Bills of Interest to IAF in the 2024 Iowa Legislature

President Jason Benell and Vice President Bob Cook are registered lobbyists on behalf of IAF and this session has kept us quite busy with so many bills being filed in the first 2024 session. Below is the complete list to date of filings that IAF has taken a stand FOR or AGAINST as these bills move through the legislative process. Unfortunately, IAF finds itself standing AGAINST many more bills than FOR as the current legislature is focused on restricting the rights of women, minorities, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and general unscientific solutions to problems that either do not exist,or are approached in an unhelpful way. Many of these bills are intent on tearing down the wall between church and state by using YOUR tax dollars to further subsidize exclusive and sectarian religious practices and facilities. Make sure you are registered to vote and feel free to reach out with any input you may have to ensure Iowa is a safe and secular state that is welcome to everyone!

SF 2030 HF 2090: Against

These companion bills extend the default time frame for a state-of-emergency proclamation to 60 days and give the Legislature increased authority to rescind, extend, or amend the proclamation. The also include religious exemptions to public safety measures and vaccinations.

SSB 3006: Against

This bill creates exemptions for healthcare institutions, payors, and practitioners related to “a right of conscience, whistleblower activities, and free speech. In other words, healthcare institutions and providers would be allowed to deny care to patients on 1st Amendment grounds. The bill specifically refers to services related to abortion.

SF 2037: Against

An Act prohibiting counties and cities from regulating certain behavioral health and human services — by which they mean conversion therapy.

HF 2034: Against

This act creates an exemption to fire codes for religious school buildings which contain less than 50 students.

HF 2031: Against

The bill requires that the human growth and development curriculum provided by school districts, nonpublic schools, charter schools, include human biology related to pregnancy and human development inside the womb and must an US video at least three minutes in duration, showing the development of the brain, heart, sex organs, and other vital organs in early fetal development, and a rendering or animation, comparable to the meet baby Olivia video developed by live action, showing the process of fertilization and every stage of human development inside the uterus, noting significant markers in cell growth and organ development for every significant marker of pregnancy until birth.

SF 2039: For

This bill would require the Dept. of Health and Human Services to immediately submit a letter of intent to apply for the federal summer electronic benefits transfer for food insecure children program.

HF 2042: For

This bill would require the Iowa Dept. of Health and Human Services to immediately submit a letter of application for the summer electronic benefits transfer program for food insecure students. This bill is similar to SF 2039.

HF 2027: For

This bill would require that a titleholder's property tax statements must disclose how much less funding the local public school district had compared to last year due to students receiving payments through education savings accounts.

SF 2064, HF 2044: Against

These companion bills provide an exception to a minor’s legal capacity to consent to the provision of medical care or services for a sexually transmitted disease or infection. Minors will no longer be able to consent for vaccinations.

SF 2060: For

This bill would require schools to serve breakfast and lunch at no charge to children whose family income is less than three times the poverty level.

SF 2058: Undecided

This bill requires that all vaccine and immunization administrations be reported to the Iowa Health Information Network along with informed consent papers. I suspect the only reason for this is to make it easier for the anti-vax crowd to cherry pick adverse events.

SF 2055: Against

This anti-trans bill would prohibit persons from entering single and multiple occupancy restrooms or changing areas and other facilities in public accommodations that do not correspond with the person’s biological sex, and including effective date provisions.

SF 2053 HF 2059: Against

These companion bills allow for a tax exemption for buildings owned by religious institutions but are being used by a third party to educate children.

SF 2049: Against

An Act relating to trainings, examinations, surveys, and screenings provided by governmental agencies and entities, school districts, charter schools, innovation zone schools, and public postsecondary educational institutions, including racism or sexism trainings, diversity and inclusion efforts, physical examinations, student health screenings, and surveys administered to students.

SF 2048: Against

Modifies provisions related to the social studies instruction provided to students enrolled in grades one through twelve in school districts by creating celebrate freedom week.The bill prohibits such instruction from censoring any religious references in the writings of the founding fathers.

HF 2073: Against

This bill authorizes school districts, charter schools, and innovation zone schools to hire untrained chaplains or engage volunteer chaplains to provide services to students.

HF 2068: Against

Social studies curricula shall include instruction related to the purpose of state law, the affirmative argument for prohibiting transgender drugs and surgeries for minors, the affirmative argument for parental rights in education and the legal limitations of the doctrine of in loco parentis, the physical and emotional harms associated with exposure to pornography, and the use of overt sexual themes by sexual predators to groom victims.

HF 2060: Against

An Act modifying provisions related to world language instruction in grades nine through twelve by prohibiting the incorporation of gender-neutral language when the world language being taught utilizes a grammatical gender system.

SSB 3073: Against

Filed by Governor Reynolds, this is her attempt to gut the State Area Education Agencies and bring them further under her direct control.

HF 2079: Against

The bill allows public funds to be utilized by an ecclesiastical or sectarian institution for a project or program if it “benefits the public.”

SSB 3092: Against

This bill would allow school districts, charter schools, and innovation zone schools to employ chaplains, or engage volunteer chaplains, to provide services to students.

HF 2097: Against

This bill prohibits the governor from closing, placing a mandate on, or otherwise regulating a place or practice of worship for any reason, including through the proclamation of a disaster emergency or public health disaster.

SF 2084: For

An Act repealing the education savings account program.

HF 2082: Against

This bill would remove gender identity as a protected class under the Iowa Civil Rights Act.

SF 2096: Against

This bill would repeal gender balance requirements for appointive bodies.

SF 2095 HSB 614: Against

Another RFRA.  These bills prohibit a governmental entity from substantially burdening a person’s free exercise of religion.

SF 2093: For

This bill would repeal Code section 147.164 (last year's ban on gender transition procedure-related care for minors).

SF 2080: For

This bill prohibits the sale or transfer of large capacity ammunition feeding devices, provides a penalty, and includes effective date and applicability provisions.

HF 2158: For

This bill would allow students who are at least 17 years old to register to vote during school hours twice a year on March 22 and the fourth Tuesday of September of each year.

HF 2138: Against

This bill requires schools to receive informed consent from parents of students in grades 7-12 before enrolling them in any human growth and development course. Schools must also provide parents with detailed information about the course instruction materials.

HR 2139: Against

This bill would prohibit schools from taking disciplinary action against employees, contractors, or students for using legal names of students or for failure to use personal pronouns in official communications.

SSB 3114 HF 2057: Against

These companion bills would allow the More Options for Maternal Support (MOMS) Program to be administrated directly by the Dept. of Health and Human Services. MOMS provides pregnancy support services for women. It explicitly excludes abortion providers but would include crisis pregnancy centers.

HF 2130: For

This bill requires criminal history background checks on all gun sales with extremely limited exceptions.

HF2129: For

This bill appropriates $75,000 for gun violence prevention research at the U of I Injury Prevention Research Center.

HF 2122: Against

This bill creates an abortion-inducing drug certification program to provide oversight and to regulate the provision of abortion-inducing drugs in the state. It bans the sale or prescription of abortion-inducing drugs through the mail. Certified physicians must maintain hospital admitting privileges with a local hospital. Physicians must report any abortion complications or adverse effects to state and federal agencies. Allows for both civil and criminal penalties against certified providers.

Watching the Iowa Legislature, 2024

By Robert Cook

It’s that time of year again. The second session of Iowa’s 90th General Assembly gaveled in on January 8, 2024. I’m busy reading bills, unravelling the details, declaring for or against them, and passing on that critical information to my fellow heathen freethinkers.

But this year, it’s not just me. IAF President Jason Bennell has registered as a lobbyist with the Iowa Legislature and will be helping me monitor bills and events at the Capitol Building. I appreciate his assistance. Keeping track of the legislature during session is a huge job for three people, let alone just me.

I have created a spreadsheet of all the bills that I have responded to — for, against, and undecided. I check the Legislative website every day and we will do our best to keep this list up to date. Feel free to check out the bill and share the link far and wide.

There are three criteria that I use to decide which bills to respond to on behalf of IAF. These three categories often overlap.

1) Secular government and separation of church and state. These bill are the easy ones. that deal with the core issues of IAFs activism.

2) Christian Nationalism. IAF opposes Christian Nationalism. It is related to, but not the same as #1. Christian Nationalists love their culture war hot button issues, I see many Christian Nationalist bills that have nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus or Christianity in general. But if groups like the Family Leader or Iowa Baptists for Biblical Values weighs in on a bill to virtue signal their base or persuade legislators to vote for religious privilege, then that makes it IAF business.

3) IAF is a community of atheists and freethinkers. We are also a community of humanists. That humanism broadens our activist interest beyond strict just church/state separation. We support human rights for everyone. We also support the LGBTQ community, reproductive healthcare, public education, science, voting rights, and democratic principles. We will examine any bills that touch on these issues (and probably others that I didn't think of just now).

Please check out the spreadsheet and let me know if you have any comments, concerns, or if I missed any bills that you think IAF should respond to.

Update on the Iowa Legislature

By Robert Cook

The first funnel in the Iowa Legislature is past. That means that any bill (except spending and tax related bills) that didn’t make it out of a standing committee in either the House or Senate is dead for the session*. The funnel killed a huge swath of bills both good and bad. But many of the worst did survive so we still have to remain vigilant and active.

As I said in my last post, I am now a registered lobbyist in the Iowa Legislature. I have updated my Lobbyist Declaration List to include links to the bills, brief legislative descriptions, and whether they are alive or dead. Please check it out. I think you will find it a useful reference to help IAF members keep track of the relevant bills. I will continue to update it as needed.

*”Dead” is a relative term. There are several ways to resurrect a dead bill. Leaders of the House or Senate can jointly reintroduce a dead bill. Dead bills can also be added to other bills as amendments. The leaders of the House and Senate are sneaky, Machiavellian bastards. I expect to see multiple shenanigans before the session is done.

IAF Has a Registered Lobbyist

By Robert Cook

And that lobbyist would be me. I registered on the Iowa Legislature website about a month ago and I have been busy declaring for and against (mostly against) specific bills on behalf of Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers. This is a way for 401c3s (like IAF), businesses, political groups, and governmental agencies to express their approval, dissent, or neutrality to our legislators as they work on the bills that are before them. I signed up because I felt that IAF should have as much say in the process as The Family Leader and Iowa Baptists for Biblical Values.

Here is a link to my declarations list on Google Drive including all of the bills I have addressed as a lobbyist. Unfortunately it didn’t preserve the links to specific bills when I downloaded the page. If you want to read and learn more about a specific bill, you will need to click here and then search for the bill. (i.e. SF123, HF234). When I have time, I will go through them all and fix the links. Until then, you’ll have to use this workaround. Sorry about that,

Instead of reading the entire bill, I recommend scrolling down until you get the the section labeled “Description.” It is a simpler explanation that doesn’t include all of the legalistic details. It will still be hard to read but not as difficult as the actual bill.

It takes a lot of time to stay on top of all these bills and there is definitely a learning curve. (Pay no attention to HF 149. That was clearly done by an idiot who didn’t know what they were doing.)

Okay, fine. I’ll tell you about HF 149 and the lessons I learned from it about how to lobby. This Bill is about corporal punishment in schools. Current law prohibits intentional physical punishment of a student. At the same time it provides certain exceptions and legal protections for teachers and employees of pubic or accredited nonpublic schools. For example, if a student acts up in class and a teacher grabs them by the shoulders and marches them down to the Principle’s office, that teacher can’t be sued for beating the child or arrested for assault and battery.

This bill extends those exceptions and protections to school volunteers and charter school employees.

I totally misread this bill.

On my first read through, I was sure that HF 149 was meant to loosen restrictions on capitol punishment. School employees should not be encouraged to beat your kids. I clicked the box that said, “against.”

Then I read through it again, and it finally sunk in that it was way more ambiguous than I first thought. I clicked on the Lobbyist Declarations link down on the left side to see what other lobbyists thought about it. They were all “undecided.” All of them. And it was a long list.

Okay, so I can just change my declaration to “undecided” like all the rest. But that original “against” was still there like a flashing neon light of embarrassment. How about if I withdraw my declaration. Nope, still there.

Apparently, every declaration you make — including changes and withdrawals — are engraved in the fabric of the universe until the heat death of matter and energy for other lobbyists to laugh at.

I won’t make that mistake again. I’ll probably find some others, but not that one.

Lessons learned: 1) Always read each bill at least twice before making a declaration. 2) Always check the Lobbyist Declarations link to see what other lobbyists have done.

So many horrible bills have been filed in the Iowa Legislature and many of them are guaranteed to pass. Please check out as many of them as you can and don’t be shy about contacting your legislators and letting them know your opinions on these bills.

House File 187 — Anti-vax, Pro Ignorance, and Pro Cancer.

House File 187, by Shipley, is a bill designed to increase human papillomavirus infections — an illness known to cause increased risk of cervical cancer in women. This bill strips information on the availability of HPV vaccines from health and human development curricula in public schools. If it passes, it will ensure that more young Iowans remain ignorant of a simple, safe, and effective way to prevent a life threatening disease later in their lives.

Most human beings with at least a modicum of empathy and compassion want to decrease cancer rates and preventable infections. But not Jeff Shipley, the Representative from Van Buren. He believes that if teenagers learn about the HPV vaccine, it will make them all want to run out and have sex. That nonsequitur fails even the slightest scrutiny. Science makes it abundantly clear that knowledge of the HPV vaccine does not increase anyone’s desire for sex. But Jeff Shipley doesn’t know or care, as long as he can throw another slab of culture war meat to his hungry voter base.

 Current law requires that the human growth and development or health curriculum provided to students enrolled in school districts, accredited nonpublic schools, and charter schools be both research-based and age-appropriate. Within those limitations, current law also requires that the human growth and development or health curriculum include information regarding the availability of a vaccine to prevent human papilloma virus. The bill strikes this requirement.