Time running out on some big bills being considered by Iowa state lawmakers

DES MOINES — With a second key deadline looming at week’s end in the Iowa Legislature, there remain many significant proposals with work still to do in just a few days if they are to remain available for further consideration in this year’s session.

Defining “man” and “woman” in state law; helping schools arm teachers and other staff; creating legal penalties for causing a pregnancy to end, which could also impact fertility treatments — these are among high-profile proposals needing at least a little more legislative approval if they are to remain on the track to become law this year.

Even the one issue that has dominated the 2024 session like no other — Gov. Kim Reynolds’ proposal to overhaul the way the state’s nine area education agencies are operated and funded — still needs legislative attention by the end of this week.

All of these proposals and hundreds more face the second legislative deadline of the 2024 session: the second funnel. By the end of this week, legislation must be approved by one full chamber — either the Iowa House or Senate — and at least a committee in the opposite chamber in order to remain eligible for consideration moving forward.

Any bill that fails to garner that much legislative support will be considered “dead.” However, leaders in the majority party have the ability to resurrect the “dead” bills through multiple legislative tools. And sometimes they do.

The funnel deadline does not apply to bills that deal with tax policy, the state budget or other spending measures. So bills that deal with, for example, increasing the salaries of public school teachers and support staff, Reynolds’ proposed streamlining of the state’s mental and behavioral health systems, or statehouse Republicans’ plans to further decrease state income taxes, are not subject to this week’s deadline.

The following bills and topics are among the many that state lawmakers must advance at some point this week if the bills are to survive this second funnel:

Area education agencies

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In her Jan. 9 Condition of the State address to the Iowa Legislature, Reynolds set the tone for the next four months when she called for dramatic changes to the operating and funding structures of Iowa’s area education agencies.

Since that day, Reynolds has unveiled her proposal and offered changes after hearing feedback from educators and parents, and majority party Republicans in the Iowa Senate and Iowa House have introduced their own proposals.

Instead of allowing state funding to go directly to the AEAs, as is currently the case, Reynolds has proposed giving school districts more direct control over special education funding, and moving oversight of AEAs to the state education department instead of local boards.

Senate Republicans’ proposal is similar to the governor’s, but keeps some of that state funding moving straight to the AEAs and calls for the Iowa Department of Education to work with the AEAs on a new oversight structure.

House Republicans went a completely different route. The House bill keeps AEAs as the sole provider of special education support. While state funding for special education services would go to the school districts, schools would be required to use that funding on services provided by the AEAs.

House Republicans passed their plan out of the chamber — barely, on a 53-41 vote with nine Republicans voting against it. Shortly after the House’s passage, the Senate was scheduled to debate the bill. But in an unusual move, it was pulled from the debate calendar and has not been seen since.

Gender identity

Legislation proposed by Reynolds that would define “man” and “woman” in Iowa Code based on a person’s sex assigned at birth has yet to advance out of the House.

House Republicans passed the bill out of committee last month over the protests of transgender Iowans and civil rights activists who called it discriminatory, arguing it would lead to the "erasure" of transgender and nonbinary people from Iowa Code. But lawmakers have yet to take up the bill on the House floor and send it off to the Senate.

House File 2389 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 their birth certificate.

Reynolds and Republicans said women and men possess unique biological differences, and that the bill was necessary to protect the health, safety and rights of women in spaces like domestic violence shelters and rape crisis center.

However, both the Iowa Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Iowa Coalition Against Domestic Violence are registered opposed to the bill.

LGBTQ and civil rights advocates said the bill is another attack on transgender Iowans, and its use of pro-segregation language should raise alarm. It says the term “equal” does not mean “same” and that “separate accommodations are not inherently unequal.”

Birth control without a prescription

Legislation allowing access to birth control without a prescription continues to meet resistance from social conservative House Republicans.

Prescription-free birth control long has been a top legislative priority of Reynolds. But the issue has divided Republicans in the Legislature, despite support from a strong majority of Iowans, a new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows.

Previous proposals to provide behind-the-counter birth control have cleared the Senate, but stalled in the House. Reynolds reintroduced her proposal this year to allow birth control to be dispensed by a pharmacist without a prescription.

House File 2584 would allow pharmacists to dispense a three-month supply of hormonal contraceptives to those 18 and older. It does not include drugs intended to induce abortion. Patients would have to take a self-screening risk assessment and pharmacists would have to perform a blood pressure screening first.

Following that initial visit, Iowans could receive up to a year’s worth of birth control, but after 27 months, they would need to see a doctor.

Supporters say the measure would provide better access to contraception for women, thus leading to fewer unplanned pregnancies and reliance on government assistance.

Anti-abortion rights and Christian conservative groups oppose the idea. Some warn that contraceptives not intended to induce abortions still can be used to terminate a pregnancy by preventing a fertilized egg from implanting and developing into an embryo. Anti-abortion rights advocates argue that life begins at conception and consider some forms of birth control as abortion. Others cite studies linking the use of contraceptives to increased risks of breast and cervical cancers.

A group of House Republicans have filed a raft of proposed amendments to the bill, which has passed out of committee but has not yet been debated by the full House.

Rep. Ann Meyer, R-Fort Dodge, who chairs the House Health and Human Services Committee, said she plans to continue to push the bill through the House, but added, “but it’s going to be an uphill battle again.”

School safety/arming teachers

A bill to create a licensing process for K-12 school staff to carry guns on campus has yet to advance out of a Senate committee to remain eligible after this week’s funnel.

House Republicans passed the proposal along party lines in February. The bill was proposed in the wake of January’s fatal shooting at Perry High School.

Republicans hope the bill, House File 2586, will make insurance companies less resistant to covering a school that allows its teachers and staff to carry firearms, which is already legal under Iowa law. Democrats have opposed the proposal and say that introducing more guns to school grounds will not make students safer.

The bill would also devote state funds to allow large schools to hire private security officers or school resource officers.

A Senate subcommittee advanced the bill last week, sending it to the full education committee. It must pass out of the committee to remain eligible after this week.

House Republican education bills

House Republicans are looking to make big changes to education, proposing conservative history instruction in K-12 schools and restrictions on diversity, equity and inclusion in higher education. But senators have not taken up many of the House’s bills.

Republicans last month passed a bill that would introduce a list of social studies concepts developed by a conservative think tank to Iowa’s required curriculum.

That bill, House File 2544, would require instruction on a range of figures, documents and events in American history and promote instruction focusing on the “cultural heritage of Western civilization.”

The language was developed by the Civics Alliance, an offshoot of the conservative nonprofit National Association of Scholars. While Republicans said during debate the bill would instill reverence and pride in Iowa students, Democrats said it was promoting a political agenda with a skewed view of history.

Senate Republicans are set to consider the bill Tuesday in a subcommittee meeting.

Another bill House lawmakers proposed, House File 2558, would cap tuition increases at Iowa’s public universities and codify a range of limits on diversity, equity and inclusion the state Board of Regents put in place last year.

The bill would prohibit Iowa’s three public universities from providing any diversity, equity and inclusion service that is not necessary to comply with federal law or accreditation standards. Existing diversity services at the universities would need to be made available for all students.

The bill would cap tuition increases for incoming students at 3 percent each year and keep tuition the same for a resident student for their four-year college career. It would also restructure the membership and requirements of the Board of Regents and change how university presidents are chosen.

That bill has passed out of the House, but has not yet been scheduled for a subcommittee meeting in the Senate.

Fetal homicide and fertility treatments

House Republicans introduced and passed out of the chamber a proposal they said would increase penalties for individuals whose actions cause a pregnancy to be terminated.

But House Democrats warned t the legislation, because it also replaces in state law the terms “human pregnancy” with “unborn person,” could jeopardize fertility treatments for families hoping to get pregnant.

During debate in the Iowa House, Democrats argued the proposed legislation could make in vitro fertilization illegal because as part of that process, extra embryos are sometimes frozen, stored or discarded.

House File 2575 passed the House but has not yet been taken up by the Senate.

Comments: (515) 355-1300, erin.murphy@thegazette.com