Senate Democratic Leader Mike Gronstal Monday issued a press release saying that his party has approved "99 percent" of Governor Branstad's appointees to state government positions. Of course that's tantamount to a bully saying that 99 percent of the time he doesn't hurt his victims.
Democrats easily approved without question Branstad's Democratic nominee to the Iowa Board of Regents. The Republicans? Well, the results came in Monday. Craig Lang and Robert Cramer were shot down.
Lang's defeat? Largely in retaliation for the controversy over the Harkin Institute at Iowa State University.
Funny how Lang gets blamed for something that's the fault of then-Regents Ruth Harkin and Michael Gartner. They pushed for the creation of an institute at ISU to honor Sen. Tom Harkin, but didn't want that institute to really be a part of ISU. They wanted it to do its own thing, even if it wasted university time and dollars duplicating the work of other research entities at Iowa State. (And wasn't Gartner the Regents' champion for eliminating duplication between Iowa, Iowa State and UNI?)
It is no wonder that the Harkin Institute idea became mired in controversy. It was created to honor a sitting US Senator, who then had his own staff provide names of potential donors to the project. There's a conflict of interest investigation just waiting to happen.
All of that's NOT Craig Lang's fault. He's merely the focus of anger by Democrats that their standard-bearer was embarrassed by something that was the creation of his wife and the man who described himself as Ruth Harkin's "chauffeur," then-Regent Gartner.
Robert Cramer is the victim of the Democratic party's new embrace of the gay lobby. Iowa Senators who refused to put up same-sex marriage bills in the past are now flocking to show their support for One Iowa and the other groups that have moved into the Iowa political scene since the Iowa Supreme Court decision that paved the way for same-sex couples to wed.
I remember then-Senator Tom Vilsack being asked by this reporter in a Democratic gubernatorial debate about gay marriage. Vilsack's response? "We need to have a statewide dialogue on the subject first." Did Vilsack recommend the initiation of that dialogue when he was elected governor? Nope. Did any other major Democratic candidate or legislator come forward? Nope.
The gay lobby now has become for Iowa Democrats what Iowans for Tax Relief was to Republicans for years, until recently: an organization that Democrats must pay homage to, and do token things to appease, so that the groups will wholeheartedly endorse them in the next election. And because Cramer disagrees with them and has been vocal about it, he was struck down.
Democrats in the Iowa Senate easily approved Branstad's Democratic nominee to the Iowa Utilities Board awhile back, Sen. Swati Dandekar. Now that Branstad is set to fill the Republican slot on the board, former state Rep. Nick Ryan's apparently not good enough. Having an engineer on the IUB isn't good enough. Confronted with that, the next excuse is that there "may be too much deference to Cedar Rapids over the rest of the state."
That the Utilities Board has even the opportunity to favor one community over another is ridiculous. What really is the fear is that, with Ryan on board, the Utilities Board may be predisposed to approve Mid-American Energy's proposal for more nuclear-powered electricity generation in Iowa. The anti-nuke wing of the Democratic Party has been, well, nuclear, in their opposition to the construction of another nuclear reactor in Iowa. Forget that Palo, our current reactor, has operated safely, has shut down and fixed issues well in advance of any problems, and provides relatively clean energy.
Oh, I forgot. The anti-nuclear lobby wants to cover the state with windmills instead. The problem with that position is that there isn't enough land mass to put the kind of wind turbines out there needed to generate enough power to replace what's produced by nuclear and coal-fired generators. Plus, the wind lobby's feeling the heat from the animal activists, because of the bird kills that have occurred in some wind farms. And from the sound environmentalists, who contend the whir of the turbine blades is detrimental to human health.
So the term "hyper-partisan" is appropriate when it comes to describing what Democrats are doing now. They have ignored the issues of their now most vocal supporters and must throw them some token action to show they're still "on their side."
That way the gay lobby forgets that no Democratic leader in the recent past actively supported a gay rights amendment to the Iowa Constitution, nor have they introduced one now to start the debate. That way, they can say they tried to stop Mid American Energy when in reality every one of their communities would be fighting for the jobs should it be approved. They get a "pass." And all it takes is a "no" vote.
And the problem that I fear is, as legislatures and governorships change control, the next Republican Iowa Senate will use the excuse of the Lang and Cramer defeats to defeat a Democratic governor's appointees (no predictions here-just saying WHEN that happens...).
Gronstal's party just started a viscious cycle that will come back to bite future Democrats. I've seen it happen. Two wrongs don't make a right, but that never stops the partisans.
