Lots of legislative announcements over the weekend, but most of them are repeat Offical Announcements by candidates who said so months ago. But we did get a couple new Senate challengers:
In Senate District 38, rural Grinnell "activist" LaForest Sherman announced against first term Republican Tim Kapucian. Bleeding Heartland has a lengthy write-up this AM.
This is a swing district; since Map Day the caucuses have flipped a slim D registration edge to a slim R edge. It's also mostly new turf for Benton-based Kapucian, who picks up all of Iowa County (he had a piece before) and significantly all of Poweshiek.
So it's a potential target, but still, the late start and bio for Sherman don't scream Top Tier recruit to me.
In heavily Democratic Senate District 44, GOP veteran Bradley Bourn has announced against ten year Democratic incumbent Tom Courtney. The turf is all of Des Moines and Louisa counties plus parts of western Muscatine County. Courtney was a 60-40 winner in 2008 and unopposed before that.
Unrelated: One of my new favorite sites, Mental Floss, asks and partially answers one of my perennial favorite questions: Why is the Drinking Age 21? It'd be nice to talk about that while we talk about building a new jail...
3 comments:
Good point on the 21 drinking age, but it does not go far enough. I haven't crunched the numbers, but it seems to me that our police blotter is filled with minor alcohol and drug charges that significantly contribute to the jail population. Makes no sense for our sheriff to be chauffeur to the glitterati and party crowd, when changing the law or the court system on minor offenses could alleviate some of the jail crowding... Did we think we were that much better when we built the new (i.e. the current) jail not so many years ago? What has changed? Don't think drug and alcohol use has gotten that much worse... although I don't hang out in Iowa City as much as I did forty years ago.
Hi, Paul. While I do not disagree that the blotters are full of drug and alcohol offenses, those folks are NOT the people filling up the jail. There are reports available on the Sheriff's page of the Johnson County website.
Paul - while I do not dispute the minor charges, those are NOT the folks filling the jail. Reports explaining this in detail are available on the Sheriff's page of the County website.
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