Reporters’ Roundtable

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The Iowa House and Senate differ on some key issues as we pass the first funnel deadline of this legislative session. We'll talk about what's happening at the Capitol with some of the political reporters covering it all on this edition of Iowa Press.

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For decades, Iowa Press has brought you political leaders and newsmakers from across Iowa and beyond. Celebrating 50 years of broadcast excellence on statewide Iowa PBS, this is the Friday, February 16th edition of Iowa Press. Here is Kay Henderson.

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Henderson: The 2024 Iowa legislative session started over a month ago and a lot has happened under the Golden Dome since then. The people on this set today have been wearing running shoes trying to keep up with it all. Our guests on this edition of Iowa Press are Katarina Sostaric. She is the State Government Reporter for Iowa Public Radio. Also joining us today, Dave Price of the ten Gray Television stations. He is the Iowa Political Director for that network. And Erin Murphy is the Des Moines Bureau Chief for the Gazette in Cedar Rapids. Let's start with some of the priority issues that the Governor presented to legislators in early January. Of note, an overhaul Area Education Agencies was presented to legislators. And in the past week we've seen alternatives emerge from House republicans and from Senate republicans. The House republican plan is very much different from the Governor's, Erin.

Murphy: Yeah, and before I answer that, I just want to make a quick note here because you said, Kay, a lot has happened. So, we have an early nominee for understatement of the year. I just want to make note of that, that a lot has happened --

Henderson: I'd like to thank the Academy --

Murphy: -- at the legislature. It has been jam packed. The AEA's being chief among those things that have been happening. So, clearly lawmakers are hearing, and we've heard this as well, are hearing from the folks back home. There has been massive reaction to these proposals and a lot of concerns about them. And I think that is why we're seeing some of these scaled back proposals coming out of the two chambers now. Governor Reynolds made her proposal at the Condition of the State and there hadn't been any real advanced look at that or much notice about what was going to be in it until that moment. And in the weeks since, like I said, a lot of people have been expressing concerns with myriad elements. And so, republican majority legislators are saying, we've been listening to those folks and here's how we think we should approach this. So, it's interesting to see how much that has been scaled back.

Henderson: Dave, the Governor said the reason she was proposing this was because test scores among students with disabilities were not what they should be. Her proposal sent money that is currently being funneled directly to the nine Area Education Agencies to school districts instead and let them pick an AEA to provide special education services or maybe a private firm or maybe use that money to hire more staff. The House plan keeps the money for special education services going to the AEAs.

Price: Yeah, and from a broader theme, some of the pushback against this was taking away local control, giving it to the state Department of Education and I just find this story maybe one of the more fascinating ones of the session in that, especially in light of the way the Governor struggled for a couple of years getting the private school scholarships, the vouchers, get that through to where she failed a couple of years, eventually had to work to boot out members of her own party to then the following year get this through. She did not use the opportunity of the off season to build consensus with leaders to say hey, here's what I want to do. And of course, as we know, during that period she was out campaigning for Ron DeSantis leading up to the Caucus. And so, the change of all of this, just look at the way she released her thing, then a couple of days later had to revise it herself. And the House version is so different. But it also shows that no matter if it's one-party control and you're the Governor, you don't get everything you want. And this is the case of the public pushing back so hard, it's a fundamentally different proposal now.

Henderson: Katarina, this time last year the Governor's proposal on education savings accounts was already law.

Sostaric: Right and I think part of this pushback with the House republicans totally scaling back her plan was related to concerns about rural areas, which was also a concern with education savings accounts as well. But here you have people worried that if the Governor's plan were to go through there wasn't certainty that special education services would still be available to rural areas in the way that they are today. And so, as House speaker Pat Grassley said, that was a big reason why they wanted to make sure that schools were still required to contract with the AEAs for those special education services.

Henderson: Moving onto another one of the Governor's priority issues that she outlined in her Condition of the State message, she said that beginning teachers should be paid $50,000 salaries and veteran teachers who have been in a school system for at least 12 years should be being paid at least $62,000. Where is that in the process, Katarina?

Sostaric: So, that has also gone through some changes in both the House and Senate. The Senate is saying they want to do the starting teacher salary at about $46,000 instead of the $50,000 that the Governor proposed. And the House republicans want to phase in the $50,000 minimum over two years, not have the minimum salary set for more experienced teachers, and then they also want to do a raise for support staff who don't get a salary.

Murphy: And the other interesting thing that the House bill does is it includes a $22 million infusion in supplemental funding for other teacher and staff salaries as well, not just the beginning teachers. And, again, operating on a similar theme here, that's a response to feedback that they have been hearing that folks in education have said, this is great, we love that you're trying to boost minimum teacher salaries, but this also kind of, and especially with the Governor's proposal about the 12-year level, this puts us in a bind with now how do we deal with years five through 11? And so, the House bill it seems like seeks to address that with that extra bit of money.

Price: And I thought the support staff that you mentioned was a key part of this too because when you start talking to these superintendents, it's almost impossible to get these folks hired because they make so little money and these folks can make so much more money in the service industry, frankly. And they may be part-time, they may be full-time, whatever the setup is. But if they're making $9, $10 an hour at some of these schools it's almost impossible to get these folks hired and they frequently will be dealing with children who have especially challenging needs. So, it's a super hard job.

Murphy: I'm nodding like a maniac over here because I have a source very close to this situation at home in my wife who works in this industry and Dave has summarized it perfectly. There's folks who are doing this job who could make, literally there's been times and examples where they could say they could go work at Burger King and make more money.

Henderson: So, what happens in the end? Anybody have a prediction?

Murphy: Man, there's going to be some negotiations going here and I honestly don't know. I'm spit balling here. In recent years the Senate republicans have typically aligned closer with the Governor. And does that mean the proposal tilts in that direction?

Price: And it's not that far, like you said, $46,000 to $50,000. I mean, is it really that much? It seems like they can thread the needle here, right?

Sostaric: And I think the Governor will definitely be fighting for her ideas on this. But I also kind of go back to what democratic leaders have been saying about the plan, which they're saying no one asked for this. There are not people out in the public asking for an overhaul of the Area Education Agencies. And so, I just kind of wonder how that plays into it.

Henderson: Another education-related policy that would affect schools that choose to do so would allow a school district board of directors decide that teachers who volunteer should be armed. How is that going to play out in the legislative process?

Price: A couple -- on the House side you have those two different sides to this. So, the arming the staff part, part of this is required for the larger schools, maybe it's 1 in 10, something like that, where if they have at least 8,000 students they would be required to have a school resource officer of some sort or private security. Then you have the other side piece of this where this kind of provides a way to expand the current idea about arming staff. There seem to be a lot of questions here about who owns the gun? Where would the gun be? Would it be on your person? Would it be locked in your desk? What kind of weapon? They also are building in a funding aspect to this so that you could get $50,000 to put toward the hiring of the security side of this. But you have kind of a couple of these things going together. The thing that I found interesting about this is that there is a training requirement of this. So, in the general public you don't need any training at all to carry a weapon as long as you're legally allowed to have one. In this case, you have to go through ongoing training to possess your weapon on school grounds.

Henderson: And it's mean to address what happened in a couple of Northwest Iowa school districts that had policies that would have allowed staff to be armed and then found out they couldn't get insurance.

Murphy: Yeah, so insurance companies are hesitant to insure schools that have these kinds of policies as well. So, that is a hurdle. I feel like a quick note too that there are all sorts of interesting logistical points and Dave laid them out well and there's still a pretty broad segment of the population that looks at this topic in debate more broadly and says, this idea in general is insane. They're talking about this -- and I'm not saying who is right or who is wrong -- but just I think it's a fair reminder to note that there's some people who are just shocked at the idea of a discussion of arming teachers.

Price: Yeah, and the theories of more guns will make more people safe versus fewer guns will make people safer.

Henderson: Katarina, the Governor has a proposal that would reduce the number of state boards and commissions by 43%. It has been scaled back as it is advancing through the legislative process.

Sostaric: Yeah, this is a similar dynamic kind of to what went on with her plan for the Area Education Agencies. She came out with this big plan that came from a task force to cut and to merge a bunch of professional licensing boards, advisory committees to state government and the House decided to just take a much narrower approach and only go with eliminating some boards that are obsolete or they think are obsolete. And the Senate meanwhile has been advancing something much closer to the Governor's plan, which there's been quite a lot of opposition to from various professionals who think that their licensing boards will suffer and that their professions will suffer for what she has proposed.

Henderson: Speaking of opposition, there were great crowds, large crowds at the Statehouse over the past couple of weeks for a couple of bills. One of them didn't advance. One of them that did was the Governor's gender ID bill. Dave, what does that entail? And what are the chances for it moving forward?

Price: I'll do the first part first because I don't know about the end part. But some of this is defining a man, defining a woman, to really boil this down. And that is something that the Governor pushed here. I guess what we've seen change over this period is that there was the original idea was your driver's license would have to denote that you were identified when you were born as male or female, you have since identified in a different way. The driver's license portion of this is no longer, but the birth certificate would also have to reflect these changes, which really gets into this kind of broader discussion that republicans have had about gender identity. And I don't know where this one ends up because you really saw that vocal opposition. And I always think about when we see crowds up there that it is such an inopportune time of day for most people because most people are at work or have some other obligation so they can't be up there. And most of these debates aren't in the evening when people can show up and do it. It would be a lot more, if you really want people there you do it on a Saturday or something when people maybe have more opportunity from across the state to show up. But so, any time you see a sizeable group like we saw, just kind of gets your attention and I remember with the book one, the book ban stuff last year, there are just certain kinds of, anything with abortion rights, when it draws a crowd like this you know you're tapping into something.

Henderson: Erin, this bill would affect public facilities and policies in public facilities, right?

Murphy: The gender ID bill?

Henderson: Correct.

Murphy: I'm not sure. I apologize --

Henderson: Well, the Governor has said it's necessary for locker rooms and prisons and --

Murphy: Protecting women's safety is, I apologize, yes, the government has made the argument that this is needed to define a woman so women can feel safe in spaces like you listed, locker rooms, sexual abuse centers, survivor centers, those kinds of things. But it's also important to note that in that case that there's not any measurable evidence of women being injured in these places by transgender women and actually conversely there is plenty of data and evidence that transgender individuals are at much higher danger for sexual assault and things of that nature.

Henderson: Many of our viewers may drive or ride in motor vehicles. And there's a bill, again, that deals with policies from kind of both ends of the spectrum, Erin.

Murphy: Yeah, so Senator Brad Zaun, a republican from Urbandale, not far from where we sit here as we tape, this has been his white whale at the Iowa Capitol for a number of years trying to ban traffic enforcement cameras, those cameras that you drive under and if you're going too fast you get a speeding ticket for. He has been on a mission to ban those and he has always reached a certain level of support but not quite enough to get past. So, his strategy this year has been to combine that proposal with a proposal that is similar in that it also has to deal with traffic safety and it has also kind of reached a certain level but never passed and that would be a requirement that drivers only use hands-free technology when using their phone. So, you can use voice to text, you can say Hey Siri, but you can't pick up your phone and make a call or text. So, that also hasn't passed. So, Brad Zaun's strategy is to take those two, put it together and see if that can get it over the finish line.

Henderson: But the bill that emerged from a House committee in regards to those two issues would let people talk on the phone and it would let them handle their smartphone if they're dealing with a map app.

Murphy: Right, which I believe then public safety typically says, law enforcement say at that point it's useless to us because --

Henderson: It's very similar to the current law.

Murphy: Yeah, because you can't enforce it because all the driver has to say is well, I was using my map.

Henderson: So, law enforcement officials who were testifying before a House subcommittee hearing this week said, we're willing to discuss and accept regulation of traffic enforcement cameras. Bring it on but please don't outlaw them. Dave, what's the future of this debate?

Price: I just think it's fascinating to watch how he's lumped them in together because you kind of have, we don't really have a freedom caucus I guess at the state level like you hear about federally, but that's part of what is at play here with anything hands-free. It's freedom, don't take away my freedoms kind of thing. So, he's trying to mash it all together to see if there is a way to do this.

Murphy: And we've seen evidence in the past where it doesn't always work that if you've got 20 votes here, 20 votes here, you don't necessarily wind up with 40 votes when you put them together. Sometimes you lose votes on either side because this side didn't like this one.

Price: Like the AEA teacher pay thing, there's a reason why those two are together, right? It is kind of interesting how you lump them together.

Sostaric: I think it's interesting too that obviously law enforcement has been asking for stricter regulations on using a phone while driving for a long time. You have the traffic camera issue where some communities are making a lot of money off of traffic cameras and potentially funding their law enforcement with that money. So, there's also just kind of conflicts in there.

Henderson: Katarina, you have followed election law for the past few election cycles and the changes that the Iowa legislature has enacted. There is another proposal that is advancing at the Capitol this year.

Sostaric: Yes, more changes to voting. People have seen in the past few years the time the polls close move from 9:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., a big shrinkage in the number of days for early in-person voting, for when your absentee ballot has to be in and now republicans are proposing moving up the deadline for absentee ballots by another day, so it would have to be in the day before Election Day instead of on Election Day. They would also let those ballots be mailed out a little bit earlier. This bill would also ban absentee ballot drop boxes, which people have been using and the legislature took steps to regulate them to make sure they're secure, but now they want to ban them outright. And this would also prevent ballot objections like ones we've seen in other states to Trump's candidacy related to his alleged fomenting of an insurrection.

Henderson: Dave?

Price: The dynamics of this, you have to address the elephant in the room I think with when we discuss this that Bobby Kaufmann it the House is pushing this. He was a paid employee of the Trump presidential campaign through our state. So, the optics are troubling for some people. Representative Kaufmann will say that the fact that he worked for Donald Trump has nothing to do with this. The fact that this bill would not automatically boot somebody off who is convicted of a felony has nothing to do with Donald Trump. They have been discussing some of these things for a couple of years. But the optics of this and the choice to have Bobby Kaufmann push this obviously invites immediate criticism from others who say, this is just a way to protect Donald Trump. And if you start digging into maybe the fact that they've got to be postmarked the night before, takes away some of the conspiracy theorists that there are boxes and boxes of ballots that are getting found overnight and that's why we see on election night, you see voter percentage totals switch and such. But we have had no evidence of any kind of widespread problems in our state. The drop boxes, while they have worked to put security cameras and all of those things, and obviously the camera side of it can be a challenge maybe in some of these smaller communities, but this is a way for folks, new parents perhaps who have their young daughter in the backseat, you don't have to go into the courthouse to drop it off or folks who have mobility issues. There's a convenience factor that will be a problem for folks who don't feel comfortable just dropping it in the mail.

Henderson: Erin?

Murphy: Yeah, and you touched on it, that's what I was just going to say, the drop boxes, that was Representative Kaufmann's argument, well everybody has a drop box, it's called a mailbox. But we've seen examples in recent elections, including one that was really, really close here in the state a few years back and was decided, a Statehouse race that was decided by a handful or so of votes and they were ballots that came in after the deadline and weren't counted because of that. That's what people are afraid of.

Henderson: Speaking of a handful of votes, this bill doesn't address what the Secretary of State had proposed, the recounts. We had a six-vote margin in a congressional race and found out that the recount rules may not be the best, especially if there is a state recount. And they're not addressing that issue. Dave, we have just a few minutes left. There was a controversy in Pella last year over a book that was in the public library, it went to a vote of the people and the library board in Pella sort of won that narrowly. And so, there was a bill proposed in the legislature that seems to have faltered, but maybe not.

Price: Yeah, so I'll try to do it in ten seconds here. This kind of follows the theme about removing some local control and moving it elsewhere. So, essentially you would remove some of the authority of the volunteer library boards in these communities and give it to city councils instead. So, it maybe started with a book, it either progressed or regressed to where this stands. But it seems like it stopped. Maybe it's dead. You never know to fully say that. But it is at least paused and unlikely.

Murphy: And speaking of Dave's point earlier about people who come to the Capitol at inopportune times, I was amazed at how many librarians came to the Capitol and not just from the Metro area, from Central Iowa, from all over the state. There was huge backlash. And it wasn't just at the Capitol. But the people who came to those subcommittee hearings was remarkable.

Price: And you didn't see the opposite of city council members from across the state rushing up there saying, hey we want this additional responsibility.

Henderson: A couple of minutes left, Katarina. The Governor made a proposal regarding personal income taxes in January and that sort of hasn't led to a big debate among legislators maybe yet?

Sostaric: Right, tax policy always gets done kind of later in the session usually because it's not, those bills don't have a deadline that applies to them. But, as we know, the chairs of the republican tax writing committees have proposed fully eliminating the income tax over time and the Governor wants to speed up kind of existing tax cuts and make those a little deeper. So, we'll just see how they start to negotiate on that and what happens there.

Murphy: Yeah, tax policy gets done typically later in the session unless the Governor has given the Condition of the U.S. response --

Henderson: The republican response to the President. Final question here, and we have about 45 seconds left. The Iowa Caucuses happened last month. Does anyone think that there will be Iowa Caucuses being first-in-the-nation in 2028?

Price: Well, at least for republicans it went smoothly. Turnout was low. It was a lopsided win. I think that the post-dynamics, especially of Trump, as the next President will be fascinating since he's had a falling out with apparently Joni Ernst, with Kim Reynolds. So, the results I'm sure he liked, the people I don't know if he does.

Murphy: And then if he's not the President, who becomes the leader of the Republican Party moving forward after that? And what do they think of Iowa? I think there's things that have to happen in a few steps of succession here before we have a better idea of what that is going to look like next time around.

Henderson: The thing that has to happen now is I have to say we're done. We are done with this conversation today. We'll be back with another episode of Iowa Press next week. For everyone here at Iowa PBS, thanks for watching.

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Funding for Iowa Press was provided by Friends, the Iowa PBS Foundation.

The Associated General Contractors of Iowa, the public's partner in building Iowa's highway, bridge and municipal utility infrastructure.

Elite Casino Resorts is a family-run business rooted in Iowa. We believe our employees are part of our family and we strive to improve their quality of life and the quality of lives within the communities we serve.

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Across Iowa, hundreds of neighborhood banks strive to serve their communities, provide jobs and help local businesses. Iowa Banks are proud to back the life you build. Learn more at iowabankers.com.

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