FIND MONEY FOR BOTH METH, SEX-OFFENDER BILLS

Backroom Deal-Making Risks Betraying Public Trust

Earlier this session, Republicans and Democrats in the Iowa General
Assembly linked arms to pass what they touted as the toughest, smartest
methamphetamine law in the country.

In a March 22 bill-signing ceremony at the Capitol, Gov. Tom Vilsack
proclaimed, "The people of Iowa . . . have sent meth makers everywhere a
clear message: 'We will do whatever is necessary to protect our children
and to protect our state.' "

Unfortunately for Iowans, legislators' "whatever is necessary" resolve
wilted in less than two months. It failed to extend to actually
appropriating money to fund the bill. That money must be restored.

The main thrust of the law restricts sales of products containing
pseudoephedrine, the main ingredient in manufacturing meth. Advocates
predict the law will result in a 50 percent reduction in meth labs, an
explosive brew of hazardous chemicals that endanger entire communities.
That part of the bill costs little to enact.

Another provision requires all those charged with making or distributing
meth to receive a substance-abuse evaluation before being released on bond,
remain under a probation officer's supervision and undergo random drug
testing. The Legislative Services Agency estimated a $1.5 million cost for
fiscal 2006, mainly for additional testing and probation staffers.

The pseudoephedrine provision, while critical to reducing labs, will do
little about meth use, because 80 percent of meth in Iowa is imported from
outside the state. The provision requiring evaluation and supervision is a
key step toward cutting use.

But those stipulations and the attached funding were dropped for some
suspects in an end-of-session scramble for dollars to confront another
major public-safety issue in Iowa: protecting children against sexual
offenders. Just three days after the meth-bill signing ceremony, police
found the body of 10-year-old Jetseta Gage of Cedar Rapids, allegedly
kidnapped and slain by a convicted sex offender.

Each house of the Legislature passed bills requiring sex offenders to
undergo treatment in prison, lengthening sentences and mandating lifetime
supervision for the most serious offenders - all costly measures. One
estimate put the tab at more than $5 million for 2006, swelling to $12
million by 2010. Last week, senators working on a justice-systems
appropriations bill quietly cut a deal - unbeknownst even to some
colleagues who voted for it - to switch $1 million earmarked for the meth
law to the sex-offender package.

How can Iowans possibly have confidence in their Legislature? It's simply
wrong to adopt get-tough laws in the glare of publicity and then strip
their effectiveness by cutting funding in backroom deal-making. It's a
betrayal of public trust.

What should happen? Fund both. Nothing is more basic than public safety.
And it shouldn't take the shooting of three law-enforcement officers this
week in a Des Moines meth sting to remind lawmakers why a tough, smart
anti-meth law was needed.

It's ludicrous to pit these two initiatives against each other to come up
with $1 million, given an overall $5 billion budget. But let's say that's
how you have to do it at end-of-session crunch time.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, a Des Moines Democrat and meth-bill champion,
acknowledges that the additional probation and testing staff can't all be
added overnight. So shave a few hundred thousand that way. And ratchet back
somewhat on the sex-offender legislation's lengthier sentences and
ultra-long, even lifetime, supervision provisions, which expand electronic
monitoring exponentially. Each added year escalates the cost, to dubious
public-safety benefit.

Legislators can meet their budget demands - and keep their word.