. . . because much of the content relates both to Washington, D.C., and "outside the beltway" -- the heartland, specifically Iowa -- and because after going from Iowa to Washington via Texas and California I subsequently returned, From DC 2 Iowa.
Showing posts with label Governor Terry Branstad. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Governor Terry Branstad. Show all posts
With President Trump's appointment of Iowa Governor Terry Branstad as Ambassador to China, his duties and powers devolved to Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds. On her first day as Governor she wanted to appoint a replacement Lieutenant Governor. It was unclear whether she had that power. One option would be to ignore her state's Constitution and stiff its Attorney General. Fortunately, she chose the other option -- "a little sidestep" reminiscent of a Texas Governor of years gone by.
[This is a one-minute, "fair use" clip of a wonderful scene from the feature film, "Best Little Whorehouse in Texas," loosely based on an establishment outside of Austin, Texas, many years ago called "The Chicken Ranch." The Texas Governor is under great political pressure from both sides, as you might imagine. Is he going to do anything about it? As one reporter sizes up the Governor's statement: "It's a possible 'maybe.'"]
Don't get me wrong. I think it's about time that Iowa have a woman as governor -- and United States senator -- even though I have, and probably will continue to, differ with these two on most issues. I believe that women's rights are among the top priority human rights issues of our age (globally as well as in the U.S.), and that the cause is greatly advanced with women in government. With 6 women of 50 Iowa state senators (12%) and 27 women among 100 House members (27%) Iowa still has a long way to go. I support Emily's List of women candidates for office, prefer that my Kiva loans in third world countries go to the women who have over the years, so far, paid back 100 cents of every dollar loaned, and I cheer women's victories from Iowa Women's Basketball to 100 Grannies. And see, "The Natural Superiority of Women; And Why Men Fail," September 11, 2012.
Indeed, it is for those reasons it's essential Governor Kim Reynolds not get off on the wrong foot.
There's little to object to about the person she chose. Gregg has a spectacular paper record in and out of government.
So what's the problem?
The problem is that the Iowa Constitution, its language, the context of that language, its courts' interpretations, and the interpretations of other states' constitutions with similar language, forbids a Lieutenant Governor, who takes over the responsibilities of a Governor, to appoint a new Lieutenant Governor. And in this instance, that conclusion is driven home by the legal opinion of Iowa's Attorney General, Tom Miller.
And this was no ordinary two-page legal opinion. The research, citations, organization, analysis, and quality of writing in the 23-page document are of law review article quality. If you would like to read it, you'll find a link to it HERE.
That opinion is the best source (indeed the only source so far as I know) for the contested issues, but some general examples (not necessarily applicable in this case) may help. However, know that the following paragraphs are not "the analysis" or "the answer" to the legal issues raised by the Iowa Constitution. They are only designed to warm up your brain to receive that analysis and answer from Attorney General Tom Miller's opinion.
For starters, it's necessary to understand the distinctions between "being" and "doing." I sometimes ask law school colleagues departing for deanships elsewhere, "Is it that you really want to do what deans do, or is it that you just want to be a dean?" It's not unusual for them to return to the classroom once they come to realize what they signed up to do.
Clearly, when the office of Governor is vacated, someone needs to do the constitutional tasks the Governor was doing -- as when there is a vacancy in the office of the president of a corporation or university. In the case of a Governor, that person is the Lieutenant Governor. Does that mean the Lieutenant Governor becomes the Governor, with the title of Governor, or that a state still has a Lieutenant Governor who is merely authorized to do what the Governor was doing?
Under these circumstances, if the Lieutenant Governor remains the Lieutenant Governor there is simply no vacancy to be filled. Or, if a state's constitution provides that the Lieutenant Governor is an elected position, no one can "appoint" a Lieutenant Governor. Or if a state's constitution provides an order of succession -- in Iowa it is Governor, to Lieutenant Governor, to Senate President, to House Speaker -- it would be inconsistent with that constitutional process to have, in effect, two Lieutenant Governors (one formerly elected, the second appointed by the first), thereby preventing (in Iowa) the Senate President from assuming the position of Governor.
In other words, had Governor Reynolds barged ahead and "appointed" a Lieutenant Governor, the best that could be said on her behalf would be that it was not clear she had that power. More likely, as the State's Attorney General concluded, were she to make such an appointment, it would be litigated up to an Iowa Supreme Court that would most likely find she did not have that power.
Before I knew that she had already appointed Adam Gregg, it seemed to me she had a couple of possibilities. (1) If she didn't wish to show her hand before the 2018 election, she could now appoint anyone she was leaning toward to some staff position -- something she would clearly have authority to do. (2) If she thought it politically advantageous, she could indicate now the person she currently proposes to select at that time as her running mate. (That is, while she can't appoint a Lieutenant Governor, with her Party's acquiescence she can in effect "appoint" a running mate who, if they win the election, becomes an "elected" Lieutenant Governor.)
What she ended up doing today [May 25, 2017] was something of a combination between those two:
Gregg will hold the title of lieutenant governor, but he will not be responsible for its sole constitutional function [succession to the Governorship]. Should Reynolds leave office, the vacancy would be filled not by Gregg but instead by Senate President Jack Whitver, the No. 3 on the gubernatorial depth chart according to the state constitution. . . . Gregg will "operate" the office of lieutenant governor but not actually "hold" that office. That means he'll be tasked with the ceremonial and administrative tasks of the office — and will draw the state salary associated with it — while remaining outside the gubernatorial line of succession.
Constitutional crisis averted. Gregg will be, in effect, a staff aide to the Governor, performing Lieutenant Governor-type tasks she might otherwise have to do. Meanwhile, should she change her mind during the next few months, she could designate someone else as her running mate without having to impeach Adam Gregg.
Republicans Need to Get Their Party Back From Trump
Nicholas Johnson
Iowa City Press-Citizen, October 20, 2016, p. 7A
Iowa’s statewide and congressional elected officials — Gov. Terry Branstad, U.S. Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, and U.S. Reps. Rod Blum, David Young, and Steve King — are doing great harm to Iowa, themselves and a future Republican Party by continuing their endorsements of Donald Trump.
This is not a partisan, pro-Hillary Clinton judgment. I supported Sen. Bernie Sanders.
As a Democrat, I want to “make the Republican Party great again.” The evolution of a democracy's wise public policy requires the thorough consideration of alternatives that can only emerge from civil, cooperative — and yes, compromising — conversation between those whose differing opinions are grounded in agreed-upon facts.
I’m old enough to remember that Republican Party, and to long for its return. That day is only delayed by Republican officials who say, in effect, that Donald Trump’s actions and words represent their values.
Is Donald Trump really someone they hold up to their children as a model? Do they really think he has the knowledge of domestic needs and world affairs, experience in government, mature judgment, people skills, respect for others and the values to be one of America’s best presidents? Is he even a conservative?
Numerous Republican officials share my view.
The party’s highest ranked official (Speaker Paul Ryan), most recent presidents (George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush), and presidential candidates (Sen. John McCain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney) have refused to support Trump.
Now, they’ve been joined by over 50 leading Republicans — governors, U.S. senators and representatives — who either never did, or do not now, support him. Some think Trump should drop out. Some say they’ll vote for Hillary Clinton. Others merely say they can’t endorse or vote for him.
By early October, no major U.S. newspaper had endorsed Trump. Some conservative papers that have never endorsed a Democrat are supporting Hillary Clinton; others merely advise readers not to vote for Trump.
One can sympathize with Iowa’s Republican leaders. It’s not easy to reject one’s presidential nominee. But the cost of their supporting Trump far exceeds any benefit.
• That they supported Trump will forever be a large blot on their personal political legacy.
• It will make it more difficult to rebuild a new, improved, responsible Republican Party in Iowa and the U.S., especially while Trump attacks Republican leaders.
• Trump’s stirring up even more divisiveness and polarization is a disservice. It brings out the worst in us, rather than our best. Iowa’s leaders are encouraging emulation of someone who deals in ridicule and mean-spirited disparagement of women, entire races, religions and ethnicities; war heroes, people with disabilities and Gold Star mothers.
• Iowans are proud of their reputation for “Iowa nice,” their welcoming of immigrant populations from around the world, their ethical and religious values — a culture diametrically opposed to what Trump represents.
• Iowans, like all Americans, want our state to be well thought of by others — especially those with ill-informed biases who think we’re just backwater, flyover country. Our leaders’ support for Trump only reinforces our critics' worst prejudices.
• We are trying to attract the best and the brightest to our state — faculty and students, leaders of large and small businesses, skilled workers and the creative class. We want to retain our first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses. Other states have lost business for being far less offensive than Trump.
Iowa’s Republican officials don’t need to drop their membership in the Republican Party, or announce they are voting for Hillary Clinton. They don’t need to publicly itemize the daily lengthening list of reasons why Trump is unsuited to be president.
What they do need to do, for their own sake and that of their constituents, is to join the impressive ranks of responsible Republicans who have announced they are neither endorsing nor voting for Donald Trump.
_______________
Nicholas Johnson is a former Iowa Democratic congressional primary candidate and Washington official. He blogs at FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com.
Comments on Press-Citizen Site
[Oct. 21, 2016, approx. 8:30 p.m.]
Lynn Griebahn Jr.
you might want to read your own letter for some very obvious clues. The fact that so many republican leaders are not "endorsing or voting for Trump" is a clue. Many of these "republicans" are in essence Demoncrats. You want the Republican Party back that is liberal and leftist and that ain't gonna happen. All these leftists republicans can join the demoncratic party. I typed this real slow and in the dark so I would not disturb your sleep
[Oct. 22, 2:26 p.m.]
Lynn: Thank you for reading the column and posting a comment.
You say that I "want the Republican Party back that is liberal and leftist."
Here's a list of the Republican presidents since 1900: Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft (or his son, Robert A. Taft, Senator, Majority Leader, and presidential candidate), Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Iowa's own Herbert Hoover, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford, Ronald W. Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush.
I rather suspect that most, if not all, of them would be quite shocked that you consider them "liberal and leftist." And I also suspect that if they were still available for comment most to all of them would reject Donald Trump as an appropriate candidate for the Republican Party.
I am suggesting that we DO need a conservative voice in the fashioning of our laws and public policies -- but that we first need to agree on "facts" (as distinguished from opinions and ideology), and on the need for compromise.
What disturbs my sleep is not your rapid or slow typing in the dark, it is the prospect of Donald Trump (whom I do not consider either a conservative or a Republican) keeping the rest of us in the dark from the Oval Office in the White House.
Iowa’s statewide and congressional elected officials -- Governor Terry Branstad, U.S. Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, and Members of Congress Rod Blum, David Young, and Steve King – are doing great harm to Iowa, themselves, and a future Republican Party, by continuing their endorsements of Donald Trump.
This is not a partisan, pro-Hillary Clinton judgment. I supported Senator Bernie Sanders.
As a Democrat, I want to “make the Republican Party great again.” The evolution of a democracy's wise public policy requires the thorough consideration of alternatives that can only emerge from civil, cooperative, and yes, compromising, conversation between those whose differing opinions are grounded in agreed upon facts.
I’m old enough to remember that Republican Party, and to long for its return. That day is only delayed by Republican officials who say, in effect, that Donald Trump’s actions and words represent their values.
Is Donald Trump really someone they hold up to their children as a model? Do they really think he has the knowledge of domestic needs and world affairs, experience in government, mature judgment, people skills, respect for others, and values to be one of America’s best presidents? Is he even a conservative?
Numerous Republican officials share my view.
The party’s highest ranked official (Speaker Paul Ryan), most recent presidents (George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush), and presidential candidates (Senator John McCain and Mitt Romney) have refused to support Trump.
Now they’ve been joined by over 50 leading Republicans – governors, U.S. senators and representatives – who either never did, or do not now, support him. Some think Trump should drop out. Some say they’ll vote for Hillary Clinton. Others merely say they can’t endorse or vote for him.
By early October no major U.S. newspaper had endorsed Trump. Some conservative papers that have never endorsed a Democrat are supporting Hillary Clinton; others merely advise readers not to vote for Trump.
One can sympathize with Iowa’s Republican leaders. It’s not easy to reject one’s presidential nominee. But the cost of their supporting Trump far exceeds any benefit.
(1) That they supported Trump will forever be a large blot on their personal political legacy.
(2) It will make it more difficult to rebuild a new, improved, responsible Republican Party in Iowa and the U.S. – especially while Trump attacks Republican leaders.
(3) Trump’s stirring up even more divisiveness and polarization is a disservice. It brings out the worst in us, rather than our best. Iowa’s leaders are encouraging emulation of someone who deals in ridicule and mean-spirted disparagement of women, entire races, religions and ethnicities; war heroes, people with disabilities, and Gold Star mothers.
(4) Iowans are proud of their reputation for “Iowa nice,” their welcoming of immigrant populations from around the world, their ethical and religious values – a culture diametrically opposed to what Trump represents.
(5) Iowans, like all Americans, want our state to be well thought of by others -– especially those with ill-informed biases who think we’re just backwater, flyover country. Our leaders’ support for Trump only reinforces our critics' worst prejudices.
(6) We are trying to attract the best and the brightest to our state -– faculty and students, leaders of large and small businesses, skilled workers, and the creative class. We want to retain our first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses. Other states have lost business for being far less offensive than Trump.
Iowa’s Republican officials don’t need to drop their membership in the Republican Party, or announce they are voting for Hillary Clinton. They don’t need to publicly itemize the daily lengthening list of reasons why Trump is unsuited to be president.
What they do need to do, for their own sake and that of their constituents, is to join the impressive ranks of responsible Republicans who have announced they are neither endorsing nor voting for Donald Trump.
"Business Background: Enough for University President?" September 2, 2015-present (updated) [this is the blog post that contains the repository of documents, news stories, and opinion pieces regarding the Board of Regents' presidential selection process and early selection of Bruce Harreld]
Nicholas Johnson, "Seven Steps for Transitioning University,"The Gazette (online), September 27, 2015 (with links to 7 other related Gazette Writers Circle opinion pieces); hard copy: Nicholas Johnson, "Better Ways to Pick a UI President," The Gazette, September 27, 2015, p. C5
October 3, 2015, 11:00 a.m.
Presidents: Branstad & Rastetter Sure Know How to Pick 'Em
You have to hand it to Governor Bradstad and Regent Rastetter. There's a consistent pattern when it comes to their choice of presidents -- whether for the University of Iowa or the United States.
First it was Harreld and now it's New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. James Hohmann, "Post Politics: Chris Christie, Picking Up Six Endorsements, Says He'll Play Hard in Iowa,"Washington Post (online), September 29, 2015 ("The group endorsing Christie is led by agribusiness millionaire Bruce Rastetter . . . a top donor and close ally to Republican Gov. Terry Branstad. . . . Branstad is neutral, but Christie now has managers of the Iowa governor's previous campaigns, a former chief of staff and his top two fundraisers . . .. Phil Valenziano, a New Jersey native who was Branstad’s political director in 2014, is Christie’s Iowa state director.")
By now you may well know more than you care to know about J. Bruce Harreld, and the process Branstad and Rastetter used to select and force him on a university community over its almost unanimous opposition. "Business Background: Enough for University President?" September 2-October 3, 2015.
But Christie! At least Harreld had the support of a full 1.8% of the UI faculty. On a good day Christie can't muster more than 1% of Republican primary voters. Amy Walter, "How Do Primary Voters See the Candidates?"The Cook Political Report (online), September 30, 2015.
Cook polls for "could see self support candidate" and "could NOT see self support candidate." Christie is not among the six Republican candidates with a net positive score. In fact, of the top 10 candidates, he and Trump are virtually tied (51% and 52%) at the bottom of the "NOT support" column. Ibid. (Paul (58%) seems ready to focus on keeping his Senate seat.)
Harreld had a couple of ethical lapses -- especially for a job in higher education administration. He lied about his current employment, and misrepresented that he was the sole author of pieces that were actually co-authored with others.
But Christie! By now we all know that "Christie appointees at the Port Authority purposely created a traffic jam on approaches to the George Washington Bridge to punish a small-town Democratic mayor who had declined to endorse the Republican governor for re-election." Scott Mayerowitz and David B. Caruso, "Tangled Web Surrounds United's Aborted Atlantic City Routes,"USAToday/AP, September 29, 2015, 7:44 a.m.
But it turns out that pales in comparison with the multiple scandals involving "the Christie administration, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and United Airlines" -- scandals that have already led to the firing of United's president. ("incentives" to serve gambling casinos in Atlantic City, including favored treatment at Newark's International Airport (where United could "save millions"); now included in "an ongoing federal investigation into possible abuse of power at the Port Authority;" U.S. attorneys for Manhattan and New Jersey have also subpoenaed records; the special United, money-losing route to Columbia, South Carolina, created for a single passenger, the Port Authority chair with a home there ("close friend and mentor to Christie" whose "law firm handled the South Jersey Transportation Authority's bond transactions," an Authority for which Christie appointed board members); the Port Authority's "highly paid police officers," costing United $25 million, whose union endorsed Christie; use of excessive airport fees for favorite Christie projects; Christie's appointment of United Airline's lobbyist, Jaime Fox, as commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Transportation (and chair, South Jersey Transportation Authority), who forgave a United debt to New Jersey). Ibid.
I guess when you consider how willing Rastetter and Branstad are in overlooking these little indiscretions by Governor Christie, you can see how trivial Harreld's misrepresentations might seem to them by comparison.
Just think, they could have chosen Christie as our next UI president.
When Is an Elected Official's Behavior Disqualifying?
Moderation. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
-- Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1791), p. 82
A moderately honest man, with a moderately faithful wife, moderate drinkers both, in a moderately healthy house: that is the true middle-class unit.
-- George Bernard Shaw, Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)
Background. An Iowa City attorney, upon discovering that he had overlooked the need to request documents from opposing counsel in a timely fashion, made a series of mistakes. He predated a letter of request, sent it to opposing counsel, and when called on it lied to the judge. In our recently digitized world, the letter contained code that recorded and revealed the actual date of the letter's creation.
The legal profession holds its members to detailed and high ethical standards embodied in formal rules and normally enforced by a state's supreme court. See Iowa Rules of Professional Conduct. This lawyer's behavior was brought before the Iowa Supreme Court Grievance Commission, which has recommended his license be suspended for six months. The Iowa Supreme Court can modify that, but it is clear he has been severely punished -- with the suspension of his license, the need to resign from his law firm, and the emotional and professional damage as a result of the widespread publicity surrounding the case.
Although there is no doubting, or excusing, the seriousness of the charged offenses, especially when done by someone within the legal profession, it is also notable for what it did not involve. He did not enrich himself at another's expense. He caused no firearm or other violence. He did not disparage anyone's reputation but his own. He didn't engage in sexual misconduct. His actions could not have benefited him in any way -- aside from covering up his forgetfulness. Indeed, his primary motive may have been to better serve his client. Obviously, his actions failed on both counts, as should have been obvious to him ahead of time.
But the lawyer was also a school board member. And so gradually some community members, and journalists, began asking themselves, and others, whether it was appropriate to have someone serving on the school board who had been sanctioned for this ethical breach by his professional colleagues. There was an editorial in which the paper acknowledged that, "In the two years he has been in office, [he] has been a good School Board member. In meetings, he consistently brings his A-game and shows he has done his homework. He’s available and approachable to his constituents. And the board benefits often from his training as a lawyer." It did not directly ask for his resignation ("we’re of two minds on whether to call on [him] to resign immediately"), but noted "questions": "Ethics violations raise questions about McGinness,"Iowa City Press-Citizen, September 18, 2013, p. A13. And the next day there was a follow-up story on the responses from the school board members and others ("Iowa City Community School Board members aren’t saying much about a fellow board member’s legal woes that first were reported two weeks ago.") Adam B. Sullivan, "Legal woes bring mostly silence; School Board member: McGinness' troubles not connected to district,"Iowa City Press-Citizen, September 19, 2013, p. A1. [Photo credit: Nicholas Johnson; not the current board members.]
And that is what prompted this op ed column in the Press-Citizen. It was stimulated by the facts and issues in this case: "Should the fact of a individual's falsifying documents and lying about it, in his private capacity as a lawyer and wholly unrelated to his school board duties, be grounds for his removal from a local school board?" But that is not it's focus, which is directed rather more generally at an exploration of the factors that one might appropriately take into account when evaluating the consequences of behavior that violates community (or professional) norms. If, as George Bernard Shaw is quoted above as suggesting, the advice that we should "be moderate in all things" means that most of us are satisfied to be "moderately honest," how much higher a standard is it reasonable for us to set for our elected officials -- especially with regard to matters unrelated to their official responsibilities?
Working Our Way Through the McGinness Kerfluffle
Nicholas Johnson
Iowa City Press-Citizen
September 20, 2013, p. A7
A Frenchman, asked why he kissed women on the hand, replied, “Because you have to start somewhere.”
But where should one start with the porcupine of prickly issues emerging from the kerfluffle surrounding Jeff McGinness’ difficulties? There’s little about it you’d ever want to kiss anywhere.
In law professor fashion, I’m not offering answers – just questions. McGinness, school board members, citizens, the Press-Citizen -- all of us need to think this through for ourselves.
But I do see some issues.
How should we go about judging what is, and is not, forgivable in others? Are there any normative principles? Or is every case a one-off?
We can start with Iago’s observation, “he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed.” Othello, Act 3, Scene 3.
Reputation is a valuable possession. Corporations put a dollar value on goodwill. Spreading falsehoods is defamation. The unnecessary spread of truth can also be harmful. At a minimum, we should think twice before speaking ill of others.
Deserved or not, the publicizing of one’s faults is itself a serious punishment.
The forms of expressing disapproval extend over quite a range. It can take the form of a private thought, a whispered comment, public speech, or newspaper editorial. It can include a demand for resignation, or other punishment.
Suppose the irrefutable facts were that Governor Branstad regularly instructed his drivers to speed. (His Lt. Governor said they have a tight schedule – reminiscent of President Nixon’s explanation to David Frost that, “When the President does it, that means it is not illegal.")
Would it be reasonable, or fair, to try to bring about his removal from office for this behavior? If he also served on a church’s board of trustees, should he be asked to resign?
Does disapproved behavior at work warrant harsher penalties than if done in a bar, or at home?
Is it less bad if no one has suffered any physical, financial or reputational harm – aside from the perpetrator?
Should we distinguish between a weekend problem drinker who’s a top employee, and one who shows up drunk, or drinks at work?
How serious would you consider a coach who covers up a valued player’s crimes? A businessperson who lies about their “need” for a TIF? A professor who raises the failing grade of an athlete to keep him eligible? The university’s administrator who requested she do so? Someone who files taxes late, and predates the check? A church official who moves a pedophile minister to another church? A negligent doctor, threatened with a malpractice suit, who forces his nurse to lie? An administrator who is known to be condescending and mean to store clerks, waiters, and trades persons working on his property?
Should these facts, if sufficiently proven, disqualify those persons from serving on the board of a local, non-profit, volunteer organization?
Does it make a difference whether a financial vice president embezzles funds from her company, or as treasurer of her church? What if she had an off-duty ethical lapse wholly unrelated to the kind of work she does? In short, does it make a difference that the wrongdoing involves a personal quality required by her job? That it was done elsewhere?
How far can one indiscretion fairly be stretched to general conclusions about character? During a trial, unless a party or witness raises character issues, there are limits on the introduction of past derelictions. Of course, in our day-to-day lives we have neither the resources nor the restraints of trial lawyers. One lie may not legitimately make one “a liar.” But we recall “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”
Finally, we’re voters. We can vote for or against elected officials for whatever fool reasons we want. But we’ll feel better about ourselves if we’ve been thoughtful and fair in our judgments.
_______________
Nicholas Johnson, a former member of the Iowa City Community School Board, teaches at the University of Iowa College of Law and maintains www.nicholasjohnson.org and FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com.
Iowa's Governor Terry Branstad has been asking recently whether the new innovations in education delivery systems should perhaps cause us to question our continued construction of more and more buildings on traditional college campuses around the country -- including those at Iowa's three state universities.
Having dared to question university administrators' edifice complex, those congenitally committed to building, he's already concluded that he should veto the appropriations for some current proposals to plan even more.
While I disagree with his answer, I agree with his question.
As a declaration of interest, and conflict, I am a child (and adult) of the University of Iowa: born in its hospital, to parents who were Iowa grads (one of whom would become a UI professor), a young guinea pig in its Iowa Child Welfare Research Station, and later its University Elementary and High School, during my years in Washington often invited by the University back home to speak (including the last commencement address before U High was closed), and teaching at its law school since returning to my hometown (and the house I grew up in).
Over the years I've also picked up some understanding of how hard it is to get money from the Iowa Legislature for buildings. My grandfather played a major role as a legislator in getting the money for the University of Iowa's research library. It's never easy. So when the University says it needs a new pharmacy building, my bias is to give administrators the the benefit of the doubt.
For starters, there may be an online alternative to students dissecting frogs in a lab or classroom in a multi-million-dollar building. And there may be online global collaboration, and many other contributions from computers, for professional researchers working in scientific lab facilities. But it's a little difficult for them to do the hands-on research they do without a building to do it in. And a goodly proportion of the University's square footage in buildings is devoted to that kind of other-than-classroom purposes.
But none of this detracts from Branstad's sharing Bob Dylan's sense that "you better start swimmin'/Or you'll sink like a stone/For the times they are a-changin.'"
“I just think we need a very thoughtful approach,” Branstad told reporters. “We need to look at the long-term needs, and we need to look at how much of the learning will take place on campus, how much of it will occur online and elsewhere.”
He last week rejected a $3 million appropriation approved by the Legislature to design a pharmacy building renovation at the University of Iowa, which has a projected cost of $67.6 million. [Also: $2.5 million for planning a $42.5 building at Iowa State, and $1.5 to plan a $31.6 building at UNI.]
“I guess what I am trying to do and say is that the answer is not to keep building more huge, expensive buildings on our college campuses. I think we need to recognize that changes are taking place in the way that people learn. Rather than have a lot of buildings that are going to sit empty in future years, we need to really decide: Are these absolutely essential?” Branstad said.
Let's start by identifying a number of distinct topics and issues here.
1. Conventional schools' technology in the classroom. Educators took a ribbing 15 or 20 years ago, with lines like, "It took educators 50 years to get the overhead projector out of the bowling alley and into the classroom." Fact is, today, there's lots of "technology" (as they call it) around most conventional K-12 schools, colleges and universities. Indeed, some of today's educational critics suggest there's all too much, as students sit in lecture halls working on their Facebook pages with laptops and smartphones. Many classrooms now have electric outlets for students' laptops; lecterns with instructors' control of large screens, projectors, computer access to the Internet, including live connection to remote sites for interviews with experts or other classrooms, and presentation of Power Point slides, or other audio-video material. There are electronic systems for providing the instructor real time quiz results, or other feedback from each student, throughout the class hour.
2. Conventional schools' online offerings. By "conventional schools" I mean colleges in the 20th Century model, with residential students, a campus, large buildings with classrooms, and a library filled with books. These schools may today offer their students various online services, such as registration, course-related material (that might formerly have been in a printed packet). They may offer online courses, with lectures, textual and video material their students can access with computers, whether on-campus or away. This may, or may not, require occasional conferences with professors, or group meetings. It may, or may not, require that participants be registered as regular, on-campus students.
3. For-profit universities. The University of Phoenix, cited by the Governor, may be best known for its online offerings. And it certainly has those. But in addition to its online offerings, it not only has "a campus," it maintains 100 locations in 41 states -- including Iowa, in Cedar Rapids and Des Moines -- probably more buildings than any other U.S. university. Phoenix, and other for profits, are criticized for a variety of reasons (e.g., quality of instruction, respect for degree, difficulty for many students maintaining the self-discipline). The Des Moines Register's Kathie Obradovich said of Governor Brandstad's Phoenix endorsement, "if he considers the University of Phoenix an example of the future of higher education, his argument crashes and burns." Kathie Obradovich, "Obradovich: U of Phoenix reference torpedoes veto argument; Branstad, who vetoed cash for university projects, holds up troubled school as higher ed's future,"Des Moines Register, June 25, 2013. Nonetheless, at least 300,000 individual students seem to be sufficiently satisfied to go on paying tuition.
4. Free online quality college courses. There are now a number of sources of free, quality college instruction. Among the drawbacks, such as the need for self-discipline and the lack of contact with professors and fellow students, the most significant is the absence of college credit and diplomas.
5. Free college-level instruction with credits and diploma-equivalents. As I predicted over three years ago, opportunities for college credit and diploma-equivalents are now appearing. See, "From SUI to ACT: Higher Ed's Crumbling Monopoly," January 31, 2010.
What I'd like to focus on are what are identified, above, as 4 and 5 -- free instruction with college-diploma equivalency certification.
Let's start with the realization that a good many kids on college campuses aren't there to pursue their intellectual curiosity. Some are, of course, but not most. So why are they there? Because however little they know, however little they care to learn more, what they have figured out is that they don't want to go through life asking, "Do you want fries with that?" And the best way to avoid that fate, they've been told by counselors and parents, is to go to college. Of course, it's not the going to college that is the most important part. It's the finishing of college, which entitles the graduate to the piece of paper called a "diploma." They can then apply for jobs as a "college graduate" -- and if challenged, produce a piece of paper that proves their assertion to be true.
Let's forget the vicious circle in all of this for a moment. Why were they willing to obligate themselves to pay back loans of as much as $100,000, $200,000 or more (if going through graduate schools, and depending on their spending while in school)? Because they wanted the diploma. Why did they want the diploma? So they could get a job that paid more money (a triumph of hope over experience, which may or may not work out for them). Why did they need a job that paid more money? So they could pay back those student loans.
In addition to which, those exclusively financial motivations and goals entirely miss the point: the enriching impact of a diverse, broad and deep "liberal arts education" on the quality of one's life. What it enables one to see, hear, and feel is as if one went from silent, two-dimensional, black-and-white photographs to full-color, high definition, video with surround sound -- and holograms of people walking around your room.
The first complicating irrefutable fact for our Regents universities, is that the education we provide for ever-escalating tuition dollars -- the knowledge, the skills, the exposure to great minds -- can now be obtained by our students, for free, from professors at some of the world's greatest universities. Now don't get me wrong. I'm not asserting free online instruction is the equivalent of what we provide. It's hard to get to know one's professors online in the same way you can on a residential campus (if and when that's possible anywhere). The intellectual and social interaction with other students is different. Especially is this true for those seeking binge drinking opportunities at one of the nation's top-ranked party schools.
But for those who are motivated more by their intellectual curiosity than their desire for "a job," those who have the self-discipline to stick with it, those who can't afford the combined expense (tuition, living and travel expenses, the opportunity cost of four or five years' lost wages) and are disinclined to take on massive debt, a free online college education makes sense.
Phoenix University's enrollment of 300,000 is impressive. But the free operation called Coursera is so popular it now has some 4 million global students (or "courserians," as they call themselves), choosing from 400 courses taught by professors at over 70 top universities around the world. To pick a handful of the U.S. schools, the list includes Cal Tech, Chicago, Columbia, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Northwestern, Pennsylvania, Princeton, Stanford, Vanderbilt and Yale.
The story behind the Kahn Academy is delightful. A hedgefund manager, Salman Kahn, in Boston, started tutoring his cousins, in New Orleans, with online math videos he created and uploaded to YouTube. Others started watching and benefitting from his free instruction; more courses were added. By 2011 (when there were a mere 2200 videos) he was telling his TED Talks audience that there were a million users a month downloading 100,000 to 200,000 videos a day. Presumably, with today's 4200 videos, there are even more students and downloads. Rather than describe it further, I'll just provide that TED talk, below -- already downloaded 2.5 million times. (Incidentally, although it's not online college instruction, if you're not familiar with TED ("Technology, Entertainment, Design") you will find TED's free offerings of 15-to-18-minute video presentations a real source of intellectual stimulation.)
Consider for a moment the role of general examinations in our formal, conventional educational establishment. An ACT test score may affect a student's eligibility for admission to college, just as her later GRE score may determine her admission to graduate school. In both instances, a certificate may also be required -- a high school or college diploma. But the exam is, in a way, the equivalent of those certificates -- the substantive evidence of education received, as distinguished from the superficial evidence of a document.
With high school education we go further. Former high school dropouts, without a diploma, who study for and pass the GED (General Educational Development) exam, will usually be thought eligible for jobs requiring a high school education.
In fact, this morning's Press-Citizen reported a GED commencement ceremony. Twenty-one inmates at the Iowa Medical and Classification Center were so honored for their successful educational efforts. "A total of 52 inmates are receiving their General Education Development certificate this summer. All of the men completed coursework at the prison and passed a qualifying exam. The prison GED program is facilitated by Kirkwood Community College." Adam B. Sullivan, "Inmates at IMCC receive GED certificates,"Iowa City Press-Citizen, June 28, 2013, p. A1.
It used to be that budding lawyers "read law" in a lawyer's office to become qualified to practice. Today, most attend law schools, obtain the required law degree, take a bar review course, and pass a bar exam. But there are still states that do not require a law degree as such (with its $100,000-plus student loan debt). Authorities in those states are more interested in how well their fellow lawyers do on their bar exam than how many hours they sat in a law school classroom.
If you can become a lawyer by taking an exam without going to law school, if you can get the status of a high school graduate by taking an exam without finishing high school, why shouldn't you be able to have the benefits of a college graduate by taking an exam without ever attending college?
Well, you already can, sort of.
Developed by the College Board, the people behind AP and SAT, the College-Level Examination Program (CLEP) has been the most widely trusted credit-by-examination program for over 40 years, accepted by 2,900 colleges and universities and administered in over 1,700 test centers.
CLEP exams test mastery of college-level material acquired in a variety of ways — through general academic instructions, significant independent study or extracurricular work. CLEP exam-takers include adults just entering or returning to school, military service members and traditional college students.
It's not much of a leap from a GED, bar-exam-only admission to the bar, the GRE exam, and CLEP credits, to a college exam equivalent to the GED -- pass the exam and your accomplishment will be recognized by graduate institutions and employers as the equivalent of a college diploma.
And not just the equivalent. Based on the business persons I've talked to about this, one of their main complaints about "college graduates" is the lack of consistent standards for what a college diploma tells them about the job applicant's basic skills. They accept the fact that some on-the-job training will be required for new hires. What they don't accept is the cost of providing college graduates the basic education they should have acquired in high school or college. "All I ask," they say in effect, "is that they can speak and write the English language correctly, read with sufficient care and comprehension to understand the manual, and do the basic math required of everyone in this company. Give me that and I can teach the rest of what they need to know. But without that much it's hopeless."
Given the choice between (a) someone with sufficient passing marks in the credit hours required for a college degree, and (b) someone with the equivalent, in the form of something like CLEP credits, or a good score on some form of a modified GRE exam, those employers I've talked to say they'd prefer the latter. This anecdotal evidence seems supported by a recent study. "A new report based on data collected from approximately 4 million people who were examined for workplace readiness found there are significant skills gaps . . .. The ACT report cautions that relying on indirect measures of skills, such as education level attained, will produce inaccurate results of actual
workplace skills preparation." George C. Ford, "ACT research finds workplace skills lacking for in-demand jobs; Results find programs preparing individuals for middle-education jobs are well aligned with the skills jobs demand,"The
Gazette, July 3, 2013, p. B5. See, "ACT Research Reports on Work Readiness."
Once those certification programs start gaining the momentum we've seen in Coursera, Kahn Academy, and Education Portal, with their millions of students worldwide, the Regents' state universities may actually need far fewer buildings.
And that's why I think Governor Branstad has asked the right question. However, until that day looms larger on Iowa's horizon, I think his answer, his veto, is premature.
Of all the reports about the challenges confronting higher education's missions, few address the worst-case scenario: the disappearance of universities as we know them. Unfortunately, the scenario has powerful analogies.
• Try 40, not 5-year plans. Over 40 years ago, when libraries had card catalogs, newspapers were printed, and TV only three networks, I predicted "Communications in the Year 2000" (ultimately a chapter in How to Talk Back to Your Television Set) would include "instantaneous, ubiquitous, no-cost access to all information." Today that's the Internet.
• The 99.99 percent-off sale. We're used to 10 percent to 50 percent-off sales. But 99.9 percent? Yet the $1 million computer 40 years ago is today $1,000 or less; 99.9 percent off. So what?
• Broadside blows. So unpredicted competition has caused companies and entire industries to disappear. That's "so what."
Ten years ago Facebook (300 million members), YouTube (20 hours of video uploaded each minute), Wikipedia (3 million articles; 161 language editions) and iPhone (3 billion downloaded applications) didn't exist. [2013 Note: These are 2010 numbers; for instance, by now, June 28, 2013, Facebook has closer to 1 billion users.]
The 4.5 billion smart phones in 200 countries have Internet capabilities. Cell phone networks may become the owners' preferred platform for the Internet.
Musicians no longer need record companies, filmmakers don't need studios, journalists newspapers, or authors publishers. Craig's List is the new classifieds. Amazon the new Sears. Downloaded movies closed video rental stores.
Why do we think our near-$300 billion higher education industry is immune to telecommunications tsunamis?
Forget for-profit Phoenix University. The online content of a Harvard, Yale or MIT undergraduate education is as free as the content of the New York Times. And 250 million Web sites provide the rest of what students need.
If students can learn for free, why pay? Because it's not about learning. It's about degrees. Degrees increase income, and universities control the degrees monopoly.
What if they didn't? Monopolies are fragile and short lived in today's "flat world."
• In 1971, 73 percent of college students wanted a "meaningful philosophy of life." Today, 78 percent identify "wealth" as their goal.
• Parents wonder if there will be enough of that wealth to make the $50,000-to-$200,000 cost of a B.A. plus professional degree a wise investment.
• Employers know a diploma doesn't guarantee basic math and language skills -- and that those skills don't require a diploma.
Southwest Airlines says, "we hire for attitude and train for skills." But as a local Fortune 500 executive told me, "We can't even train employees for skills if they haven't mastered the basics."
Passing the GED exam is high school equivalency. Passing the GRE, not the B.A., is the gateway to graduate school.
What if anyone could take a GRE-type exam, and if they pass have "college equivalency"? A local businessman told me he'd hire them for "college graduate" positions in a New York minute.
Educators are slow to change. Professors started lecturing 1,000 years ago because there were no books. Now, notwithstanding books, we're still lecturing to warm (if inattentive) bodies in lecture halls.
UI had a radio station 100 years ago (9YA); later the first voice AM west of the Mississippi; educational TV in the 1930s. Today those multi-million-dollar assets called WSUI and KSUI might as well be silent for all they're doing to advance the university's mission of engagement with the state's citizens.
Our university is among the nation's best. But we don't have 1,000 years this time. If UI ever loses its monopoly on certification, Marc Moen will be replacing four Pentacrest buildings with high-rise condos.
The certification process may remain in Iowa City, but be based on results of exams from ACT and Pearson, institutions with neither faculty nor students. Self study and certificates, rather than commencement ceremonies and diplomas, could become the passport to good pay for knowledge workers in a global economy.
It couldn't happen? I remember when no one else imagined a $1 million computer could ever sell for $1,000 and become part of a global network.
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Nicholas Johnson teaches at the University of Iowa College of Law and maintains the blog, FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com (where this discussion continues).
Champions' Wins Can Be Taxpayers' Losses; Lessons for Iowa (bought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
There is at least one significant way in which Super Bowls are far less super than the claims in its super boosters' hype.
Sunday's [Feb. 6, 2011] game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the community-owned Green Bay Packers was by many measures a truly "super" bowl game. It was a great game to watch; which a record 111 million did in front of TV screens and an almost-record 110 thousand did in the Texas-sized and styled super stadium in Arlington. Whether the TV commercials will have a super impact on increasing sales remains to be seen, but they produced some super laughs for the audience, potential super awards for the creators, and at $3 million for each 30 seconds some super revenue for the broadcasters.
The two-year-old Dallas Cowboys' stadium used for the event, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones' three-million-square-foot "Palace in Dallas," the world's largest domed stadium, cost $1.15 billion to build -- of which the taxpayers of Arlington contributed $325 million.
However, its likely impact on the economy of Arlington, Texas (and its Dallas-Ft.Worth environs), is going to be far less super than Super Bowl boosters and promoters routinely claim when their billionaire owners approach local taxpayers, hat in hand, begging for their equivalent of public housing.
With no pro teams in Iowa, and open stadiums during Iowa winters, it's unlikely there will ever be a Super Bowl game played in an Iowa town. Nonetheless, there are still lessons here for Iowans -- for the Iowa City City Council's love affair with the corporate benefits from local taxpayers called "TIFs," and Governor Branstad's apparent belief that transferring taxpayers' money to the bottom line of for-profit corporations (and campaign contributors) is ideologically consistent with "free private enterprise" and an efficient way to "create jobs."
The Super Bowl host committee commissioned a report that says the region will see a $611-million windfall as a result of Sunday’s game. . . . Robert Baade, a sports economist at Lake Forest College, . . . says host committees forget to factor in things like tourists and convention goers who are crowded out during mega-events like the Super Bowl, money that goes home with the players, team owners, and national hotel chains, and costs the city bears in clean-up and safety. 'If you move that decimal point one place to the left, you’re much closer to reality,' Baade says. '[T]he $60 million figure is likely to be far more representative of what we’ll see.' And, Baade says, the real figure might be closer to $30 million. . . . [Do pro teams and Super Bowls bring new businesses to town?] Professor Baade says, corporate sponsors and business executives have much more tangible things to think about . . .. '[T]hey’re going to consider things like: "Is there a skilled labor force?," Baade said. ' . . . the tax environment . . . the school system. . . . [O]ther factors . . . are far, far more important for the bottom line than a Super Bowl or even the presence of a pro sports team.'
The $600 million benefit claimed this year is 50% more than last year's NFL estimate of $400 million -- when economists found the League's math equally flawed.
"'All they do is add and multiply,' [University of South Florida economist Phil] Porter said. 'They never subtract and divide.' . . .
Economists say the NFL-sponsored studies look at the 'gross' spending by Super Bowl visitors but not the 'net' effect.
Some tourists, economists say, may intend to visit South Florida for vacation, but will avoid the area because of the Super Bowl. Also, with Super Bowl attendees spending much of their money with national hotel and rental-car chains, most of the influx is going to corporations headquartered elsewhere, such as Hilton, Marriott, Hertz and Avis.
'The airfare being spent on American Airlines isn't ending up in Miami,' said Craig Depken of the University of North Carolina-Charlotte. 'A lot of it is being repatriated to Dallas.' . . .
'I'm estimating north of $400 million,' said Rodney Barreto, chairman of the host committee. 'This is a huge event.' . . .
But independent economists have tossed the challenge flag and demanded a closer look at what they consider the puffery behind the big game's economic effect.
'If you can move the decimal point one digit to the left, you would get a more realistic estimate,' said Andrew Zimbalist, a prominent sports economist at Smith College. 'If they were arguing $40 million, I would say that's a realistic impact; $400 million is not.'
Victor Matheson, an economist at the College of the Holy Cross, said Super Bowls generate a boost of $30 million to $90 million.
'Absolutely, you'll take it,' he said. 'But on the other hand, it's one-quarter to one-tenth of the figure the NFL is publicizing.'
Economists from the University of Chicago, the University of North Carolina-Charlotte and the University of South Florida have reached similar conclusions.
Phil Porter of the University of South Florida sees a link between the NFL's optimistic economic impact estimates and team owners' lobbying for public money for stadiums.
'The NFL is not in the business of giving us $400 million every year,' Porter said. 'They're in the business of telling us they're giving us $400 million every year so we'll give them things.' . . .
[I]t's unclear when the Super Bowl and Pro Bowl will come back to South Florida. NFL executives say the Super Bowl might not return for an 11th visit without $250 million in improvements to the Miami Gardens facility now known as Sun Life Stadium."
For years I wrote in a similar vein about Senator Grassley's belief that spending $50 million of federal taxpayers' money on an indoor rainforest in an Iowa cornfield could somehow pass the laugh test and make any economic sense. See, e.g., the entire Web site I devoted to the subject: "Earthpark."
More recently I've addressed the triumph of boosterism over economic analysis in some blog entries and Press-Citizen columns.
Nicholas Johnson, "Making 'Shop Locally' a Meaningful Suggestion," Iowa City Press-Citizen, December 3, 2010, p. A9, embeded in "Downtowns' Future: 'Shop Locally' Column & Dialogue; Making "Shop Locally" a Meaningful Suggestion," December 7, 2010 ("[T]he Press-Citizen Editorial Board is urging us to 'shop locally.' But what does 'buy local' mean? [Money spent here doesn't necessarily stay here.] To analyze in detail what happens to each portion of the dollars we spend in Johnson County establishments would require more data and degrees in economics than most of us would ever have or want. . . . [But without it, 'buy locally'] is just a rousing bumper sticker of a slogan, and, as Tom Joad says to the filling station attendant in Grapes of Wrath: 'You're jus' singin' a kinda song.'").
"The $100 Million Hawkeyes' Football Team; Hawks: "How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Dollars," August 28, 2010 ("The Iowa City/Coralville Area Convention and Visitors Bureau says the Hawkeyes' Football Team is about to bring $100 million to Johnson County this fall. . . . Really? $100 million? . . . [T]he only sales that can fairly be attributed to football would be those above and beyond those that would have occurred without a football game. What is the average Iowa City/Coralville revenue for . . . weekends from September through November -- excluding the weekends when there are home football games? What is the average during weekends when there are football games? It is that difference, that 'incremental increase,' that is relevant. Otherwise you're counting revenue that would have gone to local businesses even without the games. Second, how much of that incremental income would never have been earned 'but for' the football game, and how much is merely 'time-shifting'? . . . [Coralridge Mall shoppers who do not attend football games may have] contributed to increased retail income when there was a football game in town, that's true; but they have not contributed more income to merchants for the year in question than they would have contributed anyway without that coincidence. It's not 'but-for' incremental income.").
Nicholas Johnson, "Flying Video Screens, Stories and Tourism," Iowa City Press-Citizen, August 30, 2008, p. A15, embedded in "Tell Me a Story; The Stories Project," August 30, 2008 ("[A]n Iowa City monument to stories is certainly more appealing than 'a rain forest in a cornfield' -- the earlier proposal for Coralville. But good ideas are a dime a dozen. The challenge? Finding the next dime. Something rain forest promoters never found. Whether Stories makes sense requires the same analysis to which I subjected the rain forest. . . . In fairness, Stories’ promoters acknowledge their details aren’t nailed down – ‘"flying video screens" and holographic projections,' school, bookstore, restaurant? But it’s hard to be 'for' or 'against' a thing not knowing what the 'thing' is – the rain forest’s persistent problem. ('It’s a floor wax, it’s a desert topping; it’s whatever they want it to be.') So all I can offer is an all-purpose sampling of issues for any attraction.").
"Chicago Wins Olympics Bid; Why Chicago Won the Olympics Bid," October 5, 2009 ("The fact is that, most of the time, winning an Olympics bid, like many other efforts at local boosterism, turns out to be a Pyrrhic victory. . . . [M]ost community cheerleaders, like modern day George Babbitts [Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt (1922)], with confidence and pride in their town truly believe that their idea -- whether an indoor rain forest, the world's largest ball of string, or hosting an Olympic event -- really will 'put their city on the map,' while bringing tourists and their tourists' dollars to town. Who needs a business plan when 'everyone knows' what a great idea it is? . . . All too often the construction money can't be found, or the project is built but it turns out that 'build it and they will come' only works in the movies. Or enough public debt is incurred that it is, with the declining revenues that could have been predicted but weren't, the death knell for the project and then -- like paying for a dead horse -- takes years, if ever, to pay off. But there is no effort at community promotion for which there is a greater disparity between the promised economic benefits and the ultimate disappointment than Olympic venues.").
For more on our excessive focus on sports reaching from pro to college to high school to junior high and elementary schools, see "Fandom; Super Bowl, Super Mystery," January 30, 2011.
And for more on use of taxpayers' money for campaign contributors, see Nicholas Johnson, "Branstad and Public Transparency," Iowa City Press-Citizen, January 5, 2011, p. A7, embedded in "Governor Branstad's 'Transparency;' Making 'Transparency' in Government Meaningful," January 5, 2011. Accord, see Donnelle Eller, "Study Questions Branstad's Economic Proposal,"Des Moines Register, February 2, 2011 ("States that have switched to public-private partnerships like the one Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad has proposed have experienced misuse of taxpayer money, excessive executive bonuses and questionable awards, a national group [Good Jobs First, a Washington, D.C., research group] says. . . . [S]tates like Iowa that are considering public-private partnerships should focus on improving existing economic development efforts rather than seek to create agencies. 'Turning economic development over to public-private partnerships is fool's gold,' said Greg LeRoy, Good Jobs First executive director. 'What really matters is business basics: strategic public investments in skills, infrastructure and innovation - not privatized smokestack chasing.'"). See the similar observation of sports economist Robert Baade in the first major blocked quote in this blog entry, "Professor Baade says, corporate sponsors and business executives have much more tangible things to think about . . .. '[T]hey’re going to consider things like: "Is there a skilled labor force?,"' Baade said. ' . . . the tax environment . . . the school system.'"
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* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source -- even if I have to embed it myself. -- Nicholas Johnson
Making "Transparency" in Government Meaningful (bought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
The Press-Citizen has requested and run a series of 500-word op ed columns on "Issues to Watch: State Government." Here's mine from this morning's paper on Governor Terry Branstad's promises of "transparency."
Branstad and Public Transparency Nicholas Johnson Iowa City Press-Citizen January 5, 2011, p. A7
Governor-elect Terry Branstad thinks transparency in government is a good idea.
As a general proposition, most agree. Indeed, to borrow from the bumper sticker: "It's not just a good idea; it's the law."
The difficulties come, not from the generalization, but from the specific applications and exceptions. Moreover, many public officials are unaware of their obligations.
It's called the Freedom of "Information" Act. However, as communications scholars remind us, there are dramatic differences between data, information, knowledge and wisdom. Without raw data nothing more is possible. Wisdom may be too much to hope for, let alone legislate. But it's knowledge that we need.
Few citizens rummage through the yellowing paper records in all of Iowa's 99 county courthouses. We depend on the media to tell us what our public officials are up to -- from Congress in Washington, to agencies in Des Moines, to the local school board.
Too often, public records, even with the media's reporting, provide us little more than data.
Do Iowans really want government transparency, a "government in the sunshine"? If so, we need to follow the advice "Deep Throat" gave Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the Washington Post's Watergate break-in reporters: "Follow the money."
Much of what governments do is transfer taxpayers' money to the bottom line of for-profit corporations. Indeed, my research indicates the payback on large campaign contributions can run 1,000-to-one, or more. In Washington that means, "Give a million, get a billion." What's the ratio in Des Moines?
Paybacks can take the form of government contracts, price supports, direct subsidies and earmarks, and fraudulently named "jobs" and "economic development" programs. One of the most invisible and invidious forms of payback are "tax breaks."
There are serious issues of political ideology, public policy and finance when officials hand over taxes to for-profit corporations. One would hope those who think "socialism" is a swear word, and insist a deregulated marketplace solves all social ills, would oppose such giveaways. One would hope in vain.
So let's put those issues aside, recognize the corruption will continue, and address what improvements might help.
• First, recognize that $100,000 not paid in taxes has the same private benefit and public cost as a $100,000 corporate subsidy.
• Second, without cutting a single dollar from the taxpayers' largess put all the money on the table. Start with the worst problem: the virtually invisible and untraceable tax breaks.
• Third, identify those that exist, however deeply buried in the Iowa tax code, and repeal them.
• Fourth, make the money available, to the same recipient in the same amount, but as an identifiable appropriation for a named corporation or individual.
• Fifth, require reports, and encourage media presentation of them, that associate those appropriations with the legislators who voted for them, and how much those legislators received in campaign contributions and lobbying expenses from the recipient of the appropriation.
That's how you turn data and information into knowledge.
It remains to be seen if that's what Branstad means by "transparency."
* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source -- even if I have to embed it myself. -- Nicholas Johnson
Senator Kim Reynolds' Role Needs Clarification (bought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
It's unlikely there are many Iowans who haven't already voted, or at least made up their minds how they're going to vote, for the state's next governor.
It's less likely that many will make their decision on the basis of the governors' running mates for Lieutenant Governor.
And less likely still that if they still had questions about the Lt. Governor candidates that they would be looking to this blog for answers.
So, notwithstanding the timing, this blog entry is not designed to help or hurt anyone's campaign.
Iowa State Senator Kim Reynolds was selected by former Governor Terry Branstad as his Lt. Governor running mate.
Reynolds was elected to the Iowa Senate a year ago, in November 2009. Two months later she was hired by ABC Visual, a software company as the company's "Business Development Manager." ABC Visual has ended up with a lucrative contract from the State for processing "hundreds of millions of dollars in tax payments each year through Iowa Treasurers," according to Jordan. Reynolds had been Clarke County Treasurer for 14 years, and served on the Senior Policy Group of the Iowa State County Treasurers Association until 2008 -- the group that recommended ABC Visual in 2007 (although she was not officially part of the committee that selected the firm after competitive bidding in 2009).
Iowa Interactive, the firm that had the contract for all 99 counties previously, has complained that she let ABC have an unauthorized access to Interactive's web site that could have given ABC an unfair advantage in the bidding process.
On the company's Web site, where she is prominently displayed immediately after the CEO B.J. Do, the company bio says she "was instrumental in the implementation of the Iowa State County Treasurers Website." ABC Virtual/About/Our Management Team.
Another interesting detail is that the ABC Virtual company is in receivership (and probably was when she first recommended it), and that its CEO was successfully sued by a former officer and shareholder for $1.6 million damages for what the court characterized as "a freeze-out of a minority shareholder not tolerated under Iowa law."
The court continued, "Do caused ABC to invest in GSE, a Vietnamese company used for outsourcing, and then refused to provide . . . information concerning the investment . . . [that] leads the court to believe that Do had and has something to hide relative to this investment, most likely because it benefits Do personally rather than ABC as a whole."
So the matter becomes, as Alice said in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, "curiouser and curiouser."
Obviously, I'm not charging anything, because I've done no independent investigation. Nor, as I've already explained, would I be so naive as to think this blog entry would have any impact on the election, even if that were my purpose, which it is not.
But I do think, whoever becomes Iowa's next governor on November 2, for Kim Reynold's sake as much as anything, there ought to be some relatively formal and independent effort to ascertain exactly what did and did not go on here. Worst case, perhaps one of the state's major newspapers could put a little more time in on the story after the election.
Meanwhile, here is a report from the online Newton Independent from last September that I came upon only today while trying to find out more. It further supports Erin Jordan's story today, and makes one wonder even more why the state's media were not digging into this months ago.
Ever since Kim Reynolds was named as the running mate for gubernatorial candidate Terry Branstad, I've been waiting to pick up the paper and read how the campaign is reacting to what could be a huge potential conflict for the former Clarke County Treasurer.
What? Don't know what I'm talking about? Well, let me spell it out from what I've found in just a cursory look using only Internet sources.
When Branstad announced Reynolds, I, like many other Iowans, had never heard of her. A former county treasurer with just two years of statehouse experience under her belt didn't seem like a logical choice. So I did some looking.
Going to the Iowa General Assembly home page, I found a brief bio, her committee assignments and the fact she was Business Development Manager for ABC Virtual Communications. An external link to the Iowa Republican Party web site provided a little more detail.
The GOP site notes she was appointed by then governor Branstad in 1996 to serve on the Iowa Public Employees Retirement System Board and served as president of the Iowa State County Treasurers Association in 2000.
But there was something that took on a little more importance after I noted the GOP web site was created by ABC Virtual Communications, the same firm her bio says she works for.
"(Reynolds) also served on the three-person Senior Policy Team that was instrumental in the research, development and implementation of the Iowa State County Treasurers Association website which brought online property tax and vehicle registration applications to all 99 counties at no cost."
Hmmm.
So off to ABC Virtual Communications. Yup, right there on management team page is a picture of Ms. Reynolds, right under the mug and bio of the company's founder, BJ Do, outlining her background for her position as director of business development for the company. Interestingly, the site says she was hired on at ABC in January 2009, the same time she assumed her duties as a state senator. Again, the site notes her role in the implementation of the county treasurer's association e-commerce web site.
Under ABC Virtual's portfolio section on customers served, the Des Moines area company goes on at great length about the program it "designed, developed and implemented" for the Iowa County Treasurers E-Government Alliance (ICTEA). Basically, it allows for online payments of property taxes and motor vehicle registrations for a small fee to the user. In April 2008, the county treasurers association put out this Request for Proposals concerning bundled banking services.
Starting to get my drift?
But there's a little more. First stop, campaign disclosure reports. Sure enough, in November 2008 Mr. Do of ABC Virtual provided a $1,000 check to Ms. Reynolds campaign. And interestingly enough, in January and February 2008 David Jamison of Ames, the Story County Treasurer running against State Treasurer Mike Fitzgerald in the November election, provided two checks to Ms. Reynolds totaling $150.
So off I went in search of more information on ABC Virtual. What I found makes it appear the company is in a bit of a mess, and has been for some time.
Way back in August 2006, Vinayak Hedge filed suit in Polk County District Court against ABC Virtual Communications Inc. and BJ Do. The online court docket identifies Mr. Hedge as a "property co-owner."
Since that time, there have been hundreds of court filings in the case, including such notable entries as former Iowa Supreme Court Justice Mark McCormick's withdrawal as Do's counsel, the appointment of Paul Juffer of LWBJ Capital Advisers as receiver of the company back in November 2007, an order compelling the release of encrypted e-mail messages (coupled with sanctions against ABC and Do for not doing so), a June 2009 trial, an April 2010 order for judgment against ABC Virtual Communications and BJ Do for $1,626,204, the defendant's appeal of the ruling and judgment to the Iowa Supreme Court (which will now make it difficult to get one's hands on the file to find out what the hub-bub was about in the first place and potential other avenues to explore) and the June 2010 expansion of the receiver's duties with Mr. Juffer taking "charge of all assets of ABC Virtual Communications."
All quite interesting. And it leads to several questions:
* Just how instrumental was Ms. Reynolds in helping ABC secure the contract and who else was a member of that "three-person Senior Policy Team?" * Any perception problems for Ms. Reynolds in taking a job with the company she (apparently) helped land an account? And just how is ABC paid, and how much? * Why would a county association select a firm that was under receivership when it was reviewing RFPs? Were association members aware of this fact at the time the decision was made? Are they aware Ms. Reynolds now works for ABC?
Hopefully the answers to these questions, and what likely are a lot more, will eventually come out. The way things stand now, however, they may not. But I'll keep looking.
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* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source -- even if I have to embed it myself. -- Nicholas Johnson
"Jobs" Focus is Misleading Economics and Politics (bought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
Iowa's two candidates for Governor -- a former governor vs. the incumbent -- are engaged in a food fight over "jobs": their own, and those of the thousands of unemployed Iowans.
The economic analysis and rhetoric of both of them is misleading at best. As politics, it has been self-defeating for Governor Chet Culver, and has led to a despicable TV commercial from former Governor Terry Branstad.
Infrastructure
Human societies have come a long way since the day we came down out of the trees and started chasing, and later growing, our food.
Today we live above a veritable house of cards. Each of those cards is a part of our "infrastructure."
They include roads and bridges, oil and natural gas pipelines, railroads and airports, municipal water and sewerage treatment plants, dams and locks, telephone and Internet networks, and the power grid -- among other things. Some are built and operated by governments, some by public utilities, and some by traditional profit-maximizing corporations.
We don't think much about the air we breath until we can't see through it, our eyes water, we start coughing, or we learn it is contributing to our parents' cancer and our children's asthma.
Similarly, it is seldom that the mass media, elected officials (or you and I) spend much time thinking, talking or writing about our nation's infrastructure until one of those cards collapses.
By now, everyone knows about the damage done to the Gulf of Mexico by BP's oil spill. What we may be less aware of are our dependence upon, and the risks associated with, the underground network of natural gas and oil pipelines that criss-cross our nation and are subject to leaks and explosions.
Pipelines, like bridges, need to be regularly inspected, repaired and replaced. They too corrode, weaken, and leak. Like BP, Enbridge Energy Partners, the owner and operator of the pipeline, had been warned of the risk of oil leakage. The investigation isn't yet concluded, but it now looks like those warnings -- like those given BP -- were ignored.
And let's not so quickly forget the 90-year-old Lake Delhi dam that finally gave way last week -- and the others that may soon follow. As the Register later editorialized, "Thirty-one Iowa dams have structural problems or other deficiencies. Nearly all are earthen structures that support small lakes or ponds and, if improvements aren't made, these dams could fail, too, according to state records. The Iowa Department of Natural Resources has classified six of them as 'high hazard,' which means failure may result in loss of life." Editorial, "Public Dollars If There is a Public Benefit,"Des Moines Register, August 9, 2010.
There is virtually no end of examples of the infrastructure that is so central to our day-to-day lives, but can cause so much disaster when it goes terribly, terribly wrong. It's the infrastructure that most politicians and corporate CEOs don't want to even think about, let alone build, repair and replace.
What Governor Culver set out to do last year with his horribly misnamed endeavor was to focus attention on Iowa's share of our nation's infrastructure needs, identify the most critical (62% of which are flood-recovery-and-prevention-related), borrow about $857 million (to be paid back with state revenues from the gambling industry), match it with federal and private sources of some $610 million, and start with the shovel-ready projects -- now scheduled for all, and underway in most, of Iowa's 99 counties.
From almost any conceivable vantage point, this was an effort (approved by the Iowa legislature) deserving of statewide applause and commendation.
What Branstad needs to answer is, "What would you do with those fire stations, water treatment plants, libraries, bridges and flood-protection projects that Culver has funded?"
What are the options? You continue to let them rot -- like the bridge in Minneapolis, or the oil pipeline in Michigan -- or you build new and fix what's there. To pay for the projects you either raise taxes or you borrow the money. Given that Iowa is well up in the top 10 states for high credit ratings, and low obligations-per-citizen, borrowing made sense.
Would Branstad ignore all the needs, or just some? If the latter, which projects would he not fund? Would he have preferred to raise taxes rather than issue bonds? Or if he would find the money by cutting public services even further than they've already been cut, what programs would he eliminate and how much would that generate?
What Culver has done is responsible governing; something we should all be thankful for in this age of two dysfunctional major political parties. It may not be as politically appealing as talk about same-sex marriage, abortion, immigration, taxes, and guns, but it's one hell of a lot more important to the present and future of Iowa than any of those evening news sound bites and commercials.
Jobs
Rather than public projects, we're more used to taxpayers' money being funneled to for-profit corporations in the form of tax breaks, subsidies, bailouts, government contracts, and other nefarious schemes -- all too often in exchange for campaign contributions. It's called "socialism for the rich, and free private enterprise for the poor," or "my profits are mine, my losses are the taxpayers.'" (My reaction: If no one else is willing to put sufficient money into a new project -- not the entrepreneur, his or her family and friends, venture capitalists, banks, pension funds and insurance companies -- it doesn't look to me like a very good investment for the public's money either. What's wrong with "the marketplace" working its will?)
In order to sell such giveaways of public money to the wealthy, they are usually described as "jobs programs."
(As I have often written here, you can't jump-start an economy, 80% driven by consumer spending, by giving money to CEOs. No business person in their right mind is going to hire more employees, to manufacture more products, when they can't sell the inventory they already have to unemployed former consumers. If you really want to pull out of recession you do what FDR did (during his first month in office): You make the government the employer of last resort and put all the unemployed on the federal payroll. They spend their paychecks, demand for consumer goods increases, the private sector starts hiring to make more of those goods, the federal payroll declines, and the recession is over. We are paying an enormous price as a nation for letting our ideological purity regarding "socialism" and thinking that "government is the problem" stand in the way of such an obvious path to prosperity for all.)
Thus, it is understandable why Culver, out of political habit, would call his infrastructure proposal "I-Jobs" -- a jobs program (although even he might have thought to exercise restraint with regard to his early boast that it would create 30,000 jobs).
So now he's in a food fight with Branstad over the numbers -- which range, in various estimates, from 4,000 to his original 30,000. This is a fight Culver cannot possibly win, and which he could have, and should have, avoided.
Here's Branstad's latest commercial.
Forget about the precise numbers. To suggest that you can spend $875 million of public money, plus $600 million in the matching funds it makes possible, on projects in 99 Iowa counties, without creating jobs, in addition to being a dishonorable political assertion is economic lunacy. Of course it has created jobs!
In a nationwide -- indeed a global -- economic recession there will be unemployment. It is, for the most part, unemployment no governor can do anything about. This time around, even the federal government (refusing to create a real federal jobs program) has been unable to do much about it.
To put precise numbers on how many jobs I-Jobs created is mostly smoke and mirrors. You can't get accurate data, and even if you could it's not clear what should be included.
Do you just count the guy running the heavy equipment on the highway construction project? Or do you include the folks manufacturing, transporting, stocking, and selling retail the work clothes he or she buys, or those who work in the supermarket and cafes where the workers get food?
Culver would have been better off never to have even mentioned jobs -- except perhaps as a closing almost after thought: "Oh, yes, and we hope this will all provide a few jobs for those who might otherwise be unemployed."
Editorial, "Value of I-JOBS is flood repair,"Quad-City Times, July 31, 2010 ("Follow the money and Gov. Chet Culver’s touted I-JOBS program clearly should be called I-Flood. The top five counties benefiting from I-JOBS are those hit hardest by the 2008 flooding that, frankly, made even our 1993 record-setter look like a big drip. Those five counties won 62 percent of the $705.3 million allocated and borrowed for immediate infrastructure repair and better flood plain management.");
Rob Daniel, "Officials: I-JOBS program has created jobs,"Iowa City Press-Citizen, August 3, 2010 ("According to the latest program report, the program has translated into more than $154 million in funding in Johnson County, including $5.76 million to Iowa City to build a new fire station and wastewater treatment plant and $27.1 million to Coralville for flood control along First Avenue.").
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* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source -- even if I have to embed it myself. -- Nicholas Johnson
