The Dickey Dispatch – January 21st, 2022
by Senator Adrian Dickey
Hello Iowans! This is the second edition of the Dickey Dispatch for 2022. If you did not receive the first, please let me know and I’d be happy to get it to you.
This week we wrapped up the second week of session. While the “official” legislative week was a bit shorter due to the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, I was able to use that day to finish up drafting quite a few bills that I have been working on this past summer. One of those bills, SF 2043, deals with the requirement that the Pledge of Allegiance is to be recited every day in our schools. Last year we passed legislation that the Pledge of Allegiance must be recited in every classroom, every day. After that law was implemented, we have learned of a few teachers (fortunately, none that I am aware of in this district) who have misused this requirement as an opportunity to push personal political agendas on their young students. To me, that is not acceptable.
I firmly believe reciting the Pledge of Allegiance is an opportunity to unify us as Americans, remind all of us of the rights we have, the freedoms that we enjoy, and just how darn fortunate we are to be living in this great country thanks to the sacrifices of so many before us. The bill that I introduced will help to do that.
Speaking of sacrifices from others, on Wednesday I attended a veterans program at the Capitol and on Tuesday, the Iowa Firefighters Association was in the Capitol on behalf of the 9,000 volunteer firefighters in this state. This is an association I’ve been a member of for 30 years. It’s hard to believe I’ve been a volunteer firefighter for that long. I took that opportunity to release 5 bills I wrote to assist these brave men and women that serve our state as volunteer firefighters, EMS, and law enforcement personnel, with a variety of financial incentives. I hope to get these bills passed later in the session.
For years, Iowa Republicans have diligently passed reforms, and sometimes taken tough votes, to make it easier to do business in the state through the implementation of common-sense reforms. As the chairman of the Senate Labor and Business Relations committee, I am proud to announce this week we learned that Iowans created 35,000 new businesses last year, a record for our state. This success is a result of sound fiscal and regulatory policies. We were also recently named the fastest state in the country to recover from COVID-19 and as the most fiscally resilient state in the face of the pandemic. However, one of the greatest awards we received was that Iowa was rated as the top state in the United States for opportunity!
In the weeks to come, we will continue to look at the various proposals from legislators on how we can move Iowa in the right direction. We will also look at the governor’s bills on her priority legislation like tax reduction, workforce shortages, and education needs. My fellow Senate Republicans share many of the governor’s priorities and we look forward to working on those policies with the goal of making the best state in the country, even BETTER! I look forward to sharing these successes with you throughout the upcoming session.
Sincerely,
Adrian Dickey
