Framing the Iowa House: A Progressive Guide
by Paul Deaton“Put this into perspective by comparing removal of I-Jobs signs to the Taliban tearing down the Buddhas of Bamyan…The Taliban thought the Buddhas were idolatrous.“
The key challenge for progressives this legislative session may well be maintaining our ability to express moral outrage. With all of the nutty things the Iowa House Republicans have done in the first month of the session, our moral outrage could easily get worn out if we let it. Once we do that, opponents of progressive ideals win.
Here is a handy guide to ways to frame what is happening in that chamber, intended to keep our ideals in place until the 2012 election cycle when we will have a chance to regain control of the House.
First, think of House Speaker Kraig Paulsen (R-35) and House Majority Leader Linda Upmeyer (R-12) like we do Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland during the 1930s-1940s Andy Hardy films. Paulsen and Upmeyer are just wanting to “put on a show” for their constituents to “save the day” in a divided government. Whatever egregious legislation they pass can hopefully be stopped in the Senate with a little work, so enjoy the show.
There seem to be religious undertones to much of what the House Majority is doing and maybe framing Republican initiatives in a religious context will help progressives keep their powder dry.
House Joint Resolution 2, would nullify the administrative rule requiring an Iowa jobs program sign on all construction projects receiving funds and a commemorative plaque on the finished project. Put this into perspective by comparing removal of I-Jobs signs to the Taliban tearing down the Buddhas of Bamyan in Afghanistan after the Mujahideen defeated the Soviet Army. The Taliban thought the Buddhas were idolatrous. It is unlikely the Iowa jobs program will have a legacy as long as the Buddhas of Bamyan, so why worry about a few signs when there are bigger fish to fry? Why exactly are Republicans worried about the legacy of the Culver-Judge administration? Probably more about politics than idolatry.
Perhaps the best way to consider the House Republicans is as if they were the citizens of ancient Corinth, to whom the apostle Paul wrote in First Corinthians, Chapter 13: “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”
Eventually the House Republican Majority will have to put away the partisan detritus and get down to the work of Iowans. If they don't, then their resurgence in the 2010 midterm election will seem like a scary version of the mysterious Scottish village of Brigadoon, which appears only briefly each hundred years for one night.
~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 
Way to go Paul – great similes! Arron
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