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Hello political people of Iowa! I am hoping to reach the population of you that attend Iowa State University. I am conducting a survey to measure the political beliefs held by ISU students in particular, because I think their opinions often get lumped in with that of the university's and its spokespeople. However, many current legislation changes affect college student populations specifically. It is important we know what the effected party feels on such matters.

Click the link below to share your thoughts!

https://forms.office.com/r/CPK8WLhktc

Form Anonymity and Privacy Settings

https://strawpoll.com/BDyNEVXAqZR

“Unfortunately, there were other wildly popular ideas that Iowa Republicans decided to target this week. House File 2482 expanded cancer coverage for firefighters and other public safety officials in Iowa. It was sponsored by members of both parties. It passed the House unanimously. I honestly thought that it was going to be one of the biggest highlights of the session as many of us expected it to sail through passage of the Senate as well.

Those hopes were dashed when Republican Senator Jason Schultz decided not to bring it up for a committee vote on the Senate side this week. Since it was the second funnel, all bills have to be passed in one chamber and by a committee in the other chamber to still be considered. His decision effectively killed the bill’s chances for this year. You can see above that firefighters (two of which are currently battling cancer) met with him several times about the bill. He didn’t indicate that he had opposition to the bill or any lingering questions about its contents. Instead, he let the week come and go without taking any action on it – despite repeated requests from hundreds of Iowans across the state.

The Des Moines Firefighters shared the bad news and insisted that they “have absolutely felt the love everyone has sent us.” They pledged to work on the bill again in the next session. Commonsense members of both parties will be doing that work with them until we make this right.”

Rep. A. Bagniewski

Bipartisan Votes Against the Republican-Passed AEA Bill

The AEA bill (House File 2612) passed the House on Thursday with 52 votes in favor and 41 votes against it. All 52 votes in favor were Republicans. The 41 votes against were all the Democrats in attendance plus a number of commonsense Republicans.

I noted on the floor that I still have immense concerns about the bill. I’ve received more emails about this topic than anything else. I've heard from Democrats, Republicans, and Independents from all over Iowa. Out of 1,500 emails, none have been in favor.

Many Iowans didn't even know all that the AEAs did just 60 days ago. There have been so many conversations. We have learned so much. As of Wednesday night when we received this amendment, we were still learning. Like Representative Sharon Steckman said on the floor, it would have made the most sense to create a taskforce now and make improvements based on their recommendations. It makes no sense to make changes now and then have the taskforce.

On the bill, I had three major concerns. The first relates to local control. I noted that we talk a lot in both chambers about local control. I firmly believe that the best decision-making happens at the local level. Yet this bill takes power away from local boards, makes them advisory, and gives their authority to people at the Department of Education in Des Moines.

We also talk a lot about shrinking government. I'm one who doesn't think that we should have any more government than we absolutely need. Yet this bill adds dozens of new staff to oversee local AEAs. All of those positions are based here in Des Moines. That seems very counter to most messaging from Republicans about what they say they want.

The most concerning part to me is that the Education Director would now effectively be able to fire all of the AEA directors. We've had four Education directors in four years. This one has a lot on her plate - vouchers, book bans, and now an overhaul of the AEAs, too?

You can see why the parents with kids being served by the AEAs are so concerned. I noted on the floor that I've met them and I can feel the fear that they have on a daily basis. They will tell you that the AEA system works. There's always room for improvement, but it works well for their families. And they're rightfully worried that rushing these changes could have disastrous impacts on their kids. Kids with special needs already have so many obstacles. Their families feel like they’re up against the world. They don’t want their kids to be guinea pigs for some new education overhaul. Losing even a year of their learning while the kinks get worked out on a new system could be devastating.

I should mention that Representative Skyler Wheeler took issue with the notion that this proposal would allow the Department of Education to fire the AEA directors. I’ve read his amendments several times. There are a lot of moving pieces and I can see why he’s confused. But his amended bill clearly reduces the AEA boards - who oversee the directors - to a merely advisory capacity. Although the board would advise on employment, the ultimate control for finances and operations would now be given to the Department instead. The annual approval for the AEA budget (including the AEA director’s salary) would be with the director of the Department of Education. His bill also takes the power to remove accreditation and the power to merge AEAs from the board and gives it to the director of the Department of Education as well.

If you don’t think the power to approve an AEA’s annual budget, remove their accreditation, and merge an AEA with another AEA is enough power for them to get rid of the AEA directors they don’t like, then you haven’t been paying attention to the Reynolds administration the last few years. One could easily see how the Reynolds administration could refuse a budget or even remove the accreditation for an AEA with any director they didn't approve of until she or he left their job. I hope that doesn’t happen, but her spiteful message against the AEAs mere minutes after House Republicans passed the bill casts serious doubt on any good faith going forward.

You Should Have Seen Their Faces

And that message was a doozie. During the debate, Republican legislator after Republican legislator got up and said they supported the AEAs. They insisted that they didn't think that the AEAs were failing our kids like Kim Reynolds had said. They swore that this wasn’t an attack on the AEAs in any way whatsoever. If anything, they assured us, this was a move to strengthen the AEAs. Although Representative Skyler Wheeler said the rollout of the Reynolds proposal on the AEAs had “sucked,” he assured us that that process had nothing to do with his current proposal. He said he had voted down the Reynolds proposal and that they had no bearing on each other.

Mere minutes after the House Republicans passed the AEA bill, though, Kim Reynolds sent out the triumphant, nasty email above. She notes that their bill is a recognition that the AEAs are “failing” our students and badly need changes. You could look around the room and see the looks of horror and disgust on the faces of Republican legislators as they read her message. For the Republicans who do want to dismantle the AEAs, this is exactly what they wanted. For those who inexplicably trusted her to do the right thing, they clearly got rolled. Now that they’ve given her this power, there’s little they can do to take it back. Representative Wheeler said the commission created by the bill would be active this spring to give recommendations for implementation yet this summer and fall.

The only solution left is to vote out those who did this in November and get a commonsense, hopefully bipartisan “AEA Caucus” of legislators ready to reverse this legislation when the new session convenes in January.