It’s getting hot at the statehouse

The temperature and the tempers are rising at the statehouse. For some reason, the heat was left on overnight in the state capitol, so it’s a little hot in here. And House Speaker Christopher Rants, a Republican from Sioux City, is hot again today because so few bills are making it through the Iowa Senate because it’s evenly-divided between Democrats and Republicans. A few bills that got the votes of every Republican and Democrat in the House haven’t even cleared a committee in the Senate. Rants says it’s now apparent the party power-sharing arrangement set up in the Senate isn’t working, and legislators won’t be able to get their work done anytime soon. It’ll be a “long, hot May,” according to Rants. “You have one grumpy House member. You’re going to start seeing a lot of other grumpy House members because we’re not getting any response from the Senate.” But “Whoa Nelly” says Senate Co-Leader Mike Gronstal, a Democrat from Council Bluffs. “I don’t know why he’s suggesting most of these bills are dying in the Senate because we don’t have any particular concerns about most of them,” Gronstal says. He says Rants should stop pressing for Republican priorities that Democrats simply hate, and start doing what Democrats in the Senate have done, which Gronstal says is back away from some of their own priorities. Gronstal says Democrats think raising the minimum wage is the right thing to do, yet they aren’t pressing it because Republicans object and the session should be about reaching “common ground” according to Gronstal. He says if Rants doesn’t understand that yet, it’s going to be a long, hot summer. “My exit strategy is to accomplish what’s important for Iowans,” Gronstal says. “I don’t care whether that takes ’til May, June, July or August.”