Blog from the Capital

While we all wait for the 8th Circuit to rule on the InnerChange prison ministry program in Iowa, Claire Hughes at the Roundtable reports that the state has removed its funding. InnerChange has appealed a decision declaring its partnership with the state unconstitutional on church-state grounds. The hearing - which took place in February - included Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the panel.

Gov. Culver, a Democrat who took office in January, did not include funding for InnerChange in his proposed state budget this year. House Republicans pushed to reinstate the funding, conditioned on a decision by the Eighth Circuit upholding the program's constitutionality, according to state Rep. Todd Taylor, a Democrat who chairs the House Justice System Appropriations Subcommittee and opposes funding for the Christian program. That provision made it through the Iowa House but was killed in the Senate, Taylor said.

"I'm against this on a strictly constitutional basis," said Taylor, who agreed to the provision to reinstate funding if the court decided the program was legal.