The Longest Legislative Day in History

Prevailing Wage Bill Meets Unusual Fate

After a six hour debate, the bill to set a prevailing wage produced a vote count of 50- 46. It takes 51 votes to pass a bill. In an unusual move, Speaker Murphy (D-Dubuque) has decided to keep the voting machine over the weekend; thinking one of the five Democrats who voted no will change their vote. Everyone head home for the weekend except the Speaker, a few other Democrats to rotate sitting in the Speaker’s chair, and a few Republicans on rotating shifts. Literally, leaving the voting machine open means the machine that receives our votes is open for changes. The machine is normally closed minutes after all members are done voting. If you would like to see the counter of how many hours Iowans have waited to view the result of this vote, please visit www.iowahouserepublicans.com.

I voted no on this bill as it sets a government wage and fringe benefit package for public projects. This bill will allow big, rich, out of state contractors to bid on projects and will leave our local contractors out in the cold. Unions support the bill and say it will keep project money local. That is not the case. This bill is about price fixing because the only contractors that can bid on these “prevailing wage required” projects will be those big companies that can afford to pay higher wages and fringe benefits. This bill does nothing to put Iowans back to work. In addition, property taxpayers will foot the bill for this legislation. Counties and school boards estimate costs will increase by 10-20%. I voted with taxpayers and small contractors, not big unions, or big, out of state contractors.

I heard from many constituents who are questioning why we would pass legislation to increase costs in these economic conditions. That’s a great point and another reason I voted no. The last three states to enact prevailing wage was in the early 1970′s (Minnesota, Tennessee, and Vermont). Nine states have repealed their prevailing wage laws (Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, New Hampshire, and Utah). Iowa does not need this law. One of the worst parts of this legislation was language added in an amendment: prevailing wages will apply immediately, with emergency administrative rules, to Linn and Johnson counties (disaster areas).

Your Vote Won’t Count

One of the worst bills ever introduced at the Capitol is Senate Study Bill 1128. The bill description is as follows: “This bill creates a compact for the state of Iowa whereby the state agrees to certify its electors for president of the United States based on the national popular vote for president, rather than on the popular vote for president within the state. The agreement is cited in the bill as the “National Popular Vote Compact”. To take effect, the compact must be enacted by any number of states whose electoral votes, in the aggregate, constitute a majority of the entire number of electoral votes nationally. The compact provides that any member state may withdraw from the compact. However, if a withdrawal occurs six months or less before the end of a president’s term, the withdrawal shall not take effect until a president has qualified to serve the next term.”

In essence, this bill would allow that if the majority of Iowans voted for Candidate A, but the majority of the states voted for Candidate B, all of Iowa’s electoral votes would be cast for Candidate B (not the one winning in Iowa). This means the big states of California, Texas, Florida, and New York would determine election outcomes, the small states would not have a voice, and Iowa voters would be completely disenfranchised. Senator Staci Appel introduced this legislation in the Senate, and it is backed by an organization called National Popular Vote.

New Location for Legislative Forum

In the future, our forums will be meeting at the Warren County Administration Building, 301 Buxton 2nd floor, Indianola. We have made this change because of the overwhelming turnout at our last meeting. Look forward to seeing you on March 14, 2009.

The Week of Distractions

There have been many controversial bills come out over the past week. Of course there was the Prevailing Wage bill that we spoke about last week. And we’re having a public hearing on Monday night from 7:30pm – 9:30pm at the Capitol. We believe we will be debating this bill on the house floor Thursday.

Then we heard about Senator McCoy coming out in the news calling for the state to dismantle any school, which does not have a minimum of 750 students. This is a terrible idea and will not go anywhere but caught a lot of media time and was a great distraction from the real issues at hand that the State has done a poor job of managing our tax dollars and now they want our children to pay the price and once again strip our communities of local control.

Senate Study Bill 1128 is another example of the attempt to strip Iowa of it’s sovereignty. But this time it is not coming from Washington DC, but right here in our own state! And even worse for me is it is coming from Senator Stacie Appel who happens to be my Senator. She is the Chairperson of the State Government Committee on the Senate side. It calls for Iowa to cast its electoral votes with who wins the national popular vote rather then who wins the state of Iowa. If you want Iowa to become completely irrelevant in the Presidential election and leave that decision up to the east and west coast then this is your bill. Once again a very poor bill for the people of Iowa but will be getting a lot of attention and create yet more distractions from the issues at hand and the current budget condition.

House Study Bill 80 Private Cause of Action could easily become a playground for lawsuits and be viewed upon as a stimulus plan for trial lawyers. HSB 80 is too loose and lacks some basic restrictions No requirement of showing intent, No requirement of showing the person hurt actually relied upon the misinformation given to them and many others to numerous to mention. Here are a few examples of the crazy lawsuits we could see. A $54 million lawsuit against a Washington DC dry cleaner that misplaced a customer’s pair of pants (This merit less case was thrown out after 3 ½ years of costly litigation). In California a lock company was sued for being “deceptive” because they produced a lock stamped “Made in the USA” that contained 6 screws that came from another country (lasted 7 years before being thrown out). This could become a breading ground for frivolous lawsuits and be devastating to the business climate at a time when we need to be promoting growth. Laws like this exists in only 7 others states we should not ignore what 42 other states realize.

Finally I wanted to tell you about a forum we had Saturday at Country Kitchen in Indianola we had over 50 people there and it was a great event. Obviously we all did not agree on the issues, but there was one thing we all recognized is that our State and Country is going through a tough time and it is going to take all of us to come through it. I really touched on the need for transparency and accountability in the legislative process. There were a lot of questions on how people could get more involved and I am committed in helping people with this. If you need help understanding the legislative website or how to come up and lobby as a citizen please do not hesitate contacting me.

Agenda’s Emerging

There has been a lot of buzz around the Capitol over the last week on labor bills. Thursday they introduced the Prevailing Wage Bill (HSB 149).

HSB 149 – Wage and benefit mandates for public construction projects, also known as “prevailing wage”, are created and similar to federal-level “Davis-Bacon” type wage and benefit levels for all public construction projects. In short, property taxes will increase, given the increased costs of these projects.

Here’s what HSB 149 requires:

A contractor no longer determines wages and benefits. Those are now determined by the following three criteria:

• Previously used Davis-Bacon wages for the area
• Wages and benefits established by collective bargaining
• State Labor Commissioner conducts a “survey” and determines wage and benefit levels

New wages will apply to the following public projects:

• University projects over $100,000
• City and county projects over $100,000 (includes city with population over 20,000 and counties with populations over 40,000)
• All projects everywhere over $1 million in scope expands Labor

Commissioner’s authority to have unlimited access to job-site, employees, records, and financial documents.

It amazes me that, in the midst of a budget crisis and economic downturn, the powers that be decide to introduce a bill that is not going to help balance the budget or help create new jobs. This is not the only labor bill we will see this session.

I am also part of the Rebuild Iowa committee and we are seeing some things that raise a red flag. Here’s an example of the potential misuse of the funds which were to be directed to areas hit the hardest by the floods – $19,000 was spent to carpet the Rebuild Iowa office; there are 6 employees with projected earnings of over $100,000 per year; RIO has budgeted more in media expenses than all 150 elected officials in the Senate and House combined; and only two weeks after signing a bill that was passed in the House and Senate they were not able to answer how the implementation of funds are proceeding. We will continue to watch this unfold and hold people accountable.

I have received a lot of feedback from my question on the Gas Tax. The folks in our district overwhelming oppose an additional gas tax. I will be tracking this issue very closely. I am concerned about what the federal government is going to do with this issue and the last thing we need is to have both the State and Federal add an additional $.10 per gallon.