Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Patty Judge is feeling a little contented but a little worn out these days. She s happy with some of the new programs and the funding put in place by this year s Legislature, but she s exhausted from spending the past three months begging and cajoling to get money for existing state programs. I shouldn t complain, Judge says. We really came out pretty well . . . One problem, Judge says, is the Iowa Department of Agriculture, like several other state agencies, is primarily a regulatory agency.
Regulatory issues are never things the public runs out to support or lawmakers embrace.
They make easy budget targets. There s no constituency for a regulatory agency, she says. But Judge echoes newly retired Department of Natural Resources Director Paul Johnson s complaint that lawmakers had the money this year to do some good things. They just did not think some of the regulatory items were the places to spend that money. Still, Judge says lawmakers did some good things this spring.