Democrat Curt Hanson defeated Republican Stephen Burgmeier by 107 votes Tuesday in a special election for Iowa House District 90, according to unofficial results from the Iowa secretary of state.
Hanson tallied 48.9 percent of the votes to Burgmeier's 47.5 percent, allowing Democrats to retain their 56-44 majority in the Iowa House. Hanson replaces Representative John Whitaker (D-Hillsboro), who resigned to serve as state executive director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency.
The district stretches into three counties. Hanson won by more than 600 votes in Jefferson County, but Burgmeier won by more than 500 votes in Van Buren County. The race was a nail-biter, and at one point, only two votes separated the candidates after most results came in from those two counties. It all came down to Wapello County, where results trickled in and Burgmeier won by just four votes -- not enough to overcome the margin from the other two counties.
"Democrats have been successful in the last two election cycles and tonight because we have recruited great candidates, [have] followed through on the promises we've made, and are governing the state responsibly," said Iowa Democratic Party Chair Michael Kiernan. "We will continue to build upon this strong organization and team approach as we prepare for statewide elections next fall. Tonight's results don't change our strategy for 2010."
Republican Party of Iowa Chair Matt Strawn noted that Republicans couldn't even field a competitive candidate in this district in the last cycle. "While we are disappointed, the fact that Republicans nearly won a solid Culver/Obama legislative district shows that Iowans are not pleased with the status quo and one-party rule in Des Moines," he said.
Some saw the special election in southeast Iowa as a bellwether race and a chance for Republicans to start turning the tide. Burgmeier, a farmer from Lockridge, is a three-term Jefferson County supervisor.
But Hanson, a retired schoolteacher from Fairfield, went into the month-long race with a clear advantage: Barack Obama carried the district by nearly 1,400 votes, Democrats hold an advantage in voter registration, and Chet Culver won the district in 2006 with 55 percent of the vote.
Ten days before the election, Burgmeier had out-raised Hanson in cash, with $63,101 in contributions compared to Hanson's $42,881. However, Hanson had $128,721 in in-kind contributions, while Burgmeier had $77,806.30. The campaign included the National Organization for Marriage making a controversial $86,060 ad buy for Burgmeier.
Dan Cesar of the Fourth of July Party and Douglas William Philips, who was nominated by petition, were also on the ballot. Cesar received less than 1 percent of votes cast, while Philips received 3 percent.
Nearly Half of School-Board Seats Up for Election Tuesday
Iowa's 361 school districts could see a lot of new faces on their school boards after Tuesday, when voters head to the polls to fill 47 percent of the state's school-board seats.
Election changes signed into law in 2008 will take effect this year, increasing school-board terms from three to four years and moving elections from every year to every other year. That means roughly half of school-board seats will be open every two years.
"We were bringing up two out of a seven-person board each year and three in the third year, so you could never change the majority of a board in any one election," said Brad Hudson, a lobbyist for the Iowa State Education Association. "But now you'll be able to do that."
Hudson said there is some concern that replacing up to half of a school board every two years could affect the performance of the board, but he said that with traditionally low voter turnout, he doesn't "think that's going to come into play."
Although the state doesn't keep track of voter turnout for school board elections, a 2000 Iowa Association of School Boards survey put participation at 10 percent. A 2007 survey put that number at just 6 percent.
"You would think with a half a million kids represented that a half million people would turn out, and that's not the case," Hudson said. "The question is: How can we get citizens and parents more involved in these elections, when probably the most important thing in Iowa is education?"
Two Camps Work to Get Branstad Into Governor's Race
Two groups of Iowa Republicans are now working toward the goal of getting former Governor Terry Branstad to run for governor in 2010. Leaders in both groups say they aren't working together and haven't talked to one another.
Rich Schwarm, the Iowa First Foundation's president and treasurer who's also a former Branstad law partner and former state GOP chair, was asked by Branstad to assess fundraising and staffing potential but said everything he's doing is unofficial at this point. He said he's calling some people and asking, "Are you willing to help out? What's out there? What's available?"
"The governor and I, we're longtime friends," Schwarm said. "He's 100-percent committed to working in Des Moines University. He just asked me what I thought. I'm doing some things here. He's not involved. ... The primary purpose is to try to figure out if there's resources available."
Meanwhile, former state Representative Sandy Greiner (R-Keota) launched a group this week called Draft Branstad PAC. It was formed as a 527 group, which is a tax-exempt organization under the Internal Revenue Service. Like the Iowa First Foundation, it's exempt from Iowa's campaign-finance-disclosure laws. Neither Greiner nor anyone else in the group is being paid at this point.
In an interview, Greiner said she has no affiliation with Schwarm or other people close to Branstad. "I have not spoken to a single one of them," she said. "They are not involved in this."
Beyond that, Greiner -- who served six of her 16 years in the legislature under the Branstad administration -- said she hasn't spoken with the former governor. Margaret Hough, Branstad's longtime assistant, said, "He did not have anything to do with this PAC."
"What we want to do is to generate a list of names to show that there is grassroots support, because that's what this is -- a grassroots thing," Greiner said.
She declined to name who else is affiliated with her new political action committee, only saying that it's a consortium of farmers and lawyers. "We have the garden-variety, Joe-six-pack Iowans," she said. "This isn't from the top down. This is from the bottom up, which is the way I like to work anyway."
Greiner described her relationship with Branstad as "cordial": "Under his administration, I was chairing the Ag & Natural Resources Appropriations Subcommittee. We did have our disagreements. We didn't bloody each other at all, but we had honest disagreements. ... He treated me with so much respect while I was disagreeing vehemently with him. That doesn't always happen."
The former representative served in the Iowa legislature with four of the six current Republican gubernatorial candidates: Senator Jerry Behn of Boone, Senator Paul McKinley of Chariton, Representative Christopher Rants of Sioux City, and Representative Rod Roberts of Carroll. She said Branstad is the only one with a proven track record of leading the state through troubled times such as the farm crisis, the 1993 floods, and budget problems.
"This is someone who has been through the fire, he's been tested, we know that he is a leader for tough times," Greiner said. "We don't know that about everyone."
That's where the two Branstad groups agree.
"A lot of Iowans feel that we have some serious problems," Schwarm said. "If you call a repair person to fix the problem, you'd like to know that they've fixed it before. He's done it before and he can do it again if he decided."
Attacks Continue in 2010 Governor's Race
Republican gubernatorial candidate Rants this week launched a second and third salvo at presumed frontrunner Bob Vander Plaats, this time digging into tax returns and saying that Vander Plaats' former organization "tanked financially" under his leadership and that he's not the "turnaround CEO" he claims to be.
"In every speech he gives, Bob says he was a 'turnaround' CEO at Opportunities Unlimited, and most people take his word for it," Rants said, noting how Vander Plaats said at the Black Hawk Lincoln Dinner that he grew the assets by 440 percent. "A review of the tax returns found on Guidestar uncovered something very different. The facts show Opportunities Unlimited tanked financially during his tenure as CEO and chairman."
Rants said that while Vander Plaats was CEO and chairman of Opportunities Unlimited between 1997 and 2003, the organization went from a $471,455 operating surplus to a $630,655 deficit, and total operating revenue dropped from $4.2 million to $3.9 million. Public support for the charity dropped from $550,211 to $27,672. End-of-year net assets were largely unchanged, but long-term debt rose from $2.4 million to $4.7 million.
He also said an audit of Opportunities Unlimited showed the company violated terms of its primary bond agreement the final year that Vander Plaats was chair.
But the Vander Plaats campaign said Rants got basic facts wrong. "Bob Vander Plaats did not serve as CEO of Opportunities Unlimited from 1997 to 2003 as Christopher Rants states," spokesperson Eric Woolson said. "Vander Plaats' tenure was from February 1996 to December 31, 2000. That fact alone will affect the numbers that Mr. Rants provided to you and, therefore, anything you publish based on that release is wholly incorrect."
Former state Auditor Dick Johnson -- a co-chair of the Vander Plaats campaign who's also an accountant -- said Rants' attacks are not credible because he's using the wrong numbers.
"He's looking at annual surplus and deficits, which are meaningless. He's putting apples and oranges together," Johnson said. "He obviously doesn't understand fund accounting. It's the unrestricted balances from year to year that show the health or unhealthiness of an organization. That is the key element of stability or success in a nonprofit organization. That's what the finance people look at."
State Revenues Down in August
Four new reports released this week showed a mixed picture for Iowa's economy, with state revenues down but some of the state's largest employers saying that economic activity is improving.
Year-to-date total net receipts for state government in Fiscal Year 2010 decreased by $41.5 million or 4.1 percent compared to Fiscal Year 2009, the Legislative Services Agency said in its monthly revenue memo. One of the biggest contributors appeared to be the corporate tax, which was down $8.8 million or 21.8 percent.
Onem onth remains before the state will know whether Fiscal Year 2009, which ended June 30, concluded in the black or red.
The Revenue Estimating Conference will meet October 7 in the Capitol to review the revenue estimate for the current fiscal year. The meeting of the three-person panel is key because it will suggest whether mid-fiscal-year state-budget cuts are likely.
Meanwhile, the Iowa Business Council's survey indicated that things are looking up. All three indicators used to measure economic activity among Iowa's 20 largest employers for the coming six months moved higher, raising the third-quarter 2009 Iowa Business Council Overall Economic Outlook Survey Index to 48.7, or 10.4 points higher than the second-quarter overall index of 38.3.
"Though the overall survey is still expressing a reserved business sentiment for the coming six months, it's encouraging to see each economic-activity indicator move higher for the second consecutive quarter," said Mel Haught, president and CEO of Pella Corporation and chair of the Iowa Business Council.
But the value of the Iowa Leading Indicators Index fell 0.6 percent in July to 95.2, the 16th monthly decline in the index since reaching a peak in March 2008, according to a report by the Iowa Department of Revenue. The index is designed to forecast the likely future direction of economic activity in the state of Iowa.
And a Creighton University survey showed that Iowa's Business Conditions Index slipped below growth-neutral for July and August after rising above growth-neutral for June. The index slipped to 48.9 from July's 49.8 and June's 51.2.
"The downturn in farm income is having a significant and negative impact on firms across the state, especially for agriculture-equipment manufacturers," said Creighton University Economics Professor Ernie Goss.
Creighton University's August Business Conditions Index for the entire nine-state Mid-America region (including Iowa) also slumped below growth-neutral for the first time since January.
"This month's decline is a real surprise and combined with readings over the past several months points to an economic recovery that is much more fragile than I anticipated," Goss said. "Compared to the recovery from the 2001 recession, the current rebound appears to be much more subdued."
This weekly summary comes from IowaPolitics.com, an online government and politics news service. IowaPolitics.com staff contributed to this report.
