What will Iowa's political landscape look like with a split-control Legislature?

Pay no attention to the storm clouds on the horizon. Iowa legislative leaders are forecasting fair weather for their 2011 session.

As they prepare for opening day, leaders are promising to find ways to create jobs and balance the state budget through what Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, calls “people of good faith coming together.”

Lawmakers' faith - in the legislative process and in one another - may be tested if lightning strikes in the form of an attempted impeachment of the four remaining Iowa Supreme Court justices, or if abortion opponents force a debate on late-term abortion and telemedicine “push-button abortions.”

Don't forget, the new Republican majority in the House has promised to approve a resolution calling for a constitutional amendment defining marriage.

It's those hot-button issues, not split control of the Legislature, that may bring the legislative process to a halt, said Christopher Larimer, assistant professor of political science at the University of Northern Iowa,

“My sense is gridlock might develop on the extreme issues, the social issues,” he said. “There's likely to be a lot of talk, playing off each other, knowing if the House passes something it won't go anywhere in the Senate.”

Rep. Kraig Paulsen of Hiawatha, the next speaker of the House, expects each party “will have a bomb or two they'll throw - that's part of the process,” but he said House Republicans will focus on jobs and the economy.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, D-Des Moines, said he wants to believe that but worries the GOP's social agenda “will be out of the mainstream and divert our attention to issues that would be very divisive and not productive for Iowans on what we should be focused on, which is bread-and-butter issues.”

Who needs hot-button issues to fight over when House Republicans, who hold a 60-40 majority, are planning to begin the session by de-appropriating money from the current state budget - the budget Democrats approved when they controlled the House, Senate and Governor's Office last year?

While most of the pre-session talk is about issues, some of it has become personal.

Rep. Kent Sorenson, R-Indianola, who was elected to the Senate in November, is promising to take on Gronstal, of Council Bluffs, who will be operating with a 26-24 majority.

“I'm not going up there to make friends with Mike or the other senators,” said Sorenson, who has defeated two incumbent Democrats in two elections. “I'm going up there to take him on.”

In particular, Sorenson hopes to force the Senate to vote on allowing a public referendum on a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. Gronstal has promised to block that.

“He has the right to push whatever he wants to push, and we'll respond,” Gronstal said. “I'm kind of the traffic cop to deal with what comes out of committee and to decide what issues we'll take up. I'm not going to comment on the number of stop signs I'll put up.”

Paulsen and Gronstal try to downplay the campaign-style rhetoric.

“Without passing judgment on any one particular idea, we sometimes succumb to that level of dialogue, but usually that's not what the Legislature focuses on,” Paulsen said.

Campaigns are about framing differences, Gronstal said. Once the session starts, lawmakers will “pretty quickly find out there are a ton of things that have nothing to do with partisan politics.”

Sometimes, Gronstal said, it's easier to get things done when control is divided between the parties. He recalled that then-Gov. Terry Branstad had more success working with Democrats in a divided Legislature than when Republicans controlled both chambers.

Split control forces lawmakers to go into discussions with open minds, Paulsen added.

Iowans, he said, “expect us to govern in the best interest of Iowa. If we go in starting from that perspective, we'll make more progress. There are things we'll disagree on; some we'll work through, and some we won't.”

When control is divided, Gronstal said, “you set aside the pieces neither one of you can stand about the other and sit down and work together. Certain things are off the table, but there's still a ton of stuff left to work on.”

There's a practical reason for working through their differences, Larimer said. Both parties will be looking for some successes to take back to voters. The next election is two years away, but the clock is ticking, he said.

“Patience is wearing thin among the Iowa electorate,” Larimer said. “The public wants to see progress without bickering. Iowans want more and quicker results.

“This may be a function of the depressed economy, but I think it mirrors the national trend of expecting more from government while also not trusting government,” Larimer said.