(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa House has approved a bill that sets up a state school safety grant program and, if a companion bill becomes law, it could provide extra pay to school staff who get a professional permit to carry a gun on school grounds. Representative Carter Nordman of Adel says it’s part of House Republicans’ response to the fatal shooting at Perry High School in January.

“This bill will make our students safer by investing in infrastructure and technology that we know will make our school buildings more secure. It will make our students safer by requiring school districts to prioritize safety before they prioritize flashy sports facilities,”Nordman says. “Democrats would pass restrictive gun laws, but none of the gun control bills that we’ve heard from Democrats would have prevented what happened in Perry, Des Moines East, Parkersburg or Starts Right Here.”

That’s a list of shootings in school facilities in Iowa. Democrats say the grants in this bill could be used to buy guns if school boards get authority to let employees be armed at school. Representative Ross Wilburn, a Democrat from Ames, says the bill’s a disappointment. “It’s important to point out that we all are in favor of keeping our schools safe, of keeping our communities safe,” Wilburn said. “We differ about how to go about doing that.”

Another Democrat said the legislature should be making it harder for a would-be school shooter to get a gun rather than making it easier to have more guns in schools. Since it is an appropriations bill, it is NOT subject to Friday’s deadline for committee action on policy bills.

(Radio Iowa) – A Republican senator is using his authority to block consideration of a bill that critics say could make in vitro fertilization illegal in Iowa. Under current law, there are criminal penalties for terminating a human pregnancy without consent. A bill approved by the House last Thursday increases those penalties, but for the crime of “causing the death of an unborn person” without consent. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Brad Zaun of Urbandale refused to bring the bill up for a vote in his committee.

“There was some definite concerns about In Vitro fertilization and the negative effects and unintended consequences with that and that was very problematic for myself,” Zaun says, “and so that’s why I pulled the bill.” Zaun blocked consideration of another bill that would create a new crime of “human smuggling” of undocumented immigrants, with a possible 10 year prison sentence for a conviction. House Republicans passed the bill last Thursday, saying it’s needed to give Iowa law enforcement authority to arrest those they suspect of illegally transporting migrants into Iowa.

“In the language, it was my interpretation as well as some of the people on the committee that there was some unintended consequences,” Zaun says. Relatives and religious organizations providing assistance to asylum seekers had urged senators to defeat the bill, arguing they could be arrested for driving someone to school or work. Zaun says the bill needed work and his committee didn’t have time to make adjustments.

“The House has passed over 250 bills and we have passed only 43 I have heard,” Zaun says. “The workload, obviously the volume is obviously quite a bit coming from the House and I probably shouldn’t even say this, but it is frustrating to me that we get these bills with a one-day, two-day (turn around), with the expectation that we keep it alive.” Friday is the deadline for policy bills like this one to have passed the House and cleared a Senate committee. The deadline works in reverse, too, and a couple of Senate passed bills have failed to make it out of House committees this week.