Lawmakers end 2009 session

 DES MOINES – The 2009 session likely will be remembered as the year the Legislature took bold steps to address unprecedented natural and economic disasters or dug the state's financial hole even deeper.

Lawmakers concluded their 105-day run early Sunday by passing a federally assisted $6.2 billion budget they hope holds through fiscal 2010 and authorizing a massive bonding effort intended to pump $830 million in major rebuilding and job-creation efforts.

“This session will go down in history,” Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, declared at one point during the weekend's marathon shutdown.

“It'll go down in history as the year the state of Iowa said we're not going to do what Louisiana did and leave New Orleans in swamps. We're not going to do that,” he said.

“We're going to make sure we recover from last summer's disasters, help our communities fix themselves up, pull themselves up and build a new future,” Gronsal added. “We're committing ourselves in a time of a deep recession in this country to help 88,000 Iowans to get jobs.”

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, D-Des Moines, said Democrats who hold majorities of 56-44 in the House and 32-18 in the Senate put Iowa on the road to recovery by taking bold action in passing a bonding plan and other measures that Gov. Chet Culver predicts will “rev up” Iowa's economy.

“The 2009 legislative session will be remembered as one where Iowans met challenges head on and won,” Culver said Sunday.

Minority Republicans countered that this year's legacy will be years of debt repayments for a misguided “make work” approach that will not create sustainable jobs for 88,000 Iowans who need them.

The 2009 session also will be remembered as a year of government overspending during a time of deep recession, they contend, and as a time when majority Democrats stopped listening to Iowans' concerns, silenced their voices by removing them from the House chambers during a stormy tax policy hearing, and obstructed efforts to derail same-sex marriages from being sanctioned by legal fiat.

“Republicans and Democrats worked together to write a disaster relief package after listening to the concerns of Iowans. Of that we should all be proud. Unfortunately, much of the cooperation ended there,” House GOP Leader Kraig Paulsen of Hiawatha said in his session-ending speech.

“As I think back over the last 100 days, I think of several things: the most money spend in Iowa's history, a partial response to flooding, saddling our children with years of debt, and a failure to act on the issue of marriage,” he added. “While I see this as disappointing, I also see an open door of opportunity to take the time to again listen to Iowans and return next year and do the people's work.”

Culver praised lawmakers who officially ended their work when the House adjourned at 5:03 a.m. Sunday and the Senate followed at 5:55 a.m., saying work will begin immediately to get hundreds of “shovel-ready” projects rolling yet this year that will mean thousands of jobs.

The governor also praised the Legislature for working with him on a budget that uses $500 million in federal stimulus to stave off deep layoffs of state employees and teachers, although he conceded some job loss will result as the state struggles with shrinking revenues.

“We are better positioned to turn our state around,” he said. “This will speed up our recovery. This is going to have an immediate ripple effect statewide in a positive way.”

Long-time Statehouse observers said each session is unique, but 2009 will be remembered for its twists and turns -- both on the budget side as moving-target revenue projections kept plunging, and in the policy arena where major policy decisions languished all session due to a lack of consensus and the unwillingness by leaders to declare issues dead and move on.

“This one has been unique in the fact that the major issues have just been unable to either pass them or kill them – one way or the other. That kind of stands out,” said Cal Hultman, a lobbyist and a former GOP legislative leader who has been a Statehouse fixture for 38 years.

“You had some major issues right at the end that refused to get the votes and refused to die. That makes things more difficult,” he added.

David Roederer, a lobbyist who previously held posts in the Branstad administration, said 2010 may be like the movie “Groundhog Day” because the same issues that dogged this session likely be waiting when lawmakers return.

“I think this is one of those sessions where it's going to be labeled ‘to be continued' because I don't think we've resolved anything,” said Roederer, whose dealings with legislative sessions spans three decades.

“I've not witnessed a session where the finances have been so dire and they spent so much money,” he added. “What makes this unique is they're balancing a budget of ongoing expenses with one-time money that is coming from Washington, which means you could have an even bigger problem next year and the year after.”

Lobbyist Larry Pope, a former GOP lawmaker and retired Drake University law professor, said the 2009 was a tough, abnormal session because the Legislature wrestled with so much uncertainty given “an economic crisis as bad as we've ever had” and Iowa's disaster-recovery challenges.

“I think it's way too early to tell because I think next year could be just as challenging,” he said in assessing the 2009 session's place in history.

Sen. Bob Dvorsky, D-Coralville, who spent his 23rd session as a key player in the budgetary trenches as Senate Appropriations Committee chairman, said 2009 will go down as a “pretty memorable” session.

“I think, unfortunately, with the economy not doing that well and, from our area, the flood recovery and the disaster recovery, all that together made a pretty tough session,” he said. “It just had twists and turns and a lot of important events going on in 2009.”