Legislative session will be interesting

Les Shields, Clinton
Letter to the Editor

January 09, 2007 10:25 am

— Monday marked the beginning of the Iowa Legislature. Democrats will be in the majority this time, and thus set the agenda, lead the committees and decide the fate and future of our state.
Remember the campaigns from last fall in which the Democrats pleaded poverty and asserted the Republican campaigns were flush with cash? Those with Internet access can go to www.state.ia.us/government/iecdb and look up the campaign finance reports for every candidate in Iowa. Being one who was accused of having a rich campaign account, I did a little analysis of those reports.
My opponent (and the eventual winner) listed 42 contributions in 2006 from Political Action Committees that totaled $12,000. My campaign listed six PAC contributions totaling $2,400. To save you the time of looking those up, they include Sen. John McCain’s “Straight Talk America PAC” ($500), Sen. Bill Frist’s “Volunteer PAC” ($1,000), Sen. Charles Grassley’s “Hawkeye PAC” ($250), Gov. Mitt Romney’s “Commonwealth PAC” ($500) and two matching PAC donations from the “Iowa Dental PAC” ($150). So who, or what, are the PACs that donated to my opponent?
The online Wikipedia defines a Political Action Committee as “the name commonly given to a private group, regardless of size, organized to elect or defeat government officials in order to promote legislation, often supporting the group’s special interests.” What this definition does not provide is an answer to the question, “Who’s looking out for you?”
How did we get this election result? The overwhelming consensus is that the majority of voters wanted to send a message to President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Everyone understands what that message is.
It is going to be very interesting to see what the Iowa Legislature does to bring the U.S. military forces back from Iraq, secure our borders and enforce our national immigration laws. After all, those were the issues that led to their successful elections.