Capitol Ideas | More days, fewer bills

DES MOINES - The crafting of legislation at the Iowa Statehouse from time to time has been likened to the process of making sausage. If that's the case, the split-control General Assembly appears to be grinding out a lesser amount of product this year.

The last day a legislative chamber passed a bill was May 20. The last time the Iowa House - controlled 57-43 by Republicans - and the Iowa Senate - controlled 26-24 by Democrats - sent measures to Gov. Terry Branstad that they agreed upon was May 19, although Senate File 500 was in the process of being enrolled and transmitted to the governor for his consideration.

That would bring to 112 the number of bills and resolutions approved by the 86th General Assembly, which convened on Jan. 12 and now has reached its 140th day and counting - roughly a month beyond its targeted adjournment date. The total is likely to grow once the House and Senate finalize work on a dozen budget bills, state supplemental aid for K-12 schools in fiscal 2017 and possibly a short list of other priorities.

But the number of bills that make the legislative cut could rank among the lowest yearly totals in recent memory.

The previous low was the 138 enrolled bills and joint resolutions approved by the 2011 session - a year when Iowa's 150 part-time legislators spent 172 days trying to bridge their budget differences until finally reaching resolution with mere hours remaining before the potential for a state government shutdown loomed at the July 1 start of the new fiscal year.

Since then, the totals have been 142 enrolled bills and resolutions in 2012, 146 in 2013 and 143 in 2014 - all years when the Capitol building had divided control by the two major political parties.

By comparison, the 82nd General Assembly passed 322 bills during the 2007 and 2008 sessions. Looking back even farther, the 73rd General Assembly sent Terry Branstad a combined 602 bills during its 1989 and 1990 sessions - including 327 in 1989, which was the last time a yearly session topped the 300 mark.

Since then, lawmakers gradually have lowered their legislative output to where the annual bill total has exceeded 200 only three times in the past 14 years.

Lawmakers take a mixed view of the reduced output of bills, saying the issues that survive the process are true bipartisan compromises while those outside the narrow middle ground fall victim for being too far left or right of center.

Others worry that good ideas get watered down in the process of finding a middle ground solid enough to carry them through to the governor's desk. Or they lament that the process has become so predictable that many issues become non-starters or are predestined for defeat so that sponsors stop introducing them.

If there's been a dampening effect by divided government, the numbers don't reflect it. Officials in the Legislative Services Agency say this year's 2,332 bill draft requests submitted by legislators were the most since 2011, and the 1,289 that actually got introduced in the House or the Senate also marked the highest total in four years.

Now it appears that about 10 percent or so actually will make it successfully through the legislative grind.

It ultimately will be up to Iowans and, more importantly, voting adult citizens to inspect what the 2015 session produced and render their judgment on what was meaty bipartisan compromise and what parts were baloney.