Legislative leaders plan more talks to break session stalemate

DES MOINES – Key legislative leaders plan to meet this afternoon with Gov. Terry Branstad's top aides in hopes of resolving differences on the budget and other priority issues that are preventing lawmakers from wrapping up their 2011 session.

The House and Senate were slated to hold brief meetings today – on the session's 130th calendar day - with only a handful of lawmakers present but no floor action or committee work were scheduled. A negotiating session was slated to take place at 2 p.m. at the Statehouse to discuss impasses over state spending, property tax relief and education funding.

“We're still talking and we're still making progress,” House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, told reporters today. “We're definitely going to have to pick up the pace to get to the end, but I remain optimistic.”

Leaders of the Senate Democratic majority were not slated to be back at the Capitol until this afternoon, but Sen. Bob Dvorsky, D-Coralville, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, issued a statement saying budget negotiations in the split-control Legislature have stalled over support for education and job creation.

“Our schools and colleges, as well as Iowa's recovery from the national recession, will be damaged if we don't reach a common-sense compromise,” Dvorsky said. He said the GOP position of holding state spending below $6 billion includes cuts to education that “are unnecessary because we can afford these investments at a time when our state's reserve funds are full at $600 million and another $300 million will be added by the end of the fiscal year.”

Paulsen said today that the $6 billion spending level for fiscal 2012 is “the size of the pie” and whatever agreements get hammered out much be within the context of that funding ceiling, which would be less than the amount spent to fund state government for the past two fiscal years.

“I don't think we should be very far apart,” the House speaker said.

The Statehouse stalemate has prompted the Iowa Democratic Party to post a clock that counts down the days left before state government could face a July 1 shutdown if no budget agreement can be reached.

“House Republicans and the governor's office are committed to making sure that the state is running on July 1,” Paulsen said. “I do not have the slightest idea why the Democrats think it's a good idea to be talking about and pushing us toward a shutdown.”

Sue Dvorsky, the senator's wife who also is chairwoman of the Iowa Democratic Party, criticized Branstad and legislative Republicans for pushing a “starvation budget” for schools that would hold allowable growth in state per-pupil spending to zero for the next two fiscal years. The GOP plan would provide $215 million for K-12 schools next fiscal year to “backfill” state aid that was cut and replaced by local property taxes or local district cash reserves. She warned that GOP cuts would result in teacher layoffs, property tax increases and less money for regent universities and community colleges.

“Making Iowa schools the best in the nation was a key promise of Governor Branstad's campaign. His campaign labeled him as the “education governor” and told voters that “our commitment to education must change by again putting Iowa's children first.” Unfortunately, education has gone from a principle in Branstad's “new covenant” to the top target as he continues to demand a starvation budget for Iowa schools,” Sue Dvorksy said in a statement. “Gov. Branstad's mandate has expired. He needs to compromise before serious economic damage is done to our state.”

On a separate topic, Paulsen said Republicans who control the House would not approve a Senate-approved approach to curb late-term abortion by restricting where clinics offering such services could locate in Iowa.

“House Republicans are not interested in helping create a procedure for late-term abortion doctors to come to Iowa and that's what that will does,” the House speaker told reporters. “The House is not going to pass that language. I cannot imagine there would be 51 votes. We're not going to pass what they sent over.”

He did not rule out GOP representatives taking up the Senate bill, replacing it with House-passed language to ban abortions in Iowa after 20 weeks, and returning it to the Senate for further consideration.

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