Rep. Clel Baudler (R-Greenfield), who represents Perry in District 20 of the Iowa House of Representatives, was one of only six Republicans in the Iowa Legislature to vote against House File 291, the union-busting bill Gov. Terry Branstad signed into law Friday.
“I’m not saying it didn’t need a little fixing,” Baudler said Sunday from his Greenfield home, “but it didn’t need shot full of holes like it was.”
All the state’s Republican Senators voted for the bill, and all but six Republican Representatives supported it. The House Republicans breaking ranks along with Baudler were Mary Ann Hanusa (R-Council Bluffs), Dave Heaton (R-Mount Pleasant), Shannon Lundgren (R-Peosta), Andy McKean (R-Anamosa) and Tom Moore (R-Griswold).
Baudler, a 32-year veteran of the Iowa State Patrol, said he remembers what working conditions were like prior to the 1974 passage of the public employment relations law governing collective bargaining, commonly known as Iowa Code Chapter 20.
“I was on the state patrol prior to collective bargaining,” Baudler said, “and I was on the state patrol after collective bargaining. I do not want any of my friends to have to go back to before Chapter 20.”
Management decision were sometimes arbitrary and capricious in the days before collective bargaining, Baudler said.
“They could move you anywhere they wanted,” he said. “They always threatened to move me from Post Five down to Albia, Post Five being where I was stationed at Moville, just outside of Sioux City.”
While opposing House File 291, Baudler said he was “happy that we protected law enforcement and firemen and blue coats, but we could not get the prison guards protected.”
Asked who gains from the drastic curtailment of public employee unions, Baudler was silent for several moments before answering.
“The people that pushed this said the taxpayers would gain by it,” he said. “They said there will be more local control. The school boards and the supervisors and the city councils will now have to step up and negotiate on good faith or on bad faith. That’s their decision depending on what happens in the courts.”
Other Perry-area lawmakers, Rep. Ralph Watts (R-Adel), Sen. Jake Chapman (R-Adel), Rep. Chip Baltimore (R-Boone) and Sen. Jerry Behn (R-Boone), voted in favor of the bill.
Why didn’t he vote for more of the amendments? Looks like leveraging for the next election.