2023 Iowa Legislative Session - Week 14 Summary

This week, the Senate focused on advancing a number of the Governor’s appointees through Committees, including: appointees to the Iowa Autism Council, the Department of Education Director, and appointees to the Iowa Higher Education Loan Authority through the Education Committee; appointees to the Board of Veterinary Medicine Board through the Agriculture Committee; appointees to the Alcoholic Beverages Commission, Credit Union Review Board, and the Executive Director of the Iowa Finance Authority through the Commerce Committee; appointees to the Workforce Development Board through the Workforce Committee; appointees to the Board of Medicine and the Mental Health and Disability Services Commission through the Health and Human Services Committee; and members to the State Judicial Nominating Commission through the Judicial Committee, among others. With these appointees' approval from Committees, they now move to the Senate floor to be confirmed. 

Meanwhile, the House debated on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday and passed 36 bills. Among the bills that passed this week were:

• House File 572 which makes it illegal to fly a remotely operated aircraft, such as a drone, over a homestead or farm for a prolonged period of time. The bill would make it a simple misdemeanor to do so, and using a drone with surveillance equipment would be a serious misdemeanor. 
• House File 651, which relates to the ownership of dogs and allows an insurer to refuse to cover, raise rates, or to limit coverage, if a policy holder owns a dog that is classified as dangerous based on actuarial principles. 
• Senate File 315, which allows for the sale of raw milk and raw milk products.
  

To close out the week at the Capitol, lawmakers unanimously advanced a property tax bill on Thursday out of the House Ways and Means Committee. House File 1 would prevent a residential or agricultural property tax bill from increasing more than three percent over the preceding year. House File 1 would also put an eight percent cap on commercial or industrial property tax bill increases. However, improvements or new construction on a property could still lead to a higher tax bill for property owners. The proposal comes after property owners across Iowa are seeing increases, averaging around 22 percent, in the assessed value of their properties this year. 

In addition, the bill would lower the property tax that funds public schools from a tax rate of $5.40 for every $1,000 of taxable value to $4.40, which would lead to more than $200 million in tax relief to Iowans.

In the Know 

The Iowa Health and Human Services Department announced on Tuesday that personal information of more than 20,000 Iowa Medicaid members was compromised due to a data breach of a state contractor, last year. Independent Living Systems is a firm that was contracted to do work with Iowa Medicaid. The firm was hacked between June 30 and July 5, 2022, exposing personal information of more than 4 million people, including approximately 20,800 individuals in Iowa. Among the information that may have been accessed are full names, Social Security numbers, financial information, and Medicaid details. Iowa Medicaid was notified of the breach in February 2023.

In a statement released by the Iowa Health and Human Services Department, Iowa Medicaid Director, Elizabeth Matney stated, “Medicaid takes the privacy of Iowans’ personal and health information seriously. We regret the inconvenience and the concern this incident may cause Medicaid members in Iowa. HHS will continue to do everything possible to protect member information from unauthorized access.” Iowa Medicaid is mailing letters to affected members which will include details on what information was compromised, as well as access to free credit monitoring.

BrownWinick Government Relations

To view additional summaries from the 2023 Iowa Legislative Session or to learn more about BrownWinick’s Government Relations Team, visit our Lobbying and Public Policy team page.