On Saturday morning, the League of Women Voters of Story County and the National Alliance on Mental Health (NAMI) Central Iowa co-hosted the third Legislative Wake-Up of 2021, allowing legislators an opportunity to connect with and communicate directly to constituents. 

Three Story County Legislators from the Iowa House and Senate joined the virtual meeting to discuss updates from the 89th Session and take questions from constituents, including Democratic Rep. Beth Wessel-Kroeschell of District 45, Democratic Rep. Ross Wilburn of District 46 and Democratic Sen. Herman Quirmbach of District 23. 

After general updates about the legislative process and the problems with passing bills while in the minority party in both chambers of the Iowa Congress were discussed, Angela Tharp, executive director of NAMI Central Iowa, turned the conversation to Senate File 513. This piece of legislation would allow law enforcement agencies to share confidential information about mental health crises with private organizations. 

All three legislators in attendance expressed their support for this bill as it currently stands, though Wilburn expressed that this may change in the future depending on the changes made to the file by the Iowa House leaders. 

Wessel-Kroeschell continued the mental health conversation by bringing up Crisis Intervention Teams, which have been used in other states to replace portions of law enforcement duties, including in mental health crises. 

“I know that for years law enforcement, the Ames Police Department and Story County Sheriff Department, always are asking for help with mental health. They said we are not a mental health facility and should not be,” Wessel-Kroeschell said. 

Quirmbach also added that the members of the Iowa Senate have been working on an appropriations bill that would grant $5 million to establishing mental health advocate positions in police departments throughout the state as well as investing in body cameras for police officers. 

In addition to the mental health conversation, the topic of school curriculum came up when constituents were allowed to ask questions to the Story County Legislators in attendance. 

Quirmbach explained that the state has minimum curriculum standards in place for grades K-12 and public universities, ensuring that a certain number of courses in any given subject are taken in order to complete the graduation requirement. 

However, Wessel-Kroeschell said these statewide requirements are not used to mandate specific curriculums or educational tools used to meet said requirements, which would change under the current, controversial House File 222. 

This piece of legislation would ban any public school, community college or regent university within the state of Iowa that derives curriculum from the 1619 Project, an initiative from the New York Times Magazine that discusses American slavery. If an institution continued using the 1619 Project in its curriculum, it may lose funding from the state.

“This is just one of a series of bills that are related to diversity, equity and inclusion that are out there. As well as, attempts to, in my opinion, humiliate some of our universities and K-12 school districts, the superintendents and school boards,” Wilburn said.