Iowa lawmakers turn attention to governance

DES MOINES - Top lawmakers at the Statehouse say the focus now turns to governing under split partisan control, but there's still some campaigning left to do.

Voters in Senate District 12 in southwest Iowa will be asked to fill the vacancy created by state Sen. Joni Ernst's move to the U.S. Senate in January.

For now, Democrats are slated to return to the Capitol in 2015 with a 26-member majority in the Iowa Senate, while Republicans will bring a 57-43 edge to the Iowa House chambers.

'While we would have liked to have been in the majority, make no mistake about it, we are going to do the absolute best with where we are,” said Senate GOP Leader Bill Dix of Shell Rock.

'We're certainly going to do everything we can to find agreement on those policies that we can advance that would improve the opportunities for jobs here in our state,” he said. 'That's going to continue to be our No. 1 focus is improving Iowa's economy and putting us in a position to see job creators create more career opportunities in our state.”

Newly re-elected Gov. Terry Branstad and Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds issued a statement Wednesday thanking their supporters for 'the opportunity to continue our work for another four years.”

'We remain committed to even better schools, a continued balanced budget and high-quality jobs for Iowa,” they added. During the campaign, the Branstad-Reynolds team detailed plans to 'connect every acre” in Iowa with high-speed Internet, close the skills gap for workers and employers, and make college more affordable while helping students reduce their debt loads.

'I am used to dealing with a split Legislature,” Branstad told reporters Tuesday night. 'We've been successful doing that in the past, and I am confident that we can continue to do so. I don't see anything changing.”

Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, said the focus now must shift from campaigning to governing. But he noted that 'all of our candidates ran very strong races this year on a message of more, better-paying jobs, restoring world-class standards to Iowa schools and balancing the budget and cutting taxes for working families.”

Gronstal said divided government forces lawmakers to focus on areas of agreement rather than areas of disagreement.

'The voters have spoken. It's time for people of good faith to work together,” he said. 'We look forward to working as we worked in the last couple of years to face Iowa's problems and solve them. I don't think anybody wants us to go back to gridlock. I think the federal government has been a great bad example for how not to legislate well and I think we all want to do better than that.”

Tuesday's results did not come as a surprise to some political experts. Chris Larimer, associate professor of political science at the University of Northern Iowa, and Tim Hagle, associate professor of political science at the University of Iowa, anticipated the Legislature would remain split. Hagle said the outcome came down to a handful of seats, which made it hard for either party to make significant gains.

On the Senate side, Democrats added three new members but Sen. Daryl Beall, D-Fort Dodge, lost to GOP newcomer Tim Kraayenbrink. Democrats Tony Bisignano of Des Moines, Kevin Kinney of Oxford and former Newton Mayor Chaz Allen all beat out Republican challengers to maintain the Democratic Senate majority.

In the House, Republicans gained five seats: Zach Nunn of Bondurant, Ken Rizer of Cedar Rapids, Ross Paustian of Walcott, Brian Best of Glidden, and Darrel Branhagen of Decorah, but lost an open seat in southwest Iowa to the Democrats.

Larimer said a split-control Legislature actually is an advantage for Branstad.

'I think honestly a unified, controlled Legislature makes things harder for Gov. Branstad because if things are coming out of the chamber that are more extreme than usual, that forces his hand a little bit to make decisions,” Larimer said.

Instead, Larimer said, Republicans and Democrats will challenge extreme proposals from either party and keep Branstad from having to weigh in on more contentious issues. Larimer noted if Republicans had achieved control of both chambers, it's questionable whether Branstad would back certain contentious social issues.

Hagle said division at the state level is unlikely to mean an unproductive upcoming legislative session.

'The nice thing is that even though we have that split-control in Iowa, we can make that work unlike the United States Congress. At the state level there are certain things we have to get done,” Hagle said such as balancing the budget.

Under Iowa law, once Ernst's Iowa Senate seat is vacated, the governor will call for a special session and set an election date. Both major political parties then will hold conventions to nominate candidates.

'The good news there for us is that's a very solid Republican seat and we certainly expect that to stay in Republican hands,” Dix said.