State Senator Nate Boulton and Fred Hubbell have locked up more support among state lawmakers than the five other Democrats running for governor combined.

Whether legislative endorsements will matter in the 2018 gubernatorial race is an open question. The overwhelming majority of state lawmakers backed Mike Blouin before the 2006 gubernatorial primary, which Chet Culver won. Last year, former Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge won the nomination for U.S. Senate, even though about 60 current and 30 former Democratic lawmakers had endorsed State Senator Rob Hogg.

Nevertheless, prominent supporters can provide a clue to activists or journalists about which primary contenders are well-positioned. Where things stand:

Former Iowa House Speaker Pat Murphy made his second Congressional campaign official this morning. In the shortest YouTube candidate announcement video I’ve ever seen (just fourteen seconds long), Murphy declared, “The truck’s up and running…and so am I.” A press release announced, “Middle Class Fighter to Take on [GOP incumbent Rod] Blum,” and a e-mail to supporters fleshed out Murphy’s case. Excerpt:

Teri and I discussed this race long and hard and the bottom line is that middle class Iowans deserve to have a voice in Congress, somebody who knows the struggles they face, and will fight for them.  I’ve done that my whole life, because that’s who I am.  And there’s no other candidate running – from either party – who has been on the right side of these fights from day one.

From raising the minimum wage and teacher pay, passing equal pay for women, to protecting women’s health care and all Iowan’s civil rights.  That’s my record.  Fighting for progressive Iowa values is in my blood, with your help, it’s exactly what I’ll do in Congress.

Murphy’s campaign is on the web at Pat Murphy for Congress, on Facebook here, and Twitter here. (His old campaign website is no longer functional.)

I enclose below the candidate’s full e-mail to supporters, as well as excerpts from the press release. It points to Murphy’s lead in a recent internal poll of Democrats in IA-01 and recalls his outright victory in the 2014 primary, despite being outspent by some of his four opponents. The press release also notes that in the general election, Murphy outperformed both U.S. Senate nominee Bruce Braley and the gubernatorial ticket of Jack Hatch and Monica Vernon. Vernon has been considered the front-runner for the 2016 primary in IA-01, on the strength of early fundraising and endorsements from Iowa-based and Washington Democrats. Gary Kroeger is also seeking the Democratic nomination.

Former U.S. Representative Dave Nagle is backing Murphy for Congress again, as is the Blue America PAC, which supports progressive candidates in Democratic primaries as well as against Republicans in general elections. Murphy dominated the labor union endorsements before the 2014 primary. I’ll be interested to see whether Vernon picks up more labor support this cycle. So far, she has the backing of Teamsters Local 238, the “largest Teamster Local headquartered in the state of Iowa,” and the  Cedar Rapids/Iowa City Building Trades Council, which supported her during the 2014 primary. UPDATE: Added below a Vernon campaign press release “welcoming” Murphy to the race and listing her key endorsers. They include several Iowa House Democrats who served in the legislature while Murphy was speaker from 2007 through 2010. SECOND UPDATE: Added Kroeger’s statement below.

Last week I never got around to posting highlights from the year-end Federal Election Commission reports for candidates in Iowa’s open first Congressional district. Better late than never.

On the Democratic side, the money race remains highly competitive; all five candidates entered the election year with more than $100,000 to spend before the primary. The Republican race in IA-01 provided another reminder that establishment support does not necessarily translate into strong fundraising.  

Yesterday was the deadline for Congressional candidates to submit second-quarter financial reports to the Federal Election Commission. Highlights from the reports in Iowa’s four U.S. House districts are after the jump.

Bleeding Heartland will cover the U.S. Senate candidates’ financial reports in a separate post.

Speaking of the Federal Election Commission, did you know that Republican commissioners are trying to make it more difficult for professional staff to report campaign finance violations to federal prosecutors? Republicans are all about “law and order” except when laws inconvenience big-money interests.

In an ideal world, evidence that more than half of Midwest rivers and streams can’t support aquatic life would inspire policy-makers to clean up our waterways. Rivers that are suitable for swimming, fishing, and other recreation can be a huge economic engine for Iowa communities.

We live in Iowa, where most of our lawmakers take the Patty Judge view: “Iowa is an agricultural state and anyone who doesn’t like it can leave in any of four directions.”

Yesterday the Iowa House approved a bill to relax manure storage regulations for large confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs). All of the House Republicans and two-thirds of the Democrats supported this bad legislation. Details on the bill and the House vote are below.

Yesterday a Polk County District Court judge denied Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz’s request to dismiss a lawsuit over emergency rules on checking Iowa’s voter rolls for non-citizens.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday Schultz answered questions about the rules at the Iowa legislature’s Administrative Rules Review Committee meeting. His responses didn’t impress the Democratic lawmakers on that committee.

CORRECTION: The Administrative Rules Review Committee will consider this matter during its next meeting on September 11, due to a scheduling conflict with the Secretary of State’s Office. I enclose below a statement from Joe Royce, the staff to the Administrative Rules Review Committee.

Secretary of State Matt Schultz declined an invitation to speak yesterday at a regularly scheduled meeting of the Iowa legislature’s Administrative Rules Review Committee. Lawmakers had invited Schultz Sarah Reisetter of the Secretary of State’s office to discuss new voter list maintenance procedures, which were not adopted through the normal rulemaking process and have already prompted a lawsuit.

The Iowa Department of Public Safety announced last week that it is halting electrical inspections of farm buildings. The move is consistent with Governor Terry Branstad’s opinion that the inspections are an unlawful bureaucratic overreach. One way or another, a court will probably decide whether the Electrical Examining Board or the Branstad administration violated state law.

“Local control” has long been a rallying cry for conservatives who oppose taking governing decisions away from school districts, city officials, or county supervisors. However, Iowa Senate action this week rejecting a ban on traffic cameras is the latest sign that Iowa Democratic lawmakers are more likely than Republicans to respect this principle over centralized standards.

The Democratic-controlled Iowa Senate passed two bills today favored by corporate agricultural interest groups. House File 589, the notorious “ag gag” bill, seeks to prevent whistleblowers from reporting alleged abuse at agricultural facilities. Senate File 2172 would reduce the number of sows that confined-animal feeding operations need to report for manure management purposes. Details on the bills and how senators voted are after the jump.

UPDATE: Bypassing normal legislative procedures, the Republican-controlled Iowa House also passed the “ag gag” bill on February 28. Scroll down for details on how the state representatives voted.  

Christie Vilsack’s Congressional campaign announced its three co-chairs today: State Senator Amanda Ragan of Mason City, former Story County Supervisor Jane Halliburton of Ames, and Sioux City businessman Irving Jensen, Jr. Normally this kind of press release wouldn’t be newsworthy, but it’s not every day that a Republican businessman leads a campaign against an entrenched GOP incumbent.

Iowa’s well-documented problems with roads in disrepair and deficient bridges have prompted many calls for raising the gasoline tax in recent years. I’ve been skeptical that a divided state legislature would agree to raise an unpopular tax during an election year-session following redistricting. However, key lawmakers continue to insist that a gas tax hike is on the table. Arguments for why this proposal will and won’t pass are after the jump.

The Iowa legislature’s 2012 session begins today with several major policy reforms on the agenda. Making progress on even one of those issues would be daunting under any circumstances, but particularly during an election year when different parties control the Iowa House and Senate. Lots of links are after the jump.

The November special election in Iowa Senate district 18 confirmed that Democrats will maintain a 26 to 24 majority in the upper chamber during the legislature’s 2012 session, set to begin on January 9.

Senate Democrats and Republicans recently announced updated committee assignments. Majority and minority leadership teams are after the jump, along with all members of standing committees. I’ve also noted which senators are up for re-election in 2012 and which are retiring next year.

The Iowa legislature’s Administrative Rules Review Committee lived up to its unofficial nickname today: “Where good rules go to die.” Nine of the ten lawmakers on the panel voted to delay a proposed ban on lead shot for dove hunting until after next year’s legislative session. It’s a safe bet that before then, legislators will pass a bill allowing hunters to use any kind of ammunition to kill doves.

Yesterday the Iowa Senate Ways and Means Committee advanced a bill that would restrict where abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy can be performed in Iowa. The bill is aimed at stopping Dr. Leroy Carhart from opening a new clinic in Council Bluffs without adding new restrictions on a woman’s right to have a late-term abortion. However, Republican leaders in both chambers of the state legislature spoke out against that approach yesterday. Details and next steps in this controversy are after the jump.

UPDATE: Added comments from anti-choice Democratic State Senator Tom Hancock below.

Governor Terry Branstad, Republican Iowa House Speaker Kraig Paulsen and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal met yesterday to talk about the state budget. Paulsen left the meeting feeling less optimistic that the Iowa legislature will finish its work for the year on schedule, by April 29. Senate President Jack Kibbie concurred that the budget discussion “didn’t go very well.” Unresolved issues include the overall amount of state spending, allocations for education and human services, and the right approach for commercial property tax reform.

Kibbie told IowaPolitics.com that the biggest roadblock is Branstad’s commitment to two-year budgeting. The governor vetoed a one-year transportation appropriations bill last week, claiming two-year plans were essential to “restore predictability and stability to the state budgeting process.” In a press release on Monday, Branstad repeated that his administration “remains committed to a biennial state budget,” which, he said, would provide “predictability for communities while ensuring a solid fiscal foundation for future generations of Iowans.”

I’ve never understood how Branstad can say with a straight face that it’s fiscally responsible to approve a two-year spending plan in the absence of two-year revenue projections. Furthermore, most states that adopt biennial budgets face a projected budget gap larger than Iowa’s for fiscal year 2012. Names and numbers are after the jump.

The Iowa House approved a major “deappropriations” bill, House File 45, on January 19 by a party-line vote of 60 to 40. Republican leaders fast-tracked what they call the Taxpayers First Act, which passed the House Appropriations Committee on the third day of the 2011 session. The bill would cut dozens of programs while increasing spending in a few areas. In addition, $327.4 million from this year’s surplus revenue would go into a new “Tax Relief Fund,” instead of being used to help close the projected budget gap for fiscal year 2012. This bill summary (pdf) lists the budget cuts and supplemental appropriations in House File 45. Click here for the full bill text.

Although the majority of speakers at a January 18 public hearing opposed the bill, and organizations lobbying against the bill outnumber those that have signed on in support, the House Republicans passed the bill with few significant changes. Democrats offered many amendments as floor debate went late into the evening on January 19, trying to save funds for the statewide voluntary preschool program, passenger rail, smoking cessation programs, and sustainable communities, among other things. Representatives rejected almost all those amendments on party-line votes. This page shows what amendments were filed, and the House Journal for January 19 contains the roll call votes.

House File 45 now moves to the Iowa Senate, which has a 26-24 Democratic majority. Democratic senators are likely to back increased expenditures for mental health services and indigent defense while opposing many of the spending cuts. After the jump I take a closer look at some of the most controversial provisions in House File 45.

The Iowa legislature convenes this morning for its 2011 session. Join me after the jump for clips on two of the most contentious issues to be resolved this session: proposed spending cuts and impeachment proceedings against four Iowa Supreme Court justices.

UPDATE: You can listen to opening speeches by Senate President Jack Kibbie, Senate Minority Leader Paul McKinley, Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, House Speaker Pro Tempore Jeff Kaufmann, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and House Majority Leader Linda Upmeyer at the Radio Iowa site.

SECOND UPDATE: Lawmakers issued the official canvass of the 2010 gubernatorial election: Branstad/Reynolds 592,079 votes, Culver/Judge 484,798 votes.

Iowa Senate Democratic leaders announced committee assignments on December 6. After the jump I’ve posted details on the leadership team and committee chairs. Asterisks are next to the names of all Democrats who were elected to four-year terms in 2008 and therefore will be up for re-election in 2012. Redistricting will force some Democrats who were just elected this year to be on the ballot again in two years, but until the new map is approved, we won’t know where the extra elections will take place.

Democrats currently hold 26 of the 50 Iowa Senate seats. Republicans hold 23 seats, and a special election will be held in Senate district 48 in January. Senate Republican leader Paul McKinley announced committee assignments on December 7. Scroll all the way down for the list of GOP leadership and ranking members in the upper chamber.

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.

State legislators have allowed clean water “anti-degradation” rules to stand, a step toward filling a significant hole in Iowa’s water quality regulations. A last-ditch effort by Republicans failed to win enough votes on the Iowa legislature’s Administrative Rules Review Committee (ARRC) to set aside rules adopted by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

I’ve joked that the ARRC’s unofficial motto is “Where good rules go to die,” because on several occasions the committee has rejected rules oriented toward environmental protection. Today Republican Senator Merlin Bartz tried to keep that tradition going with a motion to object to the new water quality rules. However, only Bartz’s three fellow Republicans on the committee (Senator James Seymour and State Representatives Dave Heaton and Linda Upmeyer) voted for rejecting the DNR’s rules. The six Democrats on the ARRC (Senators Wally Horn, Jack Kibbie and Tom Courtney, and State Representatives Marcella Frevert, Tyler Olson and Nathan Reichert) all voted against Bartz’s resolution.

Governor Chet Culver’s chief legal counsel, Jim Larew, spoke in favor of the rules at today’s ARRC hearing, saying they would help Iowa reverse the trend of declining water quality. Unfortunately, we’ve got a long way to go on this front. Further regulation of pollution is warranted, but the political will to accomplish that is currently absent in the state legislature.

Several non-profit organizations deserve special recognition today. Without their efforts, the DNR might not have moved forward to adopt the anti-degradation rules, as required by the Clean Water Act. The Iowa Environmental Council issued a release today with more background and details about the anti-degradation rules. Excerpt:

With the passage of the federal Clean Water Act in 1972 states were required to enact Antidegradation rules to prevent the further pollution of lakes, rivers and streams in the nation by 1985.  Iowa adopted rules but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency informed Iowa that its rules violated federal law as early as 1997.  

Repeated delays in rewriting the rules led a coalition of environmental organizations – Iowa Environmental Council, Hawkeye Fly Fishing Association, the Iowa Chapter of the Sierra Club and the Environmental Law & Policy Center – to file a Petition for Rulemaking with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources in 2007 requesting that the State act immediately to adopt antidegradation implementation rules.  This action initiated a rule-making process that included several opportunities for public comment and a hearing before the Iowa Environmental Protection Commission, which approved the revised rules in December of last year. Monday’s meeting of the legislative Administrative Rules and Review Committee marked the final step in the decades-long process.

The full text of the press release is after the jump.

Thanks again to the Iowa Environmental Council, the Hawkeye Fly Fishing Association, the Sierra Club Iowa chapter, and the Environmental Law and Policy Center.

UPDATE: I’ve added the press release from the Sierra Club’s Iowa chapter after the jump.

The Iowa Legislature’s 2010 session opened today. I posted links to previews of hot topics for lawmakers in this thread, but after the jump I’ve posted some fresh items and excerpts for you to read.

I expected 2009 to be a relatively quiet year in Iowa politics, but was I ever wrong.

The governor’s race heated up, state revenues melted down, key bills lived and died during the legislative session, and the Iowa Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling in Varnum v Brien became one of this state’s major events of the decade.

After the jump I’ve posted links to Bleeding Heartland’s coverage of Iowa politics from January through June 2009. Any comments about the year that passed are welcome in this thread.

Although I wrote a lot of posts last year, there were many important stories I didn’t manage to cover. I recommend reading Iowa Independent’s compilation of “Iowa’s most overlooked and under reported stories of 2009,” as well as that blog’s review of “stories that will continue to impact Iowa in 2010.”

Normally, people who write laws want the rest of us to follow those laws. However, when enforcing a statute costs a corporate interest group more money, prepare to hear some whining about government officials doing their jobs. So it was last week, when the Iowa Legislature’s Administrative Rules Review Committee unanimously approved rules formulated by Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals.

The rules expand the number of hospital workers who are considered mandatory reporters of abuse to include food service workers and housekeeping staff, and define “gross negligence” as a form of abuse.

Lobbyists for Iowa’s hospitals and nursing homes attended Tuesday’s meeting and argued against approval. They said the state inspectors’ definition of gross negligence would result in too many caregivers being branded as abusers. They argued that gross negligence requires a willful, deliberate effort to harm a patient. […]

Representatives of Iowa AARP, the Governor’s Developmental Disability Council and Iowa Protection and Advocacy argued that industry proposals would weaken protection for seniors.

Rep. Bruce Hunter, a Des Moines Democrat who managed legislation related to the proposed rules, addressed the committee and said the industry’s proposed definition of gross negligence was unworkable.

“It would make it very, very difficult, if not impossible, to prosecute somebody in a nursing home or a hospital,” he said. “Yes, we want to make prosecution difficult because dependent-adult abuse is a serious charge, but we don’t want to make it impossible.”

Democratic State Representative Marcella Frevert

expressed dismay that regulators seemed to have regressed from “educational and helpful” enforcement to a “gotcha mentality” of penalizing violators.

Frevert joined the rest of the committee in approving the inspections department’s proposals, but said the full Legislature should consider revisiting the issue in 2010. “So, this isn’t over,” she said.

Here’s an idea: let’s stop issuing tickets for speeding and running red lights in favor of more “educational and helpful” enforcement of traffic laws.

Seriously, those talking points about the “gotcha” mentality of nursing home regulators sound familiar. That’s because legislators from both parties have made the same points in the past. By an amazing coincidence, those legislators have taken expenses-paid trips to Washington courtesy of the Iowa Healthcare Association, which represents nursing homes.

This issue bears watching during the 2010 legislative session, because nursing home operators know their way around the capitol and are good at getting what they want. Legislators could do this group a favor by relaxing the rules on “gross negligence” in nursing homes, and it wouldn’t cost an extra dollar from the general fund.  

When Governor Chet Culver took final action on the last two dozen bills from the 2009 legislative session, my biggest disappointment was his decision to sign Senate File 433, a bill that “eliminates a broad range of fines against Iowa nursing homes that fail to meet minimum health and safety standards.”

Governors rarely veto bills that pass out of the state legislature unanimously, as this one did. However, when Culver didn’t sign Senate File 433 right away, I hoped he was seriously considering the advice of the Iowa Department of Elder Affairs and the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals. Both of those state agencies opposed the bill.

Instead of listening to the public officials who have the most in-depth knowledge of nursing home regulations and violations, Culver sided with a corporate interest group:

Former state legislator John Tapscott, who now advocates for Iowa seniors, said the new law is an example of what the nursing home industry can buy with its campaign contributions.

“It only proves that our legislative leaders and governor are willing to sell out the most vulnerable of our citizens – the sick and elderly residing in nursing homes – for a few thousand campaign dollars,” he said.

Click “there’s more” to read about the substance of this bill and the winning strategy of the Iowa Health Care Association, which represents nursing homes. I couldn’t have written this post without an outstanding series of reports by Clark Kauffman of the Des Moines Register last November (see also here and here).

No one who applies for a marriage license needs your blessing.

According to Republican State Senator Merlin Bartz, at least one of you (or perhaps several of you) may be ready to resign rather than issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. We all can think of marriages we disapprove of, but if your moral objections to marriage equality render you unable to perform the duties of your job, by all means resign. Filling a county government position with good benefits is never a problem, especially in this economy.

Rest assured, as much as you dislike the idea of gays and lesbians getting married, people like me dislike the idea of taxpayer dollars going to someone like you.  

Don’t count on Senator Bartz to bail you out with his give-recorders-a-free-pass-to-discriminate amendment either. Senate President Jack Kibbie ruled that amendment out of order on Tuesday, and Bartz won’t succeed in getting it attached to a different bill for you. You need to either process same-sex couples’ applications for marriage licenses or find some other vocation, preferably in the private sector.

Speaking of which, Bartz seems to think that he and the disgruntled county recorders swore an oath to a different constitution than the one Iowa’s Supreme Court justices were interpreting when they unanimously struck down Iowa’s Defense of Marriage Act. If Bartz doesn’t understand the concepts of checks and balances or judicial review, then like many of his fellow Republicans, he’s not well suited for a political career.  

Details about Governor Chet Culver’s proposed 2010 budget will come on Wednesday morning, but today the governor’s office announced plans to impose 6.5 percent spending reductions on 205 state programs in next year’s budget. According to the Des Moines Register,

“We’re not going to tax our way out of a tight budget,” [Culver] said. […]

Culver will continue to ask lawmakers not to raise taxes. His budget will propose no tax increases, according to a copy of the governor’s remarks provided before a speech at the Iowa Business Council’s annual meeting.

Culver would like to protect certain areas from the full effect of the 6.5 percent cut: public safety, workforce development, human services, disaster relief, the teacher quality program, and early childhood education.

He will recommend that $200 million from the state’s cash reserves be used during the next budget year.

Via e-mail I received this joint statement from Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, Senate President Jack Kibbie, House Speaker Pat Murphy, and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy:

“In these tough economic times, we appreciate Governor Culver and Lt. Governor Judge taking another step to ensure a balanced state budget by releasing this proposal.

“Because of the deepening national recession, this year will be very tough for many Iowans.  While Iowans had little to do with the mismanagement, greed, and financial carelessness that is causing the worst national economic situation since the Great Depression, we will be sharing in the pain.

“In the coming weeks and months, we are committed to:

·        Listening to our constituents

·        Working with the Governor, Lt. Governor and Republican legislators, and

·        Passing a fiscally responsible state budget that attempts to protect the progress we’re making on creating good-paying jobs, improving student achievement and teacher quality, and ensuring affordable health care.”

As you can see, the Democratic statehouse leaders did not unconditionally endorse the governor’s proposal or the principle of relying solely on spending cuts and tapping reserve funds to balance the budget. Some statehouse leaders have advocated raising the gas tax to help pay for road works.

As I have written before, I think it would be a big mistake to rule out any tax increases for next year.

As a political sound bite, it’s appealing for a governor to say, “I balanced the budget without raising a single tax.” But seriously, does Culver believe that Iowa has no obsolete tax loopholes that cost the state far more than they benefit the economy? The Iowa Policy Project has identified “wasteful, secret subsidies to big companies through the tax code.” (pdf file) How about asking those companies to share in the sacrifices that need to be made in the coming year?

Borrowing money to pay for certain infrastructure projects is reasonable, but a modest gas tax increase could reduce Iowa’s debt burden in future years without much pain. There may be other tax increases that make sense, if the funds raised could be linked to specific spending priorities that create jobs.

Politically, it’s risky for any governor to raise taxes, but Culver should balance those considerations against the risk that large spending cuts could prolong the recession:

Almost every single economist agrees, the last thing we want to do in a recession is slash government spending. We want, in fact, to increase that spending so that it is a counter-cyclical force to a deteriorating economy. So the question, then, is how to most safely generate the revenue to maintain or increase that spending. By  “most safely” I mean how to raise the revenue in a way that will minimize any negative economic impact. And the answer comes from Joseph Stiglitz:

 

“[T]ax increases on higher-income families are the least damaging mechanism for closing state fiscal deficits in the short run. Reductions in government spending on goods and services, or reductions in transfer payments to lower-income families, are likely to be more damaging to the economy in the short run than tax increases focused on higher-income families.”

So, first and foremost, you don’t want dramatic spending cuts (beyond the usual rooting out of waste/fraud) and you don’t want to raise taxes on middle- and lower-income citizens who both need the money for necessities, and are the demographics that will most quickly spend money in a stimulative way. That leaves taxes on the super-rich, and Stiglitz – unlike anti-tax ideologues – has actual data to make his case.

For more information, see Budget Cuts or Tax Increases at the State Level:

Which is Preferable During an Economic Downturn?

I’m sure the Iowa Business Council will applaud Culver’s promise this evening to balance the budget with no tax hikes of any kind.

But economic considerations as well as basic fairness dictate that taxes should be on the table when the legislature drafts the 2010 budget. We should not let the fear of Republican-funded attack ads scare us away from sensible steps to increase revenues.

The Iowa Legislature opened its 2009 session today, and Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal let the members of the upper chamber know that he has “never seen such a tough situation” with the state budget and economy in his 26 years at the statehouse.

In his opening address the the Iowa Senate, Gronstal listed some of the biggest challenges facing legislators, in particular rebuilding communities damages by last year’s natural disasters and leading Iowa “through these tough times without sabotaging the commitments we’ve made on economic growth, health care and education.”

He warned that a lot of legislators won’t get what they want this year:

Our resources are limited.  We will say “no” to many good ideas.  We are going to disappoint some people and frustrate others.

If your idea of being an elected official involves being loved by everyone, the next few months will be pretty rough.

Gronstal also noted that bipartisan majorities approved many key policies in Iowa during the past few years, and called for finding “bipartisan solutions” to this year’s challenges.

In his opening address to the chamber, Senate President Jack Kibbie echoed Gronstal’s warning that leaders will be saying “no” to a lot of requests from legislators.

He also advocated some policies that are anything but bipartisan: a gas tax hike and the expansion of workers’ bargaining rights.

Kibbie said increasing the gas tax would create jobs and boost economic development:

First, we can no longer put off the challenges to our transportation infrastructure. It is vital that we begin to clear the backlog of projects that play a  significant role in future economic development. In my district my constituents, Republicans and Democrats, all tell me that we need to get to work and if the only impediment to that progress is money they are willing to pay a few more cents at the pump. I support efforts that result in a gas tax increase. Success in that endeavor will mean better roads, jobs, and an economic boost to Iowa’s families and communities.

I’ve supported a gas tax increase since John Anderson proposed it during his 1980 presidential campaign, but I don’t expect that measure to get through the legislature without a bruising battle.

Here’s a piece listing the many potential benefits of a federal gas tax increase. Kibbie is talking about a smaller increase in the state gas tax, but many of the same benefits would apply.

Kibbie also said Iowa workers need good wages, and therefore “we should not fear passing Legislation that help[s] workers bargain for a better future.”

Kibbie could be referring to the “fair share” bill that Democrats didn’t have to votes to get through the Iowa House in 2007, or to the collective bargaining bill that Governor Chet Culver vetoed last spring. Either way, Republicans and corporate interest groups will put up a fight.

Getting labor legislation through the Iowa House, where Democrats have a 56-44 majority, is likely to be more difficult than getting it through the Iowa Senate, where Democrats have a 32-18 majority.

The complete texts of the opening statements by Gronstal and Kibbie (as prepared) are after the jump.

Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, in consultation with Senate President Jack Kibbie, has released the committee assignments for the 32 Democrats who will serve in the upper chamber during the next two years. I got the list from the Iowa Senate Democrats website, and I’ve posted it after the jump.

The list identifies Democratic senators by surname only. Click here for a chart showing each senator’s full name, home town, district number and Senate office e-mail address.

The Senate Democrats created two new committees: the Environment and Energy Independence Committee and the Rebuild Iowa Committee.  

I haven’t had time to look carefully at the list for changes from last session, but please share any of your insights in the comments.

Chase Martyn analyzed the Iowa House Democrat committee assignments here. Among other things, he noticed,

Almost all vulnerable Democratic incumbents have been kept off the Ways and Means committee.  In a year of budget shortfalls, Ways and Means will likely have to send some tax-increasing bills to the floor.  Members of the committee who vote to send those bills to the floor will be said to have voted for tax increases an absurd number of times because negative direct mail does not typically distinguish between committee votes and floor votes.

Tickets are still available for Saturday night’s Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Des Moines. Call  (515) 974-1691 or go to http://www.iowademocrats.org for ticket prices and event details. Here is the speaking schedule:

7:00pm Jefferson Jackson Dinner Begins

Iowa Democratic Party Chair Scott Brennan

Iowa House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy

Iowa Senate President Jack Kibbie

Congressman Bruce Braley

Fourth Congressional District Candidate Becky Greenwald

Congressman Dave Loebsack

Fifth Congressional District Candidate Rob Hubler

Congressman Leonard Boswell

Lt. Governor Patty Judge

Governor Chet Culver

Senator Tom Harkin

The Honorable Al Gore

9:30pm Jefferson Jackson Dinner Ends (approximate)

Don’t count on things ending at 9:30 pm!

If you buy more expensive tickets, you may be able to attend one of the receptions before the dinner.

If you meet people from the governor’s office, state legislators or candidates for the state House or Senate, be sure to tell them what issues are important to you, whether that’s clean elections reform (the VOICE act), the collective bargaining bill, stronger water quality regulations, or any issue that matters to you.