Private property rights and the use of eminent domain is the most sensitive issue coming out of the 2023 legislative session, according to State Sen Jesse Green, who serves Greene County as part of Senate District 24.
He and Carter Nordman, who serves Greene County as part of House District 47, answered questions from about two dozen constituents at a legislative forum hosted March 11 in Jefferson by the board of Thomas Jefferson Gardens.
Green and Nordman are both Republicans. The Iowa Republican Party platform opposes use of eminent domain to take private property away from owners for the use of another private party. At issue currently is the use of eminent domain to gain rights-of-way for carbon dioxide pipelines.
Nordman voted in favor of HF 368 in the House judiciary committee. HF 368 intends to protect property rights. Nordman said he supported sending the bill to the full House but that “the bill needs a lot of work before it’s ready for prime time. We voted for it to be sure we started that conversation. We have to make sure that we’re protecting property owners’ rights. That doesn’t mean we can just throw economic development out the window, either. There has to be a balance there.”
He added that he wants to be sure there are no unintended consequences for whatever bill the House might pass.
“This will be the most sensitive issue coming out of this session by far,” Green said.
According to him, anything having to do with the Iowa Utilities Board is in the purview of the commerce committee. He said he and a couple of colleagues worked on language “that would be passable, that we could send to the governor to have signed,” but the bill died in a subcommittee. “That was our last vehicle in the Senate to have this conversation. I was pretty irritated,” he said.
He said that right now asking 10 different legislators about property rights and eminent domain would produce 10 different answers.
He said definitions of “public good” and “public will” need to be clarified before discussing a threshold of voluntary easements needed before any further land needed for a project is taken via eminent domain. He said he hopes for conversation with colleagues to “iron this out.”
Nordman said he hasn’t talked to many people who are adamantly opposed to a carbon pipeline because it creates markets for Iowa corn growers and Iowa ethanol. “If it was going through my property, I’d probably say ‘sign me up’,” he said.
“We have to make sure we’re balancing this legislation to make sure we still have economic development in our state, but also protecting landowner rights,” Nordman said.
Both Nordman and Green said that they would not vote to pass HF368 in its current form as portions of it still need clarification.
The forum was moderated by veteran news publisher Rick Morain. He accepted questions for the legislators in writing, and then sorted them for duplicates and put them in a semblance of order. The first question of the morning was “What does ‘woke’ mean?”
Green answered that in the negative sense, it refers to “issues of critical race theory, some of the issues that are being taught in our schools in regards to LGBTQ things, and stuff like that. I do believe there’s a positive sense of the word as well. It depends on the context it’s being used in.”
Nordman answered that to him, “’woke’ means being so far to one side of something or idealogy. “It’s brought out a lot in politics. We do see a lot of wokeness from I believe the other party that’s become so far to the other side on some issues.”
[Editor’s note: Neither explained “woke” using the Merriam Webster Dictionary definition as an awareness and active attention to important facts and issues, particularly issues of racial and social justice.]
The legislators were asked about eliminating the state income tax.
Nordman said he’s in favor of eliminating the state sales tax, saying it would make the state more competitive in attracting new businesses and residents. He said he voted for the flat tax of 3.9 percent and the elimination of tax on retirement income. He said he’d be in favor of reducing the number of exemptions to state sales tax to replace lost revenue, and “that’s more a fair tax than the income tax.”
Green said he doesn’t favor increasing the state sales tax because that would trigger funding the Natural Resources Trust Fund, which he calls “a very divisive issue” among Republicans. “For the most part when it comes to taxes, we need to take a step back and watch how a lot of our income tax policies play out.”
The two were asked about banning books in school libraries, specifically about how many books they’ve read on the Moms for Liberty list Gov Reynolds has referred to.
Nordman had brought along a prop in case someone asked about banned books. He brought manilla folders with photocopied pages of a book that featured adolescent cartoon-type drawings of various anatomical parts and sexual activities. He said the pages were in folders to keep any youngsters in attendance from being able to see them. “These do not belong in public schools,” Nordman said, noting that pornography blockers on school computers would lock students out, but that the actual book could be in a library.
“These are the books in school libraries and these are the books we’re banning,” Nordman said. ”They don’t belong in school libraries, plain and simple.”
Nordman said he had not read any of the books on the list, but he did say that the full context of some books, without pictures, could have a purpose in schools.
Green related that it was disagreement over library books in the public school he attended that led his parents to send him and his sister to a church-based school starting in 1992. He said the issue is what books are age-appropriate, and that he’d like to have the conversation and then “have it be forever done.”
A question pertained to Reynolds’ 1,600-page bill reorganizing state government and the impact of splitting up the Department of Cultural Affairs. The questioner explained that the bill would make some public facilities ineligible for federal funds.
Greene said he hadn’t heard of the concern for Cultural Affairs. He shared a “behind the scenes” conversation in the Senate among colleagues who had been in the Statehouse with governors other than Reynolds. They said that with a “strong governor like Reynolds, Vilsack or Branstad” governing would be much more efficient. [Reynolds and Branstad are Republicans; Vilsack is a Democrat, but not the most recent Democratic governor.]
Nordman said he had heard of the concern over the Department of Cultural Affairs, but said it is important to streamline state government, and that reducing the number of cabinet secretaries from 36 to 16 would save the state $200 million over the next four years.
Senate File 538, which was passed last week and prohibits gender-affirming healthcare for persons younger than age 18, was also discussed. Green and Nordman both spoke against it.
According to Green, banning gender-affirming healthcare is similar to keeping young people from purchasing cigarettes, tobacco, tattoos, alcohol and lottery tickets. “There are some things that are just not healthy for a child’s growth…and to develop into healthy adults in society, and transitioning is one of those issues.”
Nordman said the bill “is about protecting children” and referred to surgical transition as “mutilation.”
Nordman cited a study that showed that 80-90 percent of children who start transitioning their gender before puberty eventually transition back to their birth gender, and that the focus should be on mental healthcare for persons questioning their gender identity.
Green grew almost teary-eyed as he apologized if his comments during debate of LGBTQ issues had been perceived as an attack on those individuals. He said attacking those people is not his mentality, and that the state’s new voucher plan would make it possible for the families of LGBTQ children to start their own school.
