"Abhorrent [...] blatant violation of academic freedom"
February 22, 2017 5:40 AM   Subscribe

An Iowa senate bill would require candidates for professor positions to disclose their political party registrations, and would prohibit state universities from hiring professors who would skew the "partisan balance" of the faculty by more than 10 percent in either direction.

The Republican senator who introduced the bill, Mark Chalgren, cites his concern about "extreme views on either side."

State Senator Herman Quirmbach, a Democrat, calls the bill "wackadoodle" and "completely unenforceable." Others have referred to the bill—similar to one recently blocked in North Carolina—as "outright fascist."

This bill comes on the heels of Iowa stripping virtually all collective bargaining rights from its public employees last week. Republicans gained control of both houses of the Iowa General Assembly as of January; Republican governor Terry Branstad was reelected in 2014.
posted by CheesesOfBrazil (93 comments total) 27 users marked this as a favorite
 
Great. I'll go file the papers to enroll in the John Birch Party, and put my name in for a position as an unpaid adjunct who teaches no classes. That oughta swing the pendulum far enough right that they can hire three or four honest-to-god Marxists. You're welcome, Iowa.
posted by Mayor West at 5:44 AM on February 22, 2017 [66 favorites]


It's like these people have never even heard of the Bill of Rights.
posted by soren_lorensen at 5:46 AM on February 22, 2017 [33 favorites]


I admittedly only skimmed the first link - but I'm going to assume this would only be for publically funded institutions. My undergrad was most likely 95% Republican, and even then only because the other 5% were something more conservative. They however had a long standing rejection of public funding, so they could basically do what they wanted.
posted by librarianamy at 5:49 AM on February 22, 2017 [1 favorite]


This guy sounds like a real peach.
posted by uncleozzy at 5:54 AM on February 22, 2017 [4 favorites]


Next, the curricula themselves will be screened for partisan content and balanced accordingly.

"I'm sorry, Professor Flagstaff, we cannot hire you to teach in our Biology department, as we only have an opening on the Sky Wizard Did It side of the house."
posted by delfin at 5:56 AM on February 22, 2017 [27 favorites]


Doesnt he know? There's nothing halfway about the Iowa way to teach you.
posted by condour75 at 5:57 AM on February 22, 2017 [2 favorites]


This fpp is like the perfect storm of shit to get MeFites' (including myself, I am quite literally frothing right now) ire up. Bravo, CheesesOfBrazil.
posted by Literaryhero at 5:59 AM on February 22, 2017 [8 favorites]


Almost like it was designed by scientists.

Thankfully, that'll be the last of that out of Iowa.
posted by schadenfrau at 6:05 AM on February 22, 2017 [3 favorites]


How could this possibly work? The language makes no sense, since the Iowa voter registration form allows for five options: No Party, Democratic, Republican, Green, and Libertarian. The "Other Party" threshold would force them to hire Greens and Libertarians until they were within 10% of parity with the major parties. Anything less would be unconstitutional under the Equal Protection clause.
posted by graymouser at 6:07 AM on February 22, 2017 [21 favorites]


every state law Republican propose in this country is weighed against how many liberals it will drive away from the state
posted by any major dude at 6:08 AM on February 22, 2017 [15 favorites]


How could this possibly work? The language makes no sense, since the Iowa voter registration form allows for five options: No Party, Democratic, Republican, Green, and Libertarian. The "Other Party" threshold would force them to hire Greens and Libertarians until they were within 10% of parity with the major parties. Anything less would be unconstitutional under the Equal Protection clause.

The bill's text does not use the words "Republican" or "Democrat" IIRC, but does specify that the party affiliations that count are those of the winner and the runner-up of presidential/gubernatorial races. (Whether that's constitutional, I don't know, but OTOH, who's gonna enforce stuff like that anymore?) The funny part is it'd really blow up in the IA GOP's face if Iowa somehow got itself a Jesse Ventura-type for governor with the Democrat coming in second.
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 6:11 AM on February 22, 2017 [7 favorites]


da faq
posted by oheso at 6:11 AM on February 22, 2017


The "Other Party" threshold would force them to hire Greens and Libertarians

The bill specifically defines "partisan balance" as "the balance between faculty members who declare a political affiliation with one of the two political parties whose candidates for president of the United States or for governor, as the case may be, received the largest and next largest number of votes at the last general election."

Which is to say that independents don't count in the calculations. Which is to say that this is (obviously) a stunt bill.
posted by uncleozzy at 6:11 AM on February 22, 2017 [9 favorites]


I know that "stunt bills" like this have been part of American politics for a long time, but have they become more common in today's hyperpartisan/Tea Party milieu?
posted by murphy slaw at 6:12 AM on February 22, 2017 [2 favorites]


Save us, Grinnell, you're our only hope!
posted by wenestvedt at 6:13 AM on February 22, 2017 [3 favorites]


The notion that campus conservatives are an oppressed minority, hounded on all sides by radical Marxist and anarchist faculty, turns up in a lot of letters to the editor in the student paper where I work. I think it's in the hymnal.
posted by thelonius at 6:25 AM on February 22, 2017 [25 favorites]


That pos is out of his little tiny, fundamentalist, christian terrorist mind. He makes rick santorum look sane.
posted by james33 at 6:26 AM on February 22, 2017 [1 favorite]


Conservative snowflakes never fail to amuse.
posted by longdaysjourney at 6:29 AM on February 22, 2017 [2 favorites]


Huh. My grandfather was a professor of mathematics at ISU as of 1921. Nothing particularly interesting in that except that in his day , he was a novelty, referred to as the university's token socialist.

Another time.
posted by BWA at 6:31 AM on February 22, 2017 [4 favorites]


Why don't they ever stop to think about why educators skew liberal?

Demanding more conservatives in a faculty is like demanding more pacifists in the military.
posted by explosion at 6:31 AM on February 22, 2017 [60 favorites]


This bill is useless. People without a party affiliation at the time of their hiring are exempted, and they sure as hell can't fire you for changing your affiliation after hire.
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:33 AM on February 22, 2017 [1 favorite]


Iowa has a pretty major university doesn't it? How much money does it bring into the state?
posted by Artw at 6:34 AM on February 22, 2017


Dear The United States of America

We are pleased that you have enjoyed your trial subscription to our Democracy™ product range. However, our records indicate that your use case is now in breach of the Terms of Service as stipulated in your license agreement. We regret to inform you that your subscription to Democracy™ has been cancelled with immediate effect, and your remaining subscription period has been added to a new Post-Right Fascism™ (Pat. Pending) account.

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Seriously, you guys: what the fuck is going on over there?
posted by prismatic7 at 6:37 AM on February 22, 2017 [68 favorites]


It'll probably be OK as long as they include the football staff, and weight for salary.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 6:37 AM on February 22, 2017 [16 favorites]


I think it's in the hymnal.

Seems to be page one of the conservative playbook, really. Convince a privileged group that it's oppressed so that it will fight tooth-and-nail to maintain the status quo.
posted by uncleozzy at 6:39 AM on February 22, 2017 [6 favorites]


(It should be noted for the observers, that this is completely a stunt bill, it's not actually for serious. I mean, I'm sure this particular guy in his fevered fantasies would love for this to happen--heck, he'd love it if everyone not exactly like him were to just vaporize overnight--but he's not actually under the impression that this is a thing that is actually going to happen. It's just to piss of liberals and rile up the base. The Republican Party across the country is mainly fueled by liberal tears at this point. They'll do and say anything if it'll piss off a liberal.)
posted by soren_lorensen at 6:41 AM on February 22, 2017 [13 favorites]


When I moved from Iowa to Utah back in 1998, I remember being surprised at how conservative the state was and how little regard they had for non-Mormon thought/politics/culture.

When I moved back to Iowa in 2006 I remember feeling liberated to move back to a state where political heterogeneity was the norm and government worked not on a partisan basis but actually for the people.

And ever since then, the Republicans in this state have been working to show how much they hate that idea.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 6:44 AM on February 22, 2017 [8 favorites]


See, republicans do support affirmative action.
posted by cichlid ceilidh at 6:44 AM on February 22, 2017 [39 favorites]


It should be noted for the observers, that this is completely a stunt bill, it's not actually for serious.

That's what a lot of people said about local politicians pushing stunt bills that criminalized abortion after Roe. I realize that you didn't actually say the word "ignore", but this guy and his fellow travelers would love it if the Left ignored this entirely, even more than they love the Liberal Tears reaction. They really would prefer to do this thing.

As I've said in other threads over the last month (Jesus, Chist, only a month...), this isn't a stunt, or a feint, or a distraction. It's a probe. If a probe punches through, it has the same effect as an actual attack, so the way to defeat a probe is not to ignore it and look at another front for the "real" attack. The way to defeat a probe is to destroy it, utterly, so they never try that front again.
posted by Etrigan at 6:49 AM on February 22, 2017 [54 favorites]


That probe metaphor really doesn't carry you too far. Nor do any other warlike metaphors. Whereas 'stunt' is just saying the bill is frivolous and intended as a political statement rather than practicable legislation.

This is not like an anti-abortion bill pushing back against Roe, as part of a much larger and more serious overarching abortion and women's rights dispute in American politics.

This bill truly is a farce, it would basically be a nullity if passed and as such it's likely to blow up in its sponsor's face if it does anything but deflate like a wet fart. The base might be entertained by the swipe at the "liberal professoriat" or whatever, but this is not part of some crafty long term plan. It's just a sop to the usual anti-intellectualism on the right.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:07 AM on February 22, 2017 [4 favorites]


It may be a stunt bill but I still want to bring it up in an Iowa legislative town hall Saturday - it's worth getting other Republicans on the record against it.
posted by jason_steakums at 7:08 AM on February 22, 2017 [8 favorites]


Aside from the stupidity of the proposal, there is this to consider:
1. A careful study of any large university reveals that left of center teachers are in humanities and arts. Conservative faulty in business, P.E. and a mix in sciences.
2. Any sane person applying for position would make sure he or she was registered as Independent.
3. There is bound to be someone who, failing to get a job, will sue.
4. State institutions receive a lot of money and grant funds from the federal govt., and even our new Trump nation might object.
5. Why apply to a place with a regulation like that if you have a firm belief in the basic founding principles of our nation?
posted by Postroad at 7:10 AM on February 22, 2017 [3 favorites]


That probe metaphor really doesn't carry you to far. Nor do any other warlike metaphors. Whereas 'stunt' is just saying the bill is frivolous and intended as a political statement rather than practicable legislation.

Oh well gosh, then it's not really a stunt either because it doesn't involve a rocket motorcycle. You know what I meant, which is why you said:

This is not like an anti-abortion bill pushing back against Roe, as part of a much larger and more serious overarching abortion and women's rights dispute in American politics. ... The base might be entertained by the swipe at the "liberal professoriat" or whatever, but this is not part of some crafty long term plan.

I disagree. I believe that abortion is unobtainable for all intents and purposes across vast swaths of the United States because there wasn't enough pushback on stunt bills and nibbling at the edges and thin wedges. People just rolled their eyes and ignored the wackadoos because they weren't sufficiently serious or mainstream, and look how that worked out.

Is it the first of a twelve-thousand-step plan in a binder of the basement of the American Family Association's war room? No, of course not. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't bother fighting it.
posted by Etrigan at 7:16 AM on February 22, 2017 [24 favorites]


A careful study of any large university reveals that left of center teachers are in humanities and arts. Conservative faulty in business, P.E. and a mix in sciences.

Indeed, considering who lives in Iowa, one wonders if the sponsor has to estimate the actual mix of affiliation at all three universities under the Regents, or whether he's just got a bug up his ass with the Writer's Workshop etc.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:17 AM on February 22, 2017 [3 favorites]


Oh well gosh, then it's not really a stunt either because it doesn't involve a rocket motorcycle. You know what I meant

Oh well gosh, nothing. I said what I said because intended the distinction. A stunt in this case is not a metaphor, it's the point. A political act. It's not a "probe" or a "feint" or any other tactical device.

You have a real problem with responding to disagreement with the substance of your comments with personal attacks on intent and style and I'd appreciate it if you'd find another way to go about that or just stop doing it.

I disagree.

Clearly.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:20 AM on February 22, 2017 [3 favorites]


I'm a graduate student at U of Iowa. I don't think anyone is particularly worried about this bill gaining any real traction but it does represent a really dangerous trend of ideas toward public institutions in this state.

What is much more on people's minds right now is the stripping of our collective bargaining rights.

Our graduate student union went into contract negotiations this week with the regents. We were handed a list of topics that we would no longer be able to bring up in the bargaining process - this list included health insurance, which we had to fight hard for 6 years ago.

There is nothing we can do, as we no longer have the rights we once had.

The regents are Branstad appointees who famously went around established rules to hire a president with no academic experience, who lied on his resume, and who had less than 5% faculty and student support. But hey, he was a business man who once turned around a chicken chain, so.

This is a great university and there is a lot of incredible research being done here. Whether that will remain the case seems quite uncertain. But hey, we've got a mediocre football team that costs us grips of money so it's all good.

/not bitter or angry
posted by Lutoslawski at 7:23 AM on February 22, 2017 [47 favorites]


See, republicans do support affirmative action.

One of the purposes of stunt bills like this is to "trick" liberals into admitting that affirmative action is bad, actually. It never works that way both because nobody's so dumb as to not see the trick and, more importantly, because there's a genuinely defensible rationale behind legitimate affirmative action campaigns.

Also, this is a stunt. Period. Even if passed, it's completely impossible to enforce.
posted by tobascodagama at 7:33 AM on February 22, 2017 [5 favorites]


The Republican senator who introduced the bill ...

Republicans ... Those are the "hurf-durf The Constitution" guys, right?
posted by ZenMasterThis at 7:37 AM on February 22, 2017


This will get worked just like anything else in business/academics that has quotas of some sort.

Do a bit of research, then declare for whatever ethnicity, orientation, community service an org/school is "unbalanced" upon.

The really odd thing here is that just about all of the declaration forms and applications have those questions in a "volunteer" section with some kind of "this will never be revealed; for research purposes only; this will not be considered in the application process" statement. Then of course, it IS used to "balance" workers/students on basis/quota du jour.

Is the tenure system next on the block?
posted by CrowGoat at 7:50 AM on February 22, 2017


Is the tenure system next on the block?

If Wisconsin is any guide, other ALEC-friendly states should expect tenure-weakening measures soon.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 7:57 AM on February 22, 2017 [7 favorites]


So this sort of thing, or even dumber and more awful stuff, gets introduced every year by one pinhead or another. The right thing to do is just ignore it unless and until it makes it out of a committee somewhere. Paying attention to and being concerned about the various dumbshit things that get introduced and never go anywhere is just a sure-fire ticket to major depression and an ulcer.

I disagree. I believe that abortion is unobtainable for all intents and purposes across vast swaths of the United States because there wasn't enough pushback on stunt bills and nibbling at the edges and thin wedges.

You're conflating two things with yet a third. There are the stunt bills that get passed, like when South Dakota periodically bans abortion after N weeks, that get an immediate injunction and are never enforced and get thrown out by courts. Then there are the thin-end bills that successfully restrict access to abortion not by over the top language and outright bans but by imposing requirements that, if you weren't paying attention, might seem not completely crazy. You didn't get the successful bills because people didn't yell enough about the silly ones.

This sort of stunt bill isn't even like the ones that pass in SD -- those pass, after all. This is even dumber shit than that.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:16 AM on February 22, 2017 [4 favorites]


"Okay, we'll drop the political parity requirements in exchange for outlawing tenure." See? Republicans aren't unreasonable, they know how to compromise!
posted by Big Al 8000 at 8:31 AM on February 22, 2017


It's just to piss of liberals and rile up the base.

It's also a message to academics that Iowa doesn't want them.
posted by theodolite at 8:41 AM on February 22, 2017 [8 favorites]


Freaking out over bills that are entirely formulated only to get a rise out of Democrats and that will never make it out of committee because they are blatantly unconstitutional right from the get-go is mission accomplished for these assholes. They are fueled by spite and because they think it's fun to upset people they regard as the enemy. This proposal upsets me, too. That's the sum total of the entire point of it.
posted by soren_lorensen at 8:41 AM on February 22, 2017 [6 favorites]


your remaining subscription period has been added to a new Post-Right Fascism™ (Pat. [Buchanan] Pending) account.
posted by mr. digits at 8:45 AM on February 22, 2017 [1 favorite]


What's baffling is how the pro-business wing of the party isn't shutting this nonsense down. The land-grant universities are *immensely* valuable to the states in which they reside. The amount of economic value flowing out of these schools through research, patents, start-ups is insane. They're certainly creating more jobs and wealth than almost any private company in the state.

Oh, and they're also fiercely in competition with each other for top talent. Talent that brings in even more money. Talent that does not need to put up with this kind of bullshit, and will happily open their lab in another state tomorrow if the incentives are right.

Why would you shoot a major economic engine in the foot like that? Can you imagine if a legislator undercut a private company who was a major employer in the state? They'd tar and feather him! How is this any different?
posted by leotrotsky at 9:13 AM on February 22, 2017 [22 favorites]


Yeah, you know, I'm sort of all done caring about these half-assed, unworkable trolly ideas people are always floating. If these guys were ten years old, I might patiently sit down with them and help them think through the implementations and work out for themselves why they wouldn't work.

But they're not ten years old, so to Mark Chalgren and that vaginal sealant guy also on the front page right now, I say go for it. Liquidate your assets, drop everything else in your life, and devote everything you've got to making your dreams come true. Don't listen to the haters. You can do this. Go for it!
posted by ernielundquist at 9:15 AM on February 22, 2017 [1 favorite]


The obvious solution is to register as a libertarian, as that could be perceived as either right or left wing (or neither) depending on how you look at it.
posted by metameat at 9:17 AM on February 22, 2017


Pretty sure that would be wildly unconstitutional.

And I'm getting to where we should rate politicians by how many unconstitutional things they promote. Christ, what an asshole.
posted by theora55 at 9:20 AM on February 22, 2017 [2 favorites]


One thing to consider: you have to be registered with a party to caucus in Iowa, as far as I can remember. so professors could register as Greens or whatever but then lose out on an important way of participating in partisan politics.
posted by dismas at 9:24 AM on February 22, 2017 [3 favorites]


This reminded me of Iowa's "State of Minds" motto from the 80's. I googled to see whatever happened to it and came up with this.
posted by DarkForest at 9:27 AM on February 22, 2017


Freaking out over bills that are entirely formulated only to get a rise out of Democrats and that will never make it out of committee because they are blatantly unconstitutional right from the get-go is mission accomplished for these assholes.

Sometimes they're written as intentional trolls, and I would expect that's the case this time (if only by the general reputation of the IA leg). Other times it'll be an entirely sincere effort from a doofus who just doesn't know any better (ie, if this had happened in the NH House, which is basically the Mos Eisley of state legislatures).
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:28 AM on February 22, 2017 [2 favorites]


Republicans ... Those are the "hurf-durf The Constitution" guys, right?

The "My guns have more rights than your uterus" folks, yes.
posted by Celsius1414 at 9:43 AM on February 22, 2017 [2 favorites]


Legislation by trolling is going to get America in big trouble sooner or later. Either legislators are going to come to actual violence or, just through sheer numbers, some of these bills are going to be enacted because of timing and people-not-taking-them-seriously. It's not a responsible thing to do.

You want to piss people off? Get a blog. Don't run for Congress.
posted by newdaddy at 9:49 AM on February 22, 2017


Well, hey, at least it's a good potential entry point into discussions about the dangers of building party control mechanisms and purity tests in any form, whether ostensibly to force "balance" or not into classrooms or other apolitical civic institutions. In history, they've basically always been exploited by authoritarians and despots to oppress ideological opponents of the state. The reality is, you can't force faculties to maintain a quota system on political party affiliation because the real truth that academic study should be concerned with isn't necessarily political, and it's been demonstrated that sometimes parties form around falsehoods and overtly anti-scientific and anti-intellectual beliefs. You can't force universities to hire faculty that's really likely to systematically bias information from a partisan perspective. You don't correct for one possible bias in a system by introducing as many other possible biases as you can and crossing your fingers they all cancel each other out.
posted by saulgoodman at 9:53 AM on February 22, 2017


Sure, by convention, we call the two parties oppositional parties, but there's no reason to think their agendas and beliefs and other priorities actually balance each other out in practice. They're only really oppositional to each other, in terms of potential biasing effects, in the sense that both sides are trying to gain power for whatever their current agendas happen to be.
posted by saulgoodman at 9:58 AM on February 22, 2017


Entertainingly, this would appear to make it impossible to have a faculty of less than 10 people.
posted by jaduncan at 10:07 AM on February 22, 2017 [1 favorite]


I don't think this one is going to pass, but it's indicative of a pretty viciously anti-higher-ed mood in the state legislature, and that's going to be reflected in all sorts of real legislation. We're already dealing with massive budget cuts, and that's just the beginning. And it's really sad, because people in this state should be proud of the higher ed system here, and it seems to me that they mostly are. I think the newly-Republican legislature may be overplaying their hand here, although maybe that's wishful thinking.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 10:09 AM on February 22, 2017 [11 favorites]


One thing to consider: you have to be registered with a party to caucus in Iowa, as far as I can remember. so professors could register as Greens or whatever but then lose out on an important way of participating in partisan politics.
This could all change soon, but for the moment, we have same-day registration. So you could register as a Democrat for caucus day, then the next day go to the auditor's office and re-register as no-party. But I don't think it matters, because it's a stupid, stupid, stupid stunt bill that isn't going to pass and would, I think, be unconstitutional even if it did.

Someone proposed that they need to have a similar law requiring the same kind of political balance in local police departments. I wonder how that would go over!
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 10:13 AM on February 22, 2017 [9 favorites]


I don't think this one is going to pass, but it's indicative of a pretty viciously anti-higher-ed mood in the state legislature, and that's going to be reflected in all sorts of real legislation. We're already dealing with massive budget cuts, and that's just the beginning. And it's really sad, because people in this state should be proud of the higher ed system here, and it seems to me that they mostly are. I think the newly-Republican legislature may be overplaying their hand here, although maybe that's wishful thinking.

Same deal in North Carolina. Our solons maybe think that high-tech employers come here because they like NASCAR and barbeque so much? That's not why.
posted by thelonius at 10:32 AM on February 22, 2017 [2 favorites]


thelonius: Our solons maybe think that high-tech employers come here because they like NASCAR and barbeque so much?

That, and they like the economic incentives and tax breaks. /not really fake

I wish someone would campaign for changing education systems on the catchy phrase "train students today for tomorrow's jobs." You want more tech start-ups? Focus investments on tech fields. More medical innovations? Focus on the sciences.

Of course, it's hard to campaign on a long game, when you can just be a (knee)jerk today.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:39 AM on February 22, 2017 [1 favorite]


ArbitraryAndCapricious: Someone proposed that they need to have a similar law requiring the same kind of political balance in local police departments. I wonder how that would go over!

Ditto in journalism! Oh wait, Saint Ronnie had that one killed.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:40 AM on February 22, 2017


This particular dingdong also wanted to have college instructors fight Survivor-style to keep their own jobs, based on student evaluations (which tend to punish instructors who are hard graders, minorities, and women).

There have been bills mooted in Iowa and Missouri to end tenure.

Fun times.
posted by dhens at 10:50 AM on February 22, 2017 [3 favorites]


honest, equitable, and balanced use of public airwaves was what the Fairness Doctrine required, not party affiliation tests. We're so blinkered by partisan thinking we literally can't even get outside of it anymore to remember reality is a precedent to it. Objectivity in reporting isn't always possible because news stories are written by and about people and people exist subjectively, too. But that doesn't matter. You still shouldn't be allowed to portray falsehoods as facts to further a political point of view on public airwaves. It's harder to untangle misleading narratives, but to be fair, those aren't always constructed deliberately to mislead. Sometimes we really do just get lost in unreliable narratives accidentally. This isn't comparable to the Fairness Doctrine. That law said nothing explicitly that assumed the current party biases were somehow universal and absolute or even necessary.
posted by saulgoodman at 10:59 AM on February 22, 2017 [2 favorites]


Part of me looks at bills like this, or the Handmaiden's Tale-esque shit they pull in Texas, and thinks "thank god the left doesn't play political football with minority party voters." Then my lizard brain kicks in and I wonder, "Wait, why doesn't the left do something like this in extremely-blue states, and then use it as leverage?" Like, the New York legislature could introduce a bill that says sure, it's fine to own assault weapons, but to qualify for a permit you have to attend a 3-day Ani Difranco one-lady-show and then score a 75% on the test about it. And then they could dangle it like a big pink sword of Damocles over the vast swathes of upstate voters who would be incandescently angry about it, and wouldn't it be a SHAME if all those god-fearing folk had to be subjected to that, but maybe if Iowa stops doing stupid shit kike this we'll make sure it gets killed in committee.

In conclusion, vote for me in the midterm elections and I promise to bring a whole lot more unreasonable contrarianism to the table.
posted by Mayor West at 11:16 AM on February 22, 2017 [9 favorites]


And then they could dangle it like a big pink sword of Damocles over the vast swathes of upstate voters who would be incandescently angry about it, and wouldn't it be a SHAME if all those god-fearing folk had to be subjected to that, but maybe if Iowa stops doing stupid shit like this we'll make sure it gets killed in committee.
Hmmm. I think the problem here is with the assumption that people in Iowa care what happens to anyone in New York.

There is *a lot* of anger at state legislators in Iowa right now, because they've just gutted collective bargaining rights for public sector unions, and that affects really a lot of people all throughout the state. We'll see if anything comes of it, but people are packing town hall meetings and listening posts, and I think there's some potential to gain ground in the 2018 statehouse elections. The state Indivisible group is really focused on that goal.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 11:28 AM on February 22, 2017 [6 favorites]


Paying attention to and being concerned about the various dumbshit things that get introduced and never go anywhere is just a sure-fire ticket to major depression and an ulcer.

Disagree. If I hear about MY congress person wasting effort on symbolic stunts like this, dead in committee or no, I'm not just going to shrug it off. Right Derek Kilmer? Right. (He actually seems to be doing a decent job)
posted by ctmf at 11:34 AM on February 22, 2017


Why only professors of public universities? Why not party equity in police officers and public school teachers as well?
posted by soelo at 12:26 PM on February 22, 2017 [5 favorites]


"Why not police officers" didn't make them reconsider the collective bargaining stuff that the cops and other emergency workers were exempted from (if collective bargaining is so bad surely you'd be helping the police...). The truth is they haven't thought about "why not X" for even a second, it's just dogma to them that professors are corrupting our kids with communism or whatever, and school teachers are... just better at negotiations than Republican legislators so the Rs need to play with a handicap, I guess?
posted by jason_steakums at 12:46 PM on February 22, 2017


Why not party equity in police officers and public school teachers as well?

How about elected officials? Surely we should keep out politicians who would skew the "partisan balance" of the Iowa legislature by more than 10 percent in either direction.
posted by leotrotsky at 12:56 PM on February 22, 2017 [4 favorites]


Why only professors of public universities? Why not party equity in police officers and public school teachers as well?

Because they own the former and already broke the latter.
posted by Etrigan at 12:57 PM on February 22, 2017 [4 favorites]


Get ready to learn about the importance of phlogiston, college scienticians

It's kind of overrated, to be honest.
posted by dephlogisticated at 12:58 PM on February 22, 2017 [6 favorites]


"Why not police officers" didn't make them reconsider the collective bargaining stuff that the cops and other emergency workers were exempted from (if collective bargaining is so bad surely you'd be helping the police...). The truth is they haven't thought about "why not X" for even a second, it's just dogma to them that professors are corrupting our kids with communism or whatever, and school teachers are... just better at negotiations than Republican legislators so the Rs need to play with a handicap, I guess?

Funny story. When all the shit in Wisconsin went down, the cops and firefighters were excluded from all the collective bargaining shenanigans. You know, to make sure the cops wouldn't let the protestors basically hang them. Then a year later later, the WI legislature fucked them and stripped their rights. Nobody cared. The unions were already dead.

Literally, "then they came for me and there was nobody left to speak for me".
posted by Talez at 12:59 PM on February 22, 2017 [17 favorites]


How about elected officials? Surely we should keep out politicians who would skew the "partisan balance" of the Iowa legislature by more than 10 percent in either direction.

Ok now I want to start up a video series of mock legislative sessions as replies to our own legislators, that's just nothing but sarcastic stunt bills. Just an entire fake legislature keeping pace with the real shitshow all session, fill up an auditorium with anyone who wants to be a fake representative.
posted by jason_steakums at 1:01 PM on February 22, 2017 [2 favorites]


Funny story. When all the shit in Wisconsin went down, the cops and firefighters were excluded from all the collective bargaining shenanigans. You know, to make sure the cops wouldn't let the protestors basically hang them. Then a year later later, the WI legislature fucked them and stripped their rights. Nobody cared. The unions were already dead.
Iowa cops and firefighters are very aware of this funny story, which is why they fought the collective bargaining law really hard, even though it exempted "public safety workers." They're 100% aware that they're next, which they are.

But this is a publicity stunt, rather than an actual proposal that anyone expects to pass. It's targeting college professors because college professors make good scapegoats. Cops don't make good scapegoats, because Republicans like law and order. And K-12 teachers don't make good scapegoats because most people know K-12 teachers and don't give a shit about their politics.

There is, for what it's worth, a rule that says that there has to be partisan balance on the Board of Regents that oversees Iowa's public universities. There are nine members, and no more than five can be of the same party. In the past, that meant that there were near-equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans. Now, that means that there are near-equal numbers of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. (There are five Republicans, three independents, and one Democrat.) There also has to be gender parity on the Board of Regents, which raises the fascinating possibility that they could require that of professors at public universities. That would be a trip.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 1:09 PM on February 22, 2017 [4 favorites]


LOL. Party that abhors quotas sets quotas for people who shouldn't need them....

These are government positions. This is unconstitutional.
posted by Mental Wimp at 1:48 PM on February 22, 2017 [2 favorites]


I'm in Australia, but I swear about half our faculty are Americans and I learned last year they are all registered as Republicans even though they are the leftiest lefties that ever lefted, soy they can vote in Republican primaries and "keep the really terrible ones out".

If this trend is true in the USA as well, Im guessing universities would suddenly have to hire a bunch of registered Democrats if this bill went through.
posted by lollusc at 2:29 PM on February 22, 2017 [1 favorite]


Even if a state collects party registration (only like 60 percent of them do), they may still hold open or semi-closed primaries. Some states have a open primary for one major party and a closed one for the other. There are other models like California and Washington's jungle primaries where the top two primary vote-getters move on to the general election.

Iowa is technically closed but "Only voters affiliated with a particular party may vote in its primary. Any voter may change party on the day of the primary election."
posted by soelo at 2:57 PM on February 22, 2017


This reminded me of Iowa's "State of Minds" motto from the 80's. I googled to see whatever happened to it and came up with this.
posted by DarkForest at 11:27 AM on February 22


Lifelong Iowan here, but my mom was a straight-from-central-casting tough'n'tender nurse, trained in Philadelphia in the early Sixties, and a veteran. She made brutal fun of that stupid slogan.

And now I'm nursing a beer and simultaneously wishing I could have heard her tear Trump a new one and feeling relieved she didn't have to deal with that fucking prickly. She died over 20 years ago.

I think every day of the time she told me, age 11, that she loved stoplights because she could watch other drivers and make up stories of where they came from, where they were going. She was an exemplar of empathy that would, I hope, shame the granny starvers of this shitty timeline. God how I miss her, and how I need her strength these days.
posted by Caxton1476 at 5:11 PM on February 22, 2017 [7 favorites]


Sorry, that was of topic, kinda.

On topic: I learned SO MUCH from my conservative Shakespeare prof and SO MUCH from my liberal Chaucer prof that losing either on account of an ideology test would have seriously impoverished my education. At the U of Northern Iowa, that little gem in the shadow of Iowa's R-I megaschools.
posted by Caxton1476 at 5:47 PM on February 22, 2017 [2 favorites]


And now, guns on Iowa campuses. As Claudius said, "Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out."
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 5:57 AM on February 23, 2017 [4 favorites]


That's lazy reporting. The bill linked appears to allow people with existing permits to have access to their guns in their cars (i.e. it only applies to the parking lots/structures, and allows the weapon to be accessible or carried instead of locked in a box, etc).
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:37 AM on February 23, 2017


The bill linked appears to allow people with existing permits to have access to their guns in their cars (i.e. it only applies to the parking lots/structures, and allows the weapon to be accessible or carried instead of locked in a box, etc).

It's a little more than that -- it allows anyone to carry openly in a parking lot, not just keep a firearm in their cars, by adding to the category of people allowed to carry on-campus:
A person who has in the person's possession a valid permit to carry weapons issued pursuant to section 724.7 and remains on the portion of the grounds of the school that comprise its parking lot while going armed with, carrying, or transporting a firearm.
posted by Etrigan at 7:47 AM on February 23, 2017


Not anyone, but people with carry permits. (Of course, that's probably not hard in Iowa.) And you can't carry it off the parking lot....unless you're walking off school property, I suppose. Seems pretty clearly intended to allow people with carry permits to have their gun accessible in and around their cars.

I still think it's a shitty bill, this isn't how you prevent assaults in parking lots, but it's not going to allow open-carry militia ethnostate types to bring their AR-15s to sociology lecture.
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:16 AM on February 23, 2017 [1 favorite]


This Chelgren guy is the gift that just keeps on giving:
Iowa lawmaker's alleged alma mater is actually a company that operated a Sizzler steak house franchise
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 12:08 PM on March 1, 2017 [3 favorites]


This Chelgren guy is the gift that just keeps on giving:
Iowa lawmaker's alleged alma mater is actually a company that operated a Sizzler steak house franchise


Jesus he has shark teeth in that picture.
posted by jason_steakums at 12:20 PM on March 1, 2017


His FB page still says he has a degree from UC Riverside. [archive link]
posted by snuffleupagus at 12:53 PM on March 1, 2017


Whoa, also formerly some kind of creepy gonzo roadie known as Chickenman.

From 2015:
Iowa State Sen. Mark Chelgren Suggests Death Penalty for Some Immigrant Felons
posted by snuffleupagus at 1:03 PM on March 1, 2017


Actually, not a degree but his "education," with no mention of the community college.
posted by snuffleupagus at 1:23 PM on March 1, 2017


Iowa State Senate Republicans are a lovely bunch, here's an article raising hackles here on the west side of the state right now and what it doesn't say, for people not in his district, is that Bertrand is not just a developer but a state senator. Hmm, state senator keeps getting development projects approved, certainly there are no ethical concerns there...

Also, the guy has a whole lot of time do the development gig, I really wish he could find the time in his side job as a legislator to show up and face his constituents...
posted by jason_steakums at 1:25 PM on March 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


Chelgren is up for reelection in 2018, and he's totally beatable. He won his first election, in 2010, by ten votes, and he won by fewer than 400 votes (out of a total 20,000 cast) in 2014. He benefits from being up for reelection in non-Presidential years, which typically benefits Republicans, but the Democrats really should be able to beat him with some organization. I don't know that anyone in his district is going to care about Sizzler University, but he's a total buffoon on so many levels that he should be vulnerable.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:49 PM on March 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


We now go live to Sen. Chelgren's alma mater for a response

[fake]
[well, the video is real, but whether Chelgren had anything to do with it? We may never know.]
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 3:03 AM on March 2, 2017


The stupid campus carry bill provision seems to be dead. We're still going to get a stupid gun law, but it won't include that stupid provision. So that's something.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 4:59 PM on March 2, 2017 [2 favorites]


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