Because They Can: Republicans and Regent Bonnie Campbell

Because They Can: Republicans and Regent Bonnie Campbell

Why are Mary Lundby and the Senate Republicans drawing a line in the sand on the regents appointments?

There's an old joke with the punchline "because they can."

For those not yet tunes in, here's the summary with assists from the Register, Gazette and AP. Governor Culver just named four new regents to the nine member board. Required 2/3 Senate approval.

The Republicans have gone from a brief trifecta in the last two years of the Branstad era to a two-fecta through the Vilsack years to the no-fecta they now have. Gubernatorial appointments are one of the only things that requires a supermajority, so it's the only thing they can win on without picking off some Democrats.

So what's the other motivation?

"We will insist that we have a western Iowa regent," Lundby said, preferably someone who is a physician.

Should Culver decline to address their concerns by withdrawing at least one of his regent nominees, Lundby said "then we would determine which ones we would take down."

The geography thing and doctor thing are cover. Let's look at the names:

David Miles, chief financial officer of Countryside Renewable Energy Inc. and a West Des Moines Democrat

Jack Evans, president of a private philanthropic corporation and a Cedar Rapids Republican

Craig Lang, a farmer who is president of the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation and a Brooklyn Republican

Bonnie Campbell, a former Iowa attorney general and 1994 Democratic gubernatorial candidate from Des Moines

Which name stands out as a target on that list? If you said "uh... the Farm Bureau guy" you're really funny.

Now, I've never been a huge Bonnie Campbell fan; her stab in the back in `94 to the gay-lesbian community is a wound that never healed for a lot of folks, and I still hear about it. It injured not just her campaign but the entire relationship between the LBG community and the Democratic Party. (Aside to Pat and Kevin: where's that non-discrimination bill, o third leg of the trifecta?) And that 1994 campaign was one of the worst I've ever been involved in, byassing the field work that makes Iowa Dems win for a bunch of really bad ads that fought the election on Terry Branstad's turf.

But she's been an important player before and since in non-candidate roles and the Regents are a good fit. She'd be a federal judge now if the Senate hadn't held up her appointment for close to two years at the end of the Clinton era out of spite.

The Iowa wingers hate Bonnie Campbell about the same way the national noise machine hates Hillary Clinton, and for many of the same reasons. Plus she's the appointee closest to the Culver inner political circle, so that sends the strongest message. "Doctor from Western Iowa" can be freely translated as "not Bonnie Campbell."