Casinos to immigration, hot-button issues to resurface in Iowa Legislature

Iowa Republicans last year used their legislative majorities to push through a trove of priorities over the objections of Democrats, passing reforms ranging from an overhaul of education agencies that provide special education and other support services to school districts in Iowa, to tax cuts to illegal immigration enforcement.

But bills that would reimpose a moratorium on new casino licenses in the state, require hands-free use of cellphones while driving and restrict the use of eminent domain to build carbon dioxide pipeline systems, among others, stalled.

Here’s a look at the hot-button issues likely to resurface during this year’s Iowa legislative session, which begins Monday.

Legislative preview series

Sunday: Property taxes

Monday: Citizens’ guide to the Legislature

Tuesday: Voting

Wednesday: K-12 education

Thursday: State agency proposals

Friday: Agriculture/environment

Today: Hot-button issues

Sunday: Higher education

Monday: Demographics of the Legislature

Casino moratorium

Among the first bills Iowa lawmakers could take up is a moratorium blocking the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission from awarding new gaming licenses in Iowa, which would thwart Cedar Rapids casino backers’ hopes for a new $275 million facility.

Rep. Bobby Kaufmann, R-Wilton, chair of the House tax policy Ways and Means Committee, said he intends to move a bill out of committee as early as the second week of session.

Kaufmann told The Gazette he expects the bill to look similar to the one that quickly passed the Iowa House with bipartisan support in the waning, early morning hours on the last day of the 2024 legislative session. The Iowa Senate, however, adjourned without taking up the five-year moratorium advanced by House lawmakers.

The bill amended and passed by the House, Senate File 2427, would have tightened restrictions and imposed rules for issuing new licenses through June 30, 2029, which would have blocked the state gaming commission from approving a Cedar Rapids casino.

The state’s existing casinos support a moratorium, saying Iowa’s casino market — with 19 commercial casinos and four tribal casinos spread across the state — is saturated and that a new facility would cannibalize revenues from other Iowa casinos and dilute, not increase, the state’s gambling market.

“I plan on filing a very similar bill that wouldn’t just be a moratorium, but it would give an outline of when and how a new casino should be even considered, which I think is a goal that a lot of people have to have clear, set rules on what makes that happen,” Kaufmann said.

Casino backers say the state’s second-largest city should be allowed to benefit from gaming the same as other communities, and that growth in Iowa’s gaming industry and competition from neighboring states could make the proposed Cedar Crossing more relevant.

“I want to encourage our Legislature, amid rumblings of a potential moratorium, to let the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission do the job that it and the governor have tasked it with,” Cedar Rapids Mayor Tiffany O’Donnell said. “And that is a data driven, fully transparent and fair process to decide whether or not Linn County’s application gets approved. And then let the chips fall where they may.”

Lawmakers have a short window to pass and have Gov. Kim Reynolds’ sign a bill into law. The five-member gaming commission is set to vote Feb. 6 on awarding a license for a Linn County casino.

The Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission twice has rejected proposals — in 2014 and 2017 — to bring a casino to Cedar Rapids.

The state later implemented a two-year moratorium on new gaming licenses. That moratorium expired July 1, 2024, allowing Cedar Rapids casino backers to move ahead with their third attempt at securing a Linn County gaming license.

Two new market studies commissioned by the gaming commission say a proposed Cedar Rapids casino would largely rely on pulling patrons from other Iowa casinos rather than bringing in new customers or significantly increasing statewide gaming revenue.

Kaufmann said he’s looking for a partner in the Senate to run his bill.

Senate President Amy Sinclair, R-Allerton, said it was too early to make any predictions on what will happen in the Senate, as a bill had not yet been drafted and there was no indication of where the governor stands on the issue.

Sinclair said she has her own reservations about advancing a moratorium. “We have a Racing and Gaming Commission and so they have a job and a function to do … (and) not much has changed since the last time (a casino license) wasn’t granted,” she said. “So there is a process in place that has guard rails.”

House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst, D-Windsor Heights, and Senate Democratic Leader Janice Weiner, D-Iowa City, said Democratic lawmakers are likely to vary in their votes on such a moratorium, based on their district.

Immigration

Republican governors and lawmakers in some states have rolled out proposals that could help President-elect Donald Trump carry out his pledge to deport millions of people living in the country illegally.

A recently passed law would allow state law enforcement to arrest and force the removal of immigrants in Iowa if they previously had been denied entry into the country. The U.S. Department of Justice and civil rights organizations sued to stop the Iowa law, which is currently halted.

House Speaker Pat Grassley, R-New Hartford, said he expects to see other conversations on immigration policy arise during the session. Grassley said states should not rely solely on federal action.

“I think states shouldn’t just say it’s the federal government’s problem,” he said. “I think states are much more nimble in the ability to react to things, especially that impact them at the local level.”

Lawmakers last session advanced — but failed to pass — legislation that would establish a new crime of “human smuggling” and penalize people in certain cases who transport or harbor immigrants without legal permission to be in country and make them ineligible for public benefits — which is already prohibited by federal law.

Grassley said he expects Republican lawmakers will revisit those bills this session.

Rep. Steve Holt, R-Denison, chair of the House Judiciary Committee that advanced last year’s immigration enforcement law, said he intends to reintroduce the human smuggling bill.

“We stand ready to do what’s necessary to help the president with his plans,” Holt said.

Sinclair, the Senate president, said she expects all Iowa communities “will do our duty and cooperate with federal law enforcement and this administration to enforce immigration laws.”

Konfrst said Democrats are focused on ensuring legislation to restrict and penalize immigrants in Iowa whose citizenship or immigration status cannot be verified not harm the state’s economy and industries that rely on migrant labor.

“Our approach continues to be to run this again through a workforce lens. And to look at the issue of the ag economy, look at different plants around the state and make sure that we’re taking care of those who earn money and help this state thrive.”

Abortion

Statehouse Republicans achieved a goal decades in the making last year when the state’s law banning most abortions went into effect. And there seems little room or desire among Republicans to restrict abortions in Iowa even further.

Meanwhile, House and Senate Democrats plan to reintroduce a pack of legislation to protect birth control, fertility treatments and other reproductive rights, and as well as introduce legislation to create a right to popular referendum.

Iowa is among 26 states that do not have citizen-led ballot initiatives. Instead, Iowa Legislature starts the process of amending the Iowa Constitution.

Voters passed abortion-rights ballots measures in seven out of 10 states in the November general election. In Nebraska, voters approved a competing measure to ban abortion after the first trimester.

“The Legislature has passed, the governor has signed and the Iowa Supreme Court has upheld the Legislature’s right to regulate this medical procedure,” Sinclair said. “We will defend what we’ve done. Anything that happens beyond that is just speculation, and I’m not necessarily open to it.”

Grassley said House Republicans instead intend to focus on legislation that promote childbirth as an alternative to abortion, such as supporting adoption, addressing barriers to foster care and expanding child tax credits and resources to mothers struggling with unplanned pregnancies.

Iowa saw an estimated 38 percent drop in abortions performed since the implementation of the law, which took effect July 29.

The law bans most abortions once cardiac activity can be detected in an embryo or fetus through a transabdominal ultrasound. Cardiac activity typically can be detected at roughly six weeks of pregnancy, which is often before a woman is aware of the pregnancy.

It contains limited exceptions for some cases of rape, incest, life or health of the mother or a fetal abnormality judged by a doctor to be incompatible with life.

Konfrst said House Democrats will reintroduce measures to amend the Iowa Constitution by adding a guaranteed right to abortion access, and loosening recently enacted restrictions on abortion by broadening exceptions — particularly for rape and incest — that doctors say are unworkable.

House and Senate Democrats offered amendments voted down by Republicans that would have removed the time-limited reporting requirements for instances of rape and incest to be eligible for exceptions. Democrats said most rapes and instances of incest are not reported, and so the short time frame will require many people who were victims of rape or incest to give birth.

Republicans also voted down amendments that would create exceptions for any pregnant children 12 years old or younger, and another that would create an exception for people under 16. Republicans said children would be protected under exceptions for rape, incest and medical emergency.

Property rights

The Iowa House has approved two bills in successive years that were meant to address concerns about the use of eminent domain to build carbon dioxide pipeline systems. But Senate Republicans have not taken up the proposals.

Summit Carbon Solutions of Ames is expected to use eminent domain to force land easement agreements with unwilling landowners for up to a quarter of its first phase route in Iowa, which goes for about 690 miles. Those agreements allow the company to build and operate its CO2 system on land it doesn’t own.

The 2023 bill would have required companies like Summit to get voluntary easements for 90 percent of their proposed routes before being eligible to use eminent domain. Last year’s bill would have allowed landowners subject to eminent domain to challenge the authority in court while pipeline permits were pending.

Grassley said new legislation might target land surveys. The Iowa Supreme Court recently upheld a law that allows pipeline companies to go onto people’s property without their permission to survey and do minor digging.

“There’s been a lot of questions just brought up through this entire process, that should we be reviewing this even broader than maybe we have the last two sessions?” he asked. “That being said, eminent domain is still kind of the key driver of the conversation, and we recognize that.”

Sinclair said senators might “talk about the usage of eminent domain and making sure that we’re defending property rights. I think you’ll hear that conversation. I don’t know that you’ll hear it directed specifically at a pipeline.”

Holt, the House Judiciary Committee chair, is among 30 lawmakers suing the state utilities commission over the issue, citing constitutional and statutory requirements he believes the commission did not meet, and emphasized the need to protect landowners’ rights.

He said there will be ongoing discussions among House Republican lawmakers to address eminent domain for energy projects, but the current focus is on the ongoing legal battle.

Hands-free driving bill

Konfrst said she looks forward to bipartisan action on a bill banning the use of a handheld electronic devices while driving.

The Iowa Bicycle Coalition and more than 25 other groups representing law enforcement, health care, labor, business, transportation and insurance have launched a statewide campaign to press Iowa lawmakers to pass legislation next year banning the use of a handheld electronic devices while driving.

Under current law, drivers may use their phones on the road to take or answer a call and to use a GPS navigation system.

Distracted driving crashes have increased by 43 percent over the last decade, according to Iowa Department of Transportation crash data.

The Iowa Senate last year overwhelmingly passed a bill, Senate File 547, that would ban motorists’ handheld use of cellphones behind the wheel, but the Iowa House hit the brakes.

Bills limiting cellphone use by mandating voice-activated or hands-free technology while driving have been introduced in the Iowa Legislature since 2019, but all attempts at passage have been unsuccessful.

Similar laws in states like Alabama, Michigan, Missouri and Ohio have proved effective at reducing crash rates, according to a 2024 report by the Governors Highway Safety Association.

The Iowa State Patrol and the Governor’s Traffic Safety Bureau conducted a survey during the 2024 Iowa State Fair that found nearly 85 percent of the more than 1,300 Iowans surveyed supported legislation mandating hands-free phone use. And 96 percent said they regularly see others driving with a cellphone in hand.

Despite bipartisan and law enforcement support, a libertarian wing of Republicans in the GOP-controlled House objected to the legislation, saying it infringes on Iowans’ individual rights.

“I think it there still is going to be groups within the caucus that are very passionately for it and very passionately concerned about the potential overreach of doing that,” Grassley said. “ … If we make sure we craft this right — to make sure that it’s enforceable, that it’s something that’s actually going to work, and it isn’t just a wild-goose chase of who may or may not be on their phone — if we can craft something properly and look at what some other states have done, I’d be willing to support that. That being said, there still are some members of the caucus that have a level of reservation.”

Jared Strong of The Gazette and Maya Marchel Hoff of The Gazette-Lee Des Moines Bureau contributed to this report.

Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com