LGTBQ youth, education dominate ‘funnel week’ at Iowa Capitol

DES MOINES — State lawmakers worked through their first legislative deadline Thursday, with education regulations and restrictions on LGBTQ youth taking center stage at the Capitol.

Recommended Reading

A number of bills were passed in the dark of night; What were they?

After this week’s legislative “funnel,” only bills that have passed out of at least one committee can be considered for the rest of the session. Budget and tax bills are not subject to the funnel, and legislative leaders have ways to revive legislation later in the session, but the funnel does winnow the bills still under consideration.

House Speaker Pat Grassley, R-New Hartford, said the House has hit its key priorities, advancing legislation dealing with parental oversight of education, private school education savings accounts and other issues.

“We’ve been focusing on what we feel are the priorities that we campaigned on in the last election and were very successful,” Grassley said. “A lot of these issues were part of those topics of conversation.”

House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst, D-Windsor Heights, told reporters Thursday the work of the Republican majority in the session’s first two months has been “nothing but politics.” The flurry of bills dealing with LGBTQ students, instruction and transgender youths, she said, are not dealing with the interests of Iowans.

“If you were to look at this Legislature's work, you would think people's biggest problem facing our state is trans kids and gay marriage,” Konfrst said. “Instead, the problems facing our state are rising cancer rates, our homeless kids, our schools that need additional help, our mental health crisis that I've heard about over and over. … We’ve done nothing to address these issues.”

Transgender bills

The Senate Health and Human Services Committee on Thursday passed Senate Study Bill 1197, a bill that would ban gender-affirming care for transgender minors, a move that contradicts the guidance of doctors in state and national medical associations. A House committee was likely to advance the bill later Thursday.

In the Senate on Wednesday, lawmakers advanced Senate Study Bill 1145 that would ban teaching on gender identity and sexual activity through fifth grade, would require schools to notify parents if a student expresses a different gender identity and would require schools to get parental permission before referring to a child by a different name or set of pronouns — all items the House committee has advanced as separate bills.

“Parents should have the ultimate responsibility and right to decide what is in the best interest of their children, including when it comes to their education,” said Molly Severn, legislative liaison and lobbyist for Gov. Kim Reynolds.

Another bill would effectively ban transgender students from using the bathroom or locker room that aligns with their gender identity, requiring school facilities to be separated by biological sex.

Thousands of Iowa high school students on Wednesday left school in planned “walkouts” across the state to protest the LGBTQ-related bills advanced by Republicans. Many in Des Moines marched to the Iowa Capitol, chanting “we say gay” and “trans rights are human rights.”

Teen testifies

“Being trans has not been easy for me,” Jaxx Phillips, a 14-year-old transgender student from Ankeny, told lawmakers Thursday during a subcommittee hearing on one of the many bills dealing with LGBTQ students.

“I have been bullied for it. I’m being told that I am delusional or that I just want attention. People in my school have shouted slurs at me,” Phillips said. “It’s not something that I want to go through. This is something that I have to do in order to express myself.”

“Children should not have to live their lives in fear for their safety and lives because of how they identify.”

“Forcing trusted adults to out kids who have turned to them where they would be safe reinforces to those children that they should have to fear who they surround themselves with,” Phillips said.

“I should not have to be here,” arguing before lawmakers that transgender youth should have the same rights as their peers “to be whoever we can.”

Party divide

Republicans argued the bills are responding to concerns parents and other constituents have brought.

“We laid out in session very early on some of these bills being part of our priority list,” Grassley said. “So I wouldn’t say this is a flurry of things just coming along right now because we’re at funnel. And keep in mind, a lot of the bills that we’re working on, we’re taking concerns from Iowans across the state.”

But Democrats said the LGBTQ legislation Republicans are advancing come from a national right-wing playbook, which doesn’t reflect the opinion of most Iowans.

Senate Minority Whip Sarah Trone Garriott, D-West Des Moines, said she has heard from constituents who moved to Iowa because they saw it as a welcoming place.

“These folks are really concerned about what the future is going to be like here, and if there’s a future for them in Iowa,” she said. “And we need to spend the rest of this legislative session working on the things that Iowans are asking for.”

Gender-affirming health care

Senate Democrats criticized Reynolds and Republicans for championing parental rights while also pushing a ban on gender-affirming health care for transgender minors, including the use of puberty blockers, hormones and surgery for transgender patients.

Such bans, they argue, violate the fundamental right of parents to seek medical care for their child. And courts in other states have struck down such measures, finding that it prohibits medical treatment consistent with accepted standards of care.

“This is a sudden switch-up from Gov. Reynolds and some statehouse Republicans beating the drum of trusting parents’ parental rights and parental choice,” Sen. Janet Petersen, D-Des Moines, said during Thursday in voting against the Senate bill in committee.

“Politicians do not belong in the exam room with Iowans. Banning medical care for Iowans puts lives at risk. Care should be free from discrimination and political interference.”

Petersen thanked Iowans “who came forward to testify against one of the most extreme political attacks on transgender Iowans and Iowa physicians.”

“These mean-spirited bills that are harmful to the health and well-being of their friends and classmates,” she said. “This bill bans lifesaving, medically necessary gender-affirming care.”

Critics also note the measures would violate the Iowa Civil Rights Act and be at odds with federal protections against discrimination in education.

Senate Republicans on Thursday amended the bill to state that enforcement and compliance with its provisions shall not constitute a violation of the Iowa Civil Rights Act.

A wave of similar legislation in Republican-led states has been considered this year, and Utah and Florida are among the states that have enacted such bans.

Sen. Jeff Edler, R-State Center, raised concerns about providing irreversible care to minors who are not old enough to make informed decisions about “experimental treatments that could leave them permanently sterile or physically marred for life.”

Edler chairs the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, which advanced the bill Thursday on a party-line vote, with Democrats opposed.

“This is a public health matter that should be regulated as such under Iowa law,” he said.

Traffic cameras

Bills dealing with traffic cameras moved out of the House Public Safety Committee as lawmakers look to regulate the systems that some cities use as a significant revenue source.

House Study Bill 161 would require cities and counties to get permission from the state Department of Transportation to set up traffic cameras on interstates, highways and other roads maintained by the state.

Another bill, House File 173, allows the state to place cameras on primary roads but limits cities to placing the cameras on city streets and counties to county roads.

Democrats opposed the bills, saying they would impose burdensome regulations and take away an important revenue stream that cities use to fund public safety.

Rep. Sami Scheetz, D-Cedar Rapids, said the cameras on the S-curve of Interstate 380 through Cedar Rapids saves lives and that the bill would “defund the Cedar Rapids Police Department.”

Committee chair Rep. Phil Thompson, R-Boone, said the bills are intended to set a framework for traffic camera regulation and could see changes before going to the House floor for debate.

“We could merge bills,” he said. “There are a number of different avenues to go in. Right now we don’t have a really good idea of which direction we want to go.”

Jobs for teens

Senate Republicans advanced legislation that would create more opportunities for Iowa 14- to 17-year-olds to work certain jobs with parental permission, a proposal that Democrats warned would put those teens in harm’s way.

Under the proposed bill, 16- and 17-year-olds in Iowa could work in bars and sell or serve drinks, with parental permission; 15-year-olds could perform “light” assembly work, provided it is not on a machine or in an area with machines; and 14-year-olds could work in meat lockers.

Sen. Adrian Dickey, R-Packwood, said the legislation creates more opportunities for teenagers who want to pick up part-time work. And he pushed back at assertions the proposal will put Iowa teenagers in danger on the job.

But Sen. Bill Dotzler, D-Waterloo, argued the legislation would put Iowa teenagers in places of work that are dangerous for teenagers.

Republicans advanced Senate File 167 out of the Senate’s workforce committee, making it eligible for debate by the full Senate. House Republicans are advancing similar legislation.