Minute with Mike, Week Two

From My Desk

Welcome to Minute with Mike. The purpose of this letter is to bring you up to date on the happenings in the House of Representatives, and the Capitol, as well as providing a little bit of a civics lesson now and then. Week two has come to an end here at the State House.

Basic Schedule

Many of you have asked about my schedule while we are in session. As I stated in last week's Minute with Mike, this is the shorter session of the two joint sessions with this year being one hundred days.

Here is a basic schedule of my days for the next one hundred days:

Monday - I Leave home by 8 a.m. with a Leadership Meeting at 11:30 a.m. We gavel in at 1 p.m., and my afternoons are filled with Standing Committee and Subcommittee meetings. We do very little floor debate at the beginning of session.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday- I arrive at the Capitol by 6:30 a.m. each morning so I can get a head start on trying to get through emails and reading bills before the day gets busy. We gavel in at 8:30 a.m., which is followed by more Standing and Subcommittee meetings.

My last meeting on Thursday usually occurs mid to late afternoon, after which I head home. We normally have a stream of folks from back home who like to visit the capitol during session. Meeting with people from my district is a priority, even when my schedule is busy.

The capitol is open to the public with a few different requirements before entering.

If you decide to visit, here is what you need to know before coming: Your temperature will be checked, wear a mask, answer a series of questions regarding COVID-19 and then, you can pass through security successfully.

Differences between 2020 and 2021

To say that this session is a little different is a huge understatement. I will walk you through the differences of this year compared to last.

First, where we accomplish our work is different. Normally, we all would be on the House Floor most of the day doing our work with our clerks seated beside us. However, leadership wants us to limit our time on the floor and would like the clerks to be there as little as possible.

I'm sure you have heard me say that without our clerks we would be in a mess; helping us keep up on emails, getting us to our meetings, greeting constituents and other groups, and maintaining our calendar is most of what they do which helps our job run smoothly.

Now, we spend almost all of our time in our offices in the Capitol Building. We will still debate and vote on bills in the chamber. Second, the social aspect is completely different than last year. In a normal year we would meet with two or three groups in the morning before we gavel-in.

Groups, hoping to speak to a legislature, would set up their displays in the rotunda. Noon would usually bring a group offering lunch to the Representatives and at the end of the day, in the evenings, we would have two, sometimes three, legislative receptions with more groups hoping to speak to us over refreshments. All of this has ended.

The Capitol seems pretty empty with just legislators and lobbyist trying to fill the almost-empty hallways. Republicans are the majority of legislators that fill the chamber and offices. The Democrats are not showing up due to the absence of a mask mandate for the Capitol, and yes, they are still getting paid the same amount as those of us that are showing up every day to do the job you elected us to do.

I would say 99 percent of the people at the State House are wearing masks. Subcommittees and Standing committee meetings are all being live-streamed on the internet to try to cut down on people in the committee rooms.

Process of a bill

The following is a quick rundown of the process a bill must go through during the session. Any legislator can have a bill drafted.

Once the bill is drafted, they are delivered to the representative or senator for the final signature and approval, after which the bill is sent back to the Chief Clerks Office.

The bill is then sent to the Speaker's Office where he assigns it to the appropriate committee. It is then introduced on the House floor.

The committee chair, to which the bill is assigned, has the power to decide if the bill moves through the committee or to kill it. If the committee chair decides to move the bill forward, it is assigned to a subcommittee.

The subcommittee is chaired by the bill manager, who will then run the bill in the various stages of the process. If the bill passes subcommittee it must then pass through the standing committee. After passing the Standing Committee, the Speaker must decide if he wants to run the bill on the House Floor.

The Speaker can either kill the bill or can schedule it on the debate calendar for floor debate. If the bill passes in the House, it then goes to the Senate and the entire process begins again. Finally, after it passes out of both the Senate and the House, the bill is sent to the Governor's office to be signed into law.

I'm sharing this with you because this week the House Democrats introduced many anti-guns and anti-second amendment bills. I hope to have dispelled some of this concern by showing you that just because a bill has been introduced, and makes the news, doesn't mean it will become law. In fact, very few bills ever make it to the Governor's desk.

Always check to see where a bill is in the process before you get to upset or excited about any bills.

If you need more in-depth information on a specific subject or a bill, please just email my clerk, Andrea, at mike.sexton@legis.iowa.gov and she can find the information you are looking for and get it back to you.

Education 

On Monday, Jan. 18, the White House released President Trump's Advisory 1776 Commission Report. The purpose of the 1776 Commission is to "enable a rising generation to understand the history and principles of the founding of the United States in 1776 and to strive to form a more perfect Union."

In order to do this, American education must be "accurate, honest, unifying, inspiring and ennobling."

There needs to be a focus on the founding principles for a renewed American unity and confident American future. This report summarizes the principles of America's founding as well as how these principles have shaped the country.

There is no doubt that America has become deeply divided. There is now a dispute over the history of the country which is impacting not just the present, but the future.

As the report states "The facts of our founding are not partisan. They are a matter of history." We need to know our history, the good and the bad, in order to keep from repeating the bad and improving the good. Unfortunately, one of the first things President Biden did on his first day was to dissolve the commission with an executive order.

This week, legislation was introduced which will ensure parental choice in education. The bill gives the decision-making power back to the parents when it comes to their children's education. The bill states that if a public school or an accredited, private school offers both in-person and online learning, the parents and/or guardians will determine which instruction method their children will use.

Those introducing the bill suggest that:

* Parents need to have a greater voice in their children's schooling. Right now, many parents don't even feel like they are being heard.

* Some schools have taken every effort to provide in-person learning, but in some areas of the state, students are being trapped in situations that aren't what's best for them.

* A recently released CDC study found that in-person learning at K-12 schools doesn't lead to an increase in COVID-19 cases compared to areas that have online learning only. * One of the legislature's top priorities will be to ensure that every family that wants 100% in-person learning has access to it.

Education Vouchers

There will be a big push this year to move some type of bill that gives parents more choice in their children's education. How this is achieved can look many different ways.

At this point, all options are on the table and we will be engaging in discussions on specific policy suggestions throughout the session.

As always, please let me know your thoughts on these issues or any others you are hearing about.

Pass It On

If you have family, friends, or co-works that you think would also enjoy MWM please forward this to them so they can read it and deicide to be on our mailing list. If you are reading this and would like to subscribe to our newsletter, "Minute with Mike," please send us an email letting us know.

We have created a Facebook page that I will be using to add comments about what is going on in the Capitol and the House floor, as well as on bills that are being debated on the floor.

Please go to https://www.facebook.com/citizensforsexton or search for State Representative Mike Sexton on Facebook and like it so you can stay informed about legislation we are working on.

Please let me know what you are thinking! Feel free to contact me at my legislative email at mike.sexton@legis.iowa.gov