Iowa legislative session 2022

 

Iowa presidential votes by county, 2020

Iowa's state legislative session ended late in May after hanging fire on a number of Gornor Kim Reynolds' priorities. While previous years in this era of Republican dominance have mostly been about owning the libs, this year saw a number of constituency-oriented economic initiatives. Whether these benefits will trickle down to ordinary Iowans in small towns remains arguable.

According to the Cedar Rapids Gazette (cited below), these were the principal accomplishments of the Iowa legislature in 2022:

• lowering income tax rates to a flat 3.9 percent, while completely eliminating taxation of retirement income
• requiring gas stations to sell E15 blended gas year-round, with exceptions for smaller stations
• reducing the time people can receive unemployment compensation
• prohibiting transgender girls from participating in interscholastic sports
• repealing the deadline for public school families to declare their intent to open enroll
• allowing grocery stores to opt out of the bottle bill
• outlawing the use of private donations by local election agencies

Legislators also approved the use of semi-automatic rifles to hunt deer ("Iowa Lawmakers Approve" 2022).

What didn't pass, mostly because Republicans were divided over approaches to the issue:

• tuition support for private school families [it'll be back... three Republican 'no' votes just lost primaries to Reynolds- and Americans for Prosperity-endorsed proponents of this measure]
  
• requiring wider publicity of public school classroom and library materials, with potential jail time for educators who traffic in "obscene" material
• prohibiting employers from mandating vaccination
• eminent domain for pipeline projects

My typical end-of-session argument is that the majority has been so focused on sticking it to Planned Parenthood, public schools, and transgender people that they have failed to do anything to improve the future prospects of their own aging and shrinking districts. When four counties, none of which voted for either Governor Reynolds or President Trump, account for 77.6 percent of the state's population growth over the last decade, and 40.1 percent of its gross domestic product, you'd think we would be more worried about improving the performance of the other 95 counties than about trans basketball players.

This year the legislature managed to address economic issues as well as the culture wars: eliminating income tax for the well-off elderly residents and mandating purchase of agribusiness products will be economic boons in Republican counties. Putting limits on unemployment compensation, on the other hand, will most hurt people where jobs remain scarce. The remainder will have no discernible economic effect, but might make us feel better and the "libs" feel worse. 

Will communities at large benefit from these favors? And can they use the influx of money to devise long-term plans to thrive? Or at least create jobs for the hard-to-employ? Maybe. In a global economy, of course, the rich don't have to spend their money in their own community. The environment, meanwhile, can go screw itself.

Source: Deviant Art. Used without permission

Republicans currently hold a 60-40 majority in the state House and a 32-18 majority in the state Senate. Over time, Democrats may benefit as urban counties grow and rural counties shrink, but there seems to be little prospect of any Democratic inroads this year, particularly with the national party on the defensive over inflation, COVID restrictions, congressional inaction, and so forth. So it looks like I'll be writing some version of this post for a few more years!

SOURCES

Erin Murphy, "Differences on Display in Legislative Session," Cedar Rapids Gazette, 26 May 2022, 1A, 5A

Erin Murphy and James Q. Lynch, "Private School Vouchers, School 'Transparency' Fail," Cedar Rapids Gazette, 26 May 2022, 1A, 5A