State legislators to field questions Saturday

    State Senator Becky Schmitz and State Representative Larry Marek will attend a legislative briefing held Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon on the second floor of the Washington County Courthouse in Washington. The two Democratic legislators are expected to provide an update on issues being debated at the capitol and will also field questions from the audience.

    Ed Raber, chair of the Washington Chamber Government Relations Committee, said that everyone who attends the meeting is given an opportunity to make his voice heard.

    ?We will pass around a microphone so that everyone gets a chance to ask a question or make a comment,? said Raber. ?Sometimes we might limit a person?s remarks to two minutes, but that is not usually a problem. The legislative briefings are normally very pleasant and civil.?

    When the weather has not cooperated with the legislators, the attendance at the briefing is normally around 20 people, said Raber. However, he expects 40 people to attend Saturday?s meeting provided there is good weather.

    This is the first week the Iowa State Legislature has convened in 2010. There will be two more legislative briefings in Washington while the Legislature is in session, which will be the third Saturday of February and the third Saturday of March.

    Raber said that legislators are often very busy once the session begins, so their constituents should take the opportunities to visit with them when they arise. He said that legislators welcome any and all questions, and that they are especially interested to hear how a proposed law or a recently passed law affects their constituents.

    ?The legislators take notes on the feedback they receive at these meetings,? said Raber. ?Sometimes a bill will be written that has unknown and unintended consequences. The people affected by the law will show up at these meetings to tell their representatives how the law affects them. The legislators want this kind of information.?

    Citizen feedback is essential to Iowa legislators in particular because they do not have paid staff like other states such as Illinois, said Raber.

    Raber said that one issue that has not received much attention at previous legislative briefings is education.

    ?Education accounts for a large part of the state?s budget, but it is not often discussed at these meetings,? said Raber. ?Some school districts in the state are so insolvent that they?ll be forced to consolidate. There are a lot of things to talk about in education, from the amount of money spent to the level of local control on the curriculum, but the topic has not historically been part of the discussion.?

    The 10 percent state budget cuts announced in early October may be a topic of discussion at Saturday?s session. When the cuts were announced, Washington School Superintendent Dave Sextro said the cut would slash between $850,000 and $900,000 from the school?s budget for the current school year. He said the cut was twice the size of the largest cut he had seen previously.

For the full article, see our Jan. 15 print edition.