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Logrolling is the practice of compiling diverse and unrelated matters to be passed as one bill. Logrolling is prohibited in Iowa’s constitution because it is used to pass legislation that would not pass on its own. This week the Republican leadership in the Iowa legislature is attempting to combine four unrelated bills into one (HF2279) to gain support for their passage.

  1. A bill creating caps for medical malpractice
  2. A bill putting caps on damages for truckers who are at fault in an accident
  3. A bill banning vaccine mandates
  4. A bill reducing unemployment benefits

As I read through the bills, it was overwhelming to decide how to debate four unrelated bills.

None of these bills have support for passage on their own, so the leadership combined them looking for garner support for the package. We were scheduled to debate this “Frankenstein” bill on Tuesday, then Wednesday and now today, Thursday. It is not unusual for agreements to fall apart in the legislature. However, this seemed like a big stretch to combine so many unrelated, controversial bills and think that there will be enough support.

House majority leadership is continuing to amend this/these bill(s) in an attempt to get support for the package. If these bills become law, the courts will need to decide based on the Constitutionality. I have never seen such a blatant use of the logrolling tool and have seen the courts overturn legislation based on much less blatant logrolling.

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