Hard to argue w/Skinny this week [View All]

[Debi]

http://www.dmcityview.com/skinny.shtml

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House Speaker Pat Murphy, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal all left the Capitol weaker than when they arrived. With 56 Democrats in the House, Murphy and McCarthy couldn’t find 51 votes when they badly needed them. And they couldn’t even hold their leadership together; with days to go, assistant leader Mike Reasoner of Creston bailed because of “philosophical differences” with his bosses. Murphy’s job is probably safe — there’s no logical successor — but McCarthy is probably finished as a member of the leadership. “Kevin McCarthy is a Republican deep down,” groused one powerful labor guy as he saw the legislature fail to enact any of the four bills that labor so desperately wanted. Even Gronstal — arguably the smartest and savviest guy on the Hill — looked emasculated by the Governor. And if Gronstal ever looked behind him he would have seen his ambitious assistant majority leader Joe Bolkcom of Iowa City taking notes — and probably counting noses.

But Culver’s victory may well be short-lived, if not Pyrrhic. By pouring virtually all of the stimulus money into the Fiscal 2010 budget, he’ll face massive problems next year — when he is running for re-election. The annual cost of the bonding program — something more than $50 million — will add to the election-year budget woes for him and all Democrats. And they can’t expect much election-year help from the economy or from labor, which will be sitting on its hands — and its money. Next session, there will be no more rabbits in the hats — just I.O.U.s and Dave Vaudt’s horror numbers. The regents universities and area colleges will face money problems like they’ve never seen before. None of that bodes well for Democrats running next November — Culver or legislators.

It turns out the Republicans, who entered the session with no strength, didn’t need any muscle to block what they wanted blocked. A rump group of a half-dozen Democrats in the House — including Geri Huser and Doris Kelley — did their work for them. The Republicans didn’t have to have their act together — in fact, they had no act — and could spend their time just sitting around bitching about gay marriage, which they were very good at doing. They really only accomplished one thing on their own: the blocking of the confirmation of Gene Gessow to continue running the Department of Human Services. Gronstal needed to peel off two Republican senators to get Gessow approved, but he couldn’t even get one of the 18 to join the 32 Democrats.

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