Erin Murphy

The second legislative deadline of the 2024 session took out a number of bills of significant potential impact

Republican leaders in the Iowa House and Senate were unable to find agreement on their separate immigration policy proposals

GOP Sen. Brad Zaun said he stopped the bill, which was approved by House Republicans, over concerns it would threaten the legality of in vitro fertilization

State lawmakers say the new proposal will be an improvement upon the original, which was shut down in 2009 after an audit showed $26 million in improperly issued funds, resulting in at least seven criminal convictions.

AEAs, gender ID, school safety and many other significant bills need more legislative attention this week to survive a legislative deadline.

Staffing agencies, whose rates would be capped by the bill, warn the proposal could cause nurses to leave the agencies and thus worsen the nursing home worker shortage

Advocates hope the governor’s plan to combine mental health and substance use treatment networks will improve access for Iowans. But some worry that until other funding issues are addressed — like low Medicaid reimbursement rates — “We're just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.”

Iowa Business Council’s annual Competitive Dashboard reports labor force, education, health insurance ‘overperforming’,’ with diversity, obesity percentage and number of mental health providers ‘underperforming.’

Proposal to increase penalties for non-consensual termination of a pregnancy could have chilling impact on in vitro fertilization, Democrats argued

Iowa lawmakers already have missed their target for setting state funding for schools by nearly two weeks.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds’ office says the state will hire a new partner, citing conflicts of interest in the program as operated by AEAs, but one recent program worker pushed back at that characterization.

Republican legislators in the Iowa House killed the bill, which was uniformly opposed by medical experts and organizations

Iowa House Republicans’ plan would increase starting teacher pay to $50K, add funding to boost salaries for veteran teachers, and establish a $15 minimum wage for support staff

The Iowa Supreme Court pieced together so-called legislative immunity from multiple places in the Iowa Constitution, and ruled it extends to communications with third parties

In Iowa, there were nearly 13,000 fraud reports in 2023 that resulted in financial losses of $42.6 million.