The Dickey Dispatch – February 15th 2025
by Senator Adrian Dickey
Good afternoon Senate District 44!
I’d like to start this week’s dispatch off with the sad news of David Heaton from Mount Pleasant passing away. Representative Heaton served Henry County for 23 years in the Iowa House, retiring in 2017. While Dave had been away from the Capitol for 8 years, he always enjoyed talking about what was going on there. In fact, we visited about the upcoming session just a month ago. While my grandmother, Caroline Dickey, is who got me interested in politics, I had many, many conversations with Rep. Heaton long before I ever thought about running for office. Rep. Heaton was a regular coffee club member at our convenience store in Mt. Pleasant, and when I ever had work to do there, I always went in the mornings so I could visit with Dave. I had so much interest in his political perspective and the entire political scene.
Dave is survived by his wife, Carmen. He was such a kind man, he will be GREATLY missed.
On a more uplifting note, Wednesday and Thursday at the Capitol was Iowa Motor Truck Association annual trucking day! In Iowa, the trucking industry is the 2nd LARGEST employer, with 1 out of every 11 Iowans working in the trucking industry, so it only makes sense for them to be present while we are in session to talk about their issues. Legislators were able to visit with these professionals to learn more about the trucking industry and the legislators even had a chance to drive a trucking simulator so they could see firsthand what it is like to be behind the wheel. In addition the IMTA leadership class was in town as well. It’s always my pleasure to be able to speak to this new group of Iowa leaders! This day is always one of the highlights of the legislative session for me.
Tuesday evening I attended the oral arguments at the Iowa Supreme Court. Every year during session, the Supreme Court holds oral arguments on a case in the evening so legislators can attend and hear how legislation that we recently created may be evaluated in court. This case involved legislation that we created three years ago that made it a crime if a man impregnated a women without her knowledge. How, you might ask? Well as disturbing as it is, there has been occurrences in Iowa history where a doctor has used his sperm in place of (and without consent of) the desired father’s sperm during a fertility treatment. Unfortunately the disgusting act was not discovered to have taken place until decades later when a DNA test was performed. It was very interesting to hear the Supreme Court justices discuss the law that we created and how it should apply to a case that was before them.
Have you ever wondered why it is so hard to get tickets to your favorite concert or sporting event? Too often Iowans attempt to purchase tickets the minute the event venue puts them on sale, only to find them sold out or less than desired seats. This is often because ticket scalpers have created bots to purchase all of the tickets the second the sale opens up. Because of that, the Iowa Senate passed SF 146 this week, which prohibits the creation of a bot to purchase event tickets online, while also placing several restrictions to prevent circumvention of a fair ticket-buying process.
I hope you all have a GREAT week and I look forward to hearing from you!
