Letters From Your Lawmakers

Feb. 18 is the last day of “Funnel Week.” This is the week the Legislature cuts off debate for bills that have not made enough progress to get out of committee.

This process helps narrow down the scope of bills eligible for debate and moves the legislative session forward. The next funnel week will cut off bills that have not made progress on the floor of either the House or Senate. All tax and appropriations bills are exempt from funnel deadlines.

But this is the time of the year where you start to hear about the wild ideas, bad bills and poorly-thought out concepts. With every bill eligible, it can really cause a lot of concerns.

Fortunately and unfortunately, every member of the Legislature can introduce bills. Sometimes there are good bills, sometimes there are bad bills. The latter tends to get a lot of attention and causes for a lot of headlines. I subsequently get a lot of emails asking, “How can you support this?” or “The Legislature shouldn’t even be entertaining this idea!”

...Both of which are entirely fair. Often I don’t support that bill in question – and I, too, would probably prefer the Legislature not have to take time to address it. However, we are all here to represent constituents and sorting through all of those ideas – the good and the bad – is just part of the process.

That said, I understand some of these bills cause undo stress. I encourage people to reach out to me directly to share your concerns and follow the particular bill’s progress (or lack thereof) on the legislative website (www.legis.iowa.gov).

Hopefully, by the end of the week many of those bills of concern will be weeded out with the funnel process. We can all turn our attention to bills that have made it across a deadline, have momentum and people want to see. Will start the week of Feb. 21 with a select list of bills eligible for debate on the House floor.

Rep. Megan Jones serves Clay, Palo Alto and parts of Dickinson counties in Iowa House District 2.