Week 9 of the session continued with debating House bills on the floor. This work is at times fast paced as non-controversial bills are brought up and voted on in a matter of minutes. Other times it is slow and tedious as we work through many amendments that are each debated at length. On Thursday we debated House File 2252 which dealt with changes to our voting laws requested by the Secretary of State’s office. These changes were primarily of a technical nature, updating the Voter ID law we passed last year based on the experience with that new law.

Notable Bills

• Senate File 481 – This bill is the “Sanctuary Cities” bill, which helps to ensure that Iowa communities remain safe. This bill specifies that local law enforcement will follow existing law and cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainer requests or their city or county will be held accountable by the withholding of state funds. Iowa has always been a welcoming state and House Republicans recognize that immigrants make a valuable contribution to our state. House Republicans also recognize that the rule of law needs to be upheld. Ensuring that citizens are safe in our communities is one of the most basic responsibilities of government. Cities or counties that designate themselves as a “sanctuary” and ignore the rule of law put their citizens at risk by providing potentially violent criminals with a safe haven. Law enforcement in most Iowa cities and counties continue to cooperate with federal immigration authorities, and this bill will have no effect on those that continue to do so. This bill was previously passed by the Senate and was voted on by the Public Safety Committee that I sit on. It passed on an 11-10 vote after being amended to address some law enforcement concerns. It will now go to the floor of the House for a vote. I supported this important legislation in committee and will support it on the floor. When it passes the House, it will go back to the Senate for them to accept the amendment.

• House File 2467 – School Meal Debt – This bill creates rules and procedures around student meal debt in schools. This issue is a rising problem that often results in the school child being singled out for the parent’s failings to pay for school meals. The provisions in this bill prevent the school from singling the child out for non-payment, while also increasing the schools ability to deal with the parents for non-payment.

• HF 2369 – Bond Referendum Elections – This bill requires that any bond referendums by a county, township, school, city, community college, or local board or commission take place on the first Tuesday following the first Monday in November. In other words, on the same date of a general election if it’s an election year. This will help increase turnout for these bond referendums.

Budget

This week the House Appropriations Committee heard a presentation from the Pew Charitable Trusts on ways that states like Iowa can manage uncertainty in revenue forecasting. The presenters discussed several ideas that other states have implemented to improve revenue forecasting. The suggestions centered on two main ideas – maintaining a revenue “cushion” by spending below the forecast, or by reducing the forecasts based on various averaging techniques to minimize variations. It is likely that legislation will follow these suggestions. The Revenue Estimating Conference was scheduled to meet Friday to set their estimate for Fiscal Year 2019. Once this estimate is determined, the House Republicans will begin developing our budget targets and the individual budget bills that are passed at the end of session.

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State Rep. Dean Fisher can be reached at 641-750-3594 or via email at dean.fisher@legis.iowa.gov