With the 2006 Iowa Legislative session getting underway, Cityview felt it appropriate to catch up with Speaker of the House and this publication's favorite straw man (according to him anyway) Christopher Rants. The Sioux City native maintains - somewhat jokingly - that this publication has made many wild accusations about him that are simply not true. "I do not hate children," he laughs. Maybe not, but is he ready for what pundits are seriously calling a "do-nothing session"?

"Conventional wisdom is not very wise," Rants says. "Jim Nussle and Bob Vander Plaats and Ed Fallon and the rest of them are all running for governor and they all have their own agendas, but it's not going to influence the issues the Republicans in the Iowa House are going to be focusing on."

Rants says he doesn't play politics. He sticks his nose to the grindstone, tells the truth - even if it hurts - and goes to work for all Iowans. And with regards to this session that primarily means figuring out how to ease the insurance costs for small businesses - an issue that has much in the way of bipartisan support.

"It's tough to add new people and grow when you can't afford to give them adequate insurance," he says of independent business owners. "And while I'm sure I'll catch some heat from the big insurance companies for supporting this, an economic climate that doesn't allow small companies to pool together to negotiate positions that are more fiscally favorable only creates an older and sicker economic climate. Is that good for Iowa? I don't see how it could be."

Rants says this session should also provide a spirited debate on the state's high property taxes - what he calls a "business killer."

"Maybe I'm too practical, but we put $50 million into this Iowa Values Fund (which Rants supported) for 10 years to help companies create jobs and then turn around and hit those same companies with the third-highest property tax rate in the country," Rants says. "That doesn't make sense. We are a state that is struggling to survive, and while we have created jobs, we're also losing them right and left." Rants points out that not looking at the overall scheme of things "stunts our growth."

Which is what smoking does. And while Rants says he won't argue against the fact that smoking is bad for you, and if the cigarette tax is raised some people may stop smoking, he cannot help but grab the sides of his face in frustration like Macaulay Culkin in "Home Alone" when I ask him how he could be against something (a cigarette tax increase) that so many Iowans are in favor of.

"See, this is where you are wrong again and again. A majority of Iowans isn't for a cigarette tax increase. They are just OK with it being raised. It's the old 'tax somebody else. Just don't tax me.'" Rants asks me what I spend my money on: Music? DVDs? "Diapers," I tell him.

"Good," he says. "So I tax cigarettes which are a declining source of revenue for the past seven years and fund programs with that money that is shrinking. Then tomorrow I collect less money, and the next day less than that, and so on. Now, as other states have found out, you can't collect the amount you want by spiking this tax, so do we cut those programs we originally funded with the additional tax because the money is no longer there? Medicaid? Increase property taxes we promised to drop? Or do we tax beer next and then cheeseburgers. Eventually, we will get to diapers."

Rants says it's unfair of Cityview to label his interests as being tied solely to small business owners in Sioux City who might feel the crunch of residents there going across state lines to get their smokes.

"But where you are on to something is that those cigarettes bought by (an Iowan) who works at Gateway (in South Dakota) eventually turn into a tank of gasoline and lunch and maybe groceries," he says. "People are price sensitive. I won't argue with that. But don't point a finger at me and say, 'Save some lives, Rants.' I don't love big tobacco. And, yes, I do care that it kills people. But I have to look at this from a fiscal standpoint. That's my job. And what people say makes sense does not make sense."

Rants says that despite what certain Cityview staffers write, he is neither the self-appointed "moral authority" in Iowa, nor is he the state's "most powerful" individual. He is a Methodist who goes to church when the weather doesn't allow for golf. He is supportive of the death penalty, but it is not a priority. He says there is not enough time in the day. And although his bluntness often gets him in hot water, he just might have political aspirations higher than the position he currently holds, even though he claims to already have "the best job in Iowa."

"This place is about introducing ideas," he says of the statehouse while admitting that he loves the process. "And turning the ideas into good government. My track record is about getting things done. If we go about our business carefully, good things will happen this session for Iowans, and all the election stuff will work itself out." -Jon Gaskell

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