Sen. Pat Ward Reports: Senate Democrats Use Majority to Stifle Debate

By Sen. Pat Ward

There comes a time every session when legislators must toss aside legislation that will not be given further consideration this session.

It’s called funnel week and it happened last week in the Legislature.
This is the time when all the bills that do not make it out of committee (with the exception of bills from Ways and Means, Appropriations and Government Oversight) are dead for the session.

Do you think partisanship in the Iowa Legislature holds the state back or does it provide an important check and balance? If so, what has that cost Iowa in efficiencies, advances and other areas? Tell Patch in the comments.

Not to appear overly partisan, but the nature of politics is that the majority party has complete control over whether legislation is ever debated by the Iowa Senate. Unfortunately for Iowans, a lot of good legislation authored by Republicans died at the hands of Senate Democrats this week.

Literally hundreds of bills aimed at putting more Iowans back to work, removing barriers to growth, allowing hardworking Iowa taxpayers to keep more of their own money and making government more efficient and effective all died this week as a result of Senate Democrats failure to take action.

At a time when there are nearly 100,000 Iowans out of work, I think nearly all Iowans will agree that is the wrong time to kill pro-jobs and pro-growth legislation.

Instead of killing bills that provide tax relief, government regulation reform and more choices in education, we should be promoting them and putting them on the fast-track to enactment.

Why Not Require All State Agencies to Make Jobs Impact Statement?
An example of a bill that was “killed” would have required all rules proposed by government agencies to contain a jobs impact statement.

The jobs impact statement would outline the objective of the rule and provide details on how the rule affects regulated entities including businesses and self-employed individuals.The bill would have required an agency to conduct an ongoing review of the agency’s rules every five years to determine whether the rules are still essential.

We continue to look at ways to encourage economic expansion and job creation in Iowa.  It is critical that we continue to look for ways to eliminate unnecessary regulation and improve the business climate so that jobs are created and retained in Iowa.

Contact Me
We have another community forum scheduled in West Des Moines on Saturday, March 24 at West Des Moines City Hall, 4200 Westown Pkwy. Everyone is welcome.

I am your voice at the State Capitol and look forward to your input. You can reach me by calling the Capitol at (515) 281-3371 or emailing me at pat.ward@legis.iowa.gov. Your thoughts and concerns remain very important to me – it is truly an honor to serve you in the Iowa Senate.