Adjournment eludes Iowa lawmakers

DES MOINES – Legislative partisans expect to finish the 2010 election-year session Saturday the same way they started it – disagreeing over how much to spend and where to spend it.

Today was marked by feisty political debates, farewell speeches by departing lawmakers, closed-door strategy caucuses and long lulls for bill drafting, printing and analyzing the final issues standing in the way of adjournment.

“I think we have conceptual agreement on everything. Essentially everything's in drafting,” said Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, a key negotiator on final pieces of a $5.3 billion general fund budget and overall spending approaching $6 billion for fiscal 2011.

“If we went to 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning, we could do it (adjourn), but we're probably not inclined to do that. So we'll finish it up tomorrow,” he said. “There's always danger of people getting a second wind when they get to sleep, and they will get to sleep.”

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, D-Des Moines, said he expected representatives would need more closed-door discussion time Saturday morning before they began their march to weekend adjournment.

Much of today's focus was on details of a $150 million bonding package that included money for flood mitigation and disaster recovery efforts along with a host of projects in addition to the yearly infrastructure spending using state gambling proceeds.

The proposal would build on bonding authority that was approved last year and bring Gov. Chet Culver's I-JOBS program to $875 million. The package would include more than $63 million for disaster prevention and targeted recovery and flood mitigation projects, along with a host of other infrastructure spending.

In general, it's a bad, bad idea to bond,” said Senate Republican Leader Paul McKinley of Chariton. “It's a scheme that is putting on the backs of our children and grandchildren debt that they shouldn't be facing.”

McKinley pointed to today's Iowa unemployment numbers as evidence that businesses need government to provide a job climate of certainly, fair regulation, reasonable and fair taxes and utilities they can afford not more borrowing to create temporary work projects.

“The governor has no idea what it takes to create a job,” McKinley said. “I firmly believe that and he's headed in the wrong direction.”

Much of today's Senate debate on the wide-ranging standings appropriations bill featured rehashes of issues that had stalled in the legislative process – allowing nursing mothers to express milk at their workplace, establishing an independent board to oversee open meetings/open records complaints, applying electrical regulations to farm buildings, waiving tax penalties and interest for taxpayers caught in a tax “coupling” snafu, and health-care issues.

House File 2531 also included a pay freeze for noncontract state employees who would not receive the across-the-board raises or step increases that unionized workers won via collective bargaining.

Senators voted 31-18 to reject an effort by Sen. Randy Feenstra, R-Hull, to make state tax laws comply with federal changes – a provision Democrats could not afford given current budget constraints. Republicans noted that the fiscal 2011 state spending plan was just short of $6 billion – making it the second highest in Iowa history.

Sen. Brad Zaun, R-Urbandale, a candidate for Congress in Iowa's 3

^rd

District, unsuccessfully offered an amendment to protect Iowans' right to choose health care – which caused a brief verbal tiff when Sen. Bob Dvorsky, D-Coralville, fired a salvo at Zaun that “you're not in Congress, yet.” Zaun said he took it as an attack on his integrity.

In other action, senators voted 49-0 to approve Senate File 2201 to require health insurance carriers to immediately notify policyholders of a proposed rate increase and to conduct public hearings under certain conditions.

Earlier in the day, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved a measure that would switch Iowa's gun permit system to a “shall issue” status with a uniform statewide standard that would limit the reasons county sheriffs could use to deny permits.

The proposed changes would take effect next Jan. 1, expanding the time frame for permits issued to applicants that completed a required training course or other qualification from one year to five years.

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rod.boshart@gazcomm.com