April 26, 2007
It is day 109 in a 110 day session. The money runs out tomorrow. When we close this session down remains to be seen. Right now I would describe this place as a very bumpy, winding road.
Yesterday we saw a good example of this. SF427 was the civil rights bill that put sexual orientation and gender identity into the code as protected along with race, gender, and religion. I have been opposed to this from the beginning because I do not believe it is right to force small businessmen, churches, or Christian schools to hire someone who engages in behavior that is opposed to their religious beliefs. Throughout the session we knew the bill was out there, that it had passed the Senate, and was eligible for floor debate, but the Democrats did not have the 51 votes they needed to pass the bill. Very often on controversial bills, the minority party leadership asks the members to hold back and make the majority party put up the 51 votes required for passage. Our members were all firmly committed to make the majority party put up the 51 votes required to pass the bill. Beyond that, there were Republicans who would, if forced to vote, vote ”aye”.
Wednesday morning when we came in we saw it was on the schedule for the day. By late afternoon we knew that the Democrat leadership had decided to employ the “call of the House” rule. This means they lock the doors of the House Chamber, station Highway Patrolmen at all the exits, and send the Highway Patrol out to bring in unexcused members. With all House members locked in, they then can call “rule 75” which means each member is forced to say “Aye” or “Nay” in alphabetical order. By using this technique they could force Republicans to vote who were planning on not voting until 51 Democrat votes went up. The end result was the civil rights’ bill passed with 50 Democrat votes and 9 Republican votes. One amendment was adopted. The amendment removed behavior, activities, and appearance from “gender identity” from protected status, and stated that the passage of this language can not be construed to support gay marriage. I voted “no”. As you can see, there is a lot of manipulation that can happen, making the end game unpredictable. I am still hoping several bills I oppose, such as the bill which guts the Right-to-Work law in Iowa, or the one that requires union’s “prevailing wage” on public projects.
Prevailing Wage
Unlike 32 other states, Iowa does not have a state prevailing wage. However, House Democrats are looking to change that with House File 810.
House File 810 requires a contractor to pay workers the same hourly wage, plus fringe benefits for a public improvement costing more than $25,000 as the contractor would pay workers for a private construction or improvement project. This bill requires the wage rates that the workers must be paid and shall also include benefits such as medical care, life insurance, overtime pay, and vacation and holiday pay.
House File 810 applies to any public improvement that receives money from a public body and includes most types of public improvements from construction to road maintenance to painting to hauling. Additionally, the bill includes other public improvement projects including: Cleaning of grounds or structures, erection of scaffolding, maintenance, repair, assembly, or disassembly of equipment, testing of materials, hauling of refuse from a site to an outside disposal location.
Virtually all prevailing rates are set by union trade jurisdiction and further subdivide employees by job classification. The effective impact, therefore, is to force non-union firms to use union job classifications, regardless of how inefficient they might be.
Under House File 810, the established wage rates must cover all construction work performed by all the public owners and/or their employees, including repair and maintenance, renovation and new construction. This requirement includes all in-house services and on-site functions performed by the employees of the public owner.
The result of enacting a state prevailing wage would negatively impact the ability of many small businesses to qualify to bid on these projects, the cost of the projects would increase substantially, and property taxes would likely increase to cover increased construction.
Additionally, administrative costs could become burdensome because local governments would take on the responsibility to monitor contractors and subcontractors to ensure that the prevailing wage rate is paid.
Visitors to the Capitol
The Government class of Sigourney High and teacher Mike Donnelly, along with other teachers and chaperones.
I would appreciate your input. My phone number at the Capitol is 515-281-3221, or e-mail me at betty.deboef@legis.state.ia.us. I would welcome visitors at the Capitol, too!