Dickey sworn in to Senate, proposes bills on first responders, transportation

PACKWOOD – Adrian Dickey had one night to enjoy his victory in the race for District 41 of the Iowa Senate before he had to pack his bags for Des Moines.

Dickey, a Republican from Packwood, defeated Democrat Mary Stewart on Jan. 26 in a special election to fill the seat vacated by Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks. Dickey had been nominated to run less than three weeks earlier, so it left little time to campaign.

But Dickey couldn't afford to rest after the election, either, because soon he would become a member of the Iowa Senate and cast votes on a wide array of bills. Dickey wasted no time in starting his studies. He drove to Des Moines the morning after the election to familiarize himself with the Capitol.

'The 18 days before the election had been a whirlwind, so why change it now?” Dickey joked.

Dickey was not able to vote on bills immediately because the four counties that comprise District 41 – Wapello, Jefferson, Van Buren and Davis – had to certify the Jan. 26 election results. For a week and a half, Dickey went to the Capitol every day to listen to the Senate's committees and caucus with his fellow Republicans.

Caucusing refers to how the members of a party gather to discuss bills they're proposing. Whoever is sponsoring the bill has the opportunity to tell the other members of the party about it.

'There are so many bills that come through,” Dickey said. 'You can read them all, but it's hard to do the investigation and research into all of them. You depend on every Senator in your party researching a bill and filling everybody else in.”

Dickey sat on as many different committees as he could in those early days because he didn't know which committees he would be assigned to. On Feb. 8, he was sworn-in as a voting member of the Senate and given his committee assignments. He let Senate leadership know his list of preferred committees based on his experience, and one of them is right in his wheelhouse, transportation committee, for which he was named vice chair. Dickey is the president of Dickey Transport in Packwood, a company his grandfather Harold founded in 1959 and which now has a fleet of 75 trucks.

On Tuesday, Feb. 9, Dickey was in charge of running the transportation committee meeting.

'To say I was nervous would be an understatement,” he said. 'I had never even participated in a committee meeting, let alone run one. It was a trial by fire, and quite the experience for Day 2.”

Dickey was also put on committees for labor and for ways and means, which deals with budget and tax issues. Dickey has a clerk who helps him sort through the 200-300 emails he receives daily. The clerk prioritizes the emails that come from constituents in District 41 so Dickey can respond to all of them. The clerk does research for Dickey and organizes his schedule, which includes meetings over Zoom and meeting people in person.

In his first week as a Senator, Dickey drafted a couple of bills that he hopes to shepherd through the Legislature. One of them is a campaign promise to increase the tax credit first responders receive from $100 a year to $1,000. Dickey said he's been meeting with members of the Iowa House so they can introduce a sister bill in their chamber. Dickey said he's still writing the bill, and will have to find a way to pay for it without raising taxes.

Dickey introduced another bill that would allow those with commercial driver's licenses to renew their licenses online every other year and in-person in the other years. Under current law, those drivers must renew their license in-person every year, and Dickey said that's a needlessly onerous requirement.

'This bill will be helpful to people in the industry,” Dickey said.

His new fulltime job is not stopping Dickey from running his business in Packwood. The Legislature usually meets Monday through Thursday, though Dickey doesn't have to be at the Capitol every day because some of his meetings are online. He spends his nights and weekends tending to Dickey Transport responsibilities.

The new schedule has left Dickey with precious little free time, but he's still able to find time for his family. This past weekend, he and his son Kyler traveled to Springfield, Missouri, where Kyler participated in motocross races.

'He's racing and I'm working from the van,” Dickey said. 'I brought a stack of papers 1.5-inches tall that I'm reading through so that when I return to the Capitol on Monday, I'll be ready to go.”