Dems, GOP come to different conclusions on session

DES MOINES - As Democrats and Republicans looked back on the long-running legislative session, they seemed to come to different conclusions.

To Democrats, the lack of action on several of the Republican Party's top priorities was an indication that the GOP had misread the message from voters who gave them control of the House and governor's office.

But to Republicans, government spending was the big issue, and by reducing the budget they said they had set in motion an essential and long-lasting change.

Sen. Bob Dvorsky, a Coralville Democrat who heads the Senate Appropriations Committee, said it may not be clear which party is connecting with voters until the next election.

"The biggest thing I see overall in this session is there are a lot of things unresolved," Dvorsky said. "We have divided government, so no one gets what they want or need and a lot of things are going to be left up to the election of 2012 as to where we want to go."

Republican Gov. Terry Branstad began the session just months after an easy victory over one-term Democratic Gov. Chet Culver.

Returning to the position he held for four terms before taking a 12-year break from government, Branstad pledged to make deep cuts in corporate income taxes and commercial property taxes. He said both steps were essential in sparking a stagnant economy.

Newly elected governors tend to get a honeymoon, with lawmakers being more willing to make concession. Branstad also had reason to expect that with Republicans newly in control of the House and with a much-reduced Democratic majority in the Senate, he would likely get his way.

But both of his tax proposals quickly faltered in the face of bipartisan opposition.

House Republicans changed his property tax plan to give broad cuts to all classes of property and approved an across-the-board income tax reduction. Neither plan got anywhere in the Senate, where Democrats pushed through a $50 million property tax cut aimed at smaller businesses. That plan wasn't even debated in the House.

At the end of the day, nothing happened on taxes but a lot of finger pointing.

House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, said the proposals aren't dead, but only on-hold.

"We will be back here to address this again next year," Paulsen said. "Iowans have earned meaningful and sustainable property tax relief."

Rather than focus on the tax proposals that didn't succeed, Branstad noted that lawmakers had approved a smaller budget than enacted by Democrats last year. In fact, the $5.9 billion budget was smaller than Branstad's original $6.1 billion proposal.

The governor agreed to the smaller budget at the insistence of House Republicans. It's a drop from a $6.3 billion budget approved in 2010 that included federal stimulus money.

"We have made remarkable progress in turning the budget around and we did it in just one year," Branstad said in a statement.

Republicans argued that the message from last fall's election, which gave the GOP an additional 16 seats in the House and six in the Senate, was to cut the budget as part of larger desire to reduce the size of government.

Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Matt Strawn said that drove the legislative agenda.

"They have demonstrated an understanding of the mandate from last November and have upheld their covenant with the electorate," Strawn said.

Democrats disagreed, and they pointed to efforts to cut spending on preschool and freeze overall spending on schools to prove their point.

Preschool was at the center of last year's gubernatorial election, with Culver campaigning on his success in expanding preschool and Branstad calling to end or at least reduce public spending on preschool.

After his election, Branstad proposed a need-based scholarship system, with little or no help for higher-income families.

Republicans initially said they could live with spending $35 million on preschool, but eventually went along with a Democratic plan to spend $59 million on that program and leave it intact rather than move ahead with Branstad's plan.

Branstad also asked the Legislature for no increase in state spending on local schools for two years. Democrats pushed back, calling that a "starvation diet." Lawmakers eventually froze spending for the first year, but agreed to a 2 percent increase in the second year.

"Because they overplayed their hand, the message they thought they got from voters is changing," said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, D-Des Moines. "I don't know for sure what that message was, but I know it wasn't to eliminate preschool."

But Senate Minority Leader Paul McKinley, R-Chariton, argued that this year's session should be put in perspective as a time when the political discourse in the state began to change, with the debate in both parties focusing on how and where to cut state government, not how to add to the government.

"I think history will ultimately view this session as the real beginning of a transformation process in Iowa," said McKinley.