Senate Republicans met today and reelected Stewart Iverson of Dows as their floor leader — despite the recent election that saw their party lead drop to a 25-25 split. Iverson says the election results were not a factor in his re-election. He says there was nothing brought up in caucuse about the election. He says he shared some of his frustrations about the election. Iverson says they lost the seats in eastern Iowa where Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry ran very strong, but he says “there isn’t one pat answer on why things happened as they did.” Iverson was asked what he promised to his fellow republicans as their leader.He says whenever he runs for office the only two promises he makes are to listen to everybody’s concerns and do the best he can. Iverson says it will be different in the Senate without a clear party majority on either side. He says one thing that will happen is there will be a more “centralist agenda” and things they don’t agree on they probably won’t address. “The voters of Iowa have told us this is what they wanted and we’re fine with that. And so we’re gonna work to move Iowa forward, now will we have a few bumps in the road, sure, we always do.” Iverson says there are a lot of things they can get done, with the biggest issue being the budget.He says right now they have education getting two thirds of the budget where just a few years ago it was 60 percent of the budget. He says education is very important to all of them and they’ll keep that all in perspective. Jeff Lamberti of Ankeny was re-elected Senate President. The Democrats and Republicans reached an agreement to share power equally. Democrats earlier elected Senator Mike Gronstal of Council Bluffs as their floor leader and Jack Kibbie of Emmetsberg as their president.
