Dems need GOP help on bonding proposal

DES MOINES - It will take Republican votes to pass a number of the must-do items on majority Democrats' agenda, including the governor's bonding bill that would provide much-needed funding for flood recovery, Linn County Democratic legislators said today.

"That bill will not pass without bipartisan support," Rep. Dick Taylor, D-Cedar Rapids, said about

Gov. Chet Culver's the 20-year, $750 million plan.

Opposition is coming from conservative rural Democrats "who are not predisposed to bonding," said Rep. Nate Willems, D-Lisbon, who suggested looking to Linn County Republicans to provide some of those votes.

One of them, Rep. Nick Wagner, R-Marion, said it's hard to know whether he can support the plan without seeing it.

That applies to other major pieces of legislation lawmakers hope to take up in what they hope will be the final week of the 2009 session, House Minority Leader Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, said.

"If the criticism is that Republicans aren't excited about bonding, it's true because we haven't seen it yet," he said. "We're talking about adjournment and we haven't seen the bill."

The concepts are well-known, others said, but Senate Appropriations Chairman Bob Dvorsky, D-Coralville, acknowledged the majority party is "continuously working with the governor on this to find a deal the governor wants to sign and the Legislature wants to pass."

"It's all part of the sausage-making process," he said.

And there's plenty of sausage to make before lawmakers can wrap up the session. Most of it ties into the $5.9 billion general fund budget plus nearly a half billion dollars in federal stimulus funds. The focus, Dvorsky said, will be on the $2 billion-plus standings bill, the federal stimulus funding bill, the Rebuild Iowa Infrastructure and the governor's bonding package.

Paulsen would prefer using the $200 million-plus per year infrastructure bill to fund many of the projects in Culver's bonding plan, especially after hearing the plan calls for selling bonds to make the first installment on bond repayment.

However, Democrats said flood recovery and prevention projects need to be done quickly.

"Look at what happened three weeks ago in Fargo where it flooded seven years ago," Rep. Tyler Olson, D-Cedar Rapids, said. "We don't have 20 years to take $30 million a year out of the infrastructure fund to prevent and mitigate the next disaster. We may have seven. We may have one."

The bonding plan has $175 million for disaster recovery, including $46 million for Linn County, he said.

The lawmakers agreed passage of Senate File 457 was an example of the legislative process working to benefit the public. The bill would allow cities and counties to establish disaster revitalization zones, abate property taxes for up to five years on property improvements in disaster-affected areas and give cities and counties enhanced bonding authority to deal with disaster damage.

Paulsen said he worked with Hogg, who guided the bill through the Senate, where it passed 48-2. In the House, the majority party accepted Republican suggestions to make the bill better.

"We could have had a partisan fight," Paulsen said, but because the process worked - thanks in no small part to the Linn County delegation, he said -- the bill was approved 97-0.