Iowa GOP Rams Through Unpopular Dove-Killing Bill
Governor Branstad remembers having a good laugh at his constituents who contacted him opposing the dove-hunting bill the last time he supported it as a representative in 1973.
Today he is celebrating his most recent gift to his son who will happily have “one more species to shoot,” which is apparently, an important priority for Republicans. Honestly, we are NOT making this up. See Branstad's comments below about the Iowa GOP's latest foray into the realm of Walker-Wisconsin-style politics. Read the entire article at Radioiowa.com
How's that for making clear the governor's priorities? We'd like to be happy for the governor's [adult] child who we're sure really needed one more kind of beautiful, innocent, harmless bird to shoot, but, well, we're just not up to that task today, will have to work on it, but moving on…
Representative Mary Mascher, a Democrat from Iowa City, accused House Republican leaders of rushing the issue through so Iowans wouldn’t have a chance to voice their objections.
54 percent of Iowans oppose dove hunting and only 25 percent say they support it. The bill has been repeatedly defeated over the years because of massive public opposition every time it has been put forward. So the GOP decided not to chance it this time and passed it on a voice vote without recording who voted for and against.
But democrats were also complicit this time. It seems our hero of labor and same-sex marriage, Majority Leader Gronstal, is not with us on the dove-hunting bill. Couldn't Senate dems have blocked it? Why didn't they?
Our side argued this among other things:
about the meaningless killing of a bird that weighs about five ounces,
not much meat.” Des Moines Register blogs
Not much more you can add to that. But apparently, it's not quite over yet:
bill can’t go down to the governor’s desk until Senate President Jack
Kibbie signs off on it. Kibbie said this afternoon he has questions
about the unusual procedural moves House Republicans made to amend and
substitute legislation in this case, but he needs to study the matter
further.”
In light of this comment by the president of the senate, may we assume that something can be done to prevent this bill being passed, seeing as how the GOP tried to pull a fast one on the public? We don't know, but here's Kibbie's contact info, go for it:
E-mail: john.kibbie@legis.state.ia.us
Home Address: 112 Oakwood, P.O. Box 190, Emmetsburg, IA, 50536
Home Telephone: 712-852-4140
And we may as well go ahead and contact Branstad. Terry doesn't want to hear from you, so that makes it even better. You can also friend him on Facebook. This way you can make comments, but you can always hide his posts so they don't clutter up your FB page with meaningless GOP drivel… While it is of course impossible that he would veto this bill, and while it will do not one whit of good, you can at least go on record, and what's the harm? All he can do is laugh at you and deride you publicly.
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