Vander Linden Capitol Update 3-5-2015
Vander Linden
Weapons Use Bill Advances
This week, a bipartisan house committee advanced House Study Bill 201, an act relating to the manufacture, acquisition, sale, and use of firearms and suppressors. The bill focuses on keeping Iowans safe while ensuring 2nd Amendment rights are preserved.
In 2010, Iowa law was changed to make it easier for law abiding citizens to receive a permit to carry a firearm. While this change was helpful, several problems still exist in current law. HSB 201 attempts to address those issues. Under this proposal, Iowans will still have to renew their carry permit every 5 years, but will only be required to retrain every 10 years and more time will be given to renew the permit. Currently, permits are not uniform across the state and it is difficult for officials to verify a permit. Under HSB 201, permits would have a uniform appearance and a statewide verification system would be established to help both law enforcement and permit holders.
Firearms suppressors are legal in a majority of states but are currently are not legal in Iowa. HSB 201 legalizes suppressors and creates a process for a chief law enforcement officer to approve the paperwork necessary for the purchase of a suppressor. Federal law governs the purchase and possession of suppressors, this change allows
Iowans to have suppressors in accordance with federal law.
In Iowa, parents are prohibited from teaching a child younger than 14 how to safely shoot a pistol or revolver. This bill eliminates that ban and allows parents the right to teach their children about firearms safety at any age.
HSB 201 would also ensure permit privacy for Iowans. When a person applies for a permit to carry a weapon or a permit to purchase, private information is collected by the county sheriff. Currently, that information is available to the public. This change protects permit holders and non-permit holders from being identified, except when necessary by law enforcement.
The goal of House Study Bill 201 is to ensure Iowans can continue exercising their 2nd amendment rights safely, with less red tape and less interference from the government.
Labor Committee Advances Binding Arbitration Reform for Teachers
For over four decades, Iowa’s labor relations have been governed by Iowa Code Chapter 20, the Iowa Public Employee Relations Act. Signed by Governor Robert Ray in 1974, the law has remained relatively unchanged since its enactment. Both parties have tried overhauls and changes to the law over the years, but nothing of substance has ever made it into law.
This week House Republicans on the House Labor Committee worked to pass a tightly-focused bill aimed at addressing a problem facing school districts and the exponentially increasing cost of education. For too long the scale of fairness has been tilted in favor of labor and against the taxpayers during contract negotiations. School boards and their negotiating teams have been forced to build 3-4% yearly raises into their budgets (in addition to yearly step increases), which has put a financial strain on districts.
House Study Bill 204 seeks to remedy this problem and even the playing field in labor negotiations for teachers. The bill makes three small, yet significant changes to the way binding arbitration works for teachers and management working in a school district or Area Education Agency (AEA).
First, an arbitrator will no longer be required to pick one or the other of the two parties’ final offers on an item when there’s an impasse. Instead, the arbitrator will be authorized to choose a point between the two offers. This ensures that a compromise position can be reached where both sides can come away from negotiations happy.
Second, an arbitrator will no longer be able to consider the public employer’s authority to levy taxes to finance an increase in compensation packages. Taxpayers should not be viewed as an unlimited source of revenue during labor negotiations.
Third, an arbitrator is required to look at a comparison of public and private sector wages, hours, and conditions of employment for workers doing comparable work. Current law only requires an arbitrator to do a comparison of other public sector workers.
The bill passed the Labor Committee on a party-line vote of 10-7. The bill will advance to the House floor as a committee bill for full consideration.
Mental Health Concerns Addressed by House Human Resources Committee
For the last few years, Iowa has undergone a mental health delivery system transformation. In July of 2014, the Mental Health and Disability Services Redesign plan became operational. The transition from a county based system to a regional system took several years. Now, Iowans have a regional base of services which meet statewide standards to address their needs.
However, people across the state are recognizing a need to further improve the system. The Governor’s budget for FY 16 eliminates funding for two of the state’s Mental Health Institutes (MHIs). The Governor has proposed that the MHI in Clarinda and the MHI in Mt. Pleasant both be closed. Both institutions have already stopped accepting new patients. In response to the ongoing discussion about the need for easier access to mental health services and beds, the House Human Resources committee has passed several bills this year that will address these issues.
House File 218 – This bill establishes an Iowa Telehealth Act. It is well known across the state that Iowa has a shortage of mental health professionals. A need exists in the state to embrace efforts that encourage health insurers and health care professionals to support the use of telehealth. The bill recognizes telehealth as an important tool to overcome geographic barriers to health care in the state. The bill also requires the Iowa Medicaid program to reimburse physicians that choose to use telehealth to provide services for Medicaid patients.
House File 263 – For years, Iowa hospitals have been struggling to determine where beds are located for mental health patients that come to their emergency rooms in crisis. Providers make dozens of phone calls across the state in an effort to find bed placements. This means that patients in crisis have to wait hours or longer in emergency rooms before a bed is found. Once a bed is found, there is no guarantee the bed will remain open until the person arrives at the placement. This bill requires DHS to set up a bed tracking system. After the new system is set up, providers will be able to contact a central access point that will tell them where the nearest bed is located.
House File 251 – Currently, when a person in a hospital is waiting for a mental health bed to open somewhere across the state, their transportation to that bed is uncertain. Family members or deputies have to drive across the state with a mentally ill person in crisis, only to be told that they have to turn around and go home because the open bed was filled by another person. The bill allows regions to contract with private entities to transport people with a mental illness or substance disorder. This provides for the safe and secure transport of the person in crisis to another location.
House Study Bill 160 – The bill allows the mental health regions to contract with hospitals in bordering states to secure substance abuse or mental health treatment for people. The goal of this legislation is to allow people that need treatment to get services closer to their home and family members.
House Study Bill 188 – This bill was brought forth from Tanager Place. Currently, they are expanding their location in Cedar Rapids and they need to recruit another child psychiatrist. The Department of Public Health has been working on ideas for them to be able to access recruitment funds to do so. The Department currently has a mental health professional shortage area program. In 2015, none of the $105,448 that was appropriated was awarded. Therefore, IDPH recommended that Tanager Place try to access these funds to help them recruit a mental health professional.
As the mental health redesign has advanced, issues have come up. The Human Resources Committee has worked hard this session to address these issues and ensure Iowans have access to quality mental health care.
Congress Losing the Sole Power to Lay and Collect Taxes?
The powers enumerated to Congress in Article I, Sec. 8 have not changed much in the last 200 years. Congress is supposed to have the exclusive power to raise and support armies, coin money, and lay and collect taxes. Recently the office of President seems to have set it’s sights on the power to lay and collect taxes.
Recently the President suggested that he may have the ability to raise taxes via executive action. The President’s budget plan includes numerous tax hikes and given the new look of Congress—this might be the plan B he needs to get some of them through. He’s already used this tactic on immigration and it appears the same strategy might be the plan with taxes?
So far the President is not giving specifics about which of his proposed tax hikes might be a viable candidate for executive action—but one can speculate that any of them are possibilities.
The President’s budget included increased taxes on retirement money and cutting back on allowable retirement savings. The President suggests limiting savings to fund $210,000 per year starting at age 62.
The President also wants to reclassify workers as employees and not independent contractors whenever possible. He would give the IRS more power to do so. This not surprising since Obamacare covers the newly created employees, but does not cover independent contractors.
In keeping with his hostile attitude toward businesses, the President also wants more reporting. If a business purchases more than $600 worth of goods or services from a contractor and the contractor’s TIN does not check out—the business would have to withhold some portion of payment to the contractor and send it to the IRS. These are just some of his proposals. He has others—increasing the rate on capital gains, taxing more foreign income, the list goes on and on.
The President’s budget totaled out with over $2 trillion in tax hikes over the next ten years. Republicans blasted the budget for rampant taxing and spending while ignoring the growing debt issue. The President’s indifference toward Congress and opposing viewpoints has led to much of the lack of cooperation in Washington, DC. Ignoring the Constitution when it comes to power to lay and collect taxes would not be a stretch for this White House.
