Iowa traffic camera ban likely dead for this session

DES MOINES - A House-passed bill to ban traffic enforcement cameras likely will end the 2012 legislative session parked along the road to adjournment.

Senate President Jack Kibbie, D-Emmetsburg, has assigned the bill to the Senate Transportation Committee, which chairman Sen. Tom Rielly, D-Oskaloosa, said is not scheduled to meet again this year. Rielly, a former mayor, said he viewed the issue as a local decision for communities seeking to improve the safety of their roadways and intersections.

Kibbie said that likely means the bill's chances for seeing Senate action are “pretty slim.”

The bill was preserved for debate as a House Appropriations Committee bill before winning approval by a 58-42 vote of the full House on Tuesday. Kibbie, however, said he did not consider the measure to be a budget issue because it deals with the transportation chapter of the Iowa Code and the Senate Appropriations Committee “has got plenty to do without working on that bill.”

Sen. Bob Dvorsky, D-Coralville, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, predicted the traffic camera bill “wouldn't fare very well” if it came to his panel, agreeing with Rielly that it was a “home rule issue.”

Sen. Brad Zaun, R-Urbandale, a leading proponent of the camera ban, said he hoped to keep the proposal alive by attaching it as an amendment to another bill. But that likely would face challenges under Senate rules.

Zaun said he was “very optimistic” an amendment would survive a challenge, but he also acknowledged there is an effort under way “to try to kill” the proposal that may be too formidable to overcome.

“I'm hopeful that we'll be able to get something done, but realistically that's probably not likely this year,” he said.

Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, said the bill's fate rests at the committee level, but he added “I think it's unlikely it comes up. I think it's probably effectively funneled but I don't know that.”

Gov. Terry Branstad has said

he would sign legislation to ban traffic-monitoring devices if the split-control Legislature sent him a bill this session.