Majority status may trump Iowa’s lost seniority in Washington

DES MOINES - Some of Iowa's political clout in the nation's capitol will diminish when retiring Sen. Tom Harkin and 3rd District U.S. House Rep. Tom Latham vacate the U.S. capitol building in January and are replaced by an Iowa freshman class sporting three new Republican faces.

However, political experts say the lost seniority could be made up by the fact that Iowa's trio of replacements will be members of a Republican majority that will hold sway in the 114th Congress for the next two years.

Harkin, a five-term Democrat serving since 1985, is sixth on the U.S. seniority list - right behind fellow Iowan, Sen. Chuck Grassley - while Latham rose to 78th on the 113th Congress's list of House seniority where he arrived as a freshman in January 1995 and worked his way up to fifth place on the House Appropriations Committee.

Harkin will be replaced by first-term Republican Joni Ernst - a Nov. 4 winner over Iowa 1st District Congressman Bruce Braley, who gave up his House seat after four terms to run for Iowa's open Senate slot.

And Braley will be replaced by Republican freshman Rod Blum of Dubuque, while Van Meter Republican David Young will succeed Latham in the U.S. House and join returning House incumbents Steve King, R-Kiron, in Iowa's 4th District, and Dave Loebsack, D-Iowa City, in Iowa's 2nd District.

The 2014 election shake-up and its net loss of three incumbents means Iowa will send its least-experienced delegation to the 114th Congress since 1978 and one of its most unseasoned group of lawmakers since the end of World War II, according to an analysis by Smart Politics, a non-partisan political news site at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey School of Public Affairs.

Iowa's four-member House contingent of Blum, King, Loebsack and Young will average 3.5 terms of service during the 114th Congress - counting freshmen as serving one term, according to Smart Politics. The last time Iowa's delegation to the nation's lower legislative chamber was as low as 3.5 terms was during the 95th Congress elected in 1976, when the average was 3.2 terms, and two years earlier in 1974 when the average was 2.5 terms.

While half of Iowa's six-member delegation in the House and Senate will start on the bottom rung of the legislative ladder, Iowa State University political science professor Steffen Schmidt said the new members will be well-positioned, given their majority-party status.

'Iowa is getting a senator and two House members who are with the majority, and that, I think, counts a lot. It makes up for the fact that they're not senior,” Schmidt noted.

'Senior Democrats in the minority are kind of like taking your cousin to the prom.”

In Ernst's case, Schmidt said the Red Oak Republican who drew national buzz with her pig-castration TV ad and come-from-nowhere upset of Braley 'is going in as kind of a super star” as the first woman elected to federal office in Iowa and the first female senator who is a military combat veteran.

'That's going to give her a huge amount of visibility,” Schmidt said. 'Nowadays in the House and Senate, seniority is less important than it used to be, and leaders pick people who can do magic for the party.”

University of Iowa political scientist Cary Covington agreed that having majority status gives Iowa's incoming freshmen 'a leg up in terms of most policy matters” and 'puts the state of Iowa inside the decision-making process instead of outside.”

'In many ways, majority party status trumps seniority,” Covington said.

Traditionally, having veteran lawmakers in influential committee assignments has meant more perks or federal projects and funding for their constituents. But political observers said it remains to be seen how that will play in the 114th Congress, with many of the new Republicans members such as Ernst pledging to 'cut the pork” in Washington and 'make 'em squeal.”

Republicans' new control of the Senate will mean that Grassley will become chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, an influential position that will put him 'front and center” in hearings regarding President Barack Obama's appointments to attorney general and judgeships that must be confirmed by the Senate. 'That's a pretty visible and important position,” Schmidt said.

Fear that Iowa would lose too much seniority if both he and Harkin left the Senate in back-to-back election cycles was one of the motivations Grassley cited in announcing that he planned to seek re-election in two years.

'You get a lot done with seniority,” Grassley said during a 2013 TV interview when he announced he plans to seek a seventh, six-year term in 2016. 'I think if Iowa is going to start over two years from now with two very junior senators, that would hurt Iowa's opportunity to get things done in the Iowa Senate.”

Covington said Grassley is correct, noting that losing two of the most senior senators and replacing them with two first-term successors 'takes you away from the table in a lot of issues that Iowa would want to have a voice in.”

Grassley noted that seniority would carry less weight if Congress does away with earmarking funds within federal spending bills. He also indicated that seniority means more in the Senate than in the House, where he said Blum and Young - who already has been named to take Latham's slot on the House Appropriations Committee - can make up for their inexperience with hard work.

Harkin said the advantage of legislative turnover is that it brings in new people with fresh perspectives.

'Sometimes newer members and younger people coming in look at thing differently with new energy, new ways of doing things and sometimes they can be pretty successful getting things done, too,” Harkin noted. ''It depends on how they apply themselves, how they form bipartisan relationships around here.

'Seniority is all right for some things, but there's a lot to be said for new ideas and new people coming in with new ways of doing things. It's kind of a balance, I guess,” he added.

'I don't worry that Iowa is going to lose a lot. I think the people who are coming in are bright, capable people. I'm sure they will do everything they can to work for the benefit of Iowa.

'So I think Iowa will be fine.”

Tom Vilsack - whose relationship with Sen. Tom Harkin stretches from 1987 when he was elected mayor of Mount Pleasant, though six years in the Iowa Senate and two terms as Iowa's governor to his current role as secretary of agriculture - has a different take on the Iowa Democrat's departure from the Senate.

'Iowa loses Tom Harkin,” Vilsack said, but Harkin's retirement opens the door to a new generation of leaders.

'These decisions create a generational, rippling benefit to Iowa,” Vilsack said.