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.