On the Campaign Trail with Ed Tibbetts

U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley’s been in the news a lot lately because of his role in the health care talks. But he’s also drawing some attention for his vote against the nomination of Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court.

It was Grassley’s first vote against a Supreme Court nominee in his 29 years in the Senate. He’s said that he wasn’t convinced Sotomayor wouldn’t let her personal beliefs affect the outcome of cases.

The Wall Street Journal’s coverage this week quoted him extensively.

And here’s a piece from CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen expressing shock at Grassley’s vote.

Cohen says Sotomayor is more centrist than nominees Grassley’s supported, including Robert Bork on the right and Stephen Breyer on the left. He also argues there’s really no difference between Sotomayor and Breyer in their respective views on the role of a judge, either.

Cohen concludes:

Judge Sotomayor doesn’t need Sen. Grassley’s vote. She is going to be confirmed by the Senate next week and she is endorsed by the Committee on Tuesday. But it says something very profound about the man, and the current state of partisan politics on Capitol Hill, that a generation of nonpartisanship on Supreme Court nominees has come crashing to an end with a woman who clearly is competent, dedicated and, based upon her record, much more centrist and practical than most of her recent predecessors.

The Iowa Republican and Democratic parties announced today that Jan. 23 will be the date of the 2010 precinct caucuses (these are the ones the national media don’t attend).

Of note: The caucuses will be on a Saturday. The parties say this is the only time in their memory that this has happened, and they say they’re hoping this will mean greater participation.

(Don’t count on it. Getting reporters to go to caucuses without presidential politics at stake is going to be hard enough).

The Saturday date is interesting, though, because the caucuses have been targeted for their low participation, even in presidential years. Regularly, the caucuses are on a Monday night.

Recall, Hillary Clinton had some choice words to say about caucuses process in 2008. Monday nights aren’t good for working people or women who had kids to look after, went the complaint. And it was more than Clinton, too. Even some Iowans who have gone to caucus for years acknowledge the meeting time makes it tough for some people to attend.

At any rate, mark Jan. 23, 2010, on your calendars. See you there. Maybe.

Here’s a story from the Associated Press that’s bound to turn the head of some Iowa Democrats who’ve been laboring for a public health insurance option.

The AP says a bi-partisan group of senators is “edging closer to a compromise that excludes a requirement many congressional Democrats seek for large businesses to offer coverage to their workers. Nor would there be a provision for a government insurance option, despite Obama’s support for such a plan.”

The AP quotes unnamed sources in its article.

Can’t help but think back to the caucuses when the only real argument about a health overhaul on the Democratic side was whether there would be a requirement that individuals purchase health insurance.

Now, they’re talking about not only dropping the public option but also the large business mandate.

Of course, this is just the Senate Finance Committee, of which Iowa’s Chuck Grassley is the top Republican, but it’s a sign of the way things seem to be drifting.

Alexi Giannoulias, the state treasurer in Illinois, will be in the Quad-Cities today as part of the statewide tour to announce his U.S. Senate candidacy. It started Sunday in Chicago.

Giannoulias has been here recently to tout his office’s role in trying to keep Seaford Clothing open.

Giannoulias was slated to visit Rockford, Rock Island and Peoria today. He’ll be at the Laborers’ Union Local 309 hall, 2835 7th Ave., at 12:30 p.m.

There likely will be a number of Democrats in the race to replace Sen. Roland Burris, who announced he’s not running for the job next year. The primary is in February.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is trying to win farmers over to the House’s climate change bill.

Today, he’s testifying to a Senate committee, saying essentially: The plan has costs and benefits, and the benefits outweigh the costs. You can read excerpts of his testimony below.

He had an op-ed in the Des Moines Register this morning.

The farm sector has been a sticking point in the climate change debate. Having the Ag Department analyze the plan and say it’s a good thing probably carries more weight in rural areas than having the EPA say it. It doesn’t hurt that Vilsack is a former farm state governor.

There’s still plenty of opposition, though. Bob Stallman, the president of the American Farm Bureau Federation said quick action would be the “height of folly,” according to Bloomberg.

 Even Sen. Tom Harkin, the Iowa Democrat who chairs the Senate Agriculture Committee, has concerns.

Here’s excerpts of Vilsack’s testimony, as released by the Ag Department this morning.

 
“Although we realize there are a variety of specific approaches that can be used to achieve clean energy and climate goals, over the last several weeks, USDA has analyzed costs and benefits of the House-passed climate legislation for agriculture. Our analysis demonstrates that the economic opportunities for farmers and ranchers can potentially outpace – perhaps significantly – the costs from climate legislation.

“The agriculture sector will benefit directly from allowance revenues allocated to finance incentives for renewable energy and agricultural emissions reductions during the first five years of the HR 2454 cap and trade program. Funds for agricultural emissions reductions are estimated to range from about $75 million to $100 million annually from 2012-2016.

“HR 2454’s creation of an offset market will create opportunities for the agricultural sector. In particular, our analysis indicates that annual net returns to farmers range from about $1 billion per year in 2015-20 to almost $15-20 billion in 2040-50, not accounting for the costs of implementing offset practices.

“So, let me be clear about the implications of this analysis. In the short term, the economic benefits to agriculture from cap and trade legislation will likely outweigh the costs. In the long term, the economic benefits from offsets markets easily trump increased input costs from cap and trade legislation. Let me also note that we believe these figures are conservative because we aren’t able to model the types of technological change that are very likely to help farmers produce more crops and livestock with fewer inputs. Second, the analysis doesn’t take into account the higher commodity prices that farmers will very likely receive as a result of enhanced renewable energy markets and retirement of environmentally sensitive lands domestically and abroad. Of course, any economic analysis such as ours has limitations. But, again, we believe our analysis is conservative – it’s quite possible farmers will actually do better.

“What does this mean for the individual farmer? A Northern Plains wheat producer, for example, might see an increase of $.80 per acre in costs of production by 2020 due to higher fuel prices. Based on a soil carbon sequestration rate of 0.4 tons per acre and a carbon price of $16 per ton, a producer could mitigate those expenses by adopting no-till practices and earning $6.40 per acre. So, this wheat farmer does better under the House passed climate legislation than without it. And, it’s quite possible that this wheat farmer could do even better if technologies and markets progress in such a way that allows for the sale of wheat straw to make cellulosic ethanol.

“We recognize that climate legislation will affect different landowners in different ways. This is an important point. USDA can help smooth this transition by using our Farm Bill conservation programs to assist landowners in adopting new technologies and stewardship practices. It is also worth noting that the House bill includes important provisions regarding how to adapt and increase resiliency to climate change impacts, which will be important for our nation’s farmers, ranchers and forest landowners. Ensuring that landowners and communities have the tools and information they need to adapt to climate change is a priority for this Administration.”

After days of hearings for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, Iowa’s Chuck Grassley says he still hasn’t decided how he’ll vote.

Here’s a transcript of the weekly video address he released Friday. It contains some of the senator’s thoughts on the matter. Here’s a sentence that intrigued me:

Her cases seem to be fairly moderate, middle of the stream, but her speeches and things that indicate activism bothers me at this point, but not conclusively yet.

Not sure if that means he’s leaning, or what. “Bothers” isn’t exactly the same as “voting against.” It’s also not that much different than what he said when the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings opened this week.

Grassley is a member.

Anyway, the text is below. Divine from it what you will.

One of the most important functions of the Senate, not exercised every day, but very often is to advise and consent on presidential nominations to the courts. And of course, there are dozens of judges that come before us. But probably only once on the average of about two and half to four years do Supreme Court Justices come to the United States Senate for consideration. So the last week we had Judge Sotomayor come before the committee, being appointed by President Obama to the Supreme Court, to fill the vacancy by the resignation of Justice Souter. 

Monday, we made opening statements, she made her opening statement. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we spent time, all 19 of us, asking her questions. We had 30 minutes in the first round, 20 minutes in the second round and 10 minutes in the third round. I had an opportunity to ask questions in each one of those rounds. 

My first series of questions dealt with the constitutional protection for private property. In other words, government can’t take your property without a public use and without compensation. Now most people think that’s a highway or something like that, and you get paid for your land. But a lot of times, local communities are taking for public use or public purpose for private development. That’s infringing, in my judgment, upon the fifth amendment guarantee of private property. 

So I spent a great deal of time asking her questions on the subject of private property. I went on to ask some questions about what I call judicial philosophy, how she observed her job of being an interpreter of the law which I think is the proper function of a judge, or being a legislator, in other words making policy. She had made a lot of statements that a circuit judge, where she has been for 10 years, does in fact make policy. I’m looking for someone on the Supreme Court that doesn’t infringe upon the legislative and executive branch of government beyond the constitutional right of the Supreme Court to interpret the Constitution or interpret those laws. In other words, a justice should not legislate from the bench. Why? Because they’re appointed for a lifetime appointment. If they legislate you cannot remove them. Besides, legislation is what we in Congress do or state legislatures do because if you make policy you can remove a congressman or a legislator but you can’t remove a judge. That’s why it’s important that we find out precisely how we feel about their job as a justice to judge and not to legislate. 

There is a lot of concern about her, a lot of speeches, a lot of writing that she did. One area that I questioned her on was going back to the person she is replacing, Judge Souter. I asked him this very same question and he more or less implied that sometimes courts have to fill vacuums that legislators don’t do something that some judge thinks we should’ve done. That’s not their function but that’s the way Souter ended up being Justice on the Supreme Court, trying to fill vacuums. I want to make sure that doesn’t happen again, so I asked the questions about filling vacuums. Quite frankly, I didn’t get a very definitive or satisfying answer on that very point. 

This went on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Probably in a week or 10 days we’ll be considering her nomination before the committee.  Obviously I know how she answered questions I asked, and I was there for most of the other questioning, but you don’t really remember what 18 other members of the committee said. So, I have a chance to review the transcript, a very thick document, of what other answers were or other questions were. It will be from this document, every word that was said in this hearing, to draw a conclusion of whether I should vote yes or no. Probably by the next time I report to you I will have my mind made up and maybe even have cast a vote in the committee at that particular time. This will be the 12th justice that I’ve had a chance to vote on. All of them have been approved except for, about 22 years ago, a person by the name of Judge Bork was rejected, but I did vote for him. If I vote no on Judge Sotomayor it will be the first time that I’ve cast a vote against somebody going to the Supreme Court. Now to be perfectly candid with you, 10 years ago when she was appointed to the Circuit Court of Appeals, I did vote against her because I thought she was a person more apt to legislate. Her cases seem to be fairly moderate, middle of the stream, but her speeches and things that indicate activism bothers me at this point, but not conclusively yet. So that’s what advise and consent is all about. I hope you’ll follow congressional action on approving or disapproving her over the next three weeks. Thank you very much.

Christian Fong, the 32-year-old Cedar Rapids businessman running for governor, has added a big name in Republican politics to his team.

Marlys Popma, a veteran of Iowa politics, will be Fong’s campaign manager, it was announced this morning.

Popma most recently was the national coordinator for evangelical outreach for John McCain’s presidential campaign.

U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley, D-Iowa, is among 13 House Democrats being targeted with radio ads and phone calls following up the vote last week on the climate change bill.

The National Republican Congressional Committee is criticizing the bill and the legislators who voted for it.

Braley is a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and he’s talked up the bill for weeks.

Here’s Politico’s story on the matter.

UPDATE: Media Matters, the left-leaning media watchdog, just emailed its take on the ad. Here’s a link. In sum, it says the NRCC isn’t telling the truth.