It’s been a few days. Perhaps, the yawns have subsided for Iowa lawmakers. Some chose the fatigue. Others had to just suffer through it. Several years ago the Iowa House of Representatives made a new rule: no more debate after midnight. But much like the law that requires legislators to approve school funding for the coming year 30 days after a governor submits her budget to the legislature, they can just choose to not follow it.
When Republicans used to really be fiscal conservatives and held power, do yiu think they would have wanted to pay overtime to all those staff people under the Golden Dome? If you make rules and violate them there is no penalty for doing so, and, consequently, they continue to violate their rules! If they charged to legislature for every hour they took after the session was supposed to end and made it come out of their pay, we might win back some of that $10,000 pay raise they gave themselves! Our budgets might get done on time so the rest of state government can function well enough to get their paperwork done and everybody just might be a tiny bit more satisfied!
I’m not sure how much overtime was actually involved. Likely involved a lot of salaried employees who either don’t get overtime or might get comp time later. And the legislative pay raise didn’t pass. I would point out that they haven’t had a raise since 2007. But I’m not defending how they chose to end the session as the best way to operate.
When Republicans used to really be fiscal conservatives and held power, do yiu think they would have wanted to pay overtime to all those staff people under the Golden Dome? If you make rules and violate them there is no penalty for doing so, and, consequently, they continue to violate their rules! If they charged to legislature for every hour they took after the session was supposed to end and made it come out of their pay, we might win back some of that $10,000 pay raise they gave themselves! Our budgets might get done on time so the rest of state government can function well enough to get their paperwork done and everybody just might be a tiny bit more satisfied!
I’m not sure how much overtime was actually involved. Likely involved a lot of salaried employees who either don’t get overtime or might get comp time later. And the legislative pay raise didn’t pass. I would point out that they haven’t had a raise since 2007. But I’m not defending how they chose to end the session as the best way to operate.