New Iowa Poll, new House speaker, smaller caucus field, and more
Oct. 30 "Capitol Week" is online
Iowa seemed to skip right over fall this past week, going from shorts weather to freezing cold in a day. Please consider donating to an aid organization if you are able. Food banks are facing high demand and can use your spare cash, or certain food items that are particularly needed. Many organizations (such as the West Des Moines Human Services clothing closet) accept gifts of clothing, shoes, household items, books, or toys. Des Moines Mutual Aid is raising money for its Winter Survival Fund, supporting essential items for unhoused people like heaters and propane refills.
Dennis Hart and I are fortunate to work together from the comfort of our own homes, thanks to the magic of Zoom and KHOI’s station manager Mike Murphy, who produces “Capitol Week.” We haven’t had a slow news week all year, and tried to pack as much in as possible into the October 30 program.
Remember, the entire “Capitol Week” archive is available on KHOI’s website.
Topics covered on tonight’s show:
We began with political reaction to last week’s walkout of Grinnell College students who were expressing solidarity with Palestine opposing Zionism and what they called Israeli apartheid. Iowa House Republican Austin Harris posted on X/Twitter last week, “Colleges that give harbor to anti-semitic organizations should not receive a single penny in taxpayer dollars. I’ll be introducing legislation to put an end to this nonsense.” Harris didn’t respond to my question about how he would define “anti-Semitic” in this context. I’ll be following this issue during the next legislative session, because such a law could entail viewpoint-based discrimination in violation of the First Amendment;
U.S. Senator Joni Ernst and some of her Republican colleagues wrote to the U.S. Department of Education last week, wanting to know what the agency was doing to enforce federal civil rights law and ensure “Jewish or Israeli college and university students are not subjected to discrimination based on race, color or national origin”;
U.S. Representative Ashley Hinson (IA-02) signed a letter from House Republicans to Attorney General Merrick Garland, asking what the Justice Department is doing “to investigate Hamas supporters in the United States, as well as the perpetrators of anti-Semitic violence in cities and school campuses across the nation”;
Republican presidential candidates have been trying to one-up each other on this issue. Former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have promised to revoke student visas or deport immigrants who supposedly celebrate terrorism or express anti-American views. DeSantis has told two Florida public universities to disband pro-Palestinian groups. Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley has called for cutting government funding to colleges and universities that allow anti-Semitism to “flourish on campus.” U.S. Senator Tim Scott has introduced a bill to pull Pell grants from universities that don’t crack down on certain groups. If enacted, such policies would surely end up in court as possible First Amendment violations;
The three-week-long House speaker drama ended last week with Republicans unanimously supporting Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana. He’s easily the least experienced House speaker in generations, he helped lead the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and he has far-right views on abortion and other issues. Nevertheless, Iowa’s House delegation welcomed his election;
Although Trump holds no formal office, he still has veto power over most Republicans in Congress and was able to sink House Majority Whip Tom Emmer’s bid to become speaker;
The new speaker has less than three weeks to shepherd some kind of government funding package through the House. My impression from Congressional reporters like Jamie Dupree (whose newsletter I highly recommend) is that Republicans who ousted Kevin McCarthy will give much more leeway to Johnson, who is one of their own;
Moving to Iowa caucus news, the Des Moines Register published the latest Iowa Poll by Selzer & Co on Monday. It held great news for Trump and Haley and was close to a worst-case scenario for DeSantis (Trump led the field with 43 percent, while Haley and DeSantis were tied at 16 percent). We dug into some of the interesting numbers, but you should definitely read the Register’s coverage here, here, and here;
While Trump’s lead in Iowa is large and durable, it’s somewhat smaller than his commanding position in national polling of GOP voters. We talked about some of the anti-Trump messaging that has targeted Iowa Republicans in recent months, with little success;
Trump held a rally in Sioux City on Sunday, and we discussed his remarks and his campaign’s organizing strategy, which is on another level compared to the 2015 caucus campaign. I thought it was telling that State Senators Kevin Alons and Jeff Taylor, who represent heavily Republican districts in northwest Iowa, just endorsed Trump. Ordinary voters don’t necessarily follow the lead of state legislators, but late endorsements often go to presidential candidates who are perceived to have momentum;
Former Vice President Mike Pence ended his campaign over the weekend, after months of gaining no traction with the evangelical voters whom he imagined to be his base of support;
A Cedar Rapids Gazette story tallied the presidential candidates’ spending in Iowa, and reached a surprising conclusion: no-hoper Ryan Binkley appeared to lead the field with about $3.25 million in spending here during the third quarter. I would not cover campaign finance in this way; super-PACs are carrying the load for several leading candidates and are spending much more than figures shown here. But the reporting does support an argument economist Dave Swenson has made for a long time: the economic impact of the Iowa caucuses is smaller than many people assume;
DeSantis told reporters last week that Governor Kim Reynolds’ endorsement would be “very, very meaningful.” A couple of months ago, I was sure Reynolds would come out for DeSantis during the home stretch of the caucus campaign. But with him sinking in Iowa and national polls, I’m no longer convinced she will spend her political capital that way;
DeSantis wants a GOP presidential debate to be held in Iowa before the caucuses; the Republican National Committee hasn’t scheduled anything. To my knowledge, there has always been a GOP debate in Iowa before any competitive caucus, going back to 1980;
U.S. Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota is actively campaigning against President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination. I don’t see this going anywhere; although many Democrats do have misgivings about Biden, Phillips doesn’t appear to represent any important Democratic constituency or ideology;
Reynolds held a press conference last week to brag about the Iowa National Guard and Department of Public Safety deployments to Texas from August and September. She allocated $1.93 million in American Rescue Plan funding for the missions. I found it interesting that her administration declined to give reporters details about the deployments a couple of months ago, but are now happy to talk about what kind of work the National Guard members and troopers were doing;
During the Q&A part of that press conference, Reynolds used heated language to denounce critics of the book banning law she signed in May. Bruce Lear wrote more on this subject at Bleeding Heartland;
The Iowa Department of Education is in no hurry to adopt rules clarifying certain provisions in that law, known as Senate File 496. I explained why school districts are anxious for more guidance from the state;
According to Reynolds, First Gentleman Kevin Reynolds is responding well to treatment for lung cancer;
A quick CO2 pipeline update: Navigator has formally pulled the plug on its proposal, while pipeline opponents are suing to block a water permit sought by an LLC linked to Summit Carbon Solutions. We only had a minute to discuss this important development, but Nancy Dugan has been all over the water permits angle and reported on the lawsuit for Bleeding Heartland last week.
Thanks, as always, for reading or listening! I’m so grateful to KHOI for giving Dennis and me a platform. Check out their diverse talk and music programming, all broadcast without commercials.
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This is one of the best summaries I have seen about the recent busy political week! Thank you.