State Government

With the higher education landscape still challenging small private colleges and universities regionally and nationally, Iowa lawmakers this session proposed a measure to make sure the state has more involvement, interaction, and information about any future closures like Wesleyan’s.

Iowa Senate Republicans voted Monday to approve their version of AEA changes, which more closely mirrors a proposal from Gov. Kim Reynolds. Now, lawmakers in the Senate and House must agree on which legislation to send to the governor.

Iowa Senate lawmakers advanced, for the second time, a bill that would protect chemical manufacturers from lawsuits over failure to warn consumers about potential adverse health effects. The bill is supported by Bayer, the manufacturer of Roundup.

The state of Iowa will provide “contemporaneous” access to newly filed civil court cases to settle a lawsuit that accused the state of violating the First Amendment by delaying access to those filings, the Des Moines Register reported Monday.

Many of these beloved public spaces aren’t accessible to people with disabilities. In some cases, it’s because the parks were built decades before federal accessibility standards were enacted. But even some new state park features are not fully accessible, a former state official said.

This week was the second “funnel week” at the Capitol and with mere weeks left in this year’s session, Iowa lawmakers are likely to take up competing AEA bills, proposed tax policy changes, and bills that address school safety.

Iowa’s tax receipts will come in slightly lower than expected this year, but revenues will hold steady in 2025 according to the latest projections from a state panel that estimates annual revenue.

The second legislative deadline of the 2024 session took out a number of bills of significant potential impact

Starting Monday, a free water taxi will cross the river there at certain times of the day for seven days a week until the bridge is repaired and reopened to traffic, the Iowa Department of Transportation announced Friday.

Deadline stops some bills, reveals Iowa Republicans' varied strategies

Lawmakers seek data on what unemployment tax cut could mean

The crop fertilizer killed fish and might have affected the river all the way to the Missouri border.