“We’re going to move what we have available to us,” Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, said Friday when asked about bringing the tax relief package to the floor on May 17, the 124th day of a planned 110-day session.

What was available was the Rebuild Iowa Infrastructure bill, House File 638. The House dispatched the conference committee report 91-2 and the Senate voted 27-18 to send the bill to the governor.

However, the “big three” priorities of Gov. Terry Branstad, and legislative Democrats and Republicans remain unresolved.

Gronstal reacted sharply to suggestions he didn’t have the votes in his 26-member Democratic caucus to pass the tax plan to provide relief to all property classes, return a share of the state ‘s $800 million-plus surplus to income taxpayers and provide a break to low-income working families.

“I’m not going to talk about what the vote counts are,” Gronstal told reporters when asked about Senate Democrats’ lengthy Thursday night closed-door session to discuss Senate File 295.

There were “sticking points,” Gronstal said.

“I think there’s a whole bunch of elements to this bill,” he said. “It’s important for people to talk about them, to understand their impact on their local communities, to have those discussions.”

Senate Republicans, on the other hand, seem to like the plan, according to Senate Minority Leader Bill Dix, R-Shell Rock.

“We’ve said from the onset that we want property tax relief to be something that all taxpayers across Iowa would feel,” Dix said. “The bill addresses that. I believe that all Senate Republicans will support the bill.”

That’s not likely to be the case for Democrats, according to Sen. Matt McCoy, D-Des Moines, chairman of the tax relief conference committee. However, he expects the Senate to pass SF 295 Monday with more than half of Democrats voting for it.

“The reality is we’re in a split-control situation and we took two plans and merged them together,” McCoy said. “Sometimes you need to remind people that elections have consequences and I think that’s going to have to happen across the state.”

Waiting until next week to debate the bill “gives time for members to go home and talk with local people about how the property tax plan affects them,” McCoy said.

Also on the unfinished business list is House File 215, education reform, where there are reports of continued negotiations, but no consensus.

Rep. Mary Mascher, D-Iowa City, a retired teacher and member of the House Education Committee, said conference committee members are stuck on policy language on teacher evaluation policy, home school and home rule.

“Those are the three they are trying to get some compromise everybody can live with,” she said. “What that will be, I don’t know. I don’t know what Republicans in the House can settle with.”

House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, believes the conference committee, which hasn’t met in at least two weeks, can work through those differences even though they’ve been stumbling blocks from the earliest discussions.

“I’m trying to be optimistic,” Paulsen said. “I expect them to conclude their work and I expect us to pass an education reform bill.”

The stalemate on a third priority, the expansion of health care access to low-income Iowans and the Health and Human Service budget grinds on.

All parties to the conference committee on Senate File 296 say discussions continue. Paulsen again insisted that although the Legislature is in in extra innings, “it’s more important to get it right than to get it done fast.”

“People are working on it. I think they are working hard on it,” he said. “We need to make sure we get that right.”

Conference committee member Rep. Dave Heaton, R-Mount Pleasant, said lawmakers need the governor’s trust and reassurance that he will respect their work to find a compromise between his Healthy Iowa Plan and Senate Democrats’ Medicaid expansion plan.

“We would appreciate the governor’s assistance but not necessarily direct participation. It’s a legislative issue,” Heaton said.

Sen. Jack Hatch, D-Des Moines, agreed lawmakers are trying to determine whether Branstad is serious about reaching compromise.

“There are things going on now that would enable the three tribes to kind of sit down and have a pow wow,” he said.

Also ahead, there may be a last-minute GOP-led attempt to raise the state motor fuel tax 10 cent over three years. That’s prompted the Republican Party of Iowa to tweet: “You can count on the Republican Party of Iowa to stand up for hardworking Iowa families and oppose hiking the gas tax.”

Freshman Rep. Bobby Kaufmann, R-Wilton, is promising to continue his efforts to change Iowa’s eminent domain law to protect southern Iowa landowners who have been served legal papers in a protracted battle to develop a lake, supposedly, to provide drinking water to area communities. He will use every means available to prevent landowners from losing their farms “just so rich people can park their jet skis on their front lawns.”

Although lawmakers did not make as much progress this week as they might have hoped, Paulsen predicted lawmakers will adjourn next week.

“We’ll be back next week and, hopefully, wrap it up quickly,” he said.

The House is adjourned until Monday afternoon, but most representatives will not return until Tuesday. The Senate is adjourned until Tuesday.

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“Branstad is out of touch proposing a $10,000 pay raise for himself,” said Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Rep. Tyler Olson of Cedar Rapids.

“Iowans,” Olson said, “are looking for jobs … wondering how they will be able to pay for health insurance for their kids … whether our schools will have the resources they need next year. Yet while Iowans’ priorities remain unfunded Terry Branstad wants to make sure he personally gets more Iowa taxpayer dollars.”

That’s disrespectful, according to Olson.

Branstad spokesman Tim Albrecht takes it as a sign of Democrats’ respect for the governor that they have conceded he will be re-elected governor in 2014.

The salary increase would to the winner of the 2014 gubernatorial race as well as all statewide elected officials, Albrecht pointed out. It does not increase Branstad’s current $130,000-a-year salary.

“It is encouraging that Democrats see Gov. Branstad’s re-election as a foregone conclusion,” Albrecht said. “We appreciate their sentiments and support.”

However, he added, Branstad has not yet made a decision on whether he will seek re-election.

Branstad submitted his annual bill to implement the collective bargaining agreement with state employees. It contains that, as well as his recommendations for officials.

“Our judges and state officials have not received a raise for a long period of time. As a matter of fairness, I believe they deserve this kind of a raise,” Branstad told reporters Thursday. “I just felt it’s the right thing to do.”

Legislative leaders are not supportive of the pay increases.

“I don’t expect us to take up that proposal,” House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, said.

Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, also called it a non-starter.

The proposal would boost the Iowa attorney general’s yearly salary from $123,669 to $134,800, while other statewide elected officials – lieutenant governor, secretaries of agriculture and state, secretary of agriculture and state treasurer – from their current $103,212 annual pay to $112,510 effective on Dec. 19, 2014.

Also, Iowa judges would be in line for a pay hike under the governor’s proposal salary increases.

Currently, the chief justice of the Iowa Supreme Court is paid $170,850 annually and other justices are paid $163,200. The chief judge of the Iowa Court of Appeals makes $153,000 with other appellate judges earning $147,900, while chief district judges are paid $142,800 and other district judges receive $137,000 each year.

Under the proposed legislation, the new salaries effective June 21 would be as follows:  the chief justice of the Iowa Supreme Court, $186,220; other Supreme Court justices, $177,880; chief judge of the Iowa Court of Appeals, $166,770; other appellate judges, $161,220; chief district judges, $155,650; other district judges, $150,090.

The proposal also sought to boost the pay for state legislators who sworn-in when the 85^th Iowa General Assembly is seated in January 2015. By law, state lawmakers are not allowed to increase their own pay so an intervening election would have to take place before any pay increase took effect.

However, Sen. Bob Dvorsky, D-Coralville, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said that appeared to be a moot point given the chilly reception the pay proposal was receiving among legislators.

“The prognosis is not good,” he said.

Salaries for Iowa legislators and top statewide elected officials were last raised in 2005. At that time, the 17.3 percent increased vaulted Iowa’s gubernatorial salary to 16^th highest nationwide, but the $130,000 yearly pay has since slipped into a tie for 26^th place nationally with Louisiana.

Annual salaries paid to U.S. governors range from $179,000 in New York to $70,000 in Maine, according to the latest data compiled by the Council on State Governments. Some governors’ salaries include travel allowances, official residences, chauffeured automobiles and access to airplanes, helicopters or other perks.

Iowa’s part-time legislators currently are paid $25,000 a year, with top leaders getting $37,000 in the House and Senate, and pro temp leaders in each chamber paid $27,000. Lawmakers also receive $135 a day ($101.25 in Polk County) in expense money when the General Assembly is in regular session (110 days first year, 100 days second year) along with mileage, IPERS retirement, other benefits, and access to state health insurance at no premium cost if they so choose.

(Reporter Rod Boshart contributed to this story)

According to various reports, the property tax plan, which may be as large as $400 million, if approved by the split-control Legislature, will provide tax relief to commercial property owners and offer some protection – but not necessarily lower taxes — to residential property owners.

“Property tax is the biggest and most significant part of it, but there are priorities for both the House Republicans and Senate Democrats,” Gov. Terry Branstad said Wednesday at a bill signing.

However, Senate Ways and Means Committee Chairman Joe Bolkcom, D-Iowa City, wouldn’t confirm that – or much of anything else.

“I’m not sure what’s in it,” Bolkcom said when asked about the income tax part and an increase in the Earned Income Tax Credit that he has insisted on. People are working on property tax relief, he said.

Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, agreed the parties are close, but declined to talk about what was in the bill.

“We need to finish our discussion in caucus,” Gronstal said, referring to his 26 Senate Democrats. “Until we do that we’re not going to talk about it.”

Lawmakers “have the right to hear this from us before it gets rolled out,” added Sen. Matt McCoy, D-Des Moines.

Although property tax relief has been a priority of Democrats, Republicans and the governor, they have been reluctant to meet publicly to discuss it. A conference committee appointed to seek a compromise on Senate File 295 has had what Senate Minority Leader Bill Dix, R-Shell Rock, called two “non-substantive” meetings.

What information about the plan that has emerged sounds very much like the plan that failed to win support last year. The difference, according to Gronstal, is that the bill is in a conference committee this year.

“People never quit this time,” Branstad added. “They stayed with it and, I mean, I think it takes patience and tenacity to get significant things accomplished.”

Based on various reports, the plan may:

• Include a Democratic plan to provide about $125 million in property tax relief through tax credits to commercial property owners.
• Backfill local government budgets for revenue lost by a rollback on commercial property taxes.
• Reclassify apartments and condominiums from commercial to residential providing an immediate property tax reduction of nearly half.
• Limit increases on residential and ag property to no more than 3 percent a year. The limit it 4 percent now.
• Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income working Iowans from its current 7 percent.
• Include the House GOP plan to return some of the state’s $800 million-plus budget surplus – “taxpayer overpayment,” according to Republicans – to Iowans through income tax credits.

It’s clear from lawmakers’ comments that much of the plan remains subject to negotiations. One Senate Republican said that chamber will vote on it Thursday.

Gronstal didn’t confirm that, but did say a deal is “closer than last week.”

In other action Thursday:

— The $52.7 million Administration and Regulation spending plan that includes $275,000 for the new Public Information Board was approved 89-6 by the House and 26-19 by the Senate.

The budget allows the new board to pay for a director and two other full-time staff. Lawmakers created the board, which had been proposed in in various ways since 2007, last year. The board can fine people or public bodies up to $2,500 for willfully violating the public information laws. This, advocates argued, is an improvement on the state Ombudsman’s Office, which had no enforcement powers and the Attorney General’s Office which could have a conflict of interest in some cases.

Paying for the board became an issue between the two chambers. House Republicans appropriated $100,000 for the board, while Senate Democrats pushed for closer to $400,000.

Gronstal filed a motion to reconsider, a move not unusual when the Legislature is nearing adjournment.

— Negotiators working on the education reform bill haven’t met for more than two weeks and it appeared that frustration over key points was setting in.

“Sometimes it feels like we’re just spinning our wheels,” said state Rep. Ron Jorgensen, R-Sioux City, co-chair of the 10-member bicameral, bipartisan committee working on the education reform package.

Jorgensen said the key sticking points revolve around parent choice and home rule provisions being pushed by House Republicans and teacher evaluation language supported by Senate Democrats.

Still, he believes an agreement can be worked out in the committee, although he wasn’t sure when that would be.

His counterpart, state Sen. Herman Quirmbach, D-Ames, brushed off questions about the state of negotiations with a “no comment.”

Gov. Terry Branstad struck a more optimistic tone than either Jorgensen or Quirmbach.

“It’s very close. I’m told that it’s very, very close and I think there is essentially agreement on most of the big issues and a few minor things to be worked out,” he said. “I’m very optimistic it’s going to be approved. I don’t think people would work this hard and get this close and then quit.”

— The Senate voted 27-18 to approve SF 430, the economic development budget that went from the governor’s recommendation of nearly $73 million to $41 million in the conference committee report. That’s because several items were removed from the budget, Sen. Bill Dotzler, D-Waterloo, explained. Those research and development and economic development dollars were put into a workforce skills and job creation fund at the three regents universities.

Democrats were unable to re-open any of the Iowa Workforce Development offices that have been closed. Dotzler said that the budget protects three of four remaining satellite offices. It gives the governor discretion to close one based on usage. They are in Iowa City, Decorah, Fort Madison and Webster City.

— The Senate voted 44-1 to give the Legislature’s Administrative Rules Review Committee authority to suspend implementation of emergency rules for 70 days.

Senate President Pam Jochum, D-Dubuque, said it would allow lawmakers to assure that rules written to implement laws they passed were consistent with legislative intent.

Approved 98-0 in the House, HF 586 requires a two-thirds vote of the 10-person committee.

— The Senate also approved HF 641 43-2 to allow the creation of reinvestment district with the approval of the state Economic Development Board. The districts would allow cities to collect certain sales tax and hotel-motel tax revenues.

It passed in the House 87-9.

In one case, technology will save the state money and reduce the amount of “wasted time” Iowans spend standing in line at motor vehicle stations to renew driver’s licenses, the governor said as he signed House File 355.

In the case of House File 527, Branstad said collecting DNA samples from Iowans convicted of less-serious crimes classified as aggravated misdemeanors will help law enforcement solve crimes and, potentially, exonerate Iowans falsely accused of crime. It was approved 29-20 in the Senate and 82-15 in the House.

Attorney General Tom Miller welcomed the new law as a “natural, logical extension of what we’ve seen before to make our state safer and to make the criminal justice system more accurate.”

HF 355, which Branstad called “another step forward with modern technology,” may have an impact on more Iowans than DNA collections. The option, which should be available this summer, will allow drivers between the ages of 18 and 72 years to renew their Iowa operator’s licenses electronically every other time.

In addition to reducing wait time for Iowans, electronic renewal should save the state Department of Transportation an estimated $1.2 million in road-use tax funds through efficiencies.

The DOT estimates about 35 percent of Iowa drivers will choose the online option, saving them about $3 million a year in time and travel.

“I call this economic development,” Mikel Derby, DOT lobbyist, said. “That’s money they can spend on something else and it makes life better.”

Lawmakers passed similar language last session, but it was vetoed by Branstad because he objected to language unrelated to the licensing change.

Currently, licenses are issued and renewed at 81 county treasurer’s offices and 19 DOT driver’s license stations.

HF 355 requires Iowans who have vision impairments or who seek to change a vision restriction on their license to renew it in person.

Attorney General Miller predicted that a significant number of cases will be solved by the expanded use of DNA. In New York where they began collecting samples from people convicted of aggravated misdemeanors in 2006 there have been 965 matches, 51 of which were murder cases.

Responding civil liberties concerns that DNA sampling will be costly, expand state bureaucracy, expose thousands of Iowans to due process and privacy risks, and impact minorities more heavily than whites, Miller said it’s a “reasonable expansion of a non-intrusive requirement.”

The Legislative Services Agency estimates the new law will cost the state’s general fund about $327,000 each of the next two fiscal years. The bulk of the cost is for 7,000 test kits and the equivalent of two full-time positions at the Department of Public Safety. Salary and benefits for an entry-level criminalist is $71,000 a year.

DNA testing is not infallible and by dramatically increasing the number of DNA samples the state collects, the likelihood of error will increase, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa.

The ACLU also is concerned that the state will store the samples forever and has questions about with whom they will be shared and for what other purposes they might be used.

Once in the system, it makes sense to keep the DNA samples in the system, Miller said.

“It gives a protection to society to do that and there aren’t a lot of errors with DNA,” Miller said. “The Civil Liberties Union should be aware on that focus on that.”

Current law requires persons with a deferred judgment or conviction for a felony — as well as sexually violent predators and sex offenders — to submit a DNA sample for profiling.

HF 527 expands that to include people convicted of aggravated misdemeanors including assaults, thefts and multiple drunken driving convictions. There are exemptions for cases involving deferred judgment or juveniles and misdemeanors related to gambling, hazardous waste, agricultural productions and other offenses.

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Mary Mosiman

The Iowa Democratic Party Tuesday alleged that Mosiman used more than $1,000 from her campaign for Story County Auditor, a position she was elected to three times, to pay for personal expenses after leaving office.

IDP Executive Director Troy Price said Mosiman spent campaign funds on certified public accountant training and travel to Republican county conventions. That’s a violation of a state prohibition on public officials spending campaign money when they are neither in elected office nor a candidate for elected office.

At the time of the expenditures, Mosiman was an employee of the Secretary of State.

“The State Auditor’s responsibility is to make sure taxpayer dollars are being used properly,” Price said. “If Mary Mosiman can’t spent (sic) her own money properly, how can we trust her with ours?”

Mosiman, who was appointed May 13 by Gov. Terry Branstad has appointed Mosiman Monday to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of Auditor David Vaudt, denied the allegation.

“I believe these were allowable expenses because I have been a candidate in the past and I intend to be a candidate in the future,” Mosiman said in a statement Tuesday afternoon. She plans to seek election as auditor in 2014. “I will work with the (ethics) board and abide by any decisions it makes.”

In 2012, after going to work as deputy of elections in the Secretary of State’s Office, she spent $1,095 – most of it on training in local government finance, ethics and fraud, and a state Department of Revenue legislative update and seminar. She spent about $150 was spent reimbursing herself for travel to the GOP conventions.

Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board Executive Director Megan Tooker was unavailable Tuesday, but typically conducts a preliminary review of complaints to determine if the board has jurisdiction. If it does, she conducts a legal review to determine whether the allegations, if proved true, would constitute a violation. If it meets that test, she presents the complaint to the ethics board. It can order a staff investigation and if the board determines there was a violation, it has options ranging from an admonishment to civil penalties.

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Representative Steve King (R-IA) on the steps of the House of Representatives in Washington, DC on Tuesday, April 16, 2013. (Stephen Mally/Freelance)

As bad as ObamaCare is, as much as he loathes it, U.S. Rep. Steve King has found something worse: Immigration reform.

According to the 4^th District Republican, the so-called “Gang of Eight” proposal being considered by the U.S. Senate – which he previously called “an outrageous reach” — would grant amnesty to all illegal immigrants, send an invitation to everyone who has been deported to re-apply for citizenship and tells anyone who can get into the country they will get amnesty.

“Here’s how bad this is,” King said at a news conference outside the Capitol that was carried by C-SPAN. “You know how badly I despise ObamaCare. I’ve spent years of my life fighting against ObamaCare. I despise that bill because it’s an unconstitutional taking of our bodies, our health, our skin and everything inside it. It’s terrible. It diminishes the destiny of America.”

But there’s something worse than President Obama’s health reform plan approved by Congress in 2009, he said.

“If somehow there was an offer that said you are going to get one or the other and you have to choose one, I would take ObamaCare and try to live with that before I would ever take this amnesty plan,” King said. “The amnesty plan is far, far worse than ObamaCare. That genie cannot be put back in the bottle.”

Over time, he said, ObamaCare can be repealed, “but if this amnesty goes through … there’s no going back.”

King indicated he’s speaking out because he’s doubtful there will be an “open debate” on immigration reform in the House.

“We will get a debate all right here in the House of Representatives, but now an open one that lets us get down and take it apart piece by piece,” he said.

King was joined by Texas Rep. Louie Gomert, Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks and others.

Skeleton crews of legislators gaveled the Iowa House and Iowa Senate into brief open sessions Monday afternoon while top leaders and key players met privately on priority issues in search of elusive agreements that are holding up adjournment. Monday marked the 120^th day of the 2013 session.

“It’s time to wrap this thing up and get it completed and we’re very hopeful that can happen this week,” Branstad told reporters at his weekly news conference.

The GOP governor and key lawmakers in the split-control General Assembly said negotiators were “very close” to agreeing on an overall spending level for fiscal 2014 that would allow House-Senate conference committees to proceed with funding targets in each of their respective budget areas.

“If we’re going to wrap this up, that’s the first step,” said Rep. Chuck Soderberg, R-Le Mars, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.

House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, said talks looks promising on reforming Iowa’s education and property tax systems, but negotiators were having difficulty forging an agreement between Branstad’s Healthy Iowa plan and a proposed expansion of Iowa’s Medicaid program that Democrats favor.

“We’ve still got some work ahead of us but we believe that we can be done this week,” Paulsen said. “I expect before we adjourn we will have an education reform bill that will move Iowa’s educational system forward and a property tax system that while protecting homeowners encourages employers to invest in our state.”

Sen. Jack Hatch, D-Des Moines, rejected talk of possibility of lawmakers ending the regular session without resolving the health care expansion for needy Iowans and returning later this year in special session to hammer out a compromise.

“All of our work will be done here now, it has to be completed,” said Hatch, who noted there is “daylight” between GOP legislators and the governor on Branstad’s proposal to finance an expansion of the IowaCare program with property tax money.

“To think we can come back into special session and have an agreement is pretty unrealistic and pretty naïve,” he said.

Paulsen said it is more important for lawmakers to be thorough and reach a correct approach than to “move through it quickly.” He noted that quite a bit of work remained on the health care to resolve the differences.

Lawmakers aren’t scheduled to reconvene for floor action until Wednesday morning. Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, said it was likely both chambers would be in a position Wednesday to begin drafting, printing and passing bills in the process to shut down the 2013 session.

“There’s a lot of work to be done,” Branstad said. “It would be wonderful if they could get it done this week. We certainly want to see it completed in this month.”

Mary Mosiman

DES MOINES – Gov. Terry Branstad has appointed Mary Mosiman – who he described as a “talented, experienced public servant who will keep a very close watch over the tax dollars” – as Iowa’s new state auditor.

Mosiman, the state deputy of elections since 2010, succeeds David Vaudt, who resigned earlier this month.

Mosiman, a Republican who was elected to three terms as the Story County auditor before joining the Secretary of State’s Office in 2010, will succeed Vaudt, who had served 10 years in the position. She is the state’s first female state auditor.

“I can’t wait to get started,” she said when Branstad made the announcement at his weekly news conference this morning. “I look forward every day to working the best that I can to not only validate the governor’s decision but also to earn the same type of confidence from the people of Iowa.”

She acknowledged that Vaudt “is going to be a tough act to follow, but I like a challenge. I’m going to look forward to continuing with the best practices and procedures that he has established.”

The 51-year-old Mosiman started work May 13, including participation in the weekly Executive Council meeting of non-federal, statewide elected officials. Her annual salary will be $103,000

In looking for Vaudt’s successor, Branstad said he wanted a CPA who would adhere to the sound budgeting principles followed by Vaudt.

“In Mary, we found that and more,” he said. “Mary is one of the hardest public officials that I have had the pleasure to work with and to know and I look forward to working with her in the future.”

Mosiman said she plans to be an “independent voice” even if means criticizing governor and Legislature.

“I assume that there will be differences of opinion and they will just have to be addressed because it doesn’t go along the lines of politics when it comes to the financial matters of the state,” she said.

Branstad discussed that with Mosiman before making his choice.

“None of us like to get bad news, but I would much rather get it early when we can still make some changes and prevent making a mistake,” he said. “One thing that I would just ask the auditor to do is that if she sees that the General Assembly or the governor or combined that we’re making a bad move, let’s know about it in advance and try to correct it as quickly as we can.”

The auditor’s office conducts financial audits of state government offices and of cities, counties and towns.

One area of concern Mosiman mentioned is the long-term effect of federal sequestration.

Sen. Tom Courtney, D-Burlington, shares that concern. He’s been trying to get the Office of Inspector General in the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to investigate GOP Secretary of State Matt Schultz’s use of federal funds to pay a Division of Criminal Investigation agent to look for voter fraud. Courtney calls that a misuse of federal Help America Vote Act funds.

He asked Mosiman to pick up the investigation because the inspector general’s office told him that because of budget cuts it did not have the resources to investigate his allegations.

Mosiman has had her own election-related issue. In 2004, she was accused of illegally interfering with early voting at Iowa State University by dispersing would-be voters still in line when the polls were scheduled to close. She was ordered by Democratic Secretary of State Chet Culver to have another day of early voting to compensate those would-be voters for her actions. Mosiman refused, saying she did not have enough time to post a notice of voting.

In seeking an auditor, Branstad said wanted someone with ambitions to run for auditor in 2014. Mosiman, who served 10 years as Story County auditor, said she will run for the Republican nomination for auditor in 2014.

Schultz called Mosiman an “excellent choice.”

“Auditor Vaudt certainly leaves big shoes to fill, but I know that Mary Mosiman is the right person to meet and exceed the high standards he has established during his decade of service,” Schultz said.

Mosiman and her husband, Daniel, live in Ames. They have four daughters ages 23, 21, 18 and 17. She is a member of the Iowa Society of CPAs, is a past president of the Nevada Rotary, and is an active member of the Gilbert Education Foundation.

Prior to becoming county auditor, she owned and operated a daycare business for five years.  She is a graduate of Iowa State University.

Vaudt, 59, left the Auditor’s Office to become chairman of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board based in Norwalk, Conn., beginning July 1. However, the three-term Republican said he planned to start working with the board today.

Known as GASB, the board is the source of generally accepted accounting principles used by local and state governments. Vaudt will be its fourth chairman, and the Financial Accounting Foundation appointed him to a seven-year term. The GASB’s work includes making rules on issues such as how governments should record pension liability.

Vaudt is a CPA and worked at KPMG for 25 years before he sought state office. He’s a graduate of LuVerne high school in north central Iowa and Upper Iowa University in Fayette.

Otherwise, it was a noisy, enthusiastic, sometimes raucous crowd Friday night at the Republican Party of Iowa’s annual Lincoln Dinner at the Hotel at Kirkwood Center in Cedar Rapids.

The crowd showed more enthusiasm for Sen. Chuck Grassley, who pledged to focus his energies on a “once-in-a generation” opportunity to elect a fellow Republican to the U.S. Senate, and 4th District Rep, Steve King, who passed on that challenge, than for the Kentuckian who is considering a run for the White House in 2016.

Grassley said his main goal – “and hopefully yours” – over next 18 months will be to capitalize on the party’s “historic opportunity to double-down” by electing a Republican to succeed liberal Democrat Sen. Tom Harkin, who is retiring.

King explained he’s not running for the Senate in order to concentrate on stopping immigration reform and repealing ObamaCare, priorities popular with his audience.

“I cannot take myself out of the arena of the House of Representatives for the next 18 months (for) the prospect of, perhaps, stepping out on the floor of the US Senate,” King said. “I couldn’t take time out on that to campaign.”

When it was his turn, Paul conceded “we may not all agree” on immigration, but said, acknowledging the risk of offending his audience, “there’s a chance I could vote for the bill” under consideration in the Senate.

“If you don’t fix it, then we’ll have another 10 million illegal immigrants in another 10 years,” he said.

As he did earlier in the day, Paul spoke of the need to growth the Republican Party. He met with ministers and about three dozen Republicans clustered around a dessert buffet at Belinda and Dan Gees’ rural Cedar Rapids home Friday afternoon.

The GOP must grow beyond its image as a party of whites, big business and rich people to “look more like the rest of America.”

“We need to figure out how were not only the party of the middle class, but how we’re the party of the people who is unemployed, the person who is on public assistance, the person who is struggling,” Paul advised. “They’re not bad people. A lot of the, some of them have been in my family. They’re just trying to get ahead.”

“We need to express something different that attracts people to our party,” he said.

And he danced around the issue of whether he’s running for president in 2016. He campaigned for his father, former U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas in the run-up to the 2012 Iowa caucuses and the Lincoln Dinner was the second Iowa GOP event he’s headlined since being elected in 2010. Paul acknowledged no politician comes to Iowa by mistake, however, it doesn’t automatically signal presidential ambitions.

“It’s how you have a bigger voice nationally, to come to Iowa, a place where political leaders come to try to talk about issues they want to resonate nationally,” Paul explained.

GOP State Chairman A.J. Spiker doesn’t expect it will be Paul’s last visit.

“We appreciate you coming,” he said, “and I’m sure we’ll see more of you in the future.”

Paul also will speak at a Saturday morning Johnson County GOP breakfast at the North Liberty Community Center. Doors open at 7:30 a.m.

Comments: (319) 398-8375; james.lynch@sourcemedia.net

Reinvestment districts: Members of the Senate Ways and Means Committee approved a tax-incentive measure Thursday aimed at aiding sizable private developments – as long as they aren’t gaming casinos. Sen. Janet Petersen, D-Des Moines, told committee members she planned to offer an amendment to House File 641 on the Senate floor that would exclude casinos as eligible funding candidates. Sen. Matt McCoy, D-Des Moines, said he would welcome that addition. Under the proposed legislation, cities would be able to designate special 25-acre development zones and use a share of sales tax and hotel-motel tax revenues to assist private projects of at least $10 million. The tax incentives could not exceed 35 percent of the project cost.

EPC to meet: Contracts to monitor air, water and land quality, and stream levels are on the May 21 agenda for the Environmental Protection Commission. Commissioners will be asked to approve a contract for 16 stream gages which track stream levels and help predict the height of floods.

Another contract would provide grants to counties to help private well owners test their groundwater, identify problems with existing wells and help improve or plug wells that have poor water quality.

Commissioners will decide on several contracts with the University of Iowa State Hygienic Laboratory to test for environmental contaminants on the landscape, air quality contaminants and water quality in streams.

A half day of commissioner training will precede the business meeting at 1 p.m. May 20 at the DNR Air Quality Building, 7900 Hickman Rd., Windsor Heights. For more on the agenda, visit www.iowadnr.gov/InsideDNR/BoardsCommissions.aspx.

Grazing cover crops: Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey is encouraging farmers with cover crops to contact their insurance provider if they are interested in haying or grazing after May 10. The USDA Risk Management Agency has provided new guidance that may allow farmers to continue to hay or gaze the cover crop until May 22.

In addition to contacting their insurance provider, farmers can also contact the USDA Risk Management Agency’s regional office at (651) 290-3304, rsomn@rma.usda.gov or http://www.rma.usda.gov/aboutrma/fields/mn_rso/.

Truckers Against Trafficking: The Iowa Department of Transportation is partnering with Truckers Against Trafficking to combat the trafficking of human beings.

The U.S. Department of Justice estimates human trafficking is a $32 billion a year industry and between 100,000 and 300,000 American children are at risk to enter the sex for sale industry each year

DOT enforcement officers have been trained on the issue and informational materials for professional drivers are available in all state scale sites. In addition, posters will be hung and handout material will be available in all of Iowa’s interstate rest areas. The DOT is working with the Iowa Motor Truck Association to place materials at truck stops.

For more information, visit www.truckersagainsttrafficking.com.

Quote of the day: “Anything’s possible, including a special session.” – Sen. David Johnson, R-Ocheyedan, on the prospects for reaching a compromise on Medicaid expansion.

–Compiled by the Des Moines Bureau

Democrats, who want to expand Medicaid to about 150,000 Iowans earning less than 138 percent of the federal poverty level, offered to waive co-pays for low-income Iowans seeking health care – except in the case of non-emergency visits to the emergency room. The offer would strengthen language calling for Iowans to improve their health and maintain an “opt-out” provision to protect the state if the federal government doesn’t meet its Medicaid obligations.

“We have compromised on the top concerns of Gov. Terry Branstad and House Republicans,” Senate President Pam Jochum, D-Dubuque, said at a news conference May 9.

However, Democrats have not dropped their opposition to Branstad’s plan which, she said, “spends more in federal, state and local property taxes to provide less help to Iowans.”

Republicans propose to cover Iowans whose incomes are up to 100 percent of poverty, or roughly 89,000 uninsured Iowans. Those earning between 101 and 138 percent of the poverty level would be covered by the insurance exchange that is part of federal health care reform.

Democrats offered few details of the plan they earlier shared with Republicans on a House-Senate conference committee trying to reach a compromise on Senate File 296.

“The concepts are still being developed,” Jochum said.

“I think we are actually moving a little closer to the middle,” she said. “I am hopeful that we are going to find some kind of a solution to this before we adjourn.”

There’s a long way to go, according to Sen. David Johnson, R-Ocheyedan.

“I’m not saying it’s not progress,” he said, but “we have one week left to go in this session, according to leadership, and this is some heavy lifting.”

The Democratic proposal “opened the door a crack, I would say, but I don’t think it’s eased the heavy lifting yet,” Johnson said.

Republicans indicated they will make a counter-offer Monday.

“Anything’s possible, including a special session,” Johnson said.

Swati Dandekar

After deflecting questions about her plans for months, former state Sen. Swati Dandekar is taking the first steps toward running for an open U.S. House seat in northeast Iowa.

The Marion Democrat confirmed today supporters are forming an exploratory committee and she will decide before fall whether she will run for the 1^st District seat now held by Waterloo Democrat Rep. Bruce Braley.

“I know it is important to the people living in northeast Iowa to continue the strong representation established by Braley,” she said. “We must keep this seat in Democratic hands.”

Dandekar, 62, stepped away from elected office in 2011 after serving in the Iowa House from 2002 to 2008 when she was elected to the Senate. Before that, she served on the Linn-Mar school board.

She ran as a moderate, pro-business Democrat who pursued economic development policies to expand job creation opportunities and bring advanced technology and skilled jobs to the state.

In her announcement, Dandekar said she recognizes the importance of agriculture, advanced manufacturing, technology and renewable energy to the district. Future opportunities in northeast Iowa will stem from expanding these sectors, she said.

“I am humbled by the number of people who have reached out to me, urging me to run and citing my ability to put good public policy before politics,” Dandekar said.

If she formally enters the race, Dandekar will face former Iowa House Speaker Pat Murphy of Dubuque. Murphy insists he’s not concerned with who else might run for the Democratic nomination.

“Worry is a wasted emotion,” he said. Murphy has been concentrating on building his campaign on the long-time relationships he has built across the 20-county district over years of candidate recruitment and fund-raising for those candidates and the party.

Rep. Tyler Olson, D-Cedar Rapids, Iowa Democratic Party chairman and a potential candidate himself, expects at least three to four candidates in a June 2014 primary.

Dandekar may have some fence-mending to do with Democrats. Many were angry with her decision in 2011 to resign from her swing-district seat in Linn County to accept Gov. Terry Branstad’s nomination to the Utilities Board. Although Democrats retained the seat, ill will remains with her decision that many Democrats saw as jeopardizing the party’s 26-24 Senate majority.

So she will spend the next several weeks “talking to voters in the 1^st District, my friends, and of course my family,” said Dandekar, a naturalized American born in India. She and her husband, Arvind, have lived in Iowa since 1973.

“Together we will make a careful and thorough assessment of the race,” she said. “I will make a final decision sometime this summer.”

For more, visit http://swatidandekarforcongressexploratorycommittee.com/, where an online petition urges Dandekar to run.

Her exploratory committee is chaired by Sen. Wally Horn, D-Cedar Rapids, and Tina Patterson of Marion, with Marion attorney Dennis Naughton as treasurer.

The Republican field, so far, consists of businessmen Steve Rathje of Cedar Rapids and Rod Blum of Dubuque.

The 20-county district stretches from Marshalltown north to Minnesota and east to the Mississippi River. It includes Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, Cedar Falls and Dubuque.

That app, created for the United Way of East Central Iowa Volunteer Center, has earned a mention in a congressional budget justification on volunteer services.

In the Corporation for Community Service congressional budget justification for 2014, the Iowa Commission on Volunteer Service is highlighted as well as the app that works on Apple iPhones, iPads and iPods.

The app was the result of a conversation between United Way Vice President of Communications and Innovation Christoph Trappe and local app developer Karl Becker of KarlBecker.com.

The app provides volunteers with a map of volunteer opportunities and a way to connect those interested with the organizations hosting those opportunities, Trappe explained. More than 100 volunteer opportunities are listed.

“It kind of came from thinking about how to get people more involved in volunteering,” Becker said in a United Way video. He wanted to provide a much easier way for people to access the volunteer opportunities by mapping where the opportunities exist.

“You can see a bunch of pins on the map showing, hey, there’s a volunteer opportunity just down the block from your house,” Becker said. “Wouldn’t that be great to go there on a Saturday from 10 – 11 a.m.?  It gets down to those specifics and it’s really easy to use.”

The United Way of East Central Iowa Volunteer Center has made the app available to other United Way agencies since it was launched in May 2012, Trappe said.

Also mentioned in the report to Congress was Gov. Terry Branstad’s Volunteer Iowa: A Call to Service initiative that created a public-private partnership to increase volunteerism in Iowa. The What’s Your 50? Campaign challenges Iowans to give back to their communities by volunteering at least 50 hours per year and the Iowa Volunteer Generation Fund grant is helping to establish partnerships to increase volunteerism in the state.

Jason Glass

DES MOINES — Iowa Department of Education Director Jason Glass said being named a finalist for a superintendent job in Colorado won’t have any effect on Gov. Terry Branstad’s pursuit of education reform in Iowa.

“The education reform agenda in Iowa was built to be independent of any one person,” Glass said during a break in Wednesday’s state board of education meeting. “It was an agenda that was built to be the right fit for the state, that’s still the right fit for the state, and we’re optimistic and hopeful that the legislature will be able to reach a reasonable compromise and find a pathway forward for education reform to be successful.”

But the director, who Branstad tapped from an education consultant job in Ohio to help design and push the governor’s K-12 reform agenda in 2010, didn’t elaborate much on the possible new job in the Eagle County school district. The district covers 2,500 square miles in the central Colorado Rockies, including the ski resort towns of Vail and Beaver Creek. The district has nine elementary schools, four middle schools, two high schools, an alternative high school and two charter schools.

“I’m honored to be considered and since the search is still ongoing, it’s not appropriate for me to comment,” he said.

Glass is one of three finalists for the job, according to the Vail Daily. Glass previously was human resources director for the school district, where he helped pioneer the district’s performance-based compensation system.

He wouldn’t say if the district reached out to him when the superintendent job opened up. “My wife and I have long-standing history and tradition with the district, so we have connections there and we’re just honored to be considered.”

Branstad spokesman Tim Albrecht struck a similar tone in an email response to questions on Glass’s potential departure.

“The governor understands that any time you attract top talent, others will always want to hire them away. This is a recognition that Jason Glass is one of the country’s leading education reformers, and is a talented and skilled leader. We are not surprised that others would want to utilize his talent and services,” Albrecht wrote. “Education reform has always been about making schools the best in the nation and ensuring our students are ready with the knowledge they need in order to compete in a 21st century global economy. Education reform is bigger than just one individual.”

Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, said he didn’t think the development would affect ongoing discussions between the Branstad administration and lawmakers on an education reform package that is stalled in a House-Senate conference committee.

House Educations Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Cecil Dolecheck, R-Mount Ayr, agreed.

“I don’t think so. It’s basically the governor’s education reform plan,” Dolecheck said. “I don’t really think that would have any effect on the efforts of education reform. They’re not necessarily built around the Department of Ed’s plan. They’re more the governor’s plan.”

He was not surprised that Glass was exploring career options.

“I guess there are always offers out there,” Dolecheck said. “Whether that would be a step up or a step back, I don’t know.”

Glass taught high school and university in Kentucky and worked for the Colorado Department of Education. He was vice president for Qualistar Early Learning in Denver, where he helped develop an early childhood education quality rating system.

Glass graduated from the University of Kentucky, where he earned a bachelor’s degree and two master’s degrees. He earned his doctorate in education from Seton Hall University.

The other finalists are Karen Brofft, assistant superintendent, Englewood, Colo., school district, and Donald Johnson, superintendent, Middleton-Cross Plains Area Schools in Wisconsin.

One of the three will replace Sandra Smyser, the Colorado Superintendent of the Year. She’s leaving to be superintendent of the Poudre school district in Fort Collins, Colo.

According to the Vail Daily, the school board received applications from 24 candidates, half from outside Colorado.

The finalists will go through a battery of interviews with the school board and two citizens’ committees, with 10 members each.

Rep. Cindy Winckler

A plan to spend $261 million paying off state bond debt and making investments in state universities won bipartisan support in a House committee Wednesday.

However, the Republican-sponsored House Study Bill 239faces an uncertain future because minority Democrats are concerned it will starve their priorities and plunge the state into deficit next year.

Democrats on the panel had no problem with using $113.8 million of the state’s estimated $822 million ending balance to pay off bonds, including I-JOBS bonds, saving the state $15.5 million in the Rebuild Iowa Infrastructure Fund (RIIF) and the general fund.

The rub was that Republicans proposed using the remainder to build up the Taxpayer Trust Fund, a mechanism the GOP created last year to return surpluses to taxpayers.

“In my view, if you paid all you bills at the end of the fiscal year and you have a balance, you’ve over-collected,” Appropriations Committee Chairman Chuck Soderberg, R-Le Mars, said. “This is a means to return this to the Iowa taxpayers who rightly deserve this money back in their pockets.”

Income tax cuts and property tax relief would be two ways of doing that, he said.

Making investments in education, Medicaid expansion and infrastructure are other ways, said Rep. Tyler Olson, D-Cedar Rapids.

“We have, what I think, is a unique opportunity in this legislative session, because of our state’s financial strength, (to) come up with a property tax reform plan, perhaps, an income tax reform plan and make some investments in education, health care and infrastructure and really set the state on a path for a large economic growth,” Olson said.

“But House Republicans have refused to take that balanced approach,” said Olson, who is considering a 2014 run for governor. “So until we see some indication they are willing to put those two together, we’re going to continue to oppose their plans.”

Only one Democrat, Rep. Cindy Winckler of Davenport, voted against the plan Wednesday.

“Although there is a lot of good, this bill alone creates a deficit in the general fund budget,” she said. Winckler estimated HSB 239 would result in a $211 million in 2014 and put the budget $450 million in excess of Legislature’s spending limitation – 99 percent of revenues.

“Paying off bonds … is a good thing to do, but deficit spending is not,” she said, adding that it was disappointing the plan was being offered on the 115 day of a 110-day legislative session.

“I cannot support this and have a clear conscience,” Winckler said. “This is irresponsible.”

However, Soderberg pointed out her numbers are based on all the bills House majority Republicans have passed this year, not on spending approved by both chambers. If the Democratic-controlled Senate approves those House bills, Soderberg said, HSB 239 can be adjusted accordingly.

The bill may be debated by the full House Thursday.

HSB 239 also spends:

• $91.3 million and $18.9 million, respectively, into police and judicial pension funds, to bring them up to 80 percent of their obligation – the same as the Iowa Public Employee Retirement System.
• $33.7 million to pay off Honey Creek State Park bonds, saving $2.1 million; $29.5 million to retire I-JOBS bonds, saving $2.3 million; $26.1 million for prison construction bonds, saving $8.4 million; and $24.5 million for school infrastructure bonds, saving $23.7 million.
• $10 million for “unique funding challenges” at the University of Northern Iowa plus $1 million for UNI’s advanced manufacturing initiative at Waterloo TechWorks.
• $7.5 million for Iowa State University’s bioeconomy initiative and $12 million for its research park.
• $1 million for a multipurpose training facility at the Hygienic Lab at the University of Iowa.
• $1 million for the Department of Safety for equipment.
• $1.6 million to the state department of agriculture to close ag drainage wells.
• $2.5 million to the Department of Administrative Services for major maintenance.

Comments:  (319) 398-8375; james.lynch@sourcemedia.net

Rep. Tyler Olson

Rep. Chuck Soderberg

Ken Rizer

During 25 years in the Air Force, Ken Rizer was a jet fighter pilot and a base commander responsible for 60,000 people and a $250 million budget.

Now the retired Air Force colonel wants to serve again – in the Iowa House.

Rizer, a senior vice president for operations at Goodwill of the Heartland since last fall, said that since retiring from the Air Force, he has been looking for ways to serve his community.

“I’ve been working to employ people with disabilities and homeless vets, so I know what it means to give a hand up to those in need,” he said. “Service to others is in my blood, which is why I’m running for the Iowa House.”

Rizer plans to seek the Republican nomination to challenge freshman Rep. Daniel Lundby, D-Marion, in House 68. The district covers eastern Linn County from Marion to Bertram and Ely.

He emphasized his leadership and experience. Rizer has led men and women in combat and was the base commander for Andrews Air Force Base, home of Air Force One. There he was responsible for a $252 million budget, opened a charter school for children of deployed military parents, ensured the safety of senior U.S. and foreign leaders, and increased area small business contracts by $4 million. During that time, Andrews was selected as the No. 1 Air Force-led joint base in the Department of Defense.

As a House member, Rizer said he would work to make government more efficient and effective, create a stronger Iowa economy and promote opportunities for future Iowa generations to prosper. He wants to create a “vibrant Iowa economy that will be the envy of the nation” by expanding economic growth and creating better-paying jobs.

Although his experience is different than most people in House 68, Rizer said as a husband and father with three teenagers and one child in college, he can relate to “kitchen table issues: How do you pay for college? How do you make ends meet?”

“Iowans deserve certainty from their state government, not burdensome regulations and out of control spending,” Rizer said. “Now is the time to increase opportunities for Iowans by investing in a skilled and competitive workforce.”

Rizer and his wife, Cheri, both lived in the Marion area as children. A graduate of the Air Force Academy, he also has master’s in public administration and strategic studies. He hopes to complete his MBA at the University of Iowa in 2014.

He and his family moved 15 times in 25 years, but when Rizer retired, they decide to return to Marion.

“For the entire time I was in the Air Force, Linn County was our home base,” he said. When he was on deployment, separated from his wife and children, “they would come home to Linn County.”

For more on Rizer and the campaign, visit http://www.kenrizer.com/.

“I see light at the end of the tunnel,” Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, said after meeting with House Republican leadership.

House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, agreed the meeting had been fruitful, but said differences over how much to spend remain in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

“We’ll have a lot of meetings,” he said.

Meanwhile, the House:

• Voted 82-15 to concur with the Senate on House File 527 to require DNA samples from a list of aggravated misdemeanor convictions that included assaults, thefts and multiple drunken driving convictions. The House accepted a Senate amendment to exempt cases involving deferred judgment or juveniles and misdemeanors related to gambling, hazardous waste, agricultural productions and other offenses as a compromise to concerns raised by critics. HF 527 now goes to the governor.
• Voncurred with changes the Senate made to HF 512, which would allow livestock producers to “mothball” production facilities rather than tear them down if they downsize or temporarily suspend their operations. The amendment would require producers to get a permit from the Department of Natural Resources. The House agreed with the Senate 85-14.
• Fefused 44-53 to go along with changes the Senate made to HF 638, the Rebuild Iowan Infrastructure Fund. The House plan calls for $106 million in new spending in 2014 while the Senate called for $119 million in new spending. A conference committee will seek to resolve the differences. House conferees are Republicans Dan Huseman, Mark Lofgren and David Maxwell, and Democrats Denis Cohoon and Nancy Dunkel. Senate conferees are Democrats Matt McCoy, Tod Bowman and Daryl Beall, and Republicans Bill Anderson and Tim Kapucian.
• Approved SF 247 84-11 to exempt Bengals and savannahs from state law banning ownership of wild animals. A Bengal is a cross between a domestic cat and an Asian leopard cat. A savannah is a cross between a domestic cat and a serval. In both cases the bill requires a separation of four filial generations between the Asian leopard cat or serval and the exempted cat. The bill goes to the governor.
• Approved SF 371 89-10 to allow the Department of Transportation to issue license plates with a space for an organization’s decal. School and community groups, for example, could promote themselves on the plates. Groups that promote a specific product or brand name are not eligible.
• Approved HF 355 92-6 to allow eligible drivers between the ages of 18 and 72 years to renew their Iowa operator’s licenses electronically every other time. The change, also approved by the Senate, should reduce wait time for Iowans and save the DOT an estimated $1.2 million in road-use tax funds via the efficiencies the bill would allow.

Marla Malone serves as one of three official vote counters at Camp Wakonda in rural Central City, where member of the Buffalo Township gathered to place their vote in the Republican Caucus on Tuesday, January 3, 2012. (Nikole Hanna/SourceMedia Group)

As a general election swing state and home to the first-in-the-nation precinct caucuses, Iowa was the “next obvious place,” for the Quinnipiac University Poll to start asking questions.

The poll, started in 1988, will begin regularly surveying Iowans’ opinions on statewide political races, presidential politics and issues, according to Peter Brown, assistant director of the institute at the New Haven, Connecticut, college, a private, coeducational university with 6,200 undergraduate and 2,300 graduate students.

This year and next the focus likely will be on the Iowa governor’s race as well as the open-seat U.S. Senate campaign, Brown said during a visit to the Capitol Tuesday.

Quinnipiac plans to release new survey results every six to eight weeks, Brown said. He expects the first polls will look at the 2014 race for governor, favorability ratings for Gov. Terry Branstad and potential challengers, the Senate race, Obama job approval and Iowans’ most important issues in upcoming elections.

Iowa is the first state outside the Eastern time zone where Quinnipiac will poll, however, Brown said, it’s moving into Colorado, too.

“When we decided to expand after the 2012 election, Iowa was the logical place,” he said.

Quinnipiac is known for exactness and is featured regularly in The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and on national network news broadcasts. In 2010, New York Times polling analyst Nate Silver ranked the Quinnipiac University poll as most accurate among major polls conducting surveys in two states or more.

Quinnipiac uses live interviewers to call both landline and cellphone numbers. A typical public opinion survey, a randomly selected sample of about 1,000 registered voters age 18 and over is interviewed over five or six days.

Closer, in this case, is somewhere between $200 million and “several hundred million” apart, according to Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Bob Dvorsky, D-Coralville, and House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, respectively.

“It’s manageable,” Paulsen said, signaling the optimism he and Dvorsky share that along with Republican Gov. Terry Branstad lawmakers can agree on that big number relatively soon.

“Once you have that,” Paulsen added, “we have things teed up well to, I think, to be resolved, in a relatively quick fashion.”

There was little evidence of any activity around the Capitol May 6 as about 12 of 50 senators were on hand for a two-minute session before adjourning until Tuesday afternoon. About 20 of 100 representatives were on hand for a three-minute session in the House.

“Some (senators) are working with their counterparts by phone,” explained Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs.

Some might or might not been meeting with the governor’s office. Branstad was out of state at a wind energy conference, but Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds insisted she and the governor’s staff “can easily find time to meet when asked.”

Meeting is one thing, but agreeing is another and Dvorsky is stumped by House Republicans’ reluctance to find middle ground on overall spending. Democrats proposed a $6.9 billion general fund budget. Republicans’ budget target is $6.414 billion and the GOP governor proposed a $6.538 billion budget.

“We have resources,” Dvorsky said, referring to the state’s $895 million surplus. “This is the time to have a decent operating budget so we can effectively operate government.”

Democrats’ “surplus” is Republicans’ taxpayer “overpayment,” Paulsen said, and the Legislature’s default response should be to return the money.

However, just like an Iowan might dip into his savings account to put a new roof on his house, Republicans recognize the value of strategic investment in one-time expenditures with long-term benefits, Paulsen said.

“There are some things out there that I think would make good public policy and fiscal sense,” he said.

Budget negotiations are complicated by the fact Senate Democrats “have identified more things they want to spend money on than we did,” Paulsen said.

Dvorsky rejected the idea that in proposing to spend more than the governor and House Republicans, Senate Democrats are expanding government.

“We’ve shrunken government the last several years now to places where it hardly operates, so we’re not growing anything,” he said. “We’re trying to maintain the status quo, at best. We’re not growing anything.”

The Senate Chamber at the Iowa State Capitol in Des Moines. (Stephen Mally/Freelance)

DES MOINES – With the exit of 4th District Rep. Steve King from the field of potential Republican U.S. Senate candidates, others who have been waiting in the wings are stepping forward.

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Red Oak, said Monday she “continues to evaluate” making a run in 2014 for the Senate seat that will be vacant when Sen. Tom Harkin retires at the end of his current term.

“As a veteran who has served our country, I feel it is my duty to consider a run for the U.S. Senate,” Ernst, a second-term senator, said in a statement Monday.

Former U.S. Attorney Matt Whitaker told a radio audience he’s in the race for the GOP nomination and will file his paperwork with the Federal Election Commission this week.

“I think I’m the person to do that,” Whitaker said about running for Senate.

Also, Ames attorney Paul Lunde, who lost to former Rep. Neal Smith in 1992 by a 62 percent to 37 percent margin, also announced he intends to run.

First District Rep. Bruce Braley is the only Democrat who has announced a bid for for the seat. He has Harkin’s endorsement.

Whitaker said early on that he would not get into the race if King ran, but that if the western Iowa conservative took a pass, he would compete for the nomination. The former University of Iowa football player was an unsuccessful candidate for state treasurer in 2002 is a managing partner in Whitaker Hagenow & Gustoff LLP, a law firm with offices in Cedar Rapids and Des Moines.

While Whitaker, 43, has made his decision, Ernst said she will be discussing a possible campaign with Iowans and praying with her family before making any decision. She and her husband, Gail, have three daughters.

“I greatly appreciate the thoughts, prayers, and encouragement I have received from my family, friends, and supporters,” she said.

Among those encouraging her to explore a Senate campaign is Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds, who Ernst succeeded in the Senate.

“I’ve always been involved in encouraging and strengthening the bench of the Republican Party, especially encouraging females to get involved in the political process,” Reynolds said at a news conference May 6. “So I don’t think it would be uncharacteristic of me to reach out to Sen. Ernst.”

However, she’s not encouraging Ernst just because she’s a woman and Iowa has never elected a woman to federal office.

Reynolds pointed out that she also encouraged Ernst to run for the state Senate and, before that, county office.

Ernst, 42, the former Montgomery County auditor, has 18 years of experience in the Army Reserves and Iowa National Guard where she is a lieutenant colonel. She is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Iowa State University and an MBA from Columbus College.

In weighing the Senate bid, Ernst said she believe “there are critical issues that must be addressed such as out-of-control spending and debt.”

Among others rumored to be eyeing the race are Secretary of State Matt Schultz, Sen. Chuck Grassley’s chief of staff, David Young and former Reliant Energy CEO Mark Jacobs.

Representative Steve King (R-IA) looks at his cell phone as he walks up to the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, April 16, 2013. (Stephen Mally/Freelance)

Even as the field of potential Republican candidates for a 2014 open-seat Senate race dwindles, Iowa GOP Chairman A.J. Spiker says there’s no pressure on the leading contender to make a decision.

“It’s his decision and I’m not going to push anyone on a timetable,” Spiker said when asked if the party had given 4^th District Rep. Steve King a deadline.

Some Republicans have grown concerned that potential nominees are deciding not to run and others are frozen in place while waiting for King to reach a decision.

“The important thing is that whoever decides to run puts in as much time as they believe necessary to make their decision,” Spiker said Wednesday. “Once you announce, it’s hard to change your mind.”

Northwest Iowa farmer Bill Northey, who was re-elected to a second term as state ag secretary, has made up his mind.

“At this time, I feel at this time I can be more effective serving Iowans as Secretary of Agriculture rather than engaging in a Senate campaign,” he said Thursday.

King doesn’t appear to be in a hurry to make a decision.

“I never thought it would be into May without an answer,” King told reporters Wednesday in Ames. “I just don’t know the answer and I’m embarrassed that I don’t know the answer.”

That doesn’t worry Spiker even though 1^st District Rep. Bruce Braley is unopposed for the Democratic Senate nomination, has secured the endorsement of retiring Sen. Tom Harkin and has raised more than $1 million.

“It would be a mistake to pressure him,” Spiker said. “He’ll make a decision in his own time.”

Should King decide not to run, Spiker expects a competitive primary even though Northey and Reynolds won’t be part of it.

“There will be a big primary field. I just don’t know how big,” Spiker said.

A primary could be good for the winner and the party, he continued.

“There are perks to a good primary contest,” Spiker said. Terry Branstad was a sharper gubernatorial candidate in 2010 because of a three-way primary, he said.

Not having a primary has a short-term benefit, but the long-term benefit of a primary is stronger candidates and a stronger party that attracts more supporters, campaign volunteers and future candidates, according to Spiker.

“The energy it generates within the party is a good thing,” he said.

Among the potential GOP candidates are Sen. Joni Ernst of Red Oak, Secretary of State Matt Schultz, Sen. Chuck Grassley’s chief of staff, David Young, former Reliant Energy CEO Mark Jacobs and former U.S. Attorney Matt Whitaker.

Although he couldn’t explain his optimism, House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, said that could be next week.

“People are talking about their differences and that’s what the end of session is about,” Gronstal said, refusing to handicap which priorities might be thrown overboard because lawmakers can’t reach consensus. “We’re working on all of them. People of good faith really are coming together, ideas are being exchanged.”

So while discussions continue, Paulsen and Gronstal conceded the sticking point is “the big number” – the overall budget number.

In February, Senate Democrats proposed an 11 percent increase in general fund spending to $6.9 billion in fiscal 2014. That’s about $487 million more than the 3 percent increase House Republicans proposed. Republicans said they would spend just 98 cents of every $1 of state revenue while Democrats would spend $1.05.

But those were just targets, and the parties and the governor have yet to settle on a final budget number. Both Gronstal and Paulsen said they continue to meet with each other and Gov. Terry Branstad’s staff and will continue to do so. Neither would say how recently they had met.

“If that’s helpful, that’s what we’ll do,” Paulsen said.

“There’s not a magic formula” for setting an overall budget number, he said. “We’ll figure that out. We’ll work through it.”

In the meantime, conference committees will continue to meet “and once we have agreement on a final number, those budgets will be settled in hours.”

Medicaid expansion

Gronstal rejected the suggestion that lawmakers might come back in special session to address plans to expand health care access for low-income Iowans. Senate majority Democrats have proposed a Medicaid expansion plan to cover as many as 150,000 more low-income Iowans. Gov. Terry Branstad and House majority Republicans have approved a Healthy Iowa Plan that doesn’t rely on Medicaid.

“The best option is for people of good faith to come to common ground,” he insisted, adding, “I always see common ground.”

Property tax relief

Senate Minority Leader Bill Dix, R-Shell Rock, said the Democratic plan, which focuses on commercial property tax relief, “is not a true reduction.” It’s “unacceptable” the Democrats’ plan doesn’t address rising property taxes on homeowners and farmland owners.

However, Senate Way and Means Committee Chairman Joe Bolkcom, D-Iowa City, thinks getting the competing property tax plans into a 10-member House-Senate conference committee is a positive.

“In the past, the leaders and the governor tried to work it out,” he said. The result was no relief. “So we think the conference committee process can be quite productive.”

The first step, he added, is for the conferees to decide what problem they are trying to solve. He favors the Senate plan to reduce commercial property taxes rather than the broader House plan that includes changes in K-12 school funding and returning the state’s budget surplus to taxpayers.

That’s a political statement, Bolkcom said, “not prudent or responsible budgeting.”

Dix said his caucus is “committed to staying at the table for how ever long it takes” to reach an agreement on any plan that reduces property taxes on all classes of property.

Education reform

Paulsen is “extremely frustrated” with Democratic responses to the House education reform plan.

“I do not understand why Democrats continue to slow-roll this,” he said. “Their last – I wouldn’t even call it a proposal – ignored all of our priorities. That’s not acceptable.”

He said Republicans have increased funding and incorporated some Democratic policy pieces.

“I can tell you, we’re not putting money in front of reform,” he said. “That’s what’s been done for decades. The reform is import. We need to move classrooms forward.”

Bill Northey

Iowa Ag Secretary Bill Northey will not run for the U.S. Senate in 2014, he said Thursday morning.

“After talking with my family and thoughtful consideration,” Northey said he decided to forgo the open-seat Senate race and continue in his current role.

“I feel at this time I can be more effective serving Iowans as Secretary of Agriculture rather than engaging in a Senate campaign,” Northey said in a statement Thursday.

First District Rep. Bruce Braley is unopposed for the Democratic nomination and has been endorsed by Sen. Tom Harkin, who announced his retirement in January.

Like other potential GOP candidates, Northey had put his decision on hold awaiting U.S. Rep. Steve King’s decision on running. Wednesday, King said he didn’t know when he will make a decision.

Northey is the third high-profile Republican to decide against running. Third district Rep. Tom Latham bowed out early, and Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds said last week that she was not seeking the nomination.

When Reynolds made her decision, Northey spoke optimistically of Republicans’ chances in the 2014 race.

“I really believe that the Republican candidate has a really good shot of beating Braley,” he said. When I look at the way he’s voted, the issues and the way they potentially break, you know health care and a lot of issues, over the next year-and-a-half, I think there is a lot of room to elect a Republican candidate.”

Northey didn’t endorse anyone for the nomination, but in his announcement spoke highly of King.

“King has been a strong conservative leader in Washington and would serve our state well in the Senate,” he said. “Should he decide to run, he would have my full support.”

And if King doesn’t run, Northey said, Iowa “is fortunate to have many qualified and exciting candidates.”

Among the potential GOP candidates are Sen. Joni Ernst of Red Oak, Secretary of State Matt Schultz, Sen. Chuck Grassley’s chief of staff, David Young, former Reliant Energy CEO Mark Jacobs and former U.S. Attorney Matt Whitaker.

If King doesn’t run, GOP Chairman A.J. Spiker believes there will be a primary.

“If King runs, that’s less likely,” he said. “If he doesn’t, there will be a big primary field. I just don’t know how big.”

Steve King

He’s embarrassed he hasn’t decided whether he’ll run for the U.S. Senate in 2014, but Rep. Steve King has been too busy.

“I never thought it would be into May without an answer,” King told reporters Wednesday in Ames. “I just don’t know the answer and I’m embarrassed that I don’t know the answer.”

He’s getting encouragement to run for the seat being vacated by Democrat Sen. Tom Harkin and realizes that while he’s trying to find “a little window where I can address this in a logical fashion,” 1^st District Rep. Bruce Braley is unopposed for the Democratic nomination and has raised more than $1 million for the 2014 campaign.

“Things are stacking up on me so fast I hardly have time to deal with the issue” of whether to run, King said after speaking to about 50 people at an event hosted by Americans for Prosperity. There’s the farm bill and “the immigration issue comes at me constantly.”

“I can’t suspend my job representing Iowans,” he explained. “That’s been something that has caused more of a delay than I anticipated.”

Still, the conservative firebrand won’t set a deadline and defends his lengthy deliberation. Harkin announced his retirement Jan. 26 and Braley entered the race Feb. 7.

“This isn’t a toss of a coin,” King said. “It has implications that go well beyond me. It has implications about how Iowans are represented in the U.S. Senate for, probably, a long time to come.”

Those implications include the “destiny of the county (which) is “something that weighs heavily on me,” King said.

He’s grateful for the patience shown by a host of potential Republican senatorial candidates – a list that seems to be growing. Among them are Sen. Joni Ernst of Red Oak, secretaries of State and Agriculture Matt Schultz and Bill Northey, respectively, Sen. Chuck Grassley’s chief of staff, David Young, former Reliant Energy CEO Mark Jacobs and former U.S. Attorney Matt Whitaker.

Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds and 3^rd District Rep. Tom Latham have taken themselves out of the race.

“They are giving me some deference here,” King said. “You couldn’t ask for a better scenario. A lot of Republicans want to get the right thing done here in the state.”

The right thing includes giving GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley a like-minded Senate colleague, King said.

“How many times did Tom Harkin cancel out Chuck Grassley’s vote on an important issue,” King asked. “Iowans need to start thinking about that. If you want to see things move … well, you don’t send, as a state, a liberal and a conservative to cancel each other’s vote.

“Iowans don’t need to be voting a stalemate in the United States Senate,” he said. “I hope Chuck Grassley serves a long time there, so I hope we elect a conservative to that U.S. Senate.”

Rep. Steve King has not yet decided whether he'll run for U.S. Senate in 2014. (Stephen Mally/The Gazette)

AMES – He’s embarrassed he hasn’t decided whether he’ll run for the U.S. Senate in 2014, but Rep. Steve King has been too busy.

“I never thought it would be into May without an answer,” King told reporters Wednesday in Ames. “I just don’t know the answer and I’m embarrassed that I don’t know the answer.”

He’s getting encouragement to run for the seat being vacated by Democrat Sen. Tom Harkin and realizes that while he’s trying to find “a little window where I can address this in a logical fashion,” 1^st District Rep. Bruce Braley is unopposed for the Democratic nomination and has raised more than $1 million for the 2014 campaign.

“Things are stacking up on me so fast I hardly have time to deal with the issue” of whether to run, King said after speaking to about 50 people at an event hosted by Americans for Prosperity. There’s the farm bill and “the immigration issue comes at me constantly.”

“I can’t suspend my job representing Iowans,” he explained. “That’s been something that has caused more of a delay than I anticipated.”

Still, the conservative firebrand won’t set a deadline and defends his lengthy deliberation. Harkin announced his retirement Jan. 26 and Braley entered the race Feb. 7.

“This isn’t a toss of a coin,” King said. “It has implications that go well beyond me. It has implications about how Iowans are represented in the U.S. Senate for, probably, a long time to come.”

Those implications include the “destiny of the county (which) is “something that weighs heavily on me,” King said.

He’s grateful for the patience shown by a host of potential Republican senatorial candidates – a list that seems to be growing. Among them are Sen. Joni Ernst of Red Oak, secretaries of State and Agriculture Matt Schultz and Bill Northey, respectively, Sen. Chuck Grassley’s chief of staff, David Young, former Reliant Energy CEO Mark Jacobs and former U.S. Attorney Matt Whitaker.

Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds and 3^rd District Rep. Tom Latham have taken themselves out of the race.

“They are giving me some deference here,” King said. “You couldn’t ask for a better scenario. A lot of Republicans want to get the right thing done here in the state.”

The right thing includes giving GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley a like-minded Senate colleague, King said.

“How many times did Tom Harkin cancel out Chuck Grassley’s vote on an important issue,” King asked. “Iowans need to start thinking about that. If you want to see things move … well, you don’t send, as a state, a liberal and a conservative to cancel each other’s vote.

“Iowans don’t need to be voting a stalemate in the United States Senate,” he said. “I hope Chuck Grassley serves a long time there, so I hope we elect a conservative to that U.S. Senate.”

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Approved on a party line vote, 14-11, the plan that next goes to the full House also bans taxpayer-funding for birth control, cancer screenings or other services provided by Planned Parenthood.

Floor manager Rep. Dave Heaton, R-Mount Pleasant, said the opposition to taxpayer-funded abortions was a long-held position of the GOP majority.

“We are taking this position and standing firm,” Heaton said.

Rep. Lisa Heddens, D-Ames, wondered whether the prohibition would jeopardize Iowa’s federal Medicaid funds. She suggested that women who were the victim of rape would be denied abortions. Likewise, public funds would not be available in cases where an abortion would be performed to save the life of the mother, Heddens said.

“It’s not a prohibition. We’re just not paying for it,” Heaton said. “We’re saying there is no public money for abortions.” Heaton said.

He also sought to assure committee members that his caucus was not “trying to get in between an emergency procedure or a medically necessary C-section, but we are saying that perhaps one should really examine whether or not the C-section is necessary before its performed.”

However, Rep. Kirsten Running-Marquardt, D- Cedar Rapids, said she wasn’t aware of an “epidemic” of Cesarean sections.

“I have not seen evidence of elective C-sections in Iowa being something that is an epidemic problem,” she says. It’s “crazy” to think women are having C-sections, which she and Heaton agreed is major surgery, for the convenience.

“I just feel like we’re speaking two different languages here today,” Running-Marquardt said. “It just shows me that we need more women legislators here.”

The use of Cesarean sections in Iowa has increased from 19 percent of all deliveries in 1996 to 30 percent in 2010, according to data from the Centers for Disease and Control Department of Health data.

The provision in SF 446 was part of a cost-containment measure that Heaton could save the state $1.2 million a year. Typically, a C-section without complications costs somewhere between $2,500 and $3,000 more than a vaginal childbirth stay without complications costs.

The House plan reduces the Senate budget plan from $1.89 million to $1.7 million for the coming fiscal year. It increases the supplemental appropriations for the Medicaid, IowaCare, and Adoption Subsidy programs from $54 in the Senate version to $62 million.

The bill is likely to end up in a House-Senate conference committee “where the real decisions are made,” Heaton said.

Representative Steve King (R-IA) on the steps of the House of Representatives in Washington, DC on Tuesday, April 16, 2013. (Stephen Mally/Freelance)

U.S. Rep. Steve King plans to be on the ballot in 2014, but hasn’t decided whether he’ll be seeking re-election or an open U.S. Senate seat.

“I wish I knew the answer,” the western Iowa Republican said Thursday morning. “When I make up my mind, when I come to that conclusion, I will be the happiest person in America about that decision whichever way that is.”

King, who is in his sixth term, continues to weigh the pros and cons of squaring off against Eastern Iowa U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley for the seat now held by Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin.

He’s looking at data and consulting with friends and political advisers, King said on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal Thursday. In the end, running for the Senate has to feel right in his “head, gut and heart … in that order.”

Conventional wisdom is that if he runs, he will not face a primary challenge. If King doesn’t run, Iowa political observers foresee several candidates stepping forward.

Whoever runs, King said, will face an “uphill battle,” but not an insurmountable challenge.

“Barack Obama started his movement in Iowa and that does make a difference,” he said. “Organizing for America is now institutionalized.”

However, he pointed out that the costs associated with health care reform will hit in January 2014, and that is likely to renew talk of repealing ObamaCare.

“That could be a pivotal issue,” he said.

Also, he is encouraged by Republican success in states that lean more Democratic than Iowa. The election of GOP Sens. Ron Johnson in Wisconsin and Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania “makes it a plausible thing to have Steve King in Iowa.”

King said he’s “very close … within weeks” of making a decision.

“When that’s done, I’m either going to launch forward on a campaign that will be all out or turn around and go back to running a campaign for re-election,” King said. “I don’t know which, but I hope to be on the ballot in the fall of 2014.”

A decision not to run would open the door for several in the GOP. State Sen. Joni Ernst of Red Oak is the latest to say she’s looking at the race. Among the others are Secretary of State Matt Schultz, former U.S. Attorney Matt Whitaker and Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey.

Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds took herself out of the race this week as did 3rd District Rep. Tom Latham shortly after Harkin announced his retirement.

It won’t be the last, David Keene told a packed room of NRA supporters at the Iowa Capitol Thursday.

“We’ve managed to stave off the current threat in Congress,” Keene said at a Polk County Republican Party sack lunch fundraiser. “But the war has not ended. The enemy has gone behind a hill to regroup.”

When they return, the NRA and its 5 million members will be prepared for the next fight, he said.

In addition to defending the 2^nd Amendment, Keene took time to defend his group. The NRA, he said, is the nation’s oldest civil rights group.

“We’re supporters of the 2^nd Amendment, the Bill of Rights and those who stand with us have our friendship,” he said.

It’s that friendship, more than any money the NRA spends, that elects friendly lawmakers and helps gun owners win legislative victories.

“If money made all the differences, Nelson Rockefeller would have been president, Michael Bloomberg would be running the world … and we’d all be driving Edsels,” Keene told reporters.

Still, the NRA and its Institute for Legislative Action spent $800,000 on lobbying in the first quarter of the year. That’s about $100,000 more than last year and considerably more than the $250,000 spent by Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

“Money is important in politics and advocacy and advertising,” he said, “but money isn’t everything.”

What candidates really want is the NRA endorsement “because there are people, a lot of people out there who trust the NRA on 2^nd Amendment issues, who care about those issues and who look to us for leadership,” Keene said “If we say a (candidate) is somebody you can rely on on 2^nd Amendment issues, there are a lot of voters that will take that and vote for that member, that candidate, for that reason. That’s what they want.”

Lifelong gun owner Allyn Dixon doesn’t agree. The Des Moines attorney and members of Organizing for America, the successor to President Obama’s campaign organization, were outside the committee room where Keene spoke. They held placards calling for background checks and calling for Congress to take action.

“We’re disappointed that Congress failed to pass background checks,” Dixon said.

He dismissed Keene’s arguments against mandatory background checks and suggestions that the legislation included a “back-door” federal gun registry.

“That’s the furthest thing from the truth,” Dixon said. The NRA “thinks everything is a conspiracy.”

Amnesty would be granted to the 11 million-plus illegal immigrants in the country now “instantly and perpetually,” King said during an appearance on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal Thursday morning.

Although he had intended to “keep his powder dry” in hopes that “saner heads would prevail” in the immigration debate, the western Iowa Republican said as he’s watched the Gang of 8 plan gain momentum, he feels compelled to be a part of the debate.

“I was hoping others would step up,” King said. “As the inertia of this moved forward, a little over two weeks ago, I finally decided that if I don’t step up, nobody’s going to step up.”

Now he’s part of a working group trying to give Americans a “better look at what’s really in the bill.”

His concern is that the Senate, with Republican support, will approve an immigration plan that would result in amnesty. The House might amend it, perhaps limiting it to requiring employers to use e-verify to authenticate job applicants’ status. However, when it goes to a Senate-House conference committee, King said, leaders might return the Senate language and send it to both chambers for an up-or-down vote.

In that case, he warned, all House Democrats and enough Republicans might vote for it to pass the immigration plan.

King rejected the idea that the Gang of 8 plan, supported by Florida GOP Sen. Marco Rubio, a possible 2016 presidential candidate, is a “bold conservative” approach.

“I can call it bold. It’s a bold amnesty plan,” King said. “People for this plan, I don’t know how they present themselves as conservatives.”

It’s not as good as the immigration reform approved by Congress in 1986, and King said he doubts Republican President Ronald Reagan would sign that law if he had it to do over.

Michael Barber, president of the national Federation of the Blind of Iowa, is lobbying Iowa lawmakers to include the additional half-million dollars in House File 604, a $964 million appropriations bill that funds the College Student Aid Commission, Department of Education, Board of Regents and the Department for the Blind and 12,292.6 FTEs.

Barber was at the conference committee meeting Wednesday to lobby for the Senate version of the bill that would appropriate $2.24 million and fund 88 FTEs at the Department for the Blind.

The governor’s recommendation for a $200,000 increase from the current $1.74 million budget isn’t enough to sustain programs and services to the blind, Barber said.

In recent years, the department has received level-funded budgets that have resulted in the layoffs of four full-time and two part-time staff members.

In addition, he noted that while budgets have remained constant, costs have risen.

“I’m fearful of more layoffs,” he said.

That would lead to possible service delays to blind Iowans who get help with living independently, orientation and adjustment assistance, help finding jobs and starting businesses.

According to Barber, about 10,000 of the 69,000 sight-impaired Iowans receive services from the department.

“It’s high time Iowa step up to the plate and recognize that programs for blind are an investment,” Barber said. “People who get services become employed, taxpaying citizens and that gives them joy and pride to be able to feed their families and upright pillars of community like sighted people.”

Finding the additional $500,000 “should be an easy compromise,” Rep. Daniel Lundby, D-Marion, said. He’s been pushing for funding, specifically for Iowans with macular degeneration. It’s a disease associated with aging that gradually destroys sharp, central vision. It’s a leading cause of vision loss and legal blindness in adults over 60

HF 604 calls for an overall increase in education appropriations of $103.1 million and an increase of 15.9 FTEs.

The conference committee elected co-chairmen – Sen. Brian Schoenjahn, D-Arlington, and Rep. Cecil Dolecheck, R-Mount Ayr. Another meeting will be scheduled.

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It will cost $3.5 million to implement Senate File 396, $3 million a year to maintain and the layoffs of 48 FTEs, but save the state nearly $405,000 a year, according to the Legislative Services Agency.

Despite some lawmakers’ reservations about the wisdom of the plan, the House voted 77-20 to send the bill back to the Senate, which approved a slightly different version 50-0. If the Senate accepts the House changes, the bill goes to the governor. If not, it’s likely to go to a conference committee.

A major difference between the two versions was the House reinstatement of language consolidating human resources services in the Department of Administrative Services. Floor Manager Rep. Chris Hagenow, R-Windsor Heights, acknowledged the upfront cost, “but there are substantial savings to the state after that.”

At what price, wondered Rep. Vicki Lensing, D-Iowa City, who was involved in the earlier government reorganization effort.

“We’re going to be spending $3 million a year to maintain this program to save $400,000 and I still have questions about how it all fits together,” she said. She would prefer that the changes be phased in to give state employees an opportunity to buy into the reorganization.

The changes will be phased in over three years, Hagenow said, “but it’s probably good to get started right away.”

The House also amended SF 396 to restrict the authority of the state chief information officer, a new position created to consolidate and organize the state’s technology services, to hire more employees than previously approved.

Most lobbyists were neutral on the bill, but emergency medical services and technology companies, such as Microsoft, were registered in support.

Also Wednesday, the House approved House File 641 87-9 to authorize “reinvestment districts” for economic development. Local governments could capture two-thirds of the state sales tax and the state hotel excise tax generated by new projects within an established district to be used for capital investment of the new project. It was referred to as a “sales tax TIF,” referring to Tax Increment Financing that captures new property tax revenue from economic development to pay for capital improvements.

Floor manager Rep. Josh Byrnes, R-Osage, assured colleagues the bill, which came together recently, contains sufficient transparency and accountability, including a provisions requiring reinvestment districts to have oversight and approval by the state Economic Development Authority.

It was generally supported by building and trades unions, builders and some cities, including Iowa City and Cedar Falls. No lobbyists were registered opposing the bill, but several groups were “undecided.”

The House will be in session Thursday, but no floor action is planned.

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Arguing that passenger rail will never be self-supporting and only possible with continuing state subsidies, majority Republicans blocked a Johnson County lawmaker’s attempt to secure $5.5 million in each of the next two years for “multimodal transportation.”

The discussion came en route to a 97-1 vote to approve House File 638, also known as the Rebuild Iowa Infrastructure Fund (RIIF). It appropriates $223.2 million in 2014 with $106 million in new spending and $182,815,673, including $121 million in new spending, in 2015.

Rep. Dave Jacoby, D-Coralville, offered an amendment to include $11 million to cover the cost of passenger rail studies looking at potential ridership on an Iowa City to Chicago line through the Quad Cities and at the overall feasibility of passenger rail. The appropriation also would pay for Iowa’s membership in the Midwest Rail Compact. Iowa dropped out as part of Gov. Terry Branstad’s cost-savings measures.

In making his case, Jacoby noted the governor said Iowa needs transportation funding flexibility to enhance competitive transportation options for Iowa producers shipping to global marketplaces.

As long as there is $87 million in federal matching funds available, “we should keep pushing to get some of them,” Jacoby said.

Although his amendment was defeated 47-51, he expects it will be offered on other appropriations bills.

“I hope it ends up on a conference committee table,” Jacoby said.

Also Tuesday, the House approved Senate File 447 with a strike after amendment that cut the appropriations from $560 million to $535 million from the state general fund.

Worthan called it a “measured approach … a sustainable budget” that increases spending by just less than 3 percent. That’s in line with state revenue growth that has been in the 3 to 3.5 percent per year.

Another change in the House amendment was inclusion of language creating a public safety training task force to study the need for a joint, comprehensive training facility for all emergency responders.

The House agreed with a Senate amendment to House File 602, a transportation budget bill. It goes back to the Senate, which is likely to send it to the governor for his signature.

“It’s our responsibility to maintain the balance of power” between the three co-equal branches of government, Rep. Tom Shaw, R-Laurens, said Tuesday.

The justices “trashed the separation of powers” with their unanimous Varnum v. Brien decision and implementation of same-sex marriage without a change in state law banning any marriages expect between one man and one woman, added Rep. Dwayne Alons, R-Hull.

Their amendment to House File 120, the judicial branch budget bill, would lower the salaries of the four justices on the seven-member court who were part of the unanimous Varnum v. Brein decision to $25,000 – the same as a state legislator.

It’s not meant to be punitive, Alons and Shaw said Tuesday.

“We’re just holding them responsible for their decision, for going beyond their bounds,” Shaw said.

“It’s not the merits of what they said in that decision,” added Alons. He’s trying to stop “an encroaching wave” of judicial activity including decisions on nude dancing and landowner liability – decisions the Legislature also is trying to correct through legislation this session.

That view is not universally shared.

“How ridiculous can you get?” wondered Senate Judiciary Chairman Rob Hogg, D-Cedar Rapids. Alons, Shaw and three other co-sponsors of House Amendment 1327 misunderstand the role of the court as well as the relationship between the court and the Legislature, he said.

The court routinely interprets state law, Hogg said, and the Legislature is free to pass clarifying language. That’s what is being proposed in the case of nude dancing and landowner liability.

Since the 1803 Marbury v. Madison U.S. Supreme Court decision, however, it’s been left to the courts to interpret the Constitution, Hogg said.

Under the amendment, justices’ salaries would be lowered when voters approve a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

In the meantime, Hogg suggested that a plan to pay justices differently based on their role in one case would be unlikely to withstand a court challenge.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Alons said.

David Weigel

DES MOINES – More people may be facing charges in a fraud investigation that led to the arrest of a former Iowa Department of Transportation employee, Gov. Terry Branstad said Monday.

David Weigel, 56, was arrested Saturday for allegedly stealing more than $407,430 from the DOT by manipulating land purchases and mowing contracts. Also arrested was an alleged accomplice, Grady Marx, 59, of Sioux City.

A whistleblower in the department alerted DOT Director Paul Trombino III shortly after he arrived on the job, Branstad said. The investigation culminated April 20 as law enforcement from state, local and federal agencies executed Operation Landlord with search warrants at four different locations in Story, Polk and Woodbury counties, according to the Department of Public Safety. Weigel was charged with first-degree theft, conspiracy to commit theft, ongoing criminal conduct, money laundering and felonious misconduct in office.

The charges, Branstad said, “sends a really strong statement if you are involved in fraud we are going to find you and we’re going  prosecute you and we’re going to seize the property you have inappropriately taken from the state.”

Weigel may have had more accomplices than Marx, 59, Branstad said.

Grady Marx

“This is a very complex issue that had been going on over a period of time,” he said at his weekly news conference April 22. “The more they got into it, the more they found. There still may be more out there.”

He encouraged anyone who had dealings with Weigel to talk to the DPS “so we can get to the bottom of all of it.”

The allegations against Weigel, who worked as a DOT right-of-way agent from 1995-2011, are that he stole at least $239,832 from the state while handling sales and leases of DOT land. For example, he told people buying or leasing land to write one check to the DOT and another to him. In another instance, he told a person to write checks to him as the “property manager” of leased land. Another allegation is that he approved payments for “crop sharing” to a farmer leasing DOT land and then received a kickback after the harvest.

Weigel resigned in 2011 after the investigation began.

It’s believed Marx defrauded Iowa of at least $237,360.

However, they’ll have to act quickly because lawmakers hope to send the plan to reduce the number of Division of Criminal Investigation agents at 15 casinos from six or seven – depending on their size – to just three to a House-Senate conference committee this week. Budget numbers, not the number of agents, is the sticking point in lawmakers’ discussion of Senate File 447, the justice systems budget.

Integrity is the issue for Sue Brown, executive director of the State Police Officers Council, which represents Iowa State Patrol troopers and DCI agents. The agents, who do everything from background checks on casino employees to well as monitor dealers to inspect dice and decks of cards, provide the “frontline” policing at the casinos, she said.

“Special agents spend every day looking for activities that violate criminal law and racing and gaming industry rules,” she said Monday at a subcommittee hearing on SF 447. “They are the only impartial, outside enforcement within the casinos to ensure the rules are upheld and Iowans are gaming in a fair environment.”

That was the case 24 years ago, according to Wes Ehrecke of the Iowa Gaming Association. Now, he said, the roles of the agents often are redundant with the casinos own security.

As for the integrity of the casinos, the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission “will make sure there is no compromise,” Ehrecke said.

“Racing and Gaming makes sure to uphold the integrity of the casinos every day,” he said.

The commission was a part of discussions that involved the state departments of Management and Administrative Services, the DCI and the gaming association, Ehrecke said.

The move would save casinos, which pay the cost of the agents, $3.7 million. The police officers’ council proposed having four agents at each casino, a move that would save the casinos $1.9 million.

Brian Ohorilko, Racing and Gaming administrator, said the commission has no official position on the right number of agents. Its concern is protecting the integrity of gaming and the safety of casino patrons

He conceded that not taking a position amounts to a tacit endorsement of the Department of Public Safety plan to redeploy its DCI agents.

According to DPS, attrition, promotions and transfers should make layoffs unnecessary during the three-year phase-in of the new plan.

The gaming agent changes are included in the justice systems budget. The House version, approved on a party line vote in the GOP-dominated Appropriations Committee, would spend about 3 percent more than the current year budget, but about $25 million less than the $560 million approved on a party line vote by the Democratic-controlled Senate.

The full House is expected to take up the budget bill Tuesday.

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Iowa Representative Bruce Braley disagreed with Republican congressmen from Iowa who suggested Congress should hit the “pause” button on immigration reform following the Boston attacks. (Stephen Mally/The Gazette)

The Waterloo Democrat disagreed with Republican congressmen from Iowa who suggested Congress should hit the “pause” button before further debate of the immigration reform proposal from the so-called Gang of Eight.

“The two issues are completely separate,” Braley said during taping of Iowa Public Television’s Iowa Press April 19. “What happened in Boston was an act of terrorism. So we need to focus on what we can do to eliminate threats like what happened in Boston. To tie them to our conversation on the need for immigration reform is misguided in my opinion.”

Earlier in the week, 4^th District U.S. Rep. Steve King, an opponent of amnesty for illegal immigrants, suggested that if those responsible for the Boston Marathon bombings were foreign nationals “then we need to take a look at the big picture.”

King said he agrees with the “very broad guidelines” in the Senate immigration reform plan, but argued border security should be a higher priority than loosening immigration laws.

And GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley, who called the Gang of Eight’s immigration reform plan “a good starting point,” told National Journal the subject needs to be carefully examined, “especially in light of everything that’s happening in Massachusetts now.”

“Given the events of this week, it’s important for us to understand the gaps and loopholes in our immigration system,” Grassley said. “While we don’t yet know the immigration status of the people who have terrorized the communities in Massachusetts, when we find out, it will help shed light on the weaknesses of our system. How can individuals evade authorities and plan such attacks on our soil?  How can we beef up security checks on people who wish to enter the U.S.?  How do we ensure that people who wish to do us harm are not eligible for benefits under the immigration laws, including this new bill before us?”

Braley, who is a 2014 candidate for the U.S. Senate, conceded that current events affect congressional debates, “but I think it is premature for people to try to analyze what happened in Boston and make broad conclusions about what that means for our immigration policy.”

Although the motivation for the Boston Marathon bombings remains unknown, Braley said if terrorists’ goal was to “create confusion and anxiety and fear among the American people then they have won.”

“But they haven’t won from the standpoint of changing who we are, what we believe in and that’s what we need to keep focusing on,” he said.

Iowa Press will air at 7:30 p.m. tonight and at noon Sunday on IPTV, and at 8:30 a.m. on IPTV World. It also will be available at www.iptv.org.

Comments:  (319) 398-8375; james.lynch@sourcemedia.net

Todd Thomas (left), Jan Thomas and Aaron Thomas as well as author Mark Tabb at a book signing for Ed Thomas' biography in 2011. Members of the late Ed Thomas’ family have been invited to testify at a House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations hearing. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)

An Eastern Iowa family has been invited to testify at a congressional hearing on the role of mental illness in gun violence.

Members of the late Ed Thomas’ family have been invited to testify at a House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations hearing, possibly late next week, 1^st District U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley said Friday. The hearing is being called to address how the breakdown in mental health services contributes to gun violence.

Thomas, who coached the Aplington-Parkersburg football team, was shot to death in June 2009 by a former student with a history of mental illness. That student, Mark Becker, had been released from a Waterloo hospital after a psychiatric evaluation days before the shooting.

Responding to a question about federal gun control legislation during taping of Iowa Public Television’s Iowa Press April 17, Braley said those discussions too often ignore the role of mental illness in gun violence.

“What we’re really talking about is how we reduce gun violence in this country,” the Waterloo Democrat said. “When I think about how we do that, I think of families like Ed Thomas’ family in Parkersburg, which dealt with the reality of some of the gun violence issues we have.”

Reducing gun violence, he continued, involves keeping guns out of the hands of criminals.

“But it also deals with the breakdown in our mental health system in this country,” said Braley, a candidate for a U.S. Senate seat in 2014.

So he’s invited members of the Thomas family to testify in hopes of starting a national conversation about the role of mental health in reducing gun violence.

“They have an important story to share,” he said, because the gun control debate should be part of a “broader comprehensive conversation about all the factors that are leading to increased violence.”

The committee, chaired by Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Tim Murphy is working on inviting witnesses – families of those with mental illness, caregivers and doctors – to talk about mental health and violence, according to Braley’s staff.

The hearing has not been formally announced and the Thomas family has not confirmed it will participate, Braley’s office said Friday afternoon.

Iowa Press will air at 7:30 p.m. tonight and at noon Sunday on IPTV, and at 8:30 a.m. on IPTV World. It also will be available at www.iptv.org.

Comments:  (319) 398-8375; james.lynch@sourcemedia.net

“We have moved to a gulf the size of the Grand Canyon,” McCarthy said referring to differences in property tax plans – just one area where the parties can’t agree.

However, House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, and Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, are holding out hope lawmakers can meet their scheduled May 3 adjournment.

“I’m not ready to shut out any hope of being done within the 110 days,” Paulsen said Thursday.

The parties are $2 billion apart in their approaches to property tax relief, McCarthy said, at loggerheads over Medicaid expansion and he predicted the conference committee trying to work out differences in education reform proposals would be unable to reach a compromise and be dissolved.

A short time later, Senate Democrats made a counteroffer, and the GOP countered that late in the day.

“Our differences aren’t as big as the rhetoric would suggest,” Gronstal said at a Thursday afternoon news conference.

Senate President Pam Jochum, D-Dubuque, echoed that sentiment, saying the Legislature made progress moving major legislation to conference committees to work out those differences between the parties.

“We have every confidence that our conferees are going to reach agreement on our budgets,” she said. “We believe the conference committee process is going to work and work well.”

A key to adjournment may be the annual standings bill, a catch-all appropriations bill lawmakers sometimes use to fund pet projects. This year, it starts in the Senate.

Depending on how much additional spending has been added, adjournment could happen in a “timely manner,” Paulsen said.

“Timely” appears to be the operative word as leaders eye adjournment prospects.

“I would remind you there is no scheduled adjournment,” Gronstal said. “We will stay until we get the job done.”

The Iowa Public Information Board hired longtime Statehouse lobbyist Keith Luchtel as executive director. Among his clients was the Iowa Newspaper Association, which, for many years, was headed by Bill Monroe, now chairman of the Iowa Public Information Board.

Luchtel, who was integrally involved in passage of the law establishing the public information board, sees it as his mission to get the new agency up and running July 1.

“We need to get it staffed, equipped and find a physical location,” he said after being offered the job by the nine-member board of representatives of media, government and the public.

His hiring was not unanimous and not without criticism.

Rep. Vicki Lensing, D-Iowa City, who championed the legislation establishing the Iowa Public Information Board – a six-year effort Monroe likened to “pushing noodles uphill” – was disappointed in the selection of a lobbyist to lead the agency.

“I thought the legislative intent clear that we wanted an executive director with legal experience and speaking skills, not a lobbyist,” she said. “They went for a lobbyist.”

However, Monroe said Luchtel’s experience as a lobbyist, his contacts and his familiarity with the law made him the best choice.

“The more we discussed this, it was obvious one person can’t do it all,” Monroe said. “He’s the best qualified to get us where we need to be.”

That includes getting an adequate budget. The Iowa House has proposed a $100,000 appropriation. The governor asked for $490,000 and the Senate is proposing $450,000.

“If all we get is $100,000, then Job One will be to convince people we need more,” Monroe said. “He’s the best person to do that.”

Beginning July 1, the agency will have the authority to issue both informal advice and declaratory orders with the force of law regarding the state’s open meetings and records laws; offer training and disseminate information; investigate complaints; seek resolution of disputes, and act to enforce the law.

The board meets again May 16.

The Rebuilding Iowa Infrastructure Fund (RIIF) – one of a pair of “Christmas tree” budget bills that typically are among the last to move through the General Assembly on its way to adjournment — won unanimous approval in the House Appropriations Committee.

House Study Bill 235 appropriates $106 million in new funds, including $330,000 for the lightning suppression system for the century-old Capitol. Lightning strikes to the building or nearby trees cause problems for the Statehouse’s electrical system, a legislative staffer said.

That was one of the smaller appropriations in the bill. A larger share of the infrastructure budget were appropriations totaling about $20 million for major maintenance at state facilities, including universities. The Legislature has been “a little lax” in funding both major maintenance and routine maintenance over the years, floor manager Rep. Dan Huseman, R-Aurelia, said.

The Legislature hasn’t done such a good job of routine maintenance, added Rep. Dennis Cohoon, D-Burlington.

A good example of that, Cohoon said, is the more than $50 million earmarked for the complete renovation of the Wallace Office Building that houses, among other agencies, the departments of Agriculture and Natural Resources. The original construction cost was about $10 million, he said. Over the years, lawmakers have discussed razing the building and starting over.

“We need to take a hard look at whether we want to invest in some of our buildings,” he said. “We have to address routine maintenance.”

Huseman agreed lawmakers need to address routine maintenance and also agreed with Cohoon that each year the list of needs exceeds the RIIF funding available.

Larger appropriations in HSB 235 include $27 million next year and $29 million in fiscal 2015 for tuition replacement at the three regents’ universities. That money is used to pay off academic revenue bonds that finance construction of classrooms and labs at the universities. It also will make it possible for the regents to avoid a tuition hike, Huseman said.

Specifically, the RIIF appropriations will fund about $67 million for the new pharmacy building at the University of Iowa, $42 million for the new biosciences building at Iowa State University and about $30 million for the Schindler Education Center at the University of Northern Iowa.

Another $7 million was directed toward deferred maintenance on the university campuses, Huseman said.

RIIF includes $12 million over two years for accelerated career education capital projects at community colleges, $3 million for planning, design, construction and renovation of the State Historical Building and $1 million in matching funds for a new plaza on the state fair grounds.

Among the changes in RIIF is that wagering tax revenue no longer will be transferred from the fund to the Environment First Fund. In the future, $42 million of wagering tax revenue will be directly deposited into the environmental fund. Another $24 million in wagering tax revenue will go to RIIF.

Comments:  (319) 398-8375; james.lynch@sourcemedia.net