Reporters’ Roundtable

Kay Henderson

Pipelines. Abortion. Political campaigns. It's been a busy summer of news already. We'll discuss the big headlines and the stories behind them with Iowa political reporters on this edition of Iowa Press.

 

 

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For decades, Iowa Press has brought you political leaders and newsmakers from across Iowa and beyond. Celebrating 50 years of broadcast excellence on statewide Iowa PBS, this is the Friday, July 19th edition of Iowa Press. Here is Kay Henderson.

 

 

Kay Henderson

The three political reporters who are joining me at the Iowa press table today have been covering the 2024 campaign since last year because we all covered the, the caucus campaign and the presidential candidates that traipse through Iowa. We're joining this conversation on Friday morning. And as we all know, news happens. So some of the things that we may say in a few moments may not prove to be true on Friday evening or on Sunday when you watch this program live off the air. All right. Exactly. Joining the conversation are Amanda Rooker. She is the chief political reporter for KCCI, the CBS affiliate in Des Moines. Dave Price is the political director for the Gray Television stations in Iowa. And Erin Murphy is the Des Moines bureau chief for the Gazette in Cedar Rapids.

Our viewers and listeners have heard a lot from national pundits about what's gone on the national stage. We could be having a conversation today about a horrific cataclysmic event that happened last Saturday, but we're having it since the person who was targeted has accepted the Republican Party's nomination for the third time. Erin, aside from what's going on on the national stage, what do we know now about the Iowa caucuses in 2028 and the context of what happened at the Republican National Convention?

 

 

Erin Murphy

Yeah, I think it's safe to say that at the very least right now, Iowa Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Jeff Kaufmann has done his job and certainly presented the effort to keep Iowa relevant with the National Party. He gave the nominating speech to former President Trump on Monday at the convention. Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird was named the convention chair and also spoke. I believe it was Tuesday night.

 

 

Kay Henderson

Primetime.

 

 

Erin Murphy

Yeah. In primetime. Thank you. So Iowa was present at the convention. What does that mean for 2028? There's a lot that happens between now and then, but at the very least, Jeff Kaufmann is keeping up appearances, keeping those connections in the party under Donald Trump, at the very least. in his in Jeff Kaufmann's perennial nonstop effort to keep Iowa first.

 

Kay Henderson

Dave, I had a conversation with Steve Scheffler. He's the Republican National Committee man for Iowa. He said the rules that have been approved by the National Party just before the convention started say that Iowa will go first in 2028. he did say that almost 30% of the members of the Republican National Committee are new. And so it will be up to him and to Tamara Scott, the Republican National Committee man, and Kaufmann, to talk to those people, to make the case that Iowa don't touch it. What do you think?

 

 

Dave Price

It seems like good for now, right? and perhaps what's most important with this is that Donald Trump's the nominee, and he won the caucuses, right? so big picture. Republicans got one, right? they had been not been doing that the last several cycles. And if you keep Trump happy for now, which it appears Jeff Kaufmann has done, perhaps that helps out here.

 

 

 

Kay Henderson

Amanda, we do have a new person in this mix who might have something to say in the future about the caucuses. JD Vance.

 

 

Amanda Rooker

Right. That was a big thing that came out of the convention. We now know the ticket is complete. we talked with Chair Kaufman about the pick of JD Vance. He said, good for Iowa. We had Mike Pence, who was Indiana, understood the Midwest. Now we have another midwesterner who will likely understand Iowa. But the rumblings that I've heard from, you know, Republicans sources, political experts here have said, this may not be good for the caucuses in 2028 because, Trump has chosen, you know, an heir apparent, potentially you got a 39 year old on the ticket who could potentially, you know, if Trump is elected, you know, serve if something happened to the to to Trump, he could, you know, potentially serve a term two terms beyond Trump. You know, obviously, there's so much between now and in 2020 that things keep happening in the 2024 election to even, you know, be able to talk credibly about 2028. But that could mean if if no one puts up a meaningful challenge to Vance, it could mean that there's not competitive caucuses in 2028 or beyond 20 2032.

 

 

Kay Henderson

And it may be the first time we see this phenomenon in a long time. Thinking back, Dick Cheney never ran. Mike Pence ran but faced huge headwinds because Trump supporters thought he many of them thought he had sort of.

 

 

Dave Price

You know, wanted to hang him.

 

 

Kay Henderson

Well they thought he should have stepped in and sort of paused the Electoral College count. Erin, what are your thoughts in terms of looking forward? I mean, Iowa voters do sometimes like to pick a young person, and JD Vance is young.

 

 

Erin Murphy

Yeah. And I think Amanda makes a great point. I still think I mean, and also, as Amanda said, who knows? You know, we're looking deep into a crystal ball, but typically Iowa does for a competitive caucus. So I mean, and we saw that just last year here with an incumbent president. And they were well I'm sorry.

 

 

Dave Price

Essentially.

 

 

Erin Murphy

Yeah. Exactly. but still had multiple challengers. And there was an active campaign here. Now, turns out he was never really seriously threatened, but it just shows that even in a situation like that, Iowans do prefer to have a competitive caucus.

 

 

Kay Henderson

Speaking of, active campaigner Dave, lots of discussion about President Biden among Democrats. You've had a discussion with someone who's a Iowa Democratic Party insider.

 

 

Dave Price

Yeah. Scott Brennan is to be the chair of the party. He's the party's Democratic National Committee member. And as we would all suspect, phones blowing up, everybody trying to get some guidance from him about what the heck is happening. Is Biden in or out? I think this I think that what Brennan talked about was this is sort of unchartered territory as they try to game play this out. He makes the point publicly that this is Biden's decision. Biden needs to figure this out, but understands that voters have questions. Members of Congress have questions about what should happen here. Looking ahead to the convention in August when Democrats meet in Chicago, what could that look like now if Joe Biden gets out? Who knows? As we talk right now. We're recording this. So maybe he's already dropped out. I mean, it's something there has been some reporting that something could be rather imminent on this. So what Scott had mentioned is that in his mind, 70% chance Biden will step out? 80% chance that Kamala Harris will be the party's nominee. That is based on his conversations with people. He's not saying what should happen, but he is saying, we got to make a decision on this as a party. And if it's Biden, let's go. Let's get behind him and stop all this other stuff. But something needs to happen quickly.

 

 

Kay Henderson

Amanda, speaking of decisions, the Iowa Supreme Court in June issued a very significant decision that Iowa's six week abortion ban is constitutional. last weekend, you and I were covering an event, the Iowa Family Leader Summit, that they have every year and their lobbyist up at the state House said next personhood.

 

 

Amanda Rooker

Right. It's the the law has, you know, has yet potentially again, we're recording this on Friday morning to take effect. And already the the advocacy groups and the politicians around this issue are looking ahead to what comes next. And part of that, I think, is because this bill was first, you know, we first saw it in 2018. So the journey to get to the point where this could be enforced has been long and has allowed people to be thinking long and hard about what is our next move. I talked to, Maggie DeWitte with Pulse Life Advocates, about her, her thoughts, and she's already, you know, hopeful and talking with Republican lawmakers about next legislative sessions. She said a lot of them, the hold up on undoing a total abortion ban, banning abortion after conception was can the six week abortion ban be enforced? And now that the courts have weighed in, she feels that, you know, more lawmakers will feel, you know, confident moving forward that way. The caveat is I have not been able to get that on the record. Confirmation from Republican lawmakers, House Republicans say we want to pursue policies that, quote, promote a culture of life, but have not given clarity on what that means.

 

 

Dave Price

And do they want are they going to commit to that before November's election? Right. As they take it even further, like stepping back at all this, it brings up all kinds of questions about contraception, IVF, some of the things that Democrats have warned about. We'll see what Democrats do with this. But if you look at these issues clearly very important to people, no matter where they are on the on the scale, but it is not what the bulk of the population would want, especially as you're looking at even further restrictions here. So are do the Republicans want to have that public conversation before voters go to the polls in November?

 

 

Erin Murphy

And it's also a matter of, to expand on what Amanda said about getting lawmakers on the record. It's a question of the few who we do know how they feel about this, because they have introduced legislation that, for example, would ban abortions, at, at the life at conception, idea. so we know those lawmakers are there, there in the caucus, the question is how how broad is the support for that? Will leadership be willing to wade into that? As Amanda said, now that they know that the courts are, quote unquote, on their side, for lack of a better way to put it?

 

 

Amanda Rooker

I thought it was interesting that right when the court made that decision, that the governor, her first reaction was a statement saying, we're going to broaden policies including, you know, protecting IVF, that she she made that statement on the record, you know, potentially a signal to her Republican and, you know, House and Senate that a next session, we're looking we're not going to do anything to threaten that. Will lawmakers follow that is is the question.

 

 

Erin Murphy

And for what it's worth, I ask Democratic leaders about that. And they said they do not take her word, the governor's word on that pledge.

 

 

Kay Henderson

And there are elements of the coalition that wants a life at conception law that want IVF outlawed. I heard the bishop for the Des Moines Catholic Diocese at a rally at the state House, make the case that IVF should be banned. Let's move on to another big issue Erin. Pipelines. We had a decision from the Iowa Utilities Commission.

 

 

Erin Murphy

The Iowa Utilities Commission, former Iowa Utilities Board. Well done, Kay. yeah. So the, the Summit pipeline can proceed as is. The is the big with some conditions, as long as it gets approved in other states as well. so that's a huge step in what has been a literal years long process here. and of course, we have, talked about with some of our guests on previous shows that now the question is whether this plays into elections. And we saw it as a factor in some of the primaries in June, both at the state House and even a little bit at the, at the congressional level, in western Iowa. so, so does this approval kind of put the issue to bed for voters maybe a little bit, or does it fire them up even more? I think that's an interesting question to watch in some, state House races this fall where eminent domain has been a very hot topic in recent sessions.

 

 

Dave Price

Particularly eminent domain. I really want to see how this plays out in those legislative races on both sides, because by and large, when you look at any polling on this, Iowans do not agree that eminent domain should be used for a private project like this, regardless of what they think of the concept of capturing this carbon and whether they think it's good for the environment, not good for the environment. But the issue of eminent domain seems like, and this may be more of a really local. I mean, everything we talk about, it seems like it used to be all politics is local. Right now it feels like it's all national. But for this issue, this would seem to be an issue that is strong enough that it could be a driver in some of these state House races.

 

 

Kay Henderson

And the guest on this program last week, Mike Naig, the state agriculture secretary, sort of expressed support for a bill that passed the House a couple of years ago that was backed by the Farm Bureau that really dealt with restore, bring the land after the pipeline is laid, you know, and maintaining the land and making sure it is returned to, production. So that's that's another interesting element there. Amanda. In the past week or so, we have also learned about education savings accounts and a big increase in the number of students and households that have qualified.

 

 

Amanda Rooker

Absolutely, yes. So we know that last year there was about 20,000 applications for these education savings accounts. We just learned that this year there's been 35,000 applications. That's a dramatic jump. 30,000 applications have been approved. This is, of course, the second school year that students will be able to use them. It's the last year, I believe, before, you know, two school years from now, it will be universal where anyone current private school, student, current public schools that wants to switch will be able to use them. So we're seeing appetite for this within our state.

 

 

Erin Murphy

Yeah. To to Amanda's point that the interest at the first two steps along the way so far has been higher in both cases than the nonpartisan legislative service agencies initially projected. So the numbers are bigger, which means more of these scholarships, which means more of that, taxpayer funding, more of the state budget goes to those, again in these first two steps. And as Amanda pointed out, it runs out even more next year. And that'll be a fascinating one to find out. once it's open to even more of the population.

 

 

Kay Henderson

We also have other education issues. And I was struck at the Iowa Democratic Party's convention when the the Democratic leader in the House said education is going to be the big issue in the general election. what are some of those other issues that you think that Democrats are going to bring up, and will they be successful?

 

 

Erin Murphy

Well, the one that jumps right off the bat, and we've talked about it so much at the Capitol on this show, is the area, area education agencies. And and the changes that, were made to that program at the, recommendation of Governor Kim Reynolds and then ultimately approved, by Republican state legislators, changing the budgeting process, the funding process, and some of the operations, process of those Democrats are confident that that will feed into the larger education discussion, which includes ESAs and general funding, and they feel that that will help be a swayable argument for Democratic candidates.

 

 

Dave Price

I'm wondering if you if you broaden this to funding ESA, AEA books, gender, all the things that have happened in the last couple of years when it comes to education. Again, I keep going back to to some of the statewide polls that we've seen most, if not all of those that had just mentioned the changes have been unpopular with the majority. So do these Democratic state House candidates as they look at this? What do they do with this? And are they going to push for specific changes? And in what way are they campaigning on? Let's flip all this back to the way it used to be. It's kind of hard to put it back in the bottle after it's come out. It's like tax cuts, right? That's why Republicans have been so successful. And you do not see Democrats really taking back tax cuts. So what will Democrats do with all these issues, unpopular or not? But will there be a mandate with them by voters to flip it back to the way it was?

 

 

Amanda Rooker

And also, what are the changes that are coming potentially could be coming next legislative session, which is just because we've seen such a flurry of education related issues. Does that become the platform that we're hearing from these candidates on either side? You know, is there push back. And also it puts schools the past couple of years semi an alert to try to figure out how do we adjust to these policies. And then how do we as reporters be able to track what the impact of these policies are? Because there's so many, you know, on that? I did just want to mention another education policy, a big change for our state. Last year, they approved allowing, you know, armed teachers on school campuses. We're still tracking how that is going to play out. You know, KCCI reached out to 106 school districts across central Iowa, 90 got back to US 40, said they are absolutely not going to armed train teachers. But the 50 other schools said they have not heard, you know, whether their insurance will allow them to or not. just, you know, something interesting as schools try to figure this out.

 

 

Kay Henderson

Erin

 

Erin Murphy

And I had similar reporting that said the same thing. The insurance company trying to figure out the new landscape is what's holding a lot of this out. Although like all of the large eight largest school districts said, regardless, they're not doing it. So but that's another interesting follow the one the one button I'll say on this at each one of these times that we talked to Democratic leaders at state House, a question I ask is. But in today's point, is this going to be a voting issue? Because Dave is right. They are right. When they pointed out that these policies are unpopular with the Iowa public, they're they're below water. They're below 50%. The Democrats have the more popular positions on a lot of these issues. But the voting results are also very clear in Iowa, since the trifecta has been in place seven years ago. What are we up to? Almost eight. Yeah. so so these are unpopular policies, but they're not voting policies. That's the challenge for Democrats is making these ballot box issues.

 

 

Kay Henderson

Speaking of challenges, the state may be seeing some challenging times in the economy. Dave, we've seen layoffs at one of the state's major manufacturers, John Deere. You have businesses. You say, I still can't find employees. The employment rate has been incredibly low. Seems to indicate, you know, full employment. how is that going to play, if at all, into the fall election?

 

 

Dave Price

I'm so fascinated with that. And it seems like it's kind of an underreported and maybe under under under…Not not fully understood. If you do John Deere, Smithfield, Tyson, West Liberty and several others that are really in the ag industry, it's one thing. I'm not minimizing this, but to lay somebody off for a while, Bridgestone is another one. We're going to shut you down for a couple months and hopefully bring it back, right? We've had some of these plants that are shutting down.

 

 

Kay Henderson

In Perry

 

 

Dave Price

Like SmithField, Tyson in Perry and Smithfield in Altoona. They're just shutting down as they consolidate operations. So these jobs are gone. Perry has been walloped. That is a lot of people for that community. More than a thousand people, in the broader community there. So there will be huge impacts from this, not just from those folks, but then they can't afford to go out to eat. They're not buying a car, they're not shopping all kinds of things, and they may have to move. How are we going to replace these jobs now in the state? We don't have enough workers. And that's been a problem for a long time. So I feel like this is something we really need to watch in the months ahead about what how this will impact us. And it could be a local issue in these elections.

 

 

Kay Henderson

We are still in July and, I have been reporting for a long time in Iowa, and I believe this is the first time in an election year that I have not covered a candidate on the 4th of July, and I wasn't covering a candidate because none of them were doing public events.

 

 

Erin Murphy

It wasn't because you were on a cruise.

 

 

Kay Henderson

No. Exactly. So, Erin, what's going on?

 

 

Erin Murphy

That's a great question. I wish I had an, an intelligent answer. I think it's an open question that that it's going to be interesting to follow as the summer grows and we get closer to Labor Day, at which point we expect the campaigns will pick up a. But, why aren't they already? I think that's an interesting question. And I'm with you. This feels a lot different than past, election cycles. and it's not that we don't have competitive races here. We have at least a couple here in Iowa in the, first and third districts that, we feel pretty confident or at least appear to be competitive at the outset. So why aren't we hearing more from those folks? Why aren't we seeing more campaign events? It's interesting. I mean, I think we've all at this table seen a somewhat of a draw down of public appearance of candidates over time. In recent years, it seems like campaigns have figured out the less exposure sometimes can be better to avoid making mistakes. but, boy, I, I don't know. This is different.

 

 

Dave Price

This is a challenging question that we've talked about a bunch of times because we are reticent to making this about us. Right. And it seems like we are seeing these campaigns not share the same kind of information with us about public events, campaign events. Why why is that? Clearly, there is a risk when you stand in front of a group and the media are there with cameras recording all of this. We then follow up with questions. That's where you can screw up. Obviously, if you're a good candidate, you would hope that you're able to answer a question. And hopefully we're answering. We're asking questions that voters want to know. And I do feel like sometimes maybe we're a little hesitant to weigh into this too much because it doesn't really matter what we think about it. But in the broader process, if these campaigns are focusing exclusively on a chunk of their base, that maybe they don't feel like they really need to have their message spread out to the masses. We'll see if that works, because that would seem to be a pretty challenging way to grow your your support. But something is different. There were some candidates who did some July 4th parties, parades rather during the week, but as we've reached out for responses on kind of big events, Joe Biden stay or go, we have found, particularly with this third district Democratic nominee Lanon Baccam. They don't want to touch this. I mean there is this hesitance hesitancy to really get out publicly.

 

 

Erin Murphy

Yeah. And and to that point, Dave, I will say the thing I always try to remind people because you're right, we sometimes hesitate on these because we worry that the only reason he cares is he doesn't get the interview. Yeah, I often tell people, look, if there's one less thing I got to do on a Saturday afternoon in July, I'm okay with that. I'm not going to these things because Erin Murphy's interested. I'm going to do these things because the Cedar Rapids Gazette readers are interested and should know, in this democratic process, what the people who want to represent them are saying and doing. So it really is. it's not a selfish thing. It's a, you know, we do this job because we're trying to tell folks what the candidates are talking about.

 

 

Kay Henderson

I have to tell you at this point that we are out of time for this conversation and we will convene again in the future for the benefit of our loyal viewers. Just to let you know that next week, Iowa Press will not be on the air because this network will be bringing you the girls state softball championships. Following that, the network will be preparing and then bringing you coverage of the Iowa State Fair. So the next time Iowa Press will be gracing the airwaves will be August 23rd. We hope you have a great rest of the summer, and we'll see you in August.

 

 

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