This week on the Hill

This past Wednesday, the House Education Committee passed a bill that does not allow gender identity and sexual orientation instruction to be taught to kindergarten through sixth grade students.

This means that all instruction regarding human growth and development not only has to be age-appropriate and research-based, but also cannot include promotion or instruction on these topics.

Children in these grades should be focused on curriculum and instruction in math, science, language arts and history. There is no compelling reason young children should have class time spent on gender identity and sexual orientation instead of core academic subjects.

New Furbearing Legislation

On Tuesday, the House Natural Resources Committee considered, amended and passed House File 113 that has become House File 317. The legislation amends existing law on furbearing animals to provide a new circumstance when a person could take on their own property a raccoon, opossum or skunk, without prior permission of the state Natural Resource Commission (NRC) typically a Department of Natural Resources (DNR) wildlife officer or DNR wildlife experts) when such animals are a nuisance.

The gist of the measure is that it will allow agricultural land owners to proactively take nuisance furbearers instead waiting until those animals are an active threat to themselves, their property and their domesticated animals.

Tax Reform

Yesterday the Iowa house prevents a $133 million in residential property taxes after there was a mistake made after the passage of a 2021 law.

The passage of this bill will save Iowans millions, and certainly sets the stage for further tax reform down the road.

Agriculture

It was an extremely busy week in the House agricultural committee. We passed the three following bills.

HF 279 reduces the requirement for both farmers market and temporary food vendors that sell temperature and time sensitive foods that it the vendors sell in multiple county locations that instead of being required to pay multiple county fees for food inspection time, they could instead pay once for a statewide inspection and fee for that class of food establishment.

HF 277 was amended in Committee on a voice vote to add the temporary food vendor aspect and passed the Committee by a unanimous 20-aye vote

HF 282 changes various Code provisions relating to the management of soil and water resources. The bill provides that along with traditional duties and powers exercised by these bodies relating to soil erosion and flood protection, they may also carry out water quality protection projects and soil health projects that have efforts to maintain, protect, and improve the quality of surface water and groundwater from point and nonpoint sources in a manner consistent with the Iowa nutrient reduction strategy. The measure authorizes cooperation between districts, subdistricts, and political subdivisions. HF 282 was approved by the House Agriculture Committee by a unanimous 20-aye vote.

In District 92

Sen. Driscoll and I had the pleasure of visiting Pleasantview Home in Kalona on Friday.

We discussed funding for senior care, and Washington County's aging population.

Dawn and I were very impressed with the upgrades the community had made to the campus and with the new plans they had for a dementia unit.

Did you know?

Legalized sports betting is now in its third year in Iowa, with Iowans and residents of neighboring states taking advantage of this new activity. Legalized betting has also produced a new revenue stream for the state.

In FY 2021, sports wagering tax collections jumped to $6.1 million.

In Fiscal Year 2022, the sports wagering tax payments totaled $9.585 million. That was growth of 58 percent for the year. And how are collections coming in during the current fiscal year? Through January 2023, $1.381 billion has been wagered through Iowa casinos on sporting events. As for tax collections on those wagers, the state has received $8.365 million. This puts FY 2023 collections 41.8% ahead of the collections through January 2022.

I was very thankful to see that Iowa is taking advantage of this opportunity to raise money for its communities and schools. These numbers should remain relatively strong as additional competition is not appearing on the horizon. Nebraska will allow betting on sporting events when their casinos begin to open, but those bets will have to be placed inside the casino — not on any sports wagering app. And Minnesota continues to fumble around with the issue of sports wagering without making any headway. Iowa’s sports wagering position seems solid, at least for the near future.