This week saw the arrival of our first deadline for getting bills ready for debate on the floor of the Senate. That meant several committees had long sessions. The Workforce Committee that I serve on had just one bill to run at 1:00 on Wednesday afternoon. SSB 3158 deals with how public employees vote to recertify their union. Currently some public employers do not provide the list of qualified employees to the Public Employee Relations Board, so the vote cannot be held. That means the union continues to function without being recertified.
Wednesday’s schedule was an example of how legislators’ days can go. As we approached 1:00 PM, we were told that Democrats would have at least four amendments to the bill. As Republicans met to review the proposed amendments, we were told there would be several more.
Since COVID-19, all of our committee meetings are held in one room equipped with cameras so the public can watch online. That means when one committee runs long, all the other committees are delayed. At about 2:30 PM it became apparent that the Democrat amendments would not be finished until after 6:00 PM. So, we let other committees use the room while we waited for the amendments.
The Democrats finally decided to run 11 amendments. At around 7:00 PM, we got most of the amendments and began to study them while the Education Committee continued with their meeting. When the Education Committee ended at 9:30 PM, the Workforce Committee began its work. Some of the Democrat amendments were short and simple, some were not. The Democrats then spoke about how good each amendment was and how bad the Republican bill was. This took quite some time. The committee finally passed the bill as it was written and adjourned at two minutes to midnight.
I appreciate that Senator Schultz, the manager of the SSB3158, is a very fair-minded person; he listened patiently to all of the debate. Although all of the amendments were rejected, we did pick up some good points that will be discussed for inclusion in the bill before debate on the floor.
Another topic that passed committee this week was the Patient’s Right to Save Act, SF 431. The goal of this bill was to incentivize patients to shop for lower-cost, but high-quality care instead of just figuring insurance will pay whatever is needed. This bill rewards the patient who finds lower-cost care by splitting the money saved with the patient – putting half the savings toward their deductible and then letting patients share in the savings once the deductible is met.
In an effort to start to fill the void left by the federal government’s inaction on the border crisis, this week the Iowa Senate passed SF 2211 out of committee. This bill makes it a crime at the state level to be in this country illegally. It empowers Iowa law enforcement and the judicial system to enforce immigration law and order the return of an individual in America illegally. This law should not be necessary, but Iowa is taking steps to fill in the gaps in federal failures.
This week the Senate advanced Senate Study Bill 3073, the bill to reform Iowa’s Area Education Agencies (AEA). Since this idea was originally announced, we have received a lot of comments, questions, and feedback. I have listened to the stakeholders and people affected by the AEAs. I also shadowed an AEA employee half a day. This bill is an amended form of the governor’s original bill. I will not have much input on this bill until it comes to the floor. I will be studying this bill carefully to make sure the students served by AEAs are not left high and dry.
