Week 11 was a busy one in the Iowa House, with lots of floor debate. In this edition of Freedom Watch, I will highlight key pieces of legislation that were passed.
Election Security (HF928 & HF954):
House Republicans have worked hard for the last few years to ensure that in Iowa elections are efficient, and that it is easy to vote but hard to cheat. HF928 continues that tradition.
One area we have known needs improvement in our election system is the way we conduct recounts. HF928 establishes a uniform, fair, and common-sense system for conducting recounts in Iowa elections.
The second bill we passed this week regarding election security was HF954.
In the 2024 election cycle, Iowa’s Secretary of State (SOS) was stonewalled by the Biden Administration in his attempts to verify that Iowans registered to vote in the upcoming election were citizens of the United States and were eligible to vote. Recently, the SOS announced that he had found 277 noncitizens on Iowa’s voter rolls. Of those, 40 attempted to cast ballots in the 2024 election and 35 successfully had their vote counted, despite being an ineligible voter.
This bill will help ensure that every voter in Iowa’s elections are US citizens. It does this by outlining efforts to clean the current voter rolls and verify the citizenship status of voters in advance of Election Day.
Eminent Domain Abuse (HF943 & 639):
The citizens of Iowa have made it clear that they expect their private property rights to be protected from eminent domain abuse by the CO2 pipeline projects. This week the House passed two bills containing provisions designed to protect landowners. This is not about opposing the CO2 pipelines, but rather about opposing using the heavy hand of government through eminent domain to construct the pipelines.
HF943 prohibits the taking of agricultural land for a pipeline transporting liquified carbon dioxide.
HF639, which I floor-managed, contains a number of policies designed to protect landowners. These include:
- Requires hazardous liquid pipelines to have insurance to cover potential damage.
- States that if individuals face increased insurance, or are unable to get insurance due to the pipeline, the pipeline owner must provide insurance or reimburse the individual for additional costs.
- Provides stronger safeguards to ensure that only legitimate public uses are recognized for eminent domain.
- Mandates that all members of the Iowa Utilities Commission (IUC) must be present during hearings.
- Allows Iowans who are impacted by IUC action to intervene. Many Iowans have been prohibited from speaking at hearings even though they will be impacted.
Health Care (HF972, HF887, HF919, HF970, SF615):
This session, as in past sessions, one of the priorities of House Republicans has been improving access to quality health care for Iowans. This week we passed a number of health care bills worth highlighting.
HF972 was a bill proposed by Governor Reynolds focused on expanding health care access in rural Iowa. It requires the Department of Health & Human Services (DHHS) to request federal approval for a health care hub-and-spoke partnership funding model to establish regional collaboration between health care providers and improve health care delivery in rural areas. It requests $150 million in federal dollars to create 115 new medical residency spots in Iowa each year for the next four years.
HF887 removes the requirement that birth centers must obtain a certificate of need prior to opening or expanding their services. With birthing centers closing in rural Iowa hospitals, this bill removes regulatory obstacles.
HF919 establishes a children’s specialty hospital designation for ChildServe. This change allows them to be federally certified and participate in federal reimbursement programs. This will help ChildServe’s sustainability and growth, allowing them to provide care to more Iowa kids with special healthcare needs.
HF970 changes what foods are eligible to be bought with SNAP dollars. SNAP stands for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and is funded with the tax dollars of Iowans. However, right now taxpayer dollars are being spent on items that are far from nutritious and do little to alleviate hunger.
This legislation incentivizes better eating habits. It doesn’t ban anyone from purchasing pop, candy or chips with their own money, but it does limit their ability to purchase those items with taxpayer dollars.
This bill also allocates $1 million to the Double Up Food Bucks program once the SNAP waiver is approved at the federal level.
SF615 creates work requirements for Medicaid Expansion participants. Iowa House Republicans believe that able-bodied Iowans on Medicaid who are able to work should do so. Unfortunately, without work requirements as a condition of Medicaid benefits, there are more than 100,000 able-bodied Iowans receiving benefits who are either not working or working limited hours.
This bill allows DHHS the flexibility to determine what qualifies as work to include education, job skills training, or caregiving services. It also contains many exemptions to ensure those who can’t work for legitimate reasons don’t lose their benefits. These exemptions include:
- Those under 19 years old and over 64 years old
- Disabled individuals as determined by Social Security
- Medically frail or medically exempt individuals
- Caretakers of dependent children under 6 years old
- High risk pregnant women
- Those receiving unemployment
- Participants in substance abuse treatment
- Good cause, as determined by the director of DHHS, ensuring there is room for additional common-sense exemptions
Iowa House Republicans do not believe in trapping Iowans on government assistance. We prefer to help individuals transition off of government and into self-sufficiency whenever possible. There is great personal and societal benefit to work, and these requirements will help incentivize independence instead of dependence on government.
