Legislators vow no gridlock: We’ll take a wait-and-see attitude

By the Globe-Gazette (Mason City)

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A day after the elections, legislative leaders promised to work together to continue the state's recovery, spur job creation and find common ground on Iowans' other priorities.

No gridlock, they said.

“It's a time for olive branches, not brickbats,” said Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal of Council Bluffs. “It's time to get back to governing.”

Sounds great, the kind of thing you'd expect from our state leaders.

But we've heard this all before - spirit of cooperation, bipartisanship and such - and it usually hasn't taken long after the first gavel falls for things to turn contentious.

And while some good things do eventually get done, it seems there's an awful lot of bickering and sessions seem to drag on unnecessarily long.

Those are the things Iowans have said they're tired of - why they voted as they did, in part - and that legislative leaders say won't happen this year.

We'll believe it when we see it.

While both parties say budget cuts are necessary, Democrats are expected to fight for some of outgoing Gov. Chet Culver's priorities such as the $90 million expansion of preschool programs for 4-year-olds, investment in alternative energy and $800 million in bonded money for infrastructure and flood recovery.

In the campaign, those were among the major points some Republicans took issue with. So how they'll get past the differences of opinion will be most interesting to watch.

A couple of things could make for smoother sailing.

The economy is improving and increased tax revenues have given the state a $914 million surplus. How much it continues to improve obviously will have a big impact on the legislative session. (A $1 billion shortfall is predicted for the next fiscal year so there will have to be significant improvement to cut into that.)

Plus, lawmakers have said some contentious issues will be off the table.

“I don't think we'll have those monumental issues,” said new House Majority Leader Linda Upmeyer, R-Garner. “We're going to do what we said during the campaign and focus on spending.”

We hope lawmakers don't ignore major issues just because they think nothing can be done; that would not be in the spirit of cooperation and bipartisanship.

So we'll take a wait-and-see attitude.

It won't take long after the session convenes in January to find out how serious those promises of cooperation are.

“I see us finding ways to work together,” Gronstal said.

We hope he's right. Iowans deserve it after the recent bitter election - not to mention the 2012 campaign that will begin all too soon.

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