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Your Capitol Voice: Nothing good happened after midnight in Iowa House
by Jeff Kaufmann, State Representative · Op-Ed · April 29, 2009


Last week was simply exhausting. We adjourned at 5:30 a.m. on Sunday following a 4 a.m. adjournment the evening before.
This was the culmination of a seven-day run to end the 2009 legislative session.

The week began with two important bipartisan bills. I was appointed to a ten-person conference committee to finalize the 2009 health care bill. My thanks to Des Moines Democrat Rick Olson for fully including Republicans in the negotiations. In the end we continued to advance the goal that every Iowa child should have health insurance coverage as well as mandating a comprehensive commission to offer recommendations for the next step. We still have a problem with access to affordable health care for the working poor and middle class families.

The House also passed a tougher, more sensible sex offender law on a 95-3 vote. It didn’t look like there would be a bill this session, but a 10-person bipartisan committee offered their recommendations late in the session. These recommendations were endorsed by law enforcement, the Attorney General, and victim’s rights groups across the state. (The only group to complain about the tougher law was the ACLU.) Both political parties agreed to leave politics out of the process, which was key to successful passage.

The last phone call I made before voting was to a local law enforcement officer. I asked him one question: “Will this make our children safer?” His answer was “yes.” I also sent out a review of the bill to all of my law enforcement officers, mayors, supervisors, and city council members before I voted. Those that wrote back were unanimous in their desire to reform the current laws.

The new law retains the 2,000-foot rule for only the worst predators and replaces it with much more effective exclusionary zones. These zones can be schools, parks, libraries, or any place where children gather a 300-foot barrier where sex offenders are not allowed without permission.

The old law permitted sex offenders to loiter around a park or school. It was also much more difficult to track them. Also troubling was the side-effect of driving offenders from the urban areas to the rural areas where there is a chance for even less monitoring. The Department of Corrections is now empowered to make decisions as to which offenders will be forced to wear a GPS tracking system.

Finally the new law categorizes sex offenders into three tiers in order to differentiate between people who truly pose the greatest risk to our children. Categorizing the offenders will help our police officers to better protect our children. I would have liked changes in the bill regarding local control and the inclusion of more offenders on the old 2,000-foot rule list, but the amendment failed. No law is perfect, but the law that passed will help keep our children safer. In the end, regardless of political and philosophical differences, the safety of those that are most vulnerable is a core function of government.

The last two days of the session were as disappointing as the beginning was successful. Filled with closed meetings and straight party line votes, we ended up spending more money than ever before in Iowa history. Be skeptical of the reports that budgets were cut and balanced. Those reports intentionally leave out the hundreds of millions of stimulus dollars used in our state budget and ignore future implications.

To set a new record for spending at a time like this does not make good economic sense. In 2011 when the federal dollars run out, we will have a $900 million spending gap. Even using well spun Des Moines math, this is a fiscal train wreck. It is hard to comprehend how we can do this in good faith with the people of Iowa.

The Governor’s bonding plan also passed on a party-line vote. In addition to the billions in state and federal dollars, we will now borrow over 600 million more. The Legislature knew that 71 percent of Iowans opposed this, but at 4 a.m. last week, the will of the people was ignored. One legislator quipped that nothing good happens after midnight. In this case, he sure was correct.

Such was my last week at the Capitol. Some great bipartisan initiatives and some very troubling fiscal decisions.

Capitol visitors: Sheriff Warren Wethington, Tipton; Sofia Steele, West Branch.

Contact information: jeff.kaufmann@legis.state.ia.us or 2125 Old Muscatine Rd. Wilton, IA 52778 or 563-732-2902.