School voucher bill rushed through legislature

To the Editor,

   What really happened that our legislators didn’t tell us?

   Republicans in control of the Iowa Legislature fast-tracked the school voucher bill by dramatically altering the normal legislative process. in the House, where the plan to spend public money on private schools has died each of the past two years, Republicans created a special Education Reform Committee, made up of those supporting the plan. This kind of bill has, in the past, needed to go through the regular Education Committee. But leadership sensed opposition there, so they just changed the rules and made up their own committee.

   Shocking no one, it passed.

   House leaders also changed the rules so that the bill, which commits hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to this new program, didn’t have to go through the appropriations committee, as funding bills usually are required to do.

   Over in the Iowa Senate, the House-passed bill raced through floor passage without the usual amendments from those opposed to the bill, or even supporters who might want to try to improve the bill. How did leaders do that? By changing the rules to block senators from introducing ANY amendments. None.

   Reasonable people certainly can disagree on the merits of this controversial bill but those legislators, and the Iowans they represent, were completely locked out of the process. Senate leaders didn’t want any changes to the bill because then it would have to go back to the House for consideration of those changes. And that, my fellow Iowans, would have messed up the Hollywood movie script dreamed up by Governor Reynolds and her sycophants in the legislature.

   Thanks to Dave Busiek for the explanation!

Steve Hanken

Monticello, Iowa