Iowa Senator opposes DHS director’s confirmation

DES MOINES - Not all of Gov. Terry Branstad's appointees are getting a cordial reception from state senators heading into this year's Senate confirmation process.

Sen. Steve Sodders, D-State Center, took to the Senate floor Tuesday to announce his 'Chuck Chuck” campaign to take down the GOP governor's reappointment of Chuck Palmer as director of the state Department of Human Services in the wake of decisions to close the Iowa Juvenile Home in Toledo, stop taking new patients at mental health institutions in Clarinda and Mount Pleasant with an eye on closing them June 30 and a new managed care approach to providing Medicaid services.

Palmer's tenure as DHS chief dates back to Branstad's previous stint as governor before taking a 12-year hiatus in 1999. He joined the Branstad team when Branstad won a fifth term in 2010 and Palmer is the governor's choice to continue at the DHS helm for his unprecedented sixth term.

Sodders, one of the legislators who previously sued Branstad and Palmer over the closing of the girls' school in Toledo, said he does not believe Palmer has done enough to protect the interests of the state's most-vulnerable citizens by providing a state facility for troubled girls.

'When you add the MHIs into that, it's time for him to go,” Sodders told reporters. 'He's been here long enough. He's getting paid a really good salary to ruin people's lives so I think he needs to go.”

Sodders said he is aware that some senators agree with him and some do not, so 'whether I have enough senators who agree with me to take him out, I don't know yet but I'm going to work on it. I don't think he should be reappointed.”

Under the Senate confirmation process, an affirmative vote of two-thirds - or at least 34 senators - of the 50-member chamber is needed to approve a gubernatorial appointee. Currently, the Senate makeup is 26 Democrats and 24 Republicans.

Branstad spokesman Jimmy Centers issued a statement regarding Sodders' floor speech saying: 'Rather than engaging in fiery partisan rhetoric that Iowans have come to expect from Iowa Senate Democrats, Gov. Branstad will continue working with DHS to provide high-quality modern care for the citizens of our state in need.”

DHS spokeswoman Amy Lorentzen McCoy noted that Palmer, who has an annual salary of $154,300, oversees about 5,000 employees and guides the state's largest agency serving nearly 1 million Iowans each year through child welfare, mental health and disabilities services, and medical and economic assistance programs.

Another Branstad appointee, state public safety commissioner Roxanne Ryan got a strikingly different reception Tuesday when she met with the Senate Transportation Committee. The senators expressed concern about the lack of stability in an agency that has seen four different leaders over the past five years and were pleased by Ryan's response that she would like to serve in the position until her expected retirement in 10 years.

'I would like to stick around,” said Ryan, who noted that it is important in a dangerous line of work like being a state peace officer that 'you need to surround yourself with people you know and can trust.”

Committee member Sen. Jeff Danielson, D-Cedar Falls, said he was pleased with Branstad's choice and expected Ryan to win Senate approval. 'I would encourage a yes vote and I would hope that it is unanimous. I don't see any issues.”

Likewise, Sen. Bill Dotzler, D-Waterloo, said he is urging the swift confirmation of Beth Townsend as Iowa Workforce Development director, who took over when Teresa Wahlert abruptly retired from the post in January amid contentions the department had become a hostile work environment where overworked administrative law judges felt their judicial independence had been improperly threatened under a business-friendly leadership team.

A number of Democratic senators had indicated they would not support Wahlert's confirmation had she been reappointed.

Dotzler said Tuesday he felt vindicated by a U.S. Department of Labor finding that affirmed his allegations that Wahlert had exerted 'inappropriate influence” over judges who decide unemployment benefits cases and created a hostile work environment where overworked administrative law judges felt their judicial independence was improperly threatened.