Well, as far as I can tell, there has yet to be a subcommittee meeting on VOICE. What does that mean? I don’t know, to be honest. Clearly, I’d like to think that it means the lobbying efforts of folks like I’m For Iowa, ICCI, Voter-Owned Iowa, labor groups, and the Iowa netroots are having an impact on either the leadership or the appropriations subcommittee dealing with the bill. On March 25, the Fiscal Services Division of the Legislative Services Agency (LSA) issued a Fiscal Note on HF 805, the VOICE legislation. You can view the PDF of the Fiscal Note here.
The Fiscal Note from the LSA explains a bit why Subcommittee Chair Dave Jacoby has been discussing the “$10 million price tag” for VOICE. According the calculations and work of the LSA, VOICE — as currently written — would decrease revenue in the General Fund by $5 million in FY 2008 and $10 million in FY 2009. Part of those costs arise out of an annual deposit from the State Treasurer of $10 million into the VOICE Fund from the profit gained from selling unclaimed property. According to other states and from Iowa’s tax filing check-off for the parties, there would be a very high threshold of check-offs at the beginning, and then would diminish. If 240,000 tax-filing Iowans chose to check the box, currently that would only generate about $1.2 million for the VOICE fund, at least according to my calculation. They also estimate that the income tax return check-off will only generate approximately $100k to $150k annually.
Anyway, I’d like to hear from you folks as to what you’ve heard. I’ve also emailed Adam Mason at Voter-Owned Iowa to get some more information and a response to the Fiscal Note. What are your thoughts? At present, we’ve still got a shot to get VOICE out of subcommittee. Let’s make it happen.
I live in Rep Jo Oldson’s district and called her Wed, emailed her legislative address and called her home Thursday, and have gotten no response.
My impression is she is trying to kill the legislation by delaying it, even if it eventually passes out of the Appropriations Committee. I can’t think of any other reason why she would not even be explaining her stance to her constituents.
The Democratic party knows this is legislation voters want, but politicians don’t, so they want to kill it gently. I think the status of this legislation shows the problem with honesty in politics is a bipartisan problem. Fundamentally, both the Republican and Democratic political machines are self-serving and more concerned with their jobs than solving problems. This legislation requires basic things like electronic disclosure of campaign contributions and contribution limits. Allowing less dogmatic people into the political process through public financing of campaigns must scare them.
If anyone in the Oldsopn’s district would like hound dog Rep Olson with me please let me know. I may spend some time in her neighborhood with my true to life hunting dog, we like to exercise together in any case and she lives in a pleasant neighborhood. http://www3.legis.state.ia.us/ga/member.do?id=228