Essential Estrogen

I was so excited to hear Gov. Chet Culver's budget proposal before the joint meeting of the legislature today. It came just off the heels of the minimum wage hike (which was a good and needed thing, even if I think the increases should have been spaced out a bit more) and I was ready for more good news. With such important causes in the budget such as healthcare for Iowa's most vulnerable, increases in teacher pay and lifting the ban on some stem cell research, I should have been delighted. Right?

I alternated between watching the address on television and listening to it on the radio. There were a few places, as I walked between the two, I missed words and sentences. When the speech ended, I went back over what I'd heard. Stem cell research? Check. Cigarette tax for healthcare? Check. Continuance of semi-vague campaign rhetoric? Check. Funding increases for education? Check. Women's issues? Che... wait a minute.

Unsure if I'd actually missed something within the speech, I trotted over to the Des Moines Register site to double-check the written version of the speech. I skimmed it and saw no mention of women/woman/gals/etc. Hmmm. I then did a word search on the page and found only one instance of the word 'women' in his speech:

Finally, there are some additional important priorities in this budget. They are: ... protecting and expanding access to shelter services for at-risk women, mothers and children. I can tell you the First Lady will continue to be a real advocate on behalf of shelter service care providers and the vulnerable individuals who desperately need them. Thank you dear for your efforts, and we will direct these important resources into shelter care.

The logical side of me keeps up the steady "be happy" drumbeat. It's a blessing to hear anything positive about women in the speech. (Seriously, whenever you hear the word 'woman' or 'women' come out of GW's mouth, you just have to cringe at what might follow.) The emotional side of me, however, is still feeling a bit pandered to by the Culver campaign.

You see, a year ago Chet Culver was in a heated contest for the Gubernatorial primary against Mike Blouin (former Director of Economic Development who has recently been relieved of his duties in that state agency -- I can't imagine why Chet would do that, Mike! -- and has taken a post at the Greater Dubuque Development Corporation). Both Culver and Judge stirred the women's rights activists throughout the state by pointing out Blouin's issues with choice. It was arguably that one issue which brought Culver and Judge through the primary and into the general contest.

Further, when I attended the inauguration ceremonies in Des Moines earlier this month, I was asked by a priest during his invocation to "pray for those unborn, wishing to be citizens." WHAT?!? We have all these walking-around-outside-the-womb children dying overseas, but this man wants me to focus my attention on another woman's uterus?

In the budget speech, it is good to note that Culver honored the first woman Command Sergeant Major in the Iowa National Guard. Unfortunately, the honoring came too late for her to enjoy it. Command Sgt. Maj. Marilyn Gabbard died following a helicopter crash in Iraq. Deepest condolences to her family.

While I don't expect every good thing coming out of Des Moines to be linked specifically to women, I would remind both Culver and our state legislators of Abigail Adams' words to her husband John:

"...in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors."

I can already tell there will be quite a few posts about Senate Minority Leader Mary Lundby. It's not that I think she is such a bad person or even that she's a bad legislator, it's just that - in her new leadership position - she's going to be asked about everything and quoted all over the state.

This thought-provoking quote after yesterday's budget address by Gov. Chet Culver was reported by the Sioux City Journal:

"These are the things he talked about in the campaign and it's nice to see a governor that has some promises he's following through on," said Senate Minority Leader Mary Lundby, R-Marion.

Was that an off-hand jab at our former governor and current 2008 presidential hopeful, Mary? Perhaps it was intended instead for Branstad?

This nugget of knowledge comes to us from Iowa Sen. Mary Lundby, courtesy of the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier. You see, it seems Iowa Sen. Dick Dearden still feels a bit testy about the 2001 smack-down former Gov. Tom Vilsack gave his bill which proposed a dove hunting season in Iowa. He plans -- in a year where majorities in both houses and the governor's office could lead to real progress in Iowa -- to re-introduce the bill with hopes new Gov. Culver will place pen to paper.

"My constituents overwhelmingly do not want to blow little mourning doves out of the air with a gun," [Lundby] said. "Hunters in Iowa are about six percent or less of the population, the rest of us spend millions of dollars a year buying bird seed." Of Dearden's plan, she added, "I think the Sen. Dearden has promised his gun friends and his dove-killing friends that he'd try again and he's trying again. I think he'll get shot down."

Here's hoping the pun was intended.

As much as I'd like to give cheers to Lundby for her stance, I'm still trying to wrap my head around the whole "dove-killing friends" line. Since I can't give cheers to either Lundby or Dearden on this one, I'm glad there was one more person quoted in the article:

"I hope not. We don't have to do that," [Senate Pres. Jack] Kibbie said when asked about the legislation's prospects. "I think we've got a lot more important things to do than the dove season."

Preach it, brother, preach it!

While this isn't necessarily political, it's important! While reading through today's Des Moines Register I came across this article on Project AWARE. Contained within was the following information:

On the Turkey and Wapsipinicon, the Raccoon and South Skunk, on the Iowa and Boone and Missouri rivers, Iowans took their nearby streams into their own hands, putting on gloves and leaping into the muck. "It's hard to describe the magic that goes on. There is a special breed of person that really cares about the environment," said KJ Rebarcak of rural Long Grove, who participated in last year's AWARE. Rebarcak was so inspired that along with friend Melisa Petersen she organized their own cleanup on the Wapsipinicon in Clinton County. She floated the same stretch of the river on her first paddling trip with Petersen five years ago and found it offered her peace, something you can't measure with hard figures. She could measure this: Last summer, 25 volunteers pulled an astounding 11,592 pounds of trash out of 22 Wapsi river miles.

We applaud Rebarcak, Petersen and all the wonderful volunteers who are caring for Iowa's environment!

During a recent survey hired out by the Legislature's Sustainable Natural Resource Funding Advisory Committee, 800 Iowans ranked pollution of rivers, lakes and streams as their number two priority. (The top slot went to lack of affordable healthcare.) While some are just beginning to understand the importance of Iowa's lands and rivers being clean, other Iowan's began doing something about it more than five years ago. That's when Project AWARE began with 35 hearty volunteers. This incentive will continue this year on the Raccoon River. More information is available by clicking the logo to the right or the link above.

Iowa is one of several states currently considering expanding health care coverage. The groundwork is currently being done by an Iowa legislative panel which is looking seriously at a formula of universal health care, similar to what Massachusetts now has in place.

Rep. Linda Miller (R-Bettendorf) is not only a legislator on the panel, but a nurse. She told Sioux City Journal today that "Iowans expect an effort to improve the health system:

"I've seen how the actual system currently works for people, and it's not very good," Miller said.

She said she doesn't believe the idea of universal health care coverage comes down to being a Republican or Democratic idea.

Miller emphasizes that universal health care and government control of health care sometimes are confused but are two separate issues.

"Having the government tell us how to practice medicine is not anybody's idea of universal health care," Miller said.

Kudos to Miller for seeing a problem and looking outside of her party's box for ways to fix it!

The vast majority of Iowans without health care coverage are young and employed (wages too low to buy into employee run health care services or work for employers who do not offer such a plan). While Iowa's rate of uninsured is smaller than than the national one, it remains a growing problem.

In today's Fort Dodge Messenger Iowa Rep. Helen Miler (D-Fort Dodge) provided some details about a bill she's working on which should benefit Iowa's working families.

One of the growing problems for working families is that the school day ends at roughly 3 p.m., but the work day doesn't. Almost one in three Iowa children of working families are unsupervised in the afternoons, according to the Afterschool Alliance. The data gathered by that group in 2005 showed just 11 percent of the children in working families are in afterschool programs, while 32 percent of them are "latchkey kids" with no adult supervision in the afternoon.

‘‘I do support (additional state funding) because I believe we have got to do something with these children,’’ said Rep. Miller.

She pointed out that Iowa leads the nation in the percentage of families in which both parents work — or, in single-parent households, in which the only parent works. Miller termed the hours after school a ‘‘huge chunk of time that children can get into trouble.’’

Miller went on to add a few details about a bill she plans to introduce. The bill would fund after-school art activities that tapped the skills students were learning in other classes. The thinking is that the legislature might be more prone to fund programs associated with school.

Although conventional wisdom has dictated that middle school children are involved in activities following the school day and, therefore, do not have the same needs of younger children, crime statistics have shown this not to be the case. Juvenile crime rates, according to Iowa Afterschool Alliance coordinator Rachel Scott, triple between 3 and 6 p.m.

On a national level

• Two in five middle school children (grades six to eight) in working families (40%) are unsupervised in the afternoons.
• 9.7 million children in working families who do not participate in afterschool programs would be likely to participate if a program were available.
• 14% of children, kindergarten through 12th grade, in working families attend afterschool programs, compared to 11% of all K-12 children. 19% of the children of single working mothers participate in afterschool programs.
• Just 7% of children in rural working families attend afterschool programs.
• 31% of Caucasian, 25% of African American and Hispanic, and 21% of Asian Pacific Islander children in working families are in self-care in the afternoons.

During the past year, the Iowa legislature has alloted $150,000 for afterschool programs. Advocates argue $4 million is needed.

Iowa State Rep. Sandy Greiner (R-Keota) told the Washington County Pork Producers that she will not seek re-election when her term expires in 2008. Why? According to Greiner, "the chips are down" and "our voices are not going to be heard."

In other words, Greiner only likes to play when she can be the leader. Sorry, hun, life doesn't always work that way and, if that's the only way you can do business, we're glad to see you take your toys and leave the sandbox.

Rep. Carmine Boal (R-Ankeny) recently wrote an op-ed piece for the Des Moines Register in which she attempted to spank the Iowa Democratic majority over HF 149, the antiharrassment and antibullying legislation. She fell quite short of her mark, however, when statements made in her piece are placed against the documents to which she refers.

Boal writes:

Upon researching the question, I found that in order to be accredited by the state of Iowa all public and non-public schools must have a student discipline policy addressing harassment per Iowa Administrative Code 281-12.

The truth is that Code 281-12 reads differently than what HF 149 proposed. Here is a section 12.5(8) -- which must be what Boal refers to since it appears to be the only language within the document which discusses harassment:

12.5(8) Multicultural and gender fair approaches to the educational program. The board shall establish a policy to ensure that students are free from discriminatory practices in the educational program as required by Iowa Code section 256.11. In developing or revising the policy, parents, students, instructional and noninstructional staff, and community members shall be involved. Each school or school district shall incorporate multicultural and gender fair goals for the educational program into its comprehensive school improvement plan. Incorporation shall include the following:

a. Multicultural approaches to the educational program. These shall be defined as approaches which foster knowledge of, and respect and appreciation for, the historical and contemporary contributions of diverse cultural groups, including race, color, national origin, gender, disability, religion, creed, and socioeconomic background. The contributions and perspectives of Asian Americans, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, American Indians, European Americans, and persons with disabilities shall be included in the program.

b. Gender fair approaches to the educational program. These shall be defined as approaches which foster knowledge of, and respect and appreciation for, the historical and contemporary contributions of women and men to society. The program shall reflect the wide variety of roles open to both women and men and shall provide equal opportunity to both sexes.

The overall thrust of Boal's argument against this piece of legislation isn't made evident in her writing until eight paragraphs into her piece. At that point, she encourages the reader to question why "the majority party" would want to list the "traits or characteristics upon which harassment or bullying can be based." Even here, however, Boal leads her readers to believe that the legislation has limited the traits and characteristics to only those listed. In truth, HF 149 reads:

b. "Trait or characteristic of the student" includes but is not limited to age, color, creed, national origin, race, religion, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, physical attributes, physical or mental ability or disability, ancestry, political party preference, political belief, socioeconomic status, or familial status.

True to her GOP talking points, Boal seems poised to strike fear into the hearts of all Iowans based on a few key words within the legislation: "sex," "sexual orientation," "gender identity," and, perhaps, "political party preference" as well. I'm not sure why the GOP feels only certain Iowa students need protection from bullying. Shouldn't we be the state which paints with a broad brush when it comes to student safety? Obviously, for some in the Iowa legislature, student safety isn't a primary concern when it clashes with party ideology. Shame on them!

Finally, the one part of the bill which seemed to give Boal -- and we imagine most of her GOP counterparts pleasure -- was an amendment which allowed non-public to be immune to the new legislation.

Despite Boal's misgivings, the bill passed the House and has been sent to the Senate where it is now SF 61. Gov. Chet Culver has stated he will sign this legislation if it is passed by both houses.

Here's our shout out to the Iowa Senate: Iowa Administrative Code 281-12 already includes an exemption request process. Let all the non-public schools who wish to be accredited by the state explain in detail why they find some Iowa students not worth protecting.