Senate To Take Up Collective Bargaining Debate This Evening

Legislators in the House passed sweeping legislation Thursday morning that would broadly expand the list of items that would be subject to collective bargaining with public employees. The Senate is expected to take up the issue at 5 p.m., according to Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal.The vote, which comes after 15 hours of often contentious debate, was 51-47 in favor of the bill. The vote followed party lines with Democrats favoring the pro-union change and Republicans opposing it.

Democrats argued that the bill provides added protection to workers in the state, but Republicans argue that the changes would force local government bodies – school boards, city councils, county supervisors and public hospitals such as Broadlawns in Des Moines – to raise property taxes to pay for the additional costs of employee contracts.

Lawmakers unanimously voted to stand at ease shortly after 2:30 a.m. Thursday morning, ending 12 hours of verbal tussles that at times seemed more like Jerry Springer meets Roberts Rules of Order than a typical legislative session.

The debate began again at 9 a.m. and ended at 11:30 a.m. after House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy invoked a rarely used provision calling for a vote. McCarthy told reporters on Wednesday that he scheduled the vote to prevent the discussion from turning into a days-long debate.

State Rep. Libby Jacobs, R-Des Moines, said the switchboard at the Capitol was flooded with calls from people across the state raising concerns about the bill. Representatives said they were receiving hundreds of e-mails from Iowans asking them to carefully consider the legislation before approving it. Several legislators said they had received word from local elected officials that they would resign from local government bodies if the bill passes because of the way it erases local control and complicates the jobs they are doing.

Gronstal told reporters on Thursday afternoon that the changes in legislation will have only a slight impact on schools’ abilities to control costs. He said the e-mails that legislators read during the House debate on Thursday morning are a result of Republicans scaring Iowans.

“Someone has obviously stirred them up and given them misinformation about the impact of this,” Gronstal said.

Rants, who led the fight to quash the bill in the House, said Gronstal’s assertions are ridiculous.

“Leader Gronstal is trying to sell the same lines to Iowans that he sold to his members — the outrage doesn’t matter,”Rants said. “But the truth is, the outrage DOES matter and the people of this state aren’t buying Leader Gronstal’s lines, only his members are.”

Des Moines City Manager Rick Clark told Jacobs in an e-mail that the shift in power as a result of the bill will increase property taxes in the state by an estimated seven percent.

Although some Republicans privately conceded early on that they had no way of stopping the bill from passage, they offered more than 40 amendments to the legislation. House Minority Leader Christopher Rants, R-Sioux City, charged that Democrats were trying to ramrod the legislation through both chambers of the Statehouse and send the bill to the governor without offering citizens a chance to comment.

During the often contentious debate, Rants scolded Democrats for sneaking the bill onto the House floor. Rants said he was notified in July that officials with the Public Employment Relations Board would promote non-controversial legislation to tweak the law and clean up minor problems. He reviewed the proposed changes at the time and said Republicans wouldn’t likely stand in the way.

But at about 3 p.m. on Tuesday, State Rep. Rick Olson, D-Des Moines, filed a 14-page amendment that greatly increases the subjects that can be included in collective bargaining. Rants said much of the business at the Statehouse had been concluded for the day and his concerns about the broad implications of the bill prompted Republicans to file 41 amendments to Olson’s proposed changes.

Republicans say their biggest concern about the bill is its potential impact on property taxes. In collective bargaining, when a government entity and an employee union can’t come to terms on an agreement, a third-party arbitrator is called in to listen to arguments and attempt to find common ground. In some cases, Republicans contend, that could mean an arbitrator could make determinations that, from a budgetary standpoint, are unaffordable and the costs would be passed on to taxpayers.

“We all know that when these issues reach arbitration, it will almost always mean the property taxes will go up,” Rants told fellow lawmakers.

Republicans are equally upset that the debate came up without any type of public hearing and that scores of public administrators, particularly at Iowa’s schools, are on spring break this week and can’t be reached on short notice to offer input on the bill.

Rants said he first learned about the amendment to a non-controversial bill when it was filed by Democrats at about 3 p.m. Monday. He told fellow lawmakers that he was introducing a series of amendments to try to stanch what he predicted would be widespread implications of the bill.

Rants and fellow Republicans also expressed frustration that the amendment was being debated less than 24 hours after first being filed, that it was never discussed in a committee meeting, or that the public had virtually no time to offer input.

Democrats, who hold a majority in both chambers of the legislature, had hoped to pass the new version of the bill in the House on Wednesday and turn it over to the Senate for ratification on Thursday.

Republicans were upset the proposal was debated so soon after being introduced in the House and before they believed its implications could be fully known.

As lawmakers tired, tempers flared on both sides of the aisle, adding drama to a day punctuated by the unusual. In the afternoon, lawmakers were forced to temporarily evacuate the Statehouse after a fire alarm went off. Later in the day, State Rep. Tyler Olson, a first-term Democrat from Cedar Rapids, received word that his pregnant wife had gone into labor. Although it appears that the bill will still pass, even without Olson, the debate was contentious enough that his potential departure was seen as a possible liability.

In the end, Olson left the chambers at about 9:30 p.m., predicting to reporters before he left that due to the slow pace of the debate over several amendments, he’d still have time to get back to the Statehouse before a final vote is held.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy told reporters, “The work we’re doing here tonight is important, but it’s even more important for him to be with his wife tonight.”

At about 10:30 a.m. Thursday, state troopers were called in to remove from the House floor a member of the Sioux City School Board after he tried to comment on the bill. Rants said Doug Batcheller had come to Des Moines with other school board members to lobby against the bill.

Rants said Batcheller had told him that he will resign from the school board on Saturday if the bill passes both chambers of the House because of the way it will stymie elected officials’ ability to make decisions regarding the school.

In the end, Democrats had enough votes to kill all the amendments offered by Republicans.