Legislative Requests from Davenport

By Quad-City Times Staff - Saturday, January 26, 2008

Please don’t...

The legislative to-do list in Des Moines is long. Here are two things each party should keep off of it.

Republicans

Iowa faces a host of struggles: tax inequity; workforce development; road and bridge repair. None of this gets fixed with a protracted battle for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

In fact, a gay marriage ban fixes nothing. Inflicting it into this session most certainly would grind progress on real problems to a halt.

Let those who want to strengthen marriage begin with their own by modeling examples other Iowans can follow.

Democrats

The words “fair” and “share” are creeping up again in the Iowa state capitol. We hadn’t heard them much since they were dismissed in the last legislative session. We hoped we wouldn’t hear them again this session.

“Fair share” is the unfair plan that would require union dues from employees who choose not to join their workplace bargaining unit.

Let Iowa’s strong unions do what they do best — organize — without a state law coercing dues from those who who exercise their freedom not to join.