The Rozenboom Report – February 26th, 2021

by Ken Rozenboom

Next week is the first funnel week of this legislative session, meaning all Senate policy bills need to be out of Senate committees in order to be considered for the rest of the year. This deadline forces us to focus on the bills that have enough support to advance through the process. I was happy to hear Governor Reynolds has signed Senate File 269, which was the education funding increase we passed last week. Setting this increase early in session is important so local school districts can start working on their budgets and know how much money the state will send to them next year. Also, because this is the largest single piece of the state budget, it allows us to begin discussion on the rest of the budget.

The Senate Education committee moved Senate Study Bill 1205, which protects constitutional rights at Iowa’s state universities and K-12 schools. The bill has a number of provisions to make certain that professors and school employees respect the freedom of speech and freedom of expression. In the past year, a number of violations of students’ constitutional rights have been made public. Colleges and universities are supposed to be places learn and discuss all points of view, and it is clear that isn’t always happening. Academic freedom is a vital part of Iowa’s education system and this bill goes a long way to protect it.

My Senate district includes Appanoose and Monroe counties, two counties that have whitetail deer populations among the highest in the state. It’s increasingly obvious to many that the deer population is growing out of control, at least in southern Iowa. I filed Senate File 427 last week, and we passed this bill through the Natural Resources and Environment committee on Wednesday. This bill is aimed at tipping the scales back to the favor of the farmers, landowners, and citizens of Iowa who have been dealing with nuisance deer on their property and along the highways for too long.

Under current law, a person who kills an antlerless deer out of season has to pay a fine and is also required to reimburse the state $1,500. For reference, the penalty for taking an endangered animal is only $1,000 and for taking a beaver or an otter is $200. This bill removes the reimbursement requirement for antlerless deer.

This bill cuts the cost of depredation licenses down to $2 to make it far less expensive to remove nuisance deer from someone’s property, and it allows depredation tags to be used throughout the fall and into December. The bill also requires the DNR to allow for a January rifle depredation season for the counties in which allocated tags went unsold. The purpose of this season is not to hunt for sport, it is to manage the size of the herd, which is why more efficient and effective firearms are being authorized.

Finally, and maybe most importantly, this bill provides for a comprehensive deer population study. This study will be conducted by DNR, Iowa State University, the Iowa Department of Transportation, and the Insurance Division to take a thorough look at the overall deer population and its impact on crops, trees, property loss, medical costs and fatalities due to vehicle accidents.

I am quite confident we can pass this bill out of the full Senate, and I certainly would expect the House to take it up for full consideration.

I always look forward to our public forums such as Eggs & Issues during the legislative session, but those opportunities are still limited because of COVID-19. Technology provides another way to interact with our constituents, however. On Saturday, February 27, from 8:30 to 9:30, Representatives Brink and Hite will join me at the OskyNews studio to answer submitted questions. This event will be live-streamed on OskyNews and Mahaska Chamber Facebook pages, and televised on MCG Channel 7.