeral or ceremony at a cemetery. Coincidentally, then-Gov. Vilsack was visiting Iraq and had to sign the bill and fax it back to Iowa the day before the funeral.

“These protesters don’t reflect Iowa values, and their actions have no place in our state,” Vilsack said at the time.

Sesker-Green’s anger turned to pity before she was able to transform her negative feelings towards Fred Phelps and WBC into something positive.

“I don’t hate them; I pity them,” she said. “Phelps followers are being led around by the nose. Hitler did the same thing with his followers. I would not allow them to stir up hate in me,” Sesker-Green added. “I took my anger and pain and turned into positive energy and now use it to help our wounded soldiers when they return home. Phelps and his followers are sick tickets that don’t deserve any attention, but our wounded heroes do.”

Will they show up or won’t they?

Whether the WBC shows up Saturday morning still remains to be seen, for they have a history of promoting a picket and then never following through. Such was the case at Theatre Cedar Rapid’s first run of the “Laramie Project” in January. The play chronicles and dramatizes the real-life events surrounding the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard, a 21-year old student at the University of Wyoming who was tortured and murdered near Laramie, Wyo, in October 1998.

Despite the no-show, an estimated 700 people turned out for the counter-protest. “What I found surprising was the diversity of the people who showed up,” Joe Stutler of Cedar Rapids recalled while recounting the event during a phone interview. “There were Atheists, several church and LGBT groups, and veterans. It was a really wide selection of people there, who basically showed up to stand up against hate.”

Stutler, an ordained minister, not only takes issue with the message the WBC is trying to convey but how they’re exploiting God to preach hate.

“The message Phelps is sending is not from the God I know; this is merely to feed his homophobic agenda and attempt to usurp God’s power and message to promote their own particular message and cause.”

Moreover, Stutler, who is also a veteran of the Cold War and Operation Desert Storm, also takes issue with how the WBC is using soldiers to spread their messages of hate.

“I find it absolutely disgusting personally that they’re calling for the death of soldiers in the name of God,” he said. “But I am sure they would probably find my message disgusting at times, but that’s the right I helped fight for.”

“The problem that I see itself is not that he’s anti-military, rather how Phelps chooses to use soldiers’ death and their funerals to help spread his message,” Stuler said. “They at least need to be respectful and maintain an appropriate distance from a funeral, because it is a religious ceremony and his interference with somebody else’s right to exercise their religious freedoms, free speech and grief is the problem that I see here, rather than the message itself.”

Asked what she will say to Fred Phelps Saturday morning at Drake, Kelsey Wells said she would simply tell him that no matter how much he supports hatred, there will ultimately be more love.

“I realize that nothing I saw will change his, or his followers’ mind(s), and I wouldn’t waste my breath or time trying,” she said.” I would simply inform him that, no matter what he does, there will be more people there to over-power the WBC hate with love.”

That is, if Fred Phelps even bothers to show up.

By academic year 2020-2021, the Department of Education estimates Iowa’s students will receive an additional $291 million in Pell Grants due to the changes in the new law. In addition to raising the ceilings on Pell Grants, the educational initiatives of the health care law will also make loan payments more manageable for students with unmanageable debt upon graduation; increase investments for community colleges; and extend supports for historically black colleges and universities and other minority-serving institutions.

The Obama Administration, citing reports from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, said all of these reforms could be done at no additional costs to taxpayers, and the $68 billion price tag could be fully paid for by ending government subsidies that were being paid out to private financial institutions making guaranteed federal student loans. As a result of the savings and investments in this new law, the CBO estimates Iowa and its students are expected to receive more than $299 million by academic year 2020-2021 in additional benefits for higher education.

In Iowa, the largest dispenser and consolidator of student loans is Iowa Student Loan, which employs 315 people. Steve McCullough, president and CEO of Iowa Student Loan, told Radio Iowa’s Matt Kelley that he was not concerned about the change in federal policy’s impact on employment numbers. “We don’t see any impact in our employment base at this point because at the same time we may be losing some work with the banks and credit unions, we’ll be gaining some work in terms of customer service work for the federal government,” McCullough said.

“Students should still be able to get loans in the same qualification criteria,” McCullough said. “We’re also going to continue to work with the banks and credit unions in the state of Iowa to make sure that private student loans, supplemental student loans, are available for those who can’t get enough money through the federal government programs.”

GOP opposition

Since the student loan reform initiatives were passed as amendments and inevitably couched into the final version of the bill, the final vote went along party lines, with the minority Republicans primarily rejecting the shift from the private industry to a government-run loan agency. Although Iowa’s delegation mirrored these voting patterns, U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, not only took issue with this fundamental shift but argued the bill will inevitably place a tax on students. He fears the new laws will eliminate thousands of bank jobs nationwide.

Asked to clarify how the new reforms will amount to a “tax” on college students, Grassley’s press-secretary, Beth Pellett Levine, told The Iowa Independent in an e-mail that the revenue to pay for this new spending is based on a Congressional Budget Office estimate using a methodology that the CBO says is incomplete.

“In reality, when additional factors are considered, it turns out this revenue isn’t likely to appear and this new spending will just add to the deficit,” she said. “However, if one accepts the assumption that the government will make money off interest payments from students, Congress should just lower the interest rate rather than overcharging all students in the first place to pay for benefits like improved loan repayment terms as well as to fund part of health care reform.”

“This bill partially funds Pell Grants, makes some existing loan repayment provisions more generous, and creates a new program to encourage low-income students to attend college that seems duplacitive of the successful federal TRIO programs that Sen. Grassley has long supported,” Pellet Levine added. “Sen. Grassley has always supported Pell Grants and other forms of student aid but, with the new law, either the federal government will be overcharging all students with student loans to pay for benefits for a few students or, as CBO has admitted, the funds to pay for this new spending may not be there at all and this spending will just add to the deficit. Sen. Grassley does not like either scenario, as either students or taxpayers are on the hook.”

It’s worth noting that not all conservatives agree. President George W. Bush proposed similar reforms as part of his annual budget proposal during three years of his tenure. Last August, The Weekly Standard blasted the current system of guaranteed loans as “a textbook example of crony capitalism or (if you prefer) corporate socialism.”

‘Pulled the plug on Sallie Mae’

The three Democrats vying for the right to take on Grassley this fall did not share his take on preserving the current system of keeping the student loan program in the private sector.

“The guaranteed loan program was hugely profitable for private lenders at the expense of college students and federal taxpayers who guaranteed the higher interest student loans against default,” Tom Fiegen of Clarence told The Iowa Independent in an e-mail. Fiegen said the new reforms were a clear win-win for working class college students and the federal taxpayers.

Moreover, Fiegen took issue with Grassley and other critics of direct student loans, claiming that they’re either blinded by ideology or they have received too many contributions from private lenders.

“Sen. Grassley, of all people, should applaud the reduction of billion of dollars of college student loan costs,” Fiegen said. “The private lenders making guaranteed student loans are akin to the defense contractors who took a $14 dollar hammer and sold it to the government for $300. With the savings, additional student loans and college aid will create more teaching and support jobs on our college campuses, offsetting any job loss in private lending. I for one would rather have more college instructors and professors than loan processors.”

Roxanne Conlin of Des Moines echoed Fiegen’s praise and rebuff of Grassley’s criticism of the new law, calling the reforms “a great improvement in educational financing saving billions by cutting out the middleman and putting the money saved into direct aid to college students.”

“Sen. Grassley’s criticism is ridiculous and not based in fact. He is parroting Republican talking points instead of supporting Iowa’s students,” Conlin said. “This program will help students afford college and is a fiscally responsible approach to solving the troubled student loan program.  These reforms will cut out big banks and allow students to receive loans at reduced interest rates and without exorbitant bank fees. Sen. Grassley has voted against students 11 times and is simply out of touch with Iowa families struggling to improve their lives through higher education.”

Claiming Grassley was reading a different script on how the new law will affect college borrowers, Bob Krause of Fairfield praised the reforms and took aim at Grassley’s criticism as well.

“This shows, sadly, how removed that Sen. Grassley has become from ordinary Iowans,” Krause told the Iowa Independent in an e-mail. “There is no tax on college students. To say that there is, is the same as his assertion that health care reform would ‘pull the plug on Granny.’”

It is surprising, Krause said, that Sen. Grassley would come out in support of the old system that was “so subject to kick-backs, waste, fraud and abuse,” referencing the Sallie Mae leveraged buyout in 2008.

“In reality, we have ‘pulled the plug on Sallie Mae,’ for loan underwriting and that deserved to occur,” Krause said. “This is a very reasonable step since the federal government provides the money for the loans. Why have a middleman to create the kick-backs, waste, fraud and abuse that GAO audits found that the old system was famous for? Sallie Mae was an effective monopoly working for its owners and not the students.”

A scandal surrounding Iowa Student Loan hit closer to home last year when the U.S. Department of Education ordered the private, non-profit student lender to repay the federal government $2.4 million of excessive subsidies that it had procured through fraudulent practices between 2004 and 2006.

Moreover, federal government officials ordered Iowa Student Loan to repay $15.76 million last year for using illegal cash inducements to public universities in Iowa as a means of target marketing college students by closing out its competitors.

“After a year of debate and a century of trying, after so many of you shared your stories and your heartaches and your hopes, that promise was finally fulfilled,” Obama told more than 3,000 people packed into the University of Iowa Field House gymnasium, located just around the corner from where he initially made his promise nearly three years ago. “And today, health insurance reform is the law of the land.”

Even though the health care bill, having survived several months of political wrangling in Congress, has already passed, Obama was not leaving anything to chance or misinformation when he returned to Iowa City and pitched the benefits of the new law.

“Over the last year, there’s been a lot of misinformation spread about health care reform. There has been plenty of fear-mongering and overheated rhetoric,” Obama said. “And if you turn on the news, you’ll see that those same folks are still shouting about how the world will end because we passed this bill. This is not an exaggeration. Leaders of the Republican Party have actually been calling the passage of this bill ‘Armageddon.’”

Taking a dramatic cue from the word “Armageddon,” Obama took a moment to look around the gymnasium to see whether any of the walls had crumbled down or the end-of-the-world had indeed ensued, joking “I don’t see any cracks in the earth opening up. In fact the day of the signing was a pretty nice day,” he said. “And people still had the doctors they had before I signed the bill into law.”

During the first part of Obama’s pitch, he reassured the audience that critics of health care reform will now have to face the facts prescribed in the bill, as theory metamorphoses into reality and practice.

“But from this day forward, all of the cynics and the naysayers will have to finally confront the reality of what this reform is and what it isn’t,” he said. “They will have to finally acknowledge that this isn’t a government takeover of our health care system. They will see that if Americans like their doctor, they will keep their doctor. If people like their plan, they will keep their plan. No one will be able to take that away from you.”

In his campaign speech at the University of Iowa Hospitals in 2007, Obama vowed to break up the stranglehold of the drug and insurance companies, which he argued served as a major obstacle standing in the way of achieving a comprehensive solution to the health care crisis.

“And I believe that no amount of industry profiteering and lobbying should stand in the way of that right any longer,” Obama said at the time. “It’s time to let the drug and insurance industries know that while they’ll get a seat at the table, they don’t get to buy every chair.”

Three years later, after the drug and insurance industries had pumped millions of dollars into trying to stop the health care bill from passing, Obama admitted that the new law will not solve every health care problem we have now. Moreover, he admitted that while these powerful industries will have a seat at the table, they will have to adhere to a new set of guidelines and oversight.

“But it (health care reform) finally tells the insurance companies that in exchange for all the new customers they’re about to get, they have to start playing by a new set of rules that treat everyone fairly and honestly,” Obama said. “The days of the insurance industry running roughshod over the American people are over.”

Obama touted how the aspects of the new law will go into effect this year. Millions of small business owners will be eligible for a tax credit up to 35 percent of the costs directly applied to providing health care insurance for employees.

“This health care tax credit is pro-jobs, it’s pro-business, and it starts this year,” Obama said.

Moreover, starting this year tens of thousands of uninsured Americans with pre-existing conditions and parents whose children have a pre-existing condition will be able to purchase the coverage they need.

“On Tuesday, I met David Gallagher, whose daughter Lauren had written me a letter last year,” Obama told the audience. “When Lauren’s mom lost her job, their entire family lost their health insurance. When they tried to get new insurance, David was denied coverage because he once had a complication-free hernia surgery. Lauren’s been worried sick about what would happen if her father became ill or injured. But now, because of this reform, David Gallagher can finally have access to health insurance again.”

This part of the plan struck home and resonated with Dr. George Phillips, a pediatrics doctor at the University of Iowa Children’s Hospital. “This new law sets the benchmark for coverage for all preventive care that all children should receive,” he said. “We’ve seen so many children in the hospital, whose medical conditions have reached an acute stage that could have either been prevented or addressed earlier in the process, had they had wellness checks.”

Terry Philips of Riverside was also pleased by the eventual ban on denying coverage to people who have pre-existing conditions.

“This is a great place to start and serves as a reality check,” Philips, chairman of the Democratic Veterans’ Caucus, told The Iowa Independent. “The law is not a fix, but it serves as a good starting point where we can start to believe and hope for change. Four years gives us an opportunity to make sure these provisions work before moving on to other changes to the health care system.”

Brady Shutt, a high school teacher from Iowa City, was also pleased about the pre-existing component, but admitted that he would like to see health care reform go even further.

“Covering pre-existing conditions really resonated with me, even thought I don’t have any,” Shutt said. “This is a good start, but eventually, I would like to see us move more towards a public option as well.”

Obama pitched other components of benefits that will go in effect this year that include a provision barring insurance companies from dropping peoples’ coverage when they get sick, or place lifetime limits or restrictive annual limits on the amount of care they can receive. This year, all new insurance plans will be required to offer free preventive care, and Obama made a direct appeal to college students in the crowd.

“Starting this year, if you don’t have insurance, all new plans and some current ones will allow you to stay on your parents’ insurance policy until you’re 26 years old,” he said. “Because as you start your lives and your careers, the last thing you should worry about is whether you’ll go broke just because you get sick.”

Finally, Obama target senior citizens who fall in the coverage gap known as the doughnut hole.

“The will receive $250 to help pay for prescriptions, which will be the first step toward closing that gap completely,” Obama said, further elaborating on some of the misinformation that has been spreading regarding this proposal. “And I want seniors to know: despite what some have said, these reforms will not cut your guaranteed benefits. In fact, under this law, Americans on Medicare will receive free preventive care, without co-payments or deductibles. Darlyne Neff is here today. She’s a breast cancer survivor, and she has fought her heart out for reform over the last few years. Today, the preventive care she needs will finally be covered without any charge.”

As Obama mentioned throughout his speech, the bill does not do everything he campaigned for in 2007 but is a start in the right direction. One audience member kept shouting “What about the public option,” something Obama campaigned for in 2007.

“There’s no need to shout,” he said, directly addressing the young man. “The public option isn’t part of the bill, because Congress would not push it through.”

By the end of his address, Obama’s speech shifted gears into campaign mode and began to feel more and more like a campaign stump speech reminiscent of the Iowa Caucuses that helped launch his presidential bid in 2007.

“This is the reform that some folks in Washington are still hollering about,” he said. “And now that it’s passed, they’re already promising to repeal it. They’re actually going to run on a platform of repeal in November.”

“I say go for it,” Obama added. “If these Congressmen in Washington want to come here to Iowa and tell small business owners that they plan to take away their tax credits and essentially raise their taxes, be my guest. If they want to look Lauren Gallagher in the eye and tell her they plan to take away her father’s health insurance, that’s their right. If they want to make Darlyne Neff pay more money for her check-ups and her mammograms, they can run on that platform. If they want to have that fight, I welcome that fight. Because I don’t believe the American people are going to put the insurance industry back in the driver’s seat. We’ve been there already and we’re not going back. This country is ready to move forward.”

Drawing on his past experiences while campaigning in Iowa, Obama drew on the familiar campaign themes of hope and change and how the hard-fought passage of the health care bill is emblematic of both and the fight has just begun.

“It has reminded us of what we learned all those months ago on a cold January night here in Iowa: that change, while never easy, is always possible,” he said. “That it comes not from the halls of power, but from the hearts of our people. Amid setbacks, it requires perseverance. Amid calls for delay, it requires a sense of urgency. And in the face of unrelenting cynicism, it requires unyielding hope.”

The audience sensed the familiar rise in Obama’s elocution as the speech reached its apex, ending with the familiar exclamation of “Yes we can.”

“Iowa,” Obama shouted. “Yes we did, because of you.”

Gov. Chet Culver

In the state of Iowa, gay citizens’ rights are protected under the Iowa Civil Rights Act, which “prohibits discrimination in the areas of employment, housing, credit, public accommodations and education.”

However, the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy — which bars those that are openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual from military service — trumps these state laws and strips gay citizen soldiers serving in the Iowa National Guard and Reserves of these protections and constitutional rights.

Last week at the 5^th Annual Governor’s Conference on LGBT Youth at Drake University in Des Moines, the keynote speaker Lt. Dan Choi put a face on this “catch-22” for gay citizen soldiers. Choi, a West Point graduate, Iraq war veteran and Arabic translator, was eventually discharged from his National Guard unit in New York, a state that also enacted a law protecting its gay citizens against discrimination, when he said “I am gay” on an episode of “The Rachel Maddow Show” that aired last March.

In an exclusive interview with The Iowa Independent, Choi said one person who could contribute to the end of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is Culver.

“If Gov. Culver, Iowa’s commander-in-chief, were here today, I would ask that he join my brothers in arms and call upon the federal government to repeal DADT,” he said, adding: “Gov. Culver is the highest ranking military official in Iowa, so it would be great to see him make some sort of public declaration to show he supports the repeal of DADT.”

Culver can’t formally change the policy, Choi said, but seeing the governor speak out would “mean a lot to the gay Iowa soldiers already serving and those who have been discharged, knowing that their leader supports and stands up for them.”

“In fact, I would call on all commanders-in-chief across the country to stand up for their troops, who have been shouldering a significant portion of the war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said. “I would be honored to have Gov. Culver serving with me in my foxhole.”

In response to Lt. Choi’s call-to-arms, Culver would not make a public declaration calling for the repeal of DADT.

“The governor thanks Lt. Dan Choi for his service and appreciates the president’s leadership on this issue,” said Erin Seidler, Culver’s communication director. “However, this is an issue on the federal level, and the governor is confident that Congress and the president will develop a fair policy that allows Americans who want to serve their country the ability to serve.”

When asked to clarify if the governor, as commander-in-chief of the Iowa National Guard, felt personally that the policy should be changed, Seidler passed.

“Like we said, this is a federal issue and the governor will look to the president and Congress to determine the changes to the policy.”

A recent CBS News/New York Times poll found that the majority of those polled favored gay men and lesbians serving in the military.

Students and allies flock to Lt. Choi for autographs and photo-ops at the 5th Annual Governor’s Conference on LGBT Youth (photo by T.M. Lindsey/Iowa Independent).

“Through my experiences while serving in Iraq, I discovered why ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is so poisonous is that it forces people to lie about who they are,” Choi told an audience of about 200 LGBT students, allies, school administrators and educators gathered at the 5th Annual Governor’s Conference on LGBT Youth at Drake University in Des Moines Feb. 18. “This is a policy of shame that forces people into the closet.

“I wonder how many of us have a DADT policy in our churches, families, schools, clubs, classrooms, or even here in our own hearts that we’ve placed on ourselves, imposing shame and saying to ourselves: ‘that’s an order,’” Choi said. “DADT is the disease of shame that we all suffer through. For the past 10 years, I had no problem with DADT and thought it was just great. Since I was already in the closet, DADT provided cover and gave me a place to hide.”

Upon returning from active duty in Iraq, he could no longer hide his true identity. Choi, a West Point graduate, Iraq war veteran and Arabic translator, was eventually discharged from the Army when he said “I am gay” on an episode of “The Rachel Maddow Show” that aired last March.

Debate over the future of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” –  which bars those that are openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual from military service — continues to rage in Washington. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this month that openly gay men and women should be allowed to serve, and even former Vice President Dick Cheney has publicly said the policy needs to be changed.

In an exclusive interview with The Iowa Independent, Choi said one person who could contribute to the end of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is Iowa’s highest ranking military official, Gov. Chet Culver, who did not attend his LGBT conference.

“If Gov. Culver, Iowa’s commander-in-chief, were here today, I would ask that he join my brothers in arms and call upon the federal government to repeal DADT,” he said, adding: “Gov. Culver is the highest ranking military official in Iowa, so it would be great to see him make some sort of public declaration to show he supports the repeal of DADT.”

Culver can’t formally change the policy, Choi said, but seeing the governor speak out would  “mean a lot to the gay Iowa soldiers already serving and those who have been discharged, knowing that their leader supports and stands up for them.”

“In fact, I would call on all commanders-in-chief across the country to stand up for their troops, who have been shouldering a significant portion of the war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said. “I would be honored to have Gov. Culver serving with me in my foxhole.”

The Iowa Independent contacted Culver’s office on multiple occasions but received no response.

Uncovering the truth in the ‘Triangle of Death’

During his keynote speech, Choi told the audience about the definitive moment that changed his perspective on DADT and ultimately, himself. While serving in Baghdad’s “Triangle of Death” one afternoon, Choi and one of his men were standing outside what they thought was a Sunni mosque. But what they heard coming from the mosque was something different than a call to prayer. Using his translation skills, Choi realized it was a Shia political rally.

Lt. Choi mans his station while serving in Iraq (photo courtesy of ltdanchoi.com).

“What I heard at that rally at that particular moment amazed me, because Shia political leaders had been so discriminated for centuries that they educated their people with the philosophy that you can hide who you are,” Choi said. “And if somebody wants to discriminate against you it’s better to hide, for God will forgive you. This is a philosophy that the Shia had ascribed to for 100s of years as a means of self-preservation and political expediency: Do what’s comfortable and God will forgive you.”

Hearing the Shia people standing up and saying they were no longer going to hide who they were hit home with Lt. Choi, who had spent most of his life hiding who he was for the sake of preserving himself and maintain political expediency. “There I was standing in the middle of the ‘Triangle of Death,’ knowing that I could die at any minute and I was hiding something,” Choi said. “I felt if I was to teach this new Iraqi government anything about transparency or democracy or equality, how could I keep hiding who I was? I felt like such a hypocrite that I was teaching other people to stand up and be who they are while I hid and was forced to lie about who I was.”

Choi is not the only one stuck in an identity quagmire. To date nearly 13,500 gay men and women serving in the military have been discharged under the DADT policy, including 60 fellow Arabic translators, who have been labeled “mission critical” by the armed forces. Moreover an estimated 4,000 soldiers leave the service every year. Retention rates are not the only casualty but the costs for implementing the policy have hit home as well. In 2005 the Government Accountability Office estimated that implementation of the DADT policy has cost our government an estimated $190.5 million through 2003 to discharge the troops and train their replacements. However, the following year a University of California Blue Ribbon Commission concluded that the costs were much higher and closer to $363 million.

Reconciling family and faith

According to Choi, the courage it took to come out on “The Rachel Maddow Show” was nothing compared to what he had to muster when he came out to his parents. He was raised in an evangelical household by his father, a southern Baptist minister, and his mother, a nurse on the maternity ward who always dreamed of a house filled with Korean grandchildren. Feeling the continuous pressure from his mother to marry a Korean girl and have a big, traditional wedding, Choi admitted to the audience that she annoyed him to the point that he buckled and came out to her. “I am not going to marry a Korean girl, nor am I going to marry a white girl,” he told his mother. “I am gay, and I was born that way, and I tried to pray the gay away.”

Choi confessed his father was even more shocked than his mother, to the point of irrationality. “Since when?” was his father’s first response. “You can change, it’s just like Barack Obama, you can change. Yes you can,” his father said to him.

“Thanks to Obama, yes we can turn straight again,” Choi quipped to the audience.

Lt. Dan Choi (photo courtesy of ltdanchoi.com)

Despite their initial reactions, Lt. Choi stuck to his guns, realizing he was out of the closet and would not turn back on his decision or himself. “It is because I love you that I am telling you the truth,” he confided to his mother. “If I didn’t tell you, that’s when you should be truly concerned, because I would continue to keep lying to your face.”

Reconciling a new path with his father, however, was more challenging, given his father’s religious position and background, not to mention the irrationality of his initial responses. “This is the biggest shame, the biggest sin,” Choi’s father told him when he first found out. “Number one sin.”

“I learned about the biggest sin that you taught me in your church and while growing up in your house was to not accept Jesus Christ, your lord and savior, who said you should love your neighbor as you love yourself,” Choi responded to his father. “Which means you have to love yourself before you can love your neighbor. You have to love yourself as God has created you, and I do, and I love you, and this is why I am telling you this.”

Since he came out to them, Choi’s mother and father have slowly grappled with coming to terms with their son’s sexuality.

“The last time I was in Iowa last October, my dad called me and said he had seen me making appearances on all of the television shows and told me he knew what I was doing and that he accepted me as his gay son,” Choi said.

However, Choi admits that not everyone who shares his faith has been so accepting or understanding.

“There are a lot of people out there who use their religious sentiments against my sexuality and that is the source of their hatred,” he said. “I don’t think I should have to give up my religion and faith, because the politicians and the people with a political agenda within those faiths want to hijack it.”

To help illustrate his point, Choi pointed to Chaplain Gordan James Klingenschmitt, a religious pundit and founder of “The Praying in Jesus Name” project. Klingenschmitt singled out Choi in some of his online posts, calling him a liar for knowingly breaking the West Point Honor Code by lying about his sexuality and called for his immediate separation from the military.

Not knowing how to respond to Klingenschmitt in Jesus’ name, Choi offered the audience an open prayer:

Dear God,

I just want to pray and lift up Chaplain James who needs to learn the pain he causes. You teach us to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us. And how many times did you teach us to turn our cheek when somebody does wrong to us. Chaplain Klingenschmitt just doesn’t understand the pain he is causing, and I realize that he doesn’t understand the lessons we learned though your son, Jesus Christ, when He was here on earth. But the tradition and the law and his people turned their back on Him and gave him the death penalty for telling the truth. When oppression and discrimination were present in his time but He stood up. Chaplain James can be blessed to learn these messages.

Amen

“That is how I respond and how I pray in Jesus’ name,” Lt. Choi said. “There will be some people who will continue to use their views and religious bigotry to push their agenda. It is not our job to hate them back, rather to show them the truth and pray for them to understand.”

Choi’s call-to-arms

Despite having been formerly discharged from the Army, Choi was recently called back to active duty and recently reported to his National Guard unit in New York to complete some drills.. “I have been training hard with my unit, with the intent that I will join them when it receives its orders for deployment to Afghanistan,” Choi told The Iowa Independent. “However, a discharge continually looms over my head, and as far as I know, I could be discharged the day before deployment.

“Mentally, I am stuck in a schizophrenic holding pattern,” he added. “In the meantime, like other members in my unit, I will continue to plug away at my day job, which for me is a full-time activist.”

Choi helped form Knights Out, an organization comprised of West Point alumni advocating for the rights of gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military, and continues to speak out to the press and events across the country. “Whether I am reinstated or not in the military remains to be seen. Either way, I will continue to speak out against the DADT policy until it is repealed and my fellow gay soldiers can serve openly and without having to serve our country in shame.”

“Ironically, there are gay men and women over in Iraq and Afghanistan fighting for and protecting the very freedoms they themselves cannot openly exercise,” Choi said. “Meanwhile back at home there are some states, like Iowa, that recognize these rights and protections for our gay citizens. Unfortunately, these same rights do not extended to them when they return to their civilian lives and families — who also have to hide the truth and share this overwhelming burden of shame.”

Choi will return to Iowa Thursday to speak at 7 p.m. in the Iowa Memorial Union’s Main Lounge at the University of Iowa.

As the Iowa Independent reported last month, the legislation that sparked the partisan controversy, HF 2110, would ease unemployment restrictions for military spouses who leave their jobs due to military reassignment.

Even though the bill passed along party lines in the House, 56-44, and moved on to the Senate, House Democrats were not pleased when they discovered that Schroeder had registered the American Legion as “against” the bill one minute before the House debate was scheduled to begin.  During the debate, some of the Republican representatives, including Jodi Tymeson of Winterset and Lance Horbach of Tama, highlighted the Legion’s opposition to the bill. “They turned that into an argument and said the Democrats were rolling over on veterans and that if the American Legion did not support the bill, how could we support such a bill,” Rep. McKinley Bailey, D-Webster City, a member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee who served in the U.S. Army in Iraq and Afghanistan told the Iowa Independent in a phone interview. “It was unethical at best.”

The American Legion sent a letter to the House of Representatives the day after the vote apologizing for the miscommunication and Adjunct John Derner told the Iowa Independent during a phone interview that they would look into the matter.  “We are currently investigating why this happened and what preventive measures we need to take so something like this does not happen again. This issue will be addressed by our legislative commission at our annual mid-winter conference.”

In the meantime Schroeder stated his intention to resign his lobbyist status in a letter sent to the America Legion last Friday, the day before the mid-winter conference was scheduled.

The Des Moines Register reported Schroeder’s response to his decision to step down:

“They (Iowa veterans and American Legion members) made a bunch of calls into the Legion and I said ‘You know, if you think it’s hurting your name, I will just quit representing the Legion right now.’ And that’s what I’ve done,” Schroeder said.

Schroeder noted that he hasn’t severed all ties with the Legion but will no longer work as the group’s lobbyist.

“I just don’t want anybody to be dragged through the water for following the rules,” Schroeder said.

News of Schroeder’s resignation pleased one such veteran and Legion member, Bob Krause, a Democratic candidate running against Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley. “This goes a long way in clearing the good name of the American Legion, which was ‘thrown under the bus’ in this battle,” Krause said in a statement to the Iowa Independent. “Mr. Schroeder’s action did violate his charge by the Legion, and I expect that the Legion will pick a new lobbyist who can work both sides of the aisle and who will focus on the good of the veteran and the soldier.”

“The big question remains is, ‘Why did Mr. Schroeder do it?’” Krause, a former representative in the Iowa House during the 1970s, added. “’Cross-pollination’ among lobbyists in the back room is a common practice.”

Creative Commons photo by slaup via Flick

Rep. McKinley Bailey, D-Webster City, a member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee who served in the U.S. Army in Iraq and Afghanistan, was surprised by the tone established during the debate by Republican opponents of the bill.  “This bill has little effect in Iowa, since we don’t have any military bases, which is why the visceral opposition to this bill is unfounded,” Bailey told the Iowa Independent during a phone interview.

The bill passed along party lines, 56-44, and now heads to the state Senate.

Bailey said the impetus of the bill did not start at the state level. Rather it was a crafted in response to one of 10 priority issues identified by the Department of Defense as “having a strong impact on military families at the state level.” Currently, 35 other states have adopted similar bills that expand unemployment benefits to trailing military spouses.

“In a state like Texas, which is Republican controlled and has hundreds of thousands of military members, they have this law,” Bailey said. “I’m not trying to pick a partisan fight here; I just don’t understand the opposition and why there was so much opposition here. It was really frustrating during the debate on the House floor, and I’m not blaming all the Republicans, but there were a few who dragged military families through the mud and said, for example, that these families would use this bill to try and milk the system.”

GOP concerned with impact estimates

Opponents argued the bill is an inappropriate use of the state’s unemployment trust fund, which is in a downward spiral since the recession hit, and will contribute to higher costs for all businesses. Iowa currently has an estimated $475 million in the Unemployment Insurance Trust and reserve accounts, although the former has decreased by more than $200 million in the past two years.

Due to record unemployment claims, coupled with decreases in contributions and a national recession, the Iowa Workforce Development, a nonpartisan legislative agency, announced last September that the unemployment contribution rate would be adjusted at the beginning of this year to help keep the fund solvent. The agency estimates that the cost to pay for the military families bill would be $202,000 a year.

Bailey agreed that unemployment taxes do support the trust fund but contends the state would have to see a significant drop in these funds for another trigger to take effect. “The 200,000 is not what is going to trigger another rate change,” Bailey said. “It’s the downward economy and people getting laid off in droves that is going to effect the rate change, not the spouses covered under this bill.”

Rep. Jodi Tymeson, R-Winterset, opposed the bill because it was not limited to deployments. She had concerns that the fiscal impact estimate was not accurate.

“Nor can we even begin to estimate how many people will take advantage of this benefit,” Tymeson told the Iowa Independent in an e-mail message.

“We all want to support military families, but we also have lots of unemployed Iowans that need these benefits – Iowans that did not voluntarily leave their jobs,” Tymeson added. “Employers pay into this fund, and the more money they spend refilling the fund, the less people they can hire (including veterans needing jobs).”

Tymeson said she would look at supporting the bill if it is amended to be more focused on deployment situations.

“I’m disappointed this bill was moved forward, even after the unknown information was pointed out,” she said. “We have worked very hard down here to keep veteran bills nonpartisan. Our veterans expect that.”

Questionable lobby maneuver deepens partisan divide

Even though the bill passed and moved on to the Senate, partisan finger-pointing took center stage when Democrats discovered that a lobbyist, former Republican Rep. Laverne Schroeder, registered the Iowa American Legion as “against” the bill one minute before the House debate was scheduled to begin. He did so without authorization from the American Legion, which registered as “undecided” the day after the House vote and sent a letter to the House of Representatives apologizing for the miscommunication.

In a phone interview with the Iowa Independent, Department Adjunct John Derner confirmed that the American Legion did not have a policy either for or against the bill, so it should have been registered as undecided. Moreover, Derner acknowledged that Schroeder did not have the authority to register against the bill.

The Iowa Independent contacted Schroeder by phone but he did not respond to a request for comment.

During the debate, however, some of the Republican representatives, including Tymeson and Lance Horbach of Tama, highlighted the Legion’s opposition to the bill.

“They turned that into an argument and said the Democrats were rolling over on veterans and that if the American Legion did not support the bill, how could we support such a bill,” Bailey said. “It was unethical at best.”

House Democrats are considering whether to file an ethics complaint against Schroeder, which would be handled by the House Ethics Committee.

News of Schroeder’s alleged improprieties did not bode well with some American Legion members and veterans, including Tom Howe, president of Veterans and Military Families for Progress. “I am concerned that a lobbyist, any lobbyist, abused the power of a lobbying position to damage veterans and their families,” Howe told the Iowa Independent in an e-mail message.

Derner assured that the American Legion is looking into the matter. “We have received a number of complaints about the lobbyist making the wrong declaration from veterans across the state,” Derner said.

Despite calls from several veterans to fire Schroeder, Derner said he does not have the authority to do so. “We are currently investigating why this happened and what preventive measures we need to take so something like this does not happen again. This issue will be addressed by our legislative commission at our annual mid-winter conference.”

The lobbyist impropriety also gained some footing in the upcoming senatorial race when Bob Krause, a Democratic candidate running against Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, weighed in on the matter. “Republican collusion against Veterans’ spouse unemployment compensation in the Iowa House is part of a Republican pattern of honoring the veteran with tinsel but refusing meaningful relief,” Krause said in a statement to the Iowa Independent.

“In wartime, when the spouse quits to follow his or her service member, ‘voluntary quit’ often does not mean ‘voluntary quit,’” Krause, a veteran and member of the American Legion added.  “Instead it means something you do to keep the family afloat and together – especially on the relative low wages of some of the junior enlisted soldiers.”

“So what did the House Republicans do to support our soldiers and their families in time of war?  They opposed the bill as being too costly to employers,” Krause said.  “It seems strange to me that these sunshine soldiers and summertime patriots do not understand that businesses make money in our society because servicemembers protect their right to do it.  This is one of the most shameful acts of economic tight-fistedness that I have seen in my long career of working with the military and national defense.”

The Johnston-based Iowa Army National Guard unit finished its second tour as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The unit was mobilized in Nov. 2007 and after undergoing additional training at Fort Dix, N.J., the unit, which provides security and law enforcement support, was assigned to the Central Command theater of operations and arrived in Iraq in Jan. 2008.

During its second tour in Iraq, the 186th MP was responsible for transporting 4,000 detainees; providing a law enforcement presence in the Strategic Debriefing Center; conducting detainee operations at Remembrance II, the Taji Theater Internment Facility Reconciliation Center; and transportation missions in support of Task Force 134’s juvenile re-integration school.

The 186th MP Company was previously mobilized from 2003-2004 for Operation Iraqi Freedom. They were also mobilized in 1995-96 in support of Operation Joint Endeavor (Bosnian peacekeeping operations), and in 1990-1991, when they deployed to the Persian Gulf in support of Operation Desert Storm.