Warme

Barker

Whirlwind. Foundational. Those words were used by two local legislators who completed their first session at the Iowa Legislature.

Rep. Brett Barker (R-Nevada) and Sen. Kara Warme (R-Ames) wrapped up early Thursday morning after a 21-hour marathon. According to Barker, there was a frantic pace throughout the entire session, and with two major deadlines before adjournment, things had to move quickly.

One of the biggest items Iowa voters wanted the legislature to take action on was property taxes. However, that did not occur. Providing relief was something Warme wanted to accomplish, and a lot of foundational work was completed, including the passage of smaller bills to set the state up to pass widespread reform. She assured property tax relief will continue to be a priority during the next session.

According to Barker, it was made clear that property tax conversion may take both sessions of the 91st general assembly.

“Our system is very complex with multiple layers from over the last 50 years,” he said. “It takes time to peel back the onion and model the changes to see what the impacts are for property owners and local governments. While the proposals took significant steps forward during session, they did not fully achieve the residential property tax relief desired by voters. Allowing stakeholders to continue to work on this during the interim will allow for more time to get it right when we come back for the second session.”

Besides the work on property tax reform, the legislators introduced bills they wanted to pass into law. Barker had the highest number of introduced bills – 20, including ones exempting toilet paper, laundry detergent and dietary supplements from sales tax. Even though those three bills were withdrawn, 14 of Barker’s were approved by the House and six were sent to Gov. Kim Reynold’s desk. These included bills to help lower costs for Iowans, ensure healthcare access and take care of foster children.

“Two of my top priorities coming into session – ensuring rural representation on the Story County Board of Supervisors and reforming pharmacy benefit managers – were both passed by the House and the Senate,” he said.

Another priority of Barker’s was decriminalizing drug testing strips to prevent overdose deaths and prevent substances, such as fentanyl, from circulating in Iowa. While he did not accomplish that, he said will continue to advocate for those policies to prevent overdose deaths. Barker served on the House committees of Commerce, Economic Growth and Technology, Natural Resources and was vice chair of Health and Human Services.

The bill Warme is most proud of was getting cellphones out of classrooms so students can focus on learning and improve their mental health and social connections.

Warme placed her focus on things her constituents wanted her to – taxes, healthcare, education, veterans, childcare, agriculture and growing the Iowa economy. She was able to uphold her promise to lower taxes, fund critical mental health and substance-abuse programs, advocate for veterans and pass a responsible budget to control government spending and keep Iowa on a solid path moving forward. Her placement on Senate committees of Veterans Affairs, Appropriations, Commerce, Health and Human Services, Transportation and Technology aided in that focus.

One promise Barker was able to fulfill was working with the other party, the Democrats. “According to the Across the Aisles initiative, I was one of the top five most bipartisan legislators in the House in their preliminary report,” he said. “I promised to work on good policy for Iowans and that requires working on good ideas regardless of party politics.”

First session

The first Iowa Legislature session for Barker and Warme contained lessons and surprises.

What surprised Barker was how easy it was to pass bad policy, and he learned the importance of not letting “perfect” become the enemy of “good.”

“It can be hard to find the line between those two things and know when to be a ‘yes’ and when it’s important to be a ‘no’ in order to take more time to improve the policy,” he said.

Warme was surprised to learn how many bills are introduced which have no chance of moving forward in the legislative process.

“Many of those end up on the front page of the paper and yet they were introduced by one legislator and do not have broad support,” she said.

Another lesson of Barker’s was to not make enemies over policy disagreements.

“Adversaries on one issue can quickly become allies on something else. We need to be better at agreeing to disagree,” he said.

Warme learned the importance of listening well and keeping an open mind.

“There were times when a piece of legislation was intended to help a certain group, and they would bring to us unintended consequences or tweaks that were needed to achieve the desired effect,” she said.

Now that the session is over, Barker encouraged constituents to reach out to ask more questions about legislation or the decision making process. He said it can be easy to jump to conclusions and not realize there is often more to the story.

Warme said the relationships she built will help serve constituents in the future. While she has three years left of a four-year term, she said the mid-term elections will be critical for Iowans to voice whether they want to continue on the path of lower taxes, smaller government and economic development. With the session adjourned, she looks forward to hearing from constituents in the interim so she can be ready to hit the ground running in January.