House Journal: Page 1518: Friday, April 12, 2002
To my own staff. Allison, thank you so much for not bailing out on me back in
January. Best decision I made all year. I hope that you will be the first person I’ve
hired that actually comes back and works for me two sessions in a row. To Jackie, my
intern thanks for your volunteer time. I appreciate you keeping our web site up to date
so Represenative Warnstadt would have something to read in his spare time. And to
Dan, my page, I hope you learned more about what the world needs from reading about
John Gault in my office, and in listening to the debate on the floor.
To the Republican retirees: what can I say? I spent most of my time trying to talk
you out of leaving the House...I wish all of you the very best in your new endeavors.
You’ve certainly earned a rest and a change of pace. There are many stories that could
be told, but I’d like to tell only one. One that had such an influence on me and my
legislative career.
In the second week of session in 1993. We Republicans had just taken control of the
House in the wake of the Iowa trust scandal, and we were establishing a new ethics
code. Represenative Rod Halvorson, not to be confused with Roger, was offering what
our caucus had dubbed "thou shalt be an angel" amendments trying to one-up the
Republicans. For two days we’d been debating this bill and every amendment was
going down 49-51, 49-51. Well, I was sitting over there where Represenative Seng sits
with Steve Churchill. We were two freshly scrubbed freshmen, just fresh from the
election full of righteousness and independence. After about an hour of debate on one
of Rod Halvorson’s amendments we were pretty much convinced that Rod was right.
So up went the votes on the board. And then suddenly instead of going down 49-51, it's
passing 51-49. Suddenly this figure rose up across the chamber from us, and as if by
magic flew, I mean flew over rows of desk to land in front of us. And seeing her coming
the two of us just kind of shrunk down into the shadows behind our desks as
Representative Teresa Garman, then one of the assistant leaders for our caucus,
commenced to inform these freshmen in no uncertain terms that this was a caucus
position, and we under no circumstances were going to vote against our leadership,
that we were supposed to always follow the way leadership voted, and who did we
think we were? Well by the time Teresa got done dressing us down, and making us flip
our votes on the board, we were afraid that it wasn’t safe to go back to the Speaker's
Conference room for the next caucus. Well Teresa I learned my lesson that night and it
was a valuable one. I will forever associate you with "caucus positions" and "blindly
following leadership."
Lastly, Mr. Speaker I don’t know where to begin. I say that because I’m afraid that
once I start I don’t know how I’ll end. But I’ll give it a try. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep
up my normal stoney exterior. We’ll see.
For the last three years there has rarely been a day that goes by that we don’t touch
base with each other on an issue of politics or policy. I can’t tell you how much I’ll miss
that. I won’t miss waiting fifteen minutes for you to show up for every meeting we’re
supposed to have somewhere or another. I will miss the calming influence you bring to
all of our struggle and endeavors. I won’t miss your decisiveness. I will miss your
advice and counsel. I won’t miss the mess you leave in my car everytime we travel
across the state, but I will miss having you ride shotgun. Brent, I’ve learned so much
from you in this job, you are a great role model and a mentor, and an even better
friend. I wish only the best for you and Val, Evan and Harriet. Your going to have
your hands full the next two months, and I want to share with you a song lyric from the
© 2002 Cornell College and
League of Women Voters of Iowa
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