Iowa State Capitol News – Weekend Recap
Iowa State Capitol News – Weekend Recap
by Paul Deaton
[Editors' Note: With the transition in the Governor's office and legislature, a lot of news is expected from the Iowa Capitol. Following is a weekly recap of stories from Des Moines that came through the Weekend Editor's in-box. If you hear of news from the capitol, email the weekend editor here.]There is a Surplus, Now What to Do With it? On Tuesday, Governor Culver's office announced a Fiscal Year 2011 budget surplus of almost $950 million. By Wednesday, Iowa school districts were asking for some of it. While there has hardly been time for discussion about use of the surplus, some part of it seems likely to be used to fill gaps that were created by use of stimulus funds to balance the budget during the past two years. According to Nate Willems (D-HD29), “The stimulus money was to tide us over while tax revenues were down and that is actually what has happened. Iowa is in a strong financial position to move forward.” What also seems likely is that Republican legislators will seek to spend down the surplus as they have in past years when they controlled the Iowa House.
Republican Priorities – Impeach Iowa Supreme Court Members, and other things A
Des Moines radio station interviewed freshmen representatives Kim
Pearson (R-HD42), Glen Massey (R-HD74) and Tom Shaw (R-HD08) on
Republican priorities for the 2011 legislative session. The tone was
that “we can multi-task,” with Pearson saying they could handle
impeachment of supreme court justices and job creation at the same time.
They have begun drafting articles of impeachment for the four remaining
Iowa Supreme Court justices who consented on the Varnum v. Brien opinion. The conservative Sioux City Journal weighed in
on this, writing in a editorial, “one minute spent debating impeachment
is one minute too long. And we don't think voters will stand for it.”
Early Childhood Education Study
Contrary to Iowa Senate Minority Leader Paul McKinley's (R-SD36) statements about early childhood education at a recent Iowa Politics.com forum, Iowa Kids Count released a report indicating the importance of early childhood education, adding to the background information available regarding the legislature's likely discussion of the state funded preschool program.Branstad Appointments Governor-elect Branstad continued to build his staff and here is a list of recent appointees as of December 22:
Iowa Department of Revenue — Courtney Kay-Decker
Labor Relations Consultant — Leon Shearer
Iowa Public Safety Commissioner — Larry Noble
Iowa Public Employees Retirement System — Donna Mueller
Iowa Department of Human Rights — Isaiah McGee
Iowa Lottery — Terry Rich
Iowa Veterans Home — David Worley
Iowa State Public Defender — Sam Langholz
Labor Relations Consultant — Leon Shearer
Iowa Public Safety Commissioner — Larry Noble
Iowa Public Employees Retirement System — Donna Mueller
Iowa Department of Human Rights — Isaiah McGee
Iowa Lottery — Terry Rich
Iowa Veterans Home — David Worley
Iowa State Public Defender — Sam Langholz
For the complete list, check out the Branstad transition web site:
Redistricting
The U.S. Census results were announced, making official what most knew was coming, that Iowa would lose one congressional seat. Iowa's population increased to 3,046,355. Hopefully, with the increased population there will be many more Blog for Iowa readers in 2011.
~Paul Deaton is a
native Iowan living in rural Johnson County and weekend editor of
Blog for Iowa. E-mail
Paul Deaton
Blog For Iowa 