Judgment day is Thursday for legislation

DES MOINES – It's do-or-die time for a host of policy bills that legislators had hoped to get accomplished this session.

Judgment day arrives Thursday for policy measures that are subject to the Legislature's self-imposed deadline for bills to clear at least one House or Senate committee to stay eligible for consideration this year. The actual deadline is Friday but it appeared both the House and Senate planned to finish the week's work on Thursday, leaving a number of issues to wait until next year for more attention unless they can resurface as amendments to bills that remain live rounds.

In the Senate Education Committee, senators ground through 20 separate measures, including bills to expand the period for transferring athletes to be ineligible for varsity competition from 90 days to 180 days, to make school grounds as nicotine-free zones, and to provide a sales tax exemption on college textbooks.

Bills dealing with adult stem cell research, charter schools, workplace drug testing, charter schools, milk regulations, public retirement system contributions, expunge criminal offenses, under-aged possession of alcohol, cell-phone surcharges, and alternative energy incentives were among the topics for 60 House and Senate subcommittee meetings Wednesday.

Some issues made their appearance for the first time this session, while others were recycled bills that have made perennial appearances at the Statehouse.

Speaking of recycling, Sen. Pam Jochum, D-Dubuque, led a subcommittee meeting that garnered a variety of testimony regarding Senate File 249 – an effort to make Iowa a national leader in sustainability by converting to statewide curbside recycling as a way to manage the waste stream, reduce landfills and eventually end the state's bottle-deposit law.

After about an hour's worth of discussion, Jochum called the meeting “an important first step” on an issue she plans to work on through the interim period between sessions in hopes of tackling the topic in earnest during the 2012 legislative session.

The proposal included grants and other incentives that would be funded by a 4-cent fee on all 2.4 billion beverage containers sold in Iowa annually – an assessment Jochum expected would raise $300 million over three years that would be put into a trust fund dedicated to the recycling overhaul.

The Senate State Government Committee, with one dissenting vote, kept alive a proposal that would establish an independent board to provide education and investigate complaints regarding the state's open meetings and open records laws.

The Senate Local Government Committee approved a measure that would give county auditors discretion in deciding where satellite voting stations would be located.

Sen. Merlin Bartz, R-Grafton, expressed concern that Senate File 305 would create a “subjective litmus test” that potentially could discriminate against locating voting stations on private property where an appearance of preferential access could occur based on race, religion, ethnic group or gender.

Senators also kept alive a measure designed to crack down on so-called “backyard boutiques” – a reference to the practice of parking used cars on public or private property for sale by people skirting state laws requiring anyone who sells more than six vehicles in a 12-month period to have a dealer's license.

Senate Study Bill 1138 would give cities and counties more authority in enforcing parking restrictions aimed at curbing vehicles advertised for sale from being parked at highly visible locations.

It would bar a person from parking a motor vehicle on a street or highway, a public parking lot or other public or private property for “the principal purpose and intent” of displaying the vehicle for sale, hire or rental except when in compliance with local regulations or with permission from the property owner. Such vehicles would not be considered abandoned, but cities and counties could adopt ordinances with enforcement provisions that could include issuing citations, assessing fines, and towing them at a property owner's request for impoundment.