DES MOINES – A bill to reinstate the death penalty in Iowa will be introduced on the first day of the upcoming legislative session, Republicans said Wednesday.

“We’re going to be up front with this,” said Sen. Larry McKibben, R-Marshalltown. “The bill will be filed the first day of the session.”

The death penalty debate will come as lawmakers consider toughening the state’s sex abuse laws, but Democrats said they would block debate on the death penalty.

“I think we need to do all the things we all agree on to make Iowa safer,” said Sen. Keith Kreiman, D-Bloomfield. “The death penalty will not be one of them.”

Kreiman and McKibben co-chair a legislative task force studying the state’s sex abuse laws, which are expected to be a focus of the upcoming session. The task force met Wednesday to finalize its recommendations for the next session.

The task force agreed to push for “safe zones” around schools, playgrounds and other places children gather to keep convicted sex offenders from loitering around those areas. Such zone would fill a loophole in the state’s law that prohibits sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or day care, Kreiman said.

Debate over the state’s sex abuse laws arose last year following the kidnapping and slaying of 10-year-old Jetseta Gage of Cedar Rapids. Republicans tried to attach the death penalty to a package of bills that toughened sex abuse laws but Democrats blocked debate in the Senate, which is tied at 25-25.

Senate President Jeff Lamberti, of Ankeny, said Iowans want the death penalty debated.

“I don’t believe it’s appropriate for them to block it,” he said.

Senate Democratic Leader Michael Gronstal, of Council Bluffs, said he would again block debate on the issue.

With the Senate dead even, both parties must agree before an issue can be raised, and Gronstal said the death penalty won’t be among those issues.

He said it would be a waste of time to debate the death penalty because there are not enough votes in the House or Senate to approve the measure, and Gov. Tom Vilsack would veto it.

“I don’t see a point in us debating it,” Gronstal said.

He said Iowa’s sentence of life without parole is already a death sentence.

“People go to prison until they die,” he said.

“We will not be debating this on my watch.”

McKibben said his proposed death penalty would be limited only to those who kidnap, sexually assault and kill a child.

“This is a death penalty for the worst of the worst,” McKibben said.

The main hurdle for the bill is the deadlocked Senate.

The House approved a limited return of the death sentence in the previous session before it was blocked by Democrats on the Senate.

House Speaker Chris Rants, R-Sioux City, said he would make sure the measure is debated if it is passed by the Senate.

“If they send it to us, we’ll debate it,” Rants said. “I’ll have to set aside three days and I’m prepared to do that.”