With the New Year comes a new legislative session in Iowa. The 84th General Assembly of Iowa will gavel in on Monday, January 10, 2001. This G.A. will be sort of like a wedding: something old; something new; something borrowed; something blue.
The same old infighting between parties is getting old. After the first week of the session, when everyone is getting along and vowing to cooperate with the other party, the other chamber, the other branch of government, etc., things will get back to normal. It never takes long.
The new is, of course, the leadership in the House and the governor-elect. Of course, you can safely argue that Governor-elect Branstad is also something borrowed (from the past). However, the something borrowed is going to be a few pieces of legislation that seem to pop up every year. The Iowa Attorney General is tops in this category. The AG’s office has already pre-flied a couple of bills from past legislative sessions that didn’t quite make it to the governor’s office.
Wondering where the blue comes in? It’s going to be a very blue session if time is spent on energy-wasting issues such as judge impeachment, maneuvering in the Senate to get germane amendments to bring up a resolution that will provide for a constitutional amendment to write discrimination into Iowa’s Constitution, and other silly little games that do not address the real problems in this state, such as high unemployment rates, top-heavy school administrations, and an escalating usage of drugs and alcohol, without any meaningful and successful exit plan.
There’s no need to bring a gift, but this is one wedding you might not want to miss. Who knows what sort of wedding may be legal or illegal at the end of the session.
© Copyright 2010-2011 Fawkes-Lee & Ryan. All rights reserved.