Stories

Gov. Chet Culver delivered his second Condition of the State Address Tuesday morning, calling on Iowa lawmakers to “do more with less.”

It’s time for Iowa to declare a “war on potholes” and put people back to work, and the first step to that is an increase in the state’s gas tax, Senate President Jack Kibbie said this morning in his opening remarks to the legislature.

The legislature will say no to any new spending that isn’t attached to the flood recovery effort, Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, said this morning.

“I’ve been in the legislature for 20 years, and I’ve never seen a bigger challenge,” Gronstal said of the state’s budget situation. “We will be saying no to just about everything this session.”

The news that former Gov. Tom Vilsack will serve as President-elect Barack Obama’s Secretary of Agriculture has left political insiders with one fewer interesting hypothetical going into the 2010 campaign cycle.  Vilsack was seen as the Democrats’ strongest challenger to Sen. Chuck Grassley, a seemingly unbeatable Republican incumbent.
Though Vilsack’s appointment does not completely preclude a [...]

State Auditor David Vaudt, in interviews with the Associated Press and The Des Moines Register, said the state will be forced to make cuts in education funding and Medicaid in order to balance the budget.
Many observers are predicting a budget deficit of more than $500 milllion, but Vaudt said he expects the shortfall to be [...]

Now that the Iowa Supreme Court has heard oral arguments about the constitutionality of same-sex marriage in Iowa, both sides are already preparing for the next phase of their struggle.

Top Republicans in the Iowa House and Senate told The Des Moines Register today that stoping union-backed legislative proposals will be a priority in the upcoming session, with shutting down the legislature entirely as one viable option.

Now, with the 2009 session a little more than a month away and Democratic majorities even bigger than before, the big question remains: Can Democrats unite behind an agenda or will differences once again cause rifts in the party?

A majority of states, including Iowa, are facing budget gaps totaling $66 billion in the 2009 fiscal year, according to a study by The New York Times.

During a taping of Iowa Public Television’s “Iowa Press” today, Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, said the expanded Democratic majorities would revisit changes to the state’s labor laws.