Leaders look for breakthroughs that could lead to adjournment

DES MOINES – Action by the split-control Legislature ground to a halt Wednesday while Republicans and Democrats look for breakthroughs in budget disagreements that stand in the path of adjournment.

Leaders in the House and Senate have suspended floor debate until next week while top leaders and budget subgroups searched for elusive compromises.

“There have been lines drawn in the sand by all of the parties and none of those lines intersect, and so everybody is just sitting here,” said Sen. Steve Kettering, R-Lake View, ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. “For this to shake loose, somebody has to make a major move and, thus far, I see no interest in anyone making a major move.”

Rep. Jeff Kaufmann, R-Wilton, said it was a significant development Tuesday when legislative Republicans and Gov. Terry Branstad agreed to set the overall size of the state's budget at less than $6 billion and he senses more willingness to find resolution to issues that have dogged lawmakers all session.

“I think the icebergs are starting to move,” he said.

Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, said the GOP spending level would serve as a starting point for negotiations but it represented “one piece in a host of unresolved issues” that included Branstad's demand for a biennial budget, disagreements over K-12 education and preschool funding, and no consensus on how to deliver property tax relief to name a few.

“The leaders are continuing to assess the political lay of the land and the budget lay of the land,” he said. “We're going to do our best to have meetings with people on the other side and we'll see where that goes.”

Branstad said he has set aside time each day to meet with legislators to discuss priority areas that need to be resolved before lawmakers quit for the year.

Jeff Boeyink, Branstad's chief of staff, said there is a “big gap to close” between GOP and Democratic spending targets, but he added “we're trying to work together to come up with a number that's sustainable.”

Rep. Tyler Olson, D-Cedar Rapids, said the time for compromise is now but he did not expect the Legislature would be in a position to adjourn yet next week.

“It's my sense that whatever the deal is in principle would be reached next week at the soonest,” he said.

The Senate was not in session Wednesday and House members met briefly to pass two bills before suspending floor debate for the rest of the week, allowing members who were not involved in various budget discussions to head home. It was a good time to break for legislators who own farm land, Kaufmann said, because a number of them were “getting antsy” to do their spring field work.

Kettering said he was hopeful negotiators could find common ground on a commercial property tax relief approach that might break the logjam of unresolved issues and start a snowball effect that leads to adjournment.

“We still have to resolve the biennial budget issue. I think that's the big one that has to be resolved before a lot of pieces fall into place,” Boeyink said. “I think the slow, patient, steady approach is a good one because you end up with a better outcome than taking short cuts to rush out of here.”

Rep. Scott Raecker, R-Urbandale, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said the focus currently is on resolving fiscal 2012 budget disagreements before lawmakers move into a second year that Branstad said must be included for him to sign budget measures.

“There are still some significantly large issues out there that are not resolved,” Raecker said. “There's still a lot of disagreement, but we are talking and we will resolve them.”