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IowaPolitics.com: Key Dems expect wage vote tally to remain unchanged
2/22/2009

By Lynn Campbell
IowaPolitics.com

Key Democrats predicted today that Iowa House members will return at 1 p.m. Monday to find that the vote on the prevailing wage bill has remained the same -- 50-47, or one vote short of passage -- and that the House will then move on to debating allowable growth, or per-pupil school spending, this week.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said in an interview with IowaPolitics.com today that the House being in session all weekend was all about giving members time to reflect on their votes, since Democratic leaders had 51 committed votes going into debate Friday and ended up with only 50 votes on the board.

"There are members reflecting upon their votes," McCarthy, D-Des Moines, said of the five Democrats who joined Republicans in voting against the bill. "I've asked no one for their vote this weekend and no one's being strong-armed."

The person who cast the key "no" vote on the bill was Rep. McKinley Bailey, D-Webster City. Bailey said today in an interview with IowaPolitics.com that he hasn't felt strong-armed this weekend. Then again, he hadn't listened to the hundreds of voicemail messages he said had been left for him. "I really haven't been answering my phone much until today," he said Sunday afternoon.

Bailey said he has no intention of changing his vote on House File 333 -- a bill that would require contractors to pay workers the same hourly wages and benefits on public projects as they would on private-sector projects in the area -- if the bill remains the way it is now.

"I'm not going to be switching on this vote," said Bailey, who had talked with local contractors, city council members, school board members and county supervisors before casting his vote. "From what I understand, the others are even more adamant about the 'no' vote. I don't see it changing."

House Democrats and Republicans took turns manning the House chamber around the clock this weekend following a decision by House Speaker Pat Murphy to keep the House in session and the voting board open until the House reconvenes at 1 p.m. Monday. That would be about 67.5 hours straight. But the voting machine didn't always cooperate -- House Republicans reported that the machine "timed out" both Saturday and Sunday mornings, forcing Democrats to re-enter the votes manually.

Meanwhile, Rep. Doris Kelley, D-Waterloo, who was another "no" vote on the bill, told a newspaper that members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers laughed and snickered at her when she attended a public forum on health care Saturday in Cedar Falls. Kelley told IowaPolitics.com Friday that she is a firm "no" and won't be changing her vote today, tomorrow or next year.

But Bailey, who is serving his second term in the House and said he didn't get a whole lot of backing from labor unions in his re-election last year, received a warm reception when he attended a forum Saturday in Webster City.

"People were very, very happy," Bailey said. "I got applause when I went in. I didn't have a single person ask me to change my vote. I feel like I represented my district. While I feel bad about letting so many of my caucus members down, I think at the end of the day, I have to represent Wright and Hamilton and Webster county. ... My constituents seem to be happy with my decision."

House Democrats told reporters in a Thursday morning press conference that they had the 51 votes to pass the bill, despite rumors from Republicans that the votes weren't there. Democratic leaders had pulled overnighters both Wednesday and Thursday reaching a compromise amendment that would garner the 51 votes.  

But then during debate Friday, an amendment by Bailey was ruled out of order. Bailey said his amendment would have addressed a lot of his concerns about the bill by providing some protection for small contractors in rural Iowa, and removing an unfunded mandate that required counties, school boards and community colleges to do something without the state helping to pay it.

"It ended up that members of both parties were working against my amendment," said Bailey, who said some of the Republicans and some of the liberal Democrats wanted to take it down for different reasons. "Once that happened, I just couldn't vote for the bill."

Bailey left quickly after the debate Friday evening. "I was just frustrated with the situation," he said.

McCarthy said if the votes remain the same at 1 p.m. Monday, he'll switch his vote from "yes" to "no" -- a procedural move that will allow him to bring the bill up for reconsideration later this session. He said the same thing was done last year on a bill mandating the model core curriculum for schools.

The public shouldn't view this as the death of the bill, McCarthy said. Last year at this time, a bill that would have expanded the scope of collective bargaining had just over 40 votes, but had 53 votes two weeks later, he said. The bill was later vetoed by Democratic Gov. Chet Culver.

"We have to get back to the business we're required to do this week," McCarthy said. According to state law, a bill setting allowable growth for the 2010-11 school year must be approved 30 days after the governor submits his budget. "Allowable growth must come out of committee tomorrow and out of the full House by the end of the week."

House Speaker Pro-Tem Polly Bukta, D-Clinton, told a newspaper that Friday's vote on the prevailing wage bill was a serious blow to House Democrats' egos and to the caucus in general. But McCarthy said this is not the end-all, be-all. And Bailey predicts that House Democrats will eventually get back on track this session.

"This will certainly affect us for a few weeks," Bailey said. "One thing that's interesting about politics, people can be real angry about this a few days and then they realize they have to work together again. We'll get past it."



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