Answers: Legislative Priorities

What should state lawmakers make their top priorities when the 2015 legislative session opens on Jan. 12?

FROM OUR INBOX

One top priority should be outlawing cellphone use or any like devices while driving.

Another priority should be making illegal the practice of transporting pets unconfined in the backs of open motor vehicles. It's not cute or smart and it's not only dangerous for the pet, it's also dangerous for other motorists as well. Pets should also be required to be secured inside motor vehicles just as people are. Safety should be a top priority on our streets and highways!

Lan N.

Cedar Rapids

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No tax money (I mean no) tax money can be used to fund immigrants here illegally. We also need a balanced budget. Cut HUD 50 percent and no support for more than one child. Require a drug test to get any federal or state help including food stamps and housing. Reduce corporate tax to encourage industries. Reduce personal tax. Reduce school administrators so more money can go to educating children. Make it illegal to have children if you do not plan on supporting them yourself. Hold the men who father children responsible for raising them.

E.J. B.

Cedar Rapids

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FROM FACEBOOK

' Karolynn R.: Infrastructure.

' Amelia R.: Medicinal marijuana, mental health, minimum wage.

' Tom K.: ROAD REPAIRS!!!! Our state highways are a disgrace!!

' Lanna W.: Animal cruelty laws need to be harsher, shut down puppy mills, and fewer homeless animals ending up in shelters.

' Jonathan G.: Medicinal marijuana (cannabidiol oil) treatment to expand beyond being available to epilepsy patients & be available for traumatic brain injury & cerebral hemorrhage patients as Marinol (synthetic THC) is not enough to help with chronic pain.

' Tim J.: Passing Constitutional Carry and stand your ground.

' Julia D.: Laws against puppy mills needs to be a priority. How we treat animals in this state is a disgrace.

' Andrew Rucker - Worker rights; Improve small business opportunities; Marijuana legalization

' Etta H.: Health insurance prices.

' Cassandra C.: Mental health!

' Clayton J.: In no particular order, improvements to infrastructure, administrative agency consolidation, Civil Rights reforms, the elimination of the income taxes, property taxes, and local sales taxes, the decriminalization of all items covered under the Controlled Substances Act and other similarly identifiable statutes, the deregulation of the practice of law, litigation reform, Constitutional carry, Stand Your Ground, a living wage requirement for employees, worker rights, GMO labeling, repeal unnecessary laws and require municipalities to raise revenue in a positive way.

' Megan S.: Children's mental health redesign.

' Brian C.: Our minimum wage needs increased badly.

' Tom W.: What needs to happen is people on minimum wage need to obtain viable skills.

' Ron C.: a fair tax policy that makes everyone - including business - pay their fair share. End corporate welfare - tax breaks - unless the businesses that benefit from them become tax payers.

' Christopher K.: policing for profit and/or revenue generation.

' James S.: Roads, minimum wage, mental health, medical marijuana,

' Chris J.: Marijuana decriminalization. Go Cedar Falls!

' Reed M.: Making the government smaller, reducing the cost of secondary education, and leaving people alone.

' Katherine I.: habitat degradation.