Articles Tagged: Iowa Legislature

But details were scarce in interviews with the governor and legislative leaders on how to proceed. Any plans, apparently, will have to wait to cement during the legislative session.

But anyone seeking details on any of those plans will have to stay tuned. Specifics were scarce Tuesday, when Reynolds and legislative leaders participated in the Iowa Capitol Press Association’s annual legislative preview forum at the Iowa Capitol.

Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds and other GOP legislative leaders said they believe it is prudent to await court decisions on several challenges to federal vaccine mandates first.

An earlier proposal was supported by renewable fuels groups, but opposed by retailers and consumer choice advocates.

In Republican-controlled Iowa Legislature, environmental groups look for niche issues that could get bipartisan support. These include soil health, digesters and state parks funding.

Iowa Senate leader said his preference is to limit the discussion to just COVID-19 vaccine requirements, but acknowledged other lawmakers may want to broaden that discussion to other vaccines.

Vacant buildings aren’t cheap to keep up, lawmakers found learned. An impetus for legislation in 2019 was learning the state was spending about $65,000 a year for upkeep at the former penitentiary at Fort Madison.

Now that we’ve tried all of these changes out for one election, let’s see how well they’ve performed.

Senate Republicans in the Iowa Legislature are formulating a “moon shot” tax-cut plan that would eventually eliminate the state’s personal income tax. But skeptics hungry for mission details worry the trick in engineering such an endeavor would be pulling off a successful landing that doesn’t crash and burn.

On this week’s edition of the On Iowa Politics Podcast, reporters discuss their top Iowa politics predictions for 2022.

No state has as many places to buy marijuana as Iowa has places to buy beer.

“Can’t just continue to throw money at it,” a lawmaker says, but another its a classic case of legislators “kicking the can down the road ...spending money on it as we're kicking it.”

Approaching her 28th and final year in the Iowa House, Mary Mascher promises to “continue to be as passionate about those issues that are important to me ... as I’ve been in the past.”

Senate Democrats will introduce legislation that would propose an amendment to the Iowa Constitution that would make marijuana legal.

Ten years after the Human Rights Campaign first rated cities nationwide on how inclusive they are to LGBTQ people, cities in Iowa have made big improvements. But with a state Legislature that introduces anti-LGBTQ bills each session, does it matter?