Capitol Notebook: Legislation would require lawmaker approval for Iowa Capitol events

Iowa House lawmakers advanced legislation Thursday that would require permission from an elected official for individuals or groups to hold events on Iowa Capitol grounds.

An amendment to Senate File 297, advanced with House Republican support 58-26, would limit the number of events a person or group can host on the Capitol grounds to six per year and would require permission from either a statewide elected official or both a current member of the Iowa House and Senate.

Rep. Ross Wilburn, D-Ames, criticized the amendment, saying that it would make it more difficult for groups to hold events on the Capitol grounds.

“It potentially introduces, unnecessarily, a political barrier if a legislator or statewide official disagrees with the content, the purpose of the event and let's just say, doesn't make themselves available because of that disagreement,” Wilburn said.

  Buy Photo

The bill’s floor manager, Rep. Carter Nordman, R-Dallas Center, said the bill would make the Capitol event application process more transparent.

Under the legislation, event requests could be submitted to the Iowa Department of Administrative Services electronically or in person.

“There's 150 of us, the amendment doesn't say anything about who it has to be. It is any member of either chamber,” Nordman said. “This would make our policy to use the Capitol grounds more open than the current policy on the books.”

The amended legislation will have now have to go through the Senate.

Palliative care center licenses goes to governor

Iowa would be able to establish palliative care centers under legislation on its way to Gov. Kim Reynolds’ desk.

House File 933, named “Mason’s Law,” would create a pediatric palliative care license for residential care facilities for people under 21 with chronic and life-threatening illnesses who are expected to have shortened life expectancies. Under the legislation, these facilities would be limited to12 patients.

Currently, no states have established licenses specifically for pediatric palliative care centers. The three states with facilities create them under other licenses.

Iowa House lawmakers unanimously advanced the bill Thursday after affirming a Senate amendment to the bill that would allow the Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing to create a special classification within the residential care facility category for facilities that have the primary purpose of serving pediatric palliative care patients.

The legislation was named after a 7-year-old Grinnell boy who required hospice care at the end of his five-year battle with cancer. Mason Sieck died in 2021, and his mother, Shanna, hopes to build the first pediatric hospice care center west of Iowa City.

  Buy Photo

Bill to create professional weapons permits for some government officials stalls

Iowa House lawmakers rejected a Senate amendment that removed state lawmakers from a bill that would authorize judicial officers and members of the Attorney General’s Office to be issued a professional permit to carry weapons.

Under the bill, members of the Iowa General Assembly, along with judicial officers, the Attorney General and their deputies and assistants, could be issued permits allowing them to carry a firearm anywhere in the state at all times.

For the legislation to move forward, the Senate would have to agree to accept the House’s version of the bill. If no agreement is reached, the bill will go before a conference committee, which is composed of Senate and House members representing both majority and minority parities.

Gazette-Lee Des Moines Bureau