Lawmakers hope to adjourn next week

DES MOINES - Iowa legislators expect to make a run next week at adjourning their 2016 session.

The Statehouse was relatively quiet Friday with most lawmakers back home in their districts and skeleton crews on hand to briefly gavel both houses in and out of session for procedural purposes to keep the process moving. But hidden away, legislative-branch employees were busy drafting and printing budget bills in anticipation of a floor-debate flurry next week.

'We're optimistic. We think we've got all the pieces in place that we need to to move toward adjournment next week,” House Majority Leader Chris Hagenow, R-Windsor Heights, said Friday.

'I think we're headed in the right direction,” added Senate President Pam Jochum, D-Dubuque, who called the chances 'pretty good” of the 86th General Assembly wrapping up its second session's work by the end of next week.

'The wheels can fall off pretty quickly and when a wheel or two falls off, we've got to put it back on and keeping moving,” Jochum said Friday. 'We're not going to leave until the work is done, so if there are some sticking points in budget bills or whatever, we'll stay. If it goes into the next week, it goes into the next week.”

Lawmakers will return for the start of their 15th week on Monday with most fiscal 2017 budget bills ready for floor debate and a dwindling list of must-do priorities to address. Tuesday will mark the session's 100th day, which will be the last day legislators receive daily expense money -- $120 for those who reside in Polk County and $160 for all others.

Along with finalizing a $7.35 billion spending plan for the first year that begins July 1, the legislative agenda still has measures seeking to fund long-term water quality improvements, legalize consumer fireworks and fantasy sports activities and expand access to marijuana-derived cannabis oil. Efforts to expand oversight of privatized Medicaid services and curtail government funding of health care providers that over abortion services also will are expected to be part of the budget debate.

'I think with the pressure of shutdown,” Hagenow said, 'people will want to focus on getting the things done that we need to get done to adjourn.”

Jochum said the prospects for some of those remaining topics get iffy as adjournment creeps closer. The two houses are still working to find consensus on water quality, she said, 'we haven't given up completely yet,” while Sen. Bill Dotzler, D-Waterloo, said Friday he still was holding out hope for a Senate debate on the fireworks bill.

'There are things still up in the air and around here things can change fast,” said Dotzler.

'We've got a lot of work to do in a fairly short amount of time if we're going to get out of here by the end of next week,” he added, noting that the leaders are pushing their members to ready bills for debate or they will get left behind as the session winds down.

'We've been on some serious marches to the sea here. We can get a lot of things done in a hurry when people make their minds up and decide not to filibuster bills,” he added.