Judge rules in Pleasant Valley school board case

And Joni Ernst isn't telling the truth. Again.

Scott County administrative building. (Photo: Ed Tibbetts)

A Scott County judge has dismissed former Pleasant Valley School Board member Tracey Rivera’s request that the court require the Scott County Board of Supervisors to accept the findings of a recount board that said the race between her and Jameson Smith last year was a tie.

Rivera, who ran as a write-in candidate, lost to Smith on Election Day by 6 votes. She then asked for a recount, and the recount board said the race was a tie. However, amid objections that the panel improperly counted votes that weren’t correctly marked, the county board of supervisors, by a 3-2 margin, voted to reject the recount panel’s findings.

That decision put Smith in office and sent Rivera appealing to the court.

Rivera has argued state law doesn’t give the supervisors the discretion to reject the report and it should have accepted the recount board’s findings. In the case of tie votes, random drawings are held to determine the winner.

However, Scott County Judge Mark Fowler dismissed Rivera’s petition for a writ of mandamus, saying such a writ can’t be issued if “there is another plain, speedy, and adequate remedy available.”

Smith and the county argued this remedy was an election contest. Rivera did not pursue this avenue. According to court documents, her side argued there wasn’t anything to contest because the election hadn’t been properly certified. (The deadline for the election contest procedure has now passed.)

The judge sided with Smith and the county.

In an email, Rivera said Thursday she is disappointed by the decision, but because of the time and expense involved, she won’t be appealing at this time. She also reiterated her belief the board of supervisors failed to do its duty.

Smith’s attorney, Alan Ostergren, had previously said that there were mistakes in the recount board’s report, and the supervisors were right to reject the report.

Unfortunately, the court didn’t pass judgment on whether the supervisors obeyed the law.

Frankly, had the supervisors accepted the recount board’s report—at the time, the county attorney’s office told them their role was ministerial and the report should be accepted—this would probably have ended up in an election contest procedure, anyway. Then, perhaps, the controversy over whether all the votes were properly counted would have been sorted out by a neutral tribunal.

As you may recall, Jameson Smith’s side said the recount board improperly counted votes that weren’t marked—an argument the Iowa Secretary of State’s office agreed with. However, a member of the recount board, retired Scott County Judge Mark Smith, had said the state rules governing recounts appear to have conflicting language because there also is a passage that says votes should be counted when the intent of the voter is clear.

This is the second time in two years that a close election in Scott County has gone to a recount, only to have the result in dispute.

In this case, there also are accusations the recount board’s findings weren’t properly handled.

Surely, that will be an issue in this fall’s election for county auditor. Democrat Matt Trimble is running to challenge Auditor Kerri Tompkins, a Republican, and he’s already criticized Tompkins over how the Pleasant Valley election case was administered.

There she goes again

US Sen. Joni Ernst may not be as brazen as Sen. Katie Britt or Donald Trump when it comes to lying about the Biden administration. But the Iowa Republican does her fair share of fibbing about the president.

For some examples, see my previous reporting about how Ernst has twisted the truth about the IRS and pandemic fraud.

Well, she’s at it again. On Tuesday, Ernst sent out a news release blaming President Biden for “hiding billions of dollars in secret spending.”

The Republican senator cited a Government Accountability Office report from last November that said $40 billion in non-standard federal obligations called “other transaction agreements” weren’t reported to the official website for government spending information, USAspending.gov.

Ernst says these OTAs, as they're called, are growing significantly, and the failure to report them to USAspending.gov means less transparency for “secret sweetheart deals.”

What Ernst didn’t say is these unusual deals more than tripled in value during the Trump administration, from about $5 billion in 2018 to more than $18 billion in 2020, according to the GAO. Much of it was due to Covid spending.

The GAO also says they have fallen during the Biden administration to $11 billion in 2022. The GAO’s report also makes clear that it studied OTAs during the 2020-2022 fiscal years, which encompasses both the Trump and Biden administrations.

Regardless, Ernst blames “Biden’s Treasury Department” for failing to report these OTAs to USAspending.gov.

The truth is, there has been confusion for years about whether these agreements have to be reported. In 2017, when Donald Trump was president, an Inspector General’s report said the Federal Aviation Administration failed to report nearly all of the OTAs the IG reviewed, “because officials do not believe the Agency is required to do so.”

Apparently, some clarity in the law is needed.

Which is what the GAO suggested last year.

“Until Congress assigns Treasury, in coordination with (the Office of Management and Budget), the responsibilities to periodically assess and determine which agencies must report data to USAspending.gov and oversee the completeness of their reporting, the website’s data may lack some required spending information,” the GAO said.

So, I’m glad that Ernst is finally getting around to introducing a bill to mandate that OTAs be disclosed on USAspending.gov. (By the way, the true story about these OTAs is they have benefits and risks.)

Regardless, I think most people would agree that transparency is a good thing. And so is honesty. On government websites, and in press releases emanating from US Senate offices.

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