Gov. Reynolds’ paid family leave bill advances

Legislation that would provide paid family to Iowa state employees took another step forward Wednesday.

The House State Government Committee voted unanimously to advance Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds’ proposal that would provide four weeks of paid leave to state employees who give birth, as well as one week of paid leave for new parents who do not give birth.

The plan also provides four weeks of paid leave for adoptive parents.

House Study Bill 78 also would provide more flexibility for state employees to convert unused sick leave into additional vacation time.

Currently, the state offers no paid parental leave to its employees who are caring for a new child.

At least 24 other states offer some form of paid parental leave for state employees. Federal employees are granted up to 12 weeks of paid leave to care for a child under legislation passed by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump during his first term.

The bill is now eligible for consideration and a vote by the full House.

A Senate subcommittee last month also advanced the family leave proposal.

It is the third consecutive year that Reynolds has proposed adding paid family leave to state workers’ benefits. Previously introduced bills failed to advance to a floor vote in either the Republican-controlled House or Senate.

“Nothing is more important to me than family,” Reynolds said in a statement last month introducing the bill. “The time after birth is a crucial bonding period for new parents and their babies, and it’s time state employees have a chance to be fully present for them.”

Rep. Brent Siegrist, R-Council Bluffs, floor manager of the House bill, said he’s hopeful the legislation will pass this year.

“It was a unanimous vote out of committee, which it wasn’t last year,” Siegrist said.

Some of the opposition in past years, he said, has stemmed from employers who worried about being able to keep pace with the standard of benefits set by the state. Smaller, private employers in particular, Siegrist said, worried it would create a barrier to hiring people if Iowa offered paid family leave for state employees.

Siegrist said he supports the bill, calling it “the right thing to do” to support families and aid in the recruitment and retention of state employees.

Rep. Sami Scheetz, D-Cedar Rapids, said he would like to see the proposal expanded.

While calling it a “good first step,” Scheetz said he felt the state would be “doing more to compete with the private sector on benefits to bring the best and the brightest to state government.”

Iowa Senate Democrats have proposed much broader legislation that would require public employers and private companies with at least 10 employees to provide 12 weeks of paid family leave. The proposal is unlikely to gain traction, with Republicans holding a legislative supermajority.

Demonstrators protest Trump, Musk

Demonstrators gathered on the Iowa Capitol steps Wednesday afternoon to protest the actions of President Donald Trump and his administration during the first weeks of his second term.

The protest was part of a movement organized under the hashtags #buildtheresistance and #50501, which stands for 50 protests, 50 states, one day.

Demonstrators denounced Trump’s executive orders in the past few weeks, including immigration crackdowns, and the involvement of Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, in the administration.

Organizers said the turnout was larger than they expected.

“We're all enraged that we have to be here again, and out here in the blistering cold, on a cold day in February, outside in Iowa, protesting this stuff over again,” demonstrator Heaven Chamberlain said. “We went through this already, and bad stuff is happening around the world, around the nation, around the state, and it's just frustrating.”

Later in the afternoon, four demonstrators, including Chamberlain, were detained by the Iowa State Patrol while protesting a Moms for Liberty presentation in the Iowa Capitol rotunda.

The Iowa Department of Public Safety did not immediately say if the demonstrators were charged.