A Senate amendment to a budget bill meant to ensure Taylor's Maid-Rite and other older Maid-Rites can keep their same cooking process in place passed Wednesday.
The measure now goes to the Iowa House where it is also expected to pass. The amendment in the Senate passed on a voice vote, meaning there was no roll call vote so no official tally on who voted yes and no.
Sen. Steve Sodders, D-State Center, said there were some no votes, but he thought those were mainly because of issues related to food safety concerns.
Some senators could have been swayed by a last-minute effort by some groups to sway votes in the name of food safety. Sodders said he understood that Bradley Burt, president and CEO of Maid-Rite Corporation sent a letter to members of the Iowa Legislature saying Taylor's could purchase a roaster for approximately $50 and the issue would be settled.
"You never know what could happen," Sodders said. "But I don't work for the people of the Maid-Rite Corporation. I work for the people of my district."
Another group, Safe Tables Our Priority, also sent a letter to members of the Iowa Legislature, asking them to vote in favor of food safety. Included in the letter was the story of a 14-year-old Iowa girl who died of E. coli bacterium.
The Times-Republican contacted the group and asked if the girl had ever eaten at Taylor's Maid-Rite in the hours or days leading up to the onset of symptoms.
The answer, from Susan Vaughn Grooters, a public health specialist, was non-responsive to that question, but did say "E. coli infections have an incubation period of up to eight days. So, often times when people are made ill it's impossible to track it back to the food that made them sick, unless there is a large outbreak."
The DIA acknowledged in court documents that there was no known incident where a person at Taylor's Maid-Rite came down with a food-borne illness.
The Iowa House will now take up the measure, and that body could have it on the calendar before the end of the week.
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Contact Ken Black at 641-753-6611 or kblack@timesrepublican.com