This was week 6 of the session. We are continuing with committee work, and we are also running bills on the House floor and sending them over to the Senate.

On Thursday, we passed House File 175, regarding in-state tuition for veterans and their families. HF 175 requires Iowa’s community colleges and regent universities to provide in-state tuition for veterans, their spouses and their children. This would include the surviving wife and children of a deceased veteran. This bill expands what is in current law to include the survivors of deceased veterans and to allow it to apply to any veteran in the country, not just those who have resided in Iowa for more than a year. This helps many veterans who have moved around often because of their service and incentivizes them to move to, or stay, in Iowa. Our goal in passing this legislation is to recognize the sacrifices made by those who have served our country and their families and provide them with additional support to better their lives.

Last session, Iowa House Republicans led the effort to define Grooming in Iowa code and made it a Class D felony. Grooming is when someone, whether in person or using technology, takes action to lure a child to commit an illegal sex act. Before this definition in code, many entities had a hard time charging someone for this heinous act until after an assault has been committed. This change allows entities, such as a school, the ability to hold someone accountable for committing this disturbing offense before a child is assaulted. This week, we passed House File 180, a bill that builds upon that legislation by requiring anyone convicted of grooming to be added to the Tier I sex offender list for 10 years. This additional monitoring of individuals who have been convicted of this predatory behavior may help prevent additional abuse.

On Thursday the House Republicans filed House Study Bill 242, a bill that strikes “Gender Identity” from the list of protected classes in the Iowa Civil Rights code along with related provisions defining sex and gender, male and female, etc.. Striking Gender Identity is an idea that I have been pressing since the 2020 session. Democrats inserted this class into the code in 2007. The result of this additional class was to ultimately take the right to privacy away from all Iowans by allowing persons of the opposite sex to use bathroom, shower and other private facilities, as well as allowing men to participate in women’s sports, obtain sex change surgeries through Medicaid and other abuses. One of the ways this has manifested itself in Iowa is with men posing as women and using the women’s showers at municipal swimming pools, as well as other intrusions upon women’s right to privacy. We will be taking this bill up in committee and possibly on the House Floor in the coming week. We expect considerable uproar from the extremists that support “Gender Identity.”

As always, I look forward to seeing you at the capitol, or in the district.

——

Contact Dean Fisher at

dean.fisher@legis.iowa.gov