House Journal: Page 966: Wednesday, April 2, 1997

lady went east, he came back to the Senate, very angry, and
voted against his party at every turn.
I am leaving out a lot of names, and for that I'm sorry. With a
couple of exceptions whom I've written about, I'm proud to have
met and known a host of Iowa legislators. And, God, I hate to
say this, but I have to include some lobbyists in that. I should
name them. It would ruin their day. In any event, I feel blessed
that I had a chance to know and watch the work of so many
decent, caring people in and around Iowa government.
Focus on this for a moment: This place, Iowa, is a better place
than it was 20 years ago, 40 years ago, 100 years ago. In that,
I include the Legislature itself, the counties and cities, our
institutions. They need minding, some herding, some correcting,
but they're better than their predecessors because your
predecessors exercised political courage and made them so.
That's a glorious but a demanding legacy. In the main, Iowa has
had the luck to elect good people. We've had very few
scoundrels. Many members today are not as well-schooled,
formally and informally, and as experienced in real life as
their counterparts of yesterday. Changes in politics and in
business have made it all but impossible for some people who've
been successful in private endeavors to serve in today's
legislature. So some then and now comparisons are not
appropriate.
Whenever you get to talking with old-timers in the legislative
or lobbying or reporting stables, you get barraged about how
bigger-than-life the members were way back when. I don't know
why that is, because it's nonsense. Forty years from now, I tell
you today, some of the members, the lobbyists, staffers and
reporters here will be telling people about the giants that
served here back in '97. I knew and liked and respected some of
the giants of 40 years ago. I cherish some friendships that came
from my days here. But I don't think most of yesterday's people
were any different than today's members. Most of them would fit
in quite easily today. They would have to learn how to deal with
some changes just as today's members would have to learn to deal
with yesterday's system.
Despite my warnings about old-timers with giant stories, I do
want to mention what I regard as the most extraordinary session
in the state's history. The 1965 session. It came as a result of
the 1964 Johnson landslide over Goldwater, the first time in 30
years that the Democrats were in control. There was a lot of
fun, a lot of hell-raising, a lot of tipping over of tradition,
but the hard fact was that there was not an issue that the
general assembly refused to deal with. From both parties, it
seemed to me, the members were there to do a job, get the state
in order, not to get re-elected or prepare for some bigger
office. It was an enormously creative session. Almost all of the
legislative work in Iowa since has amounted to fine-tuning what
was done in 1965. Someone like Bob Fulton or Minnette Doderer or
Jack Kibbie or Bill Palmer should write a book.
When I first came to the Iowa Legislature as a reporter, the
committee meetings were closed. No one except members and the
committee clerk was allowed in. It was not uncommon, you'd learn
sometimes years after the fact, for a member to argue one way in
committee and in another way in public. Leadership control was
icy and ruthless. Issues weren't let out of committee for debate
until they manifested substantial public support.
As a kind of show, for example, two bills were debated at the
same time on the same day in 1959: Reapportionment in one house
and liquor by the drink in the other. There was no chance of
either passing. The purpose was to let the debate be a safety
valve to let off some public pressure.

Iowa General Assembly

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

© 1997 Cornell College and League of Women Voters of Iowa

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