Republicans now hold a supermajority in the Iowa We'll discuss what's on their ag this session with Senate Preside Amy Sinclair on this edition of Iowa Press.

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Celebrating 50 years of broadcas excellence on statewide Iowa PBS this is the Friday, January 27th edition of Iowa Pre Here is Kay Henderson.

Our guest on this edition of Iowa Press is a forme County supervisor.

She's been in the Iowa Senate si Amy Sinclair is a Republican from Allerton.

And in November, her colleagues in the Iowa Senate selected her to be president of the Senate.

Amy Sinclair, welcome back to Io Thanks for hosting.

Also joining the conversation are Stephen Gru of the Des Moines Register and E Murphy of the Gazette in Cedar R Senator Sinclair, this week, a big one in the Iowa legislatur The Republicans proposal for private school financial aid passed and was sig into law by Governor Reynolds.

I wanted to talk to you about th and ask you specifically, this proposal has been around for a few years, failed to pass across the hall from you in the and those were actually smaller This one went even bigger.

And then this one was the one th Why is that?

Why did you, first of all, feel the need to expand on that, given the history of those other and why was it successful this t So I'll be honest about the expa I'm not the author of any of the three bills that we've looked at the course of the last three yea Those proposals have come from the governor's office.

So I guess that would be a quest for her to answer on expansion.

But to be clear, any of the three are investments in K-12 education for the studen who are able to access those sch And so expanding on it, taking the original version, I can't tell you the why behind but I can tell you that as a Republican caucus, we believe in a parent's right t and educate their child as they And we believe in investing in s and their futures.

And I know the roadblocks were on the other side, as I men The Senate has passed these bill Do you have a sense of why this bill passed this time and n previous years?

You know, I think Iowa parents h been coming to us saying, you know, we see all of these th that are causing us concern at our child's school or our child isn't thriving at s And I think the pandemic brought some of that, too, to the forefront in parents min And so when parents are coming t saying we need an alternative and we don't know what that alte would look like, it was truly just a response to that need tha that maybe the system that we ha meet every child's need.

My child attends public school.

He will continue to attend publi regardless.

But it suits him.

It fits him.

And it will continue to fit most of Iowa students.

But the ones who don't still are going to need to thriv If we think about the in some of our districts there, there are high dropout le non complete levels.

And if we give children an opportunity to thrive where t are best suited.

Are we going to lower that?

Are we going to find success for who didn't find success in a traditional classroom?

I think just giving parents the opportunity to help their child determine their best destiny is the purpose of Republicans getting behind it in the Senate.

And I would tell you that I thin Republicans in the House finally heard from those parents And wanted to give you an opport One of the criticisms that I'm sure you've heard this taxpayer funding going to someth that may serve only a small slice of Iowa stude Why should, for example, someone from Wayne County, a taxpayer in Wayne County, why should their taxpayer money go to help someone go to a private school in West D We fund education as a state reg And to say that a taxpayer in Wa shouldn't fund someone in West Des Moines, I think undermines the connected of what it means to be an Iowan, first of all.

But I would take that a step fur We already fund scholarships to private, to nonpublic colleges and universit We already partner with public f in our preschool programming.

We've left K-12 out of that conv We're already doing that.

Taxpayers in Wayne County are al paying for and by the way, acces Iowa tuition grants.

They're already paying for and accessing Teach Iowa scholar those loan repayment programs that are available if they go into a hard fill teac position.

Folks from Wayne County are already paying for and accessing other types of loa forgiveness programs.

Our doctors and nurses, we have loan forgiveness program and they're already paying for and accessing numerous examples of dollars that are goi nonpublic institutions.

This really isn't any different than that.

So the next step in this process is to hire a private company to help admini this program and separately from we're also hearing conversations among some schools, some private that are talking about the possi of raising tuition at their scho That leads me to the question of you know, how much oversight of program is needed as it goes for protect, you know, taxpayers and And how do you provide that?

Sur The bill has built in oversight.

I will just say there are allowable expenditures and there are expenditures that are explicitly disallowed.

As far as the third party vendor being in charge of that, that's It's not required.

It allows for that option and largely because of what you There are third party vendors that have better built in fraud because they've done this before in other states.

And so making that one of the op is, frankly, a way to build in a layer of fraud pro There are many platforms in other states that only allow expenditures to vendors who have been approved by the Department of Education.

And that would be if a third party is the route that the state takes, once this is implemented, there will be approved vendors that are only allowed for those expenditures to be mad And what about the question of i raise tuition?

Because this is a scholarship to a student, just as our Iowa t grant is a scholarship to a stud this bill does not in any way address how a nonpublic school functions It doesn't even reach into that.

That's not under the government' purview to tell a nonpublic scho how to function.

I would tell you that the people who are paying tuitio the ones paying the bills are also the on who govern those nonpublic schoo And I can't imagine that they would make obscene inc what they are having to pay just some of the kids might have a sc Sure.

And you might have a similar ans for this, but likewise, some private schools might be at capacity right now, or they might reach capacity pre as this program goes into effect do you envision this going forwa and there still being those opti for families?

You're absolutely right.

There are some nonpublic schools that are already at capacity.

There are some nonpublic schools that have been building out additional capacity over the yea because for the last three or fo or five years, there has been in demand on nonpublic schools.

And so and so some of that is already in the w How do we continue to ensure tha there's choice for students who I'm hopeful that the market driv Does that mean you expect to see more private schools in I I don't know if I expect to see more private schools in I It would not surprise me if those nonpublic schools expan their footprint, increased teach you know, their staffing and allowed for more students to Earlier this month, when the Gov announced her plan, she said tha parents would be getting a nearl in these educational savings acc and that was based on 2.5% growth in the state aid for public schools because i equal between public and private Senate Republicans have introduc that would go to 2%.

What happened?

I mean, are you going to give pa less in that account in the comi So I wasn't a part of, I haven't a part of those negotiations on the supplemental state aid increase, that percent of gr that we annually increase the fu that we send to our public schoo The bill that was introduced is a shell bill.

It allows for the process to move f so that we meet the 30 days that to get that number to schools.

They have to certify their budge April 15th.

And we want to make sure that they have that bill moving I don't anticipate that 2% will be the number that is included once those negotiations are complete.

What about 2.5, which was the Governor's recomme and the whole debate that we've had for the past week The Governor's recommendation wa plus an additional 0.5% within the teacher salary supple that would go directly to teacher salaries.

And from my perspective, we also need to maintain the increased funding levels so that we're buying down to the average those transportation cos That's long been a priority of mine to keep funding equity between urban and rural district because transportation is such a huge part of the budge in those rural areas.

There are a lot of moving parts within that conversation and I would expect you would see all of them addres Truly, the bill that was introdu was just to get the process movi and not a reflection on where we actually intend to b Last year as Education Committee you oversaw a bill that was called the Paren Bill of Rights.

It was essentially a bill that kind of listed things that would be required to offer up transparency wise about curricul etc..

Nothing was passed last year in that general sphere that the two chambers didn't agr So I assume we'll see legislatio on that topic again this year.

Will you be working on something Do you expect a different bill?

And what do you want to see in some kind of legislation that asks of schools regarding transparency?

Absolutely.

Parents have a right to know what their children are being ta They have a right to know who's teaching them.

They have a right to access records from their child.

They have a right to consent or deny to instruction or to screenings or a whole host of things.

And those are already rights that are available through feder The bill that we passed through last year essentially codified and made it explicitly part of I that parents do have those right that parents can reasonably acce their child while they're at sch They can be engaged and a part o what their child is learning.

I anticipate we will have someth similar as you and Kay both allu I'm no longer the education chai I now serve in a different role.

But I have been working with Sen Rozenboom, who is the new educat and he has every intention of bringing that back out and ma that as a state we're identifying the crucial ro that parents play in the educati of their children and helping them to be, if you will, in the driver's seat of determining what's best for their individual The court ruling, Pierce v. Society of Sisters that said chi are not mere creatures of the st We believe that.

It's not just words on a piece o We genuinely believe that childr are not mere creatures of the st and that the parents and guardia who are in charge of those child have every right to educate them in the way that they see fit.

And so we're trying to make sure that our public policy aligns with that court decision in the scope of parental rights.

And I haven't seen what that bill looks like yet.

I know there are some proposals, both with the House and the Governor's office that I haven't seen either.

But we want to acknowledge from the legislature that that w parents are the primary responsi parties in educating children.

There has been legislation on the House side on this.

Not necessarily that bill specif but either you personally or you do you know where you stand on some of those specific propos that would, for example, require to notify parents if their stude if their child wants to be refer as a different pronoun or as a different sexual orienta Those are the kinds of things that LGBTQ advocates have concer Speaker Grassley, when we talked to him on this sh had something similar to what you just said about parents righ Where do Senate Republicans fall A child under the age of 18 can't get a tattoo in the state not even with a with a parent saying they can, t get a tattoo in the state of Iow I think that those of us in the legislature would wholeheartedly agree that a decision as large as alte your identity is something that a parent ought to be involv with, that a parent ought to kno We're talking about a child's mental health and their well-bei Of course, a parent ought to kno I haven't read the House's bill.

Please, please don't make me comment on a speci I often don't pay attention to H until they come to us in the Sen But philosophically, parents ought to know what's going on in their child's Those types of issues can certainly interfere with all capacities of a child's and education.

And a parent ought to know.

And we need to move on.

But I want to follow up and ask the same thing I asked Speaker G There are cases where we know wh parents react in ways that can u and you talk about a child's mental health and well-being, that can go the other way as wel So what is your message then, to young people who may not feel co talking about this stuff at home but do at school for now.

Court decision after court decis after court decision.

And I won't I won't dove into th But over and over and over again the courts have granted the parent the final authority in raising their child.

And I, for one, am not comfortab with undermining that right of a parent to raise their child as they see And I don't think that agents of the state, which schools and teachers are agents of the s ought to be stepping up and interfering in a parent's right to educate and raise their I want to switch gears now and do the thing that you just a not to do, which is ask you about a House b There's a bill in the House that Republican leadership there has considered a priority that would restrict what foods Iowans can buy with SNAP benefit excluding pop and candy.

We've seen efforts in the Senate to sort of add additional checks on public assistance programs and things l So is this idea of excluding pop and candy from SNAP something that you might support Well, so I'm not going to speak to a House bill.

Again, I haven't read it.

I'm just being completely transp there.

I am glad the House is on board welfare reform.

We know because we've been fined by the federal government, we know that fraud and abuse exi within our system.

And so having the House, having the conversation with us about how we get at the fraud an that's in our system so that the folks who actually n assistance, who actually need the benefits, the elderly on fix incomes, the single moms with kids, the ones who actually the assistance are getting it.

And we're not wasting money buyi for people who actually don't qu Welfare reform is a priority because we have to root out that and abuse so that the assistance can get to the folks who actuall So I'm happy the House is starting a conversa I won't speak directly to a bill that I haven't read.

But the idea -- Oh, the idea of restricting pop and Well, I mean, I've supported it So you probably have seen my bill drafting.

I believe that perhaps soda pop isn't some that the taxpayer should be covering the cost of, if youre asking me that directl Yeah.

Thank you.

Another bill that's been around with medical malpractice lawsuit and placing a cap on noneconomic That started moving this past we here in the legislature.

Now, Governor Reynolds has put h behind placing that cap.

And it's one where there's some interesting debates and fau not necessarily Republican versu Democrat thing as you so often s For example, in one of the subco Sam Clovis, a very conservative Iowa Republican, has talked abou personal experience and feeling putting a cap on those damages i and this is paraphrasing his, is putting a monetary value on human life.

Do you have a sense of the futur of that bill in the Senate Republican caucus and if you have a personal take So I will tell you, it's no secret the Iowa Senate has pa similar to this in the past.

And I think we will continue to.

My personal opinions are conflic We have friends on both sides of this conversation.

Conflicted because Sam's right.

It's difficult to place a dollar on the value of life and pain and suffering.

And that's a valid argument.

I come from a really rural area.

It's hard to get health care providers in rur Thats the argument we heard -- Exactly.

So when we're increasing the cos to do business in a market that's already very difficult to recruit and retain providers, I have counties that don't have OB services and largely because of the cost of medical malpractice insurance Am I putting the lives, am I placing a dollar figure on the lives of women who can't access OB services bec a provider won't come to serve t because there's not the volume o births happening.

Am I placing a value on the life and the pain and suffering of older individua I serve a rather aging populatio in my district.

Am I restricting their access and ultimately shortening their because they can't access health I think when we look at the broa picture, yes.

It's hard for me to set a hard c on what the value of a human lif But it's not hard for me to set a public policy that allows for us to recruit and retain the best and brightes in rural areas can continue to a their necessary health care need A related issue.

There's a proposal to set up a licensing structure for rural em hospitals.

As you well know, the Keokuk Hospital closed recently.

Do you believe that's a lifeline for some hospitals or is it like the sort of the be of the off ramp to the end?

No, I think it's absolutely a li to some of those hospitals that aren't necessarily seeing the volume of care that c keeping the doors open.

Additionally, just as we have workforce issues in every single of Iowa's economy, nursing and health care providers are a real shortage.

And so having those critical acc if you will, that changing those so that we have this lifeline that keeps a provider in place, I think is definitely a lifeline And it is a lifeline for rural I What we need to make sure then i is that those emergency access c have a contract, a connection with a larger health care facili for those people who can't just and sent back home, that they have a place where the people when they come to them fo term care.

The Governor's health care bill also has a provision in it what's called the Moms Program, support to pregnancy resource ce that provide services to pregnant women and new mother but also discourage abortion.

What do you see as the future of that program?

How much state funding should we be expecting to flow i over the next couple of years?

So I haven't heard numbers on wh expected to flow into there over the next couple of years.

I know the initial investment was to get the administration up and running and actually get the programs go I wholeheartedly support any kin health care that supports moms and unbo I whether that's through the Mom through crisis pregnancy centers or whether that's through our WIC programming that we have through our local public I absolutely, wholeheartedly sup moms and children and families in making sure that they're able health care, that they're able t education and resources.

So the Governor, including that in her bill, I think makes sense for what Iowans would like to see.

The Governor since 2019 has been proposing th birth control be available over-the-counter at a pharmacy.

A bill on that passed the Iowa Senate in 2019, but it has never Is it your sense that that bill will advance in 2 I have not seen a bill drafted, there may well be one.

It has been a priority of some of my colleagues in the Sen and I think it will continue to It's all part of that over arching view of women's health c that we've really been trying to And so I actually met with some pharmacy students and talke about what their vision of over the counter, if you will, pharmacy based birth control.

And they had some good comments about making sure that they were risk analysis with women and directing those who might ne some additional health care.

Honestly, I think it's a conversation we'l For me personally, I think it's a fine process to move thro And so if we can gather the supp I would definitely see that being part of the broader conver about women and children's healt There is a very significant case pending in front of the Iowa Sup that would reinstate or could, depending on how it's ruled, rei a law that Republicans passed in that would prohibit abortions once a fetus heartbeat can be d From everything we're hearing or hearing, I guess that ruling may come until late if during the legislative sessio So far, most of the leaders we've talked Republican leaders in the Statehouse have s that they feel it's prudent to not pass any new legislation on abortion restrictions until the Iowa Supreme Court rul Do you agree with that?

And do you feel like either your or your caucus as a whole is com waiting that out and perhaps goi this session without passing any It's no surprise for me to say that Senate Republicans are pro- Nobody's shocked by that.

Right.

So the question then is, is there something more we're do or are we allowing our system to as it was designed to work?

From my perspective, it makes the most sense to allow the systems that are th exactly what they're doing, to go through the process and make sure that we're letting that separation of power do the job that it's intended to There's no sense in my mind to pass bill would not meet constitutional mu if the process we're going throu doesn't meet constitutional must And so for me personally, thats that I think makes the most sens to take, to let this process wor with existing Iowa code.

And I'm sorry to jump in, because were in our final secon Would this be worth a special se call back legislators to deal with after the fact?

I won't speak to that.

That's not a call that I'm going There are folks on both sides of that question and very passionat on both sides of that question.

I will just say, I'm interested in watching the process work and making sure that anything we doesn't muddy the waters.

So collectively would Senate Rep be comfortable with a six week abortion ban?

Or do you want to completely ban I won't speak for other Republic We passed the law that we thought made sense for I Okay.

Thank you very much for your tim I'm sorry, we are out of time at this discu but will have one again sometime It has been my pleasure being he Thank you.

Thank you.

If you want to watch parts of th that you missed, you can go onli to iowapbs.org and watch every episode of this For everyone here at Iowa PBS, thanks for wat today.

Funding for Iowa Press was provi by Friends, the Iowa PBS Foundat The Associated General Contracto of Iowa, the public's partner in Iowa's highway, bridge and munic utility infrastructure.

Elite casino resorts is rooted i Elite was founded 30 years ago i and owned by 1200 Iowans from more than 45 counties.

With resorts in Riverside, Daven and Larchwood, Iowa, Elite is co to the communities we serve.

Small businesses With advice, loans and financial services, banks ac