Divide between Iowa Republicans, Democrats 'the size of the Grand Canyon'

The gulf separating Iowa legislative Democrats and Republicans is wide, deep and growing, according to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, D-Des Moines.

“We have moved to a gulf the size of the Grand Canyon,” McCarthy said referring to differences in property tax plans – just one area where the parties can't agree.

However, House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, and Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, are holding out hope lawmakers can meet their scheduled May 3 adjournment.

“I'm not ready to shut out any hope of being done within the 110 days,” Paulsen said Thursday.

The parties are $2 billion apart in their approaches to property tax relief, McCarthy said, at loggerheads over Medicaid expansion and he predicted the conference committee trying to work out differences in education reform proposals would be unable to reach a compromise and be dissolved.

A short time later, Senate Democrats made a counteroffer, and the GOP countered that late in the day.

“Our differences aren't as big as the rhetoric would suggest,” Gronstal said at a Thursday afternoon news conference.

Senate President Pam Jochum, D-Dubuque, echoed that sentiment, saying the Legislature made progress moving major legislation to conference committees to work out those differences between the parties.

“We have every confidence that our conferees are going to reach agreement on our budgets,” she said. “We believe the conference committee process is going to work and work well.”

A key to adjournment may be the annual standings bill, a catch-all appropriations bill lawmakers sometimes use to fund pet projects. This year, it starts in the Senate.

Depending on how much additional spending has been added, adjournment could happen in a “timely manner,” Paulsen said.

“Timely” appears to be the operative word as leaders eye adjournment prospects.

“I would remind you there is no scheduled adjournment,” Gronstal said. “We will stay until we get the job done.”