Recently, Jacob Hall described to us how our “of, by, and for the people” Republican super-majority legislators debate and determine policy behind the closed door of their secretive caucus meetings. “Our” officials feed us talking points like “transparency” and “limited-government,” and we foolishly lap it up while we expend resources on things like a party platform that “our” officials neither heed, nor even read.
So is there any solution? I believe that an 80% solution is far easier than they want us to believe. Easier than trying to give feedback to your elected officials in forums held weeks after funnel deadlines. Easier than defining the domain of the greenback pipeline from Bruce Rastetter to Pat Grassley, Jack Whitver, and Kim Reynolds.
What I would propose is very simple. The legislature would have to live by only ONE of the same laws that they force on all the rest of us cheap-seaters. Specifically, they should not exempt themselves from the Open Meetings law that they passed and force on us. They make their rules, so how is it that every other governmental entity must abide by Chapter 21 and the Iowa Public Information Board (IPIB) bureaucrats created to enforce it; yet our state legislature has somehow exempted itself?
It gets worse. It’s so bad that the Iowa Ombudsman issued a report in 2018 titled No Model of Transparency, excoriating the IPIB for its repeated violations of the law it is supposed to enforce. So how does our super-majority Republican government respond? Last year, HF2539 passed the House with a 92-2 vote and passed the Senate 46-0. If Reynolds didn’t veto it, HF2539 would have increased the IPIB’s fining power by 500%. As a shocking natural result, the IPIB continues to operate with impunity as evidenced in the latest lawsuit brought against them last summer by Briana Reha.
How ironic is it that the People’s House wants to expand the IPIB’s power by 500% while ensuring their deliberations and vote tallies are safely hidden behind the secret door of its caucus? Imagine how different our government could be if the law makers had to abide by the laws they made (isn’t that called justice?) and have the real debate on the chamber floor. No other government entity is allowed to deliberate policy in secret. Why don’t we call on OUR representatives to live by the same rules?
Micah Van Mersbergen
Mahaska County Farmer
