House Journal: Page 965: Wednesday, April 2, 1997

We live in a time when the only constant is change. The
legislature is caught by that as surely as the rest of us. It
may be a reflection of my age but what bothers me greatly is
change for the sake of change, people changing a law without
bothering to find out what the law's purpose was, what led to
its passage in the first place.
Almost every day in this place, many make a dreadful and
dangerous assumption: That those who were here in the past were
dummies and do not need to be heeded. Let me assure you, they
were not dummies. Let me also assure you that, as the wise man
said, those who do not read history are doomed to repeat its
mistakes.
There is no doubt in my mind that today's Iowa Legislature is
more representative of the people of Iowa than yesterday's
legislature was. The legislature's work and play, unfortunately,
is not bathed in the high, good humor that marked it 20, 30 or
40 years ago.
The passions back then were just as strong, I think, but the
respect for decorum and the legislative traditions of good
behavior were dominant. That resulted in the kind of class, for
instance, that Minnette Doderer showed about 30 years ago when
she went up on a point of personal privilege to talk about
Richard Radl of Lisbon. "When he goes home this weekend, I hope
his mother comes out from under the porch and bites him," she
said.
In 1973, Charles City's Ralph McCartney filed a motion to
censure Lucas DeKoster of Hull. "He used a fact in debate and
that's a dangerous precedent," said McCartney.
The same year Algona's Berl Priebe began to have doubts about
the committee system: "Ever since my baby pig bill went to
Education, I've been a little skeptical of committees," he said.
In 1977, I asked the wife of a legislator if she thought it was
right to serve as her husband's clerk even though she didn't
have some secretarial skills such as shorthand. "I can write
faster in longhand than he can think," she said. Case closed.
The old reporter title came about because I didn't know how to
write in the first person when I first began writing a column in
1971. My style was the newspaper style. I had to quote people.
So I quoted me and called me "the old reporter." "How does the
Iowa Legislature break down by sex?" I asked the old reporter in
1977. "I'd say that alcohol is a bigger problem," he said.
A few years before that, some of us got bored with the lack of
news at Governors' Days in Clear Lake and began running
Muscatine's Richard Drake for lieutenant governor. The job was
very powerful then, being sought by Art Neu and Bill Harbor, and
poor Drake squirmed, worrying about making those two angry. At a
reception, I caught up with Shirley and Dick Drake and stormed
at him for giving the story to the Associated Press instead of
me. "It's on the wire?" he asked. "Yes," I said. He did some
shouting, and I said, "Dick, have I ever lied to you." "No,"
said Drake. "Well, I am now," I said. "Furthermore," yelled
Drake, "I told that damn Bill Eberline." "Dick, Dick, Dick,"
said Shirley. "He said he's lying. Don't you ever listen to
anyone?"
And I remember Jack Schroeder, a talented Davenport legislator
from a long time ago. His motto: "Never leave a party until
you're asked to leave."
My favorite story involves an anonymous legislator who was
flying off to an eastern convention with a girlfriend when his
party put a call on the Senate. The 

Iowa General Assembly

Index: House Journal (77th General Assembly: Session 1)

© 1997 Cornell College and League of Women Voters of Iowa

Comments about this site or page? hjourn@legis.iowa.gov. Please remember that the person listed above does not vote on bills. Direct all comments concerning legislation to State Legislators.

Last update: Thu Apr 3 13:40:02 CST 1997
URL: /DOCS/GA/77GA/Session.1/HJournal/00900/00965.html
jhf