One of the first things lawmakers are required to do at the start of a legislative session is adopt rules.  In the Iowa State Senate, this happened last week but District 10 State Senator Jake Chapman says he’s not happy with the results of one debate.

“Myself, along with senate Republicans, put forth an amendment to require the Majority Leader, Mike Gronstal, to bring up any bill when 26 senators, which is a constitutional majority, requests that a bill is debated on the floor.  This was a rule that has been in place in prior years but was taken away by senate Democrats when they became the majority party in the Senate.”

The amendment was not accepted by a majority of the Senate, which means Gronstal still controls what is, or is not brought to the floor for debate.  Which Chapman says was “disappointing.”

“When you have senate Democrats speaking on the floor saying ‘We want a bipartisan, we want to reach out and have good bipartisan bills’ but the very first act they do is to say nope, even if there’s bipartisan support to bring a bill forward, we’re not in favor of that.”

We will have more with Senator Chapman on this and other issues at the capital on today’s Let’s Talk Dallas County during the 9am, noon and 5pm hours on AM 1310 KDLS.