No great day for democracy when minor agreements merit major celebration

“Parties find common ground at Statehouse” was the above-the-fold announcement in Friday's Gazette. It's not a great day for democracy when legislative cooperation on minor items merits a banner headline.

Never mind that we're still gridlocked on the big stuff like Medicaid expansion, property tax relief and education reform. Legislators seemed to be relieved to tell reporter James Lynch they'd been able to move anything along with bipartisan support.

“This week has been the most bipartisan week I've seen in three years,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, D-Des Moines, told Lynch.

It's a blue-moon event when elected officials are able to get work done these days, seemingly at every level of government.

Over in Washington, Sen. Chuck Grassley, unhappy with what's already on the table, has announced he's writing his own gun control bill, thank you very much. Back in Linn County, the bell has rung on what must be the 900th round of the bald feud between county supervisors and Auditor Joel Miller. And down here in Johnson County, even civilians are getting into the spirit, with a handful of county residents pledging to plant a hog confinement next to a proposed rural subdivision that they don't like.

What a perfect metaphor for today's scorched-earth, my-way-or-the-highway political scene, where it's not enough anymore to threaten to take the ball and go home if the game isn't going your way - you have to threaten to burn down the whole field. Spray it with liquid manure. Poison the well. Describe it how you like: It stinks. And it goes against the whole purpose of having elected, decision-making bodies in the first place.

You want to get your way all the time? Run for office in North Korea. Here, you have to compromise. That's not weakness or failure, it's life in a diverse society. It's how this big, messy experiment moves forward.

I think former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson said it best when he told the L.A. Times last week: “Let me tell you something, pal: If you are a legislator and you can't learn to compromise an issue without compromising yourself, get out of the business.”

But the rest of us have a responsibility here, too. At the end of the day, it's voters who set the tone. We've got to call this gladiator mentality what it is: unproductive. Undemocratic. Ridiculous.

Comments: (319) 339-3154; jennifer.hemmingsen@sourcemedia.net