Legislature in Final Stretch
As we reach the 12th week of the 2025 Iowa Legislative Session, lawmakers have successfully navigated a significant milestone: the passing of the second funnel deadline. This marks a pivotal moment in the legislative process, signaling that only those bills that have passed through at least one committee in both the Iowa House and Senate remain in play for the remainder of the session. This deadline is crucial as it helps streamline legislative work, ensuring that only the most viable bills (or the ones most likely to score political points) continue forward.
The biggest surprise this week was the resignation of Rep. Sami Scheetz, a Cedar Rapids Democrat. He was appointed to fill a vacancy on the Linn County Board of Supervisors. Interestingly, had the Governor signed Senate File 75 before this appointment, Linn County would have had to hold a special election for the supervisor seat instead of filling the seat through appointment. The Governor will need to call a special election to fill the open House seat (House District 78). This is the third special election for a legislative seat in four months.
With the passing of the second funnel deadline (April 4), lawmakers have a clearer picture of the bills that will continue to move through the process and those that will not. The focus now shifts to a smaller, more manageable group of bills. We will be posting a full report this week, but in the meantime you can see the list of bills that survived the funnel in the LWVIA Bill Tracker here. You can also see which bills on our list failed the funnel here.
What’s Ahead: The Final Stretch
As we approach the final weeks of the 2025 legislative session, the pace of work is expected to slow down considerably as committee work is replaced by endless days of debate and closed door marathon caucuses. Legislators will also begin crafting next year’s budget in the coming weeks. The process starts with leaders setting overall targets, then dividing that target among the seven budget subcommittees. Those subcommittees will then decide how to spend the money they are given.
Property tax reform is the reason legislators have not yet started talking about budgets. The Legislature wanted to lower property taxes by having the state pay more for schools and capping local government budget growth, which would cost the state about $500 million to replace school aid. We have heard the initial runs on the property tax reform package are actually increasing residential property taxes while lowering them for farmers and businesses. Since that was not the intention, it looks like legislators may be going back to the drawing board to figure out how to proceed. This may be a hefty lift to do in four weeks.
We have less than a month to go before legislators lose their staff and per diem checks – and there is still a lot of work to be done.