The 2011 session of the Iowa legislature will go on for weeks if not months, Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal said Thursday.

"This is going to take a while," said Gronstal (D-Council Bluffs).

A budget agreement between Republican Governor Terry Branstad, the Republican-controlled House, and the Democrat-led Senate is needed by June 30, the end of the fiscal year, to avert a government shutdown. House Speaker Kraig Paulsen predicted that an agreement would be reached by then.

"House Republicans are not going to let government shut down," said Paulsen (R-Hiawatha). "I think that would be unacceptable."

This year's situation is similar to one in 1992, when Branstad, who also was governor at that time, and the Democrat-controlled legislature were also deadlocked on the state budget and tax policy. A compromise was eventually reached on June 25, in a second special session.

The Iowa Senate on Wednesday voted 38-12 for a gambling bill that calls for a report on Internet poker and lifts the requirement that Iowa casinos face a vote of the people every eight years.

"There are good parts of this bill and other parts that give me grave concern," said Senator Brad Zaun (R-Urbandale). "The seven years I've been down here, we've talked about the referendums, horse racing, but never could any of these bills survive and stand on its own two feet."

Senate File 526 would have the Iowa Racing & Gaming Commission produce a report that would look further into the issue of Internet poker. The bill originally would have legalized Internet poker, but Zaun credited the change to an Iowa poll that showed 73 percent of Iowans are opposed to legalizing Internet gambling.

House Republican leaders said Thursday that they do not support or intend to pass a bill that would allow Iowa to receive $14.5 million in federal money for extended unemployment benefits. Iowa is one of nine states that have yet to request the benefits.

"The Labor Committee is going to look at that, but the House Republican caucus is not interested in making it harder to be an employer in the state of Iowa," said House Speaker Kraig Paulsen (R-Hiawatha). "What's going on with unemployment compensation right now is making it harder to be an employer."

The Iowa Senate approved the measure on a 27-22 vote this week. The money would benefit the more than 7,000 Iowans who have been out of work for more than a year. Democrats urged the House and governor to act on Senate File 303 by March 10, or they said the state will almost certainly lose the $14.5 million in federal help for the unemployed.

In a debate that spanned eight hours, the Iowa Senate voted 48-1 late Thursday afternoon for House File 45, a bill that once made $500 million in budget cuts over three years and would now make a $6-million cut in the current fiscal year.

The near-unanimous vote came only after a party-line 26-23 vote for the Democratic strike-after amendment that pared back the House bill. Senator Jeff Danielson (D-Cedar Falls) said the end result is a bill that increases efficiency; increases transparency by creating a searchable budget database with both tax-expenditure and -comparison information; and deappropriates $6 million this fiscal year.

But Senator Roby Smith (R-Davenport) compared a box of tissues to a tack of 10 office boxes on his desk to illustrate the $6 million of savings in this bill compared to the $500 million in savings over three years in the version approved by the Iowa House. "I just don't understand how we can justify such little savings," he said.