Pubdate: Sun, 18 Feb 2007 Source: Des Moines Register (IA) Copyright: 2007 The Des Moines Register. Contact: http://desmoinesregister.com/index.html Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/123 Author: David Yepsen DEMS PUSHING FOOLISH ISSUES Some on the left seem absolutely determined to fritter away the new Democratic majority in the Iowa Legislature. First, there is the idea of gutting the Iowa right-to-work law via this so-called "fair-share" notion. Not much was said during the campaign about forcing nonunion workers to pay fees to unions in their workplace. Jobs, health care, education and Iraq were the issues that carried the day. But the labor movement has decided to make exemptions and exceptions in the right-to-work law a focal point of this session. It has scared the bejeebers out of the business community, with the result that a job-hungry state is now turning off potential employers. (So much for helping working families find better-paying jobs.) It also has little public support. The Iowa Poll shows 50 percent of Iowans oppose these fees. Only 40 percent favor them, and 10 percent don't know. Second, there are folks who want lawmakers to hand out get-out-of-jail-early cards to our guests at the state prisons. They're touting a study that shows Iowa's prison population is forecast to grow in the next five years and claim this will increase costs. They say we need "sentencing reform," which is code for cutting prison sentences. It, too, is a political non-starter. (Such do-gooderism also forgets that one reason mandatory-sentencing guidelines were created was that some judges were too permissive, while others treated white defendants better than minority defendants in cases with similar facts.) What the go-easy-on-criminals lobby doesn't tell you is that Iowa's per-capita rate of spending on corrections is among the lowest in the country. According to census data, Iowans spent $112 per person on corrections in 2002. We ranked 45th in the country. The national average was $190. (When teacher pay falls to 42nd, there's a great gnashing of teeth in Iowa. But when corrections spending is at 45th, some just want to chop it more.) Is $112 too much to spend to keep you safe and the cretins at bay? Of course not. Protecting the public health and safety are the most important things governments do. Will we have to spend more? Yes. Iowa has to rebuild many of our prisons. That's because previous governors and legislatures neglected to do so, and construction costs are skyrocketing. Gov. Tom Vilsack finally realized that by the end of his term and warned we needed to build a new prison. Lawmakers foolishly ignored him. Yes, we also need to spend more on drug treatment and education for inmates. And good community-based corrections is needed to ease our guests back into society - or give them an incentive to behave while in public housing. Those things are not at odds with tough sentences. It's also true that society has a right to say there are consequences for bad acts and that some people are unfit to be among the rest of us. One reason Iowa has a low crime rate is that criminals are tucked away from the rest of us. Gov. Chet Culver understood how much Iowans hate crime when he endorsed the death penalty in some cases. Democrats running the Legislature need to protect their anti-crime credentials, too. They need to stop tinkering with right to work. They need to forget cutting prison sentences. They need to start building Iowa the modern prisons it needs to keep people - and guards - safe. Otherwise, they're foolishly giving Republicans issues to use against them, and a dumb jackass will be a fitting symbol for the Democratic Party. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman