Erin Murphy

Iowa Sen. Bill Dotzler told the tale of the critter who pooped in his hat during debate on a bill designed to control the state’s raccoon population

Revenue shared for county quality-of-life improvements would be increased and distributed to all 99 counties.

Legislation adding an asset test and eligibility verification for programs like Medicaid and SNAP has passed the Iowa Legislature and is on its way to Gov. Kim Reynolds.

Legislation that would require Iowa caucus participants to vote in-person — which would effectively kill Iowa Democrats’ plan for mail-in caucusing in 2024 — was introduced this week in the Iowa House by Republican state lawmaker Bobby Kaufmann, the son of Republican Party of Iowa state chairman Jeff Kaufmann.

Gov. Kim Reynolds has asked the court to allow a court-blocked 2018 law to go into effect; abortion rights groups argue the law should remain blocked.

Aime Wichtendahl, who in 2015 became the first transgender Iowan elected to public office, has advocated against state legislation that would affect transgender youth.

The new law reduces the number of cabinet-level state agencies from 37 to 16, and eliminates hundreds of vacant state government positions.

Some bills won’t make it this year

Education policy dealing with graphic materials and the teaching of gender identity passed, but a bill regulating carbon capture pipelines did not

Proposed legislation would require the state to prioritize maintenance of current publicly-owned lands over the acquisition of new lands. Iowa ranks near the bottom of the list of U.S. states for its share of publicly-owned land. About 3 percent of the state is public land.

With its death ahead of this week’s legislative funnel, the bill is ineligible for consideration for the remainder of the 2023 session, although leadership could resurrect it

Asa Hutchinson speaks to conservative Bull Moose Club in Des Moines

The program helped elections officials discover 36 cases of alleged duplicate voting in 2018; Iowa Republicans say the program has exceeded its original intention

Republicans say the proposal would advance parents’ input in students’ education, while Democrats say the proposals marginalize LGBTQ students

Also, Senate passes bill to change SNAP and Medicaid eligibility