Is The Wednesday Walkout New Tactics
Rep. Guy Vander Linden (R- Oskaloosa) (left) and Rep. Betty De Boef (R-What Cheer) (right) speak on the floor of the Iowa House Tuesday afternoon (photo by Don Hubbard)
Oskaloosa, Iowa – Talk about the events concerning the Democrat walkout Wednesday were only matched by the clatter of silverware off plates in the local Julie’s Café. Farmers, truck drivers, and a republican representative was just a small sample of the company. Guy Vander Linden (R-Oskaloosa), polishing off his last piece of bacon, was enjoying the company, as evidenced by the slight smile on his face.
On Tuesday of this week, I had been on the floor of the House talking with local representatives Guy Vander Linden and Betty De Boef (R-What Cheer) about some of the issues coming before the house in the near future.
Rep. Betty De Boef (R-What Cheer) was one of the first to alert me to the walk-out with a quick note: “Democrats have fled the Iowa House in response to leadership’s intention of debating HJR 2009 ( formerly 2005) today!”
Vander Linden explained about the ‘Blue Calendar’- it is called that for the simple reason that it is released on blue paper. “If a bill is listed on that calendar, it’s common knowledge that it’s eligible for debate.” Vander Linden explained that those two bills were on that calendar. “But nobody had specifically, orally, apparently, told the democrats that we’re going to talk about these two bills. So they come to work on Wednesday and our leadership tells them we’re going to debate these two bills, and they immediately decided that they had been dissed and left the building.”
Vander Linden said that one of the bills had been around for over a year, “but in terms of being on the ‘Blue Calendar’ it had been known for days they [bills] were coming up. I was even getting email from constituents that said, I see your going to debate the gun bills on Wednesday. So constituents know just by reading the news, certainly, it’s not too much to ask the party leader to be aware this is coming up.”
Vander Linden explained the deadline for adding amendments had passed, “so they [democrats] couldn’t pull their usual, let’s paper this thing in amendments and string debate out for hours and hours.”
I mentioned similar tactics being used in the past and, in Wednesdays example, it wasn’t as extreme as Wisconsin had degraded to. Vander Linden put it in his normal straight forward way, “frankly, I think this is a case of them just failing to do their homework, getting caught with uh-oh, my homework isn’t done, so what am I going to do. Well rather than admit to my caucus that I didn’t do my homework, let’s say that I was dissed and we’ll leave. That’s what I really think happened in this case. I don’t know that for sure, but I have my suspicion. Everybody knew this was coming up, they had no reason in the world not to know about it, and they had every opportunity in the world to amend those bills, to do whatever they wanted to do, rather than say we’re going to take our toys and go home; and I found it very childish.”
Iowa Senator Tom Rielly (D-Oskaloosa) ,who was no part of the walk-out, had this to say on the partisan politics. “I’d put it all the way back to the Clinton/Newt Gingrich days. Really before that, I think there was more of a sense of once you got elected, that’s great, now lets get some work done.” Rielly explained that long-time relationships between party members helped to overcome partisan problems. “Then you had Tip O’Neal and Ronald Reagan. They would always battle it out, but they got stuff done. Once Clinton and Stephanopoulos, the Cajun Ragin’ Carter, they really were aggressive campaigners. Then you had Newt Gingrich who basically had a scorched Earth policy. It wasn’t enough just to defeat someone, you had to run over them, then back over them again. I think that just started to create an air of partisanship.”
Rielly also believes it’s unhealthy for people like Grover Norquist have legislatures sign a no new tax pledge. “That’s fine if you want to live in Somalia and your never going to have roads or bridges and all that to deal with.”
“Both sides shouldn’t have done that. Republican’s should have been a little bit more forthcoming so the minority party, the democrats, could have filed amendments. Democrats didn’t need to leave the building, they could have just hauled up in a caucus room.”
It appears that the true victims of the walkout might have been those who were at the House in honor of Black History Month. Fifth graders from around the state, making up to a 300 mile trip. So, meanwhile, the singing and poetry readings happened to a half full Iowa House. “I just think that’s the height of childishness,” Vander Linden stated.
The Constitutional Amendment would still need to pass the democratically controlled Senate. Then, next year, the exact same bill would have to once again pass both houses of the Iowa Legislature and then would still be put up to a vote for the people of Iowa to decide the issue. “My major reason for supporting that bill, is it allows Iowan’s to say whether they want to do it or not… I always think it’s better to send things to the people to decide than to kick it back and forth in the ‘sausage making factory’ that’s the capitol.”
History tells us that extreme antics by politicians is not a new thing. When Abraham Lincoln, a Whig party member at that time, was a member of the Illinois House of Representatives, he once leaped from the 2nd story window to prevent a quorum and a vote in the house. He was quickly returned by the Sheriff and the house then voted for a recess.
