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Social-issue bills float to the top ... while other ideas deflate, pop |
| Posted: March 05, 2010 |
By Jennifer Jacobs
Des Moines Register
March 15, 2010
A bill to allow betting on professional sports died. A bill to end live greyhound racing died, too.
So did a bill to standardize how sheriffs issue permits to carry a concealed weapons.
As did a bill to study — again — whether to use, sell or lease the fiber-optic Iowa Communications Network.
State legislators dumped all sorts of bills overboard this week.
Leaders can, theoretically, revive any of the "dead" bills before the session ends sometime near the end of March.
But with only about three weeks left in the 2010 legislative session, Democratic leaders said they intend to focus on money-related bills, health care reform, a limited expansion of gambling, stripping guns from domestic abusers, and a few other policy bills.
Lawmakers will try early next week to compromise on a ban on texting while driving.
Some lawmakers want to ban only writing texts and e-mails; some want to ban both reading and writing the messages; some want to ban all cell phone use — but just for teen drivers.
"The outcome of that is entirely uncertain," House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, D-Des Moines, said Thursday.
Any bills designed to make life a little easier for military members and their families are likely to pass. This session has produced far more veterans-related legislation than most years.
"This year is the highest call-up of Iowa military members since World War II," said Senate President Jack Kibbie, D-Emmetsburg, referring to the planned fall deployment of 3,500 Iowa National Guard members to Afghanistan. "Many of these bills affect families, health care, paying taxes, getting unemployment, getting jobs."
Dozens of bills survived Thursday's so-called funnel, which killed non-money bills that failed to pass one chamber and a committee in the opposite chamber. But not all the survivors will become law.
McCarthy doesn't expect passage of three highway-safety proposals that survived the funnel: requiring children to buckle up no matter where they're seated in a car, stiffening rules for teen drivers, and increasing fines for drivers who imperil bicyclists.
That means children over age 10 likely still won't need seat belts in the back seat. Teens likely won't have to drive with a parent along for a year instead of six months, and they could still carry a carload of friends. And drivers won't face new rules such as not following bicyclists too closely.
Technically, none of a controversial group of labor union-backed bills survived the funnel, but Democratic leaders said Thursday they will keep them alive on artificial life support.
"It certainly doesn't look like we're going to get much done on that front," said Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs. But if a chance to pass a union-backed bill pops up, "we will move forward," he said.
House Minority Leader Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, vowed to "stay vigilant" on the labor bills.
"Obviously Republicans oppose all of them," he said.
Early in the week, it looked as if gun rights advocates would succeed in advancing a bill to make more uniform how sheriffs issue concealed weapons permits. Gun rights advocates, including the National Rifle Association, think it's unfair that sheriffs have full discretion to refuse to issue a permit for any reason, or even for no specific reason at all.
Two key lawmakers, Rep. Rick Olson, D-Des Moines, and Rep. Clel Baudler, R-Greenfield, reached a compromise, but "the NRA doesn't like the deal, so they've asked for it to be killed," McCarthy said.
Several bills got through just under the wire.
One would require employers to provide accommodations for workers to express breast milk — and it couldn't be a bathroom stall. Another would let children born up to two years after a parent's death have inheritance rights.
And a very limited bill requiring insurance coverage of autism disorders — one affecting just insurance plans for state employees — passed at the last minute.
Senate Minority Leader Paul McKinley, R-Chariton, on Thursday repeated a theme he has expressed throughout the session - that Democrats aren't doing enough to create jobs.
"We have just finished the eighth week of this session, and we have yet to talk about job creation in this state," he said. "While we debate numerous bills that don't have major consequences for Iowans, we are still failing those 110,000 unemployed Iowans."
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