by Bethany Kohoutek

No white smoke wafted from the State Capitol building on the evening of Monday, April 10, but what ensued inside the meeting rooms of the Senate's Republican caucus carried elements of suspense and secrecy reminiscent of a papal election or a Dan Brown novel. Sources describe a carefully crafted election, secret ballots, the ousting of a longtime leader, backroom negotiations and 11th-hour power plays.

And, when the 25 Republican Iowa Senators emerged three hours later, a new leader in Sen. Mary Lundby, who is not only believed to be the first woman to ever lead Senate Republicans, but who also is miles away on the GOP spectrum from her predecessor, Sen. Stewart Iverson.

The coup, which has shocked political analysts, Democrats and even many Republicans, comes in the waning days of a legislative session that will likely be remembered for the TouchPlay gambling machine debate and a salary scandal at a Central Iowa workforce development agency. Taxpayer compensation for elected officials' salaries and per diems ended more than a week ago, which means lawmakers have to foot their own bills for working into late April and beyond.
"I cannot remember another time where, in the middle of the session, there was a change in leaders," says Gordon Fischer, a Des Moines attorney and former chair of the Iowa Democratic Party.

"It's very unusual..." agrees Steffen Schmidt (right), an Iowa State University political science professor who's watched the situation unfold, "especially at a critical moment like this, when they're trying to work out a budget and wrap up the session."
Lundby (left) , a 58-year-old Republican from Marion who has spent nearly two decades in the Iowa legislature, is a woman of commanding stature, with cropped brownish hair and a wide smile. She beat a nasty bout with cancer a year ago, and came back swinging; her reputation as a survivor in what can be a cutthroat political environment precedes her. Since her election to the Senate's top seat, she's been described by colleagues and media as "brash," "independent," "scrappy," "urban," "maverick" and "aggressive."

The omnipresent adjective attached to her name, however, is "moderate." One of the hallmarks of Lundby's tenure in the legislature is her willingness to cross the aisle to support issues like renewable energy, environmental protections and gay rights. She's even expressed interest in raising certain taxes (such as the cigarette tax), and in upping the minimum wage, something Democrats have been advocating all session.

However, these traits haven't exactly endeared Lundby to members of the GOP's old guard, including Iverson. It's a dichotomy that could have broad implications for the Republican Party - broader, perhaps, than can be grasped in the mere two weeks since Lundby took the reigns.

After enjoying outright control of the Iowa Senate for a decade, things changed in the 2004 election. Republicans found themselves sharing power with the Democrats in a rare 25-25 co-majority. And today the GOP is staring down the barrel of what everyone agrees will be an even more challenging election. Four Republicans are relinquishing their Senate seats, and for the first time in 10 years, it looks as though Democrats could be poised to take a majority command of the Senate.

Add to that the bad press trickling westward from Washington D.C. - a president whose approval ratings droop with every body bag shipped home from an increasingly unpopular war, a GOP-controlled Congress that is sliding in opinion polls in terms of its ability to keep Americans safe, and scandals rocking beltway Republicans like former U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay and lobbyist Jack Abramoff - and state Republicans have their work cut out for them in the months leading up to November 2.

Most Senate Republicans have been understandably vague as to the exact reasoning behind their party's last-minute switch-up, and they maintain a positive public façade when discussion turns to the upcoming elections. By way of explanation, Lundby, who refused to talk with Cityview for this story, said on the April 14 edition of "Iowa Press," a political program on Iowa Public Television, that "a growing discontent with the direction of the caucus" had been bubbling among the senators.

"[A] majority of the senators in the Republican caucus felt that we needed a stronger message and a more consistent message and a message that addressed all of Iowans' concerns," she said.

But others believe the dramatic upset in leadership suggests a GOP identity crisis that runs much deeper than merely the desire to put a fresh face on the party.
"It can really only signal one thing: that they want to take the party in a different direction," Fischer says. "And of course, that means they think they were headed in the wrong direction before."

Republicans, of course, deny the existence of any substantive chasm among party ranks. The Republican Speaker of the House, Rep. Chris Rants, says the transition from Iverson to Lundby has been smooth, and that Republicans at the Capitol are "standing as one group."

"I don't know anything about any rift," he adds. "If you're looking for why the Senate took certain actions, I think it has more to do with internal politics than any philosophical decision. No one knows who voted for who... Reporters will never have that number right. It's a secret ballot. All the speculation is speculation. I don't think there is any rift that needs to be healed."

But Schmidt believes otherwise. As a longtime observer of state and national politics, he says the signs are clear. Upsets like the one in the Iowa Senate rarely - if ever - are random and benign occurrences.

"It really is an indication, a surface indication, that the Republicans are divided," Schmidt says. "It has been going on all year, but nobody thought it could come to this. It's just kind of a demoralized party... They're not sure where they are going or how they are going to get there."

Rep. Rants is correct in his assertion that no one, save Iowa's 25 Republican Senators, will ever know for sure what happened in Senate chambers on April 10. But other sources tell Cityview that intra-party squabbles and power plays in the days and months leading up to the coup offer meaningful insight into the motivations behind it. They say the process was set into motion immediately after the 2004 election, when Republicans lost their majority grip on the Senate and were forced to share control of the chamber with the Democrats. This proved unsettling for more than a few Senators, who feared their power would slip even more in 2006, and it effectively set the stage for the search for a new leader.

At one point, says one senator who spoke with us on the condition of anonymity, there was an effort underway to elect Senate Republican Co-President Jeff Lamberti as leader, but "essentially, there weren't the votes there to pull that off,"

The movement to replace Iverson gained steam midway through the session, this individual says, when Sen. John Putney seemingly innocuously relinquished his post as assistant leader of the Senate Republicans, and Lundby was elected to the position.

"[Putney] elevated her at that point," our source says. "He individually, in my opinion, worked his caucus to find her the votes [to become caucus leader]. At the same time, [Sen.] Larry McKibben, an arch-conservative, was working his [supporters] for the conservative vote.

"You've got 24 individuals, and it is split almost exactly between the conservative sect and the not-so-conservative sect."

Senate Republicans planned to hold an election for a new leader at the end of the legislative session, sources say, but the TouchPlay dispute cast an unexpected wrench in their plans - and proved to be Iverson's coup de grace.

According to our source inside the Senate, Iverson was actively brokering a deal that would grant small-business owners more time to remove the TouchPlay gambling machines after the state legislature banned them in mid-March - an allowance Lundby vehemently opposed.

When Iverson announced to his caucus that the agreement was nearly finalized, the senators decided to speed up their plans to show him the door, Cityview's source reports.

"Stew had wind that this was going to happen. He threw the gauntlet down," and an election was held, this senator says. After a no-confidence vote passed against Iverson, Sens. Lundby and McKibben squared off for leadership of the party. Varying sources report Lundby's margin of victory at either one or two votes.

(Lundby's office claims there are inaccuracies in this account - parts of which were reported last week in Cityview's Civic Skinny column - but refused to specify them.)

For his part, Iverson doesn't reveal whether TouchPlay had anything to do with his expulsion. He says the April 10 election was held merely because he caught on to the end-of-session plans to oust him.

"[T]hey had to move it up because I found out about it, and they were concerned that I might peel off a few of them..." Iverson says. "They had to do it now. Timing is a lot of it. Whether they thought through it all, frankly, I don't know.

"To be blunt, I think some of it was that, for a few people, it was more personal than anything else. The way I put it is that in politics, your friends will come and go, but your enemies will just pile up. A lot of people do a lot of things to get power. And that position does have an enormous amount of power, and you have to be very judicious with that power."

During his glory days, Iverson was a veritable fundraising machine. The ousted senator broke money-gathering records throughout his decade at the helm of the caucus. During the last election cycle, he says, he raised more campaign cash than his 24 fellow Republican senators combined - which makes the timing of his ouster even stranger.

"Fundraising is a huge part of this [position]," Iverson says. "Being in that position for a number of years, frankly... you have to work at it."

Iverson is an old-school Republican. A farmer from Clarion, his interests are rural, socially conservative and fiscally libertarian. As head of the Senate Republicans, he played a key role in recruiting the candidates who will run this November, and many of them have been groomed in his stead. Already, the new class of Iowa Senate hopefuls is out door-knocking and glad-handing.

"The problem is that [Lundby] is coming into this very late, as the session is winding down," Fischer observes. "She is going to have to raise a lot of money in a short period of time, a lot of candidates to get familiar with, and to get the caucus unified in short period of time. That is really going to be a problem for her."

While Iverson, like his colleagues, denies the existence of discord in the party, he will say that the more-centrist Lundby, with whom he is "not exactly on the same page with [on] many, many issues," could face certain challenges in leading the candidates to victory.

"I have a great deal of sympathy for the candidates," he says. "Most ran on getting to know me and my style. ... Some are very concerned about it. We had a structure in place to help the candidates on stuff, and I don't know what becomes of that now. Can it be done? Yes. But it will take an extreme amount of work. It takes time to build relationships."

Iverson's ultra-conservative credentials and Senate-leader status quickly earned him the powerful backing of influential, like-minded interest groups that contributed significantly to his fundraising prowess.

"I would say that it sent shivers down the backs of groups like Iowans for Tax Relief, a very conservative group that has always had its way with Stewart, and Mary is not close to them," says Cityview's source inside the Senate. "And also groups that have been very pro-business, groups like the Farm Bureau, the Iowa Motor Truck Association, the Iowa Bankers Association and other arch-conservative groups. They lost access big time that day, because Stewart was such a product of what they wanted."

"People - especially Republicans - like to dance with the one that brought them," agrees Jerry Crawford, a local attorney and longtime Democratic activist. "The truth of the matter is Stew has maintained a majority for a long time. He never failed the majority."

And yet, Crawford adds, it may be more difficult to pin a label on Lundby than people expect. There's no way, so early in her leadership, to measure her potential impact on the party - or on the upcoming election.

"I think she is a little like John McCain in that she is hard to categorize," he says. "She obviously carried water for the business community when they refused to approve [Governor Tom Vilsack's] appointment for industrial commissioner, and yet she has been a champion for gay rights in her tenure."

Lundby seems aware of the challenges before her, and she told "Iowa Press" she's "perfectly confident" that groups like Iowans for Tax Relief will "come about."

While she's been busy finagling end-of-session business with Senate Democrats and Vilsack, however, the media has been awash in dire predictions for her party's election prospects. Days after Lundby assumed control, a front-page cartoon in the Des Moines Register portrayed a haggard elephant approaching a graveyard littered with bones and skulls, and a sign that read "MIDTERMS."

"I had to tell my caucus that I wasn't the silver bullet that some had implied. I didn't pick any of these candidates, and some people are worried that I don't have enough money in the bank," Lundby admitted on "Iowa Press." "I have - in the late '80s and early '90s, I took a Republican Party that had no financial support, had been in the minority for many, many, many years. And I haven't forgotten everything just because I've gotten a little older."

Cullen Sheehan, executive director of the Iowa Republican Party, says when it comes down to filling in the bubbles on their ballot sheets, Iowans won't base their decisions on the name of the person who heads the Senate Republicans. He believes they're astute enough to weigh candidates on their ability to address local and district concerns. He doesn't put much stock in the rumblings of midterm doom dogging the party; on the contrary, he feels "pretty good, actually" about the elections.

"Frankly, it's the candidates themselves that decide where they're at on issues, and Mary's influence is more to recruit good people and not necessarily tell candidates where they're going to stand on an issue. So I don't think that has much of an effect..." he says. "From our perspective, it doesn't matter who sits there; we just want to work together in a joint effort and try to hopefully take outright control of the Senate.

Heading into November, Republicans may have bigger things to worry about than a mid-session Senate switch-up. After all, most Iowans can't name their city council members, let alone the players in their state caucus.

The most recent opinion poll shows President Bush's approval rating at an all-time low of 33 percent - and that's according to a survey commissioned by the conservative Fox News. The poll revealed that much of the discontent with the commander in chief hinges on the Iraq war, but respondents also expressed concern about the economy and other domestic issues. What's more, only a quarter of Americans approve of the job the GOP-controlled Congress is doing.

"It seems clear that many Republicans, while they may still like and support George Bush, are growing uneasy with what may happen to their candidates - and the policies they support - in the November elections," John Gorman, chairman of the polling firm, Opinion Dynamics, told Fox News. "This unease about the direction of the party is now showing up as an erosion of the near-unanimous support Bush has enjoyed among the Republican rank-and-file for the last six years."

Locally, opinions are mixed as to whether the national dirt will soil the image of state Republicans on November 2. House Speaker Rants acknowledges he's "worried about the national mood," but says Iowans are "smart enough to know the difference between the U.S. Congress and the Iowa House."

"The Democrats are being hypercritical of the President," he says. "And that's having an impact: The President's numbers are down, and that usually hurts the party... So the challenge for Republicans is to make sure that people understand that we're your local guys, and frankly, we'll have a good record of accomplishments to talk about."

Iowa State's Schmidt says the national climate, historically, has a negligible impact on Iowa races, both for incumbents and challengers. But he thinks 2006 could buck the trend.

"Political scientists are uncertain right now if this will be one of the unusual years when the national scene does, in fact, come down and infect or affect the electoral process" he says. "It could be that this year, because Iraq is such a big thing, it might have an impact on state elections."
Some onlookers say this puts gubernatorial candidate and current U.S. Rep. Jim Nussle in a perilous position. Other Congressional and even some state Republican candidates throughout the country are conveniently dropping Bush and the Iraq war - sure-fire topics guaranteed to rouse the party faithful two years ago - from stump speeches; Nussle, on the other hand, seems unafraid of currying favor with the President. Democrats are clearly eager to pounce on the Congressman for his ties to the White House, where he is believed to be one of the lawmakers closest personally with Bush.

"I think Nussle is making a gigantic mistake by not distancing himself from President Bush," says Fischer. "Maybe he's been such a loyal rubber stamp of Bush that he has no choice. But other candidates across the country are literally running from Bush, and when you're in the thirties in terms of approval rating, that's not hard to understand."

Republicans, meanwhile, point to the fact that Nussle's campaign received a massive injection of cash and grassroots support when Bush came to town to press flesh with Nussle diehards.

"I think when you look at the fact that the Nussle campaign was able to get a thousand people out and raise a million dollars, that shows how much support he does have," Sheehan says. "I think the Democrats tried to stage a rally and had 100 people. While many people may disagree with the president on some issues, I think overall they think he is going a pretty good job, and a very tough job.

"I don't think that will reflect on Jim Nussle."

One thing is certain: It won't take a strong political wind to rattle the delicate balance that exists precariously in both chambers, Crawford says.

"A three- or four-point swing because of what is going on nationally may not sound like that big of a thing, but if you're talking about the difference between a 49-51 House or a 25-25 Senate, that's a huge factor. But I think we're too far away from November to know exactly how big a factor."

For the time being, Lundby has more imminent things to think about than the latest Fox News poll, President Bush's approval rating or even the next class of freshman senators. The session is dragging out longer than Iowa lawmakers had hoped, and as of press time, negotiations regarding the state's budget had squeaked to a impasse, with members of both parties at loggerheads over issues like teacher pay raises and tax cuts for senior citizens.

Senate Democratic leader Mike Gronstal, who has been negotiating the state budget with Lundby and Vilsack all week, compliments Lundby's "very good political instincts," but warns that her election to the position of leader is more of a marketing tool than a substantive change in the party. He points to the initial hope among Democrats that with Lundby's leadership would come a renewed chance at elevating Iowa's minimum wage, but the proposal was shot down by Senate Republicans a day after Democrats brought it up.

"I think the Senate Republicans are a little more hopeful that this next campaign cycle will be a little more favorable," he says, "although I don't think there's much evidence to support that. Putting a person that has a reputation as a moderate in charge of a caucus that is essentially out of touch with ordinary Iowans... doesn't change the fact that they're still a caucus that is out of touch and has quit listening."

"The Democrats have been preaching doom and gloom for years," House Speaker Rants replies. "By the end of the session, [Republicans] will have put some policy in place... I'm confident Republicans will have a good record of results they will be able to run on in November."

As for the new leader herself, Lundby seems to be honing her rallying cry for the summer stump season.

"I'm going to go out, I'm going to do the best job I can, and I'm going to hang tough in those negotiations along with the House Republicans," she told "Iowa Press." "And I'm going to deliver to the people of Iowa, with my caucus behind me, a fair budget without excessive spending, a strong tax-relief package for Iowans, and then I'm going to go out on the campaign trail and deliver a message of unity." CV

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