The Iowa House Democrats have rolled out their dream list for the upcoming legislative session in January. Here is what it is:
- Defending and supporting public education,
- Protecting reproductive freedom,
- Legalizing recreational marijuana for adults.
- Lowering Costs for Iowa families.
Whoa, there is a list of priorities for you. The minority leader of the House said, “Republican Lawmakers need to be held accountable for enacting unpopular polices”. Well, if she is talking about policies such as preventing sex change operations for minors, allowing pornography to be on display in our public-school libraries, or stopping boys from playing in girls’ sports then she is right. But it doesn’t seem like she is going down those pathways.
So, lets talk about each of these priorities and we can discuss what they want versus what House Republicans would want. All this information comes from the Des Moines Register article dated Sept 26th, 2024, and called Iowa House Democrats eye protecting abortion, legalizing marijuana, in the 2025 session. That title is a vast misnomer from what the article really discusses but we will deal with media bias sometime in the future.
As for public education, the article simply talks about things the Democrats would like to reverse that have been passed as laws recently. House Republicans have real success to fall back on like the largest pay raise for schools in Iowa history and keeping boys from playing in girls sports. In addition, protecting our kids and employees in our schools is a huge issue that House Republicans would like to tackle in the future.
I am happy House Democrats would like to continue to help us make Iowa schools better. That is an issue that should be bipartisan but for the teacher’s union, I think we could do great things together.
When House Democrats talk about reproductive freedom, they really mean abortion. I am, and always have been, pro-life at conception to a natural death. However, the Democrats won’t say when the cut off should be for an abortion. When asked do not answer the question but rather talk around the issue with no answer. Listen to their responses when the issue is raised, it is a non-answer every time.
They like to talk about Iowa’s 6-week abortion ban but they fail to mention that it isn’t a 6-week ban, but rather the point at which the heartbeat can be heard from the baby. So, House Democrats want to allow abortion up to a point that they won’t say and with that said, it can only be understood that time is up to birth.
Legalizing marijuana is an issue that House Democrats have vowed to have as a priority this year. Let me ask this how does that help on single person in Iowa? States that have legal marijuana are now saying they made a mistake. Ask law enforcement and legislators in Colorado and they will say it was a mistake. Oregon recently reversed course on their laws that legalize drugs in that state saying it was a mistake. Oregon is far from a conservative state. But still, isn’t there a lot of problems in our state more important than marijuana? Is that really something that should be a priority?
Finally, a House Democrat priority is to lowering costs for Iowa families and that is really a good priority to have. But when you read into what they want to do here is what they say. They want boost affordable housing options by either helping Iowans repair their homes or buy a home for the first time. They also want to raise the minimum wage to above 7.25 dollars and to restore collective bargaining rights to public employee union workers.
That is quite a mouthful so let me tackle them one at a time. First, helping people buy their first home is something the state already has programs for and parents or grandparents can actually put money away into a special account just for that to help their kids do that.
Next, when is the last time you saw a job in Iowa for only 7.25 dollars per hour? You know what, the free market has worked, and wages have risen to all time highs. So much so that beginning worker jobs, which are mostly held by those underaged and inexperienced are often times nearing the 15.00-dollar mark, if not more. No, Iowa needs to let the free market work. California just messed with the minimum wage in restaurant employees and the result is restaurants closing or buying robot and kiosk ordering systems and laying the employees off.
Finally, their grand plan is to restore bargaining rights to public employee unionized workers. How does that help the average worker in Iowa? This group is a minority in the grand scheme of things, yet the House Democrats vow to work to help them.
How about this, Iowa House Republicans will work hard to keep your tax dollars in your pocket, reduce regulatory burdens, protect your kids in schools, run a smaller and smarter government, entice new businesses into the state by good policy decisions, and many other things that we have been doing over the last 8 years. We will keep Iowa moving in the right direction.
