DES MOINES – The Iowa Senate voted 43-6 Wednesday to pass a wide-ranging, historic tax relief package that will benefit all property classes, provide an estimated $120 credit to income taxpayers, and give a break to low-income working families. Supporters called Senate File 295 a long-awaited compromise that will stimulate the economy by helping businesses [...]

DES MOINES – Gov. Terry Branstad and legislative negotiators have hammered out a bipartisan agreement to use federal money to expand health-care coverage to needy Iowans by financing insurance premiums for participants who help manage their costs with healthy choices. The newly named Iowa Health and Wellness Plan contains elements that meets the desires of [...]

DES MOINES – Gov. Terry Branstad told fellow Iowa Executive Council members Monday he is still pushing to get the yearly salaries increased for their positions in 2014, but he’s not optimistic given the legislative reception the proposal received last week. Meanwhile, State Treasurer Mike Fitzgerald, a Democrat, said he was disappointed the proposal to [...]

Key legislators and Gov. Terry Branstad expressed optimism Monday that progress was being made to forge a “hybrid” health care compromise that would merge elements of the governor’s “Healthy Iowa” plan with Senate Democrats’ desire to expand Medicaid to cover low-income, uninsured Iowans. “If we’re going to get something resolved, nobody’s going to get their [...]

DES MOINES – The split-control Legislature and Gov. Terry Branstad reached accord Thursday on a wide-ranging tax relief package that will benefit all property classes, return a share of the state surplus to income taxpayers and provide a break to low-income working families. Negotiators forged a hybrid compromise of the competing approaches favored by Gov. [...]

  The mayor poured cold water on congressional rumors. But the mayor pro tem  just might be in. Cedar Rapids City Council member Monica Vernon says she’s getting a lot of encouragement to run for the Democratic nomination in the 1st Congressional District. U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley is leaving the seat to run for the [...]

DES MOINES – Gov. Terry Branstad signaled Tuesday that he believes the issue of expanding health care coverage for low-income Iowans is too complicated to fix now and he favors calling lawmakers back into special session later this year once a bipartisan accord can be forged in the split-control Legislature. “We have a lot of [...]

DES MOINES – Gov. Terry Branstad reiterated his contention Monday that residents at the Iowa Veterans Home are getting top-quality care and expressed concern that criticism of leadership at the Marshalltown facility is becoming increasingly political. However, a key Democrat who has raised concern about quality of care and safety issues at the veterans’ home [...]

DES MOINES — Roving bands of lawmakers occasionally meeting to discuss unresolved priority issues were the few public vestiges of progress being made Thursday as the split-control Legislature pushed toward adjourning the 2013 session – possibly by next week. Top legislators assured reporters that key players on the big four issues – property tax relief, [...]

Iowa will be moving into uncharted budgetary waters next month if the split-control Legislature is unable to approve supplemental Medicaid money to finish out the fiscal year due to an impasse over taxpayer funding of abortion procedures, a top state official says. The state’s share of Medicaid funding averages about $3.5 million a day for [...]