Progressive States Network: Iowa's Historic Session

From my inbox...

Iowa's Historic Session

For Iowa, this was a bit of a historic session, the first time in forty years that Democrats led both chambers and had the Governorship. And the result was a solid progressive beginning with greater hopes for 2008. A few of the achievements:

• In many ways, the signature bill of the session was the creation of the Iowa Power Fund, a $100 million investment in the state's renewable energy industry in a bid to, in the words of Governor Culver, make Iowa "the energy capital of the world."
• Iowa approved Election Day Registration, a key reform to improve voter turnout in future elections.
• Another bill announcing a new progressive era for Iowa was raising the minimum wage by $2.10, a relief for low-income state residents who hadn't seen a raise in the minimum wage in the decade since the federal minimum wage was last raised. The legislature approved an increase in the states Earned Income Tax Credit, SF 590, to seven percent and made the credit refundable.
• Iowa became the 18th state to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and the 11th state to ban discrimination based on gender identity, a significant advancement for gay and lesbian civil rights.
• Teacher salaries will advance to the national average, a $250 million teacher pay increase.
• The legislature voted to end paperless electronic voting and move the state towards voter-marked paper ballots.
• The Senate passed a resolution opposing the President's escalation in Iraq.
  

On health care, the legislature had more modest accomplishments. They raised the cigarette tax by $1 per pack to deter smoking and approved a law to allow small businesses to band together in purchasing pools to reduce their health insurance costs. Governor Culver also signed SF 162, a bill to encourage embryonic stem cell research by repealing a 2002 law that prohibited human cloning. More comprehensive health care reforms were turned over to a committee to recommend changes for the '08 legislature.

On the downside, the legislature failed to enact pro-union reforms of Iowa's "right to work for less" law and failed to enact a prevailing wage law to raise wages on public construction projects to match the wages paid in the private sector.