Education focus of legislative forum

Education, climate change, immigration and the judicial system were all topics of debate at Saturday's Legislative forum at Fairfield Best Western.

The public had the opportunity to ask questions of local legislators such as Iowa Reps. Jeff Shipley (R-Fairfield) and Joe Mitchell (R-Mt. Pleasant), and Iowa Sen. Rich Taylor (D-Mt. Pleasant). Iowa Sen. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Ottumwa) was absent.

Education funding

The issue that drew the most interest was education. Mitchell said in his opening remarks that the Iowa House approved House File 306, allocating nearly $90 million in new dollars for K-12 schools, bringing the total to $3.3 billion for the 2019-20 school year. The bill passed 53-47.

A second bill related to school funding, House File 307, also passed. It added $5 per pupil on top of the general fund aid, an additional $2.3 million, for 179 districts. At the same time, 185 districts will get $7.8 million more in transportation equity payments, bringing the total to $19 million. The two bills combined would raise school funding 2.3 percent.

Mitchell said he was 'a product of public schools” and proud of securing more money for them. Shipley, who voted against both bills and was the only representative to vote against the transportation bill, said that more money for schools does not always mean better schools. In his weekly e-newsletter, Shipley wrote that education spending has increased 30 percent since 2011, which he said outpaces inflation by a 3:1 ratio.

At the forum, Fairfield resident Lisa Greenig spoke about the issues she was concerned about as a teacher. She was thankful the House passed the increase in supplemental state aid, but would have preferred to see a 3 percent increase. She said she was upset the Legislature removed protections for public employees engaged in collective bargaining. She added that her next worry was that the Legislature would try to reduce IPERS (Iowa Public Employees' Retirement System).

Shipley said he felt that, no matter what the Legislature does for education, some people will think it's not enough money.

'If the Republicans had [supported] 3 percent, you would have wanted 4 percent. If the Republicans had supported 4, you would have said 6,” he said.

Taylor said funding education is important because it has a ripple effect throughout society. An educated workforce will attract more businesses to move to Iowa.

'There are thousands of jobs in Iowa that need educated people, so to underfund our education in K-12 is not very responsible of us. If corporations don't have the proper people to fill their jobs, they're going to leave our state.”

Taylor said he 'would never touch IPERS to make it worse. If I do touch it, it will be to make it better.”

Mitchell said neither he nor 99 percent of his colleagues want to touch IPERS. He said reforming IPERS is not something the Legislature is considering.

Mitchell said that the state's problem now is the growth in the cost of Medicaid, which has grown 250 percent in the last 15 years. He said there simply isn't enough money to give every agency and every department the money they want.

'You tell me where you want to take [the money] from,” he said. 'Do you want to take it from the old people? From the disabled? From the poor people who need it? We have other funding concerns now because Medicaid costs have gone out of control.”

Resident Stan Plum asked Shipley to explain why he voted against the transportation funding bill. Shipley said that schools are stuck in antiquated model and need to think of a future where they can bring the classroom to the kids.

'On my cell phone, I can download AP courses and applications that can teach me any foreign language for free,” Shipley said. 'You're a failing model. It's a 20th-century model, we're living in the 21st century, and the people clapping are all 60-70 years old.”

Judiciary

Republicans in the capitol are pushing a plan that would alter how the state's judges are chosen, and this was the subject of much discussion during the forum. Under current law, a commission recommends candidates for Iowa's governor to appoint as judges. Half the commission members are chosen by the governor, and half are lawyers elected by other lawyers. The proposal would eliminate the lawyer elections and let legislative leaders of both parties appoint half the members.

Fairfield attorney John Morrissey said Iowa's judicial selection process has been the same for more than 50 years. He asked the legislators what is driving the desire to change the process.

Mitchell said during the forum that the goal of the proposal was to make Iowa's nominating procedure more transparent. He said having seven 'unelected people from the bar [association]” was not transparent.

In an interview after the forum, Mitchell was asked if any particular Supreme Court cases prompted Republicans to make this proposal. He did not feel that was the case, but added that, 'There have been rulings we've been upset about.” He mentioned the Supreme Court ruling the 'heartbeat” abortion bill unconstitutional as one of them. The law would have banned abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected, which can happen as early as six weeks into pregnancy.

'Right now, the three appointees Gov. Reynolds gets to pick from are a Republican, a Democrat and an independent,” Mitchell said. 'Even the Republicans [the commission] is sending her don't align with her judicial view.”

Shipley said he had not made up his mind on the proposal.

Taylor defended Iowa's current model and said it is regarded as the best system in the country. He lauded it for taking politics out of the courts. He criticized the Republicans' proposal because it would give too much power to the political parties.

'Attorneys are the experts in the field. They know whether [a nominee] is good or bad,” he said. 'I hope we don't fall for this because it's a power grab.”

Climate change

Margaret Dwyer of the Southeast Iowa Sierra Club said her organization has proposed legislation to create an 'agriculture-climate adaption plan” to address climate change. She asked the legislators if they would support such a bill, and what they're willing to do on the issue.

Taylor began by saying, 'Climate change is real. It's not something somebody made up.” At the same time, he said an even more pressing environmental concern is cleaning the state's water.

'We refuse to spend money to fix this problem. A lot of people say we should let the farmers fix it since it's their fault,” he said. 'It's not all their fault. Some of it is their fault, but some of it is nature's fault, some of it is the way we use our land, some of it comes from people in the cities.”

Mitchell said he would be interested in seeing the Sierra Club's bill. He said the state passed funding for water quality last year amounting to $270 million over 12 years.

Shipley the climate change debate has been around for many years. He recalled watching a film in eighth grade that portrayed an apocalyptic scenario if nothing was done about climate change. He said such predictions have not held up over time.

'I believe climate change is real and that there is an environmental impact, and that human beings could stand to improve their relationship with the earth,” he said.

At the same time, Shipley said he did not believe it was worth 'reorganizing the global economy for maybe a 1 degree Celsius reduction in global temperature.”

Immigration

Resident Annalisa Miller asked the panel about Iowa Senate File 481. The bill, signed last year by Gov. Reynolds, barred state funding of cities and counties that put limits on local law enforcement's involvement in immigration enforcement. Miller said the bill was a bad idea, since it erodes trust between law enforcement and the local community.

Miller said immigration raids in Mt. Pleasant last year and more recently in Washington have 'affected communities at a very fundamental level.” She said the raids affected not just the workers arrested but their families and the school system.

'These are people who are not criminal in a violent way. All they want is to be part of the community, to live safely, just like you and I,” Miller said.

Taylor said it unreasonable to expect local law enforcement to assist in immigration control since it doesn't have the funding to do that.

Mitchell said the conversations he's had with law enforcement suggest officers don't want to just go looking for illegal immigrants, and he would not support action that requires them to do so.

'At the end of the day, this is a federal issue. The state can't do that much about it,” he said. 'At the end of the day, we have laws, and people need to come here legally. At the same time, I understand these people have kids in the schools, and you have a personal relationship with them. From my perspective, my sister is Guatemalan. I've been to Guatemala three times helping on mission trips. I've seen how these people live. They live in really bad conditions. Why wouldn't they want to come here?”

Shipley said the economy desperately needs workers, and rounding up immigrants puts a stress on those businesses.

'Let's ask ourselves, what is it about America that makes it the country everyone in the world wants to come to?” he said. 'Let's focus on those values and represent those values.”

After the forum, Miller said she wanted to clarify that though immigration enforcement is a federal issue, Iowa Senate 481 is a state issue and within the legislators' purview.

CAFOs

Resident Diane Rosenberg asked the legislators if they would support a moratorium on confined animal feeding operations. Mitchell said he understood the concerns people have about CAFOs, but didn't want to pass laws that would be too detrimental to the industry.

Shipley said he feels uncomfortable telling people what to do with their private property. He believes CAFOs should be sited in a better way, but decided not to support a law declaring them a nuisance because, 'At the end of the day, people got to make a living.”

Taylor said he didn't want to penalize people who have already built CAFOs, but wanted to make sure that 'new ones aren't at your backdoor.”