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Despite entities across the state saying proof of COVID-19 vaccination won’t be required, the House judiciary committee yesterday discussed a bill to ban Iowa from putting a person’s vaccination status on personal identification cards. House File 889 also bans businesses from requiring people on the premises provide vaccination proof. If a business or government-owned establishment—like […]
The legislative session may be winding down, but the fight over budget priorities is still going strong. One of those fights concerns the resources and support systems for victims of crime, and how those groups who handle that are funded. Currently, the state-level funding is running out. But other sources aren’t so secure, either, especially […]
Iowa Senate Republicans are trying another attack on Iowans who receive federal food assistance. Earlier this year, Iowa Senate Republicans passed Senate File 389, to impose new procedural barriers to federal food assistance (SNAP), Medicaid, and the Hawk-I children’s health program, and a new asset test ($2,250 for most households) for SNAP to kick off […]
Iowa law enforcement would have greater freedom to commit “clearly egregious” conduct and protesters could be more likely to be struck by cars, according to legislation passed by the Iowa House of Representatives on Wednesday evening. Rep. Jarad Klein introduced an amendment reinserting language from Senate File 476, also known as the “Back the Blue” […]
Iowa’s poor investment in state services and prioritization of tax cuts has held the state back, according to Democratic legislators. And in the waning days of the legislative session, legislators are now trying to wrap up the last items of business for the year, including the budget going forward. Currently, the legislature is working on […]
The proposed anti-trans legislation introduced this session may have failed, but the topic isn’t dead. For a bizarre, brief moment Rep. Sandy Salmon seized a moment to attack trans students. During the debate on HF 847, a bill about education programs in Iowa, Salmon introduced amendment H-1270, which would include a section barring trans girls […]
This Iowa legislative session has seen an unusually large number of extreme proposals, whether it’s discriminating against transgender Iowans or expanding the rights of gun owners beyond even the Second Amendment. Though not all have even made it through a subcommittee, Iowans have noted the change. That’s why Rep. Jennifer Konfrst appeared at Moral Mondays […]
The permitless carry bill that passed the House of Representatives last week has made it one step closer to becoming law, putting Iowans in greater danger of becoming subject to the growing problem of gun violence. Despite the recent mass shootings in Atlanta, Georgia and Boulder, Colorado, the permitless carry legislation is now headed to […]
Two firearms laws passed the Iowa House of Representatives last night that could threaten the safety of Iowans by making it easier for bad actors to purchase guns, and by making it harder to hold gun manufacturers accountable in a court of law. One of those bills was the Firearms Omnibus (HF 756), which passed […]
Up was down yesterday on the floor of the Iowa House of Representatives, as Republicans invoked Martin Luther King, Jr. and Karl Marx as they passed House File 802, a bill that would whitewash education by prohibiting the discussion of so-called “divisive concepts” in diversity training programs. The bill passed 59-36. One amendment expanded the […]