Legislative Democrats with backbones

The pressure will be on Democrats in the Iowa Legislature this session to stand up for themselves and fight for progress without sacrificing fundamental beliefs.  In the House we lost 16 seats and in the Senate we lost 6 seats.  The House is under Republican control with a 60-40 split while Democrats retain control of the Senate 26-24.  There is still time for a slight amount of change in these numbers though.

As desmoinesdem points out at Bleeding Heartland there are two pending recounts in Senate districts 13 and 47.  One recount is from a losing Republican and one is from a losing Democrat.  Should Andrew Naeve win in Senate district 13 thanks to the recount the Iowa Senate would be split 25-25 and any significant chance of blocking Branstad’s Republican progress-dismantling legislation would go down the drain.

Democrats need to stand up and fight back.  We control the State Senate and will not submit to legislation that would up-end the years of progress initiated under the Culver-Judge administration (and even further back to the Vilsack-Pederson administration).  The first step in this process is to make a Republican hold of Lt. Gov-elect Kim Reynold’s seat that much harder.  Because of her election as Lt. Gov. of Iowa, Reynolds was forced to resign her seat this week.  Reynolds was elected from Senate District 48, one of Iowa’s largest senate districts by geographical size.  It covers Adams, Clarke, Decatur, Montgomery, Ringgold, Taylor and Union counties.

As soon as Democrats knew that she was Branstad’s choice for his second-in-command we should’ve been building contingency plans assuming the worst-possible outcome on election day.  We should have had a strong and popular Democrat from that district ready to announce his or her candidacy the minute Reynolds resigned.  It would be a tough race, no doubt about it.  After losing so badly on election day it wouldn’t exactly be the smartest thing to assume we could easily win a single race like this only two months later.  The district has 10,444 registered Democrats, 15,257 Republicans and 14,306 no-party voters as of November 1.

In 2008 Reynolds won her race against Democrat Ruth Smith with 14,274 votes to 11,653 votes (about 53% to 43% with Independent candidate getting about 4% of the vote).  In 2004 Jeff Angelo won with 54% of the vote to the Democrat’s 46% (14,981 votes to 12,776 votes).  With a strong enough candidate and a very strong GOTV effort this race is entirely winnable.

Instead on the day Reynolds announced her registration her apparent successor announced her candidacy.  Joni Ernst is currently the Montgomery County Auditor and has been for the past 6 years.  Where were the Democrats on Friday?  Nowhere to be found.  With Friday’s announcement Governor Culver had 5 days to declare the date of the district’s special election and it must occur within the next 40 days.  That means that before Christmas this election will be happening.  Democrats need to get their act together and get a strong candidate on the ground.  Don’t just concede.  Use your backbone and make an effort.