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Armed school staff, voter citizenship and nursing home inspection bills clear ‘funnel’ deadline [1]
['Robin Opsahl', 'More From Author', '- February']
Date: 2024-02-14
On the eve of the Legislature’s “funnel” deadline, Iowa lawmakers on Wednesday passed legislation through committees on topics ranging from election security to firearm safety in schools.
Most bills must be approved by a committee in at least one chamber by the end of this week to remain eligible for consideration. There are exceptions for bills involving spending, tax and government oversight and those sponsored by leadership. Language from bills that do not clear the deadline can also be added to other legislation later in session.
In 13 committee meetings held Wednesday, here are some of the bills approved:
Education
Firearms in schools: An amended version of legislation aimed at encouraging school districts to arm staff and employ school resource officers or private security, House Study Bill 675, passed the House Public Safety Committee on a 13-8 vote.
The bill allows school personnel who pass several training courses and receive a permit to carry a firearm. The state would provide all schools with up to $50,000 in matching funds if they choose to hire school resource officers or private security.
The original bill made it mandatory for high schools with more than 8,000 students to have a security officer, but the amendment allows school boards to opt out of the requirement. It would be up to school boards to determine who pays for weapons and the permit fee, who will provide the training, what type of weapon can be carried, how weapons will be stored and other details.
Schools are already allowed to have teachers and other school personnel carry firearms, but several districts have had to hold off because of the threat of losing their liability insurance.
The bill does not deal directly with insurance, but Rep. Phil Thompson, R-Boone, said he believes the additional training as well as an amended provision to provide qualified immunity to school districts will encourage insurance carriers to offer affordable coverage. Districts would be exempt from liability for the “application of reasonable force at the place of employment.”
“We believe, with the standards we set for the permit, as well as qualified immunity, that this will be something that’s insurable,” Thompson said.
Rep. Beth Wessel-Kroeschell, D-Ames, disagreed that insurance companies would be willing to risk the liability involved with arming school personnel because there has not been enough experience with the situation in Iowa or around the country. “And if the risk is too high for insurance companies, the risk is too high for me. Putting more children in the line of fire is frightening,” she said.
Community colleges’ distribution of state dollars: The Senate Education Committee passed Senate Study Bill 3164 Wednesday, a bill that would would create a council made up of the state’s community college presidents and chancellors and task it with creating the formula for distributing state dollars allocated to the Iowa Department of Education to each of the colleges.
Ten of the 15 leaders would need to approve the formula, and if an agreement cannot be reached, the Department of Education will instead do so. The bill would also eliminate the policy that changes to state appropriations to community colleges must be based on student enrollment audits.
Community Colleges for Iowa Executive Director Emily Shields said in a Tuesday subcommittee meeting that this bill would help modernize the state’s formula and allow more flexibility in funding distributions, shrinking gaps in funding across community colleges.
Sen. Tim Kraayenbrink, R-Fort Dodge, told the committee that the current community college funding formula was a “compromise” reached more than two decades ago. In the years since, enrollment at Iowa’s community colleges has changed, but the funding formula has not.
“Changing code language will allow for greater flexibility so formulas can be changed more frequently,” he said. “This is important in a time where our higher education is changing at a faster and faster pace.”
Government:
Elections law: Senate Study Bill 3161 advanced along party lines through the Senate State Government Committee Wednesday. The legislation would make multiple changes to Iowa election law, including measures to allow federal candidates convicted of felonies on Iowa ballots, changing deadlines for absentee ballots to be returned to county auditors, and bans on ballot drop boxes and ranked-choice voting.
The companion bill, House Study Bill 697, was on the schedule to be discussed by the House State Government Committee Wednesday, but was moved back for discussion by the committee at the meeting planned for 10:30 a.m. Thursday.
On Tuesday, the Des Moines Register reported Democrats walked out of the House bill’s subcommittee meeting, criticizing the legislation as a measure aiding former President Donald Trump’s presidential bid ahead of the 2024 general election. Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, faces 91 felony charges nationally.
The meeting was run by Rep. Bobby Kaufmann, R-Wilton, who worked as a senior advisor for Trump’s campaign in Iowa.
Trump was not mentioned by name in the Senate committee discussion on the bill, but Sen. Janice Weiner, D-Iowa City, asked for lawmakers to change the bill to codify whatever decision the U.S. Supreme Court makes in its current case on whether the former president could be barred from state presidential ballots.
Voter citizenship: A bill requiring that voters are first verified to be U.S. citizens prior to being allowed to register to vote and cast a ballot was passed through a Senate subcommittee and committee Wednesday.
Senate File 2078 would require a county commissioner of registration to verify citizenship of voters using the driver’s license database and federal databases. If the commissioner cannot verify the person’s citizenship, the registrant would have to show documents verifying their citizenship, like a birth certificate, U.S. passport or certification of naturalization. If the person cannot be confirmed as a citizen, they cannot be registered to vote.
Jamie Cashman with the Iowa State Association of County Auditors said he had a number of questions about the bill – asking for clarification on if county auditors will be those charged with confirming citizenship, if auditors will have to designate every currently registered voter “inactive” until their citizenship is confirmed, and what would happen for people using same-day voter registration.
Cashman also asked about the implementation timeline of the legislation. Sen. Janice Weiner also expressed concerns on the legislation, saying that she believed it would require extra funding and staffing for county auditors to perform the verification processes outlined by the bill.
Weiner said she had concerns about older Iowans, such as those who do not have driver’s licenses, being disenfranchised by the bill. While she said only U.S. citizens can vote in elections, Weiner said she had not heard of any concerns about non-citizens voting in Iowa elections.
“Obviously, you have to be a citizen to vote,” Weiner said. “… I don’t think this is the vehicle to do that.”
Sen. Sandy Salmon, R-Janesville, said in the Senate State Government Committee meeting that the Iowa Secretary of State office has reported there have been people on Iowa’s voter roles “who have not been eligible to vote.”
“This is all part of making sure our voter rolls are clean,” Salmon said. “We do recognize there will be some technical changes needed in an amendment that will be coming on the floor.”
Health care
Birth control: Gov. Kim Reynolds’ bill making hormonal birth control available from pharmacies without a doctor’s prescription, House Study Bill 642, passed the House Health and Human Services Committee on a vote of 17-3. The bill allows pharmacists to dispense birth control from behind the pharmacy counter, with various check-ins and self-risk assessments with the patient, for a total of up to 27 months before the patient would be required to see a physician in order to continue the prescription.
Supporters praised the bill for expanding access to birth control, particularly in rural areas where the wait time to see a physician might interfere.
Rep. Joel Fry, R-Osceola, voted to move the bill out of committee but said he wants to see changes requiring patients to see a physician sooner than 27 months. He did not specify how much sooner, but said it was for “making sure that we have the right contraceptives for the woman and that safety is addressed.”
Postpartum Medicaid coverage: The House Health and Human Services Committee approved House Study Bill 643, which would expand postpartum Medicaid coverage to a year for mothers and infants on a vote of 17-3. The current limit is 60 days.
Democrats, while supportive of the expanded time period, continued to raise concerns that the legislation would reduce the income limit to qualify. The bill extends the service to people at 215% of the federal poverty level, which lawmakers said was less than $42,000 a year.
The Senate companion bill, Senate File 2251, was approved by the Senate Health and Human Services Committee earlier in February.
Nursing home inspections: The House Health and Human Services Committee passed unanimously a bill that would allow the Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing to opt out of conducting in-person nursing home inspections under certain conditions.
House Study Bill 691 would also allow nursing home representatives to “review” allegations of substandard care with DIAL so they could provide additional “context and evidence” before top officials at DIAL decide whether to issue the citations. Department inspectors would also participate in joint training sessions with nursing home industry officials to review the violations cited most frequently in the state.
Advocates for Iowa seniors have expressed concern about broad language allowing DIAL to forgo in-person inspections based on complaints about ongoing concerns. But supporters, including Rep. Timi Brown-Powers, D-Waterloo, praised the opportunity for collaboration.
Behavioral health: The Senate Health and Human Services Committee on Wednesday approved the governor’s bill to reorganize the state’s behavioral health system.
The panel approved Senate Study Bill 3146, one of Reynolds’ main priorities for the 2024 legislative session. The bill would establish a statewide Behavioral Health Services System to provide mental health, substance abuse and other addiction recovery services, while moving the current Mental Health and Disabilities Services System into an advisory role.
The new system would divide the state into seven districts that would effectively replace the current 13 mental health and 19 substance abuse regions, and task the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services with the job of negotiating contracts with care providers in each district.
Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott, a Democrat from Windsor Heights, expressed concern that the timeline for completing much of the reorganization by July 2025 may be too ambitious and lead to a disruption in services. She also expressed concern that the bill simply reorganizes the method of delivering services without providing additional funds for those services. “This bill does not provide more resources for mental health services in our state,” she said. “We need more money. We really do.”
Sen. Jeff Edler, a Republican from State Center, rejected that argument.
“There’s a lot of money still sitting there that was never spent on the services that it was intended to be spent on,” he said. “So let’s be very clear. There is money there that was never spent.”
Death of an unborn person: The House Judiciary Committee advanced House Study Bill 621 in a 13-6 vote Wednesday. The legislation increases penalties for the nonconsensual termination of a pregnancy, in addition to amending language on these crimes from the termination of a “human pregnancy” to the “death of an unborn person.”
Earlier in February, reproductive rights advocates told lawmakers in a subcommittee meeting that the bill was an effort to enshrine the term “unborn person” in reference to a fetus into Iowa law, language that could be used in anti-abortion efforts.
In the committee meeting Wednesday, Wessel-Kroeschell said the bill is not addressing a pressing issue, as there has not been a rise in the type of crime it addresses. Efforts to add “personhood” language to Iowa law undermines the reproductive rights and autonomy of pregnant Iowans, she said, and puts access to contraception and in vitro fertilization processes at risk.
“If you want a full scale debate on reproductive health care, Democrats are ready,” Wessel-Kroeschell said.
Rep. Skyler Wheeler, R-Hull, said he heavily disagreed with Wessel-Kroeschell’s characterization of the bill.
“Actually most of this language is in as many as 40 states nationwide, and what she brought up has not occurred by any means,” he said.
Public safety
Firearm regulation: The House Public Safety Committee passed legislation creating penalties for officials of political subdivisions that enact firearms ordinances that are more restrictive than state law. House File 518 passed 13-8, with Democrats opposing the bill. The bill would allow a judge to impose penalties of up to $2,500 per day of the violation on a person who “knowingly participated” in the violation.
Increasing bail for violent offenses: The House Public Safety Committee, on a 13-8 vote, approved House File 2038, which exponentially increases minimum bond amounts for people charged with certain violent crimes.
The bill would raise to $100,000, from the current minimum of $10,000, the bond for charges ranging from attempted murder to possession of a firearm by a felon. Rep. Mike Vondran, R-Davenport, the floor manager, acknowledged that he had intended to add language allowing a surety bond, which would allow the use of a bond agent.
Rep. Brian Meyer, D-Des Moines, said the bill as written was “very restrictive and probably violates the 8th Amendment to the Constitution.”
— Jared Strong, Clark Kauffman, Brooklyn Draisey and Kathie Obradovich contributed to this report.
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