Even though the last couple of weeks to this year’s Iowa legislative session may have had several of our lawmakers working around the clock to finish up, some believe it was an overall average session.

District 24 State Senator Jerry Behn gives this session overall grade of a “C”.  He says when you have a divided state Congress with a Democrat-controlled Senate and a Republican-controlled House, there will be bills that just won’t get done due to political partisanship.

Behn states that he was disappointed with some bills that didn’t get passed this session including the broadband bill that was designed to bring high-speed internet to rural areas of the state, while others he supported that got through this session include an older-generation abuse bill that allows for stricter penalties on abuse and neglect of older people.

One item that he was pleased with was the budget, but he cautioned that while they didn’t spend more than they took in, to not set a trend of continuing to spend the amount of revenue that came back.

“We still spent at over a 7% increase.  And historically, we only take in about 3-3.8% is average for state revenue.  When you’re going against the trend, that’s not a good idea.  We can’t maintain that level of spending.”

Senator Behn adds that while they are not in session, he would like to continue to hear from the public and address any questions or concerns you might have be emailing him at jlbehn@msn.com.