Iowa has now passed a voting machine paper trail bill.  All our paperless voting gadgets either get replaced or get printers added by 2008.  This may cost more than the $2 million the legislature kicked in to pay for it.  Counties may have to kick in some more.

Rep. Libby Jacobs calls that an “unfunded mandate.” 

Last year Jacobs could have done things her way, avioding the unfunded mandate she now laments.  But no, that wasn’t her real concern back then.

When the paper trail bill came up last year she wanted to attach it to an onerous voter ID bill to prevent the non-existent crime of impersonating a voter. That killed the bill since Vilsack would never sign that law.

Time and again this session Republicans have decried the way Democrats have passed bills to deal with problems long neglected by previous legislatures.  To Christopher Rants and Libby Jacobs, I say, “You had your chance to do it your way, but you chose not to do it at all.”