A big week for education in the Iowa House

March 4 "Capitol Week" is online

Mar 05, 2024

Thanks to the Institute for Free Speech, I’ve been able to cover many of this year’s Iowa House debates from my new desk on the press bench. On Monday, the talented photographer Greg Hauenstein met me upstairs in the public gallery for a tutorial on how to take pictures and shoot video in the House chamber. The lighting is quite challenging, even for professionals!

I still have much to learn, but here’s Democratic State Representative Monica Kurth speaking against the Republican bill to prohibit local governments from offering guaranteed income programs.

The House wrapped up in time for me to get home and have a quick dinner before Dennis Hart and recorded our live broadcast at 7:00 pm. KHOI replays the show at 6:00 am on Tuesday and at noon on Wednesday, and makes our full archive available for free on the station’s website.

We’re now distributing the show as a podcast as well. So if you like to listen to political news at home or when you are out and about, please subscribe to “KHOI’s Capitol Week” and rate us on your favorite podcast platform. That will help other people find the show.

On to our March 4 broadcast.

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A long time ago, Dennis and I made the editorial decision to cover a lot of ground in our 30 minutes together, rather than drill down on just a few topics. We stuck with that approach this week:

Although we’re mostly focused on state legislative news these days, we began the show with a quick review of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that confirmed Donald Trump will appear on the Colorado ballot;
We started our legislative coverage with bills the Iowa House approved on Monday. House File 2576 makes it a first-degree murder charge to cause the death of another person by providing them with fentanyl. Twelve Democrats voted against the bill, on the grounds that the bill’s broad wording would subject someone to life in prison without the possibility of parole, even if there was no knowledge or intent to give someone fentanyl;
The most controversial bill the House passed on March 4 was House File 2319, which would prohibit local governments from providing guaranteed income program. As Galen Bacharier reported for the Des Moines Register, the bill was inspired by a pilot project in Polk County. The floor manager, GOP State Representative Steven Holt, said during today’s debate, "Just as we do not allow cities and counties to have different laws on murder, we're not going to allow cities and counties to murder our work ethic.” Seven Republicans joined a united Democratic caucus to oppose the bill, because it infringes on local control;
Moving to last week’s legislative action, House Republicans approved their version of a bill changing Iowa’s Area Education Agencies on Thursday. State Representative Skyler Wheeler emphasized that House File 2612 is not Governor Kim Reynolds’ original proposal, and I tried to summarize the key differences. House Democrats strongly oppose making any big changes to AEAs without further study of the issue, and nine Republicans joined them to vote against the bill;
The governor issued a statement praising House Republicans for advancing the AEA bill, but I think she will want bigger changes than what the House bill entails. Senate Republicans are scheduled to debate their version of AEA reform on March 5;
Meanwhile, we learned last week that in January, the Iowa Department of Education quietly ended a contract with the AEAs that helps families of children with disabilities obtain the services they need. (After the show aired, I saw Stephen Gruber-Miller’s latest for the Des Moines Register: the state hired a nonprofit based in Johnston to take over this program);
A new Iowa Poll by Selzer & Co for the Des Moines Register and Mediacom found that 56 percent of Iowa adults have a favorable view of the AEAs, 20 percent view them unfavorably, and 24 percent aren’t sure. For me, the most surprising finding was that three-quarters of Iowans know enough about AEAs to have an opinion. It shows how salient this issue has become since Reynolds set out to gut the agencies;
House Republicans passed many other education-related bills last week. The debate on House File 2544 went on for hours. Educators strongly oppose this bill, which would create a new mandatory social studies curriculum drafted by a conservative advocacy group. Ed Tibbetts, Todd Dorman, and Rick Morain have all written worthwhile commentaries about this proposal;
House File 2545 would instruct the Department of Education to conduct a “comprehensive review” of school curriculum and graduation standards. Democrats argued the bill is unnecessary since Iowa already has a process for adopting curriculum standards;
House File 2617 would require schools to show students in 7th through 12th grades a video on fetal development like the “Meet Baby Olivia” video created by the anti-abortion group Live Action. Physicians and reproductive rights advocates have noted the video is inaccurate and was produced to influence children against abortion. I wonder whether some other group will produce a medically accurate video for distribution in schools;
House File 2586 has been portrayed as a bill allowing school districts to let staff carry firearms. Technically, Iowa law already allows school districts to adopt such policies. But the two northwest Iowa districts that tried to go that route last year had to rescind their policies after their insurance carrier threatened to drop coverage. This bill seeks to solve that problem by giving school districts and staff qualified immunity against civil or criminal liability if anyone were hurt or injured through the “reasonable” use of firearms in a school setting;
House File 2558 would make a lot of changes to Iowa’s three state universities. It would codify policies the Iowa Board of Regents adopted last November to cut back on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. It would cap in-state tuition increases at 3 percent. It would also give two legislators “ex officio” seats on the Board of Regents. Six Republicans joined Democrats to vote no;
In a straight party-line vote, House Republicans approved Senate File 2095, the so-called “Religious Freedom Restoration Act.” The Senate had already passed the bill, and the governor has indicated she will sign it. Critics have warned it would give people and businesses a free pass to discriminate against disfavored groups. It’s noteworthy that Republicans ignored some major business lobby groups that opposed this proposal;
The House approved two bills that will reduce state inspection requirements. House File 2585 had bipartisan support; it would cut back on nursing home inspections while increasing training requirements. Democrats uniformly opposed House File 2426, which would reduce mandatory inspections of hotels and motels;
Eighty House members voted for House File 2391, which caps salaries for traveling nurses. Opponents have expressed concern that the agencies who source nurses to short-staffed facilities may stop doing business in Iowa;
The House unanimously approved House File 2482, which expands cancer coverage for firefighters (who get cancer at higher rates);
A large bipartisan majority voted for House File 2569, which instructs the state Transportation Commission to prioritize expanding U.S. Highway 30 to four lanes;
Another large bipartisan vote sent House File 2568 to the Senate; this bill would require drivers to yield to bicyclists and others on wheels (scooters, wheelchairs, baby carriages) in crosswalks, the way they already have to yield to pedestrians;
I need to correct an error related to House File 2424, which would allow Iowans to purchase license plates featuring the “Don’t Tread on Me” Gadsden flag. This bill passed out of the House Ways and Means Committee (not the full Iowa House) last week;
The House unanimously approved House File 2594, which establishes a new crime called “organized retail theft.” Much of the national media coverage of this supposed phenomenon has been discredited;
Moving to the upper chamber, last week Republicans approved Senate File 108, a controversial bill requiring businesses to use the federal E-Verify system to confirm employees are legal residents. Businesses were among the many groups opposing this bill;
Senate Republicans agreed to amend a food labeling bill to take out a provision that would have barred state universities from conducting research on plant-based meat substitutes. Following that amendment, Senate File 2391 passed unanimously, and would require meat substitutes to be accurately labeled;
Democrats strongly opposed Senate File 2324, the latest attempt to restrict the Iowa Department of Natural Resources from acquiring more land for public use. This one would bar the DNR from buying land in an auction. In recent years, similar bills have run into trouble in the Iowa House;
On a mostly party-line vote, Senate Republicans approved Senate File 2395, allocating money from Iowa’s share of the proceeds from settling a multi-state lawsuit against opioid manufacturers. Democrats wanted all of the funds to go to the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services, for programs that directly address the addiction problem. The GOP bill simply directs 75 percent of the funds to DHHS and 25 percent to the Attorney General’s office. I’m working on a Bleeding Heartland post about this bill;
The Senate amended House File 2318, increasing penalties for bestiality, before sending the bill back to the House on a unanimous vote. The amendment sought to clarify that standard animal husbandry practices would not be prohibited under this bill;
A House subcommittee killed Senate File 2369, which would have forced blood banks and hospitals to comply with a patient’s request for a directed blood donation. The medical community strongly opposed the proposal;
The Des Moines Register published another finding from the new Selzer poll: 49 percent of Iowa adults oppose the governor’s proposal to require special birth certificates for transgender people;
A panel from the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week that plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge Iowa’s 2021 law banning mask mandates in schools. The ruling leaves the law in effect, but contrary to some news reports you may have seen, the appeals court did not “uphold” the law on the merits;
We briefly discussed Senator Chuck Grassley’s comments last week defending his role in spreading false bribery allegations against President Joe Biden. I avoid editorializing on the radio, but I wrote much more at Bleeding Heartland about Grassley’s shameless attempt to rewrite history;
We closed out with some comments from Iowa’s members of Congress regarding in vitro fertilization. We will return to that topic in the future.

Thanks for listening or reading. I’ll be back at my desk in the Iowa House chamber this week, and Dennis and I will be on the air next Monday to talk about what happened at the statehouse.