Barker

This week is the 2nd legislative funnel deadline, which means that most House bills need to be voted out of a Senate committee and most Senate bills need to be voted out of a House committee in order to remain alive for the session. We will have a clearer picture on which bills remain eligible next week. HF852, Pharmacy Benefit Manager Reform, has been placed on the unfinished business calendar and remains eligible for floor debate. My committees took a look at several Senate bills this week. Two that stand out are bills that reign in online ticketing bots and cryptocurrency ATM scams.

• Property Tax Reform

Many of you have received new property assessments this week, which continues the conversation surrounding property taxes. Iowa’s system is complex and confusing and while assessment increases drive future property tax bill increases, levy rates and rollback calculations make it murky for both property owners and local governments. Since the Legislature has done great work to lower income taxes, Iowans have been loud and clear that they want us to shift our focus to property taxes.

For Iowa House Republicans, we’ve made our focus providing certainty to the taxpayer. This session, we have introduced a number of bills for consideration, from slight tweaks to major reforms to the system. These bills serve as a starting point to kickstart a broad conversation about property tax reform. We’ve made it very clear that we are not looking to rush these bills through, but are giving time for Iowans and interest groups to weigh in on how these changes would affect them or their members. We are relying on the feedback we receive from Iowans to make these bills better. Based on the feedback we hear from Iowans, the current system is disliked by both taxpayers and taxing entities. We should not be afraid of big changes to the system. However, we do want to make sure we are taking our time to understand the full impacts of the legislation.

• House Committee Goes After Fun-Hating Ticket Bots

This week the House Economic Growth and Technology Committee unanimously passed Senate File 146. The bill came over from the Senate unanimously and goes after non-human ticket buyers that seem to get all of the Taylor Swift tickets before anyone else has a chance. Then the parents of the swifties are forced to buy them from the bots at a significant markup.

Senate File 146 defines bot as an automated software program that performs automatic and repetitive tasks and is designed to impersonate or replicate human activity on the internet. The bill provides that a person shall not use or create a bot to purchase tickets in excess of the posted limit for any one internet ticket sale. It also prohibits a person from circumventing or disabling an electronic queue, waiting period, presale code, or other sales volume limitation system associated with an internet ticket sale.

• Iowa Ranks 4th in Best States to Practice Medicine

Recently, Wallet Hub came out with their rankings of all 50 states and DC for best states for doctors to practice. This ranking looked across 19 metrics for every state and ranked Iowa the 4th best state to practice medicine in the country.

This high ranking is consistent with many other rankings that show Iowa has a strong health care foundation:

1st – Lowest Healthcare Costs (WalletHub, 2024)

4th – Best Healthcare System (WalletHub, 2024)

9th – Healthcare Access (US News & World Report, 2024)

10th – Healthcare Quality & Prevention for Women (Commonwealth Fund, 2024)

11th – Best State to Have a Baby (WalletHub, 2024)

12th – Healthcare Outcomes (WalletHub, 2024)

14th – Women’s Health (Commonwealth Fund, 2024)

Even with these high rankings, the legislature continues to work on ways to recruit and retain health care workforce to all parts of Iowa with the House passing House File 310, House File 516, House File 972, House File 300 and many more this session.

• Natural Resources Committee Passes Drainage District Transparency

SF 593 creates a requirement for county auditors to create and file a district parcel record with the county recorder upon receiving relevant survey documents. This record must detail all parcels within a drainage or levee district, including legal descriptions, parcel identification numbers, and owner names. Auditors who have not filed such records before the act’s effective date must do so by June 30, 2026. The legislation aims to enhance transparency and organization regarding land parcels in these districts, ensuring that all relevant information is systematically recorded and accessible.

The instigation for SF 593 is that there are a number of counties with extensive drainage district or levee district acreages where construction and maintenance of such systems frequently create a substantial assessment to properties benefitting from those system that haven’t attached that information to the property. What sometime happens is a person may purchase such property not knowing the size of district assessment that come with the property.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to work hard on your behalf this session in Des Moines! Please reach out to me about any questions, concerns or suggestions at brett.barker@legis.iowa.gov.

• USS Iowa Commissioning

Last general assembly, the legislature passed HF 2147, a bill to appropriate funds to support the christening and commissioning ceremonies of the new USS Iowa submarine. The Commissioning Ceremony is scheduled for April 5, 2025 in Connecticut. There will be many watch parties throughout the state that can be found here.

According to the USS Iowa website, this submarine is the 4th U.S. Navy vessel named “USS Iowa,” but the SSN 797 will be the first Virginia class submarine to bear the Iowa name. It’s also the first Navy submarine built specifically to accommodate both male and female service members onboard.

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Brett Barker, a Republican from Nevada, represents District 51 in the Iowa House.