The Rozenboom Report – March 5th, 2021
by Sen Ken Rozenboom
The eighth week of this year’s session was the first “funnel week” in the legislature. For us this means that all Senate policy bills must have passed through committee in order to be considered for the rest of the year. Next week will include some committee meetings, but the focus will be floor debate and voting. The pace is good this year, and it feels like our goal of finishing by April 30 can be reached.
Iowa’s teacher diversity must be improved and SF 304 addresses that need by updating the Teach Iowa Program to help recruit minority teachers to Iowa, and to bring qualified teachers into other areas of need. The Teach Iowa Program currently provides awards of up to $4,000 a year, for up to five years, to qualified teachers to teach in designated shortage areas. The awards are prioritized to teachers renewing from a previous year, followed by recent graduates. SF 304 increases the yearly grant maximum to $7,500 and adds a new section to the priority list: applicants who are minorities. Adding this new level is important because studies show us that low-income minority students perform better in school when they have at least one teacher with a shared ethnic background.
Another bill passed out of committee this week was Senate File 402. Throughout the past several years, social media has become a place for billions of users to voice their opinions and thoughts, and has become the public square of this century. Recently, more and more people have been concerned about big-tech companies actively censoring conservative voices and points of view. These same companies enjoy tax breaks and other financial incentives from Iowa taxpayers. SF 402 blocks those financial incentives from those who censor protected speech of Iowans.
The Senate is also discussing a number of bills commonly referred to as “back the blue” bills. Iowans see the hard work law enforcement does to protect our communities and the dangerous attacks some of them have endured. SF 497 provides necessary legal protections for law enforcement officers. The bill raises the penalty for those who assault a law enforcement officer, and increases penalties for certain disorderly conduct, unlawful assembly, and riot crimes. The bill defines the act of damaging publicly owned property, including monuments or statues, to be 2nd degree criminal mischief. The bill also requires a minimum 24 hour holding period for a person arrested for 2nd degree criminal mischief, rioting, unlawful assembly, or disorderly conduct. This bill does not punish protesters and does not infringe on First Amendment rights, but it does punish those who commit crimes and protects those who dedicate their lives to serving their community.
Senate File 476 aligns Iowa with the qualified immunity standard set by the U.S. Supreme Court for law enforcement officials. This ensures that our law enforcement professionals are not being harassed or distracted, or subject to others “second-guessing” their actions, and suing them. It weighs the actions of an officer against the knowledge and awareness of the law. It also amends the Peace Officer, Public Safety, and Emergency Personnel Bill of Rights to allow an officer who suffered from a person knowingly filing a false complaint to bring a private cause of action and pursue civil remedies. Additionally, it makes an officer’s statement, recordings, or transcripts of any interview or disciplinary proceedings and any complaints against an officer a confidential record, while also giving law enforcement officers the ability to have their name redacted from documents available for public access online.
Over the past year a movement has emerged to defund police across the country. Senate File 479 protects law enforcement agencies from these targeted budget restrictions. It denies state funds to local governments that decides to reduce law enforcement budgets without justification to do so. State funds would be denied until the funding has been re-established. The bill provides exemptions for certain reductions in police funding like reduced population, merger or consolidation, lower cost of entry-level law enforcement hiring, and one-time capital or equipment purchases in the prior fiscal year. It does not take away local decisions, but the state of Iowa will not support cities that defund their public safety departments.
When Senate Republicans laid out our legislative vision for 2021 we included these goals: giving all Iowa parents the choice to send their children to school in-person full time, supporting law enforcement, and working to improve the tax code to improve career opportunities in Iowa. Through the first legislative deadline, those promises are being kept. Senate File 160, signed into law on January 29, kept the promise to parents, giving them the option to have their children in school full time. Senate File 479 and Senate File 497 passed through committee to ensure local law enforcement is not defunded, and to provide them with the protections they need. More work remains on taxes and, as the end of the legislative session nears, those discussions will continue.
On Saturday morning, March 6, I will be at the Bridgeview Center in Ottumwa from 10:00 to 11:30 for a public forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters. I understand this will also be broadcast on Ottumwa radio and on Facebook. Maybe I’ll see you there.
