Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller ranks second in the nation for receiving campaign money from lawyers in the past five years and is among the friendliest to trial lawyers' agenda, according to a report released October 25 by a conservative think tank.

But Miller denounced the report as inaccurate and called it a "cheap shot" from a corporate interest group. He said that campaign-finance data citing $338,223 in contributions in three weeks came from a discredited report, that claims about him keeping a low profile are "ridiculous," and that more-favorable data about Iowa's business climate are "conveniently omitted."

"If the Center for Legal Policy were subject to Iowa's Consumer Fraud Act, we'd probably bust them because of their outright misrepresentations," Miller told IowaPolitics.com. "This report is riddled with misrepresentations and omissions of important facts."

Widespread economic uncertainty and the possibility of another recession led a state panel on October 14 to adjust Iowa's projected state revenue downward slightly for the current fiscal year.

The panel, however, still is predicting slight growth over last year.

The Revenue Estimating Conference (REC), a three-member panel that makes the state's official prediction of state revenue, lowered the Fiscal Year 2012 estimate to $5.97 billion, which is $17.5 million less than the panel's projection in March. The new estimate paces growth at 1.3 percent, or $75.9 million, from last fiscal year.

Republicans on September 22 chose Linn County GOP Co-Chair Cindy Golding as their candidate for the Iowa Senate District 18 special election, which could alter control of the Iowa Senate.

Golding, of rural Cedar Rapids, won with 51.6 percent of the weighted vote cast by the 50 delegates who gathered in the Longbranch Hotel & Convention Center in Cedar Rapids.

She defeated former U.S. Attorney Matt Dummermuth of Robins, who placed second with 28.1 percent of the vote, and Marion businesswoman Mary Rathje, who received 20.2 percent of the vote. Governor Terry Branstad encouraged Rathje to run, gubernatorial spokesperson Tim Albrecht confirmed September 23.

The battle for control of the Iowa Senate got underway Monday, with Republican Mary Rathje announcing her candidacy for a vacant Senate seat and a gay-rights group emphasizing the importance of the November 8 special election.

"This is it. We are facing a special election, and marriage equality hangs in the balance," wrote Troy Price, executive director of One Iowa - the state's largest gay-rights advocacy group - in an e-mail to supporters. "If we lose the seat, we face a very real chance that a marriage ban will pass a vote in the Senate. In Iowa, marriage has never been threatened like this before."

Swati Dandekar (D-Marion) resigned Friday from the Iowa Senate to take a $137,000-a-year job with the three-member Iowa Utilities Board, which regulates Iowa's utilities. The move threatens Democrats' majority in the Iowa Senate, now reduced to 25-24.

The turn of events is key, because Democrats' slim majority in the Iowa Senate prevented passage this year of Republican priorities ranging from a public vote on same-sex marriage to sweeping property-tax reform to a bill that Democrats criticized as bringing an end to collective bargaining.