Senate Republican Leader Mike Klimesh says a bill that’s ready for debate in the full senate is designed to avoid a state government shutdown.
“That bill came from actually us watching Washington, you know, at the congressional level. We had the longest government shutdown we’ve ever seen in history and we don’t want that to occur in Iowa,” Klimesh said today during a statehouse news conference. “…Even if we have disagreements or conversations up here, we don’t want to put Iowans at risk or jeopardy for services not being funded.”
The 12-month state budgeting year starts July 1. The bill says if lawmakers haven’t presented a new budget plan to the governor by July 1, the previous year’s spending levels will be used until a budget agreement is reached. “You know sometimes as we try to arrive at a budget consensus those conversations get complicated and we run up close to that,” Klimesh said. “We just wanted to make sure that we could function better than D.C., which we do, but we also didn’t want to have the opportunity of what occurred in D.C. to repeat in Iowa.”
A reporter asked Klimesh if the bill could be a hint at what might happen if Democrat Rob Sand is elected governor and Republicans control the House and Senate. “Not from my perspective,” Klimesh said. “My perspective is just looking at what occurred in D.C., seeing the dysfunction that took place there. We wanted to make sure we had provisions in place to not allow that to happen.”
In 2011, the Iowa Legislature approved the final elements of a state spending plan on June 30, just eight hours before the July 1, 2011 deadline. It was the year Republican Governor Terry Brantad had returned to office alongside Republicans who controlled the debate agenda in the House, while Democrats were in the majority in the Senate.
The State of Illinois holds the record for the longest government shutdown — a three year stand-off between the Republican governor of Illinois and Democrats who held a majority of seats in the Illinois legislature.