Dubuque businessman Rod Blum and Independence attorney Ben Lange squared off in a live, televised debate at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids just two weeks before the June 5 primary election to determine the party’s nominee in Iowa’s new 1st District. The winner will face Democratic Rep. Bruce Braley, a Waterloo attorney who will be seeking his fourth term in the U.S. House.

If the candidates appeared to agree on many policy issues, they tried to offer contrasts between each other and Braley.

“Who’s going to beat Bruce Braley?” Blum asked. “Bruce Braley is a 57-year-old career politician and trial lawyer. I’m a job creator. I started a business. I’ve created over 400 jobs … met a payroll every week for 21 straight years.”

Blum said a 57-year-old “job creator” is in a stonger position against Braley, whom he called a trial lawyer and career politician, than “a 32-year-old lawyer who wants to be a career politician.”

For the record, Braley is 54 and Lange is 33 and has never held elected office. However, as a first-time candidate in 2010, Lange gained national attention when he was outspent by a five-to-one margin but lost by less than 2 percentage points.

That makes him better prepared than Blum to run and win, Lange said.

“Who is more likely to win? Someone who has united an entire coalition of not just an older generation, but a younger generation,” Lange said.

He said he’s motivated to provide a new generation of leadership because sending the “same old, same old” to Washington has only resulted in more debt for his three young daughters to pay.

“We are looking at one of the most profound moral failures and social injustices in America’s history in our national debt,” Lange said. “It’s time we sent a new generation of leaders to Washington.”

As a result of reapportionment, Iowa has lost one of its five congressional seats. The redrawn 1st District covers 20 counties, including Linn and 10 others that weren’t in the district two years ago. The winner of the November election also will represent the residents of Worth, Mitchell, Howard, Winneshiek, Allamakee, Bremer, Fayette, Clayton, Black Hawk, Buchanan, Delaware, Dubuque, Marshall, Tama, Benton, Jones, Jackson, Poweshiek and Iowa counties.

The debate was held by the Five Seasons Republican Women of Cedar Rapids in partnership with Kirkwood and SourceMedia Group, the parent company of KCRG-TV9 and The Gazette.

Republican congressional candidate Ben Lange (right) shakes hands with fellow Rod Blum after a debate between Republican candidates for Iowa's first congressional district at Kirkwood Community College on Monday, May 21, 2012, in southwest Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The winner of the primary will take on Democrat U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley for the seat. The Five Seasons Republican Women of Cedar Rapids hosted the debate in a partnership with Kirkwood Community College and SourceMedia Group. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette-KCRG)

Gov. Terry Branstad speaks during an interview at the Statehouse in Des Moines, Iowa in February. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)

Raising the state gas tax should be part of broader tax reform that could actually decrease what Iowans pay in taxes and fees, Gov. Terry Branstad said Friday.

“I think next year’s the year to do it,” Branstad said on Iowa Public Television’s “Iowa Press.”

Branstad has recognized the need for more revenue to meet state transportation needs, but told lawmakers and local government leaders 2012 was not the year because of high gas prices. However, in recent weeks, gas prices have fallen, he said.

Taxes are likely to be a legislative priority next year. Republicans already are proposing returning approximately $390 million to taxpayers. Democrats and the GOP say they will continue to pursue property tax reform.

There was some support among Democrats and Republicans for phasing in an increase to help cover a projected $215 million yearly shortage in money needed to address Iowa’s critical transportation needs. A Senate subcommittee approved a 5-cent per gallon increase Jan. 1, 2013, and another nickel boost on Jan. 1, 2014.

Despite bipartisan efforts in both the House and Senate, supporters could not pull together the necessary votes to raise the tax for the first time since 1989.

Currently, Iowa charges 21 cents per gallon on sales of unleaded gasoline, 19 cents per gallon for ethanol-blended fuels and 22.5 cents a gallon for diesel.

A task force appointed by Branstad found $50 million in savings that have been redirected to road work. Much of it was one-time savings and will not provide an ongoing revenue stream. That panel also recommended a gas tax hike.

One source of opposition was auto dealers, who objected to raising the registration fees for hybrid vehicles, electric cars and vehicles that run on natural gas. Branstad suggested a fee based on the mileage might be the answer.

“If we do that in conjunction with comprehensive tax reform, you can actually show that people will pay less taxes,” Branstad told reporters later, “and the people that will pay more in user fees are the ones that are going to get the benefit of better roads and bridges.”

Iowa Press can be seen at noon Sunday on IPTV, at 8:30 a.m. on IPTV World and online at www.iptv.org.

President Barack Obama shakes hands with guests Wednesday, April 25, 2012 at the Eastern Iowa Airport in Cedar Rapids. The president, who is on a three-campus tour, was pushing to keep interest rates low on a widely used loan program aimed at low-income and middle-class students. (Brian Ray/The Gazette)

President Barack Obama will return to Iowa on Thursday to meet with supporters, deliver an economic address in Newton and, perhaps, make an announcement about wind energy production.

Few details have been released other than Obama will make a presidential visit to Newton and a campaign stop in Des Moines. It will be his first campaign swing to Iowa this year.

“We are excited President Obama is coming back to host a grassroots event in Iowa,” said Iowa Obama for America spokeswoman Erin Seidler. “In Iowa, we have seen firsthand the choice in November as the president is fighting for the middle class and growing an economy that is built to last and Mitt Romney whose economic theories are based on outsourcing and tax breaks for the wealthy and biggest corporations that undercut middle class Iowans.”

Republican National Committee spokesman Ryan Mahoney called the visit a campaign visit funded by taxpayers who “continue to struggle with higher costs on gasoline, groceries, health care, and tuition.”

“Rather than jaunt around Iowa using taxpayer money,” added Iowa GOP Chairman A.J. Spiker, “President Obama should explain to Iowans why his budget has failed to garner a single vote in Congress and why he has added an unconscionable $5 trillion to the national debt after promising to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term. Taxpayers in Iowa are fed up with having to finance President Obama’s campaign stops while at the same time they are suffering as a result of his failed economic policies.”

Obama’s visit will come little more than a week after presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney visited Des Moines to warn of the Obama administration’s “prairie fire of debt.”

Their visits signal that the candidates see Iowa as one of a handful of states that are pivotal to reaching the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House.

Thursday’s visit will be the president’s third to Iowa this year. He visited Cedar Rapids in January, the day after delivering his State of the Union Address. Last month, Obama visited the University of Iowa in heavily Democratic Johnson County to promote legislation to keep student loan interest rates low.

It’s expected the president will talk about the economy and press for congressional action on what he calls his “to-do” list, including creating tax credits for businesses that add jobs or increase wages and incentives for homeowners to refinance their mortgages at lower rates.

State Rep. Dan Kelley, D-Newton, hopes the visit to Newton signals an announcement on a wind energy production tax credit. Obama’s first visit to Iowa as president was an Earth Day 2009 2009 tour of Trinity Structural Towers, a company making towers for wind turbines.

Then the president spoke of the symbolism of the former appliance plant being used to create components for the production of renewable energy, which would power the household appliances that had been built there by generations of Newton workers.

While Iowa’s economy has fared better than the nation’s as a whole, Newton and Jasper County have not fared as well as the state.

Iowa’s unemployment in March was 5.2 percent, below the national average of 8.1 percent, but in Jasper County the figure was 8.5 percent.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Rove, widely considered the architect of George W. Bush’s presidential victories in 2000 and 2004 and nemesis of all things Democratic, offered a spirited endorsement of a Clinton presidency — as long as the alternative is a Barack Obama presidency.

Not only is the former first lady and current secretary of state more experienced than the current occupant of the White House, but Rove said Clinton holds a “less naive view of the world,” would be more engaged in developing policy, would be more bipartisan and would surround herself with a broader range of advisers.

“I’d be sleeping better than I am now,” Rove told a Cornell College audience last night.

Rove and Dee Dee Myers, press secretary to President Bill Clinton during the first years of his presidency, presented Republican and Democratic points of view during a Delta Phi Rho lecture, “Election 2012: Two Perspectives.”

Myers deferred when asked if Hillary Clinton would be a better president than Obama except to say both of them are better than 2008 GOP nominee John McCain.

Despite their political differences, the former Washington neighbors agreed that they — and everyone engaged in the political process — should be able to “disagree agreeably,” as Myers put it.

Although she believes this is “one of the most dis-spiriting points” in the nation’s political history, “we can make it better.”

We can disagree, Rove added, without “disagreeing with the fact that we all care for our country.”

However, it’s the differences in how people pursue their goals that “drives a lot of good people out of politics,” Myers said. “A lot of people look at it and say it’s just not worth it,” and she doesn’t see an end to the negativity.

Rove agreed that the negative aspects of politics and campaigning discourage people from running, “but it’s always been thus,” he said. People who care about their country have to “stand up and fight … (and) take the blows.”

The lecture was the fifth funded by Cornell’s Delta Phi Rho Centennial Endowment. Previous speakers were Bob Woodward, Fareed Zakaria, George Stephanopoulos and David Gergen. A group of Delta Phi Rho alumni said they created the lecture series to contribute to the intellectual capital of the college and the community.

Rep. Bruce Braley, D-Waterloo speaks during a debate on the Wartburg College campus Oct. 10, 2010, in Waverly. (AP)

A pair of Republicans who hope to challenge Rep. Bruce Braley are calling his support for a balanced budget amendment an election-year conversion.

Braley, who is seeking a fourth term in the U.S. House, announced May 16 he is signing on to a Republican-authored plan to amend the Constitution to require a balanced budget. He called it the “only viable way” to rein in federal spending and the growth of the national debt.

However, Republicans Ben Lange and Rod Blum, who are competing for their party’s nomination to challenge Braley, aren’t buying his new-found support for a balanced budget.

“It is no coincidence the week after our campaign launched a district-wide radio ad calling out Bruce Braley and the current generation of political leaders for the greatest social injustice of my lifetime, Braley would grab his umbrella to protect himself from the rain of outrage his constituents have been voicing and run for cover,” Lange said.

“Don’t read his lips. Read his voting record,” Blum added. “Don’t pay attention to what he’s doing now, three months before the election. What’s his voting record been over the last three terms? Very liberal.”

A spokesman for Braley expressed surprise at the negative reaction from Lange and Blum “since a balanced budget amendment is something we all agree on.”

“You’d think these two could put politics aside for once and follow Bruce’s lead to endorse this common sense balanced budget plan,” said Jeff Giertz of the congressman’s staff. “It was written by a Republican, after all.”

However, Braley’s support for the plan authored by Rep. Justin Amash, a freshman Republican from Michigan is a departure for him. The Waterloo Democrat has previously resisted similar efforts.

Amash’s plan would peg federal spending to the average of the previous three years of revenue and phase in over 10 years. It has gained a measure of bipartisan support. Fifty-five lawmakers have signed on, including Iowa 2nd District Rep. Dave Loebsack, an Iowa City Democrat.

The plan would make allowances for inflation and population growth. It also could be waived in emergencies by a two-thirds vote of Congress.

It’s hard to take seriously Braley’s new found fiscal conservativism, Lange said.

“The fact is he was the only member of the Iowa delegation to vote against the balanced budget amendment, to support bailing out Wall Street on the back of Main Street, and to support increasing the national debt limit seven times without any cuts in federal spending,” Lange said. “He hasn’t proposed a single bill or lifted a finger to resolve the defining issue of our age.”

Blum pointed out that over the last four years Braley has voted with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi 98.3 percent of the time.

“I don’t think Nancy Pelosi’s values in San Francisco and Iowa values are the same,” Blum said.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, pauses during a Senate Finance Committee hearing on health care overhaul reform legislation on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2009 in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Sen. Chuck Grassley isn’t alarmed by “what some might call upheavals” in Republican politics in Indiana, Nebraska and Iowa.

He sees the recent victories by Tea Party-backed candidates in GOP Senate primaries in Indiana and Nebraska, as well as the success of Texas U.S. Rep. Ron Paul supporters in Iowa in electing a majority of at-large delegates to the national convention and apparently taking control of party leadership posts, in a different light.

“I would refer to them as people well-organized succeeding in what they organized to succeed at,” Grassley said in a conference call with reporters Wednesday.

Referring to Paul supporters electing 10 of 13 of Iowa’s at-large delegates to the Republican National Convention and to seats on the State Central Committee meeting, Grassley recalled the party has gone through similar turnovers as recently as 2008.

“In 1988, when Robertson was so high in Iowa in the straw poll … a big worry then was about social conservatives coming into the party,” he added. Social conservatives have been and continue to be a force in the state GOP.

The Iowa GOP will continue to be a strong party, said Grassley, who will be a national convention delegate.

He’s not familiar with State Sen. Deb Fischer, who will face Democratic former Nebraska U.S. Sen. Bob Kerrey. However, Grassley said it appears she will have the backing of social, fiscal and economic conservatives. Although she was largely unknown until the final weeks of the primary campaign, Fischer is considered the favorite to win the general election.

The defeat of Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar by State Treasurer Richard Murdock shows the strength of economic and social conservatives, Grassley said.

“But you also have to look at the fact the senator didn’t have a house (in Indiana), didn’t even know his address that was on his license, he didn’t go home regularly, and, presumably, lost touch,” Grassley said. “Maybe under those circumstances, with a well-organized campaign, almost anyone could have won.”

Unlike two years ago when Tea Party-backed Republicans won nominations in Nevada and Delaware, Grassley has more confidence in the current crop of Tea Party candidates.

In Nevada and Delaware, he said, the Tea Party “picked people who didn’t have much of a record of political activity.” In Indiana, Murdock has been elected to statewide office twice.

Caucus voters fill out the same day voter registration paperwork so they can participate in the 2012 Iowa Caucus Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2012 at the Iowa Memorial Union on the University of Iowa Campus in Iowa City. (Brian Ray/ SourceMedia Group News)

The Republican Party of Iowa caught heat from news organizations for reneging on its own plan for releasing certified presidential precinct caucus results by giving them to the Des Moines Register before any other media outlets.

One of the party’s critics at a public hearing held by the GOP in Des Moines on Tuesday was quick to say he didn’t blame the Register for running with the scoop, but he questioned the party’s judgment.

“Any of us in journalism would try to get an exclusive like that, but I do fault those in the party who made this decision,” said Dave Busiek, news director of KCCI-TV in Des Moines. “I don’t understand how the party could play games with election results like this. In our view, this was a trust that was broken between the Republican Party of Iowa and every other media outlet.”

It wasn’t only competing media outlets that were surprised the party ignored its own plan for releasing certified results of the caucuses. Caucus-night results showed Mitt Romney to be an eight-vote winner. After review, however, it was determined Rick Santorum won by 34 votes

The GOP called a news conference to release the certified results but then provided the outcome to the Register, which published its story the morning of the news conference.

“Many of us were stunned at the fact that a deal was struck between the (party) and the Des Moines Register,” said GOP committee member Jamie Johnson of Fort Dodge, a Santorum supporter.

One outcome of the party’s ongoing review of the caucuses — and the inaccuracy of the original results — will be a pledge “to never allow that to happen again,” Johnson said. The party should not allow one media agency to get the jump on the official caucus results at the expense of other media, Johnson said, whether local, national or international.

Chairman David Oman called that pledge premature, but Wes Enos, another committee member, seemed to share Johnson’s sentiment. He warned that not only did the party treat other media unfairly, but the handling of the results may damage the Iowa caucuses.

“I think it does actually hurt our process across the board because it makes different media outlets think they can’t play here unless they are, you know, part of a ‘good old boys club.’” Enos said. “Without the media buy-in, without the media input, the Iowa caucuses wouldn’t be what they are. People would pay no attention to them.”

Carol Hunter of the Register defended the GOP’s decision and suggested the complaints stemmed from sour grapes.

“In journalism, there is a fine tradition … to be first with the story,” Hunter said. “The Register did that. At times there can be some competitive juices at work … no one of us likes to be beaten on a story. I would humbly suggest that perhaps some of the complaints might have to do with that.”

The Register “promised nothing in return (for early access to the results) other than an accurate account,” Hunter said, and noted that no one seemed to be questioning the paper’s ethics.

She recommended that the party not prohibit officials from making special arrangements with media outlets.

“It’s not inconceivable to me that the state party or committee might decide that a certain story should be placed with a certain media outlet, not unlike choosing to go with Fox News channel for your debate,” Hunter said.

The early release to the Register led to speculation that it was the party’s attempt to make up for pulling the plug on the newspaper’s traditional pre-caucus candidate debate, in favor of a Fox News debate.

The caucus review will continue with a hearing at 7 p.m. May 30 in the Iowa Hall’s Amana Room at Kirkwood Community College, 6301 Kirkwood Blvd., Cedar Rapids.

The GOP has a meeting planned for June 25 in Sioux City.

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks at Charlotte Pipe and Foundry Company in Charlotte, N.C., Friday, May 11, 2012. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

On Tuesday in Iowa, Mitt Romney will deliver what’s being billed as a major policy address on the “out-of-control spending and debt” under the Obama administration, according to U.S. Rep. Steve King.

Romney, who is hitting back on a new round of attack ads by President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, will speak at 2:05 p.m. at the Hotel Fort Des Moines, 1000 Walnut St., Des Moines.

Romney will offer voters a “very clear choice,” King, R-Iowa, said during a call with reporters in which he warned that the Obama administration “is creeping us up on the debt Greece has.”

In the three and a half years Obama has been in office, King said, the national debt has increased roughly $5 trillion, from 80 percent of GDP to 105 percent. At that rate, the United States “will be approaching the condition that Greece is in if we have a second Obama term,” he said.

“We’re spending more than we can afford,” added State Auditor Dave Vaudt, a Republican.

Iowans should be concerned, he said, because Greece has had to change its entitlement programs as a result of its debt.

“We have to get spending under control,” he said.

And while other countries are trying to help Greece turn around its economy, King said, no one will be able to so the same for the United States.

Doug Struyk

Iowa House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, has announced that former state lawmaker Doug Struyk will become his executive officer.

Struyk will replace Matt Hinch, who is leaving the speaker’s staff to join the Des Moines Partnership.

Struyk, 41, served in the Iowa House from 2003 to 2011, including a stint as assistant minority leader. His time in the House was marked by his decision to switch parties. Elected as a Democrat, Struyk joined the Republican Party in 2004, a day ahead of the primary election.

After leaving the House he went to work for the Iowa Secretary of State’s Matt Schultz, another Council Bluffs Republican. He has served as a policy advisor and legal counsel.

Struyk earned a bachelor’s degree from Iowa State University and his law degree from Creighton University. He has served vice president of his family’s lawn care business — Struyk Turf — in Council Bluffs.

“Thematically, not a lot has changed since 2010,” said House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha. “That’s still what’s on the electorate’s mind.”

That angry electorate has had a chance to reflect on its 2010 decision, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, D-Des Moines, said he believes voters think “Republicans spent too much time on partisan, divisive issues instead of the issues that matter most to Iowans.”

“So if the question is, ‘Is there too much partisanship and divisiveness and you want to get back to governing from the mainstream?’ then Democrats will fare well,” said McCarthy, who is looking to pick up at least 11 seats and the majority.

Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, said he agrees that Iowans want legislators to find common ground and work together.

Meanwhile, Paulsen said voters may tire of partisanship, but they care about results.

“Iowans expect us to come to Des Moines and fight for the things that are important to them,” Paulsen said. “They don’t care whether we have a pleasant experience. It’s about improving the state of Iowa — not our lives.”

Returning $390 million to taxpayers will improve their lives, Paulsen said, and that will be the House’s first order of business if the GOP is in control in 2013.

The key to tax relief and enacting the House Republican agenda — and GOP Gov. Terry Branstad’s priorities — hinge on the party gaining a majority in the Senate. That’s doable, according to Senate Minority Leader Jerry Behn, R-Boone.

Behn said he thinks Iowans will look at majority Democrats’ inability to pass their own property tax plan and decide it’s time for a change.

He also pointed out voter registration numbers have swung in the GOP’s favor — from a 100,000-plus Democratic advantage to an 8,000 Republican advantage.

“I’m not sure I can give you anything more exciting than that,” Behn said. “That illustrates a trend. The numbers have continued to swing to Republicans and as long as there is a trend, that’s absolutely thrilling to Republicans.”

However, Democrats are laying the blame for inaction on property tax relief on Senate Republicans.

“Instead of trying to pursue a historic opportunity to get a $350 million, 25 percent reduction in commercial property taxes, I think they decided it’s better to use it as a political issue than get something accomplished,” Gronstal said.

That argument is the least of Behn’s worries, he said, because Senate Democrats voted down a House GOP plan offering greater property tax relief.

Another reason for GOP optimism is that for the first time in 14 years, Republicans are heading into an election with a governor from their own party and “it’s no secret the governor will be out campaigning,” said his chief of staff, Jeff Boeyink.

“Branstad has never been interested in half-measures,” Boeyink said of the governor, who was elected in 2010 after serving four terms from 1983 to 1999. “He came back with a mission in mind.”

Although the GOP has voter registration numbers and Branstad on their side, Democrats said they like the opportunities presented by the new legislative map. Legislative boundaries are redrawn every 10 years to reflect population changes, and McCarthy said 64 House districts have a Democratic performance edge.

Democrats’ success, he said, will depend on turnout. According to McCarthy, the GOP didn’t win in 2010 as much as Democrats didn’t show up. If turnout meets or exceeds the level of support John Kerry received in 2004, “we’ll pick up a load of seats,” he said.

Blum is facing Independence attorney Ben Lange, who was the GOP challenger to Democratic Rep. Bruce Braley of Waterloo in 2010.

Despite of Lange coming within 2 percentage points of defeating Braley in 2010, Cedar Rapids Tea Party founder Tim Pugh said Blum is the only candidate “with the expoerienjce and skills needed to defeat (Braley).”

He also cited Blum’s understanding of the Constitution “as a guide for his decisions and votes.”

Blum has promised to accept only $39,366 – the median income for an American – of the $175,000 congressional salary, Pugh said.

Lange has his own Tea Party supporters. Sen. Brad Zaun, R-Urbandale, who was endorsed by Tea Party activists in 2010 when he challenged Rep. Leonard Boswell, has endorsed Lange, calling him one of a “new breed of conservative leader.”

Lange will carry the “fight for individual liberty” to Congress, Zaun said.

The conference committee report on Senate File 2315 must be approved by both chambers, but the committee chairs, Rep. Renee Schulte, R-Cedar Rapids, and Sen. Jack Hatch, D-Des Moines, expressed confidence their respective chambers will give their approval.

Under the statewide service delivery plan created by SF 2315, access to mental health services will be more equitable and not depend on where someone lives.

The bill calls for counties to maintain their property tax levy that generates about $125 million annually for mental-health services. Every county would levy the equivalent of $47.28 per person in property taxes for mental health services. Some counties levy less than that, so SF 2315 calls for the state to spend $18 million to “buy out” those counties. Counties levying more than $47.28 could maintain their current levy or lower their property tax asking.

It also calls for using $20 million in one-time federal money to help with the transition from a county-based mental-health system into a statewide effort where services would be administered regionally and delivered locally.

The conference committee report also spelled out how data on the counties’ transition funding needs will be collected and presented to the Legislature later this year. Legislature leaders have indicated lawmakers will make a supplemental appropriation if needed.

Left unresolved, Schulte said, is how counties’ cost of Medicaid-funded services will be bought out. Hatch and Schulte said a conference committee resolving differences on the health and human services budget is expected to include $40 million to cover those costs.

That committee is scheduled to meet later today.

Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, is predicting the Iowa Legislature can finish its work this week, including approval of a historic commercial property tax relief package that includes a break for renters and increases the Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income workers.

“I think we’re in a position where we can see the light at the end of the tunnel and the ability to finish this session maybe the middle of next week,” Gronstal said Thursday.

“I think we’re moving in that direction,” House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, said, but deferred to Gronstal’s sense of the session’s status.

“He’s been at his business longer than me so I will let him establish the timelines, but I’m pleased with the progress we’ve been making,” Paulsen said.

Despite the length of time it’s taken — the session was to have ended on April 17 — Gronstal is “quite excited” about the Legislature’s output.

“We’re looking forward to finishing up the places where we have disagreements,” he said. “There are some sharp disagreements, but we’re tackling those kind of one at a time and working through them.”

Paulsen offered similarly encouraging words, saying both sides are “working in good faith … and we’re continuing to resolve some of the issues that were before us.”

One area where negotiators have reached an agreement is on reforming commercial property taxes, which has been a priority for both parties and Gov. Terry Branstad. The plan calls for $350 million in tax relief, limits on local government property tax growth and $250 million in state assistance to “backfill” local governments for the potential loss of commercial property tax revenue.

Gronstal called it the largest property tax cut in the state’s history.

“Except for the one (House Republicans) passed earlier in the year and last year,” Paulsen said, adding that the latest attempts at property tax reform accord are built off the same general framework.

“Unquestionably, property tax reform or relief is something that I’ve worked on a lot of years and this bill is important to me,” he said. “I also want to make sure it is meaningful.”

One place where disagreement remains is in the health and human services budget, where negotiators say they haven’t begun to discuss policy differences. The GOP-controlled House approved a measure that would prioritize health care funding in a way that likely would reduce or eliminate state funds for Planned Parenthood. It also would prevent using state funds for Medicaid abortions.

Democratic Senate negotiators have said they will not accept that language.

In terms of the human services budget, the differences between the House and the Democrat-controlled Senate have narrowed, Gronstal said.

“They’ve cut in half the differences over the last week or 10 days,” he said. “They’re not done yet, but they are continuing to work together and I’m encouraged by that.

The HHS budget is “kind of the last game in town,” said House Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Dave Heaton, R-Mount Pleasant. He described the budget gap as in the millions, but not tens of millions.

“Both of us have moved a lot,” Heaton said. “I think I promised when it came out of the House that it would look better than when it left, and it does, but we still have a ways to go yet.”

Lawmakers have a ways to go on other priorities, too. Education reform negotiators have identified what aspects of reform packages proposed by Branstad, the House and Senate they agree on and what they don’t, said Rep. Royd Chambers, R-Sheldon.

An early morning view of the Capitol in Des Moines, Iowa, Friday, March 26, 2010. (Steve Pope/Gazette Photo)

DES MOINES — “We’re making progress” if the oft-repeated mantra of leaders of the Iowa Legislature as they head into a third week of overtime in a game of legislative chicken.

You’ll have to take their word because the progress, if there is any, isn’t happening in public.

That’s not a problem, according to Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, and House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, who defend the closed door meetings where lawmakers are hammering out the details of a $6.244 billion general fund budget.

“I don’t think they are taking official action,” Gronstal said when questioned about the meeting between lawmakers he called “the principals.”

Typically those are the chairs of appropriations subcommittees who sit on conference committees that negotiate away the differences between House and Senate budgets.

They’re meeting to make sure they understand each other’s proposals, Paulsen said. When they get an agreement, they will take it to a conference committee, where the public will have an opportunity to observe the formal approval of the compromise.

“No decisions are being made until it goes to the conference committee,” Gronstal said. “That’s the body that makes the decision. Not the two chairs.”

That’s the same reasoning local government officials have used to justify closed-door meetings. Those meetings have been banned by the legislators who determined public meeting laws should not apply to them.

That frustrates Rep. Dave Jacoby, D-Coralville, a former city council member who finds irony in legislators requiring local governments to operate under open meetings law that don’t apply to the Legislature.

“We point fingers at local government — and some needed their shins kicked, but we tell other people what to do and we don’t come close to following it ourselves,” Jacoby said. He said he refused to vote for a public information bill this session because it didn’t apply to the Legislature.

Rep. Vicki Lensing, D-Iowa City, who worked on that bill for at least five sessions, thinks there’s some legislative business that justifiably can be done in private.

“It’s frustrating that the last couple of years this is the way we’ve done government, that we can’t resolve things in open debate on the floor,” Lensing said. However, at this point in the session lawmakers are dealing with sensitive issues. “I don’t know if you can make those decisions in front of a crowd.”

That’s “antithetical to the public interest,” said Kathleen Richardson, executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council.

“I do think that it is ironic that legislators are conducting public business behind closed doors just a few days after passing a groundbreaking access law by an overwhelming margin,” Richardson said. “Unfortunately, this is a recurring problem every year at this time.” The process, she said, even leaves lawmakers out of the loop.

Rep. Cindy Winckler, D-Davenport, a member of the House Education Appropriations Committee and the conference committee on education appropriations, has been actively engaged in budget discussions since the beginning of the session. However, she wasn’t privy to an agreement reached this week. She was left to tell reporters that “based on what I’ve been told” it was a good deal.

Sen. Brian Schoenjahn, D-Arlington, was one of two Education Appropriations Subcommittee chairmen who negotiated that agreement. However, he declined to provide specifics — even as he was doing a line-by-line review of the agreement. He told reporters to wait for the conference committee report.

Rep. Dave Heaton, R-Mount Pleasant, who is negotiation a massive health and human services budget, took a similar tack Thursday.

“I’d just as soon not get into the details of our negotiations,” Heaton told reporters. “I know there are a lot of people wondering what the heck is going on. When we find an agreement, we’ll sit in a conference and people can see exactly what we’ve done.”

Of course, at that time, the public won’t have a voice in the discussion. Only conference committee members can speak at those meetings.

In the meantime, Gronstal said, people are offering their opinions.

“A lot of people are communicating with us saying, ‘Don’t throw this overboard’ and, ‘Gee, if you had to throw something overboard it might be that,’” he said.

Like that Melrose team, which became known as the “Iron Men” after playing two consecutive state tournament games without substitutions, it appears lawmakers’ mettle will be tested before they wrap up a 100-day session that already has run 115 days.

However, there was progress Wednesday. House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, and Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, announced a compromise to bridge a $115 million difference on the education appropriations budget.

The Senate passed a $891 million educational appropriations budget, including $34 million more for higher education funding. That was $14 million more than Gov. Terry Branstad proposed. The House cut $31 million from the current year’s budget.

The leaders declined to offer any details, but Gronstal said the Senate had “come down in our numbers significantly and I think (the House) has come up in their numbers significantly.”

“Everybody will be satisfied and everybody will be dissatisfied,” added Paulsen, “There are 150 of us here. Every one of them would probably change a couple of line items, but at the end of the day this will meet the needs of Iowans.”

Although she has not seen the budget agreement, Rep. Cindy Winckler, D-Davenport, a member of the education appropriations House-Senate conference committee, said she understands it calls for more funds for higher education, workforce training and keeping all entities “pretty close to the status quo.”

“Compromise occurred. Compromise was made,” she said.

The education appropriations budget is just one step along the way to adjournment, but, Gronstal said, “Every agreement we get on one piece lets us move on to the next.”

Paulsen agreed with the significance of the education appropriations budget. However, he said lawmakers and the governor have yet to reach agreement on the “framework under which all the budgets followed.”

That means adjournment is not imminent.

“It’s anybody’s guess whether it’s today, tomorrow or what day it is, but we’re working toward that end,” Paulsen said.

Gronstal said he wishes the session was over, and said negotiations are “perhaps better than expected, but not as well as hoped.”

However, Gronstal said legislative work will have to be scheduled around senators’ absences.

“With a citizen Legislature (and) in May some of those folks have commitments that are difficult to postpone or set aside,” he said. “So we will work around that.”

Both chambers will be in session, if only briefly, today.

Rod Blum (left) and Ben Lange

Two Republicans running for their party’s nomination in Iowa’s 1st Congressional District will meet in a debate May 21 in Cedar Rapids.

Rod Blum, a Dubuque businessman, and Independence attorney Ben Lange will debate at 7 p.m. at Kirkwood Community College, room 234 in Cedar Hall, 6301 Kirkwood Blvd. SW.

The winner of their June 5 primary election contest will face Rep. Bruce Braley, a Waterloo Democrat, in the Nov. 6 general election.

The candidates and their campaigns have been squabbling, accusing each other of refusing to debate. The Lange campaign said Blum has declined offer to appear together, including a Benton County GOP event. According to the county chairman, Lange spoke at an April event that was sponsored not by the GOP, but a conservative group, and Blum is scheduled to speak at a county party event May 10.

“The bottom is this — I have never cancelled, nor will I ever cancel a debate with my opponent,” Blum wrote in an email Wednesday.

He has proposed one debate in each of the 1st District’s 20 counties.

A spokesperson for Lange, who narrowly lost to Braley in 2010, said the candidate plans to do as many forums as his schedule permits.

They two have had joint forums in Black Hawk and Allamakee counties.

They have agreed to participate in a forum today at the Hurstville Interpretive Center in Maquoketa. The $10-a-head fundraiser will start with a buffet dinner from 5:30-6:30 p.m. The candidates will make an opening statement and then take questions from the floor.

Another forum is planned May 12 in Grinnell.

Dr. Lee Birchansky poses for a portrait at Fox Eye Laser and Cosmetic Institute. (Nikole Hanna/The Gazette)

DES MOINES — Special legislation the Iowa House approved to benefit a Cedar Rapids ophthalmologist likely will be axed when the Senate takes up the health and human services budget.

“There’s no support” according to Senate Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Jack Hatch, D-Des Moines, for an amendment to let Lee Birchansky circumvent the state certificate of need process. The process, for more than a decade, has blocked Birchansky’s plans to operate surgical suites adjacent to his Cedar Rapids office.

Hatch called it a case of lawmakers trying to pick winners and losers. House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, called it a matter of fairness.

Birchansky, who has given more than $18,000 to both Republican and Democratic candidates in recent years, has been denied approval of a certificate of need four times since 1996. In one case, he unsuccessfully appealed to the Iowa Supreme Court.

The amendment, approved 55-39 on a party line vote by the House with the specific support of Paulsen, would allow Birchansky to perform eye surgeries, such as cataract removal, at his office at Fox Eye Laser & Cosmetic Institute, 1136 H Ave. NE.

Pauslen’s support won’t be enough to win Senate approval, Hatch said.

“I know the Speaker wants it, but there’s no support over here from the Cedar Rapids delegation,” Hatch said. Birchansky “has gone through the certificate of need process. He lost. Now he’s mad.”

Sen. Wally Horn, D-Cedar Rapids, who like Hatch supported Birchansky’s 2008 application to the Health Facilities Council, said he would defer to Hatch on whether the amendment would become part of the $1.6 billion health and human services budget.

Paulsen, who has received more than $4,000 in campaign contributions from Birchansky, defended the legislation as an opportunity to save taxpayers’ money. He said Birchansky can perform cataract surgery more cheaply than local hospitals Mercy Medical Center and St Luke’s. That means lower Medicaid costs to the state, Paulsen said.

Birchansky, who has practiced in Cedar Rapids for 21 years, performed the common cataract procedure in his office estimates for three years. He estimates saving his patients and Medicare $3 million in that time. The savings, spread over 2,143 patients, are from the $1,000 to $4,000 in facility fees that hospitals and outpatient, or ambulatory surgical centers, collect, he said.

The purpose of the certificate of need process is to avoid unnecessary duplication of services and to control medical costs. In this case, Birchansky said, the certificate of need is doing the opposite, creating a monopoly for larger institutes.

A selection of buttons available for sale during the Tea Party Express stop Thursday, Sept. 1, 2011 at Greene Square Park in Cedar Rapids. (Brian Ray/The Gazette)

“Don’t let the numbers fool you,” Duane Holub said as he looked around at a couple of dozen people at the Tea Party Express Rally in Des Moines Monday.

“There’s still the fire,” he said as the rally near the Iowa Capitol was about to begin. “The Tea Party is still a force to be reckoned with.”

“Bigger than in ’10,” according to Howard Kaloogian, a college fundraiser and chairman of Our Country Deserves Better PAC. It was in 2010 the Tea Party helped Republicans retake the U.S. House. This year, the movement has its sights set on helping like-minded U.S. Senate candidates.

“The movement has matured,” Kaloogian said. “Candidates are seeing the Republican ranks swelled by Tea Partiers and the people have moved into campaign mode.”

The crowd swelled to about 40 before the “Restoring the American Dream” rally ended with “God Bless the USA.” There also were calls for a return to constitutional government, campaign speeches by Iowa legislative candidates and warnings about the United Nations’ Agenda 21. There was no mention of Monday being Iowa “Tax Day” – the deadline for filing state individual income taxes.

Although there’s no U.S. Senate race in Iowa this year, the Tea Party Express has a second stop planned in Sioux City later today for a rally there before heading into Nebraska, where it has endorsed a candidate in the GOP primary for an open Senate seat.

Polling shows that a large majority of Americans agree with the Tea Party’s domestic economic agenda of limited government, lower taxes and free markets principles, Kaloogian said.

For Holub, who is from Des Moines, the issue is the growing national debt.

“This is the only voice he has right now,” said Holub, as he pointed to his two-year-old grandson. “There’s no way this debt is going to be paid off in a generation.”

That makes it important for supporters to stay engaged at the national, state and local levels, Kaloogian said.

“Take it back to your precinct,” he said, encouraging those at the rally to move from transitory issues to a permanent neighborhood organization.

“We were a force, we are a force and we will continue to be a force,” Kaloogian said, contrasting the Tea Party with the Occupy movement. “We’ll prove it at the polls.”

Holub agreed. Tea Party supporters will start getting active again this summer as they get geared up for the November election.

“Democrats don’t think the numbers are still there,” Holub said, “but the Tea Party is not an organization that withers away after one election.”

Price Laboratory School Wednesday, April 7, 2010, in Cedar Falls, Iowa. (MATTHEW PUTNEY / Courier Photo Editor)

DES MOINES – Iowa Senate Democrats would put on hold a decision by the Board of Regents to close Malcolm Price Lab School in Cedar Falls.

The Senate Appropriations Committee approved $3 million to keep the research and development school at the University of Northern Iowa open for one year.

In approving the one-year extension of funding, Chairman Bob Dvorsky, D-Coralville, said the committee is trying to give the Legislature more time to “get more information and figure out what actually is the best thing to do.”

The funding is not certain, “but there should be further discussion” before the school is closed, said Sen. Bill Dotzler, D-Waterloo. He expects there may be resistance from the Republican-controlled House despite the efforts of Cedar Falls area lawmakers to keep the school open.

He is right. Rep. Nick Wagner, R-Marion, vice chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, was surprised by the earmark in HF 2462, the so-called “standings” bill that funds a wide variety of state spending. Wagner doesn’t think the House will second-guess the decision to close the school.

“The regents empowered (UNI President) Ben Allen and they have supported his decision,” Wagner said. “We need to trust what they are doing.”

For its part, UNI said the sentiment of Senate Democrats is appreciated, but the role of the school should be kept in perspective.

“We think it’s important to reiterate that while Malcolm Price Laboratory School has served the university and community well, the school was not the foundational element of the UNI teacher-education program,” UNI Executive Director of University Relations James O’Connor said in a statement.

A new model for the Iowa Research and Development Center for Education Innovation “will allow faculty more time to do research, professional development and create partnerships statewide,” according to the university.

The Senate Appropriations Committee is not the final word on the budget. If approved by the Democratic-controlled Senate, the funding would become part of the budget negotiations between the chambers.

There currently are 345 K-12 students enrolled at Price Lab, giving UNI’s education majors a place to do their student teaching. The Cedar Falls, Waterloo and surrounding districts have opened their doors to welcome these students and plans continue to move forward to close MPLS by June 30, according to UNI.

President Allen announced earlier this year it would be closed June 30. The Board of Regents approved Allen’s decision in February, endorsing his efforts to close a budget deficit.

Gov. Terry Branstad agreed with the decision and said Allen is in the best position to make that decision.

Whether lawmakers would reverse Allen’s decision a year from now isn’t certain, Dotzler said.

“I know there are people who would like to make a different decision, but whether they would, I don’t know,” he said.

Legislative leaders and the Governor’s Office say they have agreed to a general fund budget of about $6.242 billion. The differences, however, are over how much to spend “off budget” or beyond that number.

“If there is a legitimate one-time expenditure to match up one-time money with, we’re open to having that discussion, but we’re also not going to start going crazy spending money,” said House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha.

Although they’re careful not to characterize the situation as a stalemate or standoff, Paulsen and Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, conceded there is little more for rank-and-file lawmakers to do until they reach agreement on the budget.

“We’re out of work — on the floor,” Paulsen told reporters, but was quick to say that budget talks will continue along with negotiations on high-profile issues such as education reform and property tax reform.

“Every time we meet we make progress,” Gronstal added.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, D-Des Moines, painted a different picture, calling Republicans “discombobulated, divisive and dysfunctional.”

However, “That would not be my assessment,” Gronstal said when asked whether the differences between the parties were growing.

Both parties are “working in good faith toward resolution,” Paulsen said. “We just need to keep doing that. Keep talking, plowing through the pieces and figure out how the puzzle comes together.”

At the same time, the idea has been floated that solving that puzzle could be left for the 2013 Legislature. Unlike last year when lawmakers worked up to June 30 to complete their work, there’s little threat that state services would be interrupted if the budget is incomplete at the end of the state’s fiscal year.

The budget approved last year fully funds K-12 education through the 2012-13 school year and provides adequate funding for Medicaid and property tax credits, said Sen. Bill Dix, R-Shell Rock, a member of the Appropriations Committee. The budget discussion this year, Dix said, is about spending more money.

“That’s probably OK if it’s within reason,” he said. “There were a number of areas that, I think, people generally agreed should have more resources.”

But adjourning without completing the budget is not part of Paulsen’s game plan.

“We are committed to getting this resolved, but we are not going to roll the taxpayers of Iowa,” Paulsen said.

Likewise, delaying action on education reforms that were a priority for both parties and Gov. Terry Branstad may be an option, according to Rep. Mary Mascher, D-Iowa City.

Republicans have suggested the Legislature simply could extend an early education block grant for four years and leave reforms for another year, she said. The parties have major differences over student assessments, third-grade retention, online learning, teacher evaluations and religious exemption for accreditation of non-public schools.

It will be a “leadership decision” whether to continue negotiations or walk away, House Education Committee Chairman Royd Chambers, R-Sheldon, said after a meeting with Senate Education Committee Chairman Herman Quirmbach, D-Ames.

And while Paulsen held out hope for a deal on commercial property tax reform, McCarthy said “that train hasn’t left the station.”

Rep. Ako Abdul-Samad

DES MOINES — Lawmakers and Capitol officials “messed up” in responding to a death threat against a legislator and his clerk earlier this month, prompting an ongoing review of safety procedures at the Statehouse.

“We did not do a good job,” said House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, who played a central role in responding when a legislative clerk opened an envelope containing a death threat and an unknown white powder. “We messed up.”

A better job should have been done of containing the situation, Paulsen said. He’s received an initial “after-action” report from Post 16 of the Iowa State Patrol, which provides security at the Capitol, and also plans an ongoing review of Capitol security after the current session ends.

“We want to analyze what needs to change,” Paulsen said, adding that he’s unwilling to limit Iowans’ access to the Capitol.

“It’s always a balancing act between access to the building and the safety of the people who work here,” agreed Chief Clerk of the House Charlie Smithson.

There have been no arrests stemming from the April 3 incident that began when Michael Dekota McRae, a clerk for Rep. Ako Abdul-Samad, D-Des Moines, opened an envelope containing white powder and a racially charged letter threatening them. The Capitol was locked down for about four hours. A hazardous materials team determined that the powder, which smelled like laundry detergent, was not dangerous. Further tests determined it was an antacid, according to Patrol Capt. Mark Logsdon.

Abdul-Samad has varied his routines since the incident and takes added precautions when opening mail.

“I don’t open anything without a postmark on it,” he said this week.

The legislation, which was approved 66-32 by the Iowa House on Tuesday, puts into place a state funding mechanism for locally-delivered services. The current county-based mental health system would be replaced under the bill, which likely will be tweaked by the Senate, where it was approved earlier 32-18.

The House action “continues the direction of the Senate bill … it improves the bill,” said Sen. Jack Hatch, D-Des Moines. There are “small changes” he said he would like to make, but Hatch said he hopes to avoid sending the bill to conference committee.

“There’s nothing that should prevent us from getting this done,” he said.

“The alternative is not good,” said floor manager Rep. Renee Schulte, R-Cedar Rapids. Although “this bill’s not perfect,” she warned colleagues the current county-based mental health system is an “unsustainable system with an unsustainable future.”

Under the statewide service delivery plan, access to mental health services will be more equitable and not depend on where someone lives, said Rep. Nick Wagner, R-Marion.

“We have the situation in Iowa today that because of where I live I may not get even get the medication I need,” Wagner said. “Another Iowan in another part of the state is getting a free cellphone. That is not right. That’s not a system any of us want in place.”

Still there was opposition, which Schulte attributed to the politics of place. Some representatives believe the counties they represent are not treated fairly by the bill. Rep. Mary Wolfe, D-Clinton, said taxpayers in her district would be paying taxes to “backfill” mental health budgets in “some of the biggest, most well-off counties” including Polk, Linn and Scott.

Rep. Lisa Heddens, D-Ames, said she couldn’t vote for the bill without being assured her home county wouldn’t lose as much as $2 million in funding and reduce services to as many 200 people.

“It pains me today that I’m going to be a ‘no’ on the bill,” Heddens said, “but until I have those figures to know what that impact will be … I unfortunately have to be a ‘no’ today.”

The bill calls for counties to maintain their property tax levies, which generate about $125 million annually for mental-health services. Every county would levy the equivalent of $47.28 per person in property taxes for mental health services. Some counties levy less than that, so the bill calls for the state to spend $18 million to “buy out” those counties. Counties levying more than $47.28 could maintain their current levy or lower their property tax asking.

Wagner emphasized the unsustainability of the current funding. Counties, he said, “don’t use same accounting … they don’t use the same data. Some counties are overstating revenue. Some counties are understating costs so they can balance their budgets.”

“It points to a need to reform this system,” Wagner said.

Mitt Romney

Although President Obama’s support among Millennials has dipped since the 2008 election, a new poll shows he is widening his lead over likely general election opponent Mitt Romney among those of 18- to 29-year-old voters.

Obama will visit the UI Field House at 1 p.m. Wednesday to talk about the need for Congress to act to prevent the interest rate on student loans from doubling July 1. The UI visit is part of a three-state swing by the president to campuses in battleground states.

According to the White House, more than 7.4 million students with federal student loans will see their interest rates double July 1 unless Congress steps in to keep them low. For each year Congress allows the rate to double, the average student with these loans racks up an additional $1,000 in debt.

According to congressional Republicans, maintaining the current interest rate will cost taxpayers $6 billion.

The results of a national poll of 18- to 29- year-olds by Harvard’s Institute of Politics, finds Obama has expanded his lead over to a 17-point margin. That’s a gain of 6percentage points since late November polling by the institute.

“Over the last several months, we have seen more of the Millennial vote begin to solidify around President Obama and Democrats in Congress,” said Harvard Institute of Politics Director Trey Grayson. “At the same time, there has been effectively no change in their support for Mitt Romney and Republicans in Congress.”

However, Romney suggested this morning younger voters are questioning the support they gave Obama three-and-a-half years ago.

“He promised bringing the country together; that sure hasn’t happened,” Romney said. “He promised a future with good jobs and good opportunity; that hasn’t happened. And the pathway that he pursued is one which has not worked. Young people recognize that and I think that’s why they’re going to increasingly look for a different approach.”

Millennials may not be as supportive of Obama and Democrats as they were in 2008, but “this in no way implies that the Republican Party has successfully captured the hearts, minds and votes of Millennials,” said John Della Volpe, the institute’s polling director.

Instead, he said, the polling indicates Millennials care deeply about the country but “and feel that the political system as represented by both parties has not effectively engaged them on the issues that will shape their and our nation’s future.”

Complete results of the web-enabled survey of 3,096 18- to 29- year-old U.S. citizens with a margin of error of +/– 1.7 percentage points (95% confidence level) conducted with research partner Knowledge Networks for the IOP between March 23 and April 9 are available – along with past surveys –at www.iop.harvard.edu.

Rep. Bruce Hunter

Legislation that provoked a partisan shouting match over who was doing more to protect Iowans from sex offenders sailed through the Iowa House 97-0.

The Republican-controlled House took language added by Senate Democrats that would bar violent sexual predators from being transferred into nursing homes, but insisted on keeping their original language that requires notification whenever anyone on the sex offender registry moves into a nursing home.

“We sent a very strong bill over to the Senate,” said Rep. Joel Fry, R-Osceola, but the Senate sent back a bill that dealt only with people released from the state Civil Commitment Unit for Sexual Offenders at Cherokee. “I want to send back to the Senate stronger language.”

The bill is a response to a case of an 83-year-old man transferred by a judge from the sex offender unit to a Pomeroy nursing home. He assaulted a 95-year-old female resident.

Senate Democrats moved to ban the worst of the worst sexual predators from being placed in nursing homes. Republicans senators argued that wasn’t enough protection.

“You let rapists next to grandmothers,” charged Sen. Shawn Hammerlinck, R-Dixon, when House File 2422 came to the Senate floor.

“You convinced Senate Republicans that allowing sexually violent predators into nursing homes was a good idea,” said Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs.

There was none of that in the House. Rep. Bruce Hunter, D-Des Moines, encouraged his party to support Fry’s amendment.

HF 2422 “requires a fine tight-rope walking act to make sure we take care of some of our most vulnerable citizens and yet make sure we don’t trample over the rights of innocent people,” Hunter said. “I think our original bill did that. It struck that good balance between protections of individual rights and safety protections.”

The House amendment, which now goes back to the Senate, added back the House’s version that allows the administrator of a nursing home, residential care facility or assisted living program to deny admittance of a person who is sent to the care facility under a court order. The House language also requires care facilities to notify residents, family, employees and visitors if a sex offender is a resident.

The bill also directs the Departments of Inspections and Appeals and Human Services to conduct a study to find a long-term solution to the housing and care needs of sex offenders.

President Barack Obama speaks about health care reform at the Field House Thursday, March 25, 2010 on University of Iowa campus in Iowa City. (Brian Ray/The Gazette)

President Obama will visit the University of Iowa in Iowa City Wednesday as part of his effort to get Congress to prevent interest rates on student loans from doubling in July.

According to the White House, more than 7.4 million students with federal student loans will see their interest rates double July 1 unless Congress steps in to keep them low. For each year Congress allows the rate to double, the average student with these loans racks up an additional $1,000 in debt.

“At a time when Americans owe more on student loans than credit cards, President Obama believes we must reward hard work and responsibility by keeping interest rates on student loans low so more Americans get a fair shot at an affordable college education, the skills they need to find a good job, and a clear path to middle class,: according to a statement from his press secretary.

The White House will also kick off a social media effort using Twitter, Facebook, and Google+, centered around the hashtag #DontDoubleMyRate.

The visit is part of a three-state tour to campuses. On Tuesday, Obama will visit the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Colorado at Boulder. At each stop he will speak with students about the critical need for Congress to act.

It will be the president’s second trip this year to Iowa. Following his State of the Nation speech in late January, he visited Conveyor Engineering & Manufacturing in Cedar Rapids.

It would be his second visit to the UI campus as president. The last was in March 2010 in the Field House. He visited Iowa City numerous times as a candidate. He also delivered an Earth Day speech on the Pentacrest in April 2007, visited the Medical Education and Research Facility in May 2007 — when he first announced his health care reform plans — and visited the Memorial Union in October 2007.

President Barack Obama speaks about health care reform at the Field House Thursday, March 25, 2010 on University of Iowa campus in Iowa City. Obama first unveiled his health care plan, which he recently signed into law, three years ago as a candidate during a stop in Iowa City. (Brian Ray/The Gazette)

President Obama will make his second visit to the Eastern Iowa Corridor this year when he makes a stop in the Iowa City area next Wednesday, April 25.

The White House has confirmed the president’s visit, but released no details about where he will be or what time of day he will visit. According to local sources, the president may visit the University of Iowa.

Like his January visit to Conveyor Engineering & Manufacturing in Cedar Rapids, this will be an official White House event, according to a campaign official.

The day before the president visits, his wife, Michelle, will headline a $250-a-plate Obama Victory Fund fundraiser in Des Moines April 24. The fund is a fundraising committee authorized by Obama for America and the Democratic National Committee.

An early morning view of the Capitol in Des Moines, Iowa, Friday, March 26, 2010. (Steve Pope/Gazette Photo)

Iowa legislative leaders are optimistic they’ll achieve property tax relief legislation before wrapping up the session next week, but are offering few details of a hybrid plan they are negotiating.

“As I understand it, it’s the governor’s and the Senate and now we’re putting our mark on it,” House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, said Thursday.

Gov. Terry Branstad confirmed in an interview the nature it “has many of the aspects we worked for, but it also incorporates some of the aspects of the Senate Democratic plan.”

Although the details have not been agreed upon, the governor was “pretty optimistic” a plan offering both property tax relief and property tax limitations will be approved.

Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, is more optimistic.

“I’m more confident that I’ve ever been in 30 years that we can get something done on commercial property tax relief,” Gronstal said. “I think we’re much closer probably than a lot of people realize.”

Iowans will have to take their word because the leaders are releasing few details.

Here’s the starting point for the discussion:

Branstad and Republicans want to roll back taxes on commercial property from 100 percent of assessed valuation to 60 percent over eight years – faster for small businesses — while providing state “backfill” payments to cities and counties to make up for some of the commercial property tax money they’d lose as a result of the rollback. They also want to cap tax growth at 2 percent annually for agricultural and residential property.

Democrats favor a state tax credit they say would give four out of five commercial building owners a 40 percent-plus tax cut without shifting the tax burden on to residential property owners or adversely affecting local governments.

Elements of those plans that remain apparently include property tax relief in the neighborhood of $250 million over a period of years as well as reducing local government property tax increases from 4 percent per year to 2 percent per year.

According to Gronstal, the plan maintains Democrats’ priority to target relief to small business rather than larger property owners, such as bog box retailers. But, the leader added, he’s “not holding tight on anything.”

Likewise, Paulsen said his caucus hasn’t committed to anything yet.

“It’s important to us to protect the homeowners and the residential property taxpayers,” he said.

Left unchanged, residential property taxes are expected to increase because they are tied to the value of agricultural property, which is rising because of high productivity and commodity prices in recent years.

Branstad emphasized that the property tax relief might not be everything people had hoped for, but would provide “significant relief from what would happen if they took no action. Taxes would be less than if the Legislature went home again without taking action.

Neither Gronstal nor Paulsen see that happening.

In the past, Gronstal said, “the enemy of getting something done has been people saying, ‘That’s not good enough.’”

This year, an election year, Paulsen said, “there is greater interest in trying to work together.”

“I see fewer ultimatums. I think people are trying to work to solutions,” he said.

President Barack Obama laughs during a visit to Lorain County Community College in Elyria, Ohio, Wednesday, April 18, 2012. (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta)

DES MOINES — A day after first lady Michelle Obama headlines a Des Moines fundraiser, the president is expected to visit Iowa City.

The White House press office would not confirm the president’s visit, but people close to the president’s re-election campaign said he will visit the University of Iowa on Wednesday.

It would be the president’s second trip this year to Iowa, which likely will be a battleground state in the upcoming election. Like his January visit to Conveyor Engineering & Manufacturing in Cedar Rapids, this will be an official White House event, according to a campaign staffer.

Michelle Obama will headline a $250-a-plate Obama Victory Fund fundraiser in Des Moines on Tuesday. The fund is a fundraising committee authorized by Obama for America and the Democratic National Committee.

Vice President Joe Biden has made two trips to Iowa this year, with stops in Ames, Davenport and Sioux City.

Although Obama carried Iowa in 2008, the political landscape has changed. Recent polling shows the president’s popularity has fallen, with just 46 percent of Iowa adults approving his performance.

In 2010, the GOP flipped control of the Iowa House and narrowed the margin of the Democrats’ majority in the Senate, and also defeated an incumbent Democratic governor.

Given the president’s record over the past three years of “broken promises and failed policies,” Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said, “it’s no wonder Obama’s re-election campaign is in trouble in Iowa today and why Hawkeye state Republicans just surpassed Democrats in voter registration for the first time in six years.”

The April voter registration report showed Iowa Republicans with a 3,000-voter advantage after trailing Democrats by about 4,000 the previous month. That’s the first time in nearly six years the GOP has had more voter registrations than Democrats.

Obama, who will be in Denver on Tuesday, apparently will stop in Iowa City on the way back to Washington.

The prohibition was part of an amendment to a bill that also could result in fewer taxpayer dollars flowing to Planned Parenthood, although sponsors of the measure said they were not targeting Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, which has 19 health care centers in Iowa.

Rep. Annette Sweeney, R-Alden, wouldn’t concede that the Senate would reject her “more encompassing” amendment that addresses “the total health care of women rather than focusing on just one issue.”

But Rep. Beth Wessel-Kroeschell, D-Ames, argued during one of the briefest debates on the budget bill, which passed 58-38, that the Legislature shouldn’t address the issue at all.

“Each of us has strong feelings about abortion,” she said. “Even if we disagree it is better that each person be able to make her own decision. However I feel about abortion how could I possibly make that decision for someone else? It’s not my place.”

Sweeney and Rep. Matt Windschitl, R-Missouri Valley, argued that even if the amendment that was adopted 57-37 on a party-line vote doesn’t have support in the Senate, it reflects the views of Iowans.

Sweeney also explained she wants to prioritize funding. Under her amendment to the $1.6 billion health and human services budget, tax dollars would flow first to federally qualified health care centers that provide broad-based services. Then dollars would flow to other health care providers based on the level of services they provide, including Planned Parenthood, as long as funds are available.

Similar legislation in Texas prompted Planned Parenthood to sue the state.

The bill that passed Tuesday night in the House would appropriate $1.6 billion from the general fund for the departments of Elder Affairs, Human Services, Public Health, and Veterans’ Affairs. That’s an increase of $122.6 million from the current funding.

Caucus voters fill out the same day voter registration paperwork so they can participate in the 2012 Iowa Caucus Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2012 at the Iowa Memorial Union on the University of Iowa Campus in Iowa City. (Brian Ray/ SourceMedia Group News)

DES MOINES — Iowa first-in-the-nation precinct caucuses produced two winners and one big loser — the Republican Party of Iowa.

Initial results showed Mitt Romney won the January caucuses by eight votes, but after the results from more than 1,700 individual precinct caucuses were certified, Rick Santorum was the winner by 34 votes.

“We have to look at those mistakes, acknowledge them, review them and fix them and that’s what we intend to do,” GOP Co-Chairman Bill Schickel said Wednesday. “The bad news is that caucuses have been characterized by others as a fiasco, as a clown show.”

Subcommittees on public information, vote tabulation and volunteer training are reviewing what went right — about 95 percent of the caucus process, Schickel said, as well as what didn’t work.

The panels will survey party leaders at the county, state and national levels and consult with a variety of experts, he said.

Schickel said the panels will present their initial findings at a 10 a.m. meeting April 26 at Des Moines Area Community College in Ankeny. More meetings are planned May 30 in Cedar Rapids and June 25 in Sioux City.

Schickel said at a news conference Wednesday that Iowans still love their precinct caucuses, which he characterized as a “shining example of grass-roots democracy at its very best.” Schickel said data gleaned from the 2012 caucuses indicates the caucuses and caucus participants are representative of the party.

However, he said the party faces a big job to re-instill confidence in the process and defend Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status.

“We think that making sure Iowa has the most open, honest and transparent presidential testing ground in the country is important not just to Republicans, but, indeed, important to all Iowans and really to all Americans,” Schickel said.

Schickel deflected questions about what pressure the Iowa GOP is feeling from the Republican National Committee or other state GOPs, but conceded that “every four years it’s a contest for who’s going to be first.”

In a conference calls with reporters Wednesday, Sen. Chuck Grassley said there is reason for Iowa Republicans to be concerned.

However, he endorsed the caucus review saying that how the party handles the situation will determine whether Iowa retains its first-in-the-nation status.

Schickel said he believes the review will reinforce “what a good process this is, how good this is for democracy, how good this is for the country.”

There are alternatives, such as a national primary, Schickel said, “but you definitely begin to talk about who’s the best fundraiser not necessarily who has the best ideas. I don’t think that’s what our Founding Fathers had in mind.”

“We’re narrowing the field of differences,” House Appropriations Committee Chairman Scott Raecker, R-Urbandale, said Monday before heading to the Senate for more discussion with his counterpart, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Bob Dvorsky, D-Coralville.

He held out hope for an agreement that would set the stage for House-Senate conference committees to work out differences over spending in various budget categories beginning as soon as today — the scheduled adjournment date.

House Republicans and Senate Democrats have been trying to narrow a $200 million to $300 million difference on a budget of more than $6 billion in state general funds for government agencies and programs for fiscal 2013, which begins July 1.

House Republicans have proposed spending $6.06 billion, Gov. Terry Branstad’s budget is $6.24 billion and Senate Democrats suggest spending $6.3 billion.

Among the major differences have been higher education spending, where Senate Democrats want to spend about $61 million more than the House GOP; $55 million the House budgeted to fully fund property tax credits; and an even larger difference over commercial property tax relief.

House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, expressed optimism that an agreement will be reached, but he said House Republicans will insist on balancing expenditures with revenues and not using one-time money for ongoing expenditures.

A spokesman for GOP Gov. Terry Branstad indicated the governor is pleased with the progress being made.

Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, said the House is still cutting the governor’s budget “and we think there are things in the governor’s budget that were shortchanged.”

“I think the fact that (the House) came up significantly is certainly a positive” Gronstal said.

An agreement on an overall budget number would be a big step toward ending the 2012 session.

“We’ve got a shot at getting out of here Saturday,” Paulsen said. “I don’t see the logistics of how we get out Friday.”

With the session scheduled to end Tuesday, lawmakers are trying to wrap up work on major priorities — commercial property tax reform, education reform and mental health services. If they can’t reach resolution in time, they’ll be paying their own way because Tuesday marks the last day they can collect daily expense money — $135 a day for non-local legislators and $101 for Polk County lawmakers.

Lawmakers paying for their own meals and lodging is “one of those things that sends a powerful signal” that it’s time to complete their work, said House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha.

In addition to House-Senate conference committees on all of the budgets other than transportation, which has been signed by the governor, lawmakers are looking at floor debate. The House calendar includes the $1.6 billion health and human services budget, the redesign of mental health services, lowering the state tax on in-state sales between Iowa companies to strengthen the supply chain with manufacturers, and the creation of a seven-member Iowa Public Information Board to handle complaints about violations of open meetings and public records laws.

Much of the activity will be in House-Senate conference committees to resolve budget differences — some of which are sizable.

“You need to at least get to the point where you can compare apples to apples,” Dvorsky said after the conference committee on the Rebuild Iowa Infrastructure Fund met and found the House and Senate budgets differed by $10 million.

Paulsen hopes conference committees have a “global” budget number today. That would tell them the total size of the budget pie and how big a slice they get.

Senate President Jack Kibbie, D-Emmetsburg, said he was encouraged that the parties were negotiating budget numbers Friday. House Republicans have proposed spending $6.06 billion, Gov. Terry Branstad’s budget is $6.24 billion and Senate Democrats have proposed $6.3 billion.

“We have closed that gap, I believe,” Paulsen said, adding that there’s no single issue holding up resolution.

“It’s like the budget is every year,” he said. “It’s a whole mess of different issues coming together. It’s a whole mess of line items. It’s regents or line items in (Health and Human Services) budget or the total standings bill or the total number on top. All those numbers have to come together.”

Paulsen said lawmakers have already had the easy parts of their discussions.

“The hard part is that last little bit, whether it’s 5 percent, 10 percent or 20 percent,” he said. “You can put whatever number you want there, but it’s the last bit that often becomes the hardest.

“But we’re to that point where we are talking about the final pieces,” Paulsen said.

Fifth grade teacher Jenny Cooper answers questions from students during class at Garfield Elementary School in Cedar Rapids in April. (Cliff Jette/The Gazette)

The Iowa tourism industry’s pitch to push back the first day of school until late August found some takers in the Iowa House but won’t get a second look in the Senate.

Sen. Jack Kibbie, D-Emmetsburg, a supporter of a later school start date, assigned the bill to the Government Oversight Committee. However, Chairman Tom Courtney, D-Burlington, isn’t inclined to take it up.

“I don’t have a meeting scheduled,” Courtney said. “We have a lot of school funding issues that seem more important than the school start date.”

That won’t earn him a blue ribbon from the folks at the Iowa State Fair. Manager and CEO Gary Slater was encouraged when the House approved House File 2462 and sent it to the Senate.

Under current law, schools must wait until Sept. 1 to begin classes. However, most districts get a waiver from the Department of Education to start in mid-August. The tourism industry wants schools to start later so families can vacation during late August.

Earlier school start dates also create a conflict for people planning to attend the state fair. However, Slater said attendance may not be the best argument for pushing back the school start date.

That would be the youth education programs – 4-H and FFA – that culminate in showing livestock or taking other projects to the state fair, he said.

“Not all the learning in the world is contained in classrooms,” Slater said. “Some learning goes on here as well.”

The strong ag-related components of the fair, including the 4-H and FFA exhibitions, “are the only thing that separates the fair from an Adventureland theme park,” Slater said.

“It helps people recognize where their food and fiber comes from and that’s a little farther away than the supermarket,” Slater said.

Kibbie expressed disappointment Friday that the bill won’t be considered by the Senate.

“I would just as soon it would get considered by the Legislature,” he said, noting the Senate has voted for the later start date twice.

In 2006, the Senate voted 40-9 to require schools start no earlier than Aug. 25. However, the following year an amendment by Sen. David Johnson, R-Ocheyedan, whose district includes the Iowa Great Lakes, died on a 25-25 bipartisan vote.

“I think this compromise is something that schools could live with,” Kibbie said. “I get a lot of emails from administrators who don’t like this, but I think they ought to be more concerned about their funding.”

Slater is holding out some hope.

“The session’s not over,” he said, “and we know anything can happen.”

But with Oversight not meeting, Kibbie is not optimistic. Even amending it on to another bill would be difficult.

“It would be hard to make it fit, I think,” said Kibbie, who in his role as president of the Senate would rule on whether such an amendment would be germane to the bill.

Majority Democrats characterized Republican amendments calling for random drug screening of welfare recipients and defunding of abortion providers as attacks on women.

“It’s time to trust women to make their own choices about their health care providers,” Sen. Joe Bolkcom, D-Iowa City, said of one amendment that would prioritize public funds to health care entities. Abortion opponents hope it would steer money for women’s health and family planning away from agencies like Planned Parenthood.

“It’s time to stop the Republican war on women,” he said, echoing a theme of President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign.

That was out of line, said amendment sponsor Sen. David Johnson, R-Ocheyedan.

“I’m disappointed in this rhetoric that I’m hearing from the other side of the aisle,” he said. “There’s no war. That’s become a campaign slogan now.”

His amendment failed 22-25, but one from Sen. Rob Hogg, D-Cedar Rapids, to make people who have been in jail for more than three months ineligible for state welfare aid passed 47-0. It would prevent those Iowans from “double-dipping” by collecting welfare while taxpayers fund their incarceration.

The budget’s passage sets up another budget battle with the Republican-controlled House and GOP Gov. Terry Branstad. Senate Democrats propose spending $1.5 billion from the general fund plus $113 million of tobacco revenue. Their plan costs $24 million more than the governor’s and $65 million more than the House budget.

Former University of Iowa and NFL football player Tim Dwight, right, talks with Sen. Nancy Boettger, R-Harlan, about policy changes needed to help Iowans capitalize on the potential for wind and solar energy related jobs and economic activity during a visit to the Iowa Capitol April 11, 2012. Dwight participated in a presentation by the Iowa Solar/Small Wind Energy Trade Association. (James Q. Lynch/SourceMedia Group News)

DES MOINES — A day after the Iowa Senate approved expanding state tax credits for small-scale wind turbines, renewable energy advocates were at the Capitol encouraging lawmakers to more aggressively assist Iowans in harvesting wind and solar energy resources.

“It’s the future. It’s happening,” former University of Iowa and NFL football player Tim Dwight said Wednesday. “We need to get people ready.”

Unfortunately, the state is offering little help, said Dwight, co-owner of Integrated Power Corp., a solar development company.

Stan Pfoff of Pfoff Electric in Marion was there, too, and he’s advocating that Iowa match Illinois’ 30 percent tax credit on wind and solar projects. He’d also like the state to adopt renewable portfolio standards, similar to those in Minnesota and Wisconsin, to encourage small-scale projects.

Adopting net metering and demand billing to allow private individuals and companies to sell energy they generate — but don’t use — to utilities also would encourage private investment, said David Bennett, an instructor at Kirkwood Community College’s Wind & Solar Training Center in Cedar Rapids.

Current projections say there will be 2,500 new jobs in wind and solar energy in the coming year in Iowa.

The trade group’s Capitol rally came a day after the Iowa Senate voted 41-9 to provide nearly $64 million in state tax credits over the next decade. Sen. Rob Hogg, D-Cedar Rapids, said the bill would help Iowa maintain its leadership role in the wind energy industry.

Dwight, who has made several visits to the Capitol in recent years to promote renewable energy, conceded it will take time to educate legislators and policymakers.

“But how can you not support something that’s going to create American jobs, especially in your home state?” he said.

He also contrasted what renewable energy advocates are asking for to a legislative proposal for MidAmerican Energy to build a small-scale nuclear power reactor.

“We’re definitely a lot cheaper,” Dwight said.

Renewable energy advocates want to create a fund to help Iowans install solar and wind generation “to power their own homes, to power back into the grid and maybe power someone else’s home and power a school.”

“So we’re a little different,” he said. “We want to spread it around. We want to make sure everyone has the opportunity to own their own power.”

One way to help would be for the state to lead in the use of solar and wind energy, said Steve Falck, a former northeast Iowa legislator who’s now with the Iowa Environmental Law and Policy Center. The center is asking Gov. Terry Branstad to sign an executive order that the Department of Administrative Services and Regents implement the use of solar and wind energy technology, and that consideration be given to using those energy sources in constructing, renovating and leasing public buildings.

A bill that would limit the scope of TIF use won House approval Wednesday in a 54-43 vote with no Democratic support. Four Republicans opposed the measure.

A TIF effectively freezes the property taxes on a site at predevelopment levels and diverts the new taxes, or increment, into a fund often used for the project. Tax-collecting bodies like the city, county and school district do not get the increment during the term of the agreement.

The House bill includes several changes to the way the program works, including restricting the types of projects to which the financing vehicle could be applied. It also lets cities use TIF agreements to finance public buildings — fire stations, city halls and community centers, for example — only if a majority of the property’s other taxing entities agree.

The measure now goes to the Senate, where Ways and Means Committee Chairman Joe Bolkcom, D-Iowa City, says House Republicans have done a good job of identifying problems with TIF arrangements in Iowa.

“The House has made some progress in protecting the interests of Iowa taxpayers,” Bolkcom said. He called parts of the bill “sensible TIF reform.”

Floor manager Rep. Chuck Soderberg, R-Le Mars, opened the House debate by telling his colleagues that regardless of what he’s been accused of, “it’s not the intent of this bill to kill TIF, but to strengthen it.”

But Rep. Chuck Isenhart, D-Dubuque, said the measure weakens TIFs, which are used by 399 Iowa cities as an economic development tool, making it “functionally impractical.”

“This is a job kill bill,” Rep. Dave Jacoby, D-Coralville, charged. Rather than “slapping local government in the face,” he said, the Legislature should be thanking cities for the economic development — and the corporate, income and sales taxes generated by TIFs.

Soderberg said he wasn’t blaming local governments for using TIF arrangements, but he sees “gray areas” in Iowa law that may have led to misuse of the tool.

That might have been one area of the bill on which there was broad agreement. It has few supporters and several opponents, including the cities of Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, Coralville and Cedar Falls. The Iowa League of Cities and the Metro Coalition, which represents Iowa’s 10 largest cities, also oppose it. The Iowa Association of School Boards, Urban Education Network and the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation support the measure.

Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad announces his decision to endorse front-runner Mitt Romney's bid for the Republican presidential nomination during a news conference, Tuesday, April 10, 2012, at the Statehouse in Des Moines, Iowa. Branstad said at a statehouse news conference Tuesday that it's become clear that Romney will be the party's nominee and that it's time for all Republicans to unite behind the former Massachusetts governor and begin focusing on the fall campaign against President Barack Obama. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

UPDATE: Citing “primary fatigue” and a need to unite Republicans, independents and disillusioned Democrats, Gov. Terry Branstad has “enthusiastically” endorsed Mitt Romney for president.

“Now, more than three months after the Iowa caucuses and after a vigorous campaign, the time has come to coalesce around one candidate,” Branstad said at a Statehouse news conference Tuesday.

Branstad picked Romney over his leading challenger, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum – who narrowly won the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses – as well as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Rep. Ron Paul.

Branstad’s endorsement came shortly before Santorum announced he was suspending his campaign.

Although he had praise for all four candidates, Branstad said Romney matches up best against President Barack Obama.

“In Mitt Romney, America will have a clear contrast to Barack Obama,” Branstad said. Romney is committed to stopping “out-of-control federal spending that is increasing the national debt by $1.3 trillion a year” as well as “unleashing the private sector to create the jobs we need to rebuild the American economy.”

Responding to “Why now?” questions, Branstad explained he wanted to be a good host to the caucus contenders by remaining neutral.

“I purposefully withheld my endorsement until now, because I wanted my focus to be on uniting the Republican Party going into the fall,” he said Branstad.

With Romney’s nomination “mathematically imminent,” Iowa State University political scientist Dianne Bystrom suggested Branstad is joining other party leaders, such as Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, to unite the party behind one candidate.

Besides, Branstad continued, the differences between the Republican candidates are small “compared to the totally different direction that we need to move this country from the direction it’s been going – deeper in debt and an attitude that government, rather than the private sector, is what needs to grow our economy.”

Not endorsing ahead of the caucuses might have been the best strategy for Branstad, according to University of Iowa political scientist Tim Hagle.

“An elected official who puts his or her reputation behind a particular candidate can be embarrassed later if that candidate doesn’t do well,” he said. Despite an early lead in the caucus campaign, Rick Santorum won the caucuses by about three dozen votes.

Linn County Democratic Chairwoman Diane Hoffmann was more blunt.

“Branstad’s late endorsement shows how fractured Iowa’s Republican Party is,” she said. “The governor could not afford an early endorsement for fear of a backlash from the Republican conservative base.”

Although his endorsement comes three months after the caucuses, it has importance, Hagle said. The campaign is at a critical point. Many party leaders and rank-and-file members see the race as being over and continuing it “is only serving to waste resources that will be needed for the general election.”

“That’s another way for them to say, ‘Newt, Ron Paul, and Santorum, it’s time to get out of the race,’” added ISU political scientist Steffen Schmidt.

Branstad said he plans to be “engaged” in the Romney campaign, especially in Iowa.

“I love to campaign,” Branstad said. “When I get engaged and involved in a campaign I want to give it my all and I want to make a difference. I want to campaign actively for Romney here in the state of Iowa. I want to help him carry this state. I know this is an important battleground state. I want to do all I can.”

The question is, said Drake University political scientist Dennis Goldford, is whether Branstad’s endorsement would move an Iowan to vote for Romney if they weren’t already be planning to vote for him.

That’s “possible in a few cases, but not amounting to a significant impact overall,” Goldford said.

Branstad said Iowa Republicans are looking forward to the campaign.

“Republicans in Iowa are energized. One need only look at the surging Republican registrations to understand how motivated our party is heading into November,” he said. The party has gone from trailing Democrats in voter registration by 110,000 in 2008 to moving ahead of Democrats by a few thousand registered voters.

“Republicans are in a position to carry Iowa for just the second time since 1984, and we will not let this opportunity slip away,” Branstad said.

Unless, that is, they can’t afford a vacation, opponents of the measure said during debate Tuesday. The bill, which faces an uncertain future in the Senate where similar legislation has been approved in the past, cleared the House on a bipartisan 56-44 vote.

Also Tuesday, the House voted 59-40 along party lines to approve a $2.9 billion “standings” budget. It includes provisions calling for state employees and elected officials to pay 25 percent of their health insurance premiums, which would represent a $50 million savings to taxpayers.

The state now pays about $328 million a year in health insurance premiums to cover about 80,000 people, according to the Department of Administrative Services. About 87 percent of state employees pay no monthly premium, and paying one-quarter of the premium would cost them between $200 and $300 a month.

The annual standings bill that covers a variety of appropriations also includes a $55 million increase to fully fund property tax credits and a $34.6 million increase to bring K-12 education spending to $2.6 billion, said floor manager Rep. Nick Wagner, R-Marion. The House plan is about $22 million less than the governor’s budget.

The standings bill and its amendments include increases as well in line items for child abuse prevention and the Congenital and Inherited Disorders Central Registry, and call for paying college tuition costs for the children of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty.

In debating the school start date, House members touted the benefits for the state’s tourism industry of a later opening to the academic year. Opponents of the bill, which popped up after typical legislative deadlines had passed, argued that the school start date was a matter of local control. They also said nearly a third of Iowa families with students in school can’t afford vacations.

In 2006, the Senate voted 40-9 to require schools start no earlier than Aug. 25. However, the following year an amendment on the topic by Sen. David Johnson, R-Ocheyedan, whose district includes the Iowa Great Lakes, died on a 25-25 bipartisan vote.

Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, has assured him the House bill “will get a chance to move through the process,” Johnson said.

In other action, the House approved a change in state law to retain the Department of Natural Resources’ “chickadee checkoff” and three other charity options Iowans see on their state tax forms. The checkoffs raise about $350,000 a year.

Under current law, when the same four checkoffs have been on the state income tax form for two consecutive years, the two that have raised the least amounts are automatically repealed. There’s only room to list four charities on the paper state income tax form, which is the way about 200,000 Iowans file, according to the Department of Revenue.

The DNR’s “chickadee checkoff” is the most popular checkoff charity, followed by the State Fair Foundation’s “corn dog checkoff.” However, the measure approved Tuesday would retain the other two checkoffs as well, which raise funds to help veterans and firefighters and benefit a program to prevent child abuse.

The bill has been approved by the Senate 48-0.

On a voice vote, the House refused to concur with the Senate on a revised $62 million budget for economic development programs, which that included $20 million for state business incentives, $200,000 to keep the Iowa Film Office operating, and $2.3 million to maintain or reopen Iowa Workforce Development field offices. That budget will go to a conference committee.

Professor Barbara Schwartz, clinical professor of law, University of Iowa, Robin Clark-Bennett, labor educator at the University of Iowa; attorney Dan Vondra, and Geofrey Fischer of the Iowa Immigration Education Coalition will discuss immigration issues as part of the League’s series on the U.S. Constitution and the Supreme Court.

They will address whether the Constitution restricts regulation of immigration to the federal level, how immigration affects labor issues, and what civil rights do our laws and the Constitution grant immigrants.

Co-sponsors of the event are the Iowa City Human Rights Commission and the Iowa Immigration Education Coalition. The series is free and open to the public.

Disabled persons needing accommodation may call Dawn at (319) 321-2601 or email jclwvoters@gmail.com.

DJ Arnold and Ro Foege.

Former State Rep. Ro Foege of Mount Vernon and the late DJ Arnold of Cedar Rapids will be inducted in to the Linn County Democratic Hall of Fame April 21.

Foege served 12 years in the Iowa House and has been active at the state and federal level on a variety of health and human services issues.

Arnold, who died Feb. 28, was a long-time party activist, most recently as treasurer of the county party.

The annual Hall of Fame dinner and program will begin at 7 p.m. and the Longbranch Hotel and Convention Center. U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley, a Waterloo Democrat seeking re-election in the Iowa 1^st District, will be the guest speaker.

Tickets are $50 for the reception and $100 for the dinner and reception. For more information, visit www.linncountydemocrats.org.