Senator Becky Schmitz (Iowa Senate District 45) has provided a form on her website for her constituents to offer feedback on important budget decisions in the coming months.

Here is one of the sections from the survey to give you an idea of the areas our legislators are examining:

Difficult choices will have to be made by lawmakers in order to balance the state budget. Which areas of the budget do you feel can least afford to be cut?

• Iowa Power Fund (Development of Alternative/Clean Energy Sources)
• Education (K-12, Community Colleges, State Universities, Early childhood)
• Agriculture (Farm to School, Farmers Market Program, DNR)
• Human Services (Child Abuse Prevention, Mental Health Facilities, HAWK-I, Veterans)
• Public Safety (State Patrol, Drug Enforcement, Fire Marshall)
• Unemployment Services (Unemployment Insurance, Regional Workforce Development Centers)
• Tax Credits (Including Individuals, Non-profits and Businesses of all sizes)
• Transportation (Roads & Bridges/Infrastructure Spending)
• Economic Development (Grow Iowa Values Fund, Workforce Development, State Parks)
• Small Business Incentives
• Other (please specify)

The survey also provides space for you to add your own feedback and opinions and the opportunity to leave your email if you would like to be contacted with a summary of the results.

Iowa State Senators

I hope that other Legislators around the state are providing such accessible ways for their constituents to offer input on important issues!  But even if they don’t have a web form, the questions Senator Schmitz is asking may help you figure out what input and questions you want to communicate to your legislators by phone or email.  This page provides links to contact info for all members of the Iowa House and Senate.

One thing to keep in mind is the Iowa Senate and Iowa House Districts cover slightly different territories and have different district numbers.  For example, while Fairfield residents are served by Senator Schmitz and Representative Curt Hanson who both live in Fairfield, Senator Schmitz serves Iowa Senate District 45, which covers Jefferson, Van Buren, Washington and parts of Wapello and Johnson Counties.  Representative Hanson serves House District 90, which covers Van Buren and parts of Jefferson and Wapello Counties.

If you aren’t sure who your legislators are, this page on the Iowa Legislature website will allow you to look them up quickly.  The results page will also provide you with all the contact information you need to get in touch with your Senator and Representative (both State and Federal).

There are some tough decisions coming up, make sure your voice is heard!

On Sunday, March 7 at 1:00pm there will be a peace rally held in Fairfield on the Hwy 1 Bridge (just north of MUM campus on Hwy1). This is a celebration in honor of the resilience of millions of women survivors of war around the world. The organization, Women for Women International (WFWI), has created a global campaign called Join me on the Bridge. This campaign is scheduled to coincide with the 100 year anniversary of International Women’s Day and the 10th anniversary of the UN Millennium Development Goals. We will meet at 1:00pm to celebrate women with song and drumming, write our messages of peace and hope on a large banner that will be sent to the international organization (along with photos and video footage of the gathering), and to sign petitions for peace, which will be sent by WFWI to various governments around the world to encourage them to provide women greater access to education, job training, credit, property rights and support.

On International Women’s Day, WFWI is bringing thousands of women from Rwanda and the Congo together on a bridge that sits between their two countries to demand an end to war and to demonstrate that women can build the bridges to peace and economic sustainability. In solidarity, both women and men will gather together on bridges throughout the world in a global movement to create peace, inspire strength and give hope.

Women for Women International is a nonprofit humanitarian organization that works in war torn areas of the world (Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Nigeria, Rwanda, DRC, and Sudan). Through a sponsorship program, women survivors of war are able to take back their lives and become productive citizens. First, their basic needs of food, shelter, health care are met and then they begin a year long training program called “Renewing Women’s Life Skills”. Here they gain technical and vocational training, learn about their rights as women, and regain their self esteem. Throughout this year they are encouraged to correspond with their sponsor through letters and sometimes pictures. Once they graduate from the program, these women have new tools to return home with and to help provide for their families and gain a standing in the community, which they otherwise did not have. Through this organization, women are able to change their lives and the lives of their families and rebuild communities that have been completely destroyed by war.

We look forward to you joining us to celebrate and support Women world wide in an effort to build the bridges to a brighter future – You can also stop by and see us at this Friday’s Art Walk (in front Walker Group).

This week Iowa Republican lawmakers against same-sex marriage failed, in both the Iowa House and Senate, to force a vote on the issue in an attempt to amend the Iowa Constitution with a ban on same-sex marriage.

In order to become a constitutional amendment in Iowa, a bill must pass two General Assemblies and then be put on the ballot for a public vote, and efforts to pull the resolutions out of the committees and place them on the debate calendar were aimed to beat a legislative deadline to get the bills on the floor this week.

On Tuesday of this week a procedural move to pull a bill out of committee in the House required a 51-vote majority, but that effort failed in a 45-54 vote, mostly along party lines. No vote was taken on a similar Senate Resolution.

Back on April 3, 2009, the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously upheld the District Court’s ruling holding that there was no important governmental interest in denying citizens marriage licenses based on their sexual orientation, and that denying such rights was unconstituational. This overturned Iowa’s Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defined marriage as between one man and one woman. Since last year’s ruling, Iowa Republicans have made several attempts to bring a measure similar to DOMA to the floor, but this weeks efforts marked the first formal attempt to overturn the Court’s ruling in this years legislative session.

The failure of this week’s procedural maneuvering means that Iowa voters will likely not see the issue on a ballot until 2014 at the earliest.

According to a poll conducted for the Des Moines Register, a majority of Iowans think the issue of gay marriage doesn’t deserver lawmakers’ attention. 62 percent of Iowans think the issue of same-sex marriage doesn’t deserve lawmakers’ time, rating it below texting while driving, puppy mill legislation, gun control, payday loans and gambling.

My opinion: 62 percent of Iowans are on the right path. I would argue that in two decades we will look back on the issue of same-sex marriage in the same we we look back on women’s suffrage or the civil rights movement.

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The puppy mill bill, HSB604, passed the House Public Safety committee last week here in our great state of Iowa.

Unfortunately, it is another completely partisan bill. Every “yes” a Democrat, every “no” a Republican.

Warning – this blog post is bi-partisan, so if you’re one of my liberal friends hoping I’m going to bash conservatives – sorry. And if you’re one of my conservative friends waiting for a good fight – no dice.

I’m writing because I’m just sick of politics in the US as it stands today and this bill is a perfect example of what just makes me want to hurl.

Here is the basic focus of the bill (which by the way WAS supported by Representative Curt Hanson)  “We need and deserve better oversight of the USDA-licensed breeders in our state. This law will not mandate additional inspections. It will only make it possible for the IA Dept of Ag to inspect upon receipt of a complaint. The breeders’ fee increases will offset any additional costs to implement this.”

Did all the Republicans who voted “no” really want to send the message to their constituents that they are not in favor of protecting puppies? Of course not. What they did is put politics before the people, well in this case the animals, and that’s not going to get this country anywhere but worse off than it is now.

I can’t help but think that the two-party system is coming to an end. Not because it isn’t good in theory, but because what it is turning into is a battleground of rhetoric and wills. One that has little to do with what is best for the country, and EVERYTHING to do with what is best for one of the parties. Sickening… Maddening…

This post is not meant to be a rant, rather, a question to us and our government. What are we going to do to get our country get back on track? How are we going to work TOGETHER, to do what the PEOPLE want and expect, and NOT just what is going to look good to the rest of the party or some talk show host?

Help me out here, anybody. Am I nuts or are what seem to be a majority of our representatives more interested in their jobs and keeping their party in power than in what is best for these United States?

Indeed, I may be seen as generalizing, but when I see votes like this, it is really, really hard to imagine that there is something so dreadfully wrong with saving puppies that it would incite every Republican to vote no.

Well, unless what I don’t know is that the people whom these folks represent actually prefer to torture puppies…

Two months ago I wrote my opinion on banning cell phone usage while driving and the fact that Iowa lags behind in the adoption of legislation addressing the safety issues of using cell phones while driving. That fact may change in 2010 as new legislation is being proposed by Iowa’s elected officials, including our own Representative Curt Hanson (House District 90, Democrat).

Curt Hanson is co-signer of House File 2020, a proposed bill that would ban all drivers from text messaging or using cell phones unless a hands-free accessory was employed. Violation would result in a fine of $30.

HF2020 states:

This bill prohibits a person from operating or using a cellular telephone while operating a motor vehicle on a street or highway unless the cellular telephone is used in a hands-free mode.

The bill also prohibits a person from using a wireless handset to write, read, or send a text message while operating a motor vehicle.

The bill defines “hands=free mode” as the use of a cellular telephone by way of an internal feature or function, or an attachment or addition, by which the user engages in a conversation or communication without the use of either hand.

A violation of the bill is a simple misdemeanor punishable by a scheduled fine of $30.

I spoke with Curt Hanson about the status of the proposed legislation. HF2020 is currently with the Transportation Committee, is unlikely to pass through. There is resistance from the business community about the impact of such legislation on trucking and other occupations that require drivers to be in communication with customers or dispatch.

In order to achieve a bill that can pass, Curt Hanson is in the process of forming a bi-partisan committee with the goal of crafting a bill that has enough support to become law. While most legislators agree that texting while driving is bad, there is not strong agreement on the dangers of talking on a cell phone while driving. But Curt Hanson points out that talking on a cell phone still involves taking your eyes off the road to look up a contact or dial a number.

Would you support the passage of HF2020 into law? Considering growing concern and attention over safety issues involved with cell phone use while driving, have you altered the way you view or use cell phones while driving in the past year?

Blog for Iowa has published an informative, four part interview, conducted by Jay Mattson, on Francis Thicke’s candidacy for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture.

I’ve known Francis Thicke and his wife, Susan, for over 30 years, and I can testify that he is the real deal. Francis is running for Agriculture Secretary because he has a sincere impulse to engage in public service for the sake of improving Iowa. Interviewing Francis gave me a chance to experience his brilliant grasp of complex, pressing issues. Francis has the best mix of qualifications, knowledge and experience that I could hope for in a progressive Democrat seeking to be Iowa’s Agriculture Secretary. I’ve come away from this interview convinced that he’s a viable candidate who has the integrity, humility and wisdom this state needs. — Jay Mattson

Part One: Meet Francis Thicke – Progressive Democrat for Iowa Agriculture Secretary

Part Two: Iowa Ag Secretary Candidate Francis Thicke Talks to BFIA about CAFOs, GMOs, and Local Control

Part Three: Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Candidate Francis Thicke Exclusive BFIA Interview

Part Four: Interview With Iowa Ag Secretary Candidate Francis Thicke

From the interview:

The Iowa Secretary of Agriculture is very often invited to speak at agricultural conferences held in Iowa. I see that as a major role of the Iowa Secretary of Agriculture: to articulate a vision for the future of Iowa agriculture, and to provide leadership to help move Iowa agriculture towards that vision. — Francis Thicke

. . . a law that was recently passed in Illinois that sets goals for more of the food eaten in Illinois to be produced in Illinois. They are starting with state-owned institutions, like hospitals and universities. One goal of the new Illinois law is to have 20% of the food purchased by state-owned institutions be grown in Illinois by 2020. That is an interesting model of how to increase local food production, which translates into economic development. We could do something similar in Iowa. — Francis Thicke

I grew up on a farm in a family of nine children. The farm was mostly dairy when I was young but we also had hogs, chickens and other animals — including sheep and ducks, at times. Over time our family’s farm became more specialized in dairy production, so I learned dairy first-hand from the family. — Francis Thicke

It’s an exciting interview series about a candidate with some practical and visionary ideas for how to improve Iowa’s agriculture and economic future. I encourage my fellow Iowans to read it and comment on Thicke’s ideas or provide any other feedback for the candidates in next year’s election for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture.

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The blogosphere and major media networks have been full of debate stirred by stories of accidents caused by motorists texting while driving. States and communities are imposing bans on using cell phones while driving in the wake of new data coming out that shows startling rates for cell phone related fatalities.

A recent study published by the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows that teens are aware of the dangers of texting while driving, but they choose to do it anyway.

Some of the data:

• 26% of all American teens 16-17 have texted while driving, and 43% have talked on a cell phone while driving.
• 40% of American teens 16-17 say they have been in a car when the driver used a cell phone in a way that put themselves or others in danger.
• A truck driver texting while driving is 23.2 times more likely to get into an accident than a trucker paying full attention to the road.
• Talking on a cell phone causes nearly 25% of car accidents.
• Each year, 21% of fatal car crashes involving teenagers between the ages of 16 and 19 were the result of cell phone usage. This result has been expected to grow as much as 4% every year.

Note: Photo Taken While Parked, For Dramatization Purposes Only.

While the list of countries that ban the use of cell phones while driving is fairly extensive, the USA is still catching up to addressing this issue. Currently only the states of California, Connecticut, DC, New Jersey, New York, Oregon and Washington have hand held bans for all drivers. Most states have a ban on cell phone usage for bus drivers and text message bans for novice/teenage drivers.

And then there’s Iowa. Iowa does not have a single law regulating the use of cell phones while driving. Several attempts have been made recently, but all were rejected under fierce resistance.

It’s a shame that common sense, in this case being responsible and safe while driving, is something you have to regulate, but even more surprising is the resistance from my fellow citizens to legislation that has everyone’s safety in mind. What are the arguments against creating motor vehicle rules to prohibit the use of a device that is an obvious distraction while driving?

The message here in Iowa is quite different from say the UK, which has several ad campaigns addressing the public safety issue of driving while using a cell phone.

The other day a co-worker of mine was pulled over for having tinted windows. He was pulled over and ticketed right on the Square because his windshield exceeded the standard for light transmission. A total of three Fairfield police officers were involved in the ticketing, enforcing a law which I assume exists for public safety reasons.

I’m not going to argue the merits of the law against tinted windows – it sounds reasonable to me. However, I’ve been a passenger in this vehicle and never perceived that the windows were too dark or caused any safety issues.

Now let’s compare the efforts of the police involved in enforcing the law in this instance to the accepted practice of driving while texting or talking on a cell phone all around this town. Anyone that commutes daily in Fairfield has certainly experienced what I have: routine interactions with other motorists who are clearly distracted while driving due to cell phones. Not staying in their lane, blowing through or braking late at a stop sign, not stopping in front of crosswalks, driving in an erratic manner while trying to negotiate their next turn while also deeply involved in a text or phone conversation.

When I heard about the three police officers pulling over a co-worker for tinted windows, I could not but be annoyed with the absurdity in the level of effort to enforce THAT law, while so much distracted driving is being ignored all around town.

You’re probably thinking, “hang on Will, you cannot expect the police to pull over drivers who are texting while driving because those drivers aren’t breaking the law. You say yourself that there are no laws in Iowa regulating the use of cell phones while driving!”

It is true that there is no law on the books specifically targeting cell phones. However, there is a law against reckless driving.

321.277 Reckless driving.
Any person who drives any vehicle in such manner as to indicate either a willful or a wanton disregard for the safety of persons or property is guilty of reckless driving.

So my argument is this: why wait for the legislative process to catch up with current technologies and mandate common sense? The data shows that driving while texting or using a cell phone is dangerous and therefore a disregard for public safety. Our local law enforcement has the resources to enforce seat belt laws and window tinting violations (for example); but isn’t the real public safety issue the escalating use of cell phones while driving?

I drive a manual transmission. If I was pulled over for using a cell phone, and ticketed with Reckless Driving, how could I convince a judge that driving a stick shift with only one free hand is NOT a willful disregard for the safety of persons and property?

Don’t get me wrong, I am not a modern day Luddite! I love technology and have owned an iPhone since the day they were first released – technology is my profession and my passion. But I also understand that how we as a society adopt and integrate technology into our daily lives often out-paces the development of laws and regulation around those technologies, that we require to maintain our social contract.

What are your thoughts on legislating and enforcing the use of cell phones while driving? Do you have any personal experiences with reckless driving due to the use of cell phones or other gadgets?

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Imagine we travel back in time to a primitive cave-dwelling tribe. They have no money and trade pigs for cows, a knife for some honey, etc. The tribe is doing well but is having trouble trading. Sometimes a farmer wants to buy something smaller than one whole pig, and home builders (a new development; cave space is running out) want to sell their products but it’s hard to save up 1,000 pigs to buy a home.

We decide that we will introduce money to their economy. How would we do it? We can’t simply €œprint€ a bunch of coins or dollar bills €“ how would we distribute them to the people?

We can’t give equal shares to everyone in the group €“ some people have no pigs and no huts, while others have large farms with many animals. How do we decide who gets how much money?

We could have the chief buy pigs and honey and cows from the tribespeople in exchange for the newly minted dollars; a pig farmer might sell a pig to the chief for a dollar. This would set the value of each dollar at one pig.

But this system would eventually end up with the chief’s cave containing all the products that the tribe had produced. No one would be able to use the homes, pigs, cows and knives. So how do we get money into the hands of tribespeople without taking all the valuable items and storing them in a cave?

There are a few ways to do it, but we’ll use the method still used today. When a pig farmer grows a pig, he goes to the chief and asks for a loan of one dollar. The chief says €œshow me the pig,€ and issues a loan to the farmer at interest.

Now we have dollars in circulation along with all the goods produced. So as we can see from this example:

Pig = Dollar

Dollars are money, so where does money come from? It comes from pigs and all the items produced by the people. At its most basic level, money is simply a representation of valuable things.

Money cannot come into being without the goods, because money represents the goods themselves. The chief only issues loans to someone who has produced a pig.

This is how the Federal Reserve works. It issues loans to people who have already created something of value, or issues money to people who are trustworthy and in the process of creating something valuable.

In a similar way, a respected tribesperson could ask the chief for a loan to build a house. The house and the money come into being at the same time €“ the money comes into the system only to represent the house that is being created.

In a simple cave-person system it would be relatively easy to track how much money goes into the system €“ the leader would only loan money to people who had already created something valuable, or was certain to create it soon. His purpose in issuing loans would be to mirror the amount of goods created with the amount of money loaned out.

Today the Fed does the same thing on a grand scale. It attempts to look at how much valuable stuff is being produced by the United States, and issue loans (through banks) to mirror the goods produced.

From this basic understanding of the source of money, we can see what would happen if the chief began spending the money he coined; there would be no goods produced to mirror the new money coming into the system.

Let’s imagine that he loans a dollar to the first pig farmer because he has created one pig. Now the farmer has the dollar and the pig. The chief then makes another coin and purchases the original pig. The chief ends up with one pig, and the farmer ends with two coins. Each pig now effectively represents two coins instead of one. This is inflation, or “inflationary spending.”

Similarly, when the Fed overestimates the number of €œpigs€ that have been produced, it allows banks to issue too many loans and the price for each pig goes up.

When one thinks about money, it need not be some mysterious idea. Money is not something imagined, but a very real representation of value €“ value that someone produced.

If you lived in the cave-tribe, each dollar you spend would be there because someone worked to create something of value for the society. The more valuable things the tribe manages to create €“ the more money they will have in society. And remember, each dollar introduced represents real value. It represents a house, pig, or knife that someone created.

All of the complex things we hear about money can be reduced to this simple idea. Wealth is destroyed when we consume something. If we eat a pig, a dollar is destroyed. Wealth is created when we produce something of value €“ something that someone else wants and is willing to pay for. When we grow a pig, we create money.

If I take a raw forest, cut down some trees, and build a house from scratch, I have created money. Very real money; I can now go to the bank (chief), ask for an estimate of my home’s value in dollars (pigs) and receive a loan.

It’s unfortunate that so many of use do not understand the raw source of money. Many seem to be lost in a world where money is seemingly randomly distributed; we don’t understand why some are so rich and some are so poor, and there is a disconnect which causes hardship and confusion about how one becomes rich.

We suspect one acquires wealth by luck, real estate, the stock market, cheating the system, taking advantage of others, or perhaps by playing the lottery.  There is often some voice in the shadows of one’s mind urging him to work harder and save more, but late night television says money is imaginary, that the Fed conspires with the government to steal from us, that one need only open their heart chakra and accept wealth, or that money is created when the government spends (the chief spending money).

From our simple example, it’s easy to see that money doesn’t simply flow to the tribespeople with open hearts, and it is not created when the chief (government) spends it. Wealth is created when people make something or do something that other people want €“ something that improves the lives of the people around them.