Washington forum features immigration, basic income, teachers

WASHINGTON — A monthly forum with State Rep. Heather Hora and State Sen. Dawn Driscoll was held at St. James Parish & School in Washington on Friday, March 8. The event was the second of its kind hosted by the Washington Chamber of Commerce this legislative session.

As a microphone snaked its way around the room for dozens of questions, comments and concerns from constituents, a handful of recurring themes surfaced.

Teachers, community weigh in on education bills

As with much of the attention on Des Moines this year, education was a frequent topic of discussion at the forum.

A handful of current and former teachers used their comments to thank the legislators for a recent house bill that, if approved, would set a state minimum salary of $47,500 for teachers, as well as another that would set a state supplemental aid rate of 3% for the year.

Some felt the cash flow into education was “long overdue.”

"What took so long?“ asked KCII Reporter Nick Pett. ”It’s been 11 years since the salary has changed. Obviously, the price of everything else has gone up in 11 years. And when something passes 93-1 in the house … that either means it’s long overdue, or a terrific idea, or both.“

Other education bills, meanwhile, proved more contentious.

One member of the audience said she was concerned a house bill reforming Area Education Agencies would allow big school districts to pull resources out of shared special education networks.

"If cuts are made to the AEA services, small districts will not have sufficient dollars to provide services,“ said one speaker. ”Please slow down this process, don’t push it through just to get it through. This is too important to do quickly, and once you make these changes it’s going to be really hard to go back.“

Hora argued that the current version of the bill did represent those careful considerations.

“We worked with all of the AEA chiefs, we worked with teachers, we worked with superintendents, we worked with parents, we worked with special ed,” she said. “The AEAs have gone neutral on it. They don’t support it, necessarily, but going neutral is a win when it comes to AEA reform. So we did slow down the process, we listened, and I think our bill is fantastic.”

Another hot-button bill passed by the house last month would spell out which subjects Iowa’s history teachers can and cannot teach at each grade level, including a requirement that students learn “devotion to the United States’ exceptional and praiseworthy history.”

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Opponents of the legislation have criticized it for leaving out requirements about immigration, labor unions or Jim Crow laws, while others argue its language downplays the impact of slavery on the country. Some have accused the bill of seeking to instill specific political values in kids, such as a section that requires curriculum on the “free enterprise system and its benefits” but not issues like wage stagnation or wealth inequality.

That bill drew little criticism in Washington on Friday, however, with one audience member praising the legislation’s passage in the house.

“I don’t want a history teacher coming into a class with one political agenda coming into a class, and tainting American history, which has been done, painting this country as a racist country,” said Kalona resident Jim Miller. “I feel that civics deals with the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, the founding documents. That’s all that needs to be taught.”

Mixed sentiments on immigration

Senate File 2340 advanced from Iowa’s senate to the house a few days before Friday’s forum. The bill would make illegal immigration in Iowa not only a federal crime, but a state one, adding felony charges for undocumented immigrants and allowing Iowa law enforcement to transport people to national ports of entry to ensure they exit the country.

Another bill, House File 2608, would requires expanded documentation for public assistance recipients, seeking closer scrutiny of their legal residency and citizenship status. The bill would also establish smuggling offenses for human trafficking in the state.

Washington Mennonite Church Pastor Nick Detweiler-Stoddard, however, said he worried the legislation went too far. He compared it to a similar law passed in Texas, which has been used by the state to bring some nonprofit charities to court.

He said he encouraged lawmakers to adopt an attitude of “hospitality,” rather than heightened enforcement.

“As a congregation that works with a number of migrants, has a migrant congregation using our building … I know it’s written to target criminal human traffickers, but I know in other states which we modeled it on, the attorney general (in) Texas immediately used it to target ministries,” Detweiler-Stoddard said. “I don’t want us to be hampered as ministries … to care for all members of our community, regardless of documentation status.”

Hora said she was confident the bill would see enforcement as intended, saying police would only use it to target bad actors.

“It is directed at illegals who are being brought into our country,” she said. “Some of those are being brought in by different charities that will bring them into this state … if you speak to the people on the border, in Arizona and things like that, it is a problem.”

Other guests at the meeting said they supported the lawmakers’ push to crack down on illegal immigration.

“The laws that we have for immigration are not being followed,” Washington County Supervisor Jack Seward Jr. said. “Let’s get back to a nation with borders, with laws.”

Basic income limitation draws unexpected attention

The first question of the forum, asked by The Southeast Iowa Union, regarded House File 2319, a bill passed by that body of the legislature that would ban cities and counties from conducting taxpayer-funded basic income programs.

If approved by the senate and signed by the governor, the legislation would effectively shut down UpLift, a pilot project in Polk, Dallas and Warren counties that currently gives 110 recipients $500 in supplemental income per month, all of whom have at least one dependent in their household and make no more than 60% of their area’s median income.

Hora voted in favor of the bill. She said she disagreed with such programs.

“It’s guaranteed income, and we have a workforce shortage,” she said. “A guaranteed income program is a slippery slope going down into socialism, and we are not a socialist country, nor are we a socialist state.”

Some meeting attendees disagreed, arguing that such programs offered people a lift out of poverty, and that UpLift was at least partially funded by non-taxpayer sources, including contributions from United Way of Central Iowa, Bank of America and Wells Fargo.

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Hora, however, argued that the state had numerous other programs to help those people instead.

"We’re not taking food out of the mouths of babies,“ she said. ”We did not stop SNAP, we did not stop WIC, we did not stop any of those things. The guaranteed income program was completely separate from that.“

Washington County resident Richard Gilmore said he felt the issue was a matter of local control, saying cities and counties should be free to seek aid solutions without state interference.

“We have a Board of Supervisors, and we have all kinds of things that we, as a county, want done,” he said. “If that is, ‘Give 110 people a pilot program, and see if they can raise themselves out (of poverty,)’ and it is better money spent, I think the county should be allowed to do it. But the state seems to think it knows better on everything.”

‘Fake meat’ legislation gets spotlight

In the farmland-filled districts of Sen. Driscoll and Rep. Hora, agricultural issues are frequent subjects at legislative forums. Friday’s was no different.

Driscoll said she was proud to see legislation advancing that would require clear labeling for plant-based meat analogues. She said the bill would help protect livestock farmers from misleading competition.

"There was several states where this could have potentially passed and it got shut down … and we learned from them,“ she said. ”What we’re trying to do is promote and protect our livestock industry. Here in Iowa, we are the number one (meat) processing state in the United States, and we’re very proud of that.“

Hora said she supported the bill as well.

“You know, dairy didn’t protect the term ‘milk’ when almond and oat and those type of things wanted to call themselves milk instead of juice,” she said. “This is stepping out and getting ahead of the fake meat programs that are out there.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com