Busy week at the statehouse, big month for Laura

Jan. 29 "Capitol Week" is online

Dennis Hart and I are wrapping up our third year co-hosting “Capitol Week,” and I’ve been covering Iowa politics for nearly seventeen years, but I’ve never had a month like this one. My January in a nutshell:

• Wrote thirteen posts for Bleeding Heartland, one for Raw Story, and two for CNN Opinion;

• Recorded six live editions of “Capitol Week” with Dennis, wrote five recaps of those shows in this newsletter;

• Gave seven radio, television, or podcast interviews (including to KHOI’s own “Local Talk” on January 29);

• Copy edited, formatted, and published 46 articles or commentaries by guest authors for Bleeding Heartland;

• Sued the Iowa House chief clerk over denial of press credentials going back to 2019;

• Received credentials to work on the Iowa House press bench;

• Was publicly congratulated by Steve King.

I have several more guest posts in the queue and at least one more piece of my own I hope to finish before the end of January. If you don’t want to miss anything published at Bleeding Heartland, please subscribe to my other free email newsletter.

I’m ready for things to settle down in February, but we know that won’t happen with the legislative session in full swing. Every day is a scramble to keep track of the bills moving through subcommittee and committee. Dennis and I didn’t make it to every newsworthy bill this week, but we covered a lot of ground.

Remember, the whole “Capitol Week” archive is always available for free through KHOI’s website. Audio from our January 29 program:

Topics we covered this week:

• Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate introduced a bill to prevent any Fourteenth Amendment challenge to Donald Trump’s candidacy in Iowa (full text here). I’m not aware of any serious effort to strike Trump from the Iowa ballot; anyone who does so would need to find problems with his petitions;

• On Monday afternoon, Republicans on an Iowa Senate subcommittee advanced a new death penalty bill. Senate Study Bill 3085 would apply to adults convicted of killing law enforcement or corrections officers. Last year’s death penalty bill would have applied only to certain child murders that also involved rape and kidnapping. I described this bill as “kabuki theater” because whatever happens in the Iowa Senate, I don’t see any serious prospect of the Iowa House approving a capital punishment bill;

• A bill to remove gender identity as a protected class under the Iowa Civil Rights Act has more traction now than in previous years. House File 2082 would redefine gender dysphoria as a disability for the purposes of the civil rights law and is scheduled for a subcommittee hearing this Wednesday. A broad coalition opposes the bill, but the business lobby groups are on the sidelines, and House Judiciary Committee chair Steve Holt seems committed to passing the measure. I wrote much more about this for Bleeding Heartland;

• House File 2122 would “severely limit access to abortion medications,” to the point of making them almost inaccessible. More than half of abortions in Iowa and nationwide are medication abortions;

• The medical community is alarmed by Senate Study Bill 3006, which would allow health care providers including physicians to refuse to perform any service that goes against their “ethical, moral, or religious beliefs or principles”;

• Speaking of bad bills on health care, Senate File 2064 would require parental consent before anyone under age 18 could receive an HPV vaccine. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, since 16-year-olds can legally consent to sex in Iowa, and the HPV vaccine is most effective if administered before someone is sexually active. Again, the medical and public health community uniformly opposes the bill;

• After the state failed twice to find an administrator for a program to funnel state resources to crisis pregnancy centers, Republicans are pushing House File 2057, which would allow the Iowa Department of Health and Human Resources to run the “MOMS” program. Iowa would do better to put the money into extending Medicaid coverage postpartum;

• Senate Study Bill 3103 would prohibit the Iowa Department of Natural Resources from accepting anonymous complaints about possible environmental violations. Knowing the violator could discover their name would obviously deter Iowans from reporting pollution problems. State Senator Annette Sweeney introduced the bill, and although it seems like something the agriculture lobby would support, no entities are publicly registered in favor of it';

• I find it ironic that Republicans want to out environmental whistleblowers, since one of last year’s education bills required schools to keep confidential the names of those who request removal of library books;

• Senate File 108 would require Iowa employers to use the E-Verify program to check on whether employees are citizens or legal residents. Business groups don’t want this bill because the program is unreliable, and the false positives are a huge burden for workers. But the two Senate Republicans on the subcommittee advanced it anyway;

• House File 537 would allow cameras in nursing home residents’ rooms, if paid for by the resident, and if any roommate agreed. The cameras could livestream but not record. This isn’t going to solve the problem of nursing home abuses; state lawmakers would do better to fund more inspectors;

• House File 2051 would make companies and social media platforms liable for making obscene material available to minors. The bill made it through a subcommittee but is likely to be amended before it’s brought up in the House Judiciary Committee;

• Senate Study Bill 3069 would impose new requirements on how schools teach reading to early elementary students. Educators are wary about forcing a one-size-fits-all approach on schools, since kids learn differently;

• Companion bills in the Iowa House and Senate would allow schools to hire unlicensed chaplains, who could be employed or working as volunteers. A Senate subcommittee advanced Senate Study Bill 3092 last week, and a House subcommittee will take up House File 2073 on January 30. This will be a contentious bill for many reasons: its apparent endorsement of Christianity in public schools, the lack of training for chaplains, the fact that they are not mandatory reporters. At the Senate subcommittee, advocates spoke of spiritual and mental health support, while detractors called for funding trained school counselors and children’s mental health services instead;

• Senate File 2009 would set up spending accounts for teachers to pay for classroom supplies. Democrats oppose the bill because it doesn’t involve any dedicated funding. Instead, the $8 million price tag would come out of state aid for public schools generally;

• Late last week, the Iowa Department of Education finally released K-12 enrollment data, which were supposed to come out in December. About two-thirds of the 16,757 students approved for school vouchers (Educational Savings Accounts) were already attending private schools. Only about 12.7 previously attended a public school, and the rest were new private school students entering kindergarten. The program will cost much more than was projected, and it will only become more expensive as the income cap rises in the second year of the program, and goes away entirely in year three;

• House File 2056 would allow 16- and 17-year-olds to work unsupervised while caring for children under age 5. Two years ago, GOP lawmakers approved and Governor Kim Reynolds signed a bill allowing employees that age to care for school-age children without supervision. Democrats have said the state needs to address the child care shortage by raising wages for child care workers, instead of lowering standards;

• Attorney General Brenna Bird joined more than two dozen Republican AGs on a letter backing the state of Texas in its dispute with the Biden administration over immigration enforcement. Reynolds has also expressed support for Texas, which is misinterpreting the U.S. Constitution by claiming migrants crossing the border are tantamount to “an invasion”;

• The Des Moines Register’s William Morris reviewed the many lawsuits Bird has filed or joined to challenge Biden administration policies. I’m old enough to remember when GOP lawmakers threatened to cut Attorney General Tom Miller’s budget in 2018 and sought to curtail his powers in 2019, because they claimed it was inappropriate for him to spend resources on lawsuits challenging Trump administration policies;

• State Auditor Rob Sand released a comprehensive review of property taxes last week, which showed that as many have suspected, Iowa’s property taxes are regressive. That is to say, "Overall, less wealthy areas of Iowa have comparatively higher property tax rates”;

• Republicans on a House subcommittee advanced House Study Bill 587, which would require public school students and teachers to sing at least one verse of the national anthem every day, and the whole anthem on “patriotic occasions.” I didn’t say this on our show, but I would encourage supporters of this bill to talk with people who grew up in the USSR. Forced patriotism doesn’t make people love their country or its government more;

• We reported last week on my federal lawsuit agains the Iowa House chief clerk. I was happy to update “Capitol Week” listeners with the news that House leaders quickly agreed to give me permission to work on the press bench with other statehouse reporters.

Thank you for reading or listening! I’m excited to focus more of my energy on legislative news in the coming weeks.

The Sunday Des Moines Register’s lead editorial highlighted my credentialing problems and the legislature’s disdain for the media generally. I was touched that they linked back to some investigative reporting I did in 2017. I hadn’t thought about that story for a long time.

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Full roster of Iowa Writers Collaborative authors, in alphabetical order:

Nicole Baart: This Stays Here, Sioux Center

Ray Young Bear: From Red Earth Drive, Meskwaki Settlement

Laura Belin: Iowa Politics with Laura Belin, Windsor Heights

Tory Brecht: Brecht’s Beat, Quad Cities

Dartanyan Brown, My Integrated Life, Des Moines

Doug Burns: The Iowa Mercury, Carroll

Jane Burns: The Crossover, Des Moines

Dave Busiek: Dave Busiek on Media, Des Moines

Iowa Writers’ Collaborative, Roundup

Steph Copley: It Was Never a Dress, Johnston

Art Cullen: Art Cullen’s Notebook, Storm Lake

Suzanna de Baca: Dispatches from the Heartland, Huxley

Debra Engle: A Whole New World, Madison County

Julie Gammack: Julie Gammack’s Iowa Potluck, Des Moines and Okoboji

Arnold Garson: Second Thoughts, Okoboji and Sioux Falls

Joe Geha: Fern and Joe, Ames

Jody Gifford: Benign Inspiration, West Des Moines

Rob Gray: Rob Gray’s Area, Ankeny

Nik Heftman: The Seven Times, Los Angeles and Iowa

Beth Hoffman: In the Dirt, Lovilia

Chris Jones, Chris’s Substack, Des Moines

Pat Kinney: View from Cedar Valley, Waterloo

Fern Kupfer: Fern and Joe, Ames

Robert Leonard: Deep Midwest: Politics and Culture, Bussey

Letters from Iowans, Iowa

Darcy Maulsby: Keepin’ It Rural, Calhoun County

Tar Macias: Hola Iowa, Iowa

Alison McGaughey, The Inquisitive Quad Citizen, Quad Cities

Kurt Meyer: Showing Up, St. Ansgar

Vicki Minor, Relatively Minor, Winterset

Wini Moranville: Wini’s Food Stories, Des Moines

Jeff Morrison: Between Two Rivers, Cedar Rapids

Kyle Munson: Kyle Munson’s Main Street, Des Moines

Jane Nguyen: The Asian Iowan, West Des Moines

John Naughton: My Life, in Color, Des Moines

Chuck Offenburger: Iowa Boy Chuck Offenburger, Jefferson and Des Moines

Barry Piatt: Piatt on Politics Behind the Curtain, Washington, D.C.

Dave Price: Dave Price’s Perspective, Des Moines

Steve Semken: The Pulse of a Heartland Publisher, North Liberty

Macey Shofroth: The Midwest Creative, Norwalk

Larry Stone: Listening to the Land, Elkader

Mary Swander: Mary Swander’s Buggy Land, Kalona

Mary Swander: Mary Swander’s Emerging Voices, Kalona

Cheryl Tevis: Unfinished Business, Boone County

Ed Tibbetts: Along the Mississippi, Davenport

Kali White VanBaale, 988: Mental Healthcare in Iowa, Bondurant

Teresa Zilk: Talking Good, Des Moines

To receive a weekly roundup of all Iowa Writers’ Collaborative columnists, sign up here (free): ROUNDUP COLUMN

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