Branstad not concerned about continued Senate hearings

DES MOINES - Gov. Terry Branstad said Monday he is not concerned about Senate Democrats' plans to continue hearings into executive-branch hiring practices and policies with broad investigative powers to subpoena and question witnesses under oath.

'We have nothing to hide and we're not concerned,” Branstad told reporters at his weekly news conference, noting the state Department of Administrative Services already has spent 20 hours compiling and providing thousands of pages of documents to lawmakers. 'We are totally cooperating.”

Before adjourning the 2014 session, Democrats who hold a 26-24 edge in the Iowa Senate worked an extra day to finalize work on a resolution giving the Senate Government Oversight Committee expanded authority to look into alleged mismanagement and secret dealings by Branstad administration officials.

'It's pretty curious that Senate Democrats waited until the House adjourned in the middle of the night to bring this up,” Branstad said of the Senate resolution.

'That looks pretty bizarre in and of itself. And then they refused to disclose the coordination between the Hatch campaign and the people on the Oversight Committee,” he added. 'I think there are real constitutional questions when you have one house of the Legislature going in and doing this at taxpayer expense.”

Hatch denied any coordination, noting he has stayed away from most of the committee proceedings. He said he supports the position that, under Senate rules, communications with Iowans is privileged information, to avoid a 'chilling effect” on constituents discussing government issues with their elected representatives. Hatch said the governor is trying to deflect concerns raised about his administration's dealing by making it appear to be a partisan issue when it is not.

Senator Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, says the extraordinary action of arming the Senate committee with stronger investigative powers is needed because lawmakers have been stonewalled and thwarted in their efforts to get an answer to the 'most basic question” of who in state government authorized the payment of 'hush money” to buy the silence of laid-off state employees.

According to the resolution, the scope of the investigation will be confined to confidential settlement agreements with former state workers and related payments; hiring and employment practices; bidding, purchasing and contracting policies and practices by DAS and other state agencies; and the management of administrative law judges in the state's Unemployment Insurance Services Division and the effect of decisions made by those judges in the management and fiduciary practices related to jobless insurance compensation.

Branstad announced last month that his administration's internal review found that 12 separate state agencies had entered into 25 secret settlement agreements with employees that carried a cost of about $500,000 – a practice that he called unacceptable and declared would not happen again in his administration. The governor signed an executive order that he said would increase accountability, openness and transparency of employee settlements.

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