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Republicans battle for Secretary of State nomination

June 5, 2006 By

There’s a statewide primary battle to win the Republican nomination for Secretary of State. It pits podiatrist Chuck Allison against retired federal prosecutor Bob Dopf.

Dopf, who has prosecuted election fraud, says his primary goal if elected would be to cut down on the use of absentee ballots. He says convenience isn’t to be a reason, as state law restricts the instances in which absentee ballots are to be used. “They’re not going to be home on election day or they have particular difficulty in getting to the polls. Unfortunately, the current Secretary of State has moved to a policy of forget about the requirements, if you want to ask for an absentee ballot you can just ask for one,” Dopf says. “The problem with that is it does open the door to fraud.”

Dopf would also forbid campaigns from distributing absentee ballots, something that’s grown common in Iowa politics. Dopf says no one other than the postman, the voter and the county auditor’s office should be handling the ballots, since someone who requests a ballot can have it mailed to their home and then mail it back in the already-stamped envelope.

Allison would seek a new state law requiring a voter to show a photo I.D. when they cast a ballot. “We don’t verify that people are who they say they are,” Allison says. “We don’t require an I.D. card for people to show to prove who they are…when they come to vote.” He says that means he could go in armed with a name and address, and vote for another person in the morning, then go back in the afternoon to vote for himself.

Both Dopf and Allison oppose Governor Tom Vilsack’s decision last summer to allow felons to regain their voting rights once they’ve completed their parole and probation. Dopf calls Vilsack’s order “shameful.” Dopf says the old system worked by requiring individual felons to apply to get their voting rights back and show they’d turned their lives around.

Allison says Vilsack took the action for political reasons, and the old system worked well. “Prior to that (executive order) felons were getting their rights restored at a very high rate when they applied to the governor’s office,” Allison says. He maintains the new system which gives voting rights to any felon who completes their sentence violates the “due process” that’s necessary.

Filed Under: Politics & Government Tagged With:

E-P-C approves E-P-A contract to cleanup former Sergeant Bluff tannery

June 5, 2006 By

The Iowa Environmental Protection Commission voted today (Monday) to approve a contract with the E-P-A for the cleanup at the site of a former Sergeant Bluff tannery. Bob Drustrup of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources says the cleanup could cost over two-million dollars with the state paying 10-percent.

Drustrup says the MidAmerica Tanning company site went on the E-P-A’s superfund cleanup list in the late 1980′s. He says it was a tannery and they became a superfund site because of concerns of how they handled their waste sludge that was high in chromium. Drustrup says, “Shortly after they were listed on the national priority list of superfund sites they went out of business. They were an Oriental company that left the country with no trace.”

Drustrup says the E-P-A decided to put all the sludge in one place and cover it up. Drustrup says because of the concerns over the two sludge lagoons releasing massive amounts of hydrogen sulfide gas, the decision was made to put a cover over the lagoons and leave the sludge in place. Once the site was capped, it was taken off the superfund list.

But, Drustrup says the site drew attention again when some material leaked out last summer. Drustrup says the release didn’t result in any major environmental damage, but he says it did bring to light the tentative nature of the lagoons and the possibility of a release of the sludge.

Drustrup says joining with the E-P-A is a good way to have the sludge removed. He says removing the sludge will keep the state from having to deal with any more problems. The E-P-C’s action approves the E-P-A contract and the D-N-R will now ask the legislature to provide the state’s 10-percent of the cleanup funds.

Filed Under: Business, Environment & Conservation

Republicans will try to override property rights veto

June 5, 2006 By

Republicans in the state legislature want to attempt to over-ride Democrat Governor Tom Vilsack’s veto of a bill that would have limited city and county powers to seize private property for economic development projects.

House Speaker Christopher Rants, a Republican from Sioux City, is sending certified letters to all 100 members of the House, asking for their signature in support of such a move. “We understand that private property rights are one of the bedrock principles involved in the founding of this country,” Rants says.

But the effort is likely to fall short because Democratic leaders in the legislature say while a special session is “inevitable,” they want to sit down and craft a new bill addressing some of the governor’s concerns.

Senate Republican Leader Mary Lundby of Marion says Democrats should instead join the effort to override Vilsack’s veto. “If they didn’t believe in it, they wouldn’t have voted for it…so this shouldn’t be an exercise in futility,” Lundby says. “It should be an exercise of the majority, the large majority of the legislature responding to the veto of a bill that we almost all agreed to.”

Governor Tom Vilsack said last week that he would be willing to use his authority to call lawmakers back into special session if they would rework the bill. Lundby says Republicans aren’t interested in that scenario. “We feel very confident with the margin that that bill passed both in the House and in the Senate that we have the right version…and (are) not particularly interested in a lot of massaging in order to change the bill,” Lundby says.

Legislators spent countless hours crafting the bill that Vilsack vetoed, according to Lundby. “This isn’t something that we did in the middle of the night or without much forethought,” Lundby says.

Senator David Miller, a Republican from Fairfield, says the bill was the most significant piece of legislation that passed the Iowa General Assembly this year. “It’s a real insult to have the governor veto it after it had such bipartisan and almost unanimous support,” Miller says.

Eighty-nine of the 100 members of the House backed the bill and 43 of the 50 senators voted in favor of the legislation. Rants, the top Republican in the House, says that should mean something. “I know overrides are difficult. I know historically it hasn’t happened very often…but you have an instance where you have such an overwhelming biparisan majority,” Rants says.

Vilsack vetoed the bill on Friday, saying it would impair the ability of city and county officials to advance private economic development projects that bring jobs into their area.

Filed Under: Politics & Government

Iowa among national trend of more women in prison

June 5, 2006 By

A national report finds there are more women in prison today than in past years, and Iowa’s no exception. Iowa Department of Corrections spokesman Fred Scaletta says the women serving time also tend to have a criminal record involving drugs more than female prisoners did in the past. He says the other kind of offenses you usually see women commit — property offenses, check-writing, and prostitution remain about the same but drug convictions are going up.

Scaletta says 20 years ago three-percent of the prison population were convicted for crimes related to drugs, but today that figure is 27 percent — and of those, he says 70-percent involve the drug meth. He says a criminal record isn’t their only problem.

They also estimate that around 75-percent of the prison population is in need of some kind of substance-abuse treatment, and that substance abuse is a trend among those sent to prison, no matter what their conviction was for.

The report says the percentage of prisoners who are women is increasing compared to those who are men. Scaletta says many have a “dual diagnosis.” The concept means a substance-abuse issue combined with a mental-health or special-needs problem. He says in prisons they use the concept of dual diagnosis, and hope to increase substance abuse counseling because there’s such a need for it.

The national report found the growth in women prisoners has surpassed the increase in male prisoners in all fifty states. The national report on incarcerated women shows that the total number of women sentenced to prison in 1977 was 84, and in the year 2004 757 were sentenced as prisoners. The overall rate was higher, too — for every 100-thousand people in the population, in 1977 there were 6 women in prison, and by 2004 that rate had risen to fifty.

Related web sites:
Institute on Women and Crimnial Justice

Filed Under: Crime & Courts

Attorney General says "spoofing" could be used to get your info

June 5, 2006 By

State officials warn a new “spoofing” service gives anyone the chance to change the way their digits appear to others on a cell phone and a land-line equipped with caller I.D.

Bill Brauch, director of the consumer protection division of the Iowa Attorney General’s office, says caller ID “spoofing” could be the latest scam. “It might cause someone to lower their guard and to disclose information they would not otherwise disclose,” Brauch says. “Spoof” services are likely breaking the law by, for example, plugging in a caller ID number so that you think it’s your bank is calling, but it’s really a scam.

Brauch says to trust your instincts. “Your bank is not going to call you to confirm your account number,” Brauch says. “Don’t give out that information.” These so-called “spoofing” services are easy to find on the web and some companies even sell something that can make a man’s voice sound like a woman’s. The U.S. House is now considering a bill that would shut down these so-called “spoof” services for cell phones.

Filed Under: Crime & Courts

Man arrested after Mason City standoff

June 5, 2006 By

A weekend police standoff in Mason City ended with one man jailed. Authorities received a call at about 9:50 on Saturday night on the report of an intoxicated man who was armed with a shotgun. A female was in the house and talking with dispatchers when the suspect fired a shot into the ceiling.

Officers who arrived at the scene were able to get the woman out of the house safely. She was not injured but had been assaulted. Shortly after 11 o’clock, members of the North Iowa Narcotics Task Force Special Operations Group entered the residence and took the man into custody.

Arrested was 49-year-old Steven Foster Warnke, who was charged with terrorism, possession of a firearm by a felony, and domestic assault. Warnke was taken to the Cerro Gordo County Jail, where he’s being held on a total of $19-thousand-825 bond.

Filed Under: Crime & Courts

Iowa ranks high on driving survey

June 5, 2006 By

Iowa ranks in the top ten of a new survey testing drivers’ knowledge of the rules of the road. The national test conducted by G-M-A-C Insurance challenged some 53-hundred drivers in all 50 states and D.C. to answer 20 questions that are typical of state driver’s license exams.

About one in three said they usually don’t stop for pedestrians in crosswalks, one in five didn’t know pedestrians have the right of way, and the same number didn’t know roads are the most slippery when it first starts to rain. The quiz found about one in 11 drivers nationwide would fail a driver’s test.

The worst drivers were in Rhode Island, Washington D.C. and New Jersey, the best were in Oregon, Washington State and Vermont. Iowa’s drivers ranked 9th.

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