Speaker of the Iowa House Pat Grassley

Kay Henderson

Debates, disputes, deals. We'll discuss the 2024 legislative session from the majority perspective with Speaker of the House Republican Pat Grassley…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, April 26th edition of Iowa Press. Here is Kay Henderson.

 

Kay Henderson

You may have been sleeping last weekend when the Iowa legislature concluded the 2024 session at 4:23 a.m. The person who hit the gavel to signify the end of that session is with us today. House Speaker Pat Grassley is in his 18th year in the Iowa House of Representatives. He's a Republican from New Hartford. Thanks for joining us again at the Iowa Press table.

 

Pat Grassley

Glad to be with you.

 

Kay Henderson

Also joining the conversation are Katarina Sostaric of Iowa Public Radio and Erin Murphy of the Gazette in Cedar Rapids.

 

Erin Murphy

So, Speaker Grassley, shortly before you hit that gavel, in your closing remarks, both you and Majority Leader Matt Windschitl, a Republican colleague of yours, described this as a tough legislative session. How much of that was due to the Area Education Agency bill and proposal in discussion? And just how much, if you could tell us how much that debate sort of stole attention from other topics and other debates over the four months you all were in session?

 

Pat Grassley

And I think when you look at that issue, was that a factor in the difficult session? Of course it was. I would also say we've had the majority now for well over ten years, you know, going into doing we've done a lot of good things. We've done a lot of hard things. But the things that we have left to do that are kind of on the to do list or apart of some of the things that we want to get done are the hard issues.

And so we know that tackling an issue like that the way we did this session was going to take time, was going to take energy. I wouldn't say it's all directly towards that. We had 24 new members of our caucus. It's an election year. A large majority in the Senate. And when you have a lot of personalities at the table, you know, sometimes sessions go a little bit longer.

But looking back on it, we were able to achieve some good things, especially from the House perspective. We like to lay out an agenda early in session. We're able to get those bills over to the Senate. Many of those made them to the governor. Quite a few of them saw bipartisan support. So we feel it reflection of the session.

It was a very productive session. That was just one of the issues that got a lot of attention.

 

Erin Murphy

And on that, one other question on the AEA bill. We've seen some recent reporting from The Des Moines Register about staff turnover there. Since January, 350 staff have voluntarily left AEAs across the state since then. Was that an expectation of yours as this bill was passed, or does this surprise you? 

 

Pat Grassley

My understanding was that there was some restructuring already going on behind the scenes as far as changing and roles within the organization, within the AEA itself. Modernizing the way the system has been. And I think really when you sit down and look at it, we haven't had a full review of the AEAs. We've had studies and other things done in the past.

This has been around for decades. And so as we went in to look at it this year, we really wanted to make sure one thing came from it because the objective was not to go in and just fire a mass group of people. That was not the objective of the bill. We wanted to make sure as we were giving local control to our school districts over some of those dollars, some of those dollars being property tax dollars that they collect, as well as protecting special ed services.

In the bill we passed out of the House and that ultimately made it in the final agreement, we protected special ed services for school districts to use the AEAs. Within the pieces of the other pieces of the bill that we allowed flexibility for our school districts, we've been getting great feedback that they feel that that's really going to help them be able to improve delivery of services within their school district.

So when we set out, our objective was a few of those things flexibility, protecting special ed. And we feel like in the final agreement that was sent to the governor's desk and that she signed, we were able to achieve that throughout the course of the session.

 

Katarina Sostaric 

Speaker Grassley, in the final bill that passed, some of the special education funding can leave the Area Education Agencies. Are you convinced that this won't end up hurting special education services, particularly in rural school districts?

 

Pat Grassley

Well, again, the requirement to use the AEAs was a must from the House's perspective. Our original bill stuck to that. While it has a slight, slight amount staying from the standpoint of with the flexibility for the school districts, those special ed services are required to be provided by law. We require that they use the AEA to deliver those services.

 

Pat Grassley

And so when it comes to any of those additional dollars, I don't see that affecting those services. That was, again, when we passed the original bill out, that was the driving factor as we met with school districts, parents, the AEAs. We really wanted to keep the focus on providing certainty for special ed. We feel of all of the things that came from the bill, we did provide that level of certainty, so I don't see that being an issue as we go forward.

 

Katarina Sostaric 

With staff turnover, different pools of funding moving around, the Department of Education taking over certain things. When do you expect this system to stabilize?

 

Pat Grassley

Yeah. And so part of what we did too, and in our original bill that we passed, we stair stepped it in over, I think an additional year then where we ended up finalizing in the final bill. So we obviously didn't do everything just overnight. We understand that there needs to be time for this to take place, some of these transitions to take place.

I think one of the things that you're going to see is some school districts, I think, are going to continue to do it the way they always have. I think some may want to be creative. But ultimately the driver in the conversation about flexibility and certainty is right now a lot of the flexibility and certainly didn't exist with our school districts.

I think if you asked the school district what they were paying for certain level of service, they weren't able to sit down and put that on a piece of paper. And I think what this is going to do is require some accountability from both sides, AEAs and the school districts, so we can see what we're paying for services, see what services each school actually wants to be able to deliver, which fits their district better, their individual school district best.

And if you look at like a district like mine, I have a fairly large size school district and I have some very, very small school districts. They each have different needs that they need to provide for their students. And I think that this finds that perfect spot of still providing certainty, at the same time, some flexibility for our school districts.

 

Kay Henderson

In January, Governor Reynolds called on legislators to raise teacher pay for beginning teachers to $50,000 and for veteran teachers to around $62,000 a year. Is that going to be backdoor consolidation for rural schools, particularly the smaller schools in Iowa, who can't meet that kind of a payroll?

 

Pat Grassley

Well, I would say that when we passed, so when we passed the bill, we're building that funding into the funding mechanism that we have in place. So going to those new minimums, whether it's a 12 year or beginning teacher that's going to be covered within the State educational Foundation formula. So all of those dollar amounts to get everyone to the new baseline, the state is going to cover that. I would actually argue it probably puts our smaller school districts in a stronger position, especially in areas like mine where I'm near a metro area, the Waterloo, Cedar Falls area. You have them having the ability to pay a lot more because of the enrollment and other draws that they have on property tax and other things.

It actually, I think, puts some of those smaller school districts in a better position to compete, to be able to attract the best teachers, where right now maybe they're offering $10,000 to $15,000 less. So as far as the long term funding and making sure that that's sustainable, the state is going to pick up the adjustments to get us to those new minimums.

 

Kay Henderson

It appears that there's one-time funding for para educators, those people who are paired with a student or students who help them navigate the system, particularly students with special needs. Will that be continued? Will their pay be raised one year and then lowered the next?

 

Pat Grassley

Yeah. Our expectation, obviously that's a standing appropriation that was in the standings budget. We did not build that into the formula. That's something that through the conversations with AEAs that we felt extremely strongly about. The delivery of the special ed services on a day to day basis in the classroom, a lot of that is done by para and support staff within the school districts.

So that was something the House felt extremely strong about. So we're going to obviously continue to fight for that as we move forward. This year, it was $14 million in the standing appropriation. If we could get to a position where we could build that into the formula the way we did with the beginning salary, I know that's something that we're going to continue to fight for.

But we felt we took tremendous steps forward. Again, some of that was spurred on by the AEA conversation really bringing to light the true importance of that special ed delivery within the classroom.

 

Erin Murphy

Moving up to higher education. In last year's session, the discussion around diversity, equity and inclusion programs was that the Statehouse Republicans wanted to see some limitations and restrictions, but they felt that the Board of Regents was already doing those things. This year, those restrictions were passed into law. Why did you feel the need this year to codify those things that last year many Republicans said the Board of Regents is already doing this and we're fine with that?

 

Pat Grassley

Well, I think and just kind of looking back, we got to a position where we asked we wanted the board to give us some recommendations. And while and we really appreciate that they came up with some recommendations that I think that fit where we are trying to achieve. But I think at the same time, you know, you never know who's going to be on the board, what that looks like. We felt legislatively to codify that that was the right decision for us at the time. And as we were doing that, one of the important pieces within that conversation is we feel that we can take that money that's being currently being used. Some estimates say it's up to even $15 million. And what we did this year is we took that money from those changes within DEI at the Regents universities and put that into scholarships for high demand fields.

I think we're really trying to put our money as a state, as a taxpayer and as a state, we want to put our money into creating the next workforce. We know that's an issue across the state. So we felt that by taking those resources, putting it behind getting more kids into the high demand fields, by offering scholarships, that was a better use of the tax dollars.

And like I said, when we passed the bill that we implemented within our budget this session, we had had conversations with the Board of Regents. They were aware of that. The governor was aware of it. So we felt that, you know, as a team we sat down and kind of developed that. At the same time, also using those resources for we for something we think should be one of the priorities at our higher education institutions.

 

Erin Murphy

And another priority in that field or at least a topic of discussion was tuition costs and whether to cap those and how to do that. And maybe I need to admit to a conflict of interest with this question because I have a graduating senior going to college next year, so.

 

Pat Grassley

So do I.

 

Erin Murphy

So we're very familiar with this. That ultimately did not get done a tuition cap. And there were different proposals. Democrats had a proposal as well that attacked things differently. Is that something that you would still like to see happen legislatively?

 

Pat Grassley

Yeah, I think that's something we have to continue to talk about. We had two pieces of a bill that we passed out of the House that went to the Senate. One of the pieces was a cap and the other one was a tuition freeze in general. I think in the past we've looked at tuition freezes and the problem we've done those in such short increments that the institutions of higher education have enough reserves that they can kind of withstand it.

What we wanted to do is look at more of a long term freeze, which really should really should decrease the cost to deliver the education. If you have to really sit down and think over the next five years, we're limited to 3% growth, which our bill did. They're really going to have to make sure they're more efficient and delivery of education.

So I think that's what we're going to continue to talk about. But as far as far as those issues go, those are going to continue to be House Republican priorities. But we feel we took some good steps forward by providing relief through scholarships at this point. But I really do think we need to continue to look at a freeze and those other caps to provide certainty for the students going into those institutions.

 

Erin Murphy

Just real quick before we move on from that. One thing we inevitably here in that discussion is the question about funding from the state. And the argument is that it's difficult to keep tuitions down because the state is not funding the Regents like they used to. Can there be more funding or is that not the solution to you?

 

Pat Grassley

As a former appropriations chair, I always…there's other pots of money in which we support our Regents institutions significantly. We have the RIF fund, which is gambling dollars which replace which is used for bond replacement. I don't remember the exact rough off the top of my head. At one point I think it was 30 to 40 million. If that's butchered, that's five year old information I'm trying to go off of.

But we've done a significant amount of tuition replacement with that. We provide a lot of money for infrastructure through the fund. So there's other pots of money in which the legislature makes investment in higher education. And I think some of it, as you start as we started last year with these scholarships for high demand fields, I think we're really trying to get more towards encouraging outcomes that will help fill the workforce needs in the state.

So maybe they aren't just general fund appropriations, but we are putting more money into the system of higher education.

 

Katarina Sostaric 

You passed a law that will let state and local police arrest and deport some undocumented immigrants. If the courts let that take effect, does the legislature need to go back to a special session and appropriate more funds? Because how do you pay for flights to deport people? Immigration attorneys that, you know, the state currently doesn't have. And maybe even law enforcement training for people to know how to implement immigration laws?

 

Pat Grassley

Yeah, and I didn't get a chance to talk a lot about it, but on the standings bill, one of the last bills that we passed, we put an additional $2 million in for DPS to be able to help with some of the efforts toward to fulfill the mission of what this bill really set out. And not knowing whether it is upheld in the court.

You know, we've seen in Texas, for example, it was and then it wasn't. And so I guess a lot of what we are looking at doing, we understand the difficulties that come from that bill and some of the uncertainties that it creates. We did put some money in to support law enforcement to try to help implement it. But at the end of the day, some of it is and I've shared this with some of the members of our federal delegation, that if the federal government, regardless if you're Republican or Democrat, whoever is in charge. If they do not address the number one issue that we're hearing about, states are going to be left in a position where we have to do something. Telling our constituents that the number one issue we're hearing about is something we can't do anything about or even attempt to do anything, I think really is not the right decision for states to make. We have to we have to do everything we can to try to implement policies that we think will address the number one concern that we're hearing.

Because I really do believe that if the election were held today, that is the driving issue that we're hearing. We had some meetings with some candidates that are running for office. Asked them the issues that they're hearing at the doors as they're door knocking for primaries and other things. And that is the number one driver. And until the federal government is going to act, I think you're going to see more and more states having to take aggressive measures, kind of like what we did there.

 

Katarina Sostaric 

Do you think the state should be paying to deport people, to fly people back to Central, South America?

 

Pat Grassley

Well, I think part of it is part of the problem that we have with the whole immigration right now is the fact that we have no guidance from the federal government. If you have somebody that comes here that's seeking asylum, what is their current status? Some of the conversations we've had with law enforcement, when they maybe pull over someone or arrest someone, they can't even get any feedback from the federal government what is the status of this individual? So some of it is, I don't know if I can answer the question from the standpoint of we don't we have no cooperation from the federal agencies like ICE and others that should be giving some guidance to the states. So it's very hard to answer that question from that standpoint. But again, I don't think as a state or other states can just bury their head in the sand that until the federal government is going to act, that we just sit and just say, well, I hope that they do at some point.

 

Erin Murphy

Given everything you just said, was it a mistake for Congressional Republicans to kill the immigration bill that had been negotiated and was on the table?

 

Pat Grassley

I think that's a I'm going to leave that question to the other Grassley. Here's what I can tell you. I have shared with the other Grassley on why we did what we did from the state perspective, that this is something that states are going to have to act. As far as the ins and out, I have enough bills on my plate to try to remember to come talk to you guys about as far as the ins and out of every piece of legislation.

I just know that at the federal government that is something that they need to take action. And if they don't, states are going to be in a position where we're not left a lot of options.

 

Kay Henderson

Speaking of multiple bills, the Iowa House over the past few years has passed a number of bills related to carbon capture pipelines. They have always failed to emerge from the Iowa Senate, which is also controlled by Republicans. Do you think some Senate Republicans may pay a political price for that decision?

 

Pat Grassley

Well, here's what I can say is it is a very hot topic that we're hearing about. We continue to hear about. Not just in rural Iowa, in certain parts of the state. It's all over. As far as political consequences, I'm not going to predict how anything impacts any of the state senators in their elections that they may have before.

Here's what I can say is it is an issue that I feel that we're going to have to address the issue of property rights as a state. The problem is right now we're in a heated debate about a specific set of projects that's going on. Quite frankly, as a legislature. And I guess I would fall into this camp. Some of these topics, like the bill we brought forward today to give some certainty at the beginning of the project versus the end.

These are the kind of things that we should have been doing as a state to modernize our property rights laws that we have in the state when it comes to eminent domain. The problem is it seems like we always find ourselves in the middle of these battles. We had Rock Island Clean Line a few years ago. Now we're in the pipeline situation. So there never feels like there's a position for the legislature just to step back, take a deep breath without emotions being involved and actually update our eminent domain laws.

I would like for that to be a part of the conversation, but I think as long as there's these hot button issues going on, it's going to be very difficult. But House Republicans have taken two very strong actions, we feel, to protect property rights, whether it was the bill last year at the 90% threshold or this year, making sure that at the front end there's certainty whether the use of eminent domain is possible.

You know, we feel very strongly. And obviously we'd like to see some of those advance in the Senate. And I see those being continued conversations in the next year.

 

Erin Murphy

What are your legislative priorities? At the beginning of the session was to address issues of needs in Iowa's nursing homes across the state. You all did pass some legislation, but I think your critics would say that it didn't go far enough and that in some cases it was just codifying current practices. In your view, did you do enough to ensure that Iowa's nursing homes are properly staffed and that patients are safe, or does more need to be done?

 

Pat Grassley

Yeah, and I think there's two fronts that are discussed when you talk about this. There's inspections and what it looks like from the state's perspective. We put more money into that. I think if I remember right, we were even above the request from the department. So we felt that obviously understanding that concern that was out there.

But at the same time, whenever we talk about Medicaid, we could spend an entire year on this, which I'm assuming you'd invite me here to do. But whenever we talk about Medicaid right now, we pay about 50% of the bills in Iowa's nursing homes. Approximately, not in every one. And right now, a lot of what's happening is the salaries, especially through traveling nurses and others, are consuming all of the additional resources we put in.

So when it comes to continuity of care and making sure that these facilities have the resources they need to to maximize their operations, we felt that the bill that we passed earlier in the session, which would address a few of those pieces, was a huge would be one of the biggest steps that we've taken forward and trying to provide continued continuity of care and better care within our nursing homes.

Now, not all that piece was able to move forward and we're going to continue to look at that as it does through the interim, see if maybe the hundred and 50% cap that we put in that bill was the right number. Maybe it's a different number, but it's something that as a legislature, we just can't look the other way on because there's always more needs on the Medicaid reimbursement rates for all sorts of different sectors, not just this one. We need to make sure we're maximizing those dollars. We felt that's what our bill would have done, but we were unable to get agreement across the rotunda.

 

Katarina Sostaric 

One of the bills that the Senate passed, but the House didn't what have a limited answer and lawsuits against pesticide manufacturers from people with severe illnesses alleging that these companies failed to warn them that they could get cancer or Parkinson's. And you call this one of the tough issues of the session. But you said that, you know, you were worried that if the bill didn't pass, that that could jeopardize the future of the weedkiller Roundup being manufactured in Iowa.

But what we heard from opponents is that the lawsuits from Iowa only make up 1% of those lawsuits. So how would limiting those ensure the future of Roundup in the state?

 

Pat Grassley

I think what I…Just to make sure that I'm clear in what I'm saying, I'm not questioning what you're saying. I think that is what I said. What I think is I think we'll have access to that product, as in general. The question is, where are we going to get it? Currently, the North, if you want to buy Roundup from Bayer, that's going to be a product that's made in Iowa.

It's a North American product and feeds quite a bit of North America, the production of it in North America. Here's what I can say about the bill is, yes, it was a very difficult issue trying to decide where to land on that. I think if you've seen some of the impacts it has had on Bayer as a company. We have to realize it is having an impact.

And the largest facility they have in creation of Roundup here in the state is in Iowa. So the question gets back to me is where do we want to source our things within agriculture? It could be Roundup or this herbicide in this instance. It could be something else some other time. I just don't want us to become more dependent on something that's not produced here in Iowa or in America and have to look to other countries, maybe even some that are unfriendly, that produce these products.

So will it go away as a whole? Unlikely that the issue or the glyphosate will go away. But seeing where it's produced and where we're getting that product from, I think that is the piece that's in question.

 

Erin Murphy

Another bill that was ultimately not agreed upon between the House and the Senate would have addressed how the state spends funds from the opioid settlement, the national, Iowa’s share of that national settlement. Real quick, what was the hang up there? Why couldn't that agreement be reached? And in the meantime, what will happen to those?

 

Pat Grassley

Right now, the funds would be in limbo. So that's the problem with us not having acted. I think that what we wanted to do in our original proposal, and where we would like to get to as a legislature. Or the House. I should speak for the House. Where we wanted to get as a sign some of those dollars to specific projects, but at the same time not just blanket give over handles dollars over to the department.

So what we wanted to do, at least for the few years to get it off and running with these new money, is that we are seeing two states. We wanted to at least set up an advisory board that the legislature would have some input on. We couldn't come to agreement with the Senate and maybe finding a balance where maybe we put some money in some of the projects, maybe we put some into the department.

But then at the end of the day, the bulk of the funds would have some advisory by the legislature. And I think at least for the few first few years of that, I really think that's the way the system should work. I think once we get it off and running and you're having the right groups or organizations utilizing the dollars, I think to legislature could pull back a little bit.

But to get those kind of dollars that you're talking about out the door, I think the legislature should be involved that conversation. And ultimately that's where the differences boil down, turn it over to the department or have a little bit more control by the legislature.

 

Kay Henderson

Mr. Speaker, one of the things you did was pass a bill to cut income taxes next year by about $1,000,000,000 by having a single rate of 3.8% on the individual income tax. As you and other Republicans campaign for reelection in November, will you offer Iowans a plan for what you plan to do next?

 

Pat Grassley

Well, I would say as far as a plan on what we plan on doing next, I think what you can expect from House Republicans is we're going to want to look at getting money back in the hands of taxpayers. Right now, we're sitting on even after that bill is fully enacted at the three eight flat level, we're still going to be looking at a projected over $4 billion between our ending balances and between our taxpayer relief fund.

We believe that that's too much money for the government just to be sitting on. We want to get that back in the hands of Iowans. As far as where we sit today with the with the unpredictability of the November elections, what they look like at the federal level. Will we be able to lay out a plan on what it may look like?

I don't. As I sit here today, I don't know if I can answer that. What I can assure Iowans, though, is if we have an over collection of their dollars and we can get it back into their hands in a responsible manner, which House Republicans have always wanted to make sure that whatever we pass for tax cuts has certainty so it will be delivered upon, we're going to continue to do that. I don't think that should be surprising to hear a Republican Speaker say that if we can return that money to taxpayers, we'd like to do that.

 

Kay Henderson

Would you have a structural surplus if not for the federal pandemic dollars that were sent to the state?

 

Pat Grassley

Yeah, I think I think the answer to that is yes. Remember the taxpayer relief fund that was created that right now has about $3 billion. That's just an over collection. That is the over that is the over collection of the final estimate. So as far as dollars, we haven't taken any federal dollars and poured them into that fund. So that itself just took place due to the growth in revenue from the state’s, the last estimate versus the final end of year closing of the books.

 

Kay Henderson

About half a second left. People always ask you if you want to be a United States Senator like your grandfather. You've been in the legislature 18 years. Do you want to be governor?

 

Pat Grassley

Listen, I'm running for reelection to focus to continue to build as majority as the House. I can tell you what I do enjoy doing, though. I will tell you, being at the track meet this week to get my blood flowing again, blood going again? Yeah, those are the things that I really enjoy doing. So I'm going to run for reelection, hoping to lead this majority to even bigger things.

 

Kay Henderson

Speaking of running, we're running out of time. Thank you for being with us on this edition of Iowa Press.

 

Pat Grassley

Thanks, Kay.

 

Kay Henderson

You can watch every edition of Iowa Press at IowaPBS.org. For everyone here at Iowa PBS, thanks for watching today.

 

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