Senate candidates debate campaign laws

    A debate between the candidates for the Iowa Senate District 45 seat was the fourth and final forum held at the United Presbyterian Church Monday night. Incumbent Democrat Becky Schmitz has been in office four years and faces challengers Sandy Greiner of the Republican Party and Douglas Philips of the Iowa Party.

    Chamber of Commerce Director Tim Coffey was the moderator for the forum and asked the candidates a list of prepared questions and also questions submitted by the audience.

    Coffey asked the candidates if politics, rather than performance, should influence judicial retention in Iowa. Greiner said judges should be judged according to their performance. Schmitz said Iowa?s judiciary is highly regarded because it is not politicized. She said having judges campaign and raise contributions would pollute the sound system in place. Philips said he wants the state to follow the federal model of having the executive branch (the governor, in this case) appoint the judge and for the Senate to ratify the selection. He said he supports having the citizens vote on retention.

    The candidates were asked how a deep tax cut at the state level would have an impact on property taxes at the county and municipal level. Greiner reported that when she was sworn in as a state legislator in 1993, the state was $400 million in debt. Through the advice of bank boards, the legislators passed tax cuts. Greiner said the tax cuts raised revenues during the next business cycle.

    ?When you put money in people?s hands, they go out and spend it, and it generates new tax revenue,? said Greiner. ?I witnessed it firsthand. One of the ways to address our current revenue shortfall is to cut taxes.?

    Schmitz said the state has gone through the worst economic recession since the 1930s. To compensate for the revenue shortfall, the governor ordered an across-the-board budget cut of 10 percent in 2009. Schmitz said the budget cannot be cut much more than it already has. 

    ?Education, health and human services and corrections take up 86 percent of the budget,? said Schmitz. ?If we had to cut another billion dollars, we?d probably have to eliminate the Department of Natural Resources, or the Economic Development Department.?

    Philips remarked that every administration since Governor Robert Ray?s has grown the size of state government, which has made it harder to balance the budget. He said the solution to the revenue problem is a ?fair, flat tax.?

    ?We have clearly grown the size of government beyond our willingness and our ability to pay for it,? said Philips. ?We?re kicking the can down the road to the next generation.?

    To Philips?s comment, Schmitz responded, ?The government hasn?t continued to grow. The budget we?ve got is the same as it was in 2006 when you account for inflation.?

  In her response, Greiner said the reason the state government made such drastic cuts last year was because it had ?overspent atrociously for three years.? 

    Coffey asked the candidates for their thoughts on campaign funding laws. Schmitz referenced a U.S. Supreme Court decision from January known as Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which struck down a portion of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Reform Act of 2002. The Supreme Court ruled that corporate funding of political broadcasts before an election could not be limited under the First Amendment. Schmitz said the decision was problematic because it gave corporations the same rights as individual citizens.

    ?Earlier this year, we passed legislation that pushed Iowa law as far as it could under the Supreme Court decision to require those groups to make a report with the state before they spent any money,? said Schmitz. ?I worked in 2007 and 2008 to require 527s (political groups that cannot coordinate with candidates) to file campaign finance reports to our state agency. It?s your right as voters to know where the money is coming from that is supporting your state and local candidates.?

For more, see our Oct. 20 print edition.