by | Mar 2, 2012
The year was 2010. In Iowa, like in the rest of the Country, a reaction to the obscene growth in size and spending at all levels of government boiled into a loud and visible public movement. The internet was a buzz, local Tea Party chapters were springing up, and the Iowa Capitol was the site of several well attended rallies expressing the sentiment of less government and lower taxes. Two years later, it is time to ask the question—what results have come of this?
The short answer at the state level here in Iowa is—not too much so far.
Most will argue that more patience is required—and they are right. Many will cite a variety of reasons that explain the lack of great action—some valid points to be sure. Meanwhile, the more optimistic in the movement will point to some victories—and I grant that they have a case.
All this considered, it is hard not to be disappointed with the lack of impact Tea Party ideals have had on Iowa’s legislative process. Let’s take a brief look at the landscape.
Victories So FarÂ
Probably the biggest achievement Republicans at the State House can point to is drastically slowing the pace of growth in the annual budget. It would likely shock most Iowans to know that the total appropriations made by our legislature in the year 2002 was $4.375 billion dollars, less than a decade later (FY 2011) the amount spent had jumped to $5.8 billion, an indefensible increase of 33% in less than a decade. Though slightly more money has been spent in each of the last few years, getting a handle on this expansion was not necessarily a given, and for this kudos are well deserved.
The problem here of course is baseline budgeting. The ridiculous increases seen from 2002-2011 have now been built into future budgets—with next year’s expenditure and all projected future years being amounts in excess of $6 billion per year. The reality is that Iowans, of either political party, who are holding their breath for a significant decrease in their taxes can expect two things—a blue-ish hue followed by a funeral. The simple fact is that while future tax hikes can be avoided, as long as the legislature is spending over $6 billion a year—your taxes are not significantly going down.
Other victories that can be pointed to will be met by fiscal purists with justifiable skepticism, the formation of the Property Tax Relief Fund and 0% allowable growth for education in 2012. Time will tell, but the Property Tax Relief Fund may end up being yet another technocratic “victory†in the legislative shell game. I may be wrong, but I can tell you from experience that digging down into the details of many proposed reforms and tax cuts often end up being more of an exercise in moving money around than anything else. In terms of the achievement of 0% allowable growth, this was gained in exchange for 2% growth in 2013 and could be completely erased if an already proposed 4% growth rate in 2014 is green lighted. For the record, approving a 4% increase in education spending would directly cost taxpayers another $196.2 million.
The Reasons
There are many factors that account for this lack of action, and they make it blatantly unfair to directly blame our fiscally Conservative legislators for not achieving sweeping change.
Chief among these is the narrow, but iron fisted, control spend-happy Democrats have in the Iowa Senate. Pragmatically speaking, one could argue it doesn’t make much sense to propose large initiatives that are effectively dead on arrival in the Senate. In addition to this it is hard to get movement in these areas when one of the major players, the governor, is not fully on board. Let’s face it, while he is undoubtedly a strong Republican—he isn’t exactly going to be caffeinating any bodies of water under the cover of darkness any time soon.
Realistically the most valid reason is the predetermined circumstances surrounding this session. All the oxygen is being consumed by the massively involved efforts left over from last session, which include preventing built-in tax increases, re-structuring mental health services, and a flailing attempt at education reform. A final thing that deserves mention is that they have been put on defense by having to block a continuing parade of costly bills introduced by the Democrats most Liberal wing. Stay tuned as The Conservative Reader: Iowa will be posting an analysis of these proposals in the near future.
Some Boldness Would Suffice
I think that most Tea Party supporters in Iowa have, so far, looked at the variety of factors in play and given a pass to the fiscal-hawk wing of our legislature. Most of us are reasonable in our expectations and we realize that big political results are hard to come by. That being said, the time to at least start articulating a vision and making the case that real tax cuts will only follow real spending cuts is at hand. At this point we are not even demanding deliverables—even some boldness would suffice.
An example of this boldness has been displayed recently by Sen. Brad Zaun, and everyone in the movement should take the time to drop him a note of moral support. Knowing that it would not even survive funnel week, Sen. Zaun proposed a bold bill that contains a future vision of education in Iowa that is worth fighting for. Directly following this session other Tea Party leaning members would be wise to start following suit. It is their job to start constructing an agenda and a platform that can eventually cut taxes by cutting spending.
So, has the Tea Party Movement in Iowa crested?
While it is fair to reserve final judgment on this, the lack of real legislative results proves at the minimum it has receded. As of right now the Tea Party trajectory in Iowa closely resembles the illegal immigration outrage that came to a National boil in early 2008—a huge movement that has delivered small victories along the way before largely fading.
After providing the weight for the water displacement which created the wave in 2010, many fiscally concerned Iowans are standing on the shore in 2012 with only soggy ankles. I suspect that the political energy needed to make the case statewide for smaller government is still readily available. What is needed at this point is a tightly formed caucus with a vision supported by pieces of actual legislation.
Without brave and principled leadership this movement cannot be sustained…we will be watching.
by | Nov 14, 2011
This is part 1 of a 2 part interview.  Part 2 deals with Obama care, education reform, illegal immigration, the Tea Party, and other topics. It can be linked to at the conclusion of this installment, or by clicking here.
With a 68% increase in population since 2000, and Bloomberg reporting it is now the fastest growing city in Iowa, there is no doubt that Ankeny is rapidly expanding.
As population over the last few years has shifted to Ankeny, so too has the ideological focus of the Republican Party shifted to the right. Just how far right this Des Moines suburb, and longtime Republican stronghold, has moved politically will go a long way in determining who wins the Republican primary to represent Iowa’s House District 37.
This impending barometer has been put in play by the candidacy of Tea Party Republican Stacey Rogers, who will be one of at least four Republicans seeking this house district’s nomination. I recently sat down with Ms. Rogers to discuss her political resume, her ideology, and how she would like to influence the future of HD 37.
The Background
Though she was born in Colorado, Ms. Rogers’ parents grew up on family farms down the road from each other near State Center, and in an ironic twist her mom actually attended high school with fellow HD 37 candidate John Landon. These roots caused her to return to Iowa during the summers as she was growing up, before eventually leading her to come back to our state for law school. After graduating in three years from Colorado State University she headed back for good and enrolled at the University of Iowa School of Law.
Her time attending law school at the University of Iowa pushed her into the world of politics, a push initialized by being exposed to and surrounded by a level of left wing ideology that took her by surprise. Having decided to politically engage, she applied and was granted the opportunity to spend a summer working in Arizona for one of the most esteemed Conservative think tanks in the Country—The Goldwater Institute.
In addition to this she has worked as a staffer for Iowa State Senator Mark Chelgren (R-Ottumwa), became active in The Iowa Tea Party, and recently served as Republican Graig Block’s campaign manager in his successful re-election bid to the Ankeny City Council. She is currently practicing law for the Ankeny based firm Block, Lamberti & Gocke, P.C.
The District
Paramount to gaining an understanding of a candidate is learning how they see their district, where they stand on local issues, and how they analyze their district’s role in the larger state-wide picture. Ms. Rogers has strong views on all three.
When asked about the district’s positive attributes, she pointed to its unique geographic make-up, “This district has some of Ankeny in it but it also has some rural areas in it, it really is a great sample of Iowa. The good thing about Ankeny is that it is growing but it still has that extremely small town feel where everybody knows their neighbor.â€
On an economic level she commented that, “For the most part, and compared to the way the economy is going overall, Ankeny is doing really, really well.â€Â Weighing in on the reason for the district’s Republican leanings and general weariness of ever-increasing taxes she noted, “Especially in the northern part of Ankeny, the people are largely living in new housing developments and they clearly worked hard for that money, and they worked for it recently.â€
Also making her list of positives is the relative high quality of the school system, something she largely attributes to the area’s residents, “Probably the greatest difference between Ankeny schools and the schools in Des Moines is the amount of parental involvement.â€
The school district and community involvement are both things that have been front and center recently as the city’s school board has made the somewhat controversial decision to split the town by simultaneously building two brand new high schools. Though not under the jurisdiction of the seat she is running for, Ankeny residents would no doubt be curious as to where she stood on this hot-button issue:
“Eventually two high schools were going to be a necessity; the questionable spending was that they somehow needed two identical high schools at the same time. I would have been against the second high school from the beginning but at this point you really can’t un-ring that bell. That whole debacle just exposed this community to debt and the threat of more debt that could threaten its status as an engine of economic growth and development right now, because people are not necessarily going to want to continue moving to Ankeny if there is that threat of more bonding.â€
While noting the need to heal the rift between more moderate Republicans and the Tea Party, she views this seat as having a particular function in the larger statewide picture:
“Whoever gets elected to this seat is going to have the opportunity to use this seat as a bully pulpit. We need to make sure we elect a Conservative that understands the importance of this seat, and that they have a chance to be the voice of the true Conservative position. Somebody under the golden dome needs to draw the line in the sand about what that position really is, and I think too often what happens is that the Republicans who are interested in ‘good governance’ offer the compromise solution up front and give up a lot of ground in that approach.â€
Issues From Last Session
The Budget
Even though Republicans controlled two of the three segments of government last session, you can count Ms. Rogers among the large contingent of Conservatives unhappy with the resulting state budget.
At the heart of this displeasure is what she saw as a tactical error by the Governor in structuring our outlays, “I think our budget this year could have been much lower, and that we sacrificed a lot to the idea of two year budgeting.â€
Instead of insisting on a two year budget, and eventually bartering in order to achieve it, she would have taken an alternate approach:
 “0% allowable growth was still an increase in funding for schools because it was fully funded, something that the Democrats never did—and we still gave up the 2% allowable growth in the second year in order to get the two year budget. I would much rather of had the fight about allowable growth again next year because I think people started waking up to the fact that we are actually giving the schools more money by fully funding them.â€
Commercial Property Taxes
The overwhelming evidence and the inescapable mushrooming nature of Iowa’s commercial property tax code resulted in a political rarity last session—partial bi-partisan agreement. The fact that nationally Iowa ranks in the top 10 in every type of property tax levied on commercial and industrial property, and that The Tax Foundation rated Iowa as the 45th worst business tax climate in the Country, led to all three players in our state government laying tax reform proposals on the table.
On the Republican side were competing proposals from the Governor and the House of Representatives. The Governor’s plan would have ultimately taken a bigger bite out of the bill currently paid by Iowa businesses and would have been the one a Rep. Rogers would have embraced, “I would probably have supported the Governor’s plan. It went deeper and I think that if you are going to do property tax reform then you need to do it all the way, and I think that his plan was a tougher stand than the House Republicans.â€
To read this articles conclusion, dealing with pending issues facing Iowa and analysis of this race, click here for part 2.
Photo Courtesy of Dave Davidson, whose work can be found at prezography.com
by | Oct 25, 2011
This is the second installment of a two-part interview, to read part one click here.
Education
Governor Branstad’s legacy-minded education reform proposal has struggled to draw support since its release on October 3rd, and you can count Mr. Landon as one of those lacking in enthusiasm.
A core tenet of Landon’s philosophy is local control. The benefit he sees in applying this principle to education is that the parents of each child, and the teachers in the actual class room, will have their voices better heard and their concerns more directly dealt with,
“My first reaction (to the governor’s plan) is that it drives us towards more state control and more mandates on levels of performance. I think that we are going to have to reform the system, but I think that instead of less local control we need to focus on more local control. I think we need to make sure that the families, the school teachers, and the administrators all have their say on how this should be done. I really believe that parents and school teachers, the people who are in that sector, know the best for their kidsâ€.
Health Care
The Democrats failure last session to construct Iowa’s insurance exchange program in accordance with Obama Care means that a nasty, brutal fight awaits next year. By all accounts this will be one of the three most high-profile issues debated by the Iowa Legislature in 2012, and one that ultimately drew fellow candidate Stacey Rogers (R-Ankeny) into the race. Landon, for one, would have voted no last year on SF 404 and sounds ready to engage in the fight,
“What would guide me is local control. The rights of District 37 residents and the rights of Iowans have to come first. Anything that’s done has to be for their benefit and their economic interests. And frankly, I view Obama Care as unconstitutional from the get-go. I am not in favor of taking care of this through the government because they (the people) will not be taken care of the way they should be.â€
On Illegal Immigration
“I am a proponent of legal immigration. It is probably not that big of an issue in this particular district, but there are areas in Iowa where it is. As a state issue I would say that the Federal government, like in so many other things, has failed. I am against the taxpayer having to pay for the upkeep of people who have come here illegally.â€
Barring an unexpected Federal resolution to this problem Landon indicated a willingness to possibly engage at the state level, “If the Federal government won’t do it and they are going to continue to let the border be porous, from the standpoint of public safety and who is going to protect the taxpayer, there has to be a process that protects you the citizen.â€
On Varnum (Gay Marriage)
“That should have been decided by the voters. That is a monumental shift in society and voters need to have their say. If a constitutional amendment is the only way for voters to get their voice heard on it, then we need to do it.â€
On The Tea Party
In response to a question seeking his thoughts on the Tea Party and if he would consider himself a “Tea Party-ish†candidate, he answered, “I haven’t found anything in their platform that offends me or that I take issue with. I am for individual rights. I think people can make their own decisions and government would be well advised to pay attention to that. Having said that, I am part of the process and a consensus builder, I just don’t think you can go out there as a maverick and get a whole lot done. What I want is for Lincoln and Douglas townships to flourish and for Ankeny to flourish. The only way I can do that is by being an effective voice, and the only way to be an effective voice is to be a part of the process.â€
Race Analysis and Summary
The contest for the Republican nomination in House District 37 will be of elevated importance as the probability is high that the nominee will ultimately be the Representative. Due to the fact that the district has a 2,400 advantage in registered Republicans over registered Democrats in what is already shaping up to be a Republican wave year, it is likely that the nominee may run un-opposed. Even more likely is that if the Democrats do choose to field a candidate they will not bother to recruit a top-notch challenger or commit substantial resources to the effort.
In what could end up being a crowded field of Republicans, John Landon is a serious contender who will be in it for the long haul. He appears both fired up for the race and ready to put in the time and work that will be required to win the seat. The major pillars that his candidacy will be built on are: less intrusive government, more local control, simplicity in legislative solutions, sensitivity to Iowa’s taxpayers, and a vehement opposition to unfunded mandates.
In particular, emphasizing that the failure to make budget cuts leads to higher taxes and a crusade against unfunded mandates could garner wide-spread appeal in District 37.
As his background suggests he is clearly positioned in the race as the “business candidate.†While often times the “business candidate†moniker is attached to folks who have had professional success, it’s worth noting that the business-like way Mr. Landon breaks down large issues as he thinks through them suggests that he would translate these skills to governance should he be elected.
Though we are early in the process, as Republicans begin to look at the field they will find much to like about John Landon as a person and as a candidate.
The year was 2010. In Iowa, like in the rest of the Country, a reaction to the obscene growth in size and spending at all levels of government boiled into a loud and visible public movement. The internet was a buzz, local Tea Party chapters were springing up, and the Iowa Capitol was the site of several well attended rallies expressing the sentiment of less government and lower taxes. Two years later, it is time to ask the question—what results have come of this?