Political Forecast

Last year when the Legislature went into session — and when they debated the heated bills — it was our good friend of the blogosphere Bacon who went up there and did the real reporting work and really helped push the blogs in Iowa to begin talking about local politics from the statehouse level, not just our federal elected officials or our statewide officials. So, I’m hoping that as the 82nd General Assembly (First Session) begins, I’ll be able to keep up with the debate and issues going down up at the statehouse here on the blog while also balancing events that are fast approaching, like the big summer swing for the 2008 presidential candidates. The session begins Monday at 10 AM.

To that end, this week I’ve been looking at some of the prefiled bills that are expected to be under consideration this session. Prefiled bills are submitted by both legislators and state departments/agencies/commissions for consideration and assignment to committees. Bills sponsored by individual legislators will be assigned numbers when the session convenes on Monday and the bills sponsored by departments will be given numbers when assigned to committee.

Here are the bills that stand out to me with a little information as to their purpose or why they stand out (all links to bills lead to PDFs).

• Sen. Steve Kettering wants to increase the speed limit on highways in the state from 55 MPH to 60 MPH, unless they’re already divided, multilane highways at 65 or 70 MPH already. You can view his bill here.
• The Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board (IECDB) has proposed two bills on campaign finance, one they call substantive and one they call nonsubstantive (here and here, respectively). In general, I’m just glad to see the IECDB taking action on campaign finance in Iowa. However, both prefiled bills seem to have little effect on how campaigns in Iowa are run. The substantive bill does two things, one of which I find important. First of all, it requires a physical delivery via mail, in person, fax, or their certified electronic submission system of reports due five days prior to an election. The second part, which I find important, is that — if the legislation is approved out of committee and in the House and Senate — the IECDB would be required to adopt rules for media entities where the owner, publisher, or editor is a candidate for public office. My assumption is that this would make sure that if, say, Mary Stier wanted to run for public office, she couldn’t use the Register as her own bully pulpit for her candidacy.

  The nonsubstantive bill, on the other hand, has a couple of things in it that might make the campaigns themselves a bit happier. It is also full of very minor changes as well. First, it would revise the reimbursement method for travel expenses — still capping them at $100 — but would change the mileage reimbursement rate so that it matched the one outlined in the Internal Revenue Code. Another change that excites me is that the IECDB is advocating for a change in the law that requires, by statute, that all disclosure reports and statements be made available online. The current practice of putting everything online is not mandated by statute to the best of my knowledge. It would also eliminate requirements for county commissioners of elections to hold onto political statements for three years. Finally, they place new exceptions on political signs (less than 90 square inches) on private property during an election.

• There are currently two prefiled bills with the intent of restricting interest rates on car title loans, something which Rep. Rants has kept from coming to the floor for many previous sessions. The bills come from two different sources: the State Attorney General’s Office and Rep. Lisa Heddens (with co-sponsors McKinley Bailey, Andrew Wenthe, Elesha Gayman, Mark Kuhn, Marcella Frevert, Donovan Olson, Nathan Reichert, Pam Jochum, John Whitaker, Jim Lykam, Polly Bukta, Mark Davitt, Pat Murphy, Ako Abdul-Samad, and Art Staed). In case you’re counting, that is 15 co-sponsors. And no Republicans are listed in that group. The bills appear to be identical, and would cap the finance charge on the loan at 21% with other restrictions and penalties. The AG’s bill is here and the Heddens bill is here.
• This is probably the least expected topic of any of the bills I looked at, but it looks like the Department of Workforce Development wants to regulate amateur ultimate/extreme fighting in the state by requiring the promoters and fighters to adopt a commissioner and professional set up, just like boxing. It would require promoters to get a permit (for $10k) as well as the competitors themselves to register with the commissioner and pay $100. My brother has dabbled in the amateur ultimate fighting field and let me just say that he was less than pleased at the prospect of regulation. Looks like I might be having to give him a lesson on how to effectively lobby state legislators.
• There are also two, seemingly identical prefiled bills that would increase the compulsory school attendance age from 16 to 18. The first is from the Department of Education (here) and the second is from Reps. Hedden and Swati Dandekar (here). This bill makes a lot of sense to me, seeing as a high school degree is now the basic requirement for employment in most of the real world and that Iowa’s transition from a primarily agriculture economy of yesteryear to one with a diversified employment base requires more education. That argument is probably similar to one that would enact a longer school year, more than the current 180 day requirement which is based on an agrarian lifestyle.
• The only local control bill on the list of those prefiled can be found here. It is sponsored by Reps. Mark Smith, Marcella Frevert, Mark Kuhn, and John Whitaker. The explanation of the bill explains it the best:
  

  “This bill enacts and amends several provisions relating to confinement feeding operations regulated by the department of natural resources. The bill includes amendments to provisions under the “Animal Agriculture Compliance Act” that were amended, enacted, and consolidated in Code chapter 459 during the 2002 legislative sessions.

  The bill amends Code sections 331.304A and 335.2, which prohibit a county board of supervisors from adopting zoning and other types of ordinances that restrict where a confinement feeding operation structure may be constructed. These structures include confinement buildings (buildings that are totally roofed) and manure storage facilities. The bill authorizes a county board of supervisors to adopt such an ordinance regardless of whether it has adopted county zoning. The ordinance is referred to as a confinement feeding operations siting ordinance. It applies to confinement feeding operations in which swine are kept. It does not apply to small animal feeding operations. The bill provides that a county board of supervisors can only adopt such an ordinance after reviewing recommendations made to it by a special commission.

  The bill also amends Code section 459.303, which requires the department to issue permits for the construction of confinement feeding operation structures. The bill provides that the department must disapprove an application for a permit to construct a structure if it would violate a confinement feeding operations siting ordinance. The bill amends Code section 459.304 by requiring the county to file its current ordinance with the department, and providing that the county may submit comments to the department informing the department that the application is in violation of the county’s ordinance.”

  The debate over local control is going to be a mighty controversial and heated one, but expect these four to be leading the debate on the Democratic side.

• The final prefiled bill I looked at was one that would amend the DREAM Act to allow for non-citizens to be in consideration for residency status with regards to determining tuition and fees at state community colleges and regents institutions, dependent on their attendance of public high schools in Iowa for three years or have received a high school equivalency diploma in Iowa, as well as requiring they seek citizenship in the US if they don’t already have a valid Social Security number at the earliest possible time. The bill was prefiled by the Iowa Civil Rights Commission. It will be interesting to see what kind of debate might arise in the committee(s) it is referred to and if it were to make it to the floor in either the House or the Senate. What would be even more interesting to see would be Governor Culver’s reaction to the bill were it to pass the legislature and be presented to him for signature. During the gubernatorial primary, Culver said he would not sign a bill that would allow illegal immigrants to pay the same tuition as Iowa residents, which is exactly what this bill does. With the requirement of seeking citizenship, it makes me wonder if Governor Culver’s decision might change were the opportunity to sign the bill arose.

Whew, that was full of fun policy goodness, wasn’t it? Hopefully, as more bills are introduced and assigned to committees, I can give you guys posts and analysis of where things are going and what’s being debated. I’m also in contact with the House and Senate Democrats, so when you have questions about bills and policy, I can hopefully generate answers and pass along other thoughts and suggestions. Politics is about to become extremely interactive in Iowa, and with your help, I want to work to make that possible.

So, what are your thoughts on these bills, or other prefiled bills I didn’t look at? Already it seems like the new Democratic committee chairs are going to have a lot of work ahead of them.