Iowa party leaders assess political landscape

JOHNSTON - The state's top Republican said Friday he sides with GOP legislators on issues of state pre-emption of some local decisions and collective bargaining changes that may impact his other roles as a county supervisor and member of a community college employees' union.

Jeff Kaufmann, chairman of the Republican Party of Iowa who also is a Cedar County supervisor and instructor at Muscatine Community College, said his party's platform 'is very clear about we believe in local control” but he there also are appropriate times for the state to set uniform polices in areas like the minimum wage and local siting of livestock confinement operations.

'I think there is an appropriate time for pre-emption, but I would rather it be the exception than the rule,” Kaufmann said in an interview at Friday's taping of Iowa Public Television's 'Iowa Press” show where he appeared jointly with Iowa Democratic Party chairman Derek Eadon.

'I think the Legislature is going to have to make the decision as to when pre-emption is appropriate. But they've got to make their case to county supervisors,” the Iowa GOP chief said. 'We have a ton of new Republican county supervisors. There are a lot more Republican supervisors than Democratic supervisors - overwhelming, and so they're going to have to make their case.”

A bill that would pre-empt cities and counties from going beyond the state standard in areas of minimum wage, civil rights, consumer product restrictions and other employment areas has cleared the committee level and is awaiting floor debate in the Iowa House. Republicans who control the Legislature also are moving ahead with a sweeping rewrite of Iowa's collective bargaining law.

Kaufmann, a former negotiator for his community college's bargaining unit, said he welcomed the requirement that unions periodically recertify and the effort to include taxpayers in the discussion by revamping a binding arbitration process that pressures local officials to raise taxes to pay for contract awards.

'We're still going to bargain salaries,” he said and just because health insurance and other issues will no longer be mandatory items for bargaining 'that doesn't say you can't bargain those items. What it says is they have to be agreed upon. Since when is it a bad idea for both bodies involved in negotiations to talk about something?”

Kaufmann said he liked Branstad's idea of creating a statewide health insurance pool but was unaware that GOP legislators had scrapped that idea and did not include it in the collective bargaining bill working its way on parallel tracks through the House and Senate.

He said he expected that will still be a topic of conversation given the governor's support even if it meant schools, counties or other local units banding together to create health insurance pools presuming they would not run afoul of state pre-emption rules. 'Common sense will tell you that it's numbers that drive down costs,” he said.

During the IPTV taping, Eadon said voter backlash over GOP efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, revamp collective bargaining and make other changes that weren't part of their 2016 campaign messages could give Democrats an opening in 2018 when Republicans won't have Branstad or U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley at the top of the ticket.

'I think we're optimistic that there's an opportunity to be able to show some of these folks that we have their back and that Republicans are not proposing anything that's going to help the middle class or job growth with this agenda. But obviously our base is going to be reeling from a lot of these bills,” Eadon said.

'I think we're already seeing this restlessness and this fear of some very dangerous policies being proposed at the federal level and at the state level and I think we're going to see more and more of this,” the Democratic leader added. 'I don't think these rallies are going to stop with this disastrous union-busting bill that the Republicans are proposing.”

Kaufmann conceded that having Branstad resign as governor to become President Trump's ambassador to China 'is a loss. I can't sugarcoat that.” But he said Republicans have a strong bench with Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds waiting in the wings and while he conceded Republicans have to 'guard against” overplaying their hand the same is true of Democrats.

'We're going to fight complacency,” Kaufmann said. 'That would be an easy trap to fall into, and I didn't do a victory dance. I moved right into 2018.”

Eadon said Democrats also have a strong bench and Branstad's departure is 'absolutely an opening,” but he conceded the party is 'starting from scratch” without high profile candidates like Tom Harkin and Tom Vilsack. 'We still have a lot of time before that June primary of next year,” he noted.

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