Political Football

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E-mail: Tom.Sands@legis.state.ia.us
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News from the Hill…

This week the majority party in the state house decided to sneak an amendment H-8164 onto the HF 2645. House File 2645 made some corrective changes to Chapter 20 upon which all four caucuses had previously agreed.

Chapter 20, which defines the collective bargaining rights and duties of public employers and public employees in Iowa, first debated and passed with bi-partisan support and under the leadership of then Governor Robert Ray. During its initial adoption, it took the Iowa House 13 days to debate the bill because of its great controversy. The original bill went through extensive subcommittee work with both management and labor having input. The work paid off, and they reached an agreement finding a delicate balance between labor and management.

House Democrats, under cover of darkness, brought up the most far-reaching revisions to Iowa’s collective bargaining since its inception in 1974.

Political payback to organized labor took precedence over sticking up for middle class families in the Iowa House on Wednesday and Thursday. Unfortunately, the controversial changes made to chapter 20 this week in the Iowa House did not have any subcommittee work for scrutiny, or input from both sides. House Democrats jammed the revisions through in about 13 hours of debate, most of which came under the cover of darkness, skewing the delicate balance between labor and management. None, however, were as controversial as the House Democrats attempt to sneak through the wildly controversial “Fair Share” provision.

With the rest of the House Democrat’s plan, school board members, city council members, and county supervisors were stripped of their ability to control the level of property tax increases. That ability is forfeited to an unnamed and unelected adjudicator. Property taxes makeup the vast majority of local government revenue and pay for nearly all of any employee contracts. If the costs for that contract increase, so do property taxes. If this bill as amended is passed in the senate and signed by the governor, it will take a generation for a future legislature to undo the damage.

What upsets me the most is the process used to move this amendment. We have a good process to our rules and our openness, but during the National Sunshine Week, the majority party tried to sneak the amendment into the bill. However, our caucus staff person caught it late into the night on Tuesday. Most of us did not know what was about to transpire until we showed up at the capital on Wednesday morning.

Both parties can play partisan politics and neither party is pure or perfect. Nevertheless, some of the tactics the House Democrats used to get amendment H-8164 on is unfounded and something to be ashamed of.

The survival of democracy depends on elected officials being open and honest to their constituents. This should be expected, not just a possibility.