HEATHEN OF THE CORN
House File 190 — The Cruelty Is the Point
House File 190 seeks to remove gender identity as a protected class under the Iowa Civil Rights Act. If passed it will legalize anti-trans discrimination in employment, wages, public accommodations, housing, education, and credit practices.
This is a cruel, heartless bill being pushed by cruel heartless people. We cannot let it be signed into Iowa law. Contact your legislators immediately and tell them to vote this down.
For purposes of Code chapter 216, the bill removes gender identity as a protected class and defines “sex” to mean a person’s biological sex as either male or female.
More Bills, good and bad.
More bills of interest filed today and yesterday. Until the first funnel on February 10 (nine days from now), it is a struggle to keep up. To get the information out to you quickly, I’m going to just list each bill with a link, a sentence or two of my own commentary, and a brief description from the legislature website.
House File 182, by the House Education Committee.
An Act relating to institutions of higher education governed by the state board of regents, including requiring the institutions to submit reports to the general assembly related to terms associated with courses offered by the institutions’ colleges of education and establishing an interim study committee to evaluate practitioner preparation programs offered by the institutions…
This bill allows the General Assembly to micromanage education-related classes at the state universities. The list of terms is basically everything conservatives like to call ‘woke.” If it passes, Christian Nationalists will have a convenient list of everyone they need to purge to make sure Iowa children are only taught GOP-approved ideas and beliefs.
House File 188, by Boulton and Knox.
1 An Act relating to hate crimes, and providing penalties.
This bill defines “hate crime” and requires that any hate crime be punished one degree higher than the underlying crime. I’m all for this one and hope it passes.
House File 180 by the Committee on Education
This bill prohibits school districts and charter schools from facilitating any accommodation that is intended to affirm a student’s gender identity, if that gender identity is different than the sex listed on the student’s official birth certificate, without the written consent of the student’s parent or guardian; encouraging or coercing any student to withhold information from the student’s parent or guardian related to the student’s gender identity;
This bill is just fine if a student’s parents are accepting and supportive. But this bill would out the students to parents who are not accepting and supportive. That is one reason why so many LGBTQ students consider suicide and make up the majority of all homeless children.
House File 169, by Golding.
The bill requires absentee ballots to be received in the office of the county commissioner of elections before the close of business on the day before the election…The bill prohibits the special precinct election board from tabulating absentee ballots in excess of the number reported received by the commissioner as of the close of business on the day before the election…
This bill makes it harder to vote for no good reason. It just means more people who vote by mail must return their ballots the day before the polls open or their votes won’t be counted. Conservatives know that their base is tightly motivated. If they can prevent a few percent of everybody else’s votes from counting they will keep winning at the majority’s expense.
House File 166by Golding.
An Act relating to vaccines, including modifying provisions related to a minor’s legal capacity to give consent to the provision of vaccines and provisions related to the instruction provided to students enrolled in school districts, accredited nonpublic schools, and charter schools related to the human papilloma virus
This bill strips students of their legal capacity to act and give consent for the Human Papillomavirus vaccine and similar medical treatments and related services. It deletes all related information from their public school curricula . Apparently, ignorance and anti-vax science denial are preferable to cancer and disease free adults.
An Act relating to voter registration activities at schools.
This bill provides two opportunities for seventeen year old students to register to vote if they will be eighteen by election day. It is their right and duty and if we want a functioning democracy we must encourage them to do so.
A Resolution regarding foundational principles of theAmerican form of government.
This resolution leans hard into Christian privilege and nationalism. Read the whole thing. It’s authors don’t understand the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, or American history.
The First Abortion Bill of the 2023 Legislative Session
The first bill related to abortion was just filed in the Iowa Legislature yesterday. House File 146 would make it a felony for anyone to provide abortion pills in Iowa.
The first bill related to abortion was just filed in the Iowa Legislature yesterday. House File 146 would make it a felony for anyone to provide abortion pills in Iowa.
https://iowastartingline.com/2023/01/30/house-republicans-move-to-ban-abortion-pills-in-iowa/
An Act prohibiting certain actions relating to abortifacient 2 drugs in the state, and providing penalties.
Two Senate Files: Pro Covid, Pro Ignorance, Anti Public Health
Two bills have been filed in the Iowa Senate related to Coronavirus and pandemic mandates, Senate File 45 and Senate File 91. Both bills would make it harder for Iowa to enforce science-based public health measures promoted by the Federal Government.
Two bills have been filed in the Iowa Senate related to Coronavirus and pandemic mandates, Senate File 45 and Senate File 91. Both bills would make it harder for Iowa to enforce science-based public health measures promoted by the Federal Government.
Over the last three years, conservatives enthusiastically embraced the conspiracy that common sense measures to reduce death and sickness of a deadly pandemic are really leftist attacks on personal freedom and liberty. If liberals are for it, they must be against it. Covid has killed over a million Americans so far. The death toll should never have reached that level, but it did — thanks at least in part to the conservative anti-vax obsession. I just don’t understand.
And they aren’t done yet. Brad Zaun sponsored Senate File 45, a bill “prohibiting the labor commissioner from implementing, enforcing, or conforming to certain federal occupational safety and health standards relating to COVID-19.” The health and safety standards in question are those involving Covid testing and vaccinations in the workplace. Employers would be 1) prohibited from requiring Covid tests or vaccinations and 2) prohibited from determining whether an employee is vaccinated, has had a Covid test, or has ever had the viral infection.
Senate File 91, by Senator Salmon, is “an act relating to powers and duties applicable to state of 2 disaster emergencies and public health disasters.” According to this bill, after the Governor declares a public disaster, only the General Assembly would be allowed to rescind, extend, or amend the state of emergency.
This bill includes explicit religious exemptions for vaccines. It would make it easier for medical practitioners to promote quack medicine. Emergency measures shall not infringe on a fundamental constitutionally protected right unless the measure is justified by a compelling state interest, is narrowly tailored to achieve its specific purpose, and is achieved by the least restrictive means possible. The bill interferes with contact tracing, quarantine measures, and social distancing requirements. Basically, it would reduce the state’s ability to impose most of the common sense measures used to reduce the spread of Covid 19 over the last three years.
If this bill becomes law, the State’s responsibility to reduce the health risk of deadly pandemics and other emergencies will take a back seat to conspiracies, ignorance, science denial, and religious dogma.
Please click on the links and read these bills. Or at least the final section labeled “EXPLANATION.” I know, they are all hard to read, written in dense legalese. But there is so much more detail. As hard as I try, I always feel like my brief summaries and explanations still miss too much.
Senate File 99: An Anti-Vaxxer's Dream
Senate File 99, “an act relating to immunization information requested on a medical examiner investigation form,” is an anti-vax dream.
Senate File 99, “an act relating to immunization information requested on a medical examiner investigation form,” is an anti-vax dream. This bill would require medical examiners to document recent vaccination history every time they investigate the death of a child age 0-3.
The CDC recommends that every child receive ten different vaccinations — sometimes multiple doses — before age three. Literally every child age 0-3 who dies will have multiple recent vaccines in their medical records — and all that information will go into a publically available spreadsheet. Every vaccine conspiracist out there will gleefully point to that list and say, “all those innocent children were given vaccines, and then they died!”
You all know which fallacy that is, right? T
his bill is a gift to the purveyors of ignorance and science denial. Contact you legislators and tell them to vote no on Senate File 99