(Atlantic, Iowa) – The Cass County Board of Supervisors will meet today at 8-a.m. to accept the resignation of longtime County Auditor Dale Sunderman.  Afterward, the Board are expected to act on appointing a person to fill the vacancy position. That person will serve the remainder of Sunderman’s term, which expires at the end of the year.

You may recall, that on February 16, Sunderman submitted his resignation letter to the Board of Supervisors after serving for more than 37-years.

Dale Sunderman (Official Cass County photo)

(Radio Iowa)  – Republican Senator Joni Ernst says President Biden’s pick for the U.S. Supreme Court is a highly qualified attorney, but Ernst says she cannot vote to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson nomination. “Perhaps my greatest issue with Judge Jackson is her lack of adherence to a judicial philosophy,” Ernst says. Ernst says as a member of the Senate, she will only vote for justices who pledge to be an originalist and interpret words in the Constitution based on their meaning at the time the document was adopted in 1788.

“If a justice’s legal interpretation has no philosophical grounding, that provides flexibility for a justice to bend their thinking to achieve a desired outcome,” Ernst says. “…We have enough politicians in the legislative branch. We don’t need any in the courts, especially the Supreme Court.”

Ernst, who met with Jackson on March 30th, says the judge showed grace under pressure during last week’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. But Ernst says Jackson’s answer when asked to define a woman was troubling.  “The judge responded that she’s not a biologist,” Ernst said. “…”While I’m grateful Judge Jackson believes science is the basis for determining a woman, I’m deeply concerned that a fellow woman, who is set to define the contours of laws that are specific to women, has to even think about an answer to that question.”

Ernst made her remarks during a speech on the Senate floor on Tuesday. Iowa’s other U.S. Senator, Chuck Grassley, also plans to vote against Jackson’s nomination. Jackson is on a clear path to joining the nation’s highest court, as three other Republicans in the Senate have announced they’ll join with Democrats to confirm Jackson.

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa House has approved legislation to require that mobile home park owners notify residents 90 days before increases in rent or utilities go into effect. Under current law, there’s a 60 day notice period. Advocates for the renters and owners of manufactured housing say large corporations are buying mobile home parks around the country and raising the rents on lots to impossible heights. Representative Lindsay James, a Democrat from Dubuque, voted for the bill, but James says it should have limited rent increases.

“They’ve invested their life savings into their home and now, because of their insatiable greed of the predatory businesses, they are facing losing it all,” James says. Representative Amy Nielsen, a Democrat from North Liberty, says the bill offers crumbs to mobile home residents and she voted against it. “So, yeah, I’m angry. This is three years worth of frustration. I think that this effort falls way short,” Nielsen says. “The people of Iowa deserve better.”

Representative Kenan Judge, a Democrat from Waukee, voted for the bill, but he says it only makes incremental changes and mobile home park residents deserve better. “My constituents and Iowans across this state deserve a 12 month lease and, in that lease, safety from eviction,” Judge says. “If you think about it, you have that protection in an apartment…These are not crazy ideas.”

Representative Brian Lohse, a Republican from Bondurant, led development of the bill.  “Wish I could have hit that triple, hit the home run, but I couldn’t get there,” Lohse says, “but I got a single, at least.” Lohse says the bill does includes some new protections, like new rules that let tenants arrange to get running water to their home if the supply is cut off through no fault of their own and it specifies when mobile home park owners can access a home after the resident dies.

A property tax break for the people who own or rent the homes in mobile home parks was removed from the bill.  “So while, again, it’s not the bill I’d like to have, it’s the bill I can get,” Lohse says. This is the second time the House has passed a bill extending some new protections to mobile home park residents, but a bill on the topic has not passed the Senate.