Bill supporting military families stirs up partisan differences

Although a bill that would ease unemployment restrictions for military spouses who leave their jobs due to military reassignment passed in the Iowa House last week, the process may have deepened the partisan gap on both sides of the aisle.

Creative Commons photo by slaup via Flick

Rep. McKinley Bailey, D-Webster City, a member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee who served in the U.S. Army in Iraq and Afghanistan, was surprised by the tone established during the debate by Republican opponents of the bill.  “This bill has little effect in Iowa, since we don’t have any military bases, which is why the visceral opposition to this bill is unfounded,” Bailey told the Iowa Independent during a phone interview.

The bill passed along party lines, 56-44, and now heads to the state Senate.

Bailey said the impetus of the bill did not start at the state level. Rather it was a crafted in response to one of 10 priority issues identified by the Department of Defense as “having a strong impact on military families at the state level.” Currently, 35 other states have adopted similar bills that expand unemployment benefits to trailing military spouses.

“In a state like Texas, which is Republican controlled and has hundreds of thousands of military members, they have this law,” Bailey said. “I’m not trying to pick a partisan fight here; I just don’t understand the opposition and why there was so much opposition here. It was really frustrating during the debate on the House floor, and I’m not blaming all the Republicans, but there were a few who dragged military families through the mud and said, for example, that these families would use this bill to try and milk the system.”

GOP concerned with impact estimates

Opponents argued the bill is an inappropriate use of the state’s unemployment trust fund, which is in a downward spiral since the recession hit, and will contribute to higher costs for all businesses. Iowa currently has an estimated $475 million in the Unemployment Insurance Trust and reserve accounts, although the former has decreased by more than $200 million in the past two years.

Due to record unemployment claims, coupled with decreases in contributions and a national recession, the Iowa Workforce Development, a nonpartisan legislative agency, announced last September that the unemployment contribution rate would be adjusted at the beginning of this year to help keep the fund solvent. The agency estimates that the cost to pay for the military families bill would be $202,000 a year.

Bailey agreed that unemployment taxes do support the trust fund but contends the state would have to see a significant drop in these funds for another trigger to take effect. “The 200,000 is not what is going to trigger another rate change,” Bailey said. “It’s the downward economy and people getting laid off in droves that is going to effect the rate change, not the spouses covered under this bill.”

Rep. Jodi Tymeson, R-Winterset, opposed the bill because it was not limited to deployments. She had concerns that the fiscal impact estimate was not accurate.

“Nor can we even begin to estimate how many people will take advantage of this benefit,” Tymeson told the Iowa Independent in an e-mail message.

“We all want to support military families, but we also have lots of unemployed Iowans that need these benefits – Iowans that did not voluntarily leave their jobs,” Tymeson added. “Employers pay into this fund, and the more money they spend refilling the fund, the less people they can hire (including veterans needing jobs).”

Tymeson said she would look at supporting the bill if it is amended to be more focused on deployment situations.

“I’m disappointed this bill was moved forward, even after the unknown information was pointed out,” she said. “We have worked very hard down here to keep veteran bills nonpartisan. Our veterans expect that.”

Questionable lobby maneuver deepens partisan divide

Even though the bill passed and moved on to the Senate, partisan finger-pointing took center stage when Democrats discovered that a lobbyist, former Republican Rep. Laverne Schroeder, registered the Iowa American Legion as “against” the bill one minute before the House debate was scheduled to begin. He did so without authorization from the American Legion, which registered as “undecided” the day after the House vote and sent a letter to the House of Representatives apologizing for the miscommunication.

In a phone interview with the Iowa Independent, Department Adjunct John Derner confirmed that the American Legion did not have a policy either for or against the bill, so it should have been registered as undecided. Moreover, Derner acknowledged that Schroeder did not have the authority to register against the bill.

The Iowa Independent contacted Schroeder by phone but he did not respond to a request for comment.

During the debate, however, some of the Republican representatives, including Tymeson and Lance Horbach of Tama, highlighted the Legion’s opposition to the bill.

“They turned that into an argument and said the Democrats were rolling over on veterans and that if the American Legion did not support the bill, how could we support such a bill,” Bailey said. “It was unethical at best.”

House Democrats are considering whether to file an ethics complaint against Schroeder, which would be handled by the House Ethics Committee.

News of Schroeder’s alleged improprieties did not bode well with some American Legion members and veterans, including Tom Howe, president of Veterans and Military Families for Progress. “I am concerned that a lobbyist, any lobbyist, abused the power of a lobbying position to damage veterans and their families,” Howe told the Iowa Independent in an e-mail message.

Derner assured that the American Legion is looking into the matter. “We have received a number of complaints about the lobbyist making the wrong declaration from veterans across the state,” Derner said.

Despite calls from several veterans to fire Schroeder, Derner said he does not have the authority to do so. “We are currently investigating why this happened and what preventive measures we need to take so something like this does not happen again. This issue will be addressed by our legislative commission at our annual mid-winter conference.”

The lobbyist impropriety also gained some footing in the upcoming senatorial race when Bob Krause, a Democratic candidate running against Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, weighed in on the matter. “Republican collusion against Veterans’ spouse unemployment compensation in the Iowa House is part of a Republican pattern of honoring the veteran with tinsel but refusing meaningful relief,” Krause said in a statement to the Iowa Independent.

“In wartime, when the spouse quits to follow his or her service member, ‘voluntary quit’ often does not mean ‘voluntary quit,’” Krause, a veteran and member of the American Legion added.  “Instead it means something you do to keep the family afloat and together – especially on the relative low wages of some of the junior enlisted soldiers.”

“So what did the House Republicans do to support our soldiers and their families in time of war?  They opposed the bill as being too costly to employers,” Krause said.  “It seems strange to me that these sunshine soldiers and summertime patriots do not understand that businesses make money in our society because servicemembers protect their right to do it.  This is one of the most shameful acts of economic tight-fistedness that I have seen in my long career of working with the military and national defense.”