Iowa Down Ballot
Iowa Down Ballot with Dave Price 6/27/26
Description
Audio has leaked of RFK Jr. calling Libertarian candidate Rick Stewart, pushing him to drop out of the 2nd District race without ever making a concrete offer. That’s part of a bigger pattern of Republicans working to push Libertarians off the ballot, both through direct calls like this one and through legal challenges. Marco Battalia got disqualified over a name issue, and the Libertarian governor and lieutenant governor candidates are now fighting their own disqualification in court. We also revisited Governor Reynolds’ use of CARES Act money to pay 21 staffers back in 2020, a story Laura broke at the time and Rob Sand has criticized for nearly six years. This week the Trump Treasury sent a letter saying the spending was fine, and Sand pushed back, standing by his original finding. You can read Laura’s original stories on the topic here [https://www.bleedingheartland.com/2020/12/07/exclusive-iowa-governor-overspent-office-budget-before-tapping-cares-act/], here [https://www.bleedingheartland.com/2020/09/13/exclusive-iowa-governor-used-cares-act-funds-to-pay-staff-salaries/], and here [https://www.bleedingheartland.com/2020/10/27/exclusive-payment-scheme-concealed-cares-act-funds-for-governors-staff/]. Finally, we covered the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that’s likely to knock out hundreds of Roundup cancer lawsuits, since there’s no federal cancer warning requirement on glyphosate. Both gubernatorial candidates oppose the ruling, and we noted the awkward spot it puts Zach Lahn in given his MAHA messaging and RFK Jr.’s silence on the issue. To become or paid (or free) subscriber go ahead and click that button above. If you’d like to make a one-time donation to help us here at Iowa Down Ballot and everyone with the Iowa Writer’s Collaborative please click the button below. Have a great weekend! Auto-generated transcript below: 00:00:20.510 --> 00:00:32.439 Dave Price: Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Iowa Down Ballot podcast, our weekly conversation about all things in Iowa politics, and then maybe some other stuff that impacts Iowa politics. 4 00:00:32.439 --> 00:00:41.690 Dave Price: I’m Dave Price, joined by Laura Belin and Kathie Obradovich, two of my colleagues from the Iowa Writers Collaborative. Happy Friday, ladies! 5 00:00:42.080 --> 00:00:43.519 Kathie Obradovich: Happy Friday! 6 00:00:43.670 --> 00:00:45.110 Laura Belin: Good Friday to you. 7 00:00:45.110 --> 00:01:05.009 Dave Price: And we say that, obviously, for those of you who may be new to this conversation. We usually record on Fridays, and this podcast drops on Saturdays. It’s a little CYA maneuver in case something really, really big happens on a Friday night. So you might be thinking, why did these fools not talk about it? Well, that’s why, because you have to record this at some point. 8 00:01:05.099 --> 00:01:07.689 Dave Price: And so we do, usually, at some point on… 9 00:01:07.810 --> 00:01:15.550 Dave Price: on Fridays. Ladies, I was thinking about my life on Thursday night, and, you know, it’s sometimes 10 00:01:15.660 --> 00:01:25.920 Dave Price: maybe this is just me because I’m weird, but sometimes I just have, like, these random thoughts about things we’ve done and experienced in our professional careers and stuff. 11 00:01:26.090 --> 00:01:38.280 Dave Price: And, my family was all gone last night, and I was working on this RFK Jr. phone call to the Libertarian congressional candidate, Rick Stewart. 12 00:01:38.660 --> 00:01:48.290 Dave Price: which, first of all, just that sentence that I just said is unique enough, right? So I’m finding myself… so we have the audio of this phone call. 13 00:01:48.420 --> 00:02:01.060 Dave Price: And, you know, for our purposes, we’ve got to do some editing to it, we have to put their pictures up every time they talk, there are audio issues with the whole thing, there’s this weird… in the recording we got from the Libertarian Party, there’s a… 14 00:02:01.100 --> 00:02:19.099 Dave Price: little gap in the audio, so I was trying to figure out what the heck that means. Plus, at the end of the conversation, or end of the recording, it just sort of stops. So, you know, you gotta look at this thing and try to vet it and be like, alright, is this thing real? Like, what the heck’s going on? Plus, Rick Stewart’s voice is like this, and RFK is, like… 15 00:02:19.160 --> 00:02:20.040 Kathie Obradovich: Great. 16 00:02:20.040 --> 00:02:27.540 Dave Price: It talks anyway, but it’s, like, not very loud, so I’m trying to figure out, do I want to alter the video so that people can hear it better? 17 00:02:27.680 --> 00:02:35.180 Dave Price: But then, you know, I don’t want a 60 minutes moment here of anybody accusing me of, you know, putting this stuff together differently, but… 18 00:02:35.440 --> 00:02:40.450 Dave Price: First of all, forget the journalism side of this, and the relevance to politics and all this stuff. 19 00:02:41.030 --> 00:02:52.120 Dave Price: I mean, it was one of those days, I’m like, I am literally listening to a phone call from RFK Jr. with a guy who’s a libertarian, who’s run for office a ton of different times over the years. 20 00:02:52.360 --> 00:02:56.849 Dave Price: And RFK Jr. is trying to get him to drop out of the race. Like, what a… 21 00:02:57.290 --> 00:02:58.910 Dave Price: What a unique story. 22 00:03:00.480 --> 00:03:03.130 Kathie Obradovich: You hear about those things happening in politics. 23 00:03:03.460 --> 00:03:12.960 Kathie Obradovich: know, and but so, it is so rare, one, that there’s actual audio of the call. I don’t know why more candidates… 24 00:03:12.960 --> 00:03:23.470 Kathie Obradovich: Especially those who come back and accuse their opponents of doing such things, why more of them don’t record. Because in Iowa, it is legal. I mean, some states, you can’t… 25 00:03:23.470 --> 00:03:36.189 Kathie Obradovich: record a call, if… unless all parties know. In Iowa, you can record the call as long as one party, you know, like yourself, knows. 26 00:03:36.190 --> 00:03:44.020 Kathie Obradovich: That the recording is happening. So, in some states, there’s wiretap laws that wouldn’t even allow that, but… and I wonder why… 27 00:03:44.240 --> 00:04:08.710 Kathie Obradovich: you know, I was thinking about why RFK Jr. would, you know, call somebody on the phone and, you know, try to get them to drop out of the race, and, you know, in the age when, you know, you can easily make a recording of a phone call, and it occurred to me that maybe he didn’t realize that you could do that in Iowa legally without announcing it. Anyway, but yeah, it’s unusual to have an audio of the call, and secondly. 28 00:04:08.710 --> 00:04:31.970 Kathie Obradovich: unusual that somebody so high profile is involved, you know? I mean, usually these things are handled through intermediaries, right? If it’s… if we can say that such a thing is usual. So… so yeah, that was… it was kind of an eye-popping thing, and I, you know, I… I believed Marco Battalia when he said, you know, he raised this, you know, as part of the state objection panel. 29 00:04:31.970 --> 00:04:34.680 Kathie Obradovich: Part of it when they were kicking him off the ballot. 30 00:04:34.680 --> 00:04:57.219 Kathie Obradovich: He was in the 3rd District. They were trying to kick him off the ballot, and he talked about how RFK Jr. and, the Zach Nunn campaign had contacted him, trying to get him to drop out. And none of that is illegal unless they make promises, right? They… they try to bribe them to drop out with some sort of promise. 31 00:04:57.220 --> 00:05:03.900 Kathie Obradovich: But it is… it does seem, you know, unseemly, at the very least, so… 32 00:05:04.150 --> 00:05:11.610 Laura Belin: I had the same thought as Kathie, like, did RFK know he was being recorded? And absolute… by the way, yes, for everyone out there. 33 00:05:11.640 --> 00:05:34.659 Laura Belin: Iowa is a one-party consent state, so if you’re ever getting a newsworthy call, and I always say this even if it’s just a political opinion poll, just record that call, in case you want to refer to it later. Anyway, but Marco Battalia did not record his conversation, but apparently it did come from the same phone number, according to the Washington Post. The phone number 34 00:05:34.660 --> 00:05:40.060 Laura Belin: that Marco Battalia received a call from on his phone was a number that 35 00:05:40.060 --> 00:05:42.769 Laura Belin: others can connect to RFK Jr. 36 00:05:43.650 --> 00:05:57.520 Dave Price: And, for those wondering what the heck, why is RFK Jr. calling? For those of us who’ve been around for a little while, and really, this isn’t that many years ago, but we remember 2020, 37 00:05:57.850 --> 00:06:08.999 Dave Price: In the 3rd Congressional District, there was a guy who ran by the name of Brian Jack Holder. He ran as a Libertarian then. He got just enough sliver of the vote. 38 00:06:09.380 --> 00:06:26.709 Dave Price: that David Young, who was the incumbent Republican running against the Democrat, Cindy Axne, they look at the margin there and say, hey, if he would not have run, that could have… that could have been the difference there, and then maybe… maybe the Republican could have… could have won in that case. 39 00:06:26.710 --> 00:06:31.269 Laura Belin: It happened twice. Both of Cindy Axne’s races that she won, in 2018 and 2018. 40 00:06:31.270 --> 00:06:32.360 Dave Price: and 20 a.m. 41 00:06:32.360 --> 00:06:57.359 Laura Belin: He won in with, like, 49-point-something percent of the vote, and it happened in the Northeast Iowa congressional district. I believe they were independent candidates, not libertarians, but in 2010, Bruce Braley had a really close call against Ben Lang, and there were two other candidates on the ballot, and they combined to get, like, 3 or 3.5% of the vote, something like that. But in any case, it was more than the difference between Braley 42 00:06:57.360 --> 00:07:11.380 Laura Belin: and Ben Lang. So I can see why Republicans would be worried about Rick Stewart in the second district. Of course, there’s also another independent candidate, Dave Bashaw, who might pull votes away from the Democrat, Lindsey Jane. 43 00:07:14.770 --> 00:07:18.570 Dave Price: Kathie, you look like you’re in deep thought, like you’re about Something profound. 44 00:07:18.570 --> 00:07:22.720 Kathie Obradovich: This way, I have 7 I want to say about that topic. Go ahead. 45 00:07:25.160 --> 00:07:43.890 Dave Price: I… and I listened to the audio, and I mentioned there was a little bit of a… there was a little bit of a gap in there, which we noted in our reporting, and I didn’t get an answer back from the party about why there was. And Laura, you’ve listened to this… this recording as well. Kathie, I’m not sure, have you listened to the whole thing yet or not? 46 00:07:43.890 --> 00:07:45.080 Kathie Obradovich: Not the whole thing, no. 47 00:07:45.260 --> 00:07:49.800 Dave Price: There’s nothing… like, Kathie, to your point about… 48 00:07:50.130 --> 00:07:57.519 Dave Price: you know, whether this is right or wrong, or there’s anything wrong with it. In the recording, from everything I listen to, like, there’s no… 49 00:07:57.580 --> 00:08:12.189 Dave Price: there is no quid pro quo, as they say. Like, there’s no promise of anything. Like, RFK just said that, he could advocate for Rick Stewart in DC. Stewart made a joke about 50 00:08:12.220 --> 00:08:19.790 Dave Price: you know, are you offering me, he said, I guess I’m not getting offered a cabinet position, or something like that. 51 00:08:19.790 --> 00:08:35.030 Dave Price: And, Kennedy’s conversation to him was like, look, I ran for president as an independent, and I reached the point where I had to figure out, you know, is it good basically just to run and do your thing, or can you make a bigger difference by doing something else? 52 00:08:35.640 --> 00:08:51.669 Dave Price: is, you know, he was talking to Democrats, he was talking to Trump, I mean, he ended up supporting Trump, and now he’s a… now he’s a United States Secretary, so, you know, that path worked for him, and clearly the platform got a lot bigger. And he’s trying to lay out, hey, here’s what I did. 53 00:08:52.710 --> 00:08:57.850 Dave Price: perhaps there is something else that you can do. He never said directly 54 00:08:58.430 --> 00:09:05.219 Dave Price: drop out, we’ll get you a job. He didn’t say anything like that, but he said, I can help advocate for you, for whatever. 55 00:09:05.220 --> 00:09:24.549 Laura Belin: And there was, at one point, he… RFK said that I can’t… let me… let me read the exact quote that he said. I can’t go into specifics, because there’s legal prohibitions about that. And then, shortly after that, Rick Stewart asked something like, do you mean I would be working with you 56 00:09:24.550 --> 00:09:38.069 Laura Belin: And… and RFK said something like, well, that could be a possibility. He definitely… he did not offer anything concrete, because that would be illegal to offer some kind of concrete inducement, but it… I… 57 00:09:38.070 --> 00:09:49.320 Laura Belin: I think he kept going back to the issue of trying to stress, you know, what can you really accomplish in this race, and think about what you can really accomplish. So… 58 00:09:49.320 --> 00:09:58.700 Laura Belin: It was interesting. It was an interesting conversation, but RFK obviously was aware that he could not promise anything specific. 59 00:10:00.050 --> 00:10:06.799 Dave Price: And it just sort of adds to this overall effort by the Republicans to try to keep 60 00:10:06.950 --> 00:10:22.090 Dave Price: libertarians off the ballot, whether they try to do it through the legal challenge process through the state, or direct conversations to try to get them to drop out. Clearly, they are looking at some races that they think could be very tight, and they want to do whatever they can to… 61 00:10:22.290 --> 00:10:28.059 Dave Price: try to help their case. And it reminded me of what President Trump did, pushing… 62 00:10:28.260 --> 00:10:31.339 Dave Price: States all over the country to try to do this. 63 00:10:32.320 --> 00:10:47.610 Dave Price: unique, for sure, effort to redo their congressional boundaries mid-decade, you know, a process that’s not the way it normally works. And, we don’t have to worry about that in our state, since we have the nonpartisan system that we use here. 64 00:10:49.530 --> 00:10:50.420 Kathie Obradovich: Yes. 65 00:10:50.870 --> 00:11:01.350 Dave Price: Okay, then there’s also, we also talked about the challenge, but then the legal process, the libertarians have not given up. I mean, they’re still working to try to get on the ballot. 66 00:11:01.490 --> 00:11:15.300 Laura Belin: The candidates for governor and Lieutenant Governor Nicholas Gluba and Jules Cutler filed their appeal in the district court this week, and I haven’t seen any court filing from Marco Battalia, but I have been told that that will be coming. 67 00:11:15.890 --> 00:11:40.490 Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, he said… he said he was going to file. He hadn’t filed as of yesterday afternoon, when we checked last. You know, they… both of these should be really interesting court cases to follow, not only because of how the law is being interpreted. I mean, it’s so interesting, and, you know, if you listened to us last week, you know all about this, but, you know, Marco Battalia has run for office. 68 00:11:40.490 --> 00:11:42.240 Kathie Obradovich: Office under that name. 69 00:11:42.240 --> 00:11:57.740 Kathie Obradovich: for years, you know, for years and years. And, you know, so they’re basically kicking him off, because his real name is Mark Anderson, and that, you know, to me, is… is so interesting, and, you know, Roxanne. 70 00:11:57.740 --> 00:12:11.620 Kathie Obradovich: did raise this as, you know, aren’t you arguing against yourself after you’ve… after you’ve let him on the ballot under that name for years and years? Anyway, but… but yeah, so that is… that’s an interesting case, and then the… 71 00:12:11.620 --> 00:12:20.460 Kathie Obradovich: The gubernatorial case, which has actually been filed, there’s a dispute with the Secretary of State’s office about whether a worker there 72 00:12:20.460 --> 00:12:29.129 Kathie Obradovich: gave… Jules Cutler, the advice that she did not need to submit an affidavit of candidacy, which 73 00:12:29.130 --> 00:12:44.049 Kathie Obradovich: that’s what Jules Cutler says, the Secretary of State’s office, worker, denies that and doesn’t even remember seeing Jules Cutler there on the day that they were submitting those on, on June 2nd. 74 00:12:44.050 --> 00:12:59.380 Kathie Obradovich: So, you know, I think that that… these are also interesting, and, you know, if they try to bring RFK Jr. into the whole thing as well, you know, I think that that will… that will also add to the interest. 75 00:12:59.560 --> 00:13:00.470 Laura Belin: Speaking of… 76 00:13:00.470 --> 00:13:24.369 Laura Belin: when people should have recorded, right? Somebody who was with Nicholas Gluba and Jules Cutler should have recorded them submitting their paperwork, and if they were told that she didn’t need the affidavit, somebody should have started recording with their phone and gotten her to say, again, are you sure that you don’t need this affidavit? Because that would have helped clear things up. I was not there when they submitted their paperwork. I was… I talked to… 77 00:13:24.370 --> 00:13:29.600 Laura Belin: Nicholas Gloob at the Capitol that day, but I did not walk over to the Lucas Building, where the Secretary of State’s 78 00:13:29.600 --> 00:13:54.580 Laura Belin: staff was where they actually submitted the signature, so I didn’t see or hear what happened, but somebody could have recorded that. I wanted to say that the libertarians are bringing up… so the legal issues are very different, because Marco Battalia was just excluded from the ballot because of the name issue, but the case involving the Libertarian candidates for governor and lieutenant governor are so different, and they are also raising a legal issue that I thought that they should have filed 79 00:13:54.580 --> 00:14:17.190 Laura Belin: a lawsuit last year, honestly, that they didn’t. The state moved up the filing deadline for third-party and independent candidates to the date of the primary election. It used to be, for decades, that libertarians or third party or independent candidates had until the same day in late August that the Democratic and Republican parties have to nominate people 80 00:14:17.190 --> 00:14:35.520 Laura Belin: for vacancy. So they raised this issue. There was a law in 2019 that tried to move that filing deadline for third parties up to March, and that was actually struck down. A federal judge ruled that that was unconstitutional. So when they passed the law last year, moving the filing deadline up to June. 81 00:14:35.570 --> 00:14:58.599 Laura Belin: I thought the libertarians had a strong case to sue again, but they didn’t file the suit. But they did bring it up in this case, so the court does have the opportunity to say, hey, this early filing deadline is unconstitutional, and so then there would be plenty of time before August for Nicholas Glub and Jules Cutler to submit their paperwork again, this time with the affidavit of candidacy. 82 00:14:59.150 --> 00:15:05.309 Kathie Obradovich: It seems so weird to me, and I didn’t know that this was the case before this particular situation, that 83 00:15:05.530 --> 00:15:08.439 Kathie Obradovich: That the governor candidate 84 00:15:08.710 --> 00:15:20.839 Kathie Obradovich: can’t qualify for the ballot unless the lieutenant governor candidate qualifies. You know, they didn’t say anything about Nicholas Gluba’s qualifications or paperwork. 85 00:15:20.840 --> 00:15:34.639 Kathie Obradovich: It’s the… it’s his running mate, Jules Cutler, who didn’t have an affidavit of candidacy, and that seems really strange to me, that, you know, both of these candidates would be excluded. You can’t have one without the other. 86 00:15:34.640 --> 00:15:40.210 Laura Belin: Well, and there is precedent from the 1970s. There was a case where the candidate 87 00:15:40.210 --> 00:16:02.080 Laura Belin: submitted… didn’t submit enough signatures, but they had relied on incorrect advice from staff, election staff, who said, you need whatever signatures, and that’s what they went with. It turned out the law had been changed, and it increased the number of signatures, but there is precedent for the Iowa Supreme Court to say that if they were in good faith relying on advice from staff. 88 00:16:02.080 --> 00:16:10.179 Laura Belin: That that should, you know, that should take precedence, and that, you know, you should err on the side of giving voters more choices 89 00:16:10.180 --> 00:16:27.030 Laura Belin: rather than the strict compliance with the law. Now, the current Iowa Supreme Court has been more in the camp of strict compliance with provisions of election law, but we’ll see what they come up with. I assume that whichever way this comes out in district court, it’s gonna go up to the Iowa Supreme Court regardless. 90 00:16:27.030 --> 00:16:40.149 Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, and this isn’t the first time the Iowa Supreme Court has heard, you know, cases about libertarians have been kicked off the ballot, and generally speaking, they have not agreed to let the libertarians stay on the ballot. 91 00:16:40.340 --> 00:16:40.920 Kathie Obradovich: So… 92 00:16:41.670 --> 00:16:46.660 Dave Price: You mentioned Rob Sand earlier. So, earlier this week. 93 00:16:46.860 --> 00:16:58.870 Dave Price: We had a case involving Rob Sand and Governor Kim Reynolds from nearly 6 years ago, back in the COVID time, the period many of us would like to forget. 94 00:16:59.060 --> 00:17:18.769 Dave Price: And it comes down to how Governor Reynolds used some of the federal coronavirus emergency money to then pay for 21 members of her staff. This has led to, really, a long series of back and forth. Rob Sand talked about this. 95 00:17:18.980 --> 00:17:25.210 Dave Price: Either in October 1st, I know he did in November of 2020, I don’t remember if he did in October as well. 96 00:17:25.359 --> 00:17:32.700 Dave Price: Saying that the… what she was doing was not the proper use of the money, these people were already on staff. 97 00:17:32.770 --> 00:17:46.850 Dave Price: they were already doing their jobs. The governor was arguing that because of COVID, their jobs were largely focused on COVID, they were working all the time, it was mostly COVID-related, they should be paid by this emergency money. 98 00:17:46.850 --> 00:17:55.089 Dave Price: Way back in the day, Laura, you reported on this. I don’t remember when you first reported on it, September, October, can’t remember. 99 00:17:55.090 --> 00:17:56.360 Laura Belin: So, I reported it… 100 00:17:56.360 --> 00:18:01.369 Kathie Obradovich: She totally broke the story, Dave. I mean, she was the first to report on it. 101 00:18:01.370 --> 00:18:01.900 Laura Belin: So I was. 102 00:18:01.900 --> 00:18:03.379 Dave Price: I’ll let her toot her own a horn. 103 00:18:03.380 --> 00:18:05.860 Kathie Obradovich: No, I’ll toot it for her. 104 00:18:05.860 --> 00:18:06.320 Dave Price: knife. 105 00:18:06.320 --> 00:18:06.910 Kathie Obradovich: I was. 106 00:18:06.910 --> 00:18:24.389 Laura Belin: first to report in September of 2020 that the governor used CARES Act funds to pay staff salaries, and then I reported in October of 2020 that they routed this money through the Department of Homeland Security, the Iowa Department, so that it wouldn’t show up as flowing to the governor’s office. 107 00:18:24.390 --> 00:18:48.360 Laura Belin: But it wasn’t until December of 2020 that I got the documents that were kind of key documents that later appeared in the state auditor’s report. I think Rob Sand questioned the spending in October of 2020, but the documents that I considered kind of the smoking gun were documents where they had submitted… they… the… initially, there was a table that showed there was a shortfall in the governor’s budget. 108 00:18:48.360 --> 00:19:10.769 Laura Belin: And it showed what portions of these 21 people’s salaries could be covered under their budget allocation, and then what they needed to make things line up to overcome this shortfall. And somebody on the staff said, well, it’s supposed to be related to COVID, so can you change it so that it says it’s related to COVID? So they literally kept, like, all of the other numbers 109 00:19:10.770 --> 00:19:35.419 Laura Belin: in the table were exactly the same, except instead of the heading saying, you know, needed to balance appropriations, or needed for the shortfall, instead, all of a sudden it said, related to COVID-19. So… so it was like, they didn’t demonstrate that this work… all of these… almost all these people, all but one, were working for the governor’s office before the pandemic even happened, so… 110 00:19:35.420 --> 00:19:45.530 Laura Belin: it wasn’t like they took on additional people, and that’s why they incurred these additional expenses. They just ended up using the CARES Act. And I always felt 111 00:19:45.530 --> 00:20:03.720 Laura Belin: frustrated that the governor’s office was like, this is fine, it’s obviously allowed, and I felt like they wouldn’t have made it so difficult to find. If you looked on any of the public databases, it never said that there was CARES Act money going to the governor’s office, because it was all going to this other fund through the Homeland Security Department. 112 00:20:04.800 --> 00:20:29.779 Kathie Obradovich: Well, plus, you have that shell game with the governor’s office does that, you know, staff working for the governor’s office are not being paid by the governor’s office, they’re being paid by various state agencies, and that was not new. It was happening even before COVID, so it, you know, unless you know somebody’s working for the governor’s office, you know, and their salary is coming from HHS or one of the other agencies. 113 00:20:29.780 --> 00:20:37.039 Kathie Obradovich: It just makes it even harder to figure out what exactly the governor’s budget is and what they’re spending their money on. 114 00:20:37.580 --> 00:20:43.269 Dave Price: And I think this practice predates Reynolds, right? Hasn’t this gone back for a while? 115 00:20:43.270 --> 00:20:44.040 Kathie Obradovich: Sure. 116 00:20:44.040 --> 00:20:46.399 Laura Belin: Even Vilsack and Kolak, although… 117 00:20:46.860 --> 00:21:01.490 Laura Belin: although I’ve done a lot of reporting on… this is actually how I ended up even finding that they were using the CARES Act money, because I had, for a series of years, I had requested these memorandums of understanding between the governor’s office and various state agencies, because 118 00:21:01.500 --> 00:21:24.459 Laura Belin: the Reynolds administration took this to a much higher level. Branstad had a few staff who were partly paid by agencies, but the Reynolds administration was outspending their budget by much, much more, and had more… and in any case, in this 2020 budget year, I realized that all of these memorandums of understanding for the state agencies, they all ended 119 00:21:24.460 --> 00:21:36.510 Laura Belin: around mid-March of 2020, instead of going through the fiscal year through June 30th, like they usually had in previous years. So that is why I wondered, are they using some kind of COVID money to cover the last 120 00:21:36.510 --> 00:21:39.420 Laura Belin: Few months of the budget year, which it turned out they were. 121 00:21:39.690 --> 00:21:48.160 Dave Price: And I should mention the development of this week was the release from the U.S. Treasury Department, essentially saying that 122 00:21:48.580 --> 00:21:49.560 Dave Price: I’m gonna… 123 00:21:49.700 --> 00:22:09.610 Dave Price: interpret here. This is not a verbatim, but basically, it’s fine. They didn’t misspend any of this money, I think it was $449,000. So then the governor’s office sent this letter out. The head of the Department of Management, the former House Speaker, Craig Paulson, then insisted that State Auditor Rob Sand issue 124 00:22:09.610 --> 00:22:14.410 Dave Price: a new release to show that Treasury said that this was 125 00:22:14.410 --> 00:22:26.429 Dave Price: okay, since Sand has been critical of this for, now, almost 6 years. That then led to Rob Sand putting out a statement saying, no, it’s not okay. And I’m paraphrasing everything here, but… 126 00:22:26.430 --> 00:22:38.149 Dave Price: No, it’s not okay, and this was wrong back then, it’s still wrong now, and just because you get a friendly administration to put a letter out 6 years later doesn’t cover up the fact that this was not the way to do it. 127 00:22:38.650 --> 00:22:41.379 Kathie Obradovich: Because the Treasury, under Biden. 128 00:22:41.510 --> 00:22:54.140 Kathie Obradovich: agreed with Rob Sand that this was not, you know, approved spending. So this is like the Trump administration treasury essentially reversing itself, isn’t it? I mean, they’re… 129 00:22:54.270 --> 00:22:55.440 Kathie Obradovich: Sort of. 130 00:22:55.440 --> 00:23:12.249 Laura Belin: Yeah, I mean, the State Auditor’s Office released material in 2021 that said, you know, we talked to people at Treasury’s Office of Inspector General, and they agreed with our interpretation. I have to say that every time I reached out to the Office of Inspector General. 131 00:23:12.250 --> 00:23:29.890 Laura Belin: in 2021, and I think I even went back to them in 2022 to find out, did you make a final determination about whether this was allowed? And they kept referring me to the Iowa State Auditor’s Office, so I never exactly got an independent… I didn’t get a message from Treasury OIG that said, like. 132 00:23:29.890 --> 00:23:53.399 Laura Belin: we agree this is definitely not okay, but I also never got anything from them that said, no, this is fine for the governor to spend the money this way. And the state auditor’s office issued… they had this back and forth going with the Department of Management and Craig Paulson back in 2021, saying, no, this is what… we talked about it, and the Treasury says you would have to submit it 133 00:23:53.400 --> 00:24:01.199 Laura Belin: You would have needed to submit contemporaneous documentation for this to be an allowable expense, so… 134 00:24:01.590 --> 00:24:05.840 Laura Belin: But it is true that clearly they have a more friendly administration now. 135 00:24:06.100 --> 00:24:18.429 Laura Belin: that reversed the finding. I don’t really know how it benefits Republicans. I guess it feeds their narrative that they think Rob Sanders politicized their office. And if I were them, I’m not sure I would reopen this whole can of worms, though. 136 00:24:19.340 --> 00:24:28.199 Dave Price: Hey, there… I know we’re coming up on time here, but this… this was such a big… there are… Supreme Court… the U.S. Supreme Court had several big rulings this week, but one of them… 137 00:24:28.840 --> 00:24:42.919 Dave Price: I was paying close attention to, just because of what we watched in the Iowa legislature, where they had discussed the idea of providing some additional protection for pesticide manufacturers to protect them against lawsuits. 138 00:24:42.920 --> 00:24:51.670 Dave Price: And this all stems for… from… there have been hundreds, maybe it’s thousands of these individual lawsuits across the United States where people 139 00:24:51.670 --> 00:25:05.520 Dave Price: are alleging, and it’s primarily from the use of Roundup, both if you were using it maybe in your garden, or maybe on the more commercial side of it on a farm or something. But a lot of these people who got sick, I believe, were using it on the 140 00:25:05.520 --> 00:25:21.240 Dave Price: residential side. Non-hodgkin’s lymphoma was a couple of the primary diagnoses for a few of these folks who got ill. And there was the one case in Missouri where a gardener 141 00:25:21.240 --> 00:25:29.890 Dave Price: got cancer, and I think had been awarded… it was one and a quarter million, I think. It was either one and a quarter or one.5 million, and I think that was the case. 142 00:25:29.970 --> 00:25:39.249 Dave Price: that was central to this recent United States Supreme Court ruling this week. Then you also had that humongous one that was, like, a $2 billion… 143 00:25:39.650 --> 00:25:53.450 Dave Price: case for a man in Georgia who also had that same form of cancer. Kathie, you do… your team does extensive work, covering agriculture, which is kind of one of your core tenets. 144 00:25:54.390 --> 00:26:06.360 Dave Price: Capital Dispatch, which I’m… now I’m gonna toot your horn. One of the things that I think you especially do well, and I say this as I’m gonna go speak to a group today, and I know this stuff’s gonna come up, where… 145 00:26:06.360 --> 00:26:22.699 Dave Price: I think we are finding out in the traditional legacy media, you can’t be all things to all people, and one of the brilliant things of whoever organized all of you that I think is so impressive about what you do at Capital Dispatch is you have, like, your… 146 00:26:22.840 --> 00:26:25.090 Dave Price: Kind of your tent poles of… 147 00:26:25.200 --> 00:26:36.839 Dave Price: Of primary coverage, and that’s why, rather than chasing every car wreck or house fire, not that those things don’t matter to people, but you really dig into certain… 148 00:26:37.030 --> 00:26:48.970 Dave Price: certain beats, kind of old-school beats, and that’s why you dominate in these areas, so… Anyway, so now it’s time to teach your horn. I don’t know who came up with your mission, but they’re freakin’ geniuses, whoever they are. 149 00:26:48.970 --> 00:26:50.119 Kathie Obradovich: Well, thank you. 150 00:26:50.120 --> 00:27:06.429 Dave Price: And ag doesn’t… unfortunately, agriculture… and I’m biased on this because I do a side gig where I work with agriculture, but traditionally, the traditional legacy media don’t do a lot of coverage of agriculture, which is really too bad, and there are so many intersections of… it’s not just the people 151 00:27:06.870 --> 00:27:21.450 Dave Price: people who farm on the land, but it’s the production of food, the water that’s necessary. In this case, it’s how you grow it and the chemicals involved. Sorry, this is a long windup. But glyphosate, this really, really effective weed killer. 152 00:27:21.450 --> 00:27:27.640 Dave Price: That is used in Roundup, and that’s why farmers use this stuff. It’s so, so, so good at killing weeds. 153 00:27:27.680 --> 00:27:46.639 Dave Price: And nothing in the United States, no federal agency has said that this causes cancer. And, individuals have said that they were exposed and they caught… they got cancer. But so, this big Supreme Court ruling this week, Kathie, you all had extensive coverage of it and what it means. 154 00:27:46.930 --> 00:28:11.440 Kathie Obradovich: Yeah, so, first of all, I think you alluded to this, but Bayer, which is the manufacturer of, they own one, Santo, which manufactures Roundup, they’ve come to the Capitol, and also in other Midwest states, the last few years, trying to, get state law to, essentially exempt them from liability for what they… what essentially are 155 00:28:11.440 --> 00:28:14.770 Kathie Obradovich: Warning label, 156 00:28:14.790 --> 00:28:39.770 Kathie Obradovich: issues. If the federal government, which, you know, we’re talking… we were talking about RFK, you know, if his agency doesn’t say, you know, this product causes cancer, then the product doesn’t have to have a warning on the label, and that lack of warning is what’s causing all of these people who have come down with cancer to now sue. Also, the fact that Europe bans collect 157 00:28:39.770 --> 00:29:04.740 Kathie Obradovich: glyphosate, and, because they say it causes cancer. So, you’ve got this situation where glyphosate is not sold in Europe. Farmers, you know, they want to use it here because it’s so effective, but on the other hand, and you’ve got the federal government who are not saying that it causes cancer, and you would think that RFK Jr, who is, you know. 158 00:29:04.740 --> 00:29:21.770 Kathie Obradovich: he’s supposedly against big ag, but he is not telling his agency to review that finding. So, now, you know, our state has not passed that legislation saying, you know, that you’re going to be exempting this pesticide maker from liability. 159 00:29:21.920 --> 00:29:31.819 Kathie Obradovich: If people get cancer in a state where cancer rates are rising, you know, it is… it’s a… it is a very political… 160 00:29:31.820 --> 00:29:43.149 Kathie Obradovich: issue, even though it comes down just to a sort of a dry thing about, you know, warning labels. So that Supreme Court ruling, probably kicks 161 00:29:43.150 --> 00:29:45.590 Kathie Obradovich: All of these hundreds of lawsuits. 162 00:29:45.590 --> 00:30:00.239 Kathie Obradovich: out of court. This is a big, big win for Bayer. It’ll be interesting to see if we see that legislation come back in Iowa, despite this ruling, like, you know, essentially trying to 163 00:30:00.350 --> 00:30:21.729 Kathie Obradovich: close the barn door after the horse is out. But, you know, the interesting thing to me as well was the reaction from our two gubernatorial candidates, Bullsack Lane, who has said he’s against big ag and concerned about, chemicals and the, you know, potential for cancer and water quality, pollution. 164 00:30:21.880 --> 00:30:29.979 Kathie Obradovich: And Rob Sand, both of them have said this is a bad ruling. It’s bad for Iowa, bad for Iowans’ health. 165 00:30:30.210 --> 00:30:54.670 Kathie Obradovich: And so, if nothing else, if presumably one of these guys becomes governor, we’re probably not going to get a bill signed into law that reinforces this, really. So, but yeah, you know, it puts the spotlight to me back on RFK Jr. to say, you know, where, you know, put your money where your mouth is and review this, decision that 166 00:30:54.670 --> 00:30:56.680 Kathie Obradovich: Glyphosate does not. 167 00:30:56.680 --> 00:30:59.089 Kathie Obradovich: You know, present a risk for cancer. 168 00:30:59.560 --> 00:31:22.920 Laura Belin: And I think that, in theory, since this was a statutory-based decision, not a constitutional decision, the Supreme Court was interpreting this labeling law. This is the kind of ruling that, in theory, Congress could overturn. I mean, they could pass an amendment to the law that clarifies, no, we don’t mean, when we say this about the labeling, we don’t mean that this precludes 169 00:31:22.920 --> 00:31:41.619 Laura Belin: court claims. I don’t think that that would ever get through Congress, nor do I think Donald Trump would sign that kind of a law, but it’s possible that Bayer and their allies might continue to be pushing for state-level laws like this, because in theory, because it’s not a constitutional decision, it is something that Congress could overturn. 170 00:31:42.090 --> 00:31:43.439 Dave Price: You know what I wish? 171 00:31:44.170 --> 00:31:49.170 Dave Price: I wish Rick Stewart on that recording would have asked RFK about this. 172 00:31:49.720 --> 00:31:53.669 Dave Price: The recording was, like, 2 weeks ago, right? I believe. 173 00:31:53.670 --> 00:31:55.680 Laura Belin: By the 11th, I think it was on the 8th. 174 00:31:55.680 --> 00:32:01.970 Dave Price: We’re just releasing it, but I wish that… because part of it he was talking about, Stuart was talking about COVID. 175 00:32:02.080 --> 00:32:09.750 Dave Price: And he was talking about some other stuff too, but I wish somehow they would have gone into this so that we could have had RFK 176 00:32:09.930 --> 00:32:15.900 Dave Price: at least his voice recorded talking about this, because, I mean, he can’t… 177 00:32:16.770 --> 00:32:21.189 Dave Price: Like, he can’t… he can’t be in favor of this, right? Based on stuff he’s said in the past? 178 00:32:21.670 --> 00:32:27.050 Kathie Obradovich: Well, you certainly, you know, have that connection now between RFK Jr. and Zach Lahn. 179 00:32:27.510 --> 00:32:51.130 Kathie Obradovich: And, you know, Zach Lahn presents himself as a Maha candidate, etc, and so you do, you know, if RFK is silent on this, ruling, makes no effort toward, you know, encouraging an EPA review, of this, or I should probably, 180 00:32:51.130 --> 00:32:59.930 Kathie Obradovich: FDA review. You’ve got, you know, you’ve got a disconnect there, then, you know, so it’s… it’s just an interesting dynamic. 181 00:33:00.610 --> 00:33:03.440 Dave Price: I really wish I would have asked him about this when he was in town. 182 00:33:04.010 --> 00:33:05.450 Kathie Obradovich: He’ll be back. 183 00:33:05.750 --> 00:33:11.560 Dave Price: Huge mistake, huge mistake. All right, we squeezed it all in. Thank you for doing that. 184 00:33:12.460 --> 00:33:13.409 Laura Belin: Thank you. 185 00:33:13.440 --> 00:33:21.400 Dave Price: And thanks to all of you for joining us this week here on the Iowa Down Ballot podcast. Thanks to all of you who’ve become new subscribers. 186 00:33:21.690 --> 00:33:39.469 Dave Price: For the new paid subscribers, our hearty thanks. Thank you for helping us to keep this going week after week, and thanks to all of you for not just watching, listening, reading this, but also sharing it to your family and friends. That helps us grow, and it is fun to see that week after week, so we very much appreciate you. 187 00:33:39.470 --> 00:33:50.619 Dave Price: Thank you to Laura, thank you to Kathie, we appreciate you as well. And we were able to, all in one show, praise the both of you for your journalistic dedication. 188 00:33:51.300 --> 00:33:53.780 Dave Price: To both of you, so thank you. Have a great weekend. 189 00:33:53.780 --> 00:33:54.939 Laura Belin: Have a great weekend. 190 00:33:55.090 --> 00:33:57.169 Dave Price: Thanks, everybody, we’ll talk to you next week. Get full access to Iowa Down Ballot at iowawriterscollaborative.substack.com/subscribe [https://iowawriterscollaborative.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]
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