Iowa GOP lawmakers confident of keeping House control

URBANDALE - Members of the Republican majority in the Iowa House said Wednesday real conservative change will come if their party can take control of the Iowa Senate in 2016 and hold sway in the Iowa House with two years left in GOP Gov. Terry Branstad's sixth term.

House Majority Leader Chris Hagenow, R-Windsor Heights, told a Westside Conservative Club audience he feels 'very good” about the GOP's chances in next year's general election of keeping control of the House, where Republicans hold 57 of the 100 seats, but share legislative leadership with Democrats, who control 26 of the Iowa Senate's 50 seats.

'I know you've seen several things from legislative Democratic leaders about how they intend to take over control of the Iowa House,” Hagenow said. 'We don't see that.”

Rep. Stan Gustafson, R-Cumming, said the big focus in the 2016 election cycle is for Republicans to end the split legislative control by taking charge in the Iowa Senate, telling the gathering 'there are so many things that we're doing right now that are lined up and ready to go. We just need to get over that part of it” by moving 'a couple” Senate seats to the GOP column.

Officials with the Republican State Leadership Committee last month said the national organization, whose mission is to elect down-ballot, state-level GOP officeholders for the 2015-2016 election cycle, has a $40 million budget and plans to use part of those funds to target the Iowa Senate as a GOP pick-up.

Hagenow, a fourth-term representative who last week was selected to be House majority leader, said specific legislative plans for Iowa's 2016 legislative session won't be determined until his caucus holds two planning meetings in the coming months. But, he said, 'I don't see a dramatic change in the agenda” heading into next year.

House Republicans pushed for budgeting principles that don't spend more than the state takes in, tax reform, 'modest” changes both to the state's collective bargaining and Second Amendment laws, and progress on anti-abortion issues, he said.

'I think they'll be similar to what you've seen in the past,” Hagenow said of GOP legislative priorities. 'I don't think we'll have a huge shift.”

Earlier this week, 28 GOP House members and 13 Senate Republicans sent a letter to Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, calling upon the Democrat to investigate the practices of abortion providers in Iowa to determine if any state laws have been broken. The 41 legislative Republicans said their request was prompted after videos surfaced showing employees from abortion providers discussing the harvesting and selling of aborted baby organs.

Conservative and anti-abortion groups in Iowa have called upon state elected officials to defund Planned Parenthood, with state Sen. Rick Bertrand, R-Sioux City, wanting the organization to be dropped from Iowa's Medicaid-approved provider list to prevent it from receiving any form of Medicaid funding reimbursements from the state.

In an interview, Hagenow said the issue of defunding Planned Parenthood 'is on the minds of members,” but he was non-committal whether there would be legislation proposed next year to achieve that end.

'We'll have a conversation about it, but nothing specific yet,” the newly elected House majority leader said. 'It's clearly on the minds of a lot of people, and a lot of the videos that have come out I think have sparked a new interest in seeing if there's some progress that can be made there.”

Hagenow said education funding in the fiscal 2017 state budget is going to be a 'big issue” next legislative session, given that the governor vetoed $56 million in one-time money in July for K-12 schools in the current fiscal year that was part of a bipartisan budget agreement. House Republicans initially set K-12 state supplement aid for fiscal 2017 at the governor's 2.45 percent increase, but backed that down to 2 percent later in the 2015 session.

Hagenow said 'it remains to be seen” where the school funding issue for fiscal 2017 will land based upon how much state revenue will be available when the state Revenue Estimating Conference sets its new tax collection projections in December - the level that becomes the basis for next year's state budget.

'We'll have to take a look at the available revenue and see what we can afford and go from there,” he said.

Rep. Zack Nunn, R-Bondurant, a newly named House assistant majority leader, told the conservative meeting Wednesday he expected an aggressive, exciting and policy-driven year in the 2016 Legislature.

Hagenow, meanwhile, acknowledged that many House GOP ideas have been 'dead on arrival” in the Senate due to split partisan control, but that doesn't mean next year will be a do-nothing session.

'I'm not ready to make that prediction. I think there are some unfinished things from last year. I think there are still opportunities,” Hagenow said. 'I'm not as skeptical about next year as maybe some are. I think there's a lot of good things that we can get done.”