As your state representative, I strive to communicate to you via this newsletter to keep you apprised of happenings at the State Capitol. Oftentimes I write about the positive and groundbreaking things we accomplish while in session. However, this week I am writing not to tell you of an accomplishment, but of a failure. Honest and transparent are two things I will always be while having the privilege to represent you here in Des Moines, and I hope you find this newsletter insightful and truthful, knowing that I will always be straightforward with my constituents.
In public service, it is often alleged that legislators compromise in order to get things done for the constituents they serve. In the end, there can be no solution without compromise. For example, show me a marriage where one spouse is unwilling to ever compromise on what they want or expect and I will show a marriage that is doomed to fail. Crafting public policy is no different. If one side is unwilling to find middle ground then the issue typically fails to gain the support it needs to pass both chambers and get signed into law.
Please, don’t get me wrong, I am not saying people should compromise their moral values on issues, but when it comes to crafting policy there is significant dialogue on how to best accomplish a goal. In my sixteen years of service to my constituents, I have brokered many deals on a wide variety of legislation. On certain occasions, I did not get everything that I felt should be included in a bill, but I did not abandon the cause or give up entirely. I took the win for my constituents that I could get and came back the next day, week, month, or legislative session and continued to fight for what I believed in.
This week we saw firsthand what no compromise accomplishes. A very important issue to me and thousands of Iowans failed to gain the necessary support to move forward in the House. The issue was dealing with Medical Privacy and Freedom from discrimination due to Covid-19 vaccination status.
Since the onset of Covid two years ago we have seen our personal freedoms and liberties diminished on multiple different fronts by government entities and businesses. My colleagues and I in the legislature have responded by passing multiple pieces of legislation to protect Iowans and restore freedoms. However, as we have all seen, there seems to be a new intrusion into our lives every time we think we have turned the corner, therefore new protections are needed.
The Medical Privacy and Freedom from Discrimination bill is something many of my Republican colleagues and I have been working on and having discussions about since before session started. The base premise behind the bill is to protect Iowans from having to disclose their vaccination status to their employer or educational institution, as well as preventing people from being discriminated against based upon whether or not they have received a Covid vaccination.
In the subcommittee, the bill received one of the largest outpourings of support from Iowans I have ever seen. The room in which the subcommittee took place was packed and had an overflow crowd into the capitol rotunda. The hearing on the bill lasted for hours which does not traditionally happen.
After the bill cleared committee, it became clear that changes had to be made (compromises) in order to gain support in the House and Senate. As time is always against us in the legislature, procedural maneuvers were needed in order to keep the proposal alive and have a chance of passing the Senate. During this time, I worked closely with many interested parties both within my caucus and advocacy groups to refine and improve the language while keeping the main intent of the protections in place.
Unfortunately, despite the effort my colleagues and I put behind the proposal there were still those who felt that it didn’t go far enough and were displeased with the procedural maneuvers employed to keep the proposal alive. As a result of this no compromise, all-or-nothing attitude, the proposal failed to pass on the House floor. This saddens me greatly as I believe Iowans deserve the protections encompassed in the proposal.
Compromise is not a dirty word, but instead how things get done. As we move forward, I will continue to fight for these protections that Iowan’s deserve.
“In the subcommittee, the bill received one of the largest outpourings of support from Iowans I have ever seen. The room in which the subcommittee took place was packed and had an overflow crowd into the capitol rotunda. The hearing on the bill lasted for hours which does not traditionally happen.”
These people who overwhelmingly supported passage of the bill deserve to have the original bill brought to a vote where they can see which legislators support their freedom and privacy. To do anything less is insulting and unfair. We absolutely must have transparency and honesty.
Legislators are supposed to be responsive to public demands and needs. There is supposed to be effective participation and input from citizens in lawmaking decisions. (How can we know who to talk to if we don’t know how our representatives vote?) Legislators are supposed to address and solve the most important problems in their state. (Not ignore it and hope it goes away on its own sometime before the next year.)
Today is an immensely disappointing day for our state. What happened to prizing our liberties and maintaining our rights?
We the people are going to speak in the next primary and general election. What you may not see now but what we the people are doing in response to your compromises will become very evident. In just three days a small army of we the people mobilized a candidate to primary a compromising RINO. We the people are no longer going to tolerate the compromise of our freedoms by our RINO candidates. Chuck Grassley is out and Jim Carlin is in. I am going to do everything within my abilities to get RINO Joni Ernst out and someone else in that has a backbone and moral virtue. We the people are done with politicians and we will elect statesmen.