2021 Legislative Session

Autonomous personal delivery devices may start operating in residential areas of Iowa communities. The House has passed a bill allowing for these robot deliveries and now a Senate committee has modified the bill. The House has also passed a bill adding penalties for those who trespass and take animal, plant, or land samples from an agricultural-producing property. It also includes penalties for taking a photograph while trespassing.

Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a bill into law Friday ending the requirement for Iowans to get a permit to buy and carry a handgun. It takes effect July 1.

A bill creating an independent system of publicly-funded charter schools took another step forward in the Iowa legislature Thursday.

Creating new professional licensing programs, or expanding existing ones, would be more difficult under a bill passed out of an Iowa House subcommittee Wednesday.

The Iowa House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill Monday that aims to expand high-speed internet access throughout the state, but lawmakers have yet to announce an agreement on how much money they will allocate for this purpose.

Legislators are beginning the sprint to the end of the legislative session. Budgets are starting to form in the Senate and House. So are more tax reduction proposals, including one that would change funding for mental health to come from the general fund instead of local property taxes. Some of those other divisions would eliminate backfill payments to cities and counties.

In an after-midnight vote, the Iowa House passed a bill to provide public funding for charter schools run by groups unaffiliated with local school districts.

Republicans on a Senate panel advanced a bill Wednesday that would fully shift mental health funding from local property taxes to the state, phase out commercial property tax replacement payments known as the “backfill” to local governments, and make other changes to Iowa’s tax policies.

IPR Morning Edition host Clay Masters discusses what to expect this week in the Iowa legislature with IPR state government reporter Katarina Sostaric.

Iowa’s revenue forecasting panel met Friday and estimated state revenue growth will be just shy of the level needed for more income tax cuts to kick in. Gov. Kim Reynolds and Senate Republicans want to remove those thresholds and allow tax cuts to take effect in 2023.