Lawmakers diverge on overhauling Iowa’s AEAs

DES MOINES — Changes to how Iowa delivers special education services to students, conducts elections, reflects gender in state law and deals with distracted drivers, red-light runners and speeders are among the proposals that cleared the first deadline this week of this year’s session of the Iowa Legislature.

Friday marked the first legislative “funnel”-- the last chance for many bills to pass out of a committee in either the House or the Senate and remain eligible for consideration going forward. There are some exceptions, and budget and tax bills are not subject to the funnel.

The bills that have passed out of committee still would need to pass full floor votes in the Legislature and receive a signature from Gov. Kim Reynolds to become law. This year’s session is set to expire in April, but lawmakers often go into overtime.

Majority Republicans, who are in control of both chambers, have lauded their agenda as a continuation of cutting taxes, improving safety and broadening freedoms.

“House Republicans have been delivering on the promises that Iowans have expected us to deliver on,” House Majority Leader Matt Windschitl, R-Missouri Valley, said this month. “We have done right, budgetary-wise, and the state’s got a great economy.”

Democrats, though, have blasted Republicans for passing politically charged legislation that they say fails to meet the needs of Iowans on issues like wages, housing, child care and health care.

“If I could summarize it in one sentence, it would be that the bills that came out of committee in the last few days is really an attack on Iowans rather than an attack on the problems that Iowans have asked us to solve,” said Senate Minority Leader Pam Jochum, D-Dubuque.

Reynolds, a Republican, praised the advancement of a number of her legislative priorities. She proposed bills on the area education agencies, child literacy, behavioral and maternal health care and merging or eliminating Iowa’s boards and commissions.

“As the legislative process continues, so will conversations on how we deliver results for Iowans,” Reynolds said in a statement. “Iowa has cemented itself as a national leader, and these priorities take us another step further.”

Education bills

Both chambers passed different approaches to change the funding, oversight and structure of Iowa’s nine area education agencies.

Reynolds proposed an overhaul of the agencies, which provide special education support, media services and other services to school districts around the state. The proposal met significant opposition from parents, administrators and House Republicans.

The Senate Education Committee passed an amended version of Reynolds’ bill. The Senate version would allow school districts to retain most of their funds for special education, and they would have the option of using that money with the AEA or with another party.

The bill would also bring more oversight and budget powers of the AEAs under the Iowa Department of Education.

The House version of the bill, which passed out of committee Thursday, allows schools to keep their special education support dollars but require they still spend them with one of the nine AEAs.

“We wanted to provide certainty for special education,” Iowa House Speaker Pat Grassley of New Hartford told reporters this week. “We took Iowans’ feedback that we've been having in our meetings and realized how important that was. And we feel our plan provides that certainty in the future when it comes to special education.”

Senate Democrats criticized the Senate bill and said it is not significantly different from Reynolds’ original proposal. House Democrats said they still were concerned about how the House version would affect rural schools.

“We’re still looking at the bill of course, but I will tell you that we disagree with the premise that AEAs needed wholesale change,” said House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst, D-Windsor Heights. “We don’t believe that we should be making decisions about how kids get special ed services because an out-of-state consultant tells us.”

Republican lawmakers have also taken aim at diversity efforts in higher education and advanced legislation to teach a social studies curriculum developed by a conservative think tank.

House File 2327, which passed this week out of the House Education Committee, would codify several restrictions on the state’s public universities’ diversity, equity and inclusion programs created by their governing board. The bill would also cap in-state tuition increases at Iowa’s public universities at 3 percent per year without providing additional state funding.

Rep. Taylor Collins, R-Mediapolis said the bill was needed because higher education has become “not only more expensive, but also more distracted by issues like DEI and others.”

Elections

Changes to Iowa’s election laws — from limiting challenges to former President Donald Trump’s eligibility to run for president again to banning ballot drop boxes — will remain alive for consideration.

The elections bill, which passed committees in both chambers, would block the type of eligibility challenges voters in other states have lodged to Trump on the grounds that he violated the Constitution by engaging in an insurrection. It also says federal candidates would not have to sign a statement saying they are aware they are disqualified if they are convicted of a felony.

The bill also would redefine absentee voting rules and ban the use of ballot drop boxes. And it would ban ranked choice voting and create a pilot program for a third-party to maintain Iowa's voter database.

Republican lawmakers passing the bill said it would protect Iowa’s election integrity and ensure that Iowans have high trust in elections. Democrats said the bill was designed to empower Trump and would put more confusions and hurdles in the way of voting.

Gender identity bill

  Buy Photo

A bill proposed by Reynolds adding new language about sex and gender into Iowa Code passed out of committee last week, over the protests of transgender Iowans and civil rights activists who said it was dehumanizing and discriminatory.

The bill defines “man” and “woman” and several other terms in Iowa Code based on a person’s sex assigned at birth. The bill would also allow transgender people to be excluded from sex-segregated spaces like bathrooms and women’s shelters.

It would also require transgender Iowans to list both their sex assigned at birth and their post-transition sex on certain documents. The bill originally required the identifiers on a driver’s license, but that provision was removed.

Reynolds and Republicans said the bill was necessary to protect the rights of women in spaces like domestic violence shelters.

Organizations dealing with domestic abuse, like the Iowa Coalition Against Domestic Violence and the National Association of Social Workers, are registered against the bill.

“It is the first effort by a state government to reinstitute separate but equal since the 1960s,” Aime Wichtendahl, a Hiawatha City Council member who is Iowa’s first transgender elected official, said during a public hearing this week. “And it is the most brazen effort by our governor to erase trans and queer people from Iowa.”

Distracted driving

  Buy Photo

Rules banning cellphone use while driving are again up for consideration this year, along with an effort to ban the use of automated traffic cameras — like ones Cedar Rapids uses at nine locations, including Interstate 380 — for enforcement.

The measures are tied under similar bills that advanced this week out of Senate and House committees. The House measure includes some exceptions, allowing drivers to hold a cellphone to their ear or briefly interact with a phone for navigation.

Law enforcement officials have implored lawmakers for years to pass a stricter restriction on distracted driving. It is currently illegal to text while driving, but not to make a phone call or use navigation.

Immigration enforcement

A slate of bills dealing with undocumented immigrants and enforcement will remain in consideration by lawmakers. Lawmakers advanced bills that would do the following:

Immigrants and activists have rallied against the bills at the Capitol, arguing they hurt Iowa’s vulnerable immigrant communities.

Republicans have said the bills are necessary to address rising rates of unlawful border crossings and protect taxpayer dollars.

Tom Barton and Erin Murphy of The Gazette Des Moines Bureau contributed to this report.