The Iowa Senate Democratic caucus on November 14 re-elected Mike Gronstal as majority leader and Jack Kibbie as Senate president. Five senators will serve as assistant majority leaders: Joe Bolkcom of Iowa City, Bill Dotzler of Waterloo, Wally Horn of Cedar Rapids, Amanda Ragan of Mason City, and Steve Sodders of State Center. Linn County Supervisor Brent Oleson got Iowa Republicans excited on Saturday by tweeting that Horn would challenge Gronstal, but according to this Des Moines Register report by Jennifer Jacobs, “No one mounted a challenge for either leadership role, several senators said.”
More Iowa Senate news is after the jump.
Gronstal was the guest on Iowa Public Television’s “Iowa Press” program over the weekend (video and full transcript here). He repeated that he will not allow a vote on a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. He predicted future elections will bring “increased political activity on the side of retaining judges,” because of the huge amount spent to convince Iowans to oust three Supreme Court justices this year. He also opposed changing the judicial selection process:
Gronstal: I don’t believe the selection process should be changed. I’m certainly willing to look at that but I can remember democrats in the 80s when Terry Branstad was governor and when we had had republican governors for decades in this state I remember democrats complaining that the judicial nominating system was biased in favor of republicans and only republican names got advanced for judgeships. So, I remember the same criticism from the other side. Here is what the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says, they say we have one of the best systems of courts in the country. We have competent judges in charge, not influenced by political pressures and that that is good. They rate our state very highly from a business perspective as to our courts. That is — I think we have been well served by the current system.
Gronstal interpreted the election results as a message from voters to “get people back to work” and promised to work with Governor-elect Terry Branstad to find more ways to cut the budget. He sounded open to means-testing the state’s program for four-year-old preschoolers:
Henderson: So, for parents who have a child in preschool this year what is your advice to them?
Gronstal: I think we’re certainly willing to look at what Governor Branstad has recommended. We also hope he’ll listen to some of the things that we have heard people say are important. So, I think a wholesale walking away from a commitment to early childhood education — I think that is probably a mistake. But we’re open to talking with the governor-elect about what road he wants to go down in that respect.
Means-testing the preschool program could be a reasonable compromise, as long as the income level isn’t set too low. A lot of families making above the median income in Iowa would be hard-pressed to come up with $500 to $700 per month for preschool costs. If too many people are forced to keep their four-year-olds out of preschool, some preschools now operating may have to close.
Gronstal also said Democrats were open to Branstad’s ideas on national board certification for teacher quality. Regarding economic development efforts, he didn’t rule out changing the structure of the Iowa Department of Economic Development, but said policies should focus on “main street” efforts and not simply “let’s go chase some big company.” He also said Iowa needs to stay “at the forefront of renewable energy in this state and clean energy and green energy,” but it doesn’t matter whether that program is called the Power Fund (a Democratic initiative Republicans want to eliminate) or something else.
On Iowa Press, Gronstal spoke at length about how Democrats worked with Branstad when he was governor before, particularly in the area of education. He said Democrats would consider Republican-proposed spending reductions, if those are “real cuts that save the state money and don’t jeopardize some of the important things we do in this state.” He said there was “a ton of common ground” and is not inclined to block Branstad’s appointments unless there’s a strong policy reason that the nominee is inappropriate. But it sounds like Senate Democrats will draw a line in the sand regarding children’s health care coverage.
Of course we’re going to stand in opposition if he’s got some really dumb ideas. If he’s got ideas that we don’t think make sense or that we don’t think are good for Iowa, if he’s going to try and take healthcare coverage away from children in this state we will stand in his way every way we can. But the vast majority of the stuff the legislature deals with is the kind of stuff that you sit down and you work out your differences over. We worked out our differences with Governor Branstad in 1992 over healthcare and in the end we preserved access to healthcare coverage in this state. We will do that again. We will work with him in good faith.
Gronstal dodged a question about whether he plans to run for governor in 2014, joking that he’s ready to announce his campaign for re-election to the Iowa Senate in 2012. He saved the best joke for the end of the show:
Henderson: We haven’t much time left, you used to have a mustache, Terry Branstad has a mustache, will you grow a Gronstache in support of the new governor?
Gronstal: Um, I started growing my mustache when I was eighteen years old and graduated from high school. I did it to look older. I realized five or six years ago it was working way too well.
The budget negotiations during the 2011 legislative session will be fascinating. I can see Branstad being willing to hash out a deal with Gronstal, but a bunch of the Iowa House Republicans and a handful in the Senate caucus won’t want to give any ground.
While Gronstal is determined to block any full Senate vote on a marriage amendment, it’s possible a Senate committee could pass the measure:
Some Democratic senators either oppose gay marriage or at least would like to give Iowans the opportunity to vote on changing the state Constitution to limit marriage to one man and one woman.
Kibbie is one of those senators. He said Sunday that if the House passes a resolution calling for a marriage amendment, leaders of Senate committees might decide to take action on it.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Kibbie said.
Recounts in Senate districts 13 and 47 will begin this week. Assuming no change in the results, Democrats will hold a 26-23 majority, pending the results from a special election in Senate district 48. Any day now Governor Chet Culver will set a date for that special election, and the vote must be held within 40 days of Culver’s announcement. Republicans announced their candidate, Montgomery County Auditor Joni Ernst, the day Lieutenant Governor-elect Kim Reynolds officially resigned from the seat. I agree with the Move Iowa Forward blog:
As soon as Democrats knew that she was Branstad’s choice for his second-in-command we should’ve been building contingency plans assuming the worst-possible outcome on election day. We should have had a strong and popular Democrat from that district ready to announce his or her candidacy the minute Reynolds resigned. It would be a tough race, no doubt about it. After losing so badly on election day it wouldn’t exactly be the smartest thing to assume we could easily win a single race like this only two months later. The district has 10,444 registered Democrats, 15,257 Republicans and 14,306 no-party voters as of November 1.
In 2008 Reynolds won her race against Democrat Ruth Smith with 14,274 votes to 11,653 votes (about 53% to 43% with Independent candidate getting about 4% of the vote). In 2004 Jeff Angelo won with 54% of the vote to the Democrat’s 46% (14,981 votes to 12,776 votes). With a strong enough candidate and a very strong GOTV effort this race is entirely winnable.
Instead on the day Reynolds announced her registration her apparent successor announced her candidacy. Joni Ernst is currently the Montgomery County Auditor and has been for the past 6 years. Where were the Democrats on Friday? Nowhere to be found. With Friday’s announcement Governor Culver had 5 days to declare the date of the district’s special election and it must occur within the next 40 days. That means that before Christmas this election will be happening. Democrats need to get their act together and get a strong candidate on the ground. Don’t just concede.
Share any relevant thoughts in this thread.