Dems stick with Hart, GOP rival says Ernst sucks, Trump ally off U Iowa advisory board
Jan. 6 edition of "KHOI's Capitol Week"
This email is reaching you later than usual, because I spent much of Tuesday finishing up a piece about Donald Trump’s “troll-in-chief” Mike Davis, which took longer than anticipated.
Before I get to Monday night’s radio show, I want to share my ten most-viewed Substack posts from 2024. Some were among my favorite projects of the year, and some were among the most labor-intensive. Clicking on the underlined text will take you to any of these posts, if you would like to read them.
There was some overlap between my most popular offerings on Substack and the 24 most-viewed Bleeding Heartland posts from 2024. But I publish far more material at the main site (561 posts last year) than I do here. If you would like to receive occasional emails with links to all recent Bleeding Heartland articles or commentaries, please sign up for my other free newsletter.
On to the countdown:
10. How mid-sized cities became Iowa Democrats’ biggest problem
Thank you for supporting this work, which allows me to write the stories I would want to read.
On to the January 6 radio show.
and I had so much to talk about. The audio file is at the top of this email, or you can find “KHOI’s Capitol Week” on any podcast platform or smart speaker. The full archive (going back to February 2021) is available on KHOI’s website.New Congress gets to work
We don’t often lead with Congressional coverage, but our top story was the drama-free certification of Donald Trump’s electoral college victory on January 6. U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley helped lead a group of senators across the Capitol rotunda to the House chamber for the joint session. That’s because he has regained the position of Senate President pro-tem, a position traditionally given to the most senior member of the majority party. He previously served in that role from January 2019 to January 2021.
Grassley is the second Iowan to be Senate President pro-tem; the first was Albert Cummins from 1919-1925.
Iowa’s four U.S. House members helped elect Speaker Mike Johnson on the first ballot. (A couple of Freedom Caucus members needed a little arm-twisting from Trump) New House rules require at least nine members of the majority party to file a motion to vacate the speaker’s position. That may well happen in March, when Congress will need to pass another government funding bill. But I’m confident in predicting Iowa’s representatives won’t cause any trouble for Johnson.
For the first time in six years, Senator Joni Ernst is not part of the Senate GOP leadership team. She will chair the Small Business Committee while serving on Agriculture, Armed Services, and Homeland Security. Grassley’s back in charge of the Senate Judiciary Committee and will also serve on Agriculture, Finance, and Budget.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune has scheduled more working days for the chamber (179 days in 2025, up from 102 days last year). The House calendar is lighter, with 136 scheduled working days.
President Joe Biden took care of some unfinished business from the last Congress, signing the Social Security Fairness Act into law on Sunday. It’s going to boost Social Security benefits for about 10,000 Iowans. Spencer and I discussed the main points, but you can find more details in my Bleeding Heartland story about the bill.
Candidates set for Iowa Senate special election
Voters in Senate district 35 will elect a successor to Lieutenant Governor Chris Cournoyer on January 28. Last week Democrats nominated Mike Zimmer, who was unopposed at the special convention. In a surprise to me, Katie Whittington won the GOP nomination, beating out an Iowa House member and a Clinton County farmer.
As I discussed here, the fundamentals of this eastern Iowa district favor Republicans. It’s a classic example of a legislative district anchored by a mid-sized city, which has moved sharply to the right over the past decade. That said, anything can happen in a low-turnout special election.
GOP primary challenger to Joni Ernst: You suck!
We spent some time talking about Joshua Smith’s extraordinary debut digital ad for his 2026 Iowa Senate campaign. I had to watch my step, because he used some words I can’t say on the air without causing problems for KHOI!
You can watch the video and read more of my analysis here. This spot has big MAGA energy and may help Smith pick up social media followers and small donors. I don’t see “Joni Ernst sucks” as promising message for the GOP primary electorate, which mostly consists of voters over age 50.
Iowa Democrats stick with Rita Hart
I spent Saturday morning at the IBEW hall in Ankeny, where members of the Iowa Democratic Party’s State Central Committee voted on leadership for the next four years. Four candidates were nominated. At Bleeding Heartland I published the messages three of them sent to SCC members before the meeting. Click the links to read more:
State Auditor Rob Sand didn’t attend the meeting, but last week he urged SCC members to stick with Hart. She won on the first ballot by a wide margin.
Spencer and I talked about goals Hart set out in her plan and what she told reporters after the vote. A Bleeding Heartland post about this is in progress.
Iowa GOP leader unsure about another term
Whereas the Iowa Democratic Party has had nine different chairs since 2010, Jeff Kaufmann has led the Republican Party of Iowa since 2014. He was the guest on the latest episode of “Iowa Press” on Iowa PBS, and we talked about some of his notable comments about the state party, the 2028 caucuses, and last year’s successful early vote drive.
Iowa passes up USDA summer food program
As expected, Iowa missed the January 1 deadline to apply for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s summer food assistance program, which could help hundreds of thousands of Iowa kids who qualify for free or reduced-price school lunches. Governor Kim Reynolds plans to ask the Trump administration for a waiver to do a “demonstration project” involving distribution of pre-made food boxes.
She’s never explained why this is the only area where the self-styled parental rights champion doesn’t trust parents to decide what’s right for their own kids.
Governor leaves student position vacant on Iowa Board of Regents
I wanted to make some time to talk about an important article by Vanessa Miller of the Cedar Rapids Gazette. “Iowa’s Board of Regents, which governs the state’s three public universities, has been understaffed for seven months spanning five meetings — with its student-regent seat sitting unfilled for the longest stretch since the Legislature in 1988 required a student to fill one of the nine unpaid spots.”
I don’t know why Reynolds won’t fill that position. She has left unfilled vacancies on many state boards, but the student regent provides a unique perspective. It’s a shame that only one of the eight current Board of Regents members (Nancy Dunkel) seems to care.
The last student regent was from the University of Iowa, and the one before that from Iowa State University. So if and when Reynolds appoints a student to the governing body for the state universities, it should be someone from the University of Northern Iowa.
Trump ally Mike Davis leaves U Iowa advisory board
We closed out with a story I started working on about a month ago. One of Trump’s top MAGA warriors in the legal community stepped down from the alumni advisory board for the University of Iowa’s political science department. In a statement provided to me in December, Mike Davis said he decided on his own to resign. The move came after some of his inflammatory social media posts prompted calls for the university to remove him from the advisory board.
Spencer and I covered the basics about who Davis is, how he became well-known, and what he said in those posts on the X platform (formerly known as Twitter). You can read more in my Bleeding Heartland article.
Thank you for reading or listening! Next week, expect the Iowa legislature’s opening day to dominate our January 13 show. But I already have a few other topics in mind to talk over with Spencer. See you then.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR DRAFT I submitted yesterday
Once again our governor has declined the Federal supplemental summer food program offering $29,000,000 in total ($120 per child for 240,000 Iowa children). This helpful program is tiny in relation to the almost $11,000,000,000 the state accepts annually from the Federal government.
Why has Reynolds refused this much-needed funding? Last summer her labor-intensive alternative offered only $900,000. Surely, adding balances to debit cards requires less cost, coordination, and time, than buying and boxing up food, and delivering boxes around the state, which the governor’s poorly-funded alternative requires.
A staff person at the governor’s office told me the real reason the Federal money was rejected is that summer cards are issued with the individual child’s name on them and children cannot be trusted to buy healthy food. However, this justification is neither valid nor credible. I learned from a state legislator that in fact the individual state determines whether additional summer funds are loaded onto existing SNAP cards (which are in parents’ names) or whether the state issues new summer cards which can be in either children or parent names.
Right. The individual STATE decides how to handle this question of names on the cards; there is no requirement that the individual children be on the cards. And parents CAN and DO use cards issued to their children.
So what is really going on governor Reynolds? Why do you accept literally billions from the Feds but reject millions that would go directly to families?
Why/How Democrats Are Losing Elections---In Iowa and America: "It's Economic Policy and Good Jobs, Stupid!!!" (With All Due Respect!)
For an intelligent, coherent, comprehensive, and historical viewpoint, 1970s--2024,-- Listen to the following, excellent, 40 minute, NY Times podcast (The Daily) video---interview with NY Times Magazine author/writer Dan Kaufman: "How NAFTA Broke American Politics", Oct. 8, 2024. (see Google)
The above video explains, in excellent detail, in my view, how/why Democratics have lost/are losing traditional, worker-supporters throughout the United States, including, in Iowa, and in mid-west, factory towns.
See also, original, NY Times print article, with same, above title, by Dan Kaufman, NY Times Magazine, on Sept 3, 2024, updated Sept. 6, 2024. (see Google)
Richard Sherzan