IOWA INSIDER

Gov. Chet Culver is set to announce up to $40 million in cuts to the state budget Tuesday at an appearance before the Iowa Taxpayers Association.

Coincidentally, the announcement comes on the same day most of the media and the public’s attention will be focused on the Iowa Supreme Court, which will be hearing arguments in a case challenging the state’s ban on gay marriage.

Culver has declined in recent days to reveal to reporters where the budget cuts will be made.

And Culver’s office is referring to the cuts as “budget savings” as if it’s a matter of slicing wasteful spending rather than cuts the state arguably is being forced to make because of sliding state revenues.

A lawmaker from Sheldon and member of the Iowa Air National Guard will miss the 2009 session of the Iowa Legislature because he is being deployed to Kyrgyzstan.

Rep. Royd Chambers, a Republican, said he will be leaving immediately after the first of the year and is unlikely to be back for the legislative session.

Chambers already has been deployed twice in recent years.

“I am proud to serve in what is a necessary confrontation of those who seek to do us harm,” Chambers said in a statement. “Although I cannot engage directly in politics while on active duty, I will try to keep up with issues and constituent concerns.”

Chambers was first elected to the Iowa House in 2002 and is also a high school teacher.

From my Lee Enterprises colleague Fred Love –

DES MOINES — A top Iowa GOP official is facing renewed calls for her resignation from critics in her own party who say an organization she leads undermined a Republican congressional candidate’s campaign.

Kim Lehman, an Iowa representative on the Republican National Committee and director of the Iowa Right to Life Coalition, said on Wednesday that she won’t step down from her position as national committeewoman.

Lehman came under fire before the Nov. 4 election when critics charged that Iowa Right to Life distributed a newsletter inaccurately portraying GOP congressional candidate Mariannette Miller-Meeks as pro-abortion.

Miller-Meeks lost her race to Democratic incumbent Dave Loebsack in Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District.

The newsletter called Miller-Meeks a “pretender” trying to pass herself off as pro-life to win votes.

Miller-Meeks said during her campaign that she opposed abortion except in cases of rape, incest or when a mother’s life is threatened.

Michael Gaeta, Muscatine County GOP chairman, said the newsletter made false claims against Miller-Meeks, and he accused Lehman of putting her pro-life agenda ahead of getting a Republican candidate elected.

“We were really upset with the fact that she took a negative approach with a party candidate, and we thought that she had her own agenda that she was driving,” Gaeta said. “We disagreed with her and her opinion.”

Gaeta said he wants the state’s Republican central committee to take a vote of no confidence on Lehman during the committee’s meeting Saturday in Des Moines.

Lehman said she won’t resign and doesn’t think her positions in the Republican Party and Iowa Right to Life present a conflict of interests.

“I’ll keep my commitment to the delegates that voted for me to defend Republican principles,” she said.

Delegates at the state party convention in July elected Lehman to the committeewoman position.