Week in Iowa: Recap of news from across the state

Rep. Steven Bradley, R-Cascade, works at his desk Monday within the Iowa Home chambers on the Statehouse in Des Moines. (Charlie Neibergall/AP)

College taking pictures: Iowa’s U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley is asking for increasing the Secret Service Nationwide Menace Evaluation Middle with a larger give attention to college violence prevention.

“We have got to maintain our colleges protected. We won’t waste one other day,” the Iowa Republican advised reporters Wednesday.

Grassley made his remarks in response to an 18-year-old gunman barricading himself in a Uvalde, Texas, classroom and killing 19 kids and two academics.

Legislative session adjourns: One other momentous session of the Iowa Legislature concluded early Wednesday, ending a five-month meeting that might be remembered for a $1.9 billion state revenue tax lower and the banning of transgender ladies from enjoying ladies’ sports activities.

The session additionally might be remembered for what didn’t occur: For a second consecutive yr, Gov. Kim Reynolds’ proposal for taxpayer-funded personal college tuition help stalled; and after some Republican threats to jail academics over library books and classroom curriculum, majority Republicans didn’t move so-called college transparency laws.

Liz Mathis marketing campaign: Republicans criticized Democratic congressional candidate Liz Mathis for beforehand describing herself as co-owner of a small advertising enterprise, as the corporate refutes the declare. Mathis, a state senator from Hiawatha, is working for U.S. Home in Jap Iowa’s new 2nd District. She is the one Democrat within the marketing campaign, and can face Republican incumbent U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson this fall.

They stated …

“What number of gunshot corpses does it take so that you can vote for accountable firearm possession laws? The voters are ready for a quantity …” — Democratic candidate Mike Franken to Sen. Chuck Grassley on social media in response to the Texas college taking pictures.

“In relation to the college alternative invoice the governor proposed, it doesn’t appear like we’re going to have the ability to put the votes collectively within the Home this yr to move that. Clearly, we need to proceed to work with the governor to get one thing achieved. That’s been an enormous precedence of hers shifting towards subsequent session, and we’ll work on that within the low season.” — Iowa Home Speaker Pat Grassley, R — New Hartford, on the college voucher invoice failing within the Home.

Odds and ends

Amazon delay: An enormous Amazon success heart underneath building in Davenport will open two years later than anticipated. Amazon spokesperson Caitlin Polochak wrote in an electronic mail that the five-story, success heart “is now anticipated to launch in 2024.” The middle initially was slated to open in September and add 1,000 jobs to the native financial system.

Looking change: Deer hunters would be capable to use semi-automatic rifles throughout a newly created antlerless season in January underneath a invoice authorised by lawmakers Tuesday and despatched to the governor.

Water cooler

Reynolds sidesteps GOP incumbents: Within the June 7 Republican major, state Rep. Dennis Bush, R-Cherokee, won’t have the assist of Gov. Kim Reynolds. On Wednesday, Reynolds introduced that she’d endorsed Zach Dieken of Granville, who’s certainly one of three GOP candidates within the Iowa Home District 5 race.

Chemical testing: The state’s subsequent part of testing ingesting water for “ceaselessly chemical substances” will embrace greater than 30 cities — together with Cedar Rapids, Marion, Hiawatha and Iowa Metropolis — and greater than a dozen giant companies which have their very own wells, in keeping with an inventory obtained by the Iowa Capital Dispatch.

Extra within the information

No solutions one yr later: One yr has handed since Xavior Harrelson went lacking in Montezuma simply earlier than his eleventh birthday. Household and neighborhood members proceed to grieve after his physique was discovered months later in a soybean subject north of city — with nonetheless no phrase from investigators how he died.

Listening to set in Fairfield case: A decide has set a listening to in July on a movement to maneuver the trial of certainly one of two Fairfield teenagers accused of killing a highschool Spanish instructor out of Jefferson County due to pretrial publicity and to suppress a number of items of proof and his statements to police at trial.

Trial set in nightclub taking pictures: A March 28 trial date has been set for one of many two males accused within the April 10 shootings on the Taboo Nightclub and Lounge in Cedar Rapids that killed two individuals and injured 10. Timothy Rush, 32, of Cedar Rapids, has pleaded not responsible to fifteen expenses, together with second-degree homicide.