Leach and China

Leach To China?

Foreign Policy:

It's the job many consider the most important one outside of the presidential cabinet. Who will be U.S. ambassador to Beijing...

Another name to watch is former Rep. Jim Leach, the Iowa Republican who broke party ranks early on to endorse Obama's presidential candidacy. Leach, recently named as director of the Harvard Kennedy School's Institute of Politics, has also been mentioned as a possible USAID administrator. It wasn't clear if Leach was one of the people said to have turned the job down. (A call to the IOP wasn't immediately returned.)

Equality if we can keep it, part 3

Equality if we can keep it, part 3: Benchmark Elections

The Iowa Legislature's Democratic leadership has successfully (no thanks to Geri Huser and Delores Mertz) stood by the constitution and stalled action on the marriage inequality amendment.

A constitutional amendment needs to pass two sessions of the legislature to go to the ballot. As long as Senate leader Mike Gronstal is breathing, the thing won't budge. To get the amendment out of the Senate, the GOP will have to take over. And the map in 2010 favors the Democrats. The earliest Republicans could realistically hope to take over the Senate is 2012, when the entire map is torn up and redrawn. That could push the amendment back as far as the 2016 presidential election, by which time we'll have had seven and a half years of weddings and seven and a half years shift in the voting demographic.

Of course, a hypothetical GOP majority could play the statewide special election card. That happened in the summer of 1999, as a Republican legislature pushed through a hurry-up vote on two tax and spending limitation amendments (the governor has no role in the amendment process). The June 29 election date had two goals: 1) the amendments were to take effect immediately, on July 1, 1999, the first day of Fiscal 2000, requiring immediate budget slashing and burning; 2) the Tuesday before 4th of July election was bound to suppress turnout.

The Iowa Republican Party launched a presidential-level vote by mail campaign, with big pictures of Chuck Grassley on the mailers. But to everyone's surprise, Democrats and labor caught up and pulled out a narrow win.

So the scenario is not neccessarily a winner, and to even get there the Republicans have to win the uphill battle for legislative control.

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Though the Inequality Amendment certainly won't be on the 2010 ballot, there will be a couple of proxy wars: the constitutional convention and judicial retention.

Every ten years there's an automatic question on the Iowa ballot: "Shall there be a convention to revise the constitution, and propose amendment or amendments to same?" In the past, these votes have been very low-key with no organized Yes or No campaigns. That may change in 2010, as social conservatives see this as the fastest route to marriage inequality.

The 2000 constitutional convention vote (pdf) lost more than two to one and failed in every county. There was no pattern I could see without reformatting a lot of numbers; looked like it was between 60 to 80 percent no everywhere. And even that base of 30 percent is shaky. A constitutional convention means opening the whole can of worms, and parts of the GOP coalition are starting to flake off already.

The other matter that comes up in 2010 is judicial retention. In the nearly half century since Iowa went to a yes or no system to keep judges who are initially appointed, only four judges have ever been removed. The results are remarkably consistent: close to half the voters leave the judges, the last offices on a very long ballot, blank. Of those who do vote, it's almost always 80 percent yes to 20 percent no (that 20 percent is fueled mostly by people who vote no on ALL the judges). It's a low information contest with virtually no campaigning.

That's likely to change. Marriage equality opponoents raised the issue late in the week at their capitol rally, and Tusk and Talon has a "public service reminder" post on which judges are up which cycle. Will people look at this as a chance to punish the justices who ruled in Varnum v. Brien? Probably. But just as many people will be looking to reward those judges, so it's a wash. Plus, a too-blatant campaign risks a backlash, as there's a strong sense that judicial votes are supposed to be somehow "above" politics.

The last major campaign effort to oust a judge was in 2004. Woodbury County District Court Judge Jeffrey Neary granted a divorce to two lesbians with a Vermont civil union--thus tacitly recognizing that they were married in the first place. Despite the effort, and the relatively unfriendly western Iowa turf, Neary still won (pdf) with 59 percent and carried five of six counties, losing only in the ultimate GOP area, Sioux County. Even there he won 37 percent yes.

If marriage equality opponents can only muster 63 percent in freakin' Sioux County, where John McCain scored 81 percent and even hapless Senate candidate Christopher "Not Tom Harkin" Reed won, the chances for knocking off sitting justices in a statewide election are slim.

SEIU backs Sales Tax

SEIU Endorses Yes on Sales Tax

SEIU Local 199 has joined the Iowa City Federation of Labor and the building trades in backing a Yes vote in the May 5 sales tax election.

"The ‘Yes Vote’ endorsement promotes flood prevention and infrastructure improvements, the purpose of the tax," reads the release. "The local union does not generally support sales taxes, believing them to be regressive. Though they believe it is important to stand with the community following the flood of 2008 to prevent future flood damage to ourselves, our neighbors, and our cities."

Latham has 5th Whitest Obama District

In Whitest Iowa

Congressional Quarterly notes, in the form of a trivia question, that Iowa's 4th Distrist has the fifth highest percentage of white voters among the districts President Obama won last fall:

The pro-Obama district with the highest percentage of white population is Maine’s 2nd, where 96.7 percent of the residents are non-Hispanic whites. This mostly rural district takes up most of the state’s land area and is represented in the U.S. House by Democrat Michael H. Michaud .

Obama also carried Vermont, a state with one at-large House district held by Democrat Peter Welch , where 96.2 percent of the residents are non-Hispanic whites; New Hampshire’s 1st (95.1 percent), represented by Democrat Carol Shea-Porter ; and Iowa’s 4th (94.7 percent), held by Republican Tom Latham.

One of these things is not like the others: four Democratic-held New England districts and Tom Latham.

Equality if we can keep it, part 2

Equality if we can keep it, part 2: The Campaign

Supporters of marriage equality are basking in the glow of victory now, and the legislative leadership has decided to uphold the Iowa constitution.

But at some point the Iowa ballot may see a vote to take away equal marriage rights. The sands of time are drifting our way, but for now marriage equality has a dismal 1-30 record at the ballot box (our only win, Arizona in 2006, was taken away in a 2008 do-over).

So we need to figure out what to do when that day comes, and the hard lessons of California in 2008 can be useful.

Start now. California saw massive protests and endless navel-gazing after Prop 8's win, which prompted the LA Times to ask, "Where were these marchers before the election? Like nearly every aspect of the fight against Proposition 8, the recent protests come too late to make a difference."

"It's hard to prepare for a hurricane in the middle of a hurricane," said No campaign executive committee member Kate Kendell at a February conference, "We have to have difficult conversations now, and now work leading up to the fight so that we are prepared for the fight."

We can't win just with our people. There's three levels of reaction, split roughly a third a third a third (for the sake of argument): affirmation, opposition, and ambivalence. Matt Coles at Huffington Post writes:

"Around Labor Day, voters in California fell roughly into three groups: 1) those who supported marriage for same-sex couples (about 40 percent); 2) those who opposed marriage for same-sex couples (also about 40 percent); and 3) voters who were seriously conflicted (about 15 to 20 percent).

That group of 'conflicted' voters was mostly made up of people deeply uncomfortable with marriage for gay couples, but who were also uncomfortable with the idea of taking something positive away from other people."

We may not move the ambivalent to full emotional affirmation of same-sex marriage, but we only have to firm up their acceptance.

As hard as it may be sometimes, don't alienate the middle of the roaders by calling opponents bigots (even if they are).

Frank Schubert and Jeff Flint, consultants for the Yes side, write:

The No side went in a new direction in the final few days—-attempting to equate a Yes vote with racial discrimination. One ad with U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein said that regardless of how people felt about gay marriage, 'we must always oppose' discrimination. They even tried to compare banning gay marriage to interning Japanese Americans during World War II camps in an ad narrated by Samuel L. Jackson.

We decided to not respond to this line of attack, confident that it would backfire. The basic message that supporters of traditional marriage are bigots, guilty of discrimination, had never worked in focus groups. For liberal whites like Feinstein to lecture black Californians about discrimination was not a winning message.

The media campaign will be a tightrope walk. There was a lot of post-election debate about the campaign's decision not to prominently feature gay couples, out celebrities, or a specific "this is about gay marriage" message prominently in ads. One school of thought holds that swing voters need to see "normal" couples to reach the point of acceptance, but the consultants thought Actual People With The Gay would alienate the middle. That decision, in turn, alienated the campaign's strongest supporters. They wanted affirmation rather than mere tolerance.

I don't have a good answer here. Iowa is a very different electorate than California, and the election year, whenever it is, will be different as well. 2008 was All Obama All The Time, and No on Prop 8 had the same problem that Yes on the conservation bond had here: Obama pulled away the volunteers.

Which leads to my next point:

We can't count on the coordinated campaign. Depending on the cycle, the state party will care more about the presidential or governor's race, and they'll definitely sell out marriage equality to keep the likes of Dolores Mertz and Geri Huser, who never vote with us when it really matters (as we saw yesterday when they voted with Republicans in a failed effort to move the inequality amendment to the House floor. That primary challenge to Huser last year was really a lost opportunity.)

Nope. We'll be largely on our own, which means:

We'll need to do smart things. That's easier said than defined.

The 1992 Iowa ERA campaign, separate from the Democratic Party but with somewhat overlapping voters, ran a totally separate operation and did some really stupid stuff, like having people standing outside polling places (close to or beyond the legal limit) reminding people to vote Yes. People though that was an inappropriate intrusion on the semi-sacred voting process (Move On later made the same mistake), and it also inadvertently reminded people to vote No. The effort also took a lot of volunteers, who might have been better used on Democratic GOTV efforts in a year where we narrowly lost the Iowa House and Dave Nagle.

Paul Hogarth writes: "I was happy talking on the phone with swing voters—-which was useful and effective—-but they seemed more interested in having us do visibility in San Francisco, going to strongly liberal (even gay) parts of town to make sure our base knew they had to vote 'no.' Rather than preaching to the choir, we were told this was useful because much of our base was confused—that some supporters think they’re supposed to vote 'yes' on Prop 8 to affirm gay marriage."

But I can see some utility here. Iowa Citians will remember the counter-intuitive First Avenue votes in 1997 and 2000, where you had to vote No to build a road and Yes to stop it. We saw the "No Delay" slogan and stop sign shaped YES signs. I can easily see a campaign of deception to play on the confusion.

Young men may be a weak spot. I know all the polls show support for marriage equality increasing as age decreases, but there's still a pretty deep streak of macho homophobia among 20 something men that doesn't necessarily show up in surveys. We'll need a persuasion strategy here.

We'll be up against big bucks and we'll need big bucks. Maybe out of state money will be a campaign issue, maybe it won't.

We'll also see Palin, Huckabee, the Mitt, and Jindal all over the state in 2011 whipping up the troops and trying to outdo each other, with no corresponding activity on our side. This is an opportunity. The Republicans will define themselves more and more as the party of the religious right, as their presidential candidates outdo themselves trying to win support from the fringe of the fringe. The Ames Straw Poll will be the Gaypocalypse.

Next: Some specific electoral scenarios.

FIelds Blog

New Blog On The Block

Welcome to the blogosphere: Patti Fields of the Iowa City School Board...

Equality if we can keep it, Part 1

Equality if we can keep it, Part 1

Varnum v. Brien is a beginning, not an end. It's a beginning of both a new era of equality and a political shooting war. "A republic, if you can keep it," said Franklin, and now we have equality if we can keep it.

As we engage the marriage debate in Iowa and define the terms of debate, think back to the Kennedy years.

In Engel v. Vitale in 1962, the Supreme Court ruled against officially sponsored and organized school prayer. In its way, that ruling was ahead of the curve of public opinion as Varnum v. Brien is now.

President Kennedy did not denounce "judicial activism" and "legislating from the bench." Instead, he said:

"We have in this case a very easy remedy, and that is to pray ourselves. And I would think that it would be a welcome reminder to every American family that we can pray a good deal more at home, we can attend our churches with a good deal more fidelity, and we can make the true meaning of prayer much more important in the lives of our children."

Indeed today, no less a conservative than Cal Thomas argues that religious conservatives should worry less about who else gets married and more about saving their own marriages.

JFK didn't demand a constitutional amendment the way Iowa Republicans are today. Kennedy urged respect for our Constition and our separation of powers. And leading Democrats in Iowa City were well on the way down the high road as early as Friday with the "fairness" meme. (We got the One Iowa robocall to call our legislators, but since ours were at the Pentacrest celebration we figured that wouldn't be neccessary.)

So are legislative leaders, with Senate leader Mike Gronstal topping the list. This is not about "denying the people a chance to vote." It's taking the tough stand that our Constitution actually means what it says and that we don't discriminate, and it's about NOT taking the extraordinary step of changing our highest law as an end-around.

The National Organization for Marriage (sic) is taking the low road in this deceptive spot:



"They're telling us how to live," says the ad. No. More like "They're not letting us tell you how to live." This is about the government NOT establishing your religion as secular law. We are not a sharia theocracy.

Next: What to do if it does get on the ballot.