~by State Senator Jesse Green
Greetings friends and neighbors.
Another week has come and gone. The past couple weeks it has felt like that we have been “on call.” Leadership of both chambers are currently in negotiations attempting to reconcile their budgets so we can wrap up this session. Being the new guy in the chamber, my role this year primarily has been to learn about the process of how business in the building is conducted, how to run a bill, how to properly vet a bill, and what the unique role of each chamber is.
One unique role the Senate has is approving the governor’s appointments to different boards. To give you a sense of what this looks like, there are well over 1,000 governor-appointed positions to various boards. Every year the Senate approves a few hundred of these positions. Each appointment is given a subcommittee with three senators to begin the process. The subcommittee is comprised of two Republicans and one Democrat due to Republicans holding the majority. We are all given a resume or answers to a questionnaire that each appointee has filled out for us to read. Most of these appointees have already served on these boards so the decisions on whether or not to approve them are fairly easy. As a freshman, each assignment has given me the opportunity to learn about what each board does. I have thoroughly enjoyed this process.
This week we had one day of debate and voting. Generally each week there is at least one bill that brings a lot of attention. This week there were three for me which were HF675, SF581, and SF589.
HF675 is a bill that will help to address a problem that most schools face which is the ability to find more substitute teachers. Many schools struggle to find people to fill this need that schools have. This bill provides opportunities for those who have Associate degrees to be able to fill these roles. I believe this bill will have an instant positive impact for education in Iowa.
SF581 is a bill I helped work on which addresses deer population management. This bill tips the scales back to the favor of farmers, landowners, and citizens of Iowa who have been dealing with nuisance deer on their property. This bill requires a comprehensive study to be conducted by the DNR, ISU, DOT and the Iowa Insurance Division to get a thorough look at the overall deer population and it’s impact on Iowa. It also requires the DNR to allow for a January rifle hunting/depredation season for the counties in which allocated tags went unsold. The purpose of this season is not to hunt for sport but strictly for management. January depredation tags will be sold by the DNR beginning the day after late muzzleloader season and will be available until either they are gone or the January season has ended.
SF589 is a bill I was honored to floor-manage. This bill allows an adopted person, who has a birth certificate that is the result of the adoption, the ability to obtain a copy of their original birth certificate. Many people were in the Senate gallery to see its passage in the Senate. Michelle Spears was one of the people in attendance. She has been a part of the work on this bill for 7 years now. This bill is another example of how most legislation takes a long time to get through this building. The benefit of this slow process though is that it makes it more likely that the bill will be a good one and beneficial to Iowans. Getting this bill passed was certainly one of the highlights for me so far this year.
The House has just sent us HF 857, which provides funding for small and medium sized lockers in Iowa to start or expand their businesses. I would like to give special thanks to Representative Phil Thompson and Representative Chad Ingels for their work on this bill. I will give much of my attention to this bill in the Senate to help it along through the process. If we can get this bill across the finish line, it will be a big win for Iowa. We were sent here to fix problems. The pandemic revealed a weakness in Iowa within our meat processing industry that we can help resolve and will not cost the taxpayer much money. I am proud of the Iowa House for their quick work on this bill.
Happy trails until we meet again next week!
