Leader predicts reckless GOP agenda could aid Iowa House Democrats’ return to power

MARSHALLTOWN - For Iowa House Democrats, who lost their majority in the 2010 election, there's always a two-year plan to regain control, House Minority Leader Mark Smith, D-Marshalltown said Thursday.

It will be no different when the 2017 legislative kicks off Jan. 9, according to the Marshalltown lawmaker who will be leading Democrats' efforts to hold the Republican majority accountable.

'We will be very aggressive, very outspoken on bringing attention to bad policy,” Smith, a legislator since 2001 and caucus leader since 2013, said. 'We will look at how Republicans reflect Iowans' values.”

'I think it is incumbent on any party that is in power to reflect the views of Iowans,” he said. 'So we will see how closely the majorities in both the House and Senate reflect the values of Iowans. We will be pointing out, as our responsibility is, the problems we see with legislation they may bring that we think is against the values of Iowans.

After an election in which House Republicans increased their majority to 59-41 and saw the GOP take control of the Senate, Smith said he expects plenty of bad policy proposals.

Rather than focus on the most recent election results, Smith prefers to take a long-term view. He hopes GOP lawmakers will as well.

House Majority Leader Chris Hagenow, R-Windsor Heights, has indicated House Republicans will continue to pursue the social conservative agenda they've pushed in recent years. The difference in 2017 is that with a Senate Republican majority those proposals, such as restricting abortion and defunding Planned Parenthood, as well as expanding gun rights, banning traffic enforcement cameras and requiring photo IDs for voters, are more likely to become law. In the past, the Senate Democratic majority was a firewall that prevented those ideas from getting GOP Gov. Terry Branstad's desk.

That prospect frightens Smith, but he thinks there may be pushback to those proposals from within GOP ranks. In the past, House Republicans could vote for those proposals knowing they would be blocked by Senate Democrats. Now, Smith said, they may reconsider those votes.

'The other thing that they have to be conscious of is that the positions they take now and how they affect them for the rest of their lives,” Smith said. 'We have a number of young legislators on the Republican side who have many years to come of their political careers and I think they will be thinking of their legacy to this state and their votes when they cast them.

'An issue may look good for now, it may look good for the next election, but years from now they may look back at that and have concerns about their votes,” he said.

Senate Minority Leader Rob Hogg, D-Cedar Rapids, agrees some Republican lawmakers may not be as willing to go along with caucus positions given that likelihood of their bills becoming law.

'Remember, they could pass stuff the last six years knowing the Senate Democrats would not take it up,” Hogg said. With control of the Legislature and governor's office 'they can do anything they want.”

Hagenow isn't buying any of it.

'I haven't had members come to me with that concern,” he said.

If Republicans push forward with that agenda, Smith thinks it works into Democrats' two-year plan to regain the majority.

'Republicans write their own future by what they do this year,” Smith said. 'Traditionally, the president's party loses seats in the midterm election. I think that will be the case in 2018.

'It's always a two-year plan for us,” he said.

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