Despite some efforts to cast the long nights at the capitol this weekend as a sneaky way for Democratic leaders to push through their agenda, no major policy surprises emerged from the waning hours of the 2009 legislative session.

It is true, the size of Gov. Chet Culver’s proposed multi-year bonding plan remained in question throughout the week, but lawmakers reached an agreement with the governor that was pretty close to what everyone was expecting.  And it was a lower number than what Culver initially asked for.

None of the four workers’ rights bills — Fair Share, Prevailing Wage, Choice of Doctor, and Open-scope Collective Bargaining — came up again.  The plan to eliminate ‘Federal Deductibility’ on Iowans’ state income taxes petered out before it reached the House floor for lack of support among that chamber’s Democrats.

If you want to know why debate lasted for so long, blame parliamentary procedure, which allows legislators to introduce and demand votes on amendments that bear little relationship to the bills they are attached to and have little chance of passing.  Republicans in the House attached dozens of amendments that they knew had no chance of passing (or even being ruled ‘germane’) in just the final legislative day alone.

No one should begrudge the minority party for doing this, as it is their right, and it is how a republic should work.  But, before you lay the blame for late-night debates squarely at Democrats’ feet, remember who actually made the days stretch on for so long, and remember whose interests are best served by the suspicious appearance of a late-night debate in the first place.

The next time someone tells you about the Democrats’ aggressive tactics for ramming through their far-left agenda at the very last minute, ask for examples.  In a state where Democrats have made gains in the state legislature for several election cycles in a row, where Democrats’ voter registration advantage has increased each year since 2006, the ruling majority has precious little to show for all its supposed back-room dealings and secret plans this year.