Government : Hello, Iowa House District 84 from the State Capitol!

4th Grade Central Lutheran Students on Their Annual Field Trip Visit the Iowa House of Representatives.

The final week of the Iowa Legislature began on April 15th and wrapped up with debating and passing committee budgets and some additional bills. On the final day - April 19th, we gaveled in at 9:18 AM and eventually finished the 2024 session of the 90th General Assembly by adjourning Sine Die on April 20th at 4:23 AM.

We passed some very good bills and resolutions during the last week that will help all taxpayers! We passed Senate Joint Resolution 2004 (SJR 2004), which is a constitutional amendment that requires any income tax be based on a single rate. This resolution will prohibit some people from paying a higher percentage than others. It passed in the House on April 19th and will need to pass in the next general assembly, then can be voted on by the citizens of Iowa on a future ballot before it is added to the Iowa Constitution.

The Iowa House and Senate also passed House Joint Resolution 2006 (HJR 2006) on April 19th. This Iowa constitutional amendment, if passed in the next general assembly and then approved on the ballot by the people of Iowa, will require a two-thirds majority to increase taxes. It does not apply to local governments, however.

Iowa's economy has continued to perform fairly well despite the inflation, and so have the tax revenues into the state's coffers. As a result of this, Senate File 2442 addresses this by speeding up the tax cuts that were already in the Iowa Code. Current code has individual income tax rates lowered to 3.9% beginning on January 1st, 2026. SF 2442 now lowers the flat individual income tax rate to 3.8%, beginning on January 1st, 2025! Iowa legislators are being very cautious by learning from Kansas fiscal policies, which lowered tax rates too fast which resulted in budget and social program cuts.

The Iowa House debated around 275 bills on the floor this year. Of these, approximately 152 were unanimous, 92 were bipartisan, and 31 were along party line, showing there is bipartisanship for most of the bills.

Other bills of significance passed were we raised the salaries of beginning teachers to the 5th highest in the nation, investing more in school safety infrastructure, prioritized history and civics in K-12 education. We are prohibiting our regent universities from spending any money on so-called "diversity, equity, and inclusion" offices that divide students and impose ideological conformity of campus that is outside of what is required by law.

We also passed additional investment in the Dept. of Public Safety and Iowa Law Enforcement Academy such as covering costs for police officers moving to Iowa and prohibiting bail for people who murder police or corrections officers.

On April 18th, the Capitol was visited by the University of Iowa Choir students, and they sang a beautiful song in the rotunda! I included about a 2-minute video in the google doc below, or click here.

On Friday, April 19th, we were fortunate to have the 4th grade students from Central Lutheran School in Newhall visit the Iowa House on their annual field trip to the Capitol! During session, the House is typically not there on Fridays, so this was a treat for legislators and them!

There are many other highlights of bills we passed, including more information on the AEA bills passed. I invite you to read these (in word document or .pdf form) in the following google doc link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1pyb_lEIJug8jYntVS2zrb272dCMQrHoi

I will be checking my legislative emails basically every week, so if you have any comments or concerns, please let me know at Thomas.gerhold@legis.iowa.gov. Please be careful out there and watch out for busy farmers on the roads with their farm implements as they go out to the fields for spring planting and field work!