A Pro-Life Betrayal?

This year the pro-life movement in Iowa was presented with an ideal situation. You could even call it a perfect storm. In November we elected a Republican majority in the Iowa House, coupled with a Republican Governor. All of them were self described pro-lifers. Then came the announcement that a renowned abortionist was planning on opening an abortion clinic in the home district of Democratic Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal. This led to tremendous calls from his constituents to prevent this monster from moving into the state. In this climate it is entirely reasonable to assume that we could pass virtually any pro-life legislation that we wanted through the legislature.

And early in the session it appeared that this would be the case. The ultimate piece of pro-life legislation was introduced into the Iowa House by State Representative Kim Pearson. House File 153 would have enshrined into the Iowa Code that life began at conception. The legislation appeared to have the support to bring it to the House floor for debate. Twenty-eight members of the Iowa House signed on with Representative Pearson as cosponsors of the legislation, usually a clear indication of support for the bill. Unfortunately this piece of legislation has yet to be brought to the House Floor for debate. Instead a weaker piece of legislation, HF 657 was advanced.

I appreciate the fact that these legislators were willing to cosponsor HF 153. With that said, I am more than a little disappointed with the fact that this is all they did. With a few exceptions, I have not heard many of this cosponsors stand up to demand that the personhood bill be brought to the House Floor for debate. I have to wonder what kind of legislators we have when they have the courage to make a stand by placing their name on a piece of paper, but not the courage to stand up and let their voice be heard.

I applaud the Republican leadership in the Iowa House for taking a stand against abortion, however at the same time I am disappointed in their lack of foresight. I am disappointed that they did not take advantage of the opportunity that has presented itself to rid the State of Iowa of the blemish that is abortion. As I have stated, legislative leadership has found itself in the perfect opportunity to actually succeed in saving the lives unborn children across this state and ending an industry that thrives on the deaths of the defenseless.

I can’t help but wonder if House leadership refused to advance personhood legislation for political reasons. I can’t help but ponder the possibility that Republican leadership in the Iowa House is holding back so that come the next election they can say to us that we need to vote for them because the agenda isn’t complete. Or is it simply that Iowa House Republicans did not have the courage to the right thing.

Gronstalling in the Iowa House

When the current legislative session began four months ago many of us around the state were full of hope and optimism. With the newly elected Republican majority in the Iowa House of Representatives we believed that we would be able to advance an agenda that furthered the cause of freedom and in the process actually defend the rights granted to us by the US and Iowa Constitutions. However as we draw near the end of the session, the hope and optimism we felt is quickly fading to despair and anger as we seem to have been betrayed by those in which we placed our trust.

Case in point is the Articles of Impeachment against the four activist justices that remain on the Iowa Supreme Court. In December three freshman Representatives announced their intentions to draft the aforementioned articles in an effort to hold the Supreme Court accountable. Unfortunately, because such a step was unprecedented, it has taken longer than anticipated to draw up the articles. Be that as it may; Representative Shaw, in conjunction with four other State Representatives, filed the resolutions necessary to begin the impeachment proceedings yesterday afternoon.

Upon hearing that the resolutions had been filed a little bit of the faded hope had been restored. We felt that we were finally going to have a victory in the defense of our states constitution. However, it appears that two Republican members of the House are willing to stand in the way of resolutions, thus disregarding the oath that they took to defend the US and Iowa Constitutions.

In a statement he made to the Des Moines Register this morning, Speaker of the House Kraig Paulsen asserted that he “agrees with much of the reasoning behind the impeachment resolutions, I disagree with the remedy.” It is easy to understand the meaning of his words here. The basic principle behind his comments is that yes he agrees with the need to hold the Iowa Supreme Court accountable, he just doesn’t have the moral courage to stand up and do the right thing.

And in an effort to keep the resolutions from being debated Speaker Paulsen assigned the resolutions to the House Judiciary Committee. A committee that is not scheduled to meet again this session. Another obstacle standing in the road of the resolutions is that the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Rich Anderson from Clarinda, has steadfastly stated that he would not allow the impeachment to leave his committee.

Unfortunately at this time it appears that the impeachment resolutions will not be brought to the House floor for debate. In an act of political cowardice, Speaker Paulsen deliberately sent the resolutions to a committee that he knew would not meet again this session. In an act of political cowardice Speaker Paulsen sent the resolutions to committee chaired by a representative that he knew would not stand in the way of the resolutions.

At this point the only hope that we have of getting these resolutions brought to the floor for debate is if we exert some pressure on the Iowa House. This means that we need to move heaven and earth to ensure that we call not only our representatives, but also Speaker Paulsen and Representative Anderson. It is my understanding that they are the only individuals in the Iowa House that can bring forth the resolutions at this time. Below you will find the contact information for both Paulsen and Anderson.  Please take the time to contact them and tell them that the defense of Iowa’s Constitution and the separation of powers is a worthwhile endeavor for the Iowa House.

Speaker of the House Kraig Paulsen

Email Address – kraig.paulsen@legis.state.ia.us

Phone Number – 319.294.2602

Richard Anderson

Email Address – Richard.anderson@legis.state.ia.us

Articles of Impeachment Filed in Iowa House

Articles of Impeachment filed in the Iowa House against remaining four Supreme Court justices

For Immediate Release

Contact: Representative Tom Shaw – tom.shaw@legis.state.ia.us

April 21, 2011

Statement by Iowa State Representative Tom Shaw upon the filing of articles of impeachment against the remaining four Varnum v. Brien Supreme Court justices:

“In order to protect the integrity of our form of government, we must maintain the separation of powers as is required by Article III, Section 1, of the Iowa Constitution. This is our sworn duty as the representatives of the people, who made their will quite well known when they removed three of the Varnum v. Brien Supreme Court justices in the last retention election. Clearly, by changing the simple meaning of the word “marriage,” and attempting to legislate, the remaining four judges committed malfeasance in office by greatly exceeding the scope of their lawful authority. Therefore, if the moral integrity of each individual member of the Iowa Legislature, and the institution as a whole, are to be preserved, these judges must be impeached and removed permanently from the bench.”

The four Iowa House Impeachment Resolutions, file numbers 47, 48, 49, and 50, brought by Representatives Shaw, Alons, De Boef, Massie, and Pearson, can be found here:

http://coolice.legis.state.ia.us/Cool-ICE/default.asp?Category=BillInfo&Service=DspResoRids&frame=y&rid=14&GA=84

The Art of Exaggeration

For the better part of the last month there has been a lot of comments misrepresenting and distorting the facts of House File 525. We have seen Democratic leadership as well as union leadership distort and misrepresent the bill for their own partisan political gain. I understand that this is the nature of the beast, but the opponents of the bill could have at least spoken about it accurately.

On March 3^rd Iowa House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy stated, and I quote, “It is our intent to have our voices heard and to make Iowans know the bill that’s moving forward ends our collective bargaining system in Iowa.” This is quite a statement from the leader of the Iowa House Democrats. On March 8^th South Central Iowa Federation of Labor President Mark Cooper also falsely asserts that HF 525 would end collective bargaining with this statement, “This is about the right for workers to be able to bargain in the workplace. That is what this is about. It’s not about economics.” Obviously both McCarthy and Cooper have never read the bill. If they had they would realize that this bill is not stripping away the rights of public employees to collectively bargain. All it really does is reform the law in a manner that eliminates some of the concerns that many Iowan’s have had with it. Of course there is the possibility that these two have read it, but are intentionally distorting and misrepresenting the facts of the bill for their own partisan political gain.

In an editorial in the The Daily Nonpareil Mike Hansen, President of AFSCME Retiree Chapter 61 wrote that House File 525 would “destroy mandatory arbitration, collective bargaining, unions, and the middle class.” Contrary to what Mr. Hansen would have you believe, this bill does not end mandatory arbitration. Instead what it does is enable the arbitrator to make an attempt to reach a compromise when the two parties in the negotiations reach an impasse. Furthermore it would prevent an administration from tying the hands of an incoming administration in the way that former Iowa Governor Chet Culver did after his November election loss. And contrary to Mr. Hansen’s assertions, I can assure you that House File 525 will not end collective bargaining in Iowa. The only thing that House File 525 would accomplish is to reform Iowa’s collective bargaining laws, some of which even organized labor and the Democrats have complained about. Rest assured that should the Iowa Senate pass this bill, and should Governor Terry Branstad sign the bill into law, organized labor will continue to exist in the State of Iowa. And another false assertion made by Mr. Hansen is that passage of this bill will destroy the middle class in Iowa. Again his assertion is that the middle class are union members. He doesn’t seem to consider the fact that the middle class has and will continue to exist with or without the help of organized labor. I can point to many members of Iowa’s middle class that are not represented by a labor union.

After the Iowa House passed HF 525 the Iowa House Minority Leader once again aired his ignorance once again by proclaiming that “Like Wisconsin, Republicans in Iowa will stop at nothing to take away rights from police officers, fire fighters , state troopers, teachers, correctional officers and other hard-working Iowan’s. This bill to end collective bargaining is worse than the bill approved in Wisconsin earlier today.” As I explained in my comments above, contrary to Representative McCarthy’s over exaggeration this bill does NOT end collective bargaining. Iowan’s collective bargaining will not end with the implementation of this bill.

You can see the impact all of this over exaggeration has had on the average Iowan when they themselves end up propagating the exaggerations and misrepresentations the Democrats and the union leaders espouse. Chrisina Manual of Des Moines remarked that, “It’s like, come on, don’t take everything away from us, all our rights.” Of course this sentiment is based on the extreme misrepresentation of people like House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

Ultimately I believe that the general population of Iowa can and will see through the distortions coming from opponents of HF 525. I believe that they will see opposition to 525 as nothing more than a desperate attempt to continue holding the state government hostage to public employee unions in Iowa. And I am confident that if Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal refuses to allow debate on the bill the electorate will hold him accountable in 2012.

 

Register Reporter Jacobs’ Statehouse Fantasy

Yesterday morning the Des Moines Register ran a story by reporter Jennifer Jacobs discussing a disturbing bill introduced in the Iowa House. Last evening I authored a post in which I described why I am vehemently opposed to the measure, if you would like to read about you can do so here. Today I want to point to an aspect of the article that I believe really does the field of journalism a severe disservice.

In her article about the legislation Ms. Jacobs insinuated that House Republicans were supporting and advocating the measure. In the title and within the article she uses the plural form of the title Republican, indicating that it is being advanced by more than one Republican. That, however, is not the case. It took me just a few minutes of searching on the Iowa General Assembly website to determine that her assertions are not based in fact. The fact of the matter is that just one Representative, Ron Jorgensen, has indicated any support for the measure. Contrary to the writings of Ms. Jacobs House File 170 is not a bill being advanced by Iowa House Republicans.

I would love to give Ms. Jacobs the benefit of the doubt. I do not want to believe that a reporter with a major Iowa news outlet would use their position to advance their own political ideology in spite of the truth. I would like nothing more than to say that this was an honest mistake, however the facts just don’t support that theory.

I would also like to believe that this was simply a case of sloppy journalism. That Ms. Jacobs had failed to conduct the research necessary to ensure that her article was factually true. However, I find it hard to believe that the Des Moines Register would willingly employee journalists that regularly fail to conduct the research necessary to provide truthful information to the public. I may be wrong about this, but I do believe that the Register does try to provide it’s readership with the most factual information available to them. They may not always give all the information necessary, but I don’t think that they would intentionally lie to the public.

This leaves us with the conclusion that the misinformation included in Ms. Jacobs article was deliberate and intentional. I hate to say it, but it appears that Ms. Jacobs, through the lens of her own political ideology distorted the facts of this story. Instead of publishing an article that was relevant and factual she published a post informed by her own opinion and populated with misinformation.

As I mentioned above, stories like this really do a disservice to the journalistic industry as a whole. It is stories such as this that cause the public to lose trust in many news outlets. As long as reporters advance their own ideology at the exclusion of the truth our nations newspapers will continue to decline.

 

Vulnerable Workers Come Under Fire

Representative Ron Jorgensen

Despite reassurances from President Obama the United States continues to be mired in an economic slump the likes of which we have not seen in decades. No pronouncement from the anointed one or his media lapdogs can undo what meddlesome bureaucrats did to the American marketplace. We can see evidence of this economic malaise throughout the nation. Right here in Central Iowa we have our own communities that are suffering from the lack of economic recovery.

For an example let us look at Pella. The community of Pella is home to two of the state’s largest homegrown Iowa manufacturers; Pella Corporation and Vermeer Manufacturing. Both companies have been hit hard by the economic recession. Both companies have been forced to drastically reduce the number of hours their employees are working. And while to the best of my knowledge Vermeer has yet to lay off any workers many are working less than thirty hours per week. As for Pella Corporation the distressed economy has taken a significant bite out of the company’s bottom line. The company’s sales are down and they have been forced to dramatically reduce their workforce. Even after the workforce underwent both voluntary and involuntary layoffs the company found that they still had too many employees in the plants. So the management staff decided to institute rolling furloughs; that is each factory employee will work two weeks on then one week off in order to balance out staffing. This has effectively cut the employee’s wages by one third every three weeks. To add insult to injury, Pella Corporation’s sales have dipped to the point that they have asserted that they cannot guarantee their employee’s more than twenty-eight hours in any one week.

It is for this reason that I find the proposal introduced by Sioux City Republican Ron Jorgensen, House File 170, so disgusting. Under HF 170 employees would need to be unemployed for two weeks before they would be eligible to receive unemployment benefits, effectively ending unemployment benefits for individuals who find themselves unemployed for just one week.

I am not sure what Representative Jorgensen hopes to accomplish with this legislation, but I can predict what will happen if it were to pass. One of the most immediate effects Jorgensen’s bill would have is to encourage the unemployed to stay unemployed longer. You would see fewer and fewer individuals unemployed for just one week. Most individuals that file for unemployment for just one week truly need that benefit simply to make ends meet.

This bill would also be detrimental to local economies across the state. If we were to prohibit individuals that have been unemployed for just one week this could most likely impact their family’s ability to pay their bills. They would start falling further and further behind in their bill payments. Eventually the family would face foreclosure of their mortgage, default on an auto loan, disconnection of necessary utilizes, and a whole raft of other economic difficulties.

As I mentioned I am unaware of what Representative Jorgensen’s motivation was for introducing a bill such as this. However I do know what would most likely happen in the wake of passage of this bill. Rather than going after those that would abuse the system, we would be targeting those that need the program the most.

Please if you agree with me that we need to preserve unemployment for the state’s workers such as those that work at Pella Corp. call or write your State Representative or State Senator today. Encourage them to withhold support of House File 170. Together we can prevent this bill from ever coming to the House Floor.