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Iowa Legislature’s second funnel: What bills survived, which ones didn’t
Mar. 31, 2023 5:34 pm
DES MOINES — Issues still alive in the 2023 session of the Iowa Legislature include asset tests for public assistance, the handling of sexually graphic materials in schools, the relaxing of child labor regulations, and a ban on cellphone use while driving unless you’ve got a hands-free option.
Other issues — prohibiting universities from hiring diversity, equity and inclusion staff, requiring the state DNR to prioritize maintenance of current public lands over new acquisitions, and that contentious bill that would have created a high bar for voluntary landowner participation before eminent domain could be employed in a carbon capture pipeline project — are dead.
Well, … mostly dead.
This week brought the second key legislative deadline of the 2023 session, the second so-called funnel. The funnels were established to keep state lawmakers on schedule to complete their work for the year by gradually reducing the number of bills eligible for consideration. Bills are weeded out by being required to achieve a prescribed level of legislative support.
For the second funnel, bills needed to be passed out of the chamber in which they were introduced, and also passed out of a committee in the other chamber.
If a bill has not traveled that far on its legislative journey, it is no longer considered eligible for the rest of 2023.
There are exceptions.
First, bills that deal with tax policy and state spending are not subject to any deadlines.
And legislative leaders have myriad tools at their disposal to resurrect any legislation they choose. So even when a bill is dead because of the funnel, it’s not completely dead.
One of the tools that leaders can use is called the unfinished business calendar. If a bill did not advance far enough to qualify past the funnel, being placed on the unfinished business calendar keeps it eligible for consideration. Those bills are listed below as being “alive” because of leadership action.
Signed into law
- Private school financial aid (HF 68)
- Medical malpractice award caps (HF 161)
- Authorized driver’s education instructors (SF 157)
- Property tax rate rollback fix (SF 181)
- K-12 public school funding (SF 192)
- Ban on gender-affirming health care (SF 538)
- Transgender school bathroom requirements (SF 482)
- Rural emergency room hospitals (SF 75)
- Personal data privacy (SF 262)
Passed Legislature
- State government reorganization (SF 514)
- Pregnant assault victims (HF 570)
Alive
- Public assistance eligibility (SF 494)
- County compensation boards optional (HF 314)
- Trucker liability award caps (SF 228)
- School transparency, curriculum content (SF 496)
- Disruptive students policy (HF 604)
- Hands-free driving (SF 547)
- State auditor’s duties, limitations (SF 478)
- Behind-the-counter birth control (SF 326)
- County supervisor elections (SF 443)
- Crisis hotline numbers on student IDs (HF 602)
- Felons in possession of firearms (HF 625)
- School teaching requirements (SF 391)
- Clarifying legal voting age (SJR 9)
- Gubernatorial line of succession (HJR 3)
Alive (leadership action)
- Child labor regulations (SF 542, HF 647)
- Maternal health care (HF 427, SF 324)
- Punishments for drug sales that result in death (HF 595)
- Relaxing public school regulations (SF 391)
- Previous convictions for domestic abuse (HF 112)
- Guns allowed in parking lots (SF 543)
- Restrictions on government investments (SF 507)
- School training for seizures (HF 608)
- Cocktail-to-go regulations (HF 433)
Dead
- Eminent domain restrictions for carbon capture pipelines (HF 565)
- Public land maintenance and acquisition (SF 516)
- Prohibiting hiring of diversity/equity/inclusion staff at universities (HF 616)
- Restitution requirements for human trafficking victims (HF 594)
- Prosecution of law enforcement officer actions resulting in death (SF 256)
- Unemployment benefits requirements (SF 481)
- Elections laws, recount procedures (HF 356)
- County compensation board makeup (SF 170)
- County compensation board transparency (SF 32)
- Buildings’ energy efficiency requirements (SF 334)
- Traffic camera limitations (HF 628)
- Administration of Veterans Trust Fund (SF 410)
- Ban of “gay panic” defense (HF 159)
- Black bear hunting regulation (HF 175)
- First Amendment expedited relief (HF 177)
- Judicial nominating commissions (SF 171)
- Permanent Daylight Saving Time (HF 498)
- Reinstate death penalty (SF 357)
- Teachers allowed to reject students’ pronouns (HF 620)
- Paid family leave for state employees (HF 578)
- Earned time for mandatory minimum sentences (SF 78)
- Health care providers’ religious beliefs (SF 297)
- Terminating rental agreements for crime victims (HF 547)
- Ban on eminent domain for hazardous liquid pipelines (SF 101)
- Carbon capture pipeline requirements (SF 346)
- Legalized recreational marijuana (HF 442)
- Traffic camera revenue to state (HF 313)
- Medical cannabis expansion (SSB 1113)
- Commercially owned solar panel limits (SSB 1077)
- Education Savings Account testing requirements (HSB 138)
- Constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage (HJR 8)
- Total abortion ban (HF 510)
- Ban on abortion-inducing drugs (HF 146)
- Penalties for teaching divisive concepts (HSB 112)
- Publishing school curriculum, materials online (HF 5)
- Teaching firearm safety in school (HF 73)
- Religious beliefs of adoptive parents (SF 212)
- Making Election Day registrants’ votes provisional (SF 342)
- Ballot information recorded (SF 341)
- Voter registration challenges (SF 351)
- Requiring school administrators to teach a class (HF 454)
- Restrictions on social media accounts for minors (HSB 223)
- Bans on social media accounts for minors (HF 526)
- No minors allowed at drag shows (SF 348)
- Limiting length of trains (HSB 88)
Comments: (515) 355-1300, erin.murphy@thegazette.com
The dome of the Iowa State Capitol building from the rotunda in Des Moines. (The Gazette)
