A bit of progress was made at the statehouse on Monday, but legislators and the governor continue to wrangle over details in the state budget and property tax reform.
Mother nature dealt a bit of a technical set-back to the proceedings in the Iowa Senate according to Senate President Jack Kibbie.
“Rumor has it that lightning struck something up in the attic and it’s in the process of getting fixed,” Kibbie says.
The electronic voting machine which records senators’ votes was malfunctioning. Kibbie, who has won nine terms in the state legislature, is prepared to go back to writing votes down on paper.
“We could go back to the way it was 30 years ago,” Kibbie says.”There was no voting machine in the senate and you called the roll.”
The name of each senator was called out by the chief clerk of the senate, and each senator then said aloud whether he or she was a “yea” or a “nay” on each item up for a vote. Now, senators punch buttons on their desk to vote; a green button for yes and a red button for no; and the votes show up on an electronic scoreboard.
Only two microphones were available for use in the senate for much of its business yesterday.