House Journal: Page 1912: Thursday, May 1, 2003
no as well as those that voted yes, because I know darn well you were thinking about
it. I do believe that was a very defining moment in this state. Is it risk? Oh, you bet.
In fact, I will tell you something, with that vote we cast the other night on the Iowa
Values, that was the easy part. The hard work is coming to make that thing work.
And it is not going to be easy. It will take an awful lot of work. It will take more than
just Iowa, but that was a very important thing to do. Frankly, even though I didn't
really care much for the bill I did respect the work that was done in rethinking the tax
structures and trying to move us down a road on doing something different.
We passed a bill that didn't get much notice. Frankly, it was introduced by a
Democrat and supported by Republicans on character education. We talked about it a
lot over the years. I am a person that's always believed very strongly that kids ought
to have a connection to their community. They ought to understand what their town is
all about. They ought to understand what their country is about. They ought to
understand what our economic system and our political system is about, and they need
to start that early. Our education system should support that, encourage that, make it
grow so that our children grow up really understanding just what a great place they
live in here in the great state of Iowa.
I regret that we didn't do a couple of things that I really wish you would think
about in the next term. We need to do a better job with prescription drugs. We need to
pass a mental health parody bill. We need to do something about people who are
mentally ill. We have the capacity to do that. We have the greatest expertise for
solving problems like this of any state in the country. Folks, the people at the bottom
of the wage scale need a raise. Those people take care of our children and they take
care of older people. And yes, the government can be a force to raise their economic
strata and it should be. It's time people at the bottom of the ladder got a raise. We
didn't get that done this time, but I think there is the heart in this place, the wish in
this place, the soul in this place to say that people at the bottom of the ladder need a
raise. I hope we get that done. Those are things that I wish we could have had a
chance to, but maybe next year.
You know the funny thing, I announced this morning that I, as you know, that I
wasn't going to run again. I noticed a couple things right off the bat. When you
announce that your going to retire from politics people start talking about you like your
dead. They talk about you in the past tense, he was, he left, he's gone. Well, I'm not
gone. I haven't died. Also, I noticed that the lobby treats you differently. They no
longer say 'sir' when they talk to you. I don't know for sure what the future brings for
me. I don't want to get any Republicans nervous here, I always like to look at
Representative Carroll when I say something like this, but maybe one of these days I'll
be riding around Poweshiek County with a real estate agent…. No, I doubt if I will do
that again.
I think most of you know that I've spent, spread over five decades, about thirty-four
years in public office since 1969. I have been very lucky, very fortunate. I seemed to
do that for a number of reasons, not the least of which is an awful lot of luck, but I can't
say enough about the people who sent me here. It is indeed humbling to think that
someone trusts you enough to do the things that we do here on their behalf. Even
when I was in county government or city government, you know that has always
amazed me. And, there was a time in my life when I didn't think that generated much
respect and yet that has happened to me. For that, I am enormously grateful.
© 2003 Cornell College and
League of Women Voters of Iowa
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