McCarthy characterizes walkout as measure Iowa Democrats 'needed to have voices heard'

It wasn't gun rights or procedural issues alone, but dove-hunting at the root of Democrats' frustration that led to a Leap Day walk-out that brought the Iowa House to a standstill.

“It's a big deal to alter the Constitution,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, D-Des Moines, said Wednesday as his caucus members tried to beat back what they characterized as an extreme expansion of Iowans' gun rights.

“We left in protest so there could be some openness and some transparency and some sunlight drawn on what this issues is,” said McCarthy, who preferred to call Democrats' seven-hour absence from the Capitol an “off-campus caucus” rather than a walk-out.

That openness was lacking last year when the House, through what some called parliamentary slight-of-hand, passed legislation leading to the establishment of mourning dove hunting.

“We probably failed in our duty as a minority party last year in the area of openness and transparency when we allowed a raccoon bill be turned into a dove bill on the floor of the House and sent to the governor,” McCarthy said.

“Whether you voted for that or not, there should have been more openness and transparency,” he said.

So Democrats left the Capitol mid-morning and spent the better part of seven hours at a location they did not disclose to have “a good, healthy, productive caucus to buy some time so there can be some sunlight on this very extreme proposal (Republicans) will be pursuing,” McCarthy said.

He said off-campus caucuses are not unprecedented. Both parties have used them. In this case, McCarthy said, it seemed the only option.

“The only power we have as the minority party is to control the time,” he said. “We'll work with the majority party, but if they are going to elbow their 60-seat majority, we're going to have our voices be heard.

“Life will go on after this bill, but today was a day we needed to have our voices heard,” McCarthy said.

Democrats were also prompted to act by what they see as a change of directions by majority Republicans. After a divisive 2011 session, McCarthy said Democrats saw the opportunity for more bipartisanship.

“We were told by the Republican leadership we were going to focus on jobs and the economy. We were going to focus on bread-and-butter issues and not these divisive social issues,” he said.

But “the train is off the track,” according to McCarthy. “We're back where we were last year.”

He wouldn't speculate on the walk-out's impact on the relationship with the GOP, but said Democrats are willing to work across the aisle.

“If they want to come back and work with us in a bipartisan way, we'll be back ready to work in a bipartisan way on a lot of the issues we're doing,” he said.

“We're really serious as a caucus when we talk about wanting to focus on our work here that the average, ordinary Iowans wants us to do,” McCarthy said.