On the Campaign Trail with Ed Tibbetts

U.S. Rep. Phil Hare, D-Ill., said Friday he will vote for the health care reform bill this weekend.

Hare said the bill will take a number of steps to improve and expand insurance coverage, including making it more affordable for small businesses. And, he said, while it doesn’t contain the public option he’d backed, the bill is worthy of support.

“If not now, when,” he asked? “This is a very good bill.”

Hare’s support is not unexpected. He backed the House bill last November. However, he had objected to parts of the Senate bill that House members are now being asked to act upon.

Hare said that he wanted to see revisions, which were released Thursday.

The news comes on the heels of Caterpillar, a major empoyer in the district, saying the bill will cost it $100 million in the first year alone.

Hare responded that doing nothing would be far costlier because insurance costs would continue to rise.

Bobby Schilling, the Republican who is challenging Hare in the fall elections, seized on Caterpillar’s announcement Friday, saying the bill would cost the area jobs. “This will not help our economy, it’s going to crush it,” he said.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley, D-Iowa, said Friday the Waterloo Democrat had not yet committed.

Caitlin Legacki said Braley is reading the new language and has been trying to get better language pertaining to Medicare’s reimbursement formula, a key issue in Iowa.

“This is one of the factors that will play a role in his final decision,” Legacki said.

Braley voted for the House bill last November, too, and he’s not considered a swing vote by news organizations watching closely to see whether the leadership can get to the 216 votes needed for passage.

Braley told reporters earlier this week he’s always leaned toward backing reform, but he steadfastly refused to say whether he’d support the bill when it comes up for a vote.

He said he wanted to have a chance to read and understand the final package.

Politico reports today that a deal to close the Guantanamo Bay prison is still a ways off.

There have been varying reports about the prospects of a deal between the White House and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, concerning how to deal with the detainees.

Some reports have indicated that action isn’t too far off. This story seems to say not so much.

From Politico:

A spokesman for Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) dismissed a report in the Wall Street Journal Friday that the White House and a bipartisan group of senators were nearing agreement to close Guantanamo and settle a series of related thorny issues, including sending alleged September 11 plotters to military commissions.

But aides to leading Senate Democrats also disputed that their bosses had signed on to such an agreement or were on the verge of doing so.

Today is the last day for statewide and legislative candidates to file nomination papers for the June 8 primary, and the new online list provided by the Secretary of State’s office is filling in some local blanks.

Sens. David Hartsuch, R-Bettendorf, and Joe Seng, D-Davenport, have now filed.

Seng also has a challenger this year. Mark Holloway, a Republican from Davenport, has filed.

So has Davenport Alderman Ray Ambrose, a Republican who is challenging Rep. Cindy Winckler, D-Davenport.

Interestingly, there still are Democratic vacancies in the 82nd, 83rd and 84th districts.

The first two aren’t all that surprising. The 82nd District seat, held by Rep. Linda Miller, has been a Republican stronghold for years. The 83rd, held by Rep. Steve Olson, also is a tough district for Democrats.

Of course, the 84th District is Rep. Elesha Gayman’s seat. Gayman said earlier this week that she’s not running for a third term, so Democrats are working to fill her spot.

Sue Frembgen, the Scott County Democratic chair, told me there’s a Democratic candidate out there, but she wouldn’t say when that person would file, nor would she identify the person.

We’ll know by the end of the day.

As for the 1st congressional district, the lineup is likely set. Jim Budde, of Bellevue, Will Johnson of Dubuque, Mike LaCoste of Waterloo and Ben Lange of Independence, have all filed in the Republican primary.

Our Des Moines bureau reports that Jonathan Narcisse won’t file papers by tomorrow’s deadline to run in the June 8 primary.

Narcisse is the former Des Moines School Board member, who said a few weeks ago he’d challenge Gov. Chet Culver. He also made a few trips to the Quad-Cities since then, including for the Scott County Democratic Party’s Red, White & Blue dinner last weekend, where he spoke.

Narcisse said he’d gathered enough signatures to file, but decided he’d run as an independent in the fall.

Kathie Obradovich of the Des Moines Register asked to see the signatures, but she reports Narcisse has not yet produced them.

Iowa Rep. Elesha Gayman, D-Davenport, officially announces she’s not running for a third term.  See my story from the Times this morning.

Here’s the statement she released this afternoon.

“It has been a great honor to serve in the Iowa House of Representatives the last four years.  As the youngest woman in the Legislature, I hope that my service has shown other young people and women that they can and should serve our great state.  From Generation Iowa to expanded preschool to health care for kids, I’m proud of my accomplishments in the Legislature helping middle class families in our community.

While I will continue to work to make our state more friendly to young people, especially young women, it’s time to get serious about pursuing other opportunities and paying down my student loans.  I will always be proud to call Iowa home.”

A Justice Department official today reiterated the Obama administration’s plan to buy the Thomson Correctional Center regardless of what happens with its plan to move detainees there from Guantanamo Bay.

Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich said in a letter today that “The Department has made clear, however, that it would be seeking to purchase the facility in Thomson even if detainees were not being considered for transfer there.”

The Quad-City Times reported in February the administration wanted the prison regardless of the Gitmo outcome.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons has proposed spending $170 million to buy and renovate the prison to add up to 1,600 beds to help solve its overcrowding problem.

Today’s letter was sent to U.S. Rep. Don Manzullo, R-Ill., who has opposed the administration’s Gitmo plan, but has said he’d back just putting federal prisoners there.

Congressional advocates of the plan to move Gitmo prisoners to northwest Illinois say this shouldn’t be taken as any sign it has backed off that plan.

President Obama signed the jobs bill today, and U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley, D-Iowa, was among about three dozen congressmen who were invited to the White House for the signing ceremony.

Braley proposed a payroll tax cut in the House for small businesses who hire people for longer than six months. U.S. Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, had earlier proposed it in the Senate.

The bill that Obama signed today includes $18 billion in tax cuts, including the payroll measure, as well as $20 billion in highway and transit spending, according to the Associated Press.

Rep. Leonard Boswell, D-Iowa, also was on hand for the ceremony.

Iowa Rep. Elesha Gayman, a rising star in local Democratic circles, said tonight she won’t seek a third term.

Gayman said that she is pursuing consulting opportunities, including those overseas, and that she needs to pay off her student loans.

Her departure means Democrats will have to seek out somebody to run in District 84, which already was going to be a competitive seat.

Republican Ross Paustian, a Walcott farmer who squared off against Gayman two years ago, has already filed papers to run again.

Gayman’s news comes just days before the Friday filing deadline for the June 8 primary. She said it’s likely local Democrats will have to hold a special convention to fill the ballot spot. A Democrat had agreed to take her place but bowed out for personal reasons three weeks ago, she said. She didn’t identify the person.

A full story should be up on the Times web site shortly.

Haven’t had much chance to blog today. But here’s some QC-related political stuff you may find of interest.

* House Democrats are eager to tell Americans how their health care proposal will help them, and they’ve broken it down to the impacts in each congressional district.

The Democrats use various government data to predict the impact.

The topline: They say 33,000 people in Illinois’ 17th district will gain health insurance coverage if the bill covers as many as predicted. In Iowa’s 1st District it will be 16,000.

You can find the data on Illinois-17 here. Iowa-1 info is here.

* The latest wrinkle in the drive to get the bill passed in the House is consideration of a technique called “deem and pass.” The maneuver would allow House members who don’t want to vote on the Senate bill to simply cast a ballot for a package of fixes under the reconciliation process, which then would deem the Senate bill passed.

Republicans are calling it dirty pool. Bobby Schilling, the Republican running in Illinois-17 says “Congress should not use tricky back door maneuvers to pass this health care overhaul.”

On a conference call today, U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley, D-Iowa, said the debate over the process are a distraction from the real issues, which are rising insurance costs.

He said he’s open to various methods of passing a bill, and that Iowans are smart enough to know what the final vote will represent.

* The Senate passed a jobs bill today, with 11 Republicans siding with Democrats in voting for it. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, wasn’t one of them.

Democrats ripped him for putting partisanship in front of jobs. Grassley has complained about a part of the bill, saying it actually helps big Wall Street banks and costs taxpayers.

* The Republican Governors Association goes after Iowa Gov. Chet Culver. They’ve put an Internet video up complaining about what they say are unfunded mandates to states in the proposed health care bill. You can find the video here.

UPDATE: The Democratic Governor’s Association responds that Culver is working to turn the economy around, and that the RGA is eager to divert attention from the “mess” national Republicans created.

* With only a couple days left before the primary filing deadline for Statehouse seats, there still are a lot of open slots for Quad-City legislative districts.

That’s probably not all that unusual. Lots of candidates will wait until the last minute to file.

To see the list, go here.

CNN reports that Steve Hildebrand, an aide to the Obama campaign in 2008, is considering a primary bid against U.S. Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, a South Dakota Democrat.

Hildebrand, who was Obama’s deputy national campaign manager in 2008, has extensive ties to Iowa. He ran Al Gore’s 2000 caucus campaign. And he ran a consulting firm with Paul Tewes, the man who headed Obama’s 2008 Iowa caucus campaign.

“I want to see how she votes on health care,” Hildebrand told CNN. “If the vote is very, very close and we lose it or come close to losing it, I will take a seriously look at challenging her.”