Senator Bill Dotzler of Waterloo, chair of the Iowa Senate Economic Development Budget Subcommittee.
Here’s yet another good reason why Iowa is a great place to do business: Iowa businesses pay lower rates for workers’ compensation, the insurance that covers employees injured on the job. Starting Jan. 1, 2014, Iowa’s average workers’ compensation rates will fall by 2 percent. At the same time, the national average rate increased by more than 8 percent.
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Much of the credit goes to Chris Godfrey, Iowa’s workers’ compensation commissioner. Higher courts consistently uphold his decisions, and no judge has ever found any indications of bias in his work. Because he has consistently judged workplace injury cases in a fair and efficient manner, Commissioner Godfrey is preventing the uncertainty that increases costs in other states.
Doesn’t it make sense that Gov. Terry Branstad would reward and praise Chris Godfrey’s successful efforts to lower the cost of doing business in Iowa?
Not a chance.
From the moment he took office, Branstad has been obsessed with forcing this outstanding state employee to quit.
Rather than embrace someone who is doing a great job, Branstad has launched an embarrassing, expensive — and possibly illegal — campaign of harassment against the nation’s best workers’ compensation commissioner…
Read the entire editorial at Des Moines Register, 10/22/2013