It was just a brief exchange on the floor of the Iowa House, but it spoke volumes about this year’s legislative session.

Rep. Mary Mascher, an Iowa City Democrat, was arguing that children and drunk people should not be allowed to shoot off fireworks. “Because what we legislate against is stupid ideas and stupid people who make bad choices and bad decisions,” she said.

But Rep. Matt Windschitl, R-Missouri Valley, responded that lawmakers "can’t fix stupid.”

He said, “You’re right, there’s nothing we can do down here, we can’t legislate away stupid people and the actions they’re going to take. We also can’t bubble-wrap Iowans.”

The bottom line: If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Iowa lawmakers can’t fix stupid, so the GOP majority has decided this year to make a lot more of it legal.

Now, I’m not saying the entire legislative session was idiotic. Lawmakers made some wise decisions. Some of them were even made with bipartisan support. But this legislative session will not be remembered for the occasional spark of sanity.

Republicans, in their first year of one-party control in the Statehouse, showed all the restraint of a swarm of mosquitoes at a nudist colony. They gorged themselves on long-stymied conservative priorities, interest-group agendas and partisan payback. They didn’t notice or didn’t care that many Iowans were itching to swat them.

They invented problems to solve at the behest of out-of-state benefactors, stinging members of their own party in the bargain. They gutted collective bargaining rights for public employees, forgetting that these days some union members are GOP voters. They ignored the qualms of Republican-friendly law enforcement groups to create new excuses for people to shoot other people. They’re even going to allow firearms in the state Capitol. I guess you really can’t fix stupid.

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They took money away from priority programs to pay for voter identification cards that weren’t needed to stop non-existent impersonation fraud. I could go on and on, but you get the picture.

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In their haste, the majority Republicans muddled their messages and in some cases undermined the very goals they claimed to support. Their claim that they wanted to foster local control was immediately debunked by their decision to strip individual counties of their minimum-wage increases. Their refusal to consider even a modest statewide minimum-wage increase made it clear for whom they were acting. Hint: Not the working people of Iowa.

If that wasn’t enough to expose the lie in the GOP’s concern for local control, they took away local communities’ ability to decide for themselves whether they want fireworks to be sold, not to mention plastic bags.

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Water quality was a bipartisan priority from the opening days of the session. As of Friday afternoon, the House and Senate had yet to resolve differences in plans to shift tax money into the state’s nutrient management program. But they didn’t think twice about shuttering the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State, which helped develop some of the techniques that are now the standard for reducing water pollution and conserving the soil.

Lawmakers did think twice about closing the Iowa Flood Center, but instead they increased the pain for the University of Iowa, where the center is housed.

Gov. Terry Branstad signed a long-sought bill aimed at protecting victims of domestic abuse through electronic monitoring of parolees and longer sentences for repeat offenders. Meanwhile, the majority-Republican budget cut victim assistance grants by 26 percent. That means fewer resources for crisis and post-crisis services for victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence.

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I often rate legislative sessions by their impact on the lives of ordinary Iowans, as opposed to niche groups or special interests. By that measure, the impact of this session will be profound. Tens of thousands of public employees have lost a voice in their working conditions and health-insurance choices. Young women will have to find other providers for discreet, affordable birth control and other health care. College students and their parents will have to dig deeper for tuition money.

Iowans can celebrate the Fourth of July and New Year’s Eve with festive, home-made fireworks displays (and possibly higher homeowners’ insurance and extra trips to the ER.)

Drivers may think twice about texting behind the wheel, which makes all of our roads safer. Visitors to craft liquor distilleries in Iowa can stay to have a cocktail. But those who have a few too many will have new penalties for drunken driving to worry about.

This was my 25th year covering the Iowa Statehouse as a reporter, editor and now a columnist. I have never seen a legislative session do more to engage — and enrage — so many Iowans. Republicans will have to decide next year whether to start fixing some of the stupid before voters decide to fix it for them.

Kathie Obradovich is the political columnist for the Register. Contact: kobradov@registermedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @Kobradovich