Current map of Iowa's Fourth District is here.
Maps of the new Congressional, Iowa Senate and Iowa House districts can be found here.
Six of our counties will be in Braley's new 1st District, three will be in Boswell's new 3rd District, and the other 19 will be in the new 4th District, which will be represented by the Democrat who defeats Steve King.
Our website for the new 4th District is available, so please add that link for future updates.
Latham/King Watch
STEVE KING: COVERING BIRTH CONTROL WILL MAKE US 'A DYING CIVILIZATION'
Posted on 08-02-2011Crazy Steve King flies off on a tangent over the availability of birth control.
Rep. Steve King (R-IA) thinks it's "Orwellian" that the federal government would require health insurance providers to cover birth control, and that if left unchecked the policy could allow the U.S. to become "a dying civilization."
KING THINKS OBAMA COULD BE IMPEACHED?
Posted on 07-26-2011Hoping that the government fails, Rep. Steve King says that President Obama could be impeached if he lets the country default on their debt. King, Rep. Tom Latham and other Republicans in the House will refuse to raise the debt ceiling, but then claim no responsibility for the crisis that follows. This is just getting insane!
STEVE KING SKIPS VOTES TO FUNDRAISE FOR RE-ELECTION
Posted on 07-26-2011Des Moines – Representative Steve King (IA-04) eschewed any pretense of helping solve the debt ceiling crisis yesterday when he skipped town and missed votes to fundraise. King joined Governor Christie in Iowa’s new 4th district yesterday to try and make up his fundraising disadvantage. Apparently some things are just too important to miss. For King that means schilling for campaign cash with the Governor of New Jersey instead of doing the job Iowans count on him to do.
KARL ROVE STANDS UP FOR LATHAM WITH LATEST AD BUY
Posted on 07-18-2011Crossroads GPS launches campaign against Rep. Boswell
DES MOINES – Karl Rove’s shadowy special interest group, Crossroads GPS, has launched an attack on Congressman Leonard Boswell that distorts the facts and continues to show Republican reliance on special interests. The ad, which is part of a $20 million dollar campaign, is paid for by donors who are not disclosed and who can give unlimited amounts of money to the 501(c)4 organization.
“Iowans don’t have to be told that an ad funded by anonymous special interests and masterminded by Karl Rove ignores the facts,” said Iowa Democratic Party Chairwoman Sue Dvorsky. “Congressman Boswell has a strong record of fiscal responsibility and leadership on behalf of Iowa.”
GLOSSY MAILER CAN'T HIDE LATHAM'S VOTE TO END MEDICARE
Posted on 06-22-2011It really is annoying how Latham uses taxpayer money to gloss over his terrible voting record. See Cheryl Binzen's letter to the editor in the Ames Tribune on Latham's latest mailer to conteract his vote to end Medicare:
Did you get a four-color glossy mailing stating “Congressman Tom Latham is Fighting to Protect Medicare From a Board of Unelected Bureaucrats”? Very pretty. Also very misleading. Latham supports replacing Medicare with vouchers for buying private health insurance. Quite a boon for insurance companies. But certainly not protecting Medicare.
LATHAM VOTES AGAINST ETHANOL AND RURAL IOWA
Posted on 06-22-2011You know something is wrong when Latham supports a bill that even Steve King thinks is too radical:
Among members of Iowa's congressional delegation, only Tom Latham voted for a bill cutting funding for federal conservation, nutrition and food assistance programs while rejecting a cap on farm subsidy payments.
The bill, which passed on a 217-203 vote, cuts more than $2.7 billion in discretionary spending from the budgets of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration. Reps. Bruce Braley, D-Waterloo; Dave Loebsack, D-Mount Vernon; Leonard Boswell, D-Des Moines; and Steve King, R-Kiron, all voted against the bill. Rep. Tom Latham, R-Ames, voted in favor.
In a surprising slap to rural Iowa Latham voted for:
- $337 million reduction to the rural economic development programs;
- $99 million less for conservation programs; and
- $354 million reduction to the agricultural research programs
THE RICH GET RICHER
Posted on 06-22-2011From a recent report: 4th District Rep. Tom Latham, an Ames Republican and the wealthiest member of the Iowa House delegation, reported the value of his assets increased from a range of $2,496,013-$8,167,000 in 2009 to $2,562,013-$10,281,000 in 2010.
LATHAM AGAINST SENIORS, NOT FOR THEM
Posted on 05-26-2011Latham was given a phoney award recently by a petroleum industry front group, but he gets called on his true attitude towards senions in a letter to the Des Moines Register by Robert Connett, Vice-President of the Iowa Alliance for Retired Amercicans:
I was interested to read that Rep. Tom Latham supports Iowa's seniors ("Latham Steps Up for Iowa's Seniors," May 14 Iowa View by Steve Ackerson).
Perhaps the co-sponsorship of this legislation is an act of contrition on his part for having voted in favor of the Paul Ryan 2012 budget plan that privatizes Medicare and turns it over to insurance companies, that drastically increases out-of-pocket payments, eliminates many Medicare benefits, repeals health care and removes all of the benefits for seniors that have already gone into effect. It promotes rationing by private insurance companies that get the money and decides what and what not to cover and for whom.
THAT OLD TERM LIMIT PLEDGE
Posted on 04-27-2011In a letter to the Des Moines Register, Don Yager of Fenton brings up that old term limit pledge that Tom Latham signed off on when he first ran for Congress in 1994: "Isn't that term limit pledge overdue, Tom?"
POLLING SHOWS CHRISTIE VILSACK WITH GREATER APPROVAL THAN LATHAM OR KING
Posted on 04-26-2011New statewide polling from Public Policy Polling shows Christie Vilsack with 38/23 approval/disapproval in Iowa, while Latham stands at 31/23 and King at 27/34. Hard to believe that 27% of Iowan's approve of King.
DCCC ROBOCALLING LATHAM AND KING ON MEDICARE VOTE
Posted on 04-26-2011Bleeding Heartland reports on the robocalling that the DCCC is doing on our Republican congressmen, criticizing their vote to end Medicare.
TV AD ATTACKS STEVE KING ON HIS VOTE TO END MEDICARE
Posted on 04-25-2011Americans United for Change has a TV ad campaign targeting Steve King's vote to end Medicare, but it could have just as easily targeted Tom Latham. The youtube link to the ad is here. Lynda Waddington's article in the Iowa Independent on the ad is after the fold.
LATHAM AND KING VOTE TO END MEDICARE, SLASH MEDICAID
Posted on 04-23-2011This letter to the editor in the Ames Tribune points to how extreme both Tom Latham and Steve King have become in fiscal policy.
The Ryan budget plan became the official Republican plan with its passage in the U.S. House on April 15. Reps. Tom Latham and Steve King voted in favor of the most radical budget idea since George W. Bush proposed the privatization of Social Security.
After all these years of voting against our interests, Latham announces that he is leaving Story County for greener pastures to the south. The bad news is that King wants to be our next representative. In addition to bad votes, we would have to endure the hateful rhetoric.
SHADY SPECIAL INTERESTS RUSH TO SUPPORT LATHAM AND KING
Posted on 04-21-2011That didn't take long! The anonymous donors behind the American Future Fund (AFF) have already endorsed Tom Latham in the new 3rd District and Steve King in the newly configured 4th District. The AFF is already gearing up for the 2012 election after spending all that money from who knows who (I wonder how much of it is foreign?) on the 2010 election.
OUR CONGRESSMAN VOTES TO END MEDICARE
Posted on 04-16-2011The so-called Ryan Bill is now the Republican Budget after passage in the House along a party line vote on April 15th. Of course, Reps. Latham and King voted in favor of the bill. The most controversial part calls for the end to Medicare, which will be replaced by a voucher system that will require seniors to shop for their own health insurance (which companies will be clamoring to insure the seniors?) and pay for the difference as the vouchers decrease. This end of Medicare will help finance a trillion dollar tax cut for millionaires.
Congressman Bruce Braley's take is below.
LATHAM FIGHTS FOR CORN SUGAR
Posted on 04-16-2011With all the problems in the country, Rep. Latham still finds time to help the Corn Refiners make more money. He is circulating a petition to have the term "high fructose corn sugar" to just "corn sugar."
No, I 'm not kidding.
NOT SO MODERATE TOM
Posted on 04-14-2011Rep. Latham voted to cut off all funding for the Affordable Care Act and Planned Parenthood today. Of course the Senate rejected the Republican House agenda. These measures got tacked onto the current resolution to finally fund government for what's left of the current fiscal year. Latham supported that vote, too, which should make his future Tea Party constituents mad.
WILL LATHAM SUPPORT ENDING MEDICARE?
Posted on 04-11-2011Rep. Ryan and the Republican members of the U.S. House are proposing to end Medicare as we know it and substitute a voucher system that forces seniors to go find their own private health insurance, and pay for the difference, probably a BIG difference. Yet Latham will be reprsenting one of the grayist of districtics in the new redistricting plan. Latham has been silent on if he will go along with his Republican colleagues and sell his constituents (currently half a million Iowans on Medicare) down the river.
LATHAM ON FARM WELFARE DOLE
Posted on 04-02-2011We knew this before, but just as a reminder, Rep. Tom Latham is a big supporter and recipient of farm subsidies for corporate farms. The Des Moines Register reports on how it's Republicans that collect most of these federal tax dollars:
Latham has been part owner of four entities that have received subsidies. He was a one- third owner of Latham Seed Co., which received $448,925 in subsidies from 1995 to 2003; 25-percent owner of Latham Hospital Farm, which collected $76,612 between 1995 and 2001; 25-percent owner in latham Kanawha Farm, who got $15,648 from 1995 to 2001, and a 3-percent owner in DTB Farms, which received $472,018 from 2003 and 2009.
LATHAM DEFENDS CORPORATE WELFARE FOR THE WEALTHIEST FARMERS, INCLUDING HIMSELF!
Posted on 03-02-2011Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack argued before Congress to lower the cutoff for USDA direct payments to those farmers who make less than $500,000 per year in farm income. But Rep. Tom Latham wants to protect the welfare system for farmers making up to $750,000 per year. The conservative Iowa Farm Bureau is in favor of such reforms, but not 'Corporate Tom' Latham, whose family rakes in plenty of money from the USDA for such unjust subsidies.
Latham and his family are on the welfare roles of the USDA, with substantial crop subidies in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Latham Seed Co. received nearly $450,000 in federal subsidies in the 1995-2003 period, and his Dtb Farms LLC. received more than $470,000 in the 2003-2009 period. Tom Latham, welfare king!