Radio Iowa

Iowa's Radio News Network

You are here: Home / Archives for Politics & Government

Iowa leaders call on president to end trade troubles with China

By

Iowa’s governor, the state agriculture secretary and the leaders of 11 state ag groups are sending a letter to President Trump, urging him to resolve the trade dispute with China.

Bill Shipley of Nodaway, president of the Iowa Soybean Association, says the trade war caused by the U.S. tariffs imposed on Chinese steel and aluminum must be ended — and soon.

“They need to get the issues resolved and work hard at it, not just sit around and twiddle their thumbs for a couple of weeks,” Shipley says. “Farming is a time-dependent industry compared to a lot of things. Find your markets. Work on them. Don’t sit around and wait for things to happen. You have to be proactive.”

Shipley says one-third of the state’s five-billion dollar soybean crop is exported to China and Iowa farmers can’t afford to lose that market.

“Iowa would be the hardest-hit state with these tariffs going into effect on ag of any state in the nation,” Shipley says. “Our income’s been cut 40 to 50% in the last six years. Can you name any other industry that’s had their income cut that much — and still, we’re out here doing it?”

Shipley says it’s taken decades to nurture a trade relationship with the Chinese and he notes, both nations benefit from the partnership.

“We worked so hard to build the Chinese market,” Shipley says. “Thirty-five years ago, they didn’t buy any soybeans. Now, 40% of their usage comes from the United States. That’s a huge change. It’s a market we need and they need us. They need soybeans to feed their livestock and feed their people.”

In the letter to the president, the Iowa group says the state’s citizens and economy depend on having a quick resolution to the trade dispute.

(By Jerry Oster, WNAX, Yankton)

This year’s fundraising haul among gubernatorial candidates: $6 million

By

Republican Governor Kim Reynolds and the six Democrats who hope to run against her this fall have collected about $6 million so far this year for their campaigns.

All candidates are required to periodically submit public reports about their fundraising and the latest reporting period ran from January 1 through mid-May.

Kim Reynolds has raised $1.3 million since January. Among the Democrats, Des Moines businessman Fred Hubbell raised nearly a million dollars from donors and contributed about $2 million of his own money to the campaign.

Cathy Glasson, a union organizer from Coralville, raised nearly $600,000 this year. State Senator Nate Boulton raised about half a million since January.

There are three other Democrats running for governor. Andy McGuire, a medical doctor from Des Moines, raised nearly $300,000. John Norris, an aide to former Governor Tom Vilsack, raised 236,000. Former Iowa City Mayor Ross Wilburn raised $7700.

Reynolds, who does not face a Republican challenger in the June Primary, has more than $4 million in her campaign account. All the Democrats had cash on hand in mid-May, but far less.

Two Libertarian candidates are running for governor as well. Marco Battaglia raised about $3000, including a $1000 loan. Jake Porter raised about $1500 in contributions and got a $1000 loan as well.

Governor from the northwest to help Iowa Democrats raise money

By

The Democratic governor of Washington state will help Iowa Democrats raise money next month at a high-profile event.

Washington Governor Jay Inslee will be the keynote speaker at the Iowa Democratic Party’s Hall of Fame dinner on June 23. These kind of events often serve as a rehearsal space for candidates pondering a run for the White House.

Inslee gained national notice after Washington State successfully blocked President Trump’s first travel ban.

Inslee is also traveling the country as chairman of the Democratic Governors Association. As you may recall, Mitt Romney did the same thing in 2006 as chairman of the Republican Governors Association before launching his first campaign for president the following year.

Congressman King surprised by failed House vote on the Farm Bill

By

Congressman Steve King.

Iowa Congressman Steve King says he was taken aback by the failure of the Farm Bill on Friday in the U.S. House.

“It was a surprise. It was a surprise to me. I told people I thought it would pass by a small margin of votes, maybe five, plus or minus one or two,” King says. “I was watching the whip team before that vote was called. They were relaxed, thinking it was all in the bag. Then, when I watched the board, it went the other way.”

King, a Republican from Kiron who serves on the House Agriculture Committee, was in Orange City over the weekend. He says explains why the bill failed.

“No Democrat would vote for it because it had work requirements in the SNAP program,” King says. “So, they pretty well certified themselves as being against work. I’m not particularly surprised at that, but that’s the position they took, so it all had to be passed with Republican votes.” At least nine Republicans joined with Democrats in voting against the Farm Bill, colleagues King calls “liberal Republicans,” who also disagreed with the SNAP work requirements. There were several other Republicans who King refers to as “the Freedom Caucus people,” who also opposed the Farm Bill.

“There were 13 of them that voted no and they did so because they want an immigration bill to come to the floor,” King says. “That immigration bill has got two components of amnesty in it and I oppose that immigration bill and I’m just stunned that they would take two separate issues, vote no on something that they would otherwise vote yes on, just to get some leverage to get a bill to the floor that has amnesty in it.”

King is still optimistic and remains confident the House will pass a Farm Bill within the next month or so that will be very similar to the bill that just failed.

(By Dennis Morrice, KLEM, Le Mars)

 

Farm Bill fails in U.S. House, Grassley urges GOP to craft better bill

By

Senator Chuck Grassley. (file photo)

A fight among House Republicans led to defeat of the Farm Bill when the legislation came up for a vote today.

Democrats had criticized the proposed Farm Bill because it includes a new work requirement for food stamp recipients who are in their 50s or the parents of school-aged children, but it was conservative Republicans in the U.S. House who defeated the bill for another reason. They were demanding an immediate vote on an immigration crack-down. Enough of them then cast a protest vote against the Farm Bill crafted by some of their fellow Republicans that the bill fell 15 votes short of passing.

The current Farm Bill expires September 30.

Senator Chuck Grassley is urging his fellow Republicans in the House to come up with “better” Farm Bill. Grassley, in a tweet, said the bill should deny federal farm subsidies to people who are not farmers and have merely invested in farmland.

Congressman Dave Loebsack, a Democrat from Iowa City, was the first member of Iowa’s delegation in the U.S. House to release a written statement after today’s vote.

“House Republicans today showed they care more about being partisan than passing a farm bill to support Iowa’s farmers and rural communities. In what has historically been done in a bipartisan manner with a rural-urban coalition, this farm bill has devolved into a partisan food fight,” Loebsack said.

Candidates for ag secretary discuss water quality issue in joint forum

By

A water quality bill was the first piece of legislation Governor Kim Reynolds signed into law this year, but all six of the candidates running for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture say that bill’s just the first step in addressing the issue.

The Democrat and all five Republicans running to be state ag secretary appeared at a forum in Mason City last night. Republican Craig Lang of Brooklyn, former president of the Iowa Farm Bureau, said farmers need to prove to consumers that progress is being made.

“You have to realize that we’re only one administration away or one federal judge away from being regulated and forced to do something that doesn’t work for us as farmers,” Lang said. “So we need to get together as farmers, prove to the public that we are making meaningful improvements in the water.”

Republican Dan Zumbach of Ryan is a state senator and chairman of the Senate Ag Committee. He voted for the water quality bill, which maintains the state’s voluntary approach to improving water quality and provides new funding for farmers’ soil and water conservation efforts.

“If there’s anything I’ve learned as a farmer myself and watching my neighbors and growing up and learning from my parents, if you give someone the opportunity to do something and do it right, they will,” Zumbach said. “And so if we continue the educational process, we continue to offer incentives to do what’s right, people in agriculture will do it.”

Republican Mike Naig is Iowa’s current secretary of agriculture, appointed by the governor to the position after Bill Northey resigned for a job in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Naig said there’s been significant progress in the five years since the state’s voluntary “nutrient management strategy” was established and the new state funds will advance the process.

“We need to continue to develop demonstration projects that help us prove practices and prove the economics around practices,” Naig said, “and now with the new dollars…we need to target our efforts into some larger-scale implementation projects in specific watersheds and build water quality infrastructures.”

Republican Chad Ingels of Randalia is a former chair of the Iowa Environmental Protection Commission. He favors farmer-led efforts that focus on an entire watershed.

“Enabling them to have flexible incentives, and that may vary across the state, set their own priorities on which practices should be emphasized in those particular watersheds, because they know better what management works in their areas,” Ingels said.

Republican Ray Gaesser of Corning, former chairman and president of the American Soybean Association, said the state needs to help ensure farmers and landowners get technical assistance and data about which practices work best to reduce run-off.

“We need to continue to work with cities like Cedar Rapids and Dubuque and others to work upstream and help farmers install those practices that really don’t benefit them on the farm, but it does benefit the city,” Gaesser said, “like bioreactors and those kind of things.”

Tim Gannon, the only Democrat running for state ag secretary, lives in Des Moines and is part of a family farming operation near Mingo. Gannon worked in the U.S. Department of Agriculture when former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack led the agency and Gannon said other states are finding ways to get private sector investment in conservation projects.

“I think there are ways that we can measure what we’re doing both in terms of practices and in terms of proving those practices,” Gannon said, “so that we can then incentivize private investment. Then we’re not talking $4-to-5 billion that would have to all come from the state. We’re talking a much smaller amount of money.”

The candidates made their comments at a forum sponsored by the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association.

(Reporting by Bob Fisher, KRIB, Mason City)

Ernst not happy with progress of Farm Bill in Senate Ag Committee

By

Senator Joni Ernst. (file photo)

Iowa Senator Joni Ernst says she is frustrated the Farm Bill has not yet been worked up and passed out of the Ag Committee she serves on.

The Republican from Red Oak says the work has been slowed by Democrats. “There are some hang-ups coming from our friends across the aisle,” Ernst says, “they would like to have more initiatives put into the Farm Bill and so on and so forth. And because of that, they are not willing to move ahead right now, and that’s very unfortunate.”

Ernst says they had hoped to have the bill done shortly after Easter. Now it’s going to be several more weeks. “We do anticipate that we will have this out mid-June,” Ernst says. “To me that’s just way behind schedule. Again, we should have had this done, farmers should have had certainty. And it looks like it will be delayed. Again, progress on the floor of the Senate is very slow.

The Farm Bill has been held up in the U.S. House by discussions of immigration and other issues. Ernst says she doesn’t have a problem with that. “They should have those debates. Have those debates on the floor of the House. I think that is important that everybody have a voice and talk about what is important, what is not import,” according to Ernst. “But that shouldn’t slow us down from getting our work done in the Senate through the Ag Committee. And that has been very frustrating — that we have not brought up the bill yet in committee.”

Ernst made her comments during her weekly conference call with reporters.

 

Expand Iowa’s medical marijuana law, candidates say

By

The Democratic candidates running for governor.

All six Democratic gubernatorial candidates support expansion of the state’s medical marijuana law.

John Norris, a long-time aide to former Governor Tom Vilsack, said Republican Governor Reynolds should respond to critics who contend cannabis products intended for medical use will be exploited as recreational drugs.

“The governor’s not leading when she needs to,” Norris said last night on IPTV. “People are suffering in this state. She’s spending all her political capital on tax cuts for millionaires. As governor, I would spend some political capital on educating Iowans about how this helps people. Let’s get over this paranoia…and get this fixed for people who need it.”

All six candidates were asked about the issue during a 90-minute “Iowa Press” forum sponsored by Iowa Public Television.

Ross Wilburn of Ames, the former mayor of Iowa City, said it’s an “over-reaction” to suggest there is a “direct line” between medical cannabis and recreational marijuana.

“There are people who are hurting now,” Wilburn said. “My mother died of cancer in 1985 when I was 20. She could have certainly benefited from medical marijuana.”

And Wilburn said his late father, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, could have used medical marijuana as pain medication in the last two weeks of his life.

Cathy Glasson, a nurse from Coralville, said medical cannabis has been very effective in treating lots of very serious ailments.

“Medical cannabis is actually used to treat opioid addition,” Glasson said. “So evidence is showing that it’s actually beneficial in keeping (prescription opioids) from being a gateway drug.”

Andy McGuire, a medical doctor, said it should be doctors, not politicians, who decide which conditions can be effectively treated with cannabis.

“Doctors, looking at scientific medical literature, ought to be making those decisions,” McGuire said. “This is the problem. You don’t want to have the legislature, you don’t want to have the governor involved in this. You want to have it done by physicians, with their patients.”

Fred Hubbell, a Des Moines businessman, supports that approach, too, and called for making changes in the law.

“If we’re really committed to quality, affordable health care for all Iowans…the science is clear that there are a lot more medical illnesses and issues that medical marijuana can be actually be very beneficial for, much broader than what we allow in our state,” Hubbell said. “Other states have gone a lot broader than we have.”

Hubbell mentioned letting cannabis oils, pills and creams with a higher concentration of the drug THC be sold in the state.

Nate Boulton, a state senator from Des Moines, said the medical marijuana law must be expanded or the businesses that just won state licenses to sell cannabis products here won’t be profitable.

“We’re not going to get more providers coming into our state to invest in a medical cannabis solution if we don’t have more accessibility,” Boulton said. “We’re not going to get people who are going to come here, only to be able to offer to a small number of Iowans.”

Current state law has set up a system for allowing cannabis products to be used as treatment for a limited number of conditions. Five Iowa dispensing sites have been chosen for Iowa-produced cannabis oils, pills and creams, starting this December.

Democratic gubernatorial candidates engage on debate stage

By

The six Democrats running for governor engaged in a sometimes feisty debate during a statewide broadcast tonight.

The candidates met in Iowa Public Television studios for 90-minutes of live conversation. With little public pollling on the race, Des Moines businessman Fred Hubbell — the only candidate running advertisements statewide — was targeted by three of his rivals.

State Senator Nate Boulton of Des Moines questioned Hubbell’s support of “corporate giveaways: when Hubbell was Democratic Governor Chet Culver’s Department of Economic Development director.

“We need a nominee that hasn’t had a hand in the cookie jar on all this…I think we have to have somebody that has not shown that they’re willing to engage in this coupon economic system that is failing our state right now,” Boulton said.

Hubbell responded: “I don’t know what he’s talking about. I mean, he didn’t name any particular project or location, but when I went into economic development, we had a film tax credit scandal that was costing Iowans tens of millions of dollars. We fixed that. We saved our state millions of dollars and we stopped giving away any state money to any project that did not have a prevailing wage requirement.”

Early in the debate, Hubbell listed ideas for setting new limits on hundreds of millions of dollars worth of state tax credits to businesses, but Hubbell did not join his competitors in calling for immediate repeal of the GOP tax cut bill that passed the legislature in April. Later in the debate, Hubbell returned to the subject.

“We can all talk about reversing this tax cut that they came up, but there are some good things in there and we should address the existing problems before we take a look at dealing with that tax cut,” Hubbell said.

John Norris, the chief of staff to former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack,  replied: “I disagree with Fred. We’ve got to throw that tax cut away and start over.”

Norris said there’s no way to sustain a $2 billion tax cut and it’s time to “help poor families in Iowa get ahead” rather than keep a GOP tax plan geared “to help millionaires.”

All the Democratic gubernatorial candidates oppose Iowa’s new law which bans virtually all abortions in the state, but Cathy Glasson, a nurse and union organizer from Coralville, challenged Hubbell’s commitment to the issue.

“If you’re up here talking about women’s reproductive health and safe, legal abortions, you’d better be walking the walk and not talking the talk,” Glasson said.

Moderator David Yepsen interjected: “Who are you talking about?”

Glasson replied: “I’m challenging Mr. Hubbell who has contributed to campaigns at the state legislature that actually voted for the fetal heartbeat bill.”

Hubbell responded. “She’s talking about Peter Cownie, who’s a state legislator. Charlotte and I have known the Cownies for over 30 years, ever since Peter Cownie was a young boy, so when we had an opportunity to support Peter, of course we did. Did I like his vote? No. Did I like the vote of anybody else who voted for it? No. If I had been governor, would I have vetoed it? Yes.

“…By the way, if we’re going to win this election and we’re get anything accomplished when one of us is governor, we’re going to have to reach out to the Trump voters and all of the voters across this state because we’re going to need them to win this election and we’re going to need them to govern.”

The June 5 Democratic Primary is just 20 days away, to be conducted with a new voter verification law approved by Republicans. All the Democratic candidates held up their hands at the end of the debate to indicate they’d repeal the law.

“It’s addressing a problem that doesn’t exist,” said Andy McGuire, a medical doctor who has served a chairwoman of the Iowa Democratic Party. “There wasn’t fraud to begin with. This was just to limit voting and we should make voting for everyone possible.”

Ross Wilburn of Ames, an African American who served three terms as mayor in Iowa City, likened the new requirements to racial segregation efforts in the south.

“We don’t want Jim Crow laws in Iowa,” Wilburn said, drawing cheers and applause from the studio audience.

The six Democratic gubernatorial candidates will appear together at one more debate on May 30 that’s sponsored by The Des Moines Register and will be broadcast by KCCI television in Des Moines.

In midst of ’81 hostage crisis, Hubbell says he resolved to ‘do more’

By

Fred Hubell

Hours before Fred Hubbell joins the other five Democrats running for governor tonight in a televised debate, Hubbell’s campaign has released a short video that reviews a traumatic event from Hubbell’s past.

In 1981, Hubbell and his wife, Charlotte, were taken hostage in an airplane that was diverted to Afghanistan, then Syria by three armed hijackers. Another passenger just a few feet from Hubbell was shot and tossed from the plane.

Hubbell talked about the experience with Radio Iowa. “My kids call me steady,” Hubbell said. “I’ve just learned that good things never last forever and bad things, if you’re thoughtful about it and think about it properly, you can get through it.”

Charlotte Hubbell was released after six days. Fred Hubbell, who was 30 years old at the time, spent a total of 13 days as a hostage before he and the remaining passengers were released.

“You inevitably spend time thinking about what you have been doing and what you could have done and what you’d do if you get off the plane, because you don’t know if you’re going to get off. You’re assuming you probably won’t,” Hubbell said. “…I kind of made the decision: ‘Look, if I get a second chance, I need to do more. I need to use it — more than I used the first chance.'”

The Hubbell campaign video includes news clips about the hostage crisis and features Hubbell himself speaking about those events in 1981. Hubbell told Radio Iowa his campaign produced the 94-second video because he’s been asked about the experience as he’s campaigned around the state.

“Charlotte and I have, from the very day it happened, not wanted to make a big deal out it and not wanted to seek publicity about it. People wanted us to write a book about it many different times and we chose not to do that. I mean, that’s not kind of how we run our lives,” Hubbell said. “But, you know, I’m in a different situation now. I have to talk about my experience and my background and people want to know.”

Sitting for days on that plane helped Hubbell come to this conclusion: “If I can survive something like this, I can survive a lot of things.”

Pakistan agreed to free 55 political prisoners after the hijackers threatened to execute Fred Hubbell and two other Americans on board, bringing the 13-day hostage situation to a peaceful end.

Once Hubbell and his wife returned to the United States, friends and relatives gave the couple stacks of newspaper clippings about the hostage crisis. The Hubbells stuffed the articles in paper grocery bags. Today, those bags sit in the basement of the Hubbell’s Des Moines home. Hubbell said he’s never read any of it and doesn’t intend to.