A busy first week for Iowa lawmakers

Jan. 16 "Capitol Week" is online

Jan 18, 2023

Iowa Capitol, photographed by Bruce Lear

Governor Kim Reynolds’ revised school voucher plan is the talk of the town, but other bills are starting to move at the state capitol. You can find lots of information on the Iowa legislature’s website. At Bleeding Heartland, I compiled who’s who in the Iowa House and who’s who in the Iowa Senate, and I’m regularly publishing articles and commentaries about legislative happenings. For emails twice a week with links to all Bleeding Heartland, subscribe to my other free newsletter.

One unique feature of this Substack is a weekly post about the KHOI radio show Dennis Hart and I have co-hosted for nearly two years. KHOI’s website is having some issues this week, but producer Mike Murphy made the audio file available for Monday night’s edition of “Capitol Week.”

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Dennis and I covered a lot of ground on Monday:

The governor’s Condition of the State address (full text here, video here), and how she expanded her school voucher plan compared to last year;
Other education policies Governor Reynolds proposed, including a 2.5 percent increase in state aid for K-12 schools, and more flexibility in how school districts can use certain pots of money;
The governor’s airing of grievances against those who had criticized her handling of the COVID-19 pandemic;
Hot topics not mentioned during the governor’s speech, namely additional abortion restrictions and property tax changes that legislative leaders hope to adopt this year;
Reynolds’ call for “tort reform” to limit damages in medical malpractice suits (one of the bills House Republicans have blocked for the past two years);
The governor’s effort to reorganize state government and vastly reduce the number of agencies;
The Democratic response to the governor’s speech and amendments the House and Senate minority party will likely offer when the chambers debate the school voucher plan;
Iowa Supreme Court Chief Justice Susan Christensen’s warning about the shortage of criminal defense attorneys (you can read her full remarks here; Jared Strong covered the highlights at Iowa Capital Dispatch);
Maj. Gen. Ben Corell’s annual address to state lawmakers, which highlighted the Iowa National Guard’s recruiting challenges (Jared Strong wrote up that speech as well);
What Governor Reynolds said about the Iowa Democratic caucuses on Friday, when she was inaugurated for her second full term;
An Iowa Senate subcommittee passed the governor’s school voucher plan;
Iowa House leaders tinkering with a longstanding chamber rule in order to clear a path for the voucher bill (I explained this procedural change in more detail at Bleeding Heartland);
State Senator Brad Zaun’s latest attempt to bring the death penalty back to Iowa (Luke Clausen reported more details);
State Senator Jason Schultz’s bill that would repeal the gender balance requirement for most Iowa boards and commissions (this was a more surprising effort, and Clark Kauffman reported more details);
Some other education bills Republicans are trying to pass, which would give parents more access to K-12 curriculum, force state universities to report what they are teaching future teachers about social justice, prohibit LGBTQ content in elementary school classrooms, and require schools to out LGBTQ students to their parents;
How most bills become law in Iowa, and how legislative leaders sometimes work around the usual process for high priorities;
My early thoughts on whether the Iowa legislature will finish its work in 110 days, as scheduled, or whether they will go into overtime, which usually happens;
The federal government charging a prominent Woodbury County Republican with many counts of voter fraud, based on her efforts to round up votes for her husband in 2020;
The Republican Party of Iowa re-electing Jeff Kaufmann as chair and Linda Upmeyer as co-chair (Brianne Pfannenstiel had more on this at the Des Moines Register);
Senator Chuck Grassley undergoing surgery to repair a fractured hip last week;
Coveted committee assignments for Iowa’s four U.S. House members (I wrote more about this at Bleeding Heartland);
Committee assignments for Senators Grassley and Joni Ernst;
A quick word about COVID-19 trends in Iowa; I’m still masking in public spaces and encourage others to do so.