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DES MOINES — A Republican proposal to weaken legal protections for transgender Iowans by removing gender identity from the state’s Civil Rights Act appears headed for Gov. Kim Reynolds’ desk soon.
On Wednesday, Republicans on an Iowa Senate Committee voted in favor of advancing the proposed legislation, and both chambers of the Iowa Legislature have the bill on their respective debate calendars for Thursday.
If both chambers pass the bill Thursday, it will go to Reynolds for her consideration.
If Reynolds signs the bill into law, Iowa will become the first U.S. state to remove a protected class from the state’s Civil Rights Act.
Reynolds’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
The proposal — in the form of twin bills House File 583 and Senate File 418 — would remove gender identity from the Iowa Civil Rights Act, where it was placed in 2007. The Iowa Civil Rights Act provides legal protection for discrimination against protected classes regarding housing, employment, education, public services and accommodations, banking, and more.
The bill also would define the terms male and female and strike the definition of gender identity in state law, eliminate the ability of transgender Iowans to change their birth certificate, and declare that in law “separate” is not necessarily “unequal.”
Advocates for the bill say it is needed because the legal protections for transgender Iowans guaranteed by the Civil Rights Act have made some spaces — like bathrooms and locker rooms — more dangerous for women.
Attorneys, school safety advocates, legal experts and civil rights activists, however, note there is a lack of documented evidence in Iowa of transgender individuals, or men pretending to be transgender, harassing or attacking women in shelters, locker rooms, restrooms or other places.
Republican lawmakers also have argued that transgender protections in the state’s Civil Rights Act endanger state laws they passed in recent years that banned gender transition care for minors, prohibited transgender girls from playing in girls sports, and prohibited transgender students from using school bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity.
Iowa is among 23 states that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, according to the Human Rights Campaign.
A public hearing is scheduled for the bill ahead of floor debate Thursday. The public hearing will be held in Room 103 at the Iowa Capitol at 9:30 a.m. Thursday.
Imposing death penalty for killing a law enforcement officer advances
A bill that would establish the death penalty for first-degree murder of a peace officer advanced out of a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee Wednesday.
The death penalty would only apply to individuals who knew that the person they killed was a peace officer and are 18 or older. They also must not be mentally ill or intellectually disabled and must be a major participant in the commission of the crime.
The death penalty in Iowa was abolished in 1965.
Supporters argue it would provide closure to families of peace officers who are killed.
Sen. David Rowley, R-Spirit Lake, mentioned Algona Police Officer Kevin Cram, who was shot and killed last year as he tried to serve an arrest warrant.
“They’re a broken family, of course, and they would be,” Rowley said. “They’re looking for some closure dealing with the inhumanity of this individual who gunned their son, husband, father to three.”
Sen. Janice Weiner, D-Iowa City, said while she sympathizes with families of deceased officers, she is opposed to the death penalty.
“I have the greatest, only the greatest, empathy and sympathy for the family of the slain officer, I cannot imagine what it is like to be in their shoes,” Weiner said. “My religion, too may not be the same religion as many people in this room, but it tells me that killing is wrong.”
Multiple faith leaders testified against the legislation, opposing the death penalty on both moral and spiritual grounds.
Rowley and Sen. Scott Webster, R-Bettendorf, signed on to advance Senate File 320 for further consideration by the full Senate Judiciary Committee. Weiner declined to sign on.
Gun safety training in schools
School districts would be required to offer a firearm safety course to students in grades seven to 12 under a bill advanced Wednesday by House lawmakers. Districts also would be encouraged to adopt the National Rifle Association’s “Eddie Eagle” program for kindergarten through sixth grade. The safety awareness program teaches children when they encounter a firearm to stop, don’t touch, run away and tell an adult.
House Study Bill 200 would require the Iowa Department of Education to develop and distribute to all school districts an age-appropriate model program for firearm safety for students enrolled in kindergarten through grade 12.
For students in grades seven to 12, the safety course would be modeled after the NRA’s hunter safety education course. The free, online program teaches students how to safely handle a firearm and informs them of hunting regulations.
An instructor for an approved firearm safety instruction course would not required to be a teacher licensed by the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners.
“It would not necessarily have to be taught to students, but it would be offered,” said Rep. John Wills, R-Spirit Lake, who supports the proposal. “And it can be taught during non traditional school times, off school property, and it could be using the voluntary DNR/NRA programs that are already out there.”
Rep. Beth Wessel-Kroeschell, D-Ames, said nothing in state law currently prevents school districts from offering firearm safety instruction and should have the ability to choose whether to do so. She raised concerns about requiring districts to implement such a program amid existing burdens on public schools.
A similar measure introduced two years ago failed to advance.
“If one student should happen to be saved because they saw a gun and didn’t pick it up and shoot somebody else or shoot themselves, and instead they reported it to an adult, this is a win. And so I think that this is a public safety issue,” Wills said.
The House Public Safety committee advanced the bill in an 18-4 bipartisan vote, making it eligible for consideration by the full House.
New traffic camera rules advance in Iowa House
A year after passing restrictions on where automated traffic cameras can be placed on Iowa roads, House lawmakers advanced new rules over fines for speeding captured by cameras.
House File 3 advanced out the House Public Safety Committee 15-7 and is now eligible for debate on the House floor.
The bill would prohibit cities from contracting with third-party vendors to collect speeding fines from automated traffic cameras. The legislation also would exclude fines for speeding from automated traffic cameras from state collections procedures. Money owed for a traffic camera penalty could not be acquired, for instance, by withholding money from an individual’s tax return.
The bill does not address stoplight violations captured by traffic cameras.
The cities of Cedar Rapids and Marion both use a third-party company to collect unpaid fines from traffic cameras. Lobbyists for Iowa cities have said private vendors are more efficient collectors of fines, and prohibiting their use would create an inefficient local government that would be more costly to taxpayers.
Rep. Dan Gosa, a Democrat and former Davenport school board member, said he’s a proponent of the use of traffic cameras as a tool to curb speeding in school zones.
“So basically, you’re going to get a ticket and there’s no repercussion to you at all,” Gosa said of making it more onerous for cities to collect fines for speeding. “There’s no teeth in it. I feel that that’s going to put a huge safety concerns for me in our school district areas and school zones.”
Bill would charge suppliers in fentanyl deaths with murder
The House Public Safety Committee advanced House File 365, making it eligible for debate by the full House.
Under the bill, individuals who deliver or provide someone with a lethal dose of fentanyl — whether knowingly or unknowingly — could be charged with first-degree murder.
Supporters said someone who takes another person’s life with fentanyl should receive the highest degree of penalty, while opponents say the bill could penalize those who unknowingly give someone else a drug containing fentanyl that led to someone’s death.
The bill would sentence someone who delivered, dispensed or provided fentanyl to another person that resulted in their death with a class A felony punishable by life in prison without possibility of parole.
The bill states: “It is not a defense … that the other person contributed to the person’s own death by the purposeful, knowing, reckless, or negligent injection, inhalation, absorption, or ingestion of the controlled substance or by consenting to the administration of the controlled substance by another person.”
Bill requiring doctors inform patients of ‘abortion reversal’ advances
House lawmakers advanced legislation that would require health care providers to inform patients that it is possible to reverse the effects of medication abortion.
House Study Bill 186 advanced 13-6 along party lines out of the House Health and Human Services Committee with Republican support Wednesday.
The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Shannon Lundgren, R-Peosta, said people should have the right to be informed about the option to reverse a medication abortion.
“We’re asking for informed consent, if you have a change of heart you should have the opportunity to seek medical care and be taken care of,” Lundgren said.
Rep. Austin Baeth, D-Des Moines, said the legislation is “rooted in junk science.”
Baeth, an internal medicine physician, criticized the science behind medicated abortion reversal drugs, noting that studies behind them did not follow typical procedures for clinical trials.
Gazette-Lee Des Moines bureau