GOP leaders in the legislature are considering a formal response to a recent Iowa Supreme Court ruling critical of so-called “logrolling” in the lawmaking process.
The justices concluded proposals that didn’t have majority support were attached to a bill during a vote taken well after midnight in the Iowa Senate, violating the constitutional requirement that each bill address a single subject. The ruling raises concerns according to Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver.
“That decision will now make its way back through the court system and we will definitely want to get involved with a brief from our standpoint on legislative intent,” Whitver told Radio Iowa.
The ruling also accused a state senator of misrepresenting the contents of the bill to sway votes. Whitver suggests assigning a single reason for every yes vote on a bill is questionable.
“I believe legislative intent is whatever is on the paper and to ask why a legislator votes for a bill — there could be 20 different reasons or 30 different reasons,” Whitver said, “and so to say: ‘This is the legislature’s intent’ is problematic. Whatever’s on the paper is the intent of the bill.”
A spokesperson for House Speaker Pat Grassley said leaders are reviewing options and the House is interested in doing something to respond to the ruling, but no decision has been made.
Last month’s Iowa Supreme Court decision centered aroud a 2020 Iowa law that was changed by language added to a bill on another subject. The justices ruled the law unfairly blocked out of state companies from bidding to build transmission lines in Iowa and the case was sent back to a district court.