By Emily Geiger

English-Only (Except when we decide to use other languages, too)

We reported a while back on the Iowa District Court decision ruling that the Secretary of State’s office was in violation of Iowa’s law stating that English is the official language of the state and state business must be conducted in English. The SOS (i.e. Mike Mauro and his predecessor, now Gov. Buzz Lightyear) had been offering voter registration forms in several languages other than English.

Mauro recently came out and said that he won’t be appealing the District Court decision, which I have to say surprised me. But, he also said they his office would be finding other ways to help the non-English speaking public vote. Now, it appears his plan is to keep making the foreign language forms available, but he would call them “guides” for helping people figure out the English forms.

There are several problems with this. The first is that Mauro’s plan still requires that state funds be spent to produce non-English material, which I think violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the English-only law. The second problem is that Mauro’s policy ignores the elephant in the room. As I’ve discussed on prior occasions, in order to vote, you have to be a citizen. In order to be a citizen, you have to be able to pass your citizenship tests IN ENGLISH. So, if you don’t speak any English, you’re probably not a citizen and you shouldn’t be voting. Ergo, it appears once again that Mauro is looking for ways to promote voter fraud.

And, it was in the news today that the DOT is spending its money on newspaper ads in both English and Spanish, and it plans to continue doing so… another example of public funds being used in ways that don’t appear to be authorized by the English-only law.

Do you really think Steve King is going to let all this slide (especially after he has one court victory under his belt)?

Total Eclipse of the Sunshine Laws

I had to laugh this morning as the Register continued sending its subtle message to the Statehouse Dems regarding its disapproval of how said Dems have handled the various Sunshine law issues of late.

The Register discussed a great example of a situation in Ames where a private individual (who happens to be a building contractor) suspected some funny-business in the way the school district was awarding constructions contracts and spending its money. This guy spent over $1000 of his own money researching the issue through public records.

He took his findings to our resident government corruption detective, State Auditor Dave Vaudt (after the state ombudsman, a Story County attorney and Iowa's attorney general blew him off), who found that “laws requiring competitive bidding had been violated; contracts had been awarded illegally; change orders that resulted in contractors' collecting additional money for work hadn't been properly approved; and contractors had billed the district for more than their agreed-upon fees.”

Even some Dems are saying they think that the Legislature’s failure to strengthen the Sunshine laws this session was a result of “backdoor deals.”

"I would like to know which interest groups weighed in so heavily that (House leaders) ultimately decided to do nothing," said Connolly, a Dubuque Democrat who is not seeking re-election this year. "This was a priority of leadership in both houses, and then it just died. I think we need to get some answers from people."

That Ames guy who uncovered the corruption described above says that the school district’s lawyers wanted to charge him $20,000 in legal fees to get the records… just like the plan that Buzz Lightyear has approved for charging attorney fees for public records requests.

If those exorbitant charges had been allowed to stand, does anybody really think that the Ames taxpayers wouldn’t still be getting ripped off right now?

So who is behind the eclipse of the Sunshine Laws? That’s the $64,000 question. But, I’m wondering if the Ames example might not be extremely telling.

What’s the likelihood that that Ames contractor who was getting shafted has a non-union shop, and he was getting passed over in favor union shops who had “special arrangements” with the school district? What’s the likelihood that there are numerous other similar situations all across the state? What’s the likelihood that the unions put pressure on the Dems in the Statehouse (who the unions help elect every cycle) to take measures to keep this racket under raps so the practice could continue? Wouldn’t the best way to accomplish this be to make it almost impossible for the public to examine the public records that would expose this corruption?

All you have to do is follow the money and ask yourself, who benefits?

Well it seems like yesterday was endorsement day for Republicans who have primaries on June 3^rd. The first one to grace my inbox was from the Miller-Meeks campaign, who received the endorsement from State Representative Jeff Kaufmann.

“Mariannette represents the best that the Republican Party has to offer for service to this state. Her unique background places her in a perfect position to take the lead on health care issues, national defense, and economic development,” Kaufmann said. “Her conservative credentials are without question and her background as a soldier and a medical doctor are exactly the diverse background and level of expertise that that we need in our representative in Congress.”

I’m not one that puts a lot of weight into political endorsements, however in a primary I think they are quite valuable in helping make some inroads in certain communities and groups of people.

The second endorsement was from George Eichhorn who is in a three way U.S. Senate Primary. It was a list of 32 present and former legislators and party officials. The list is made up of very conservative Republicans and more moderate Republicans.

Again, in a primary where everyone’s name ID is low these endorsements should help generate some votes for both Miller-Meeks and Eichhorn.

With the June 3^rd primary less than a month away, it has been relatively quiet. The there candidates running for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate don’t have the funds or ability to run TV ads, and I doubt they will be running radio spots.

But for all you campaign junkies who like to watch a heated primary battle you just need to tune into Iowa’s 2^nd Congressional District. There is a three way primary between Mariannette Miller-Meeks from Ottumwa, Peter Teahen from Cedar Rapids, and Lee Harder, and if I looked harder I’d know where he’s from too, but he’s a non factor so I’m not going to waste my time.

The 2^nd CD Primary heated up around the time of the District Convention, and since then Teahen and Miller-Meeks have been traveling the district sharing their thoughts and ideas with voters.

Last week Teahen put up a TV ad on the cable networks across the district, you can watch his ad here. I’d embed it but I can’t find it on YouTube. The ad is pretty simple and straight forward and introduces Teahen to the voters of the 2^nd CD. 90% of the ads are still shots with some text and voice over. I guess it gets the job done but I don’t it makes a connection with his targeted audience. The “paid for by” at the end is video of Teahen but it seems very awkward.

Miller-Meeks has an ad that hit the district yesterday. I have embedded it below in the update. I think the production quality of the Miller-Meeks ad is far superior to Teahen’s. I also think they did a better job educating the voter in who their candidate is and her qualifications.

I think this race is going to be really interesting. Teahen is from the larger community, but Miller-Meeks has more natural groups of people she can target. As I’ve said before I think Miller-Meeks would give Loebsack a real run for his money in that district.

By Emily Geiger

Question: What is a liberal newspaper to do when betrayed by the Democratic cronies they endorse and propagandize for on a regular basis?

Answer: they write a story about it, but they bury so no one will know they are badmouthing the “chosen ones”... yet.  At least that’s the impression I get from the fact that the Register’s article on Gov. Buzz Lightyear’s desire to institute enormous fees for state records requests under the Iowa Open Records laws is no where to be found on the main page of their website. This tactic is basically a warning shot; it lets the state know that the paper is watching, and if they do go forward with these new fees, then the paper will go nuclear.

Buzz wants to start charging fees for the time it takes attorneys to review documents requested by people utilizing the Open Records law. Newspapers are one of the biggest proponents of open records laws. These new fees are in addition to the current reasonable fees that are in place for things such as copying expenses.

In March, it seems the Register made two requests for a rather large amount of documents on each occasion. The Register is being charged $3,100 for one of the requests, and the state wants to charge over $20,000 for the other, saying it will take 551 hours to review the documents requested.

While I understand that the state wants people to make reasonable requests, I just don’t like the idea of these excessive fees for records requests. I think this new fee is analogous to a poll tax. The whole idea is to discourage the lowly little people from exercising their rights. What are they trying to hide?

Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time this year that the Statehouse Dems have come down on the side of secrecy. I do find it hysterical that it is a Democrat trampling on the newspaper’s rights… you have to love irony.

By Emily Geiger

Is Dave Loebsack Desperate?

So, Dave Loebsack is aware of his own vulnerability. How else do you explain his excessive use of the franking privilege afforded to members of Congress? Loebsack ranked first in the Iowa delegation for use of the franking privilege, having sent out 479,616 pieces of mail for free to his constituents. Loebsack’s mail pieces included statements such as:

"A good teacher knows what it takes to help Iowa's children succeed." [Before becoming a congressman, Loebsack was a college professor,] and

“A good Congressman knows how to provide the tools students need to succeed.” [This statement appeared next to a photo of Loebsack.]

Sounds like a campaign piece (and an abuse of the franking privilege) to me.

Oh, and for all you Steve King bashers, he didn’t use the franking privilege at all.

Dem Deceit?

The Statehouse Dems are claiming they only raised spending by 4% this session. But, while she is retiring, State Rep. Carmine Boal is not going quietly into the night. She has a great op-ed in the Register pointing out that, if you look past the outer layer of creative accounting, the Dems actually raised spending by 17%, or almost $1 billion. Boal writes:

By violating the state expenditure limitation laws, using multiple one-time funding sources, shifting current expenditures to other budget years, and moving general fund appropriations to another fund, the Democrats claim their budget is status quo and only increased spending by 4 percent. This is disingenuous and the reason why I did not vote for any budget bills this year.

I seem to remember press releases from Auditor Dave Vaudt to this same effect a few weeks ago. Are we ever going to start listening to this guy?

Questions for the Faithful

There is a very interesting piece in the Register about some Catholics who are questioning whether Steven Sueppel (who murdered his wife and 4 kids with a baseball bat before driving his van into a concrete bridge support and killing himself) should have had the benefit of a full Catholic funeral. Apparently, there is some pretty clear church doctrine on the matter that would appear to forbid it under these circumstances.

I have to admit, that very question crossed my mind at the time of this tragedy. It seems the local Iowa City church officials excused Sueppel’s conduct on the basis that he had a mental illness. The only time I had ever read anything about Sueppel having mental illness was during the funeral from the priest. This article points out that police have never found any actual evidence of any mental illness.

I know mental illness is a real and serious issue for a lot of people, which is why it really angers me when people throw it out there as an excuse for behavior for someone who has no basis for claiming mental illness.

I know, I know, you say he must have been crazy to do what he did. But that ignores the fact that people can be evil and selfish without being crazy. Crazy is often what people rely on when they don’t want to admit the spiritual truth that evil exists in this world, people are not inherently good, and people actually do go to hell.

I know this was a horrific situation, and maybe this helped the family left behind to deal with it, but I can’t help but wonder if this was a situation of compassion at the expense of truth.