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. [...]

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 [...]

The Iowa Senate approved a standing appropriations bill Monday night by a 26-21 party-line margin after debating a number of stalled policy issues that backers made a last-gasp effort to revive. Banning traffic enforcement cameras, exempting savings income from taxation and farmers from liability, expanding criminal background checks to businesses catering to children, and using [...]

DES MOINES – State lawmakers’ road to a property tax relief compromise yet this session got off to a rocky start Monday. Sen. Joe Bolkcom, D-Iowa City, chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, opened the week by reiterating Senate Democrats’ position that any deal to cut taxes must include a boost in the [...]

State Sen. Joni Ernst, a Red Oak Republican, said Wednesday she is considering a bid for the 2014 GOP nomination for Iowa’s U.S. Senate seat that will be vacated by Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin’s retirement. Ernst, a former Montgomery County auditor who has served in the Iowa Senate since 2010, said she has been considering [...]

DES MOINES – Hopes for bipartisan resolution of a nagging property tax relief issue during the 2013 session remained in legislative limbo on Monday. A commercial property tax plan passed by the Iowa Senate and then significantly revised and expanded by the Iowa House last week is now perched on the Senate debate calendar, but [...]

DES MOINES – Sen. Tom Harkin threw his support behind Rep. Bruce Braley’s campaign to succeed him in the U.S. Senate and signaled to fellow Democrats Saturday that the Waterloo congressman should be the party’s 2014 nominee. “We Democrats have our candidate for the United States Senate. Bruce Braley is our candidate,” Harkin declared in [...]