With the final push of legislative bills, Republicans in the Iowa Legislature are hoping to close out the 2019 legislative session Friday, but a large list of bills, budget proposals and debate time will make that goal unlikely.

“If we focused our time Wednesday, Thursday and Friday on the budget then yeah we could probably do it but that is unfortunately not the case,” said Rep. Beth Wessel-Kroeschell, D-Ames. “There are pages and pages of bills that we will be debating and discussing.”

In fact, so many bills are being pushed through the Legislature, Gov. Kim Reynolds signed 10 new bills into law Tuesday. With more legislation expected to reach Reynolds’ desk, the likelihood for the Legislature to reach an early end will decrease.

From a bill that would legalize sports betting to legislation that would completely change the way Iowa selects judges, Wessel-Kroeschell said she hopes the Legislature can narrow its focus and start working toward finalizing the state budget.

“The only thing we have to do, the only thing required by law is the budget,” Wessel-Kroeschell said. “There is nothing else that absolutely has to happen … The Senate wants certain things, the House wants certain things, and those are being passed back and forth before the budget bill even gets looked at.”

Even with a lot to decide, Sen. Julian Garrett, R-Indianola, said Republicans still aim to end the session by Friday, but an end by next week is almost guaranteed.

Here are some of the more contested policy areas the Legislature could decide before the end of the session, whenever that may be.

Property tax cap

Senate Study Bill 1260 is one effort by Republicans to meet their promise of lowering and keeping property taxes under control. Democrats, however, say the bill would limit a city’s ability to alter their budgets, something that could be an issue for smaller towns.

The bill limits the amount county boards and city councils could increase property tax collections to as high as 2 percent, restricting a majority of new revenue cities can produce.

“This would be terrible for every local government and especially small rural governments,” Wessel-Kroeschell said. “It would cripple them because their budgets are so small anyway. I don’t know anyone who likes it.”

Wessel-Kroeschell said she heard of one instance of a worker who didn’t get their healthcare from the county they work for. If that person were to quit and be replaced by a worker who opted for the city’s healthcare plan it would constitute the entire 2 percent budget increase.

Republicans say it would allow for additional accountability and transparency among cities and would give additional information to citizens.

Judicial selection

Iowa Republicans proposed a plan to revise the judicial selection process in February. Currently judges are selected by a judicial nominating committee, who is then looked over and selected by the governor and Senate respectively.

This bill would give the power of state court judge selection primarily to the governor. While the bill has already passed the Senate, it faces another barrier in the House where the bill likely doesn’t have enough votes to pass.

“I have heard at least five Republicans in the House are against changing the selection process, which would kill the bill,” Wessel-Kroeschell said. “This is a pretty controversial proposal because it would put partisanship at the front of selecting judges.”

Supporters of the legislation have said the current system allows lawmakers to select the commission members who recommend judges, and that those members may not actually be representative of the districts the courts cover.

Budgets

The Legislature has already passed some budget proposals including amounts directed by the governor to add a statewide children’s mental health system and plans to provide $15 million to aid flood victims in western Iowa.

The remaining budget decisions will largely be controlled by Republicans who hold majority margins of 54-46 in the House and 32-18 in the Senate. This budget will include total allocations of $7.643 billion a boost of nearly $197 million.

These budget decisions will provide insights into funding for the Board of Regents who have said State appropriations will be the deciding factor in tuition rates next year. The House passed a funding increase of $15.9 million over the previous fiscal year but the Senate has proposed for a smaller amount around $12 million. At these levels, tuition is set to rise between 3 and 5 percent for resident undergraduate students.

One proposal from the Legislature would also force the Board of Regents to reach a certain level of private fundraising for building maintenance before state appropriations could cover deferred maintenance and other building funds.

“The Regents and regent universities already do a significant amount of funding,” Wessel-Kroeschell said. “This would seriously limit the capability of universities to do maintenance.”

Various bills

Some bills this year moved through the Legislature but slowed in progress after passing one of the chambers. These bills include restoring voting rights for felons — one of Reynolds campaign goals, banning traffic cameras, implementing work requirements for recipients of welfare and a bill that would have made inducing a nonconsensual abortion punishable the same way as murder.

Another notable bill that could still move through the Legislature in the final days includes measures to legalize industrial hemp.

Moving forward and into next session, Republicans have noted interest in creating a constitutional amendment to disallow public funding of healthcare centers that provide abortions and another amendment to reinforce Iowan’s rights to own guns.

Legislators like Wessel-Kroeschell and Representative Lisa Heddens, D-Ames, say they hope Medicaid privatization will be a larger focus of the legislature looking ahead to next session.

“Since Gov. Branstad moved our entire Medicaid system into managed care, we have seen several hundreds of individual who have seen either drastic reduction, or denial or termination of services,” Heddens said. “This particularly has impacted people with disabilities. I continue to receive calls and emails from Iowans with disabilities on how the Managed Care has impacted their independence and their quality of life.”

If the session is able to end Friday despite the differing legislative goals the two chambers have, it would be the first time since the 2010 session that the legislature would end before the official date. When session pushes past deadline legislators are forced to go without a paycheck, but ending the session early can potentially save money for the state budget.